"Killed in a duel with Mr. John Stanley at the fourth fire. I was present and saw him fall." - J. Oliver
Those are the words written in John Oliver's ledger. Oliver was a merchant in New Bern who had accounts with many of the town's political powerhouses, including Richard Dobbs-Spaight, North Carolina's eighth governor and an American Founding Father.
He died on September 6, 1802, in New Bern in a duel with his long-standing political rival John Stanley. What is perhaps the only surviving written account of the duel is in John Oliver's ledger. The ledger is stored in the archives of the New Bern Historical Society.