1815 Major Chronicle Marker, Kings Mountain National Military Park, Blacksburg (SC)
This low, 3.5 foot tall thumb-shaped stone is a grave marker memorializing the presumed location of the deaths of patriots Major William Chronicle, Captain John Mattocks, William Raab, and John Boyd, and of Loyalist Major Patrick Ferguson. The face of the marker, originally inscribed with the commemoration, has been worn by time and weather with the inscription now eroded and illegible. A companion monument, known as the New or 1914 Chronicle Marker, was raised immediately to the right of the marker to preserve its then eroding text.
Images: Historic postcard image of the Old and New Chronicle Monuments | Contemporary view of setting with New Chronicle Monument to the right | Contemporary view of the monument's surface
SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF / MAJOR WILLIAM CHRONICLE CAPTAIN JOHN MATTOCKS /
WILLIAM RABB AND JOHN BOYD, / WHO WERE KILLED AT THIS PLACE ON THE 7th OF /
OCTOBER 1780 FIGHTING IN DEFENSE OF AMERICA. /
East face: COLONEL FERGUSON, AN OFFICER OF HIS BRITANNIC / MAJESTY WAS DEFEATED AND KILLED AT / THIS PLACE ON THE 7th OF OCTOBER 1780.
National Park Service, Kings Mountain National Military Park
July 4, 1815
35.143610 , -81.378880 View in Geobrowse
"Kings Mountain: National Military Park, South Carolina," National Park Service, nps.gov, (accessed February 7, 2017) Link
"The Battle of Kings Mountain" in the Durwood Barbour Collection of North Carolina Postcards (P077), North Carolina Collection Photographic Archives, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, (accessed September 30, 2013) Link
Benson, John Lossing. Harpers' Popular Cyclopaedia of United States History from the Aboriginal Period to 1876 (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1881), 748, (accessed September 30, 2013) Link
Carrillo, Richard F. "The Howser House and the Chronicle Grave and Mass Burial, King's Mountain National Military Park, South Carolina" (1976). Research Manuscript Series. Book 91. In the Scholar Commons | The Institutional Repository of the University of South Carolina, (accessed September 30, 2013) Link
De Van Massey, Gregory. An Administrative History of Kings Mountain National Military Park, (U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Southeast Region, 1995)
Eury, Claude A. “Kings Mountain Battleground And Its Old And New Monuments,” The Charlotte Observer (Charlotte, NC), August 22, 1909, 6
Yancey, Noel. 2006. "Battle of King's Mountain," NCPEDIA, (accessed September 24, 2013) Link
“Kings Mountain National Military Park: Touring the Battlefield,” National Park Planner, npplan.com, (accessed February 7, 2017) Link
“Monument to a Monument,” The Lincoln County News (Lincolnton, NC), June 23, 1914
Dr. William McLean of Lincoln County, North Carolina
Dr. William McLean of Lincoln County, North Carolina erected this marker at his own expense on July 4, 1815.
The Old Chronicle Monument or the Old Monument
Considered the earliest commemorative activity at Kings Mountain as well as the second oldest Revolutionary War monument in the country, this stone known as the Old Chronicle Marker was erected by Dr. William McLean to honor his fallen comrades Captain John Mattocks, William Rabb, John Boyd, and William Chronicle and to the memory of Major General Ferguson, an officer in the British army. McLean was a Revolutionary War veteran, having served under Major General Nathanael Greene. At the time McLean visited the site and dedicated the marker, he was running for Congress.
The Chronicle Marker was an attempt to verify the burial grounds of these individuals. However, an archaeological dig in the 1970s determined that no bodies lay below the earth under the marker. A second marker, the New or 1914 Chronicle Marker, was raised sometime around 1910, possibly 1909 or 1914, to preserve the wording on the original monument as the inscription on the original slate marker had deteriorated over time.
The 1815 and 1914 commemorations are part of a cluster of Chronicle markers at the military park and sit across the trail from the third marker in the cluster, the Chronicle Fell Monument.
The marker is located, along with numerous other memorials, along a 1.5 mile walking trail around the Kings Mountain Battlefield on the eastern side of the park. The memorial faces north towards the trail and to the left of the New or 1914 Chronicle Marker. The Kings Mountain National Military Park address is 2625 Park Rd, Blacksburg, SC 29702.
The marker sits beneath trees amidst the heavily forested terrain of the park.
Every October 7th, the Park honors those who fought at Kings Mountain by holding a morning wreath laying ceremony at the US Monument and a program in the amphitheater at 3:00, the time the battle began. There are different events scheduled in the park throughout the year.