Revolutionary War Vouchers for Silas Wooten

Nancy Wooten sent me links to Revolutionary War Vouchers for Silas Wooten this morning.

It is somewhat hard to read, but here is what the reader at family research believed that it said:



and here is the link if you want to read it on the Family Search site for yourself:

https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:Q2WT-P41J

Here are my questions....Silas was discharged from service in 1781 in Caswell County.  I do not know at this time if his entire unit was discharged there after their service in the battle of Guilford County.


Certainly the three counties of interest to us in this time period adjoined each other.  Guilford (Gu), Caswell (Was), and Orange (Or).  Orange is the County for which Hillsborough is the county seat.  I don't think that there is any doubt that Silas was "hanging out" in this area of NC.  Now where he was from before the war is a huge puzzle.  I think it more likely that Silas was not living in Hillsborough...but was probably in Guilford when he heard that there was money to be collected if he would ride to Hillsborough.  But this is certainly a guess.

Nancy says that there is an earlier pay voucher for Rowan County:

 One is 16 Aug 1782, Salisbury, Rowan, NC



again here is how the reader who indexed this document interpreted it:



and here is the link if you wish to visit the site on Family Search:

https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QS7-L9WG-X63B?i=723&cc=1498361



I think that those of us who look at Silas, have a Nagging thought in the back of our mind that perhaps Silas could have been living in Surrey or Wilkes before the Revolution.

Information from Mr. Jude: 

Thomas Whootan, III b. abt. 1760 died bef. 1820 NC. He was married to Anne Unknown b. 1776 NC died after 1850 

Mr. Jude also guesses that his name might be Thomas because:

1810 Surry Co., NC census entry:

Thomas Wooton  2 males 10-15  1 male >45  1 female <10, 2 females  10-15, 1 female 26-44

According to this entry, Thomas Wooton was born before 1765 and his wife was born between 1766 and 1784 or about 1776. 

He also says:  Since this Thomas Wooten is not on the 1820 census, he may have died and his widow may be Ann who married John Stotts and then moved to the Tug Valley.  

Ann's Wooten children born in Surry County are the family that goes by the name Ooten in the Tug Valley.  They include a Silas Ooten.  Anne married John Stotts before her move to Kentucky with her children.  

My notes for Ann say:  

There were two seperate Wooten and/or Ooten families in the Tug River Valley in Eastern Kentucky and Southwestern Virginia in the early 1800's who have been misconstrued and/or misidentified. One family was headed by the Revolutionary War veteran Silas P. Wooten and his wife Phoebe Worth. The other family was headed by a woman whose first name was Anne and whose maiden name is unknown. Her husband's surname was Wooten and remains unidentified. He was possibly Thomas Whootan, III who was born in Surry Co., NC, where Anne married her second husband John Stotts before coming to the Tug River Valley.

After Anne's first husband died in Surry Co., NC, she later married John Stotts abt. 1810 in Surry Co., NC and moved to the Tug River Valley and had additional children with him also. Afterwards, Anne and her children including Levi, Nancy & Jordan were living in Indiana by 1840. Her son Silas P. was already deceased by then and his widow remarried and his children remained behind in the Tug River Valley. While Anne and her children were all in Indiana by 1840, the children of the Revolutionary War veteran Silas P. Wooten & Phoebe Worth remained in the Tug River Valley. This obviously suggests they were two seperate families since they both eventually lived so far apart.

There are researchers who say Silas's mother had maiden Jordan.  Is there reason to think of possibilities that Silas and Thomas Wooten were brothers?  Thomas may have named a child after his brother, Silas....or perhaps both our Silas P. and Ann's son Silas P. Ooten were named after someone in a generation or two earlier than our Silas P.

But the Pay voucher in Rowan could perhaps suggest Silas' return to Surry/Wilkes.  While the slightly later pay voucher could suggest his move to Guilford County.

Cornwallis was defeated at Yorktown Oct 1781.  So I would guess that Silas was discharged just after the defeat.  Silas was wounded at Eutaw Springs and left to be transported with the baggage back to wherever he was taken.  So perhaps he was recuperating when he received his first pay in Rowan County.  I am not sure why there would then be a second pay voucher after that date in Hillsborough since he had already been discharged.  Back pay?  Lots of questions. But I am very indebted to Nancy for having shared these documents.

I would add one more thing from my own Quaker research in NC.  Surry County Quakers were part of Westfield MM. 

Surry County records dated from the 1770s and 1780s cover parts of present-day Ashe, Alleghany, Forsyth, Stokes, Wilkes, and Yadkin Counties.

The Meeting dates back to the 1760's when pioneer Quakers from New Garden (now Guilford College) crossed Quaker Gap of the Sauratown mountains to plant a new community in the valleys of Big Creek and Tom's Creek. Early Quakers began holding meetings at Westfield by 1772 under the care of New Garden Quarterly Meeting and continued until the monthly meeting was established in 1786. Representatives from New Garden were sent to hold services for them. This is said to have lead to the name, "Westfield." The Quakers at New Garden regarded the work as a mission project and since it was located west of New Garden it was referred to as, "The Western Field." Thus comes the name, "Westfield."
The meeting was officially established November 13, 1786. The Westfield friends would send representatives all the way to New Garden, 67 miles, every month

 So there was a huge connection between the New Garden MM in Guilford County to which Phebe Worth's family had been connected and that of those living in the Westfield area.  This may not be a factor in connecting Silas P. Wooten to Surrey ....but it is something to think about.  

Wonder if there were any Worleys or Blankenships or Wards in Surry County?