Battle of McIntyre's Farm Monument
(ca. 1920s)
The Battle of McIntyre's Farm Monument is one of several fieldstone markers erected by a Mecklenburg County resident to honor the county’s rich history.
5801 Beatties Ford Rd, Charlotte, NC 28216
During the 1920s, a series of stone markers, monuments, and structures were erected across north Mecklenburg County to commemorate various locations, institutions, events, and individuals of importance in the county’s early history. They were the work of one man, Edward Lee Baxter Davidson (1858-1944), a lifelong Mecklenburg County resident whose personal mission was to preserve the County’s past within the memories of future generations. As a member of the prominent Davidson family that counted among their ancestors Revolutionary War commander General William Lee Davidson (1746-1781), who was killed at the Battle of Cowan’s Ford, Baxter sought to memorialize his family’s burial ground, to honor his family’s Scots Irish heritage, and to celebrate American Revolutionary War happenings in north Mecklenburg County during the late 1700s.
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An 1880 graduate of Davidson College and the school’s largest individual benefactor, Baxter amassed considerable wealth from the acquisition, management, and selling of real estate, allowing him to realize his mission of educating the local citizenry about Mecklenburg County’s role in the American Revolutionary War. “The erection of monuments and markers,” according to Baxter, “not only does honor to those patriots who established the republic . . . it also impresses the youth of the land and inspires them to emulate the achievements of their illustrious ancestors.” He personally designed and financed the construction of fieldstone monuments honoring the Revolutionary War Battles of McIntyre’s Farm and Cowan’s Ford (October 3, 1780, and February 1, 1781, respectively), the battlefield death of General Davidson (February 1, 1781), the homestead of his great grandfather Major John Davidson (Rural Hill, built in 1788), and the founding of the Hopewell and Williams Memorial Presbyterian Churches (1762 and 1885, respectively).
Baxter Davidson remained a bachelor until 1935 when, at the age of 76 he married a 48-year-old widow, Sarah Williams Vosburg (1886-1973), a descendant of William A. Williams, a signer of the U.S. Declaration of Independence. The newlyweds purchased a home at 1401 Providence Road in July 1935, which in March 2000 was designated a local historic landmark by the Charlotte City Council. Baxter died in his sleep at home on October 10, 1944. The extant stone markers, monuments, and structures he caused to be built are his greatest legacy in terms of the built environment of Mecklenburg County.
The Battle of McIntyre's Farm Monument is unique among the various stone markers and structures erected by Baxter Davidson in that it is comprised of a single narrow boulder. The monument stands on property immediately adjacent to the McIntyre Farm Site, at the corner of Beatties Ford Road and McIntyre Avenue. The monument commemorates an October 1780 skirmish between approximately 300 British soldiers under the command of Lord Charles Cornwallis and some 14 Scotch-Irish Mecklenburg County settlers. Resentful of the foraging efforts of the British troops, the local patriots attacked, surprising the plundering invaders and driving them back into Charlotte.