Scarce Nathaniel Alexander (1756-1808) signed document as Governor of North Carolina, establishing William ("Will") White as secretary of state, May 8, 1807. 2 pages, 1 blank. Overall: 16" x 10" (folded). Note: Nathaniel Alexander was born in Mecklenburg County. He graduated from Princeton and served as a surgeon in the NC regiment of the Continental Army. He helped establish the Masonic Phalanx Lodge 31 in Charlotte in 1797; shortly before his untimely death in 1808 he was named senior grand marshal. He identified politically with the Jeffersonian Republicans. In 1797 he was elected to represent Mecklenburg County in the North Carolina House of Commons; in 1801 and again in 1802 he served in the state senate. He was then elected to both the Eighth and the Ninth Congresses, serving from March 1803 until November 1805. He resigned to become governor of North Carolina, succeeding Governor James Turner, and died on March 6, 1808, shortly after losing his re-election bid. The house in Harrisburg he shared with his wife, Margaret Polk (daughter of Col. Thomas Polk) sat on the site of what is now the Charlotte Motor Speedway. Sources: Michael Hill, ed., The Governors of North Carolina (Raleigh, 2007) and William S. Powell, North Carolina Through Four Centuries (Chapel Hill, 1989); NCpedia.org.

PROVENANCE: Estate of Gertude S. Caldwell, Nashville.

CONDITION: Professionally conserved between layers of tissue; seal missing; tiny hole across the A in Alexander's last name on signature, losses at fold lines and edges, light staining.