Buncombe was born in 1742 on the
West Indies island of St. Christopher (today
St. Kitts). He grew up there and in England. He immigrated to North Carolina in 1768 and settled at a plantation he had inherited In 1774, as the independence movement of the Thirteen Colonies gathered steam, he took a leading role in convening proindependence meetings, especially the
First Provincial Congress, Service record: •
Tyrrell County Regiment, North Carolina militia (1775-1777) • 9/9/1775, a Colonel in the Tyrrell County Regiment of militia. • 4/15/1776 until his death in May 1778, Colonel of the
5th North Carolina Regiment • 10/4/1777, captured at Germantown, POW in Philadelphia, paroled • May 1778, fell down a flight of stairs, reopened old wounds, died as a result. He joined a local militia, the Tyrrell County Regiment of the
North Carolina militia. The "
Halifax Assembly" elected him colonel of the 5th North Carolina Regiment of the
Continental Army on April 15, 1776 Tax records of 1782 say that his estate included of land and 10 Negroes. In 1791, the State of North Carolina created a new county from parts of two other counties and named it for Col. Buncombe. The present
Buncombe County is a combination of parts of the original one with parts of neighboring counties. ==References==