John Slater

Last year while I was recovering from Knee replacement I chatted with a lady who is a dna match to me.  I can find her Ancestry identifier and e-mail address in my Reunion data base as descendant of Marion Slater who was the son of Daniel Chapman Slater.  Her name is Pam.  I am copying some of her information from her Ancestry tree this morning and looking at past correspondence.  And I found a huge phooey.  I had sent her this note:

 I do not know if I ever sent her the note nor do I know what I was looking at when I saw this marriage record.  Nor do I know if this John Slater would be our mutual ancestor or a false lead.  But I wanted to put this information somewhere.  And this would have been more than a 100 years before our John Slater was born c. 1799 in York, England.  Still it is possible that our John Slater was a Quaker when he left England for Pennsylvania.  

Wallace family

Last year I realized that George Selden Wallace who was the author of several excellent books on the history of Huntington, WV (where I live) is descended from the Wallace family that accompanied William Woods and George McNeely and their families on the move from Pennsylvania to what is now Albemarle County, Virginia after 1732 and before 1736.  And then I realized that George Selden Wallace had written a book about his Wallace family and that the book was available in the special collections at the downtown Cabell County library.  

Michael Woods' sister, Elizabeth had married Peter Wallace in Ireland.  It is this family that accompanied Michael Woods and the McNeely family down the great wagon road.  I think that Peter was deceased.  But I need to double check this.

I took some photos of some of the pages of George Selden Wallace's book and will put them here:

There follows several pages of later descendants, but there did not seem to be more clues in this book for our McNeely family.  Actually I just found another page.  I will go back and look at this book one more time.

 

Willis/Hudson/Hawkins/Butler research

 Pat Clare sent me an e-mail before Christmas that included two links that I don't want to loose.  I want to find time to look at both in January ....and I'll add other things as well.  

https://owsleyfamily.tripod.com/the-ancestry-of-ann-hudson-wife-of-thomas-owsley-ii.html

and

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Hawkins-203

I want to put a tree on Ancestry that merges my Hawkins family data base with my Hawkins/Bourne data base....and then perhaps transfer all to my private tree on my computer?  I also want to look at the Hudson dna match that I have that I put down because I could not solve the puzzle.  I could also add some of the information from my Willis book that sits on my desk.

Friends at the Spring

I had chatted with several people on the Bush River Facebook site when a enthusiastic contributor sent a link for this book:  

Friends "at the Spring" by Algie Innman Newlin

I notice that the book is available to read on-line on several sites.  But I am reading the copy that she sent.  I wanted to make a few notes as I read, so here goes.

I know a little bit about this area of North Carolina because I have had interest as Richard Moore (my 7-gr-grandfather) settled his family at Eno in Orange County: 

The Moore family stayed in Berks Co PA at Exeter MM until 1755.  The certificates from Exeter were received by Cane Creek MM in Orange Co NC on 6-4, 1757, for Richard Moore, his wife Sarah (Jenkins?), their son John and their daughter Prudence.

 The families that Algie Newlin mentions as first settlers arrived about 1751.  The author also mentions that four or five families came about 1755  and included Valentine Hollingsworth.  By serendipity, I have recently heard from Susan Webber this fall.  Susan and her husband attended at least one of the Bush River Homecomings.  The below is from Susan:

I am also very active in DVHSS (Descendants of Valentine Hollingsworth, Sr. Society), a family history society. .....   DVHSS gathers every year and next June we will be in Southwest Ohio.  That is where my Hollingsworth name ends when his daughter married a Pearson.   Isaac H. and family had journeyed there from Bush River, having traveled the Great Wagon Road from VA in earlier days.  🙂

Here is a map showing location of Spring Friends Meeting.

And here is the location of Cane Creek Monthly Meeting

It would seem that the Quaker members in this area were all received by Cane Creek.  My Moore family was received by Cane Creek and it would seem that Cane Creek was still where they were officially a part of as when they moved to Wrightsboro about 1767 their certificate that they took with them was from Cane Creek MM.  But I believe it most likely that they were a part of Eno Preparatory Meeting while they lived in Orange County, NC.  

http://marshamoses.blogspot.com/2012/04/eno-cemetery-marker-dedication-just.html

There is a good description of possible roads in this time period on page 8 of the Friends at the Spring book.

Next is a map from page 32 showing Cane Creek as well as Cane Creek MM and Spring Friends meeting.  Cane Creek ends when it flows into Haw River. 

I stopped reading about page 32 as my ancestors and their friends and family had moved farther south by the time of the Regulation.  The Richard Moore family had moved to Wrightsboro. Those who moved  included Richard's son,  Mordecai.  Sarah Moore (daughter of Mordecai) had married George McKinsey and moved to Bush River in South Carolina as had Sarah's aunt, Abigail Moore.  Abigail married Nehemiah Thomas.  It is possible that Sarah Moore did not marry George McKinsey in Orange County.  Instead she met George via her aunt, Abigail after Abigail and Nehemiah moved to Bush River.  I did not find a marriage for Sarah.

 

 

Presumptive Settlers

 I just received the book Pennsylvania Land Records by Donna Bingham Munger.  I bought the book during the August 2023 Pennsylvania Genealogical Society's August 2023 event.  Ms. Munger hosts a website that can be found at:

https://donnabinghammunger.com/

By serendipity as I browsed through the book I noticed a great map inside the front cover that shows county boundaries through the years.  

But even more exciting was an article on page 65 on what she calls presumptive settlers or squatters.  I want to share this page with my McNeely group as well as my Morrison group....and any other Scotch-Irish researchers that I know.  Ms. Munger says on page 65: "Even as early as 1726 James Logan, William Penn's proprietary secretary, noted the consequence...."I doubt not but there are at this time near a hundred thousand acres possess'd by persons who resolutely sett down and improve without any manner of Right or Pretence to it. " 

and "The land lottery of 1735 was perhaps the first official program aimed at squatters"....because the lottery of 1735 attracted few squatters, the proprietaries next attempted a program of coercion.  The Land Office promised eviction for everyone who had not obtained a warrant or paid their purchase price by March 1739.  Again this was not complied with in significant numbers.

However, it would seem to me that it might have been one of many catalysts to the settlement of the Shenandoah Valley by white settlers which seems to have started about: "There were few settlers in the heart of the Shenandoah Valley until after 1732."  My McNeely seem to have moved up the Valley before 1736 when George's daughter married John Dickey.  

Morrison family in Cabell County in what is now WV

I thought that I had already put the following information on the blog site, but I could not find it this morning when I looked to print out maps and etc to take with me on a jaunt close to home where the Morrison and Hensley family lived in the very early days of Cabell County.  There were four of us.  Amanda Morrison who is a dna match to me, her mother Judy, and George Swann.  All but Judy share the early Cabell County couple of William Morrison and his wife, Rachel Witcher.  

I found a notation in the Lambert Collection at the Marshall University Special Collections several years ago:

Patrick Henry Morrison was the son of William Morrison Sr.  Patrick Henry Morrison was also the 

son-in-law of Thomas Ward.  He married Anna Ward who had first been married to a man with surname Scales. However I have not found proof that her fist husband was related to Noah Scales.

So we know that William Morrison and his wife, Rachel Witcher were living at the mouth of Booten's Creek.

 have a typed account that is written by Patrick Henry Morrison, 80 years old, September 22, 1910.  This is also found in the  Lambert Collection at the Marshall University Special Collections.  The Lambert Collection has now been digitalized.

MS 76 Box 11 Notebook 10 page 166

I had assumed that William and his wife, Rachel, were buried on the piece of land that Patrick Henry Morrison had bought 16 February 1816.  But it seems that a bit more research needs to be done to be sure.  Today's jaunt showed up another place that Patrick Henry may have lived.  It seems that much of the land that lies between the road labelled 42 and the Guyandotte River belonged to the Morrison family.  We need to look at the dates that the land was bought.  William died  around 1819.  George has told me that he is found on the tax book before that date.  But Rachel is found on the tax book after that date.  I am doing this from memory and need to double check dates and information.  And when did Patrick Morrison move to the land that we viewed on down the road?  What does 100 acres look like on a map?  Does that go from the mouth of Booten's Creek to the church we looked at and beyond?  Is there a later deed for more land?  where is the grave yard that they bull dozed to put in the trailer?  How much land did the Morrison family have along the Guyandotte River?  Was the original cabin just above the graveyard on which the Sadler family now lives?  How old was Patrick Henry when he bought the land on which William Witcher now lived?  When did William Morrison, Rachel and their family move to Cabell County.  It was after 1809 when the sold their land on the Pigg River in Pittsylvania County to Harmon Cook.  And before 1816 when Patrick Henry Morrison bought the land on the Guyadotte river on which William Morrison is now living.  How old are the children of William and Rachel?  Elizabeth did not come with them ....she was already married to Solomon Hensley.  She married him c. 1809 as Bird was born c 1810-1811.  Patrick Henry was born c. 1791 using census to approximate.  So he was about 25 when he bought the land.  The KYOVA information suggests that Noah Scales was not Anna's father-in-law, but her husband.  That the sale of this property to the Morrison family was from Anna's husband and her father.  If this is true, Patrick Henry was most likely still living at home with his parents when he bought the land.   William and Rachel's son William had married Elizabeth Jones in Pittsylvania County.  Billy Morrison lived on Cavill Creek.  John Tyler also seems to have lived on Cavill Creek

 

Forest Sammons and his new airplane