John Clary was expelled for fornicating with his stepdaughter.

A Quaker from Virginia, he moved to Perquimans County in 1776 and became proprietor of a toll float bridge across the river—a position that made him locally important.

His second wife was a widower three times over and had a daughter, Leah Toms, according to William S. Powell's "The Dictionary of North Carolina Biography."

In 1808, Clary was convicted of fornication with his stepdaughter and fined, but he was elected to the House of Commons in 1809 nonetheless. Not everyone was happy, though:

His reception in the legislature was cool, and following the introduction of a resolution proposed that the house "free itself from the contamination of grossly impure and unworthy characters," Clary resigned and went home to vindicate himself.

In December, Clary was re-elected by an even larger margin and returned to the House triumphantly. It was a short-lived win.

More after the jump.

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John Roberts died a broken man.

The Carteret County resident was elected to the state House of Commons in 1804 and served 12 terms before being chosen for the Senate in 1816, according to "The Dictionary of North Carolina Biography," edited by William S. Powell.

In 1814, Roberts served as an assistant paymaster general for his district's state militia during the War of 1812. It proved his undoing.

In December of 1816, the General Assembly received several petitions from militiamen who complained that they weren't paid by him.

A joint legislative committee found evidence of forgery and fraud and Roberts was expelled. After several years in jail and two trials, Roberts was released in 1822 and pardoned by the governor.

"Roberts never fully recovered from his ordeal, and court records from his home county suggested that he was dead by March 1823," the book notes.

Hat Tip: Lamara Hackett 

William Gilbert was kicked out of the House for fraud.

Born in Ireland, Gilbert moved to Western North Carolina in 1760 and became the largest landholder in Tryon (now Rutherford) County in an area that came to be known as Gilbert Town.

In 1779, he represented the area in the General Assembly, according to William S. Powell's "Dictionary of North Carolina Biography":

Later that year, after a six-month inquiry, he was expelled from the Assembly for "intentionally defrauding the publick." 

Nevertheless, Powell notes, he was immediately re-elected and served  until 1783.

Gilbert later worked as a justice of the peace, and his home did double-duty as a tavern and the county seat. The General Assembly found him guilty of forgery and removed him from the post. 

He moved to South Carolina, where his fortunes soured. He lost "a great deal of his property" and his children died in epidemics, Powell notes. 

In true Southern fashion, Dome has found an embarassing relation.

As it turns out, the last person to be expelled from the state legislature—for calling the speaker a "gander head" as you may recall—was publisher of the forerunner of the N&O.

Here's the story, from William S. Powell's inestimable "Encyclopedia of North Carolina" (p. 944).

The Raleigh Sentinel was founded in 1865 to "fight against the domination of carpetbaggers and other forces" during Reconstruction, Powell writes. Josiah Turner Jr. bought the paper in 1868:

Turner's crusade is considered to have been largely responsible for the recapture of the state legislature by the Democrats (then called Conservatives) and for the overthrow of Governor William W. Holden in 1870 and his impeachment in 1871.

But, Powell writes, Turner was "no financial wizard" and the paper ended up in the hands of the publishers of the Raleigh Observer. Eventually, they folded the paper into the N&O.