Showing posts with label Harrison. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Harrison. Show all posts

Thursday, December 3, 2015

Where Were My Ancestors About 1796? Abraham Bradley's Map of the United States: Part 2

This is a continuation of my post earlier this week using Abraham Bradley's postal map of 1796.  This is just an exercise to get a handle on where all of my American ancestors were during the Federalist Era.  I can already see the fatal flaw of adding ancestors by going up and down my tree as opposed to grouping by location--for instance, I actually have a lot of people who were in the western Pennsylvania area, but there will be separate maps for the family groups in this iteration because they are on different branches of my tree.  I will put together a more concise version at a later date.


In Bertie County, North Carolina, possibly in the Salmon Creek area, John H Hardy, 23, was married to his first wife, Jamima Wilson, and they had a toddler Etheldred.  Jamima would die in the next year.  John's mother Sarah Sowell, 63, had been widowed 3 years before when her husband William Hardy died, and she would be listed in the 1800 Federal Census as head of household in Bertie County, North Carolina.   John's future second wife, Elizabeth Ward, 21, daughter of Thomas Ward (who had died the year before at about age 60) and Pheraby Sowell, about 47.  John Hardy and Elizabeth Ward were distant cousins--their mothers were both descendants of Richard Sowell (born c. 1659).


John Chappell, 33, had moved to Georgia probably in the mid to late 1780's from Sussex County, Virginia, likely with his parents, Revolutionary veteran John C Chappell, 58, and Nancy "Nannie" Harrison, 55.  Like Jesse Warren Sr he was in the area that would become Hancock County, Georgia. John and his wife, Sarah "Sallie" P Heath, 25, had several small children by the time the map was made.  Sallie was the daughter of Valley Forge veteran Abraham Heath, 56, and Winnifred "Winny" (??), 50, who had moved from Surry County, Virginia to Burke/Warren County, Georgia 10 years earlier.
Josiah Freeman, 33, was likely in Oglethorpe County, Georgia with his first wife, Susannah Hawkins, and at least 5 small children.  He had likely moved to Georgia sometime between 1786 and 1790.  He was originally from Virginia, possibly Sussex or Surry counties.  His parents William Freeman, 58, and Sarah Williams(??), about 56, were in Surry County, North Carolina, and may have originally been from Surry County, Virginia.  All these Surry counties!!  It gets confusing.  Elizabeth Jordan, Josiah's second wife, was only about 9 in 1796.  I have not yet figured out who Elizabeth's parents were.  Elizabeth was born in either Georgia or possibly South Carolina.
Richard Turner, 17, had been born in Cascade, Pittsylvania, Virginia, and had moved with his family to Wilkes County, Georgia (part of which became Lincoln County) when he was about 5.  His parents, Shadrack Turner and Margaret Hill, were both about 45.  Mary Henderson, 15, would marry Richard about 3 years later in Wilkes or Lincoln County.  She had Virginia as place of birth on the 1850 and 1860 Censuses, but I have not yet been able to determine who her parents were, although there were numerous Henderson families in Elbert County (neighbor county to both Wilkes and Lincoln) at the time she would have married Richard.



William Porter was born in May 1796 in Sheffield, Caledonia, Vermont, to Benjamin Porter, 24, and Lydia Wilcox, 21.  It is not clear why they were there, as they had married in Surry, Cheshire, New Hampshire the year before, and were back there by the 1800 federal census.  Benjamin's widowed mother Esther Carpenter, 57, allegedly didn't die until 1827 in Lyme, Grafton, NH, but apparently didn't head a household in the censuses and probably lived with one of her adult children.  Lydia's parents, physician Obediah Willcox, 72, and Sarah Talcott, 61, were likely living in Surry, Cheshire, New Hampshire.
Joshua Shepard, 43, and Lucia "Lucy" Farnsworth, 34, were living in Alstead, Cheshire, New Hampshire.  Joshua's parents, Jonathan Shepard, 87, and Love Palmer, 79, had divorced 32 years earlier (about 1764), and had both subsequently remarried.  Love had married a Mr. Heard or Herrick (date unknown), and she died 23 July 1796 in Alstead, Cheshire, New Hampshire.  Jonathan had married Mary Underwood in 1765 and lived in Windsor, Windsor, Vermont, where he died 2 years after this map was made (26 March 1798).  Lucy's parents, Thomas Farnsworth, 65, and Elizabeth Davis, 68, also lived in Alstead (they had moved there sometime between 1776 and 1790).








© 2015 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Monday, July 13, 2015

Monday Is for Mothers: Elizabeth Harrison (About 1775 - ?)

The only record we've found that mentions this paternal fourth great grandmother is from her marriage to Jacoby Watts in Greene County, Georgia, on February 24, 1804.

I've enlarged the relevant entry to allow you to examine it more closely. The person in the column on the far right "vouched" for them (and is almost certainly a man). But who was he? Was he a relative, perhaps her father? Is the first initial "I" or "J" or something else? We just don't know and haven't been able to find records for this Harrison.

[Ancetrty.com. Georgia, Marriage Records From Select Counties, 1828-1978 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2013. Original data: County Marriage Records, 1828–1978. The Georgia Archives, Morrow, Georgia.]

Jacoby (often spelled Jacobus) Watts served as Justice of the Peace and was elected as State Representative for Greene County in 1810 but there's no sign of a U.S. Census record for him and his family that year.

In 1820 there's a listing for Jacobus Watts in Madison in Morgan County, Georgia,* and I think that Elizabeth is probably the sole woman** in the ninth column "Free White Persons - Females - 45 and upwards." The household included a total of 27 people including 18 slaves.
[Ancestry.com. 1820 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010. Images reproduced by FamilySearch. Original data: Fourth Census of the United States, 1820. (NARA microfilm publication M33, 142 rolls). Records of the Bureau of the Census, Record Group 29. National Archives, Washington, D.C.]

Jacobus Watts died in 1825 near Standing Peachtree in what was then DeKalb County*** and there are no surviving probate records for his estate. We have no idea what happened to his Elizabeth, whether she survived him or not or where either of them are buried.

Their daughter Timney P. Watts married Jesse Warren Jr. in 1824. They are my three-times great grandparents.

*Jacobus definitely owned property in Madison because there's a Notice of Sheriff's Sale in October of 1821 in which his land is to auctioned to satisfy two judgments against him. There is another notice the following year which stated that he was living there at the time.
**Assuming that she has not died before this date. If this is indeed Elizabeth, this is the last record we have for her.
***Now Fulton County.

© 2015 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Monday, June 29, 2015

Monday Is for Mothers: Verlinda Stone (1692 - About 1740)

William Stone named his second daughter Verlinda after his paternal grandmother, Verlinda Graves Stone, whose husband (also named William) had served as governor of Maryland in the 17th Century.

Verlinda married Joseph Harrison in about 1715 in Charles County, Maryland, and when he died late in 1727 he named three children in his will, Richard, Joseph* and Tabitha.** Verlinda and her father William were two of the named executors, along with Thomas Matthews, the husband of her sister Mary.
["Maryland, Register of Wills Records, 1629-1999," images, FamilySearch ( https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-1951-24310-12965-6?cc=1803986&wc=M15K-SPJ:146535701,148432001 : accessed 07 Apr 2014), Charles > Wills 1704-1733 vol 3 > image 127-28 of 166; citing Hall of Records, Annapolis.]

Only four year later Verlinda's father died, leaving a will providing for his widow and children, including Verlinda, who was to receive some property and have the debt she owes to her father forgiven, except for "twenty five pounds Sterling to purchase a neagro [sic] which is to be in her mothers possession and to her use during her natural life and at her Death is to return to my Son Richard Stone and his heirs[.]"***

["Maryland, Register of Wills Records, 1629-1999," images, FamilySearch ( https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-1951-24310-13010-0?cc=1803986&wc=SNYZ-DPK:146535701,148432001 : accessed 30 June 2015), Charles - Wills 1704-1733 vol 3 - image 151-52 of 166; Hall of Records, Annapolis.]

Verlinda not marry again and we have her own will, dated December 4, 1739, and proved the following February. In her bequests to her children, she disposed of slaves and personal possessions like a number of pieces of walnut furniture, looking glasses, items of silver like a snuffbox and spoons, and a gold ring, all of which testify to the fact that she was a woman of substance.

["Maryland, Register of Wills Records, 1629-1999," images, FamilySearch ( https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-1951-24310-13010-0?cc=1803986&wc=SNYZ-DPK:146535701,148432001 : accessed 30 June 2015), Charles - Wills 1704-1733 vol 3 - image 151-52 of 166; Hall of Records, Annapolis.]

Verlinda and Joseph both died relatively young. In contrast, her mother Theodosia Wade Stone died in 1749 in her 82nd year.

*Joseph Hansen Harrison, whose daughter Nancy is my paternal fifth great grandmother.
**A second daughter named Elizabeth (who is still a minor) appears in her mother's will and I assume that she was born after her father's death. It was Verlinda's expressed hope that Elizabeth would choose to live with "my well beloved sister Theodosia Stone" until she came of age.
***William's wife and other children, including other married daughters were bequeathed enslaved persons but not Verlinda. Perhaps this is because as a widow, he was concerned that she would re-marry and her property would be controlled by her new husband. William expressed definite concern in his will and a codicil that Thomas Matthews did not have any claim on the bequest to his daughter Mary.

© 2015 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Monday, April 13, 2015

Monday Is for Mothers: Nancy "Nannie" Harrison (1741 - After 1812)

Most of what we know about this paternal fifth great grandmother comes from the wills of the two most important men in her life, that of her father Joseph Hanson Harrison of  St. Andrew's Parish in Brunswick County, Virginia, dated March 8, 1763, and of her husband Joseph C. Chappell in Hancock County, Georgia, which was executed on December 10, 1807.

Unfortunately I've only been able to locate abstracts of her father's will, including the one shown below:
[Virginia Will Records, Records of Wills and Deeds in Brunswick County from The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, the William and Mary College Quarterly, and Tyler's Quarterly; Indexed by Judith McGhan, The Genealogical Publishing Company, Baltimore, 1993. Ancestry.com database on-line]

Other sources tell us that Nancy's bequest was "one negro slave named Phillis to her and her heirs forever." One of six children, all of her siblings were left a feather bed and furnishings but Nancy wasn't.*

As a result of his service in the 1st Virginia Regiment during the Revolution, John Chappell received land warrants in Georgia beginning in 1786 and the family appears to be living in Wilkes County, Georgia, by that year. Tax records place John Chappell at Shoulder Bone in Hancock County in 1794.

When he came to make his will in 1807, "Now being of sound mind & memory. But oald & infirm in Bodily Strength & Calling to mind the mortality of all men & knowing that I have a Natural Death once to Die" after commending his soul to God, asking for his body's decent burial and that his just debts be paid, his first thought was to provide for his "Beloved wife Nanny Chappell" by allowing her "one Room of my Dwelling House at the East End thereof. I also lend Her...the following Moveable Property first my negroes, Jane Pol & Henry, two Feather Beds & Furniture** with all other Necessary Houshold Furniture for Her Convenient support."


["Georgia, Probate Records, 1742-1990," images, FamilySearch ( https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-1971-30356-815-19?cc=1999178&wc=9SYY-N36:267654601,267766201 : accessed 13 April 2015), Hancock - Wills and administration records 1803-1826 vol C-F - image 412-413 of 687; county probate courthouses, Georgia.]

In the 4th Item of his will, John directed that his son Benjamin, whose bequest included the "Land & Plantation whereon I now live," that Benjamin "shall take care of & Provide for my Beloved wife Nanny Chappell During her natural Life or her widowhood at his own expense."
["Georgia, Probate Records, 1742-1990," images, FamilySearch ( https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-1971-30356-815-19?cc=1999178&wc=9SYY-N36:267654601,267766201 : accessed 13 April 2015), Hancock - Wills and administration records 1803-1826 vol C-F - image 413 of 687; county probate courthouses, Georgia.]

The enslaved persons, Jane, Pol and Henry "lent" to Nanny are valued in the inventory of John's estate. Note that a woman named Phillis*** is also listed with a relatively low value suggesting that she is not young. Is she the same Phillis left to Nancy by her father in 1763?
["Georgia, Probate Records, 1742-1990," images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-1971-30356-609-13?cc=1999178&wc=9SYY-N36:267654601,267766201 : accessed 13 April 2015), Hancock > Wills and administration records 1803-1826 vol C-F > image 414 of 687; county probate courthouses, Georgia.]

John's estate was appraised on January 29, 1808, at $9,452.77, including 23 slaves valued at $6,745. His sons Benjamin, John**** and Thomas were named as executors and appear to have been acting for their father's estate as late as 1827.

One record (in database form only) remains for Nanny, a tax list index for 1812 in Hancock County. The date and place of her death are unknown.

Or is it? In a book titled Historical Collection of Georgia, published in 1855, I found the following paragraph under the heading of Twiggs County.
[Historical collections of Georgia : containing the most interesting facts, traditions, biographical sketches, anecdotes, etc. relating to its history and antiquities, from its first settlement to the present time ; compiled from original records and official documents ; illustrated by nearly one hundred engravings of public buildings, relics of antiquity, historic localities, natural scenery, portraits of distinguished men, etc., etc. / by the Rev. George White, 1802-1887; Dutton, Alpha Christian, 1855. Internet Archive]

If the birth year we have for Nanny is correct, she would have been 81 in about 1822. As for Twiggs County, there are a number of Chappells buried there but there's no record of her grave (or John's) anywhere in Georgia.

*She married John C. Chappell around 1758 so perhaps she already had a bed.
**One room, but two feather beds and furniture. Maybe the fact that Nanny hadn't received a bed from her father wasn't forgotten?
***Phillis and another woman, Jinny, were left to the keeping of John and Nanny's daughter-in-law Dolley, the widow of Joseph Chappell, until such time as her four sons either reached legal age or married.
****Son John's granddaughter Martha Heath Hardy married J.T.S. Warren in 1849.

© 2015 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.