1. The men who signed this letter were the North Carolina commissioners to regulate shipping on the Cape Fear River.

2. North Carolina, which had begun construction of the Cape Fear lighthouse, subsequently ceded the site to the Federal Government in December, 1790, when the North Carolina state legislature ratified “An Act to cede and vest in the United States of America, the Lands therein mentioned, for the Purpose of building Light-Houses” (Laws of North-Carolina. At a General Assembly, begun and held at Fayetteville on the First Day of November, in the Year of our Lord, One Thousand Seven Hundred and Ninety, and in the Fifteenth Year of the Independence of the said State: Being the First Session of the said Assembly [n.p., n. d.], 2).