The Tryon Resolves were a declaration adopted by citizens of Tryon County in the 
Province of North Carolina in the early days of the American Revolution. In the 
Resolves, adopted in response to the Battle of Lexington, the signers vowed 
resistance to coercive actions by the British Empire against its North American 
colonies. The document was signed on August 14, 1775, predating the United States 
Declaration of Independence by almost 11 months.

The Tryon Resolves were among the earliest of many local colonial declarations against 
the British government. Other similar declarations from the same period include the 
Mecklenburg Resolves adopted in nearby Mecklenburg County, North Carolina and the 
Suffolk Resolves adopted in Suffolk County, Massachusetts.

As tensions between the North American colonies and the British government increased, 
residents began forming Committees of Safety to prepare militia companies for a potential 
war. On September 14, 1775 many of the signers of the Tryon Resolves formed the Tryon 
County Militia in preparation for British retaliation against American revolutionaries.


Text of the Tryon Resolves
The unprecedented, barbarous and bloody actions committed by British troops on our 
American brethren near Boston, on 19 April and 20th of May last, together with the hostile 
operations and treacherous designs now carrying on, by the tools of ministerial vengeance, 
for the subjugation of all British America, suggest to us the painful necessity of having 
recourse to arms in defense of our National freedom and constitutional rights, against all 
invasions; and at the same time do solemnly engage to take up arms and risk our lives and 
our fortunes in maintaining the freedom of our country whenever the wisdom and counsel of 
the Continental Congress or our Provincial Convention shall declare it necessary; and this 
engagement we will continue in for the preservation of those rights and liberties which the 
principals of our Constitution and the laws of God, nature and nations have made it our duty 
to defend. We therefore, the subscribers, freeholders and inhabitants of Tryon County, do 
here by faithfully unite ourselves under the most solemn ties of religion, honor and love to our 
county, firmly to resist force by force, and hold sacred till a reconciliation shall take place 
between Great Britain and America on Constitutional principals, which we most ardently desire, 
and do firmly agree to hold all such persons as inimical to the liberties of America who shall 
refuse to sign this association.

Signers
John Walker 
Charles McLean 
Andrew Neel 
Thomas Beatty 
James Coburn 
Frederick Hambright 
Andrew Hampton 
Benjamin Hardin 
George Paris 
William Graham 
Robt. Alexander 
David Jenkins 
Thomas Espey 
Perrygreen Mackness (or Magness)[1] 
James McAfee 
William Thompson 
Jacob Forney 
Davis Whiteside 
John Beeman 
John Morris 
Joseph Hardin 
John Robison 
James McIntyre 
Valentine Mauney 
George Black 
Jas. Logan 
Jas. Baird 
Christian Carpenter 
Abel Beatty 
Joab Turner 
Jonathan Price 
Jas. Miller 
John Dellinger 
Peter Sides 
William Whiteside 
Geo. Dellinger 
Samuel Carpenter 
Jacob Mauney, Jun. 
John Wells 
Jacob Costner 
Robert Hulclip 
James Buchanan 
Moses Moore 
Joseph Kuykendall 
Adam Simms 
Richard Waffer 
Samuel Smith 
Joseph Neel 
Samuel Loftin 





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