District Attorney Scott Reilly was one of the featured speakers for the dedication ceremony of the Charters of Freedom in the City of Lenoir that took place on July 3, 2019.
Reilly, the elected DA for the 36th Prosecutorial District comprised of Burke, Caldwell and Catawba counties, spoke at the event along with 46th District Sen. Warren Daniel, the Honorable Beverly T. Beal (retired Superior Court Judge) and the Honorable Robert M. Brady (retired District Court Judge).
Lenoir Mayor Joe Gibbons and Caldwell County Commission Chairman Randy Church also made remarks at the ceremony.
The Charters of Freedom – made up of the Declaration of Independence, the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights – are on display in the Rotunda of the National Archives in Washington, D.C. They are free and open to viewing by the public.
Lenoir now has replicas of those historical documents on display just outside the Caldwell County Courthouse on Main Street. The setting is built to last for 300 to 500 years and is the 13th established in North and South Carolina. Local high school students from Caldwell County helped build the display that houses the Charters of Freedom in Lenoir.
“I look forward to bringing my grandchildren to this site and explaining to them how Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence in the summer of 1776,” Reilly said. “It is my hope that my grandchildren will one day bring their children to this site, and that they and future generations will enjoy this display and gain a deeper understanding of how our nation was founded 243 years ago.”
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The Charters of Freedom setting in Caldwell County is an active, hands-on educational supplement to school curriculum, a replica of the original founding documents for our country. They are arranged in chronological order, left to right, in the display case with the Declaration of Independence (1776) on the left, four pages of the U.S. Constitution (1787) in the middle and the Bill of Rights (1789) on the right.
In addition to the three replicas of the historical documents, a time capsule was placed in a vault at the back of the display and sealed. The vault and time capsule will be opened on September 17, 2087, the 300th anniversary of the U.S. Constitution.
CONTACT: Nathan Key
Phone: 828-695-6193
Email: Nathan.D.Key@nccourts.org