Henry Irwin (c1725-1777) was a a politician and soldier who represented Edgecombe County at the 4th North Carolina Provincial Congress in Halifax. He served as a Lt. Colonel first for the Halifax Minutemen and later for the 5th North Carolina Regiment of the Continental Army. In the summer of 1777 he commanded a group of men who opposed and captured about thirty members of the Gourd Patch Conspiracy who had assembled in Tarborough in an attempt to free their comrades William May and William Tyler, who were imprisoned nearby. This incident was the end of the conspirators' armed resistance. Irwin later died during the Battle of Germantown in Pennsylvania in October 1777.