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First Call for Independence: From a marker located in front of the Cumberland County Court House: “Near this place from the porch of Effingham Tavern on 22 April 1776, Carter Henry Harrison, a member of the Cumberland Committee for Safety, read the resolutions of Cumberland County to citizens gathered there. These resolutions called for the colonies to ‘abjure any allegiance to his Brittanick Majesty and bid him a goodnight forever’.”

The resolutions drafted by Harrison and accepted by the Committee were delivered to the Virginia Convention in May, 1776 and were incorporated in the Virginia Resolutions which were used by Thomas Jefferson as a basis for the Declaration of Independence. These resolutions are read each year at Cumberland’s Patriot Day festivities.

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