578 Chronicles of the Cape Fear Rwer

NORTH CAROLINA SOCIETY OF COLONIAL DAMES
OF AMERICA.

By Rosa PENDLETON CHILES.

—

“There be of them that have left a name behind them.”

“For there are deeds that should not pass away, and names that must
not wither.”

“Did ever a man a valiant deed but a woman arose to sound his
praises?”
“As the painter puts upon canvas the images and fancies of his

imagination, making them real and tangible, so your society records
upon bronze and stone the deeds of a brave people.”

Organized in 1894 by the initiative and largely through the
enthusiastic efforts of Mrs. George W. Kidder, the North Caro-
lina Society of Colonial Dames of America, in its twenty-two
years of patriotic life, has accomplished much of which not only
the society but the State may be justly proud. And better than
tangible achievement, has been the infusion into its membership
and quietly through its membership, as well as by its public
acts, into the life of the State an increasing love of the work for
which the organization exists—to strengthen patriotism and to
preserve in visible memorial and in the heart of an age whose
sentiment is in danger of becoming dimmed by the intensity of.
its practical aims, deepened interest in that heroic past when
the foundation of our country’s greatness was laid upon a rock-

bed of lofty purpose and valiant deed.
So rich is North Carolina in colonial achievement, that the

effort to perpetuate the memory of it, much of which lay buried
in unidentified sites and in unpublished archives, has com-
manded the most persistent and strenuous activities of the Co-
lonial Dames of this State. Especially has this been true of the
Dames of the Cape Fear, where local traditions abound and his-
toric memories are associated with nearly every point on the
river.

The State membership is large—now more than five hun-
dred—and among the leaders many have come from the Cape
Fear. Not being able to mention all who have aligned them-
selves with the highest purposes of the organization and through
masterful leadership carried those purposes to fulfillment, con-
sideration in this brief account will be given only to the work
of three ladies of the Cape Fear who have been presidents of

srnvtstel/sipelisiblenaaienepeeshaneanpcianianmetneunanenemenmmnanaenmmmandnmaatetint

AG RAE OE ATEN RETICLE A

Peace Restored 579

the society—Mrs. George W. Kidder, Mrs. Gaston Meares, and
Mrs. James Sprunt. ;

Mrs. Kidder, the first president, is a descendant of William
Hill, whom Josiah Quincy visited at Brunswick in 1773 and
found a man of exalted patriotism and warmly attached to the
cause for which America was about to take up arms, and of his
son, Capt. John Hill, a gallant and distinguished Continental
officer of the Cape Fear. As was natural, therefore, she brought
to the North Carolina Society of Colonial Dames of America,
together with the lovely characteristics of Cape Fear woman-
hood, the devoted patriotism of her forefathers.

By her successful initiative, her high aims, and her uncon-
querable determination, Mrs. Kidder accomplished the impor-
tant work of organization and of giving definite purpose to the
labors of the society. In the start she emphasized the fact that
the organization should not exist merely for the gratification of
ancestral pride and the poetizing of patriotic sentiment, and
under her incumbency one of the principal undertakings of the
North Carolina Dames was begun—the erection of a monument
to Cornelius Harnett and the civic and military heroes of the
Revolution. The magnitude of this task was such that thirteen
years were spent in its completion, but during this long period
there was no lessening of steadfast purpose, no diminution of
persistent effort.

Mrs. Kidder was succeeded in the presidency by Mrs. Gaston
Meares, a descendant of Moses John DeRosset, mayor of Wil-
ington when the men of the Cape Fear successfully resisted
the Stamp Act in 1766, and the widow of the lamented Col.
Gaston Meares, who fell at Malvern’ Hill in 1862, while com-
manding the Third Regiment of North Carolina Troops—a
woman whose talent and eminent position imparted strength to
the society and energized its efforts. Mrs. Kidder says of her
that she gave the work of the Monument Committee “fresh
‘mpetus, for she brought to it all the influence of a masterful
mind and a strong personality.” She also did much towards
Systematizing the work of the society throughout the State by
the appointment of committees of research in the counties to
Cooperate with the head organization in Wilmington. In 1906
Mrs. Meares retired, and was succeeded by Mrs. James Sprunt,
Who for some time had been vice president.

Mrs. Sprunt was a descendant of the distinguished William
Bryan and his wife, Lady Alice Needham, of colonial times, and

St

oew

eee ee

pa Tan EATER TE Ra me a TE a