Representative Duncan McFarlan

Duncan McFarlan (died September 7, 1816) was a United States Democratic-Republican Congressman from North Carolina who served in the Ninth Congress from 1805 to 1807. He was born in Laurel Hill, in what is now Scotland County, North Carolina, then a rural community in the southern part of the state. Little is recorded about his family background or early youth, but he was raised in an agrarian setting and from an early age engaged in agricultural pursuits, a vocation that would remain central to his livelihood throughout his life.

McFarlan emerged in public life during the formative years of both North Carolina and the United States under the new federal system. In 1788 he served as a delegate to the Hillsborough Convention, the North Carolina state convention called to consider ratification of the United States Constitution. At that gathering he voted against ratification, aligning himself with Anti-Federalist concerns about centralized power and the absence of a bill of rights. North Carolina consequently delayed ratification until after the adoption of the Bill of Rights, reflecting the skepticism shared by McFarlan and others at the convention.

Following the convention, McFarlan entered state politics more formally. He was elected to the North Carolina House of Commons in 1792, representing his locality in the lower house of the General Assembly. He subsequently served in the North Carolina Senate in 1793, 1795, and 1800, participating in the legislative affairs of the state during a period marked by debates over internal improvements, the organization of state institutions, and the evolving relationship between state and federal authority. Throughout these years he continued his agricultural work, which provided the economic base for his political activity.

McFarlan’s career was also marked by serious criminal conduct. He was a convicted rapist, a fact that stands in stark contrast to his public roles and reflects the profound injustices and lack of accountability that often characterized the legal and social order of his time. Details of the case, including the date of conviction and circumstances, are not extensively documented in surviving records, but the conviction is part of the historical record of his life.

Seeking national office, McFarlan first stood for election to the United States House of Representatives in 1802 but was unsuccessful in that attempt. Running as a Democratic-Republican, he campaigned again in 1804 and was elected to represent North Carolina in the Ninth Congress. He served a single term in the U.S. House of Representatives from March 4, 1805, to March 3, 1807. During his tenure in Congress, he sat as a member of the majority Democratic-Republican Party in the era of President Thomas Jefferson, when national issues included the implementation of Jeffersonian fiscal policies, westward expansion, and mounting tensions with Great Britain and France. Specific details of his committee assignments or floor activity are not well documented, but his service placed him within the broader Jeffersonian coalition that dominated national politics during this period.

After the conclusion of his term in Washington, McFarlan returned to North Carolina and resumed his private affairs. In addition to his ongoing agricultural pursuits, he engaged in mercantile activities, reflecting the growing commercial opportunities in the early nineteenth-century South. He reentered state politics and served one further term in the North Carolina Senate from 1807 to 1809, continuing to participate in legislative matters at the state level while maintaining his business and farming interests in Laurel Hill.

McFarlan spent his later years in the same community in which he had been born. He remained associated with Laurel Hill, where his agricultural and mercantile pursuits tied him to the local economy and society of southern North Carolina in the early republic. He died at Laurel Hill on September 7, 1816. Duncan McFarlan was buried in Laurel Hill Cemetery, bringing to a close a life that combined significant political service at both the state and national levels with a deeply troubling criminal record that is an integral part of his historical legacy.