farmer pamphleteer preacher author
Herman was born probably in Cecil County, Md. in 1724. The family name is spelled both with and without a final "s"; Hermon's given name, in various ways. Nothing is known of his parents, William and Mary Husbands, beyond the fact that they were Anglicans.
He lived at East Nottingham, Md. , until manhood, but in 1751 seems to have been in Bladen County, N. C. About 1755, he apparently went to Corbinton (now Hillsboro), and soon settled on Sandy Creek in Orange (now Randolph) County, where he took up land. Four years later he went back to Maryland, returning to North Carolina in 1761. In that year appeared his first published work, Some Remarks on Religion.
He was an industrious and successful farmer and in the course of a few years acquired much land. Husbands soon gained a place of influence in his community. "He was sober, intelligent, industrious, and prosperous; honest and just in his dealings", and, though his education was limited, it was probably better than that of his associates.
Deeply indoctrinated with liberal ideas, a consistent and passionate advocate of human rights, by his sympathy for the oppressed combined with his energy, his ready eloquence, and his capacity to write effectively, he attained a place of leadership among a people who were full of economic discontent. Husbands has been regarded by many as the originator and organizer of the Regulation, that struggle waged by the people of the back-country of North Carolina against official extortion and corruption, but the movement antedated his connection with it. In his community, however, he was soon a leader in voicing discontent, in informing the people of oppression, and in demanding a remedy. He was the author of most of the resolutions adopted by the Regulators and, while he never joined the organization, he was undoubtedly one of the most important figures connected with the movement.
In 1768, though he had no part in it, he was arrested for inciting a riot, and but for a popular uprising would have been dragged to New Bern, nearly two hundred miles away, for trial. He was released on bail, according to his own account, on condition that he would in the future overlook extortion and seek to pacify the public mind. At the succeeding court he was acquitted. In 1769 he was elected to the Assembly, and reëlected in 1770; but on December 20 of the latter year, under the false charge of having written a threatening communication for the press, he was expelled for being "a principal mover and promoter" of "riots and seditions, " for publishing a "false, seditious, and Malicious Libel" on Maurice Moore, for "gross prevarication and falsehood, " and for offering "a daring insult" to the Assembly, "tending to intimidate the Members from a due discharge of their duty". He was at once arrested and held in jail until February 1771, when the grand jury failed to indict.
In September 1770 there had occurred a riot in Hillsboro, when the Regulators broke up the superior court. Husbands was present, but there is no evidence that he took any part. It is unlikely that he did, for he hated violence and consistently opposed it, hoping through the power of organized public opinion to secure justice. Thus, when at Alamance, on May 16, 1771, it was clear that peaceful means had failed, he rode away before a shot was fired. After Gov. Tryon had crushed the Regulators in that battle, however, Husbands was outlawed, a large price was set upon his head, and his fine plantation was laid waste. He fled, first to Maryland, where he evaded arrest, and thence to Pennsylvania where he lived thereafter. Gov. Josiah Martin pardoned him and he revisited North Carolina briefly during the Revolution.
He is said to have served in the Pennsylvania legislature in 1778 and in 1794 was a leader in the Whiskey Insurrection, serving on the Committee of Safety. Captured, he was tried in the United States circuit court and condemned to death, but Benjamin Rush, at the instance of Dr. David Caldwell, interceded for him with Washington, as did Alexander Martin and Timothy Bloodworth, the North Carolina senators, and procured his pardon. Upon his release he was taken ill and died on his way home.
He is best known as a leader of The Regulators, a populist rebellion in the Carolinas in the years leading up to the American Revolutionary War. The most notable writings ascribed to him are An Impartial Relation of the First Rise and Cause of the Recent Differences, in Publick Affairs, in the Province of North-Carolina (1770) and A Fan for Fanning (1771), although his authorship of the latter, which is a vindication of the Regulators and especially of Husbands himself, has been disputed.
Hermon became first a Presbyterian and later a member of the Society of Friends, a circumstance which may have influenced his removal to North Carolina and his choice of a home. In 1764 he was disowned by the Quaker meeting to which he belonged, not for immorality as Tryon reported, but either, as his own account suggests, for espousing the cause of a member under discipline, or, as has been conjectured, for marrying outside the Society of Friends. Although he continued to live in a Quaker community, he did not lose caste by reason of his expulsion from meeting.
Husbands was three times married. The name of his first wife is unknown; on July 3, 1762, he married Mary Pugh, and in 1766 Amy (or Emmy) Allen, who survived him.
