12/15/2025
Margaret “Nancy” McBride Stewart is buried in our APC cemetery. We have not heard this interesting story of her bravery as a 12 year old during the American Revolution. Always learning even 250 years later!
🇺🇸 “Brave little rebel” Maggie McBride was born in 1769 on the North Carolina frontier. By age twelve, her family had carved out a homestead in the then-called “Pine Barrens” along the “Alamance and Buffaloe waters” in Guilford County, a region known for its fierce Whig spirit. According to local tradition, Maggie was tall, clever, forthright, devoted to her family, and openly disdainful of Tories.
In the autumn of 1781, when Tory troops slipped “up from Randolph” and camped near her small community, a militia captain and his men rode to the McBride farm for help locating them. With Mr. McBride away, Maggie’s mother tried to describe the hideout, but young Maggie—eager to aid the Patriot cause—jumped in with such certainty that the captain asked her to guide them himself.
She rode along on the back of the captain’s horse until they reached the spot. Whispering, “Yonder they are,” she slipped off the horse and hurried home by a back path.
This past weekend, Maggie McBride became the namesake of North Carolina’s newest DAR chapter. Fifty organizing members and their inaugural board were formally installed on Saturday, December 5, in Greensboro by State Regent Cricket Crigler.
Huzzah and congratulations to these dedicated ladies, who will proudly carry forward Maggie’s legacy of courage and service! 🇺🇸
