Richard Caswell (1729-1789) was a militia officer, member of the colonial assembly, and the first person elected governor of North Carolina following the Declaration of Independence and served several terms (1776-1780 and 1785-1787). In the summer of 1777 he was an intended victim of the Gourd Patch Conspiracy, but when he did not visit Halifax as planned, he was spared from assassination. Caswell later granted the plot's leader, John Lewellen, a pardon from the death penalty.