Richard Dobbs Spaight (25 March 1758 – 6 September 1802) was Governor of North Carolina from 14 December 1792 to 19 November 1795 (succeeding Alexander Martin and preceding Samuel Ashe) and a member of the US House of Representatives (DR-NC 10) from 10 December 1798 to 3 March 1801 (succeeding Nathan Bryan and preceding John Stanly).
Biography[]
Richard Dobbs Spaight was born in New Bern, North Carolina in 1758, and he was raised by his relatives in northern Ireland after being orphaned. In 1778, he returned to North Carolina and served as an aide to general William Caswell from 1778 to 1781 during the American Revolutionary War. He went on to serve in the Continental Congress from 1782 to 1785, in the House of Commons from 1785 to 1787 and in 1792, as Governor from 1792 to 1795, and in the US House of Representatives from 1798 to 1801. During his term as Governor, he chose Raleigh as the state capital. Spaight was elected to the House as a Federalist, but his views on states' rights led to his affiliation with Thomas Jefferson's Democratic-Republican Party. He was killed in a duel with his congressional successor John Stanly in 1802.