The Narrow Escape

Captain John Mebane (Patriot), son of Alexander Mebane I (Signer of the Regulator petition of 1768 - Image ➚, 1789 Will - Image ➚), was born in 1757 (age 76 in 1833) along the Haw River at Haw Old Fields (now Hawfields), Orange (now Alamance) County, North Carolina. 

John Mebane was in the Orange County Militia during the Revolutionary War. It was said of him in his pension file that, when he was put in prison at Hillsborough, North Carolina the 12th of September, 1781, he danced across the floor! I guess he had a bit of a sense of humor! His brother, Alexander Jr, for whom Mebane, North Carolina was named, barely avoided being captured by leaving a very valuable horse to distract the Tories at Hillsborough, while fading into the tall weeds on foot back home to Hawfields to alert the Whigs.

Later that afternoon, after the Tories pillaged the town, the prisoners were moved to a British-occupied Wilmington, North Carolina and imprisoned on a ship. However, another of John Mebane's brothers, Lieutenant Colonel Robert Mebane of the Continental Army ➚, was alerted of John's capture by their father, and Robert soon negotiated John's paroled so that he might return home to Orange County. The other prisoners were taken to South Carolina and kept there for quite some time. Robert was in the Battle of Lindley's Mill around this time. After negotiating John's parole, but before the release actually took please, Robert was killed, Oct 1781, in Williams Twp, Chatham County, North Carolina by a Tory. John later became a militia Colonel. The link to the above write-up on Robert also states that John married the widow of a fellow prisoner who did not survive the trip home. I don't know if this was Lucy³ Brewer (Nathaniel², George¹) or a previous or subsequent wife. John applied for a pension 30 Mar 1833 in Chatham County, North Carolina. John's pension file states that he died 13 Sep 1837 and that the executor of his will was James Mebane. (Pension Application #S9403 - Transcription ➚ and Images ➚)