North Carolina’s Halifax Resolves will be back home for America250 celebration
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- Original Halifax Resolves will return to Halifax for America 250 display.
- Document loaned from National Archives to Halifax State Historic Site.
- Public events April 10–12 accompany display; exhibition runs through Oct. 6.
April 12, 1776.
Does that date seem familiar?
Perhaps you’ve seen it on the North Carolina state flag. Or on the state seal. It is one of the most significant days in North Carolina history because it is integral to why North Carolina is a state — with taxes paid to our own state government, as opposed to the crown in Great Britain.
April 12, 1776 is the date of the Halifax Resolves. That’s the formal document in which North Carolina declared that it wanted to sever its relationship with its motherland. The Declaration of Independence was signed just a few months later.
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And the original document — there’s just one known copy — is coming home to North Carolina for the celebration of the country’s 250th anniversary.
Here’s what you need to know, and how to see it.
Location of the Halifax Resolves
The Halifax Resolves document is usually in the National Archives in Washington. It will be on loan and on display here in the Old North State in celebration of Halifax Resolves Days, which is April 10-12. The N.C. Department of Natural and Cultural Resources says that the document “is believed to be returning to Halifax for the first time since it was sent to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia in 1776.”
The resolves were adopted by the Fourth Provincial Congress of North Carolina and authorized William Hooper, Joseph Hewes and John Penn to vote for independence at the Second Continental Congress, according to DNCR. The State Archives holds a copy of the resolves as laid out in the journal of the provincial congress.
The resolves document will be on display at the newly renovated vistor center at the Halifax State Historic Site, 25 St. David St. in Halifax. It will remain on display from April 10 to Oct. 6.
The town of Halifax is the county seat of Halifax County. It is about an hour-and-a-half drive from Raleigh.
Halifax Resolves Days
The document will be on display during Halifax Resolves Days, a weekend of special events around the signing of the Halifax Resolves.
Events includes a military parade, presentations, historic building tours, living history demonstrations, lectures, live music and other events.
Visit america250.nc.gov for a full list and schedule of events April 10-12 in Halifax.
Gov. Josh Stein, a Democrat, made the announcement on Tuesday, adding that “North Carolina played a significant role in winning America’s independence.”
“The creation and adoption of the Halifax Resolves on April 12, 1776, was the first official action by any colony calling for independence from Great Britain, forever cementing North Carolina’s place in history as ‘First in Freedom,’” Stein said in a statement.
The other date on North Carolina’s flag and seal, relating to the Mecklenburg Declaration, has been disputed.
