signers to the proclamation bills. In 1777, he was sent by the council (of state) with orders to Gen. Williamson, at Keowee, South Carolina. He was appointed by Governor Alex. Martin (1777), with Brig.-Gen. John McDowell and Col. John Sevier, to treat with the Cherokee Indians. He was elected the first attorney general of North Carolina, in 1777, which he resigned on account of his health, and removed to Burke county in 1781, which he represented for many years, and where he, enjoying peace and plenty and the love and regard of his neighbors, died in 1821. He was at the time of his death the ‘patriarch of the North Carolina bar,’ and an exemplary Christian, a pure patriot and an honest man.” Such is the brief account given by the North Carolina historian, Wheeler,[M] of the man with whom Jackson fought the duel at Jonesboro, which shows that Avery was no ordinary man. Avery graduated from Princeton in 1766; Jackson was born March 15, 1767. Hence, Avery must have been at least twenty years older than Jackson. The records at Jonesboro show that Avery attended the various courts up to about the time Tennessee was admitted into the Union, and that he was on one or the other side of nearly all the cases in the courts held there. More than one version of the duel, and the cause of it, have been given. I have read and heard two of these. Parton, in his life of Jackson,[N] gives an account of this duel, as detailed by Col. Isaac T. Avery, son of Col. Waightstill Avery, and it would seem that this version of the affair ought to be accepted. It will be noticed, however, that Parton’s account omits to state any fact or facts that caused or led up to the challenge--he merely states that the two attorneys were on opposing sides in a case at Jonesboro; that the cause was going rather against Jackson, that he became irritated, and that Avery rather exultingly ridiculed some legal position taken by Jackson, using language that was more sarcastic than was called for (as he afterwards admitted), which stung Jackson, who snatched up a pen, wrote a peremptory challenge on the blank leaf of a law book and delivered it then and there to Avery, by whom it was promptly accepted.