German scholar opens life of Charlotte’s namesake

CHARLOTTE, NC (AP) — A German scholar is telling the story of the person for whom North Carolina’s largest city is nicknamed the Queen City.

Friederike Drinkuth will tell the story of Queen Charlotte on Wednesday at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

Charlotte was from the German region of Mecklenburg when she married England’s King George III.

More than a decade before the American Revolution, settlers in the Carolina colony honored the king’s wife by naming a newly formed county for her homeland.

The town established within the county in 1768 was named “Charlotte Town” in an attempt to win favor with the crown.

Charlotte is still called the Queen City because of her. A portrait of Queen Charlotte hangs in the Mint Museum of Art.

(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)