Duncan Cameron was a judge in central North Carolina whose judicial acumen was legendary. He was a brother of John A. Cameron.
Born in Mecklenberg Co., VA, 1777.
Settled in Hillsborough NC c. 1798.
Running as an avowed Federalist in 1808, he managed to hold an entrenched DR incumbent to only 65% of the vote.
Cameron was commonly written-in as a candidate in races not contested by the Federalists, including U.S. House races in 1804 and 1806.
Declined to be the Federalist nominee for U.S. Senate in 1816.
President of the Bank of North Carolina, 1819 and 1831-1840
Served on the Board for Internal Improvements; supporter of the North Carolina Railroad.
However, Cameron's legacy in Ohio is much different. A slave who escaped to Salem, Ohio, with the assistance of Quakers, told a story about Cameron which is not known in NC today. Apparently, when Cameron walked the streets of Raleigh or Hillsborough and saw a slave, he would hit the slave on the top of the head with the brass ball on his cane as a reminder of the status of blacks. This story has made it into the underground railroad annals in Ohio but has not made it back to NC.
Norman D. Brown, Edward Stanly: Whiggery's Tarheel 'Conqueror', p. 16; John H. Wheeler, Reminiscences and Memoirs of North Carolina, p. 430; Raleigh Register, 1/5/1853 |