#ancestry — Public Fediverse posts

Children of Griffith and Mary James: Hannah, Gwendolyn, Joseph, Mary, John, and Samuel

Or, Subtitled: Migration Trails from Maryland to South Carolina and Many Points West

As the previous posting shows, in his 20 April 1795 will in Pendleton District, South Carolina, Griffith James names his wife Mary and the following children: Hannah, Gwendolyn (Jenny in the will), Joseph, Mary, John, and Samuel.[1] The children are named in order of birth by gender groupings, with the three sons named in their order of birth as well as the three daughters. A 4 July 1874 letter of William Simpson, a great-grandson of Griffith James’ daughter Mary James Cummings, states that Griffith James also had a son Thomas, who is not named in the will. That letter and the question of the son Thomas will be discussed below. (To read the continuation of this posting, please click the numeral 2 below.)

Here are some salient pieces of information about Griffith and Mary James’ children:

1. Hannah James was born 2 November 1752 in Maryland. If Griffith James had already settled by this date in the vicinity of what would later be Sharpsburg in Washington County, then I think Hannah would likely have been born in Frederick County, the parent county of Washington. But I do not have proof of her place of birth, other than to note that her grandson Thomas Dunlap Leonard states in his 1883 “Biography of the Leonards” that Hannah was “born and reared in Maryland.”[2]

I’ve discussed Hannah James Leonard’s life in detail in my series of postings about the Leonard family. As the posting I just linked states, about 1775 in Frederick (later Washington) County, Hannah married Thomas Leonard, son of Robert Leonard and Honor Pritchard (and see also here). This family moved from Maryland to Pendleton District, South Carolina, in 1786 and from South Carolina to Lincoln (later Marshall) County, Tennessee, in 1808.

As another posting about the Leonard family notes, Hannah’s dates of birth and death are recorded on her grave marker in the Leonard family cemetery outside Petersburg, Marshall County, Tennessee.[3] The gravestone states, as indicated above, that she was born 2 November 1752 and that she died 3 November 1842. Hannah died at the Leonard homeplace outside Petersburg in Marshall County, Tennessee. The family cemetery, in which she is buried with husband Thomas Leonard, is behind the site of the old homeplace.

2. Gwendolyn James was born about 1754, probably in Frederick (later Washington) County, Maryland. I haven’t found a document giving a precise date of birth for Gwendolyn. The 1754 date is suggested by Beverly Dean Peoples and Ralph Terry Dean in their book Country Cousins, Descendants of Samuel Dean.[4] Federal censuses on which Gwendolyn is enumerated in her husband Samuel Dean’s household do not offer much help in narrowing down the year of her birth: the 1800 census places it between 1755 and 1774, the 1810 census before 1765, and the 1820 census before 1775. Gwendolyn was living in 1830 after Samuel died in 1826, but I do not find her listed as head of a household on the 1830 federal census.

As Country Cousins states, a 1751 birthdate for Samuel Dean has been handed down among his descendants. Griffith James’ will names Gwendolyn (“Jenny”) after her sister Hannah, whose 2 November 1752 birthdate is established by her gravestone. As we’ll see in a moment, there’s documentary evidence for a 1758 birthdate for Griffith’s son Joseph and for a birthdate of 19 November 1763 for Griffith’s daughter Mary. So if Gwenny was born between Hannah and Mary, her birth year would definitely fall between 1752 and 1763, and, it appears, prior to Joseph’s birth year of 1758. Samuel and Gwendolyn’s first child, Thomas, was born 13 September 1774, and that date also makes a 1754 birth year for his mother very reasonable.

Gwendolyn James married Samuel, son of Richard and Priscilla Dean, about 1773. Since Richard Dean and Griffith James lived on adjoining tracts of land outside Sharpsburg in what was then Frederick but soon to be Washington County, the marriage would very likely have occurred in Frederick County.

Gwendolyn James Dean made a will on 6 December 1834 in Anderson County, South Carolina, her husband Samuel having died there also testate with a will dated 22 May 1826 and probated 25 September 1826.[5] Gwendolyn’s will was probated 7 September 1835, so she died between 6 December 1834 and 7 September 1835. Why numerous family trees published online and Gwendolyn’s Find a Grave memorial page state her date of death as 5 December 1834 is beyond me to understand or explain.

According to Country Cousins,[6]

Samuel Dean and Gwendolyn James and others are buried in unmarked graves on what was then their property near Fairview School on Highway 116 between Belton, SC and Williamston, SC.

The cemetery in which Gwendolyn and Samuel are buried is now known as the Dean cemetery, and is close to Starr in Anderson County, South Carolina.

3. Joseph James was born in 1758, very likely in Frederick (later Washington) County, Maryland. We know Joseph’s year of birth from his death record in the death register of Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary parish in Perryville, Perry County, Missouri. This states that he died in that parish on 22 May 1825, aged 67.[7] The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary parish served the English-speaking Catholic population of the area from 1817 until its merger with the German-speaking St. Boniface Parish to form St. Vincent de Paul Parish in 1965.

As previous postings have stated (see here and here), about 1780 in Washington County, Maryland, Joseph married Elizabeth, daughter of James and Sarah Walker Austin. The 20 April 1779 will of Elizabeth’s father James Austin in Washington County states that James was leaving to daughters Elizabeth and Charity shares in a tract of land called King Cole, which came to Joseph James by his marriage to Elizabeth, and which he later sold to his father Griffith James.[8]

As previously noted, about 1791, Joseph moved his family from Washington County, Maryland, to Kentucky. A book written by his son Thomas James entitled Three Years Among the Indians and Mexicans, which recounts his experiences on a trading expedition in 1809 with Auguste P. Chouteau from St. Ferdinand, Missouri, up to the headwaters of the Missouri River and to the Columbia, says that in 1803, Joseph James moved his family from Kentucky to Illinois and then in the spring of 1807, the family made its way to Missouri.[9]

The Combined History of Randolph, Monroe and Perry Counties, Illinois, states,[10]

The James family, of Welsh origin, were among the early settlers in the American Bottom [in Monroe County, Illinois]. Joseph Austin James emigrated to Illinois in 1803, accompanied by his son, Thomas James, who was born in Maryland, in the year 1782, and James A. He moved to Missouri in 1807, where he died.

One of Joseph James and Elizabeth Austin’s sons was named James Austin James, and I suspect that the history of Randolph, Monroe, and Perry Counties has given James’ father Joseph the middle name of Austin for that reason. I have seen no documents giving Joseph, son of Griffith and Mary James, the middle name Austin. If Joseph did have a middle name, it might have been Griffith and not Austin. A letter written on 4 July 1874 by William Simpson of Jacksonville, Florida, a great-grandson of Joseph James’ sister Mary and husband Harmon Cummings, states that Griffith and Mary James had a son Griffith who was a Revolutionary soldier who went west from Maryland.[11] William Simpson seems to be referring here to Joseph James, who was a private in Captain John Reynolds’ militia company, 2nd battalion, in Maryland during the Revolutionary War.[12]

Joseph James’ place of burial is not known. There’s speculation that he’s buried at Mount Hope cemetery in Perryville, Missouri, but if that’s the case, his grave is not now marked.

4. Mary James was born 19 November 1763 in Frederick (later Washington) County, Maryland. This date of birth is recorded in a document written by her son John Cummings, entitled “A Journal of the Life & Parantage [sic] of John Cummings & Wife.”[13] Biographies of John Cummings note that he was born in Pendleton District/Anderson County, South Carolina, on 2 December 1802, and in 1830, moved to Gibson County, Tennessee, where he and wife Rachel Canada became Mormons and went to Nauvoo, Illinois, then from there in 1832 to Provo City, Utah, and finally to Heber City.[14] I think it’s likely that John Cummings’ handwritten document is now held by descendants in Utah or is perhaps in a library or archive there.

In a previous posting, I noted that the marriage of Mary James and Harmon Cummings on 7 September 1779 is recorded in records of Washington County, Maryland, indicating that the marriage was solemnized by Reverend George Mitchell of Hagerstown, who also married Mary Ann Leonard and Colin Campbell. Mary Ann Leonard was a sister of Thomas Leonard who married Mary James’ brother Thomas Leonard.[15]

The journal of Harmon and Mary Cummings’ son John states that Harmon Cummings was born 23 March 1756 and died 4 February 1851. Mary James Cummings died 29 March 1847 according to John Cummings’ journal. Both died in Anderson County, South Carolina, and are said to be buried in the cemetery of Mountain Creek Baptist church south of Anderson, to which they belonged.

5. John James was born between 1770 and 1780 according to the 1830 federal census of Anderson County, South Carolina, and between 1750 and 1760 according to the 1840 federal census.[16] I suspect his birth year actually fell somewhere between 1760 and 1770.

John James died in Anderson County in January 1842. In 1847, his niece Malinda Junkins, daughter of Harmon and Mary James Cummings, filed a case for partition of property belonging to John and his brother Samuel that had come to them from Griffith and Mary James.[17] Malinda’s 21 February 1847 bill of complaint states that John James died in Anderson County in January 1842 unmarried and with no legal issue, but that he had an illegitimate daughter who married William Hembree, and that Hembree was occupying the land in question. An inventory of John’s estate filed in the case file shows that the estate inventory was done on 1 February 1842 and a bill of sale in the file shows John’s estate being sold on 18 February 1842 at the house of John E. Norris.

Prior to this lawsuit on 7 April 1846, Harmon and Mary Cummings had deeded to daughter Malinda Junkins 174 acres that had descended to them from their brothers John and Samuel James, with the deed stating that both John and Samuel had died prior to April 1846, neither leaving lawful issue.[18] This document also states that William Hembree was occupying what had been the land co-owned by John and his brother Samuel.

6. Samuel James was likely born between 1760 and 1770 in Frederick (later Washington) County, Maryland. As the preceding posting states, when his father Griffith James made his will in Pendleton District, South Carolina, on 29 April 1795, the will made his two youngest sons John and Samuel, the two sons still living with their parents in 1795, their father’s executor.

The bill of complaint filed by Samuel’s first cousin Malinda Junkins in 1847 in her lawsuit against her parents says that Samuel James had left South Carolina to go west and had not been heard from in thirty years and was presumed dead. The bill of complaint also says that Samuel died unmarried and without lawful issue. The 4 July 1874 letter of William Simpson discussed above also states that Samuel James, a Revolutionary soldier, had gone west from South Carolina.

Samuel James had left South Carolina 7 September 1825 when his uncle Samuel Dean, acting as Samuel James’ power of attorney, sold Griffith Dean 154 acres on a branch of Twenty-Six Mile Creek in Pendleton District belonging to Samuel James, with the deed stating that Samuel James was “formerly of Pendleton District.”[19]

Samuel may have already left South Carolina by 12 September 1821 when Joseph Grisham filed a suit of debt against him in Pendleton District and Samuel did not (as it seems to me, reading the court documents) appear in court after having been summoned.[20] Samuel was indebted to Joseph for $20.50 promised by a note of obligation, dated 28 January 1821. When Samuel did not appear in court, his property was garnished.

I think that Samuel James continued owning property in Pendleton District after he left South Carolina, since a man of this name appears on tax lists of Anderson County in 1835, 1836, 1837, 1838, and 1840, and I’m not aware of another Samuel James living in or holding property in Anderson County at this time. This property may well have been the land whose disposition Malinda Junkins was challenging in her 1847 lawsuit.

I have been unable to discover where Samuel James went when he left South Carolina, and where he died and may be buried. If Malinda Junkins’ bill of complaint in 1847 is correct, then he left South Carolina by 1817, since he had not been heard of, she claimed, for thirty years. The 1820 federal census shows a number of men with the name Samuel James in points west of South Carolina including Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, and Louisiana.

As stated previously, though the will of Griffith James does not name a son Thomas, the 4 July 1874 letter of William Simpson states that Griffith James had a son Thomas, who was a Revolutionary soldier who went west. As one reads the family history William Simpson offers in this letter, it’s important to keep in mind that it definitely contains mistaken information. Simpson states, for instance, that Gwendolyn James’ husband Samuel Dean was “a frenchman who came over to this country with General Lafayette,” and that Hannah James married “a Mr. Lenard, one of the hessians that Grand Father helped take prisoner at Trenton.” Both of these pieces of information are totally incorrect.

A Thomas James married Elizabeth McFall in Washington County, Maryland, on 18 April 1778 and is found on the 1790 federal census in that county. But this Thomas James does not appear to be a son of Griffith and Mary James. His roots lie in Harford County, Maryland, and I find no information that links him to Griffith James.

[1] Anderson County, South Carolina, Will Bk. C, p. 82.

[2] Thomas Dunlap Leonard, “Biography of the Leonards” (1883 manuscript now circulated as typescript; present whereabouts are not known).

[3] See Elizabeth Lucie Leonard Baxter, “Leonard Family,” Marshall County, Tennessee, Historical Quarterly 6,2 (summer 1975); and Find a Grave memorial page of Hannah James Leonard, Leonard cemetery, Marshall County, Tennessee, created by Donna B. and maintained by LookingforFamily, with a gravestone photo by Jimmy Trout. Note that the Find a Grave memorial page gives Hannah James a middle name, Leona, that is erroneous. No document I’ve seen ever states a middle name for Hannah.

[4] Beverly Dean Peoples and Ralph Terry Dean, Country Cousins, Descendants of Samuel Dean, 2nd ed.(Franklin, North Carolina: Genealogy Publishing, 2001), p. 3. See also Beverly Dean Peoples, “Richard Deane (1701-1788) and His Children,” at Rootsweb.

[5] Gwendolyn James Dean’s will is in Anderson County, South Carolina, Will Bk B, pp. 6-7. Samuel Dean’s will is a “floating” will not recorded in a will book: Anderson County, South Carolina, probate files box 15, no. 173.

[6] Beverly Dean Peoples and Ralph Terry Dean, Country Cousins, p. 3.

[7] Liber Defunctorium in Parochia Sancta Maria, etc., available digitally at FamilySearch.

[8] Washington County, Maryland, Will Bk. A, pp. 29-30.

[9] Thomas James, Three Years Among the Indians and Mexican (Waterloo, Illinois: War Eagle Office, 1846).

[10] The Combined History of Randolph, Monroe and Perry Counties, Illinois, etc. (Philadelphia: J.L. McDonough, 1883).

[11] In 1999, Heidi Rose Lahey owned the original letter and another that William Simpson wrote on 7 February 1877. She has helpfully placed transcriptions of both letters online at Rootsweb.

[12] Henry C. Peden, Revolutionary Patriots of Washington County, Maryland 1776-1783 (Westminster, Maryland: Family Line, 1998], p. 184; and S. Eugene Clements and Edward F. Wright, The Maryland Militia in the Revolutionary War (Silver Spring: Family Line, 1987], p. 240)

[13] I do not know the present whereabouts of this handwritten document. Digital copies are online at FamilySearch here and here. The 19 November 1763 date of birth is also stated in Hugh S. Watson’s “Genealogy” column, Virginia Gazette (13 August 1954), p. 11, col. 1, with a clipping of this column in the Alabama Archives’ surname files.

[14] See Yvonne Cummings Miller, Biography of H. Clay and Ruby Cummings (Salt Lake City: Hiller, 1990); and Frank Ellwood Esshom, Pioneers and Prominent Men of Utah (Salt Lake City: Utah Pioneers Book Publishing Company, 1913), p. 831. See also Heidi Rose Lahey’s family history site, noting the dates of birth and death of Mary James and her husband Harmon Cummings and indicating that both are registered in temple-rites records of the LDS church.

[15] Maryland Historical Society, Maryland Marriages 1777-1804; and Gaius Marcus Brumbaugh, Maryland Records, vol. 2 (Lancaster, Pennsylvania, 1928; repr. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, 1967), p. 522.

[16] 1830 federal census, Anderson County, South Carolina, p. 183A; 1840 federal census, Anderson County, South Carolina, p. 103.

[17] Melinda Junkins vs. Harmon Cummins, Mary Cummins, Moses Dean, et al., Anderson County, South Carolina, Equity Court no. 140 (no. 29, 1847).

[18] Anderson County, South Carolina, Deed Bk. Z, pp. 195-7.

[19] Ibid., Bk. R, pp. 483-4.

[20] Joseph Grisham vs. Samuel James, Pendleton District, South Carolina, Summary Process Papers, roll 2109.

Children of Griffith and Mary James: Hannah, Gwendolyn, Joseph, Mary, John, and Samuel

Or, Subtitled: Migration Trails from Maryland to South Carolina and Many Points West

As the previous posting shows, in his 20 April 1795 will in Pendleton District, South Carolina, Griffith James names his wife Mary and the following children: Hannah, Gwendolyn (Jenny in the will), Joseph, Mary, John, and Samuel.[1] The children are named in order of birth by gender groupings, with the three sons named in their order of birth as well as the three daughters. A 4 July 1874 letter of William Simpson, a great-grandson of Griffith James’ daughter Mary James Cummings, states that Griffith James also had a son Thomas, who is not named in the will. That letter and the question of the son Thomas will be discussed below. (To read the continuation of this posting, please click the numeral 2 below.)

Here are some salient pieces of information about Griffith and Mary James’ children:

1. Hannah James was born 2 November 1752 in Maryland. If Griffith James had already settled by this date in the vicinity of what would later be Sharpsburg in Washington County, then I think Hannah would likely have been born in Frederick County, the parent county of Washington. But I do not have proof of her place of birth, other than to note that her grandson Thomas Dunlap Leonard states in his 1883 “Biography of the Leonards” that Hannah was “born and reared in Maryland.”[2]

I’ve discussed Hannah James Leonard’s life in detail in my series of postings about the Leonard family. As the posting I just linked states, about 1775 in Frederick (later Washington) County, Hannah married Thomas Leonard, son of Robert Leonard and Honor Pritchard (and see also here). This family moved from Maryland to Pendleton District, South Carolina, in 1786 and from South Carolina to Lincoln (later Marshall) County, Tennessee, in 1808.

As another posting about the Leonard family notes, Hannah’s dates of birth and death are recorded on her grave marker in the Leonard family cemetery outside Petersburg, Marshall County, Tennessee.[3] The gravestone states, as indicated above, that she was born 2 November 1752 and that she died 3 November 1842. Hannah died at the Leonard homeplace outside Petersburg in Marshall County, Tennessee. The family cemetery, in which she is buried with husband Thomas Leonard, is behind the site of the old homeplace.

2. Gwendolyn James was born about 1754, probably in Frederick (later Washington) County, Maryland. I haven’t found a document giving a precise date of birth for Gwendolyn. The 1754 date is suggested by Beverly Dean Peoples and Ralph Terry Dean in their book Country Cousins, Descendants of Samuel Dean.[4] Federal censuses on which Gwendolyn is enumerated in her husband Samuel Dean’s household do not offer much help in narrowing down the year of her birth: the 1800 census places it between 1755 and 1774, the 1810 census before 1765, and the 1820 census before 1775. Gwendolyn was living in 1830 after Samuel died in 1826, but I do not find her listed as head of a household on the 1830 federal census.

As Country Cousins states, a 1751 birthdate for Samuel Dean has been handed down among his descendants. Griffith James’ will names Gwendolyn (“Jenny”) after her sister Hannah, whose 2 November 1752 birthdate is established by her gravestone. As we’ll see in a moment, there’s documentary evidence for a 1758 birthdate for Griffith’s son Joseph and for a birthdate of 19 November 1763 for Griffith’s daughter Mary. So if Gwenny was born between Hannah and Mary, her birth year would definitely fall between 1752 and 1763, and, it appears, prior to Joseph’s birth year of 1758. Samuel and Gwendolyn’s first child, Thomas, was born 13 September 1774, and that date also makes a 1754 birth year for his mother very reasonable.

Gwendolyn James married Samuel, son of Richard and Priscilla Dean, about 1773. Since Richard Dean and Griffith James lived on adjoining tracts of land outside Sharpsburg in what was then Frederick but soon to be Washington County, the marriage would very likely have occurred in Frederick County.

Gwendolyn James Dean made a will on 6 December 1834 in Anderson County, South Carolina, her husband Samuel having died there also testate with a will dated 22 May 1826 and probated 25 September 1826.[5] Gwendolyn’s will was probated 7 September 1835, so she died between 6 December 1834 and 7 September 1835. Why numerous family trees published online and Gwendolyn’s Find a Grave memorial page state her date of death as 5 December 1834 is beyond me to understand or explain.

According to Country Cousins,[6]

Samuel Dean and Gwendolyn James and others are buried in unmarked graves on what was then their property near Fairview School on Highway 116 between Belton, SC and Williamston, SC.

The cemetery in which Gwendolyn and Samuel are buried is now known as the Dean cemetery, and is close to Starr in Anderson County, South Carolina.

3. Joseph James was born in 1758, very likely in Frederick (later Washington) County, Maryland. We know Joseph’s year of birth from his death record in the death register of Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary parish in Perryville, Perry County, Missouri. This states that he died in that parish on 22 May 1825, aged 67.[7] The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary parish served the English-speaking Catholic population of the area from 1817 until its merger with the German-speaking St. Boniface Parish to form St. Vincent de Paul Parish in 1965.

As previous postings have stated (see here and here), about 1780 in Washington County, Maryland, Joseph married Elizabeth, daughter of James and Sarah Walker Austin. The 20 April 1779 will of Elizabeth’s father James Austin in Washington County states that James was leaving to daughters Elizabeth and Charity shares in a tract of land called King Cole, which came to Joseph James by his marriage to Elizabeth, and which he later sold to his father Griffith James.[8]

As previously noted, about 1791, Joseph moved his family from Washington County, Maryland, to Kentucky. A book written by his son Thomas James entitled Three Years Among the Indians and Mexicans, which recounts his experiences on a trading expedition in 1809 with Auguste P. Chouteau from St. Ferdinand, Missouri, up to the headwaters of the Missouri River and to the Columbia, says that in 1803, Joseph James moved his family from Kentucky to Illinois and then in the spring of 1807, the family made its way to Missouri.[9]

The Combined History of Randolph, Monroe and Perry Counties, Illinois, states,[10]

The James family, of Welsh origin, were among the early settlers in the American Bottom [in Monroe County, Illinois]. Joseph Austin James emigrated to Illinois in 1803, accompanied by his son, Thomas James, who was born in Maryland, in the year 1782, and James A. He moved to Missouri in 1807, where he died.

One of Joseph James and Elizabeth Austin’s sons was named James Austin James, and I suspect that the history of Randolph, Monroe, and Perry Counties has given James’ father Joseph the middle name of Austin for that reason. I have seen no documents giving Joseph, son of Griffith and Mary James, the middle name Austin. If Joseph did have a middle name, it might have been Griffith and not Austin. A letter written on 4 July 1874 by William Simpson of Jacksonville, Florida, a great-grandson of Joseph James’ sister Mary and husband Harmon Cummings, states that Griffith and Mary James had a son Griffith who was a Revolutionary soldier who went west from Maryland.[11] William Simpson seems to be referring here to Joseph James, who was a private in Captain John Reynolds’ militia company, 2nd battalion, in Maryland during the Revolutionary War.[12]

Joseph James’ place of burial is not known. There’s speculation that he’s buried at Mount Hope cemetery in Perryville, Missouri, but if that’s the case, his grave is not now marked.

4. Mary James was born 19 November 1763 in Frederick (later Washington) County, Maryland. This date of birth is recorded in a document written by her son John Cummings, entitled “A Journal of the Life & Parantage [sic] of John Cummings & Wife.”[13] Biographies of John Cummings note that he was born in Pendleton District/Anderson County, South Carolina, on 2 December 1802, and in 1830, moved to Gibson County, Tennessee, where he and wife Rachel Canada became Mormons and went to Nauvoo, Illinois, then from there in 1832 to Provo City, Utah, and finally to Heber City.[14] I think it’s likely that John Cummings’ handwritten document is now held by descendants in Utah or is perhaps in a library or archive there.

In a previous posting, I noted that the marriage of Mary James and Harmon Cummings on 7 September 1779 is recorded in records of Washington County, Maryland, indicating that the marriage was solemnized by Reverend George Mitchell of Hagerstown, who also married Mary Ann Leonard and Colin Campbell. Mary Ann Leonard was a sister of Thomas Leonard who married Mary James’ brother Thomas Leonard.[15]

The journal of Harmon and Mary Cummings’ son John states that Harmon Cummings was born 23 March 1756 and died 4 February 1851. Mary James Cummings died 29 March 1847 according to John Cummings’ journal. Both died in Anderson County, South Carolina, and are said to be buried in the cemetery of Mountain Creek Baptist church south of Anderson, to which they belonged.

5. John James was born between 1770 and 1780 according to the 1830 federal census of Anderson County, South Carolina, and between 1750 and 1760 according to the 1840 federal census.[16] I suspect his birth year actually fell somewhere between 1760 and 1770.

John James died in Anderson County in January 1842. In 1847, his niece Malinda Junkins, daughter of Harmon and Mary James Cummings, filed a case for partition of property belonging to John and his brother Samuel that had come to them from Griffith and Mary James.[17] Malinda’s 21 February 1847 bill of complaint states that John James died in Anderson County in January 1842 unmarried and with no legal issue, but that he had an illegitimate daughter who married William Hembree, and that Hembree was occupying the land in question. An inventory of John’s estate filed in the case file shows that the estate inventory was done on 1 February 1842 and a bill of sale in the file shows John’s estate being sold on 18 February 1842 at the house of John E. Norris.

Prior to this lawsuit on 7 April 1846, Harmon and Mary Cummings had deeded to daughter Malinda Junkins 174 acres that had descended to them from their brothers John and Samuel James, with the deed stating that both John and Samuel had died prior to April 1846, neither leaving lawful issue.[18] This document also states that William Hembree was occupying what had been the land co-owned by John and his brother Samuel.

6. Samuel James was likely born between 1760 and 1770 in Frederick (later Washington) County, Maryland. As the preceding posting states, when his father Griffith James made his will in Pendleton District, South Carolina, on 29 April 1795, the will made his two youngest sons John and Samuel, the two sons still living with their parents in 1795, their father’s executor.

The bill of complaint filed by Samuel’s first cousin Malinda Junkins in 1847 in her lawsuit against her parents says that Samuel James had left South Carolina to go west and had not been heard from in thirty years and was presumed dead. The bill of complaint also says that Samuel died unmarried and without lawful issue. The 4 July 1874 letter of William Simpson discussed above also states that Samuel James, a Revolutionary soldier, had gone west from South Carolina.

Samuel James had left South Carolina 7 September 1825 when his uncle Samuel Dean, acting as Samuel James’ power of attorney, sold Griffith Dean 154 acres on a branch of Twenty-Six Mile Creek in Pendleton District belonging to Samuel James, with the deed stating that Samuel James was “formerly of Pendleton District.”[19]

Samuel may have already left South Carolina by 12 September 1821 when Joseph Grisham filed a suit of debt against him in Pendleton District and Samuel did not (as it seems to me, reading the court documents) appear in court after having been summoned.[20] Samuel was indebted to Joseph for $20.50 promised by a note of obligation, dated 28 January 1821. When Samuel did not appear in court, his property was garnished.

I think that Samuel James continued owning property in Pendleton District after he left South Carolina, since a man of this name appears on tax lists of Anderson County in 1835, 1836, 1837, 1838, and 1840, and I’m not aware of another Samuel James living in or holding property in Anderson County at this time. This property may well have been the land whose disposition Malinda Junkins was challenging in her 1847 lawsuit.

I have been unable to discover where Samuel James went when he left South Carolina, and where he died and may be buried. If Malinda Junkins’ bill of complaint in 1847 is correct, then he left South Carolina by 1817, since he had not been heard of, she claimed, for thirty years. The 1820 federal census shows a number of men with the name Samuel James in points west of South Carolina including Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, and Louisiana.

As stated previously, though the will of Griffith James does not name a son Thomas, the 4 July 1874 letter of William Simpson states that Griffith James had a son Thomas, who was a Revolutionary soldier who went west. As one reads the family history William Simpson offers in this letter, it’s important to keep in mind that it definitely contains mistaken information. Simpson states, for instance, that Gwendolyn James’ husband Samuel Dean was “a frenchman who came over to this country with General Lafayette,” and that Hannah James married “a Mr. Lenard, one of the hessians that Grand Father helped take prisoner at Trenton.” Both of these pieces of information are totally incorrect.

A Thomas James married Elizabeth McFall in Washington County, Maryland, on 18 April 1778 and is found on the 1790 federal census in that county. But this Thomas James does not appear to be a son of Griffith and Mary James. His roots lie in Harford County, Maryland, and I find no information that links him to Griffith James.

[1] Anderson County, South Carolina, Will Bk. C, p. 82.

[2] Thomas Dunlap Leonard, “Biography of the Leonards” (1883 manuscript now circulated as typescript; present whereabouts are not known).

[3] See Elizabeth Lucie Leonard Baxter, “Leonard Family,” Marshall County, Tennessee, Historical Quarterly 6,2 (summer 1975); and Find a Grave memorial page of Hannah James Leonard, Leonard cemetery, Marshall County, Tennessee, created by Donna B. and maintained by LookingforFamily, with a gravestone photo by Jimmy Trout. Note that the Find a Grave memorial page gives Hannah James a middle name, Leona, that is erroneous. No document I’ve seen ever states a middle name for Hannah.

[4] Beverly Dean Peoples and Ralph Terry Dean, Country Cousins, Descendants of Samuel Dean, 2nd ed.(Franklin, North Carolina: Genealogy Publishing, 2001), p. 3. See also Beverly Dean Peoples, “Richard Deane (1701-1788) and His Children,” at Rootsweb.

[5] Gwendolyn James Dean’s will is in Anderson County, South Carolina, Will Bk B, pp. 6-7. Samuel Dean’s will is a “floating” will not recorded in a will book: Anderson County, South Carolina, probate files box 15, no. 173.

[6] Beverly Dean Peoples and Ralph Terry Dean, Country Cousins, p. 3.

[7] Liber Defunctorium in Parochia Sancta Maria, etc., available digitally at FamilySearch.

[8] Washington County, Maryland, Will Bk. A, pp. 29-30.

[9] Thomas James, Three Years Among the Indians and Mexican (Waterloo, Illinois: War Eagle Office, 1846).

[10] The Combined History of Randolph, Monroe and Perry Counties, Illinois, etc. (Philadelphia: J.L. McDonough, 1883).

[11] In 1999, Heidi Rose Lahey owned the original letter and another that William Simpson wrote on 7 February 1877. She has helpfully placed transcriptions of both letters online at Rootsweb.

[12] Henry C. Peden, Revolutionary Patriots of Washington County, Maryland 1776-1783 (Westminster, Maryland: Family Line, 1998], p. 184; and S. Eugene Clements and Edward F. Wright, The Maryland Militia in the Revolutionary War (Silver Spring: Family Line, 1987], p. 240)

[13] I do not know the present whereabouts of this handwritten document. Digital copies are online at FamilySearch here and here. The 19 November 1763 date of birth is also stated in Hugh S. Watson’s “Genealogy” column, Virginia Gazette (13 August 1954), p. 11, col. 1, with a clipping of this column in the Alabama Archives’ surname files.

[14] See Yvonne Cummings Miller, Biography of H. Clay and Ruby Cummings (Salt Lake City: Hiller, 1990); and Frank Ellwood Esshom, Pioneers and Prominent Men of Utah (Salt Lake City: Utah Pioneers Book Publishing Company, 1913), p. 831. See also Heidi Rose Lahey’s family history site, noting the dates of birth and death of Mary James and her husband Harmon Cummings and indicating that both are registered in temple-rites records of the LDS church.

[15] Maryland Historical Society, Maryland Marriages 1777-1804; and Gaius Marcus Brumbaugh, Maryland Records, vol. 2 (Lancaster, Pennsylvania, 1928; repr. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, 1967), p. 522.

[16] 1830 federal census, Anderson County, South Carolina, p. 183A; 1840 federal census, Anderson County, South Carolina, p. 103.

[17] Melinda Junkins vs. Harmon Cummins, Mary Cummins, Moses Dean, et al., Anderson County, South Carolina, Equity Court no. 140 (no. 29, 1847).

[18] Anderson County, South Carolina, Deed Bk. Z, pp. 195-7.

[19] Ibid., Bk. R, pp. 483-4.

[20] Joseph Grisham vs. Samuel James, Pendleton District, South Carolina, Summary Process Papers, roll 2109.

Children of Griffith and Mary James: Hannah, Gwendolyn, Joseph, Mary, John, and Samuel

Or, Subtitled: Migration Trails from Maryland to South Carolina and Many Points West

As the previous posting shows, in his 20 April 1795 will in Pendleton District, South Carolina, Griffith James names his wife Mary and the following children: Hannah, Gwendolyn (Jenny in the will), Joseph, Mary, John, and Samuel.[1] The children are named in order of birth by gender groupings, with the three sons named in their order of birth as well as the three daughters. A 4 July 1874 letter of William Simpson, a great-grandson of Griffith James’ daughter Mary James Cummings, states that Griffith James also had a son Thomas, who is not named in the will. That letter and the question of the son Thomas will be discussed below. (To read the continuation of this posting, please click the numeral 2 below.)

Here are some salient pieces of information about Griffith and Mary James’ children:

1. Hannah James was born 2 November 1752 in Maryland. If Griffith James had already settled by this date in the vicinity of what would later be Sharpsburg in Washington County, then I think Hannah would likely have been born in Frederick County, the parent county of Washington. But I do not have proof of her place of birth, other than to note that her grandson Thomas Dunlap Leonard states in his 1883 “Biography of the Leonards” that Hannah was “born and reared in Maryland.”[2]

I’ve discussed Hannah James Leonard’s life in detail in my series of postings about the Leonard family. As the posting I just linked states, about 1775 in Frederick (later Washington) County, Hannah married Thomas Leonard, son of Robert Leonard and Honor Pritchard (and see also here). This family moved from Maryland to Pendleton District, South Carolina, in 1786 and from South Carolina to Lincoln (later Marshall) County, Tennessee, in 1808.

As another posting about the Leonard family notes, Hannah’s dates of birth and death are recorded on her grave marker in the Leonard family cemetery outside Petersburg, Marshall County, Tennessee.[3] The gravestone states, as indicated above, that she was born 2 November 1752 and that she died 3 November 1842. Hannah died at the Leonard homeplace outside Petersburg in Marshall County, Tennessee. The family cemetery, in which she is buried with husband Thomas Leonard, is behind the site of the old homeplace.

2. Gwendolyn James was born about 1754, probably in Frederick (later Washington) County, Maryland. I haven’t found a document giving a precise date of birth for Gwendolyn. The 1754 date is suggested by Beverly Dean Peoples and Ralph Terry Dean in their book Country Cousins, Descendants of Samuel Dean.[4] Federal censuses on which Gwendolyn is enumerated in her husband Samuel Dean’s household do not offer much help in narrowing down the year of her birth: the 1800 census places it between 1755 and 1774, the 1810 census before 1765, and the 1820 census before 1775. Gwendolyn was living in 1830 after Samuel died in 1826, but I do not find her listed as head of a household on the 1830 federal census.

As Country Cousins states, a 1751 birthdate for Samuel Dean has been handed down among his descendants. Griffith James’ will names Gwendolyn (“Jenny”) after her sister Hannah, whose 2 November 1752 birthdate is established by her gravestone. As we’ll see in a moment, there’s documentary evidence for a 1758 birthdate for Griffith’s son Joseph and for a birthdate of 19 November 1763 for Griffith’s daughter Mary. So if Gwenny was born between Hannah and Mary, her birth year would definitely fall between 1752 and 1763, and, it appears, prior to Joseph’s birth year of 1758. Samuel and Gwendolyn’s first child, Thomas, was born 13 September 1774, and that date also makes a 1754 birth year for his mother very reasonable.

Gwendolyn James married Samuel, son of Richard and Priscilla Dean, about 1773. Since Richard Dean and Griffith James lived on adjoining tracts of land outside Sharpsburg in what was then Frederick but soon to be Washington County, the marriage would very likely have occurred in Frederick County.

Gwendolyn James Dean made a will on 6 December 1834 in Anderson County, South Carolina, her husband Samuel having died there also testate with a will dated 22 May 1826 and probated 25 September 1826.[5] Gwendolyn’s will was probated 7 September 1835, so she died between 6 December 1834 and 7 September 1835. Why numerous family trees published online and Gwendolyn’s Find a Grave memorial page state her date of death as 5 December 1834 is beyond me to understand or explain.

According to Country Cousins,[6]

Samuel Dean and Gwendolyn James and others are buried in unmarked graves on what was then their property near Fairview School on Highway 116 between Belton, SC and Williamston, SC.

The cemetery in which Gwendolyn and Samuel are buried is now known as the Dean cemetery, and is close to Starr in Anderson County, South Carolina.

3. Joseph James was born in 1758, very likely in Frederick (later Washington) County, Maryland. We know Joseph’s year of birth from his death record in the death register of Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary parish in Perryville, Perry County, Missouri. This states that he died in that parish on 22 May 1825, aged 67.[7] The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary parish served the English-speaking Catholic population of the area from 1817 until its merger with the German-speaking St. Boniface Parish to form St. Vincent de Paul Parish in 1965.

As previous postings have stated (see here and here), about 1780 in Washington County, Maryland, Joseph married Elizabeth, daughter of James and Sarah Walker Austin. The 20 April 1779 will of Elizabeth’s father James Austin in Washington County states that James was leaving to daughters Elizabeth and Charity shares in a tract of land called King Cole, which came to Joseph James by his marriage to Elizabeth, and which he later sold to his father Griffith James.[8]

As previously noted, about 1791, Joseph moved his family from Washington County, Maryland, to Kentucky. A book written by his son Thomas James entitled Three Years Among the Indians and Mexicans, which recounts his experiences on a trading expedition in 1809 with Auguste P. Chouteau from St. Ferdinand, Missouri, up to the headwaters of the Missouri River and to the Columbia, says that in 1803, Joseph James moved his family from Kentucky to Illinois and then in the spring of 1807, the family made its way to Missouri.[9]

The Combined History of Randolph, Monroe and Perry Counties, Illinois, states,[10]

The James family, of Welsh origin, were among the early settlers in the American Bottom [in Monroe County, Illinois]. Joseph Austin James emigrated to Illinois in 1803, accompanied by his son, Thomas James, who was born in Maryland, in the year 1782, and James A. He moved to Missouri in 1807, where he died.

One of Joseph James and Elizabeth Austin’s sons was named James Austin James, and I suspect that the history of Randolph, Monroe, and Perry Counties has given James’ father Joseph the middle name of Austin for that reason. I have seen no documents giving Joseph, son of Griffith and Mary James, the middle name Austin. If Joseph did have a middle name, it might have been Griffith and not Austin. A letter written on 4 July 1874 by William Simpson of Jacksonville, Florida, a great-grandson of Joseph James’ sister Mary and husband Harmon Cummings, states that Griffith and Mary James had a son Griffith who was a Revolutionary soldier who went west from Maryland.[11] William Simpson seems to be referring here to Joseph James, who was a private in Captain John Reynolds’ militia company, 2nd battalion, in Maryland during the Revolutionary War.[12]

Joseph James’ place of burial is not known. There’s speculation that he’s buried at Mount Hope cemetery in Perryville, Missouri, but if that’s the case, his grave is not now marked.

4. Mary James was born 19 November 1763 in Frederick (later Washington) County, Maryland. This date of birth is recorded in a document written by her son John Cummings, entitled “A Journal of the Life & Parantage [sic] of John Cummings & Wife.”[13] Biographies of John Cummings note that he was born in Pendleton District/Anderson County, South Carolina, on 2 December 1802, and in 1830, moved to Gibson County, Tennessee, where he and wife Rachel Canada became Mormons and went to Nauvoo, Illinois, then from there in 1832 to Provo City, Utah, and finally to Heber City.[14] I think it’s likely that John Cummings’ handwritten document is now held by descendants in Utah or is perhaps in a library or archive there.

In a previous posting, I noted that the marriage of Mary James and Harmon Cummings on 7 September 1779 is recorded in records of Washington County, Maryland, indicating that the marriage was solemnized by Reverend George Mitchell of Hagerstown, who also married Mary Ann Leonard and Colin Campbell. Mary Ann Leonard was a sister of Thomas Leonard who married Mary James’ brother Thomas Leonard.[15]

The journal of Harmon and Mary Cummings’ son John states that Harmon Cummings was born 23 March 1756 and died 4 February 1851. Mary James Cummings died 29 March 1847 according to John Cummings’ journal. Both died in Anderson County, South Carolina, and are said to be buried in the cemetery of Mountain Creek Baptist church south of Anderson, to which they belonged.

5. John James was born between 1770 and 1780 according to the 1830 federal census of Anderson County, South Carolina, and between 1750 and 1760 according to the 1840 federal census.[16] I suspect his birth year actually fell somewhere between 1760 and 1770.

John James died in Anderson County in January 1842. In 1847, his niece Malinda Junkins, daughter of Harmon and Mary James Cummings, filed a case for partition of property belonging to John and his brother Samuel that had come to them from Griffith and Mary James.[17] Malinda’s 21 February 1847 bill of complaint states that John James died in Anderson County in January 1842 unmarried and with no legal issue, but that he had an illegitimate daughter who married William Hembree, and that Hembree was occupying the land in question. An inventory of John’s estate filed in the case file shows that the estate inventory was done on 1 February 1842 and a bill of sale in the file shows John’s estate being sold on 18 February 1842 at the house of John E. Norris.

Prior to this lawsuit on 7 April 1846, Harmon and Mary Cummings had deeded to daughter Malinda Junkins 174 acres that had descended to them from their brothers John and Samuel James, with the deed stating that both John and Samuel had died prior to April 1846, neither leaving lawful issue.[18] This document also states that William Hembree was occupying what had been the land co-owned by John and his brother Samuel.

6. Samuel James was likely born between 1760 and 1770 in Frederick (later Washington) County, Maryland. As the preceding posting states, when his father Griffith James made his will in Pendleton District, South Carolina, on 29 April 1795, the will made his two youngest sons John and Samuel, the two sons still living with their parents in 1795, their father’s executor.

The bill of complaint filed by Samuel’s first cousin Malinda Junkins in 1847 in her lawsuit against her parents says that Samuel James had left South Carolina to go west and had not been heard from in thirty years and was presumed dead. The bill of complaint also says that Samuel died unmarried and without lawful issue. The 4 July 1874 letter of William Simpson discussed above also states that Samuel James, a Revolutionary soldier, had gone west from South Carolina.

Samuel James had left South Carolina 7 September 1825 when his uncle Samuel Dean, acting as Samuel James’ power of attorney, sold Griffith Dean 154 acres on a branch of Twenty-Six Mile Creek in Pendleton District belonging to Samuel James, with the deed stating that Samuel James was “formerly of Pendleton District.”[19]

Samuel may have already left South Carolina by 12 September 1821 when Joseph Grisham filed a suit of debt against him in Pendleton District and Samuel did not (as it seems to me, reading the court documents) appear in court after having been summoned.[20] Samuel was indebted to Joseph for $20.50 promised by a note of obligation, dated 28 January 1821. When Samuel did not appear in court, his property was garnished.

I think that Samuel James continued owning property in Pendleton District after he left South Carolina, since a man of this name appears on tax lists of Anderson County in 1835, 1836, 1837, 1838, and 1840, and I’m not aware of another Samuel James living in or holding property in Anderson County at this time. This property may well have been the land whose disposition Malinda Junkins was challenging in her 1847 lawsuit.

I have been unable to discover where Samuel James went when he left South Carolina, and where he died and may be buried. If Malinda Junkins’ bill of complaint in 1847 is correct, then he left South Carolina by 1817, since he had not been heard of, she claimed, for thirty years. The 1820 federal census shows a number of men with the name Samuel James in points west of South Carolina including Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, and Louisiana.

As stated previously, though the will of Griffith James does not name a son Thomas, the 4 July 1874 letter of William Simpson states that Griffith James had a son Thomas, who was a Revolutionary soldier who went west. As one reads the family history William Simpson offers in this letter, it’s important to keep in mind that it definitely contains mistaken information. Simpson states, for instance, that Gwendolyn James’ husband Samuel Dean was “a frenchman who came over to this country with General Lafayette,” and that Hannah James married “a Mr. Lenard, one of the hessians that Grand Father helped take prisoner at Trenton.” Both of these pieces of information are totally incorrect.

A Thomas James married Elizabeth McFall in Washington County, Maryland, on 18 April 1778 and is found on the 1790 federal census in that county. But this Thomas James does not appear to be a son of Griffith and Mary James. His roots lie in Harford County, Maryland, and I find no information that links him to Griffith James.

[1] Anderson County, South Carolina, Will Bk. C, p. 82.

[2] Thomas Dunlap Leonard, “Biography of the Leonards” (1883 manuscript now circulated as typescript; present whereabouts are not known).

[3] See Elizabeth Lucie Leonard Baxter, “Leonard Family,” Marshall County, Tennessee, Historical Quarterly 6,2 (summer 1975); and Find a Grave memorial page of Hannah James Leonard, Leonard cemetery, Marshall County, Tennessee, created by Donna B. and maintained by LookingforFamily, with a gravestone photo by Jimmy Trout. Note that the Find a Grave memorial page gives Hannah James a middle name, Leona, that is erroneous. No document I’ve seen ever states a middle name for Hannah.

[4] Beverly Dean Peoples and Ralph Terry Dean, Country Cousins, Descendants of Samuel Dean, 2nd ed.(Franklin, North Carolina: Genealogy Publishing, 2001), p. 3. See also Beverly Dean Peoples, “Richard Deane (1701-1788) and His Children,” at Rootsweb.

[5] Gwendolyn James Dean’s will is in Anderson County, South Carolina, Will Bk B, pp. 6-7. Samuel Dean’s will is a “floating” will not recorded in a will book: Anderson County, South Carolina, probate files box 15, no. 173.

[6] Beverly Dean Peoples and Ralph Terry Dean, Country Cousins, p. 3.

[7] Liber Defunctorium in Parochia Sancta Maria, etc., available digitally at FamilySearch.

[8] Washington County, Maryland, Will Bk. A, pp. 29-30.

[9] Thomas James, Three Years Among the Indians and Mexican (Waterloo, Illinois: War Eagle Office, 1846).

[10] The Combined History of Randolph, Monroe and Perry Counties, Illinois, etc. (Philadelphia: J.L. McDonough, 1883).

[11] In 1999, Heidi Rose Lahey owned the original letter and another that William Simpson wrote on 7 February 1877. She has helpfully placed transcriptions of both letters online at Rootsweb.

[12] Henry C. Peden, Revolutionary Patriots of Washington County, Maryland 1776-1783 (Westminster, Maryland: Family Line, 1998], p. 184; and S. Eugene Clements and Edward F. Wright, The Maryland Militia in the Revolutionary War (Silver Spring: Family Line, 1987], p. 240)

[13] I do not know the present whereabouts of this handwritten document. Digital copies are online at FamilySearch here and here. The 19 November 1763 date of birth is also stated in Hugh S. Watson’s “Genealogy” column, Virginia Gazette (13 August 1954), p. 11, col. 1, with a clipping of this column in the Alabama Archives’ surname files.

[14] See Yvonne Cummings Miller, Biography of H. Clay and Ruby Cummings (Salt Lake City: Hiller, 1990); and Frank Ellwood Esshom, Pioneers and Prominent Men of Utah (Salt Lake City: Utah Pioneers Book Publishing Company, 1913), p. 831. See also Heidi Rose Lahey’s family history site, noting the dates of birth and death of Mary James and her husband Harmon Cummings and indicating that both are registered in temple-rites records of the LDS church.

[15] Maryland Historical Society, Maryland Marriages 1777-1804; and Gaius Marcus Brumbaugh, Maryland Records, vol. 2 (Lancaster, Pennsylvania, 1928; repr. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, 1967), p. 522.

[16] 1830 federal census, Anderson County, South Carolina, p. 183A; 1840 federal census, Anderson County, South Carolina, p. 103.

[17] Melinda Junkins vs. Harmon Cummins, Mary Cummins, Moses Dean, et al., Anderson County, South Carolina, Equity Court no. 140 (no. 29, 1847).

[18] Anderson County, South Carolina, Deed Bk. Z, pp. 195-7.

[19] Ibid., Bk. R, pp. 483-4.

[20] Joseph Grisham vs. Samuel James, Pendleton District, South Carolina, Summary Process Papers, roll 2109.

Children of Griffith and Mary James: Hannah, Gwendolyn, Joseph, Mary, John, and Samuel

Or, Subtitled: Migration Trails from Maryland to South Carolina and Many Points West

As the previous posting shows, in his 20 April 1795 will in Pendleton District, South Carolina, Griffith James names his wife Mary and the following children: Hannah, Gwendolyn (Jenny in the will), Joseph, Mary, John, and Samuel.[1] The children are named in order of birth by gender groupings, with the three sons named in their order of birth as well as the three daughters. A 4 July 1874 letter of William Simpson, a great-grandson of Griffith James’ daughter Mary James Cummings, states that Griffith James also had a son Thomas, who is not named in the will. That letter and the question of the son Thomas will be discussed below. (To read the continuation of this posting, please click the numeral 2 below.)

Here are some salient pieces of information about Griffith and Mary James’ children:

1. Hannah James was born 2 November 1752 in Maryland. If Griffith James had already settled by this date in the vicinity of what would later be Sharpsburg in Washington County, then I think Hannah would likely have been born in Frederick County, the parent county of Washington. But I do not have proof of her place of birth, other than to note that her grandson Thomas Dunlap Leonard states in his 1883 “Biography of the Leonards” that Hannah was “born and reared in Maryland.”[2]

I’ve discussed Hannah James Leonard’s life in detail in my series of postings about the Leonard family. As the posting I just linked states, about 1775 in Frederick (later Washington) County, Hannah married Thomas Leonard, son of Robert Leonard and Honor Pritchard (and see also here). This family moved from Maryland to Pendleton District, South Carolina, in 1786 and from South Carolina to Lincoln (later Marshall) County, Tennessee, in 1808.

As another posting about the Leonard family notes, Hannah’s dates of birth and death are recorded on her grave marker in the Leonard family cemetery outside Petersburg, Marshall County, Tennessee.[3] The gravestone states, as indicated above, that she was born 2 November 1752 and that she died 3 November 1842. Hannah died at the Leonard homeplace outside Petersburg in Marshall County, Tennessee. The family cemetery, in which she is buried with husband Thomas Leonard, is behind the site of the old homeplace.

2. Gwendolyn James was born about 1754, probably in Frederick (later Washington) County, Maryland. I haven’t found a document giving a precise date of birth for Gwendolyn. The 1754 date is suggested by Beverly Dean Peoples and Ralph Terry Dean in their book Country Cousins, Descendants of Samuel Dean.[4] Federal censuses on which Gwendolyn is enumerated in her husband Samuel Dean’s household do not offer much help in narrowing down the year of her birth: the 1800 census places it between 1755 and 1774, the 1810 census before 1765, and the 1820 census before 1775. Gwendolyn was living in 1830 after Samuel died in 1826, but I do not find her listed as head of a household on the 1830 federal census.

As Country Cousins states, a 1751 birthdate for Samuel Dean has been handed down among his descendants. Griffith James’ will names Gwendolyn (“Jenny”) after her sister Hannah, whose 2 November 1752 birthdate is established by her gravestone. As we’ll see in a moment, there’s documentary evidence for a 1758 birthdate for Griffith’s son Joseph and for a birthdate of 19 November 1763 for Griffith’s daughter Mary. So if Gwenny was born between Hannah and Mary, her birth year would definitely fall between 1752 and 1763, and, it appears, prior to Joseph’s birth year of 1758. Samuel and Gwendolyn’s first child, Thomas, was born 13 September 1774, and that date also makes a 1754 birth year for his mother very reasonable.

Gwendolyn James married Samuel, son of Richard and Priscilla Dean, about 1773. Since Richard Dean and Griffith James lived on adjoining tracts of land outside Sharpsburg in what was then Frederick but soon to be Washington County, the marriage would very likely have occurred in Frederick County.

Gwendolyn James Dean made a will on 6 December 1834 in Anderson County, South Carolina, her husband Samuel having died there also testate with a will dated 22 May 1826 and probated 25 September 1826.[5] Gwendolyn’s will was probated 7 September 1835, so she died between 6 December 1834 and 7 September 1835. Why numerous family trees published online and Gwendolyn’s Find a Grave memorial page state her date of death as 5 December 1834 is beyond me to understand or explain.

According to Country Cousins,[6]

Samuel Dean and Gwendolyn James and others are buried in unmarked graves on what was then their property near Fairview School on Highway 116 between Belton, SC and Williamston, SC.

The cemetery in which Gwendolyn and Samuel are buried is now known as the Dean cemetery, and is close to Starr in Anderson County, South Carolina.

3. Joseph James was born in 1758, very likely in Frederick (later Washington) County, Maryland. We know Joseph’s year of birth from his death record in the death register of Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary parish in Perryville, Perry County, Missouri. This states that he died in that parish on 22 May 1825, aged 67.[7] The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary parish served the English-speaking Catholic population of the area from 1817 until its merger with the German-speaking St. Boniface Parish to form St. Vincent de Paul Parish in 1965.

As previous postings have stated (see here and here), about 1780 in Washington County, Maryland, Joseph married Elizabeth, daughter of James and Sarah Walker Austin. The 20 April 1779 will of Elizabeth’s father James Austin in Washington County states that James was leaving to daughters Elizabeth and Charity shares in a tract of land called King Cole, which came to Joseph James by his marriage to Elizabeth, and which he later sold to his father Griffith James.[8]

As previously noted, about 1791, Joseph moved his family from Washington County, Maryland, to Kentucky. A book written by his son Thomas James entitled Three Years Among the Indians and Mexicans, which recounts his experiences on a trading expedition in 1809 with Auguste P. Chouteau from St. Ferdinand, Missouri, up to the headwaters of the Missouri River and to the Columbia, says that in 1803, Joseph James moved his family from Kentucky to Illinois and then in the spring of 1807, the family made its way to Missouri.[9]

The Combined History of Randolph, Monroe and Perry Counties, Illinois, states,[10]

The James family, of Welsh origin, were among the early settlers in the American Bottom [in Monroe County, Illinois]. Joseph Austin James emigrated to Illinois in 1803, accompanied by his son, Thomas James, who was born in Maryland, in the year 1782, and James A. He moved to Missouri in 1807, where he died.

One of Joseph James and Elizabeth Austin’s sons was named James Austin James, and I suspect that the history of Randolph, Monroe, and Perry Counties has given James’ father Joseph the middle name of Austin for that reason. I have seen no documents giving Joseph, son of Griffith and Mary James, the middle name Austin. If Joseph did have a middle name, it might have been Griffith and not Austin. A letter written on 4 July 1874 by William Simpson of Jacksonville, Florida, a great-grandson of Joseph James’ sister Mary and husband Harmon Cummings, states that Griffith and Mary James had a son Griffith who was a Revolutionary soldier who went west from Maryland.[11] William Simpson seems to be referring here to Joseph James, who was a private in Captain John Reynolds’ militia company, 2nd battalion, in Maryland during the Revolutionary War.[12]

Joseph James’ place of burial is not known. There’s speculation that he’s buried at Mount Hope cemetery in Perryville, Missouri, but if that’s the case, his grave is not now marked.

4. Mary James was born 19 November 1763 in Frederick (later Washington) County, Maryland. This date of birth is recorded in a document written by her son John Cummings, entitled “A Journal of the Life & Parantage [sic] of John Cummings & Wife.”[13] Biographies of John Cummings note that he was born in Pendleton District/Anderson County, South Carolina, on 2 December 1802, and in 1830, moved to Gibson County, Tennessee, where he and wife Rachel Canada became Mormons and went to Nauvoo, Illinois, then from there in 1832 to Provo City, Utah, and finally to Heber City.[14] I think it’s likely that John Cummings’ handwritten document is now held by descendants in Utah or is perhaps in a library or archive there.

In a previous posting, I noted that the marriage of Mary James and Harmon Cummings on 7 September 1779 is recorded in records of Washington County, Maryland, indicating that the marriage was solemnized by Reverend George Mitchell of Hagerstown, who also married Mary Ann Leonard and Colin Campbell. Mary Ann Leonard was a sister of Thomas Leonard who married Mary James’ brother Thomas Leonard.[15]

The journal of Harmon and Mary Cummings’ son John states that Harmon Cummings was born 23 March 1756 and died 4 February 1851. Mary James Cummings died 29 March 1847 according to John Cummings’ journal. Both died in Anderson County, South Carolina, and are said to be buried in the cemetery of Mountain Creek Baptist church south of Anderson, to which they belonged.

5. John James was born between 1770 and 1780 according to the 1830 federal census of Anderson County, South Carolina, and between 1750 and 1760 according to the 1840 federal census.[16] I suspect his birth year actually fell somewhere between 1760 and 1770.

John James died in Anderson County in January 1842. In 1847, his niece Malinda Junkins, daughter of Harmon and Mary James Cummings, filed a case for partition of property belonging to John and his brother Samuel that had come to them from Griffith and Mary James.[17] Malinda’s 21 February 1847 bill of complaint states that John James died in Anderson County in January 1842 unmarried and with no legal issue, but that he had an illegitimate daughter who married William Hembree, and that Hembree was occupying the land in question. An inventory of John’s estate filed in the case file shows that the estate inventory was done on 1 February 1842 and a bill of sale in the file shows John’s estate being sold on 18 February 1842 at the house of John E. Norris.

Prior to this lawsuit on 7 April 1846, Harmon and Mary Cummings had deeded to daughter Malinda Junkins 174 acres that had descended to them from their brothers John and Samuel James, with the deed stating that both John and Samuel had died prior to April 1846, neither leaving lawful issue.[18] This document also states that William Hembree was occupying what had been the land co-owned by John and his brother Samuel.

6. Samuel James was likely born between 1760 and 1770 in Frederick (later Washington) County, Maryland. As the preceding posting states, when his father Griffith James made his will in Pendleton District, South Carolina, on 29 April 1795, the will made his two youngest sons John and Samuel, the two sons still living with their parents in 1795, their father’s executor.

The bill of complaint filed by Samuel’s first cousin Malinda Junkins in 1847 in her lawsuit against her parents says that Samuel James had left South Carolina to go west and had not been heard from in thirty years and was presumed dead. The bill of complaint also says that Samuel died unmarried and without lawful issue. The 4 July 1874 letter of William Simpson discussed above also states that Samuel James, a Revolutionary soldier, had gone west from South Carolina.

Samuel James had left South Carolina 7 September 1825 when his uncle Samuel Dean, acting as Samuel James’ power of attorney, sold Griffith Dean 154 acres on a branch of Twenty-Six Mile Creek in Pendleton District belonging to Samuel James, with the deed stating that Samuel James was “formerly of Pendleton District.”[19]

Samuel may have already left South Carolina by 12 September 1821 when Joseph Grisham filed a suit of debt against him in Pendleton District and Samuel did not (as it seems to me, reading the court documents) appear in court after having been summoned.[20] Samuel was indebted to Joseph for $20.50 promised by a note of obligation, dated 28 January 1821. When Samuel did not appear in court, his property was garnished.

I think that Samuel James continued owning property in Pendleton District after he left South Carolina, since a man of this name appears on tax lists of Anderson County in 1835, 1836, 1837, 1838, and 1840, and I’m not aware of another Samuel James living in or holding property in Anderson County at this time. This property may well have been the land whose disposition Malinda Junkins was challenging in her 1847 lawsuit.

I have been unable to discover where Samuel James went when he left South Carolina, and where he died and may be buried. If Malinda Junkins’ bill of complaint in 1847 is correct, then he left South Carolina by 1817, since he had not been heard of, she claimed, for thirty years. The 1820 federal census shows a number of men with the name Samuel James in points west of South Carolina including Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, and Louisiana.

As stated previously, though the will of Griffith James does not name a son Thomas, the 4 July 1874 letter of William Simpson states that Griffith James had a son Thomas, who was a Revolutionary soldier who went west. As one reads the family history William Simpson offers in this letter, it’s important to keep in mind that it definitely contains mistaken information. Simpson states, for instance, that Gwendolyn James’ husband Samuel Dean was “a frenchman who came over to this country with General Lafayette,” and that Hannah James married “a Mr. Lenard, one of the hessians that Grand Father helped take prisoner at Trenton.” Both of these pieces of information are totally incorrect.

A Thomas James married Elizabeth McFall in Washington County, Maryland, on 18 April 1778 and is found on the 1790 federal census in that county. But this Thomas James does not appear to be a son of Griffith and Mary James. His roots lie in Harford County, Maryland, and I find no information that links him to Griffith James.

[1] Anderson County, South Carolina, Will Bk. C, p. 82.

[2] Thomas Dunlap Leonard, “Biography of the Leonards” (1883 manuscript now circulated as typescript; present whereabouts are not known).

[3] See Elizabeth Lucie Leonard Baxter, “Leonard Family,” Marshall County, Tennessee, Historical Quarterly 6,2 (summer 1975); and Find a Grave memorial page of Hannah James Leonard, Leonard cemetery, Marshall County, Tennessee, created by Donna B. and maintained by LookingforFamily, with a gravestone photo by Jimmy Trout. Note that the Find a Grave memorial page gives Hannah James a middle name, Leona, that is erroneous. No document I’ve seen ever states a middle name for Hannah.

[4] Beverly Dean Peoples and Ralph Terry Dean, Country Cousins, Descendants of Samuel Dean, 2nd ed.(Franklin, North Carolina: Genealogy Publishing, 2001), p. 3. See also Beverly Dean Peoples, “Richard Deane (1701-1788) and His Children,” at Rootsweb.

[5] Gwendolyn James Dean’s will is in Anderson County, South Carolina, Will Bk B, pp. 6-7. Samuel Dean’s will is a “floating” will not recorded in a will book: Anderson County, South Carolina, probate files box 15, no. 173.

[6] Beverly Dean Peoples and Ralph Terry Dean, Country Cousins, p. 3.

[7] Liber Defunctorium in Parochia Sancta Maria, etc., available digitally at FamilySearch.

[8] Washington County, Maryland, Will Bk. A, pp. 29-30.

[9] Thomas James, Three Years Among the Indians and Mexican (Waterloo, Illinois: War Eagle Office, 1846).

[10] The Combined History of Randolph, Monroe and Perry Counties, Illinois, etc. (Philadelphia: J.L. McDonough, 1883).

[11] In 1999, Heidi Rose Lahey owned the original letter and another that William Simpson wrote on 7 February 1877. She has helpfully placed transcriptions of both letters online at Rootsweb.

[12] Henry C. Peden, Revolutionary Patriots of Washington County, Maryland 1776-1783 (Westminster, Maryland: Family Line, 1998], p. 184; and S. Eugene Clements and Edward F. Wright, The Maryland Militia in the Revolutionary War (Silver Spring: Family Line, 1987], p. 240)

[13] I do not know the present whereabouts of this handwritten document. Digital copies are online at FamilySearch here and here. The 19 November 1763 date of birth is also stated in Hugh S. Watson’s “Genealogy” column, Virginia Gazette (13 August 1954), p. 11, col. 1, with a clipping of this column in the Alabama Archives’ surname files.

[14] See Yvonne Cummings Miller, Biography of H. Clay and Ruby Cummings (Salt Lake City: Hiller, 1990); and Frank Ellwood Esshom, Pioneers and Prominent Men of Utah (Salt Lake City: Utah Pioneers Book Publishing Company, 1913), p. 831. See also Heidi Rose Lahey’s family history site, noting the dates of birth and death of Mary James and her husband Harmon Cummings and indicating that both are registered in temple-rites records of the LDS church.

[15] Maryland Historical Society, Maryland Marriages 1777-1804; and Gaius Marcus Brumbaugh, Maryland Records, vol. 2 (Lancaster, Pennsylvania, 1928; repr. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, 1967), p. 522.

[16] 1830 federal census, Anderson County, South Carolina, p. 183A; 1840 federal census, Anderson County, South Carolina, p. 103.

[17] Melinda Junkins vs. Harmon Cummins, Mary Cummins, Moses Dean, et al., Anderson County, South Carolina, Equity Court no. 140 (no. 29, 1847).

[18] Anderson County, South Carolina, Deed Bk. Z, pp. 195-7.

[19] Ibid., Bk. R, pp. 483-4.

[20] Joseph Grisham vs. Samuel James, Pendleton District, South Carolina, Summary Process Papers, roll 2109.

Children of Griffith and Mary James: Hannah, Gwendolyn, Joseph, Mary, John, and Samuel

Or, Subtitled: Migration Trails from Maryland to South Carolina and Many Points West

As the previous posting shows, in his 20 April 1795 will in Pendleton District, South Carolina, Griffith James names his wife Mary and the following children: Hannah, Gwendolyn (Jenny in the will), Joseph, Mary, John, and Samuel.[1] The children are named in order of birth by gender groupings, with the three sons named in their order of birth as well as the three daughters. A 4 July 1874 letter of William Simpson, a great-grandson of Griffith James’ daughter Mary James Cummings, states that Griffith James also had a son Thomas, who is not named in the will. That letter and the question of the son Thomas will be discussed below. (To read the continuation of this posting, please click the numeral 2 below.)

Here are some salient pieces of information about Griffith and Mary James’ children:

1. Hannah James was born 2 November 1752 in Maryland. If Griffith James had already settled by this date in the vicinity of what would later be Sharpsburg in Washington County, then I think Hannah would likely have been born in Frederick County, the parent county of Washington. But I do not have proof of her place of birth, other than to note that her grandson Thomas Dunlap Leonard states in his 1883 “Biography of the Leonards” that Hannah was “born and reared in Maryland.”[2]

I’ve discussed Hannah James Leonard’s life in detail in my series of postings about the Leonard family. As the posting I just linked states, about 1775 in Frederick (later Washington) County, Hannah married Thomas Leonard, son of Robert Leonard and Honor Pritchard (and see also here). This family moved from Maryland to Pendleton District, South Carolina, in 1786 and from South Carolina to Lincoln (later Marshall) County, Tennessee, in 1808.

As another posting about the Leonard family notes, Hannah’s dates of birth and death are recorded on her grave marker in the Leonard family cemetery outside Petersburg, Marshall County, Tennessee.[3] The gravestone states, as indicated above, that she was born 2 November 1752 and that she died 3 November 1842. Hannah died at the Leonard homeplace outside Petersburg in Marshall County, Tennessee. The family cemetery, in which she is buried with husband Thomas Leonard, is behind the site of the old homeplace.

2. Gwendolyn James was born about 1754, probably in Frederick (later Washington) County, Maryland. I haven’t found a document giving a precise date of birth for Gwendolyn. The 1754 date is suggested by Beverly Dean Peoples and Ralph Terry Dean in their book Country Cousins, Descendants of Samuel Dean.[4] Federal censuses on which Gwendolyn is enumerated in her husband Samuel Dean’s household do not offer much help in narrowing down the year of her birth: the 1800 census places it between 1755 and 1774, the 1810 census before 1765, and the 1820 census before 1775. Gwendolyn was living in 1830 after Samuel died in 1826, but I do not find her listed as head of a household on the 1830 federal census.

As Country Cousins states, a 1751 birthdate for Samuel Dean has been handed down among his descendants. Griffith James’ will names Gwendolyn (“Jenny”) after her sister Hannah, whose 2 November 1752 birthdate is established by her gravestone. As we’ll see in a moment, there’s documentary evidence for a 1758 birthdate for Griffith’s son Joseph and for a birthdate of 19 November 1763 for Griffith’s daughter Mary. So if Gwenny was born between Hannah and Mary, her birth year would definitely fall between 1752 and 1763, and, it appears, prior to Joseph’s birth year of 1758. Samuel and Gwendolyn’s first child, Thomas, was born 13 September 1774, and that date also makes a 1754 birth year for his mother very reasonable.

Gwendolyn James married Samuel, son of Richard and Priscilla Dean, about 1773. Since Richard Dean and Griffith James lived on adjoining tracts of land outside Sharpsburg in what was then Frederick but soon to be Washington County, the marriage would very likely have occurred in Frederick County.

Gwendolyn James Dean made a will on 6 December 1834 in Anderson County, South Carolina, her husband Samuel having died there also testate with a will dated 22 May 1826 and probated 25 September 1826.[5] Gwendolyn’s will was probated 7 September 1835, so she died between 6 December 1834 and 7 September 1835. Why numerous family trees published online and Gwendolyn’s Find a Grave memorial page state her date of death as 5 December 1834 is beyond me to understand or explain.

According to Country Cousins,[6]

Samuel Dean and Gwendolyn James and others are buried in unmarked graves on what was then their property near Fairview School on Highway 116 between Belton, SC and Williamston, SC.

The cemetery in which Gwendolyn and Samuel are buried is now known as the Dean cemetery, and is close to Starr in Anderson County, South Carolina.

3. Joseph James was born in 1758, very likely in Frederick (later Washington) County, Maryland. We know Joseph’s year of birth from his death record in the death register of Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary parish in Perryville, Perry County, Missouri. This states that he died in that parish on 22 May 1825, aged 67.[7] The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary parish served the English-speaking Catholic population of the area from 1817 until its merger with the German-speaking St. Boniface Parish to form St. Vincent de Paul Parish in 1965.

As previous postings have stated (see here and here), about 1780 in Washington County, Maryland, Joseph married Elizabeth, daughter of James and Sarah Walker Austin. The 20 April 1779 will of Elizabeth’s father James Austin in Washington County states that James was leaving to daughters Elizabeth and Charity shares in a tract of land called King Cole, which came to Joseph James by his marriage to Elizabeth, and which he later sold to his father Griffith James.[8]

As previously noted, about 1791, Joseph moved his family from Washington County, Maryland, to Kentucky. A book written by his son Thomas James entitled Three Years Among the Indians and Mexicans, which recounts his experiences on a trading expedition in 1809 with Auguste P. Chouteau from St. Ferdinand, Missouri, up to the headwaters of the Missouri River and to the Columbia, says that in 1803, Joseph James moved his family from Kentucky to Illinois and then in the spring of 1807, the family made its way to Missouri.[9]

The Combined History of Randolph, Monroe and Perry Counties, Illinois, states,[10]

The James family, of Welsh origin, were among the early settlers in the American Bottom [in Monroe County, Illinois]. Joseph Austin James emigrated to Illinois in 1803, accompanied by his son, Thomas James, who was born in Maryland, in the year 1782, and James A. He moved to Missouri in 1807, where he died.

One of Joseph James and Elizabeth Austin’s sons was named James Austin James, and I suspect that the history of Randolph, Monroe, and Perry Counties has given James’ father Joseph the middle name of Austin for that reason. I have seen no documents giving Joseph, son of Griffith and Mary James, the middle name Austin. If Joseph did have a middle name, it might have been Griffith and not Austin. A letter written on 4 July 1874 by William Simpson of Jacksonville, Florida, a great-grandson of Joseph James’ sister Mary and husband Harmon Cummings, states that Griffith and Mary James had a son Griffith who was a Revolutionary soldier who went west from Maryland.[11] William Simpson seems to be referring here to Joseph James, who was a private in Captain John Reynolds’ militia company, 2nd battalion, in Maryland during the Revolutionary War.[12]

Joseph James’ place of burial is not known. There’s speculation that he’s buried at Mount Hope cemetery in Perryville, Missouri, but if that’s the case, his grave is not now marked.

4. Mary James was born 19 November 1763 in Frederick (later Washington) County, Maryland. This date of birth is recorded in a document written by her son John Cummings, entitled “A Journal of the Life & Parantage [sic] of John Cummings & Wife.”[13] Biographies of John Cummings note that he was born in Pendleton District/Anderson County, South Carolina, on 2 December 1802, and in 1830, moved to Gibson County, Tennessee, where he and wife Rachel Canada became Mormons and went to Nauvoo, Illinois, then from there in 1832 to Provo City, Utah, and finally to Heber City.[14] I think it’s likely that John Cummings’ handwritten document is now held by descendants in Utah or is perhaps in a library or archive there.

In a previous posting, I noted that the marriage of Mary James and Harmon Cummings on 7 September 1779 is recorded in records of Washington County, Maryland, indicating that the marriage was solemnized by Reverend George Mitchell of Hagerstown, who also married Mary Ann Leonard and Colin Campbell. Mary Ann Leonard was a sister of Thomas Leonard who married Mary James’ brother Thomas Leonard.[15]

The journal of Harmon and Mary Cummings’ son John states that Harmon Cummings was born 23 March 1756 and died 4 February 1851. Mary James Cummings died 29 March 1847 according to John Cummings’ journal. Both died in Anderson County, South Carolina, and are said to be buried in the cemetery of Mountain Creek Baptist church south of Anderson, to which they belonged.

5. John James was born between 1770 and 1780 according to the 1830 federal census of Anderson County, South Carolina, and between 1750 and 1760 according to the 1840 federal census.[16] I suspect his birth year actually fell somewhere between 1760 and 1770.

John James died in Anderson County in January 1842. In 1847, his niece Malinda Junkins, daughter of Harmon and Mary James Cummings, filed a case for partition of property belonging to John and his brother Samuel that had come to them from Griffith and Mary James.[17] Malinda’s 21 February 1847 bill of complaint states that John James died in Anderson County in January 1842 unmarried and with no legal issue, but that he had an illegitimate daughter who married William Hembree, and that Hembree was occupying the land in question. An inventory of John’s estate filed in the case file shows that the estate inventory was done on 1 February 1842 and a bill of sale in the file shows John’s estate being sold on 18 February 1842 at the house of John E. Norris.

Prior to this lawsuit on 7 April 1846, Harmon and Mary Cummings had deeded to daughter Malinda Junkins 174 acres that had descended to them from their brothers John and Samuel James, with the deed stating that both John and Samuel had died prior to April 1846, neither leaving lawful issue.[18] This document also states that William Hembree was occupying what had been the land co-owned by John and his brother Samuel.

6. Samuel James was likely born between 1760 and 1770 in Frederick (later Washington) County, Maryland. As the preceding posting states, when his father Griffith James made his will in Pendleton District, South Carolina, on 29 April 1795, the will made his two youngest sons John and Samuel, the two sons still living with their parents in 1795, their father’s executor.

The bill of complaint filed by Samuel’s first cousin Malinda Junkins in 1847 in her lawsuit against her parents says that Samuel James had left South Carolina to go west and had not been heard from in thirty years and was presumed dead. The bill of complaint also says that Samuel died unmarried and without lawful issue. The 4 July 1874 letter of William Simpson discussed above also states that Samuel James, a Revolutionary soldier, had gone west from South Carolina.

Samuel James had left South Carolina 7 September 1825 when his uncle Samuel Dean, acting as Samuel James’ power of attorney, sold Griffith Dean 154 acres on a branch of Twenty-Six Mile Creek in Pendleton District belonging to Samuel James, with the deed stating that Samuel James was “formerly of Pendleton District.”[19]

Samuel may have already left South Carolina by 12 September 1821 when Joseph Grisham filed a suit of debt against him in Pendleton District and Samuel did not (as it seems to me, reading the court documents) appear in court after having been summoned.[20] Samuel was indebted to Joseph for $20.50 promised by a note of obligation, dated 28 January 1821. When Samuel did not appear in court, his property was garnished.

I think that Samuel James continued owning property in Pendleton District after he left South Carolina, since a man of this name appears on tax lists of Anderson County in 1835, 1836, 1837, 1838, and 1840, and I’m not aware of another Samuel James living in or holding property in Anderson County at this time. This property may well have been the land whose disposition Malinda Junkins was challenging in her 1847 lawsuit.

I have been unable to discover where Samuel James went when he left South Carolina, and where he died and may be buried. If Malinda Junkins’ bill of complaint in 1847 is correct, then he left South Carolina by 1817, since he had not been heard of, she claimed, for thirty years. The 1820 federal census shows a number of men with the name Samuel James in points west of South Carolina including Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, and Louisiana.

As stated previously, though the will of Griffith James does not name a son Thomas, the 4 July 1874 letter of William Simpson states that Griffith James had a son Thomas, who was a Revolutionary soldier who went west. As one reads the family history William Simpson offers in this letter, it’s important to keep in mind that it definitely contains mistaken information. Simpson states, for instance, that Gwendolyn James’ husband Samuel Dean was “a frenchman who came over to this country with General Lafayette,” and that Hannah James married “a Mr. Lenard, one of the hessians that Grand Father helped take prisoner at Trenton.” Both of these pieces of information are totally incorrect.

A Thomas James married Elizabeth McFall in Washington County, Maryland, on 18 April 1778 and is found on the 1790 federal census in that county. But this Thomas James does not appear to be a son of Griffith and Mary James. His roots lie in Harford County, Maryland, and I find no information that links him to Griffith James.

[1] Anderson County, South Carolina, Will Bk. C, p. 82.

[2] Thomas Dunlap Leonard, “Biography of the Leonards” (1883 manuscript now circulated as typescript; present whereabouts are not known).

[3] See Elizabeth Lucie Leonard Baxter, “Leonard Family,” Marshall County, Tennessee, Historical Quarterly 6,2 (summer 1975); and Find a Grave memorial page of Hannah James Leonard, Leonard cemetery, Marshall County, Tennessee, created by Donna B. and maintained by LookingforFamily, with a gravestone photo by Jimmy Trout. Note that the Find a Grave memorial page gives Hannah James a middle name, Leona, that is erroneous. No document I’ve seen ever states a middle name for Hannah.

[4] Beverly Dean Peoples and Ralph Terry Dean, Country Cousins, Descendants of Samuel Dean, 2nd ed.(Franklin, North Carolina: Genealogy Publishing, 2001), p. 3. See also Beverly Dean Peoples, “Richard Deane (1701-1788) and His Children,” at Rootsweb.

[5] Gwendolyn James Dean’s will is in Anderson County, South Carolina, Will Bk B, pp. 6-7. Samuel Dean’s will is a “floating” will not recorded in a will book: Anderson County, South Carolina, probate files box 15, no. 173.

[6] Beverly Dean Peoples and Ralph Terry Dean, Country Cousins, p. 3.

[7] Liber Defunctorium in Parochia Sancta Maria, etc., available digitally at FamilySearch.

[8] Washington County, Maryland, Will Bk. A, pp. 29-30.

[9] Thomas James, Three Years Among the Indians and Mexican (Waterloo, Illinois: War Eagle Office, 1846).

[10] The Combined History of Randolph, Monroe and Perry Counties, Illinois, etc. (Philadelphia: J.L. McDonough, 1883).

[11] In 1999, Heidi Rose Lahey owned the original letter and another that William Simpson wrote on 7 February 1877. She has helpfully placed transcriptions of both letters online at Rootsweb.

[12] Henry C. Peden, Revolutionary Patriots of Washington County, Maryland 1776-1783 (Westminster, Maryland: Family Line, 1998], p. 184; and S. Eugene Clements and Edward F. Wright, The Maryland Militia in the Revolutionary War (Silver Spring: Family Line, 1987], p. 240)

[13] I do not know the present whereabouts of this handwritten document. Digital copies are online at FamilySearch here and here. The 19 November 1763 date of birth is also stated in Hugh S. Watson’s “Genealogy” column, Virginia Gazette (13 August 1954), p. 11, col. 1, with a clipping of this column in the Alabama Archives’ surname files.

[14] See Yvonne Cummings Miller, Biography of H. Clay and Ruby Cummings (Salt Lake City: Hiller, 1990); and Frank Ellwood Esshom, Pioneers and Prominent Men of Utah (Salt Lake City: Utah Pioneers Book Publishing Company, 1913), p. 831. See also Heidi Rose Lahey’s family history site, noting the dates of birth and death of Mary James and her husband Harmon Cummings and indicating that both are registered in temple-rites records of the LDS church.

[15] Maryland Historical Society, Maryland Marriages 1777-1804; and Gaius Marcus Brumbaugh, Maryland Records, vol. 2 (Lancaster, Pennsylvania, 1928; repr. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, 1967), p. 522.

[16] 1830 federal census, Anderson County, South Carolina, p. 183A; 1840 federal census, Anderson County, South Carolina, p. 103.

[17] Melinda Junkins vs. Harmon Cummins, Mary Cummins, Moses Dean, et al., Anderson County, South Carolina, Equity Court no. 140 (no. 29, 1847).

[18] Anderson County, South Carolina, Deed Bk. Z, pp. 195-7.

[19] Ibid., Bk. R, pp. 483-4.

[20] Joseph Grisham vs. Samuel James, Pendleton District, South Carolina, Summary Process Papers, roll 2109.

The illegitimates

By Christine Swan

One of the biggest challenges faced by genealogists is that of researching ancestors where you only know half of the story. I recently read an article in Who Do You Think You Are magazine, on this very theme. This prompted me to reflect on my discoveries and minor research triumphs when, at last, another piece of the puzzle is laid down.

On my maternal side of the family, finding out about my ancestors has been straightforward. Couples were married, children came along, some more quickly than others, but, I can follow the family line without too much digging.

My paternal side has been more of a headache. Both of my great grandfathers were illegitimate, and even further back, the phrase “it’s complicated” describes the situation perfectly well. Therefore, my research is not completely reliable or whole. My late father knew his grandfather, George Betts, very well, and was a favourite grandchild. He told me many stories and anecdotes that painted a vivid picture of him. So much so, that he lives in my memories as mapping those spoken words to a virtual manifestation of them. George’s wife, Rebecca Betts, doted on my father, and the whole family idolised her for her kindness and generosity, never realising that she too, was illegitimate.

However, my father did not know his paternal grandfather, David Deighton Taylor, as he had died nine years before he was born. We have a photograph and I can confirm that he physical resembled my own paternal grandfather Albert, who I can recall now, with his thick silver hair, leathery skin, nicotine-stained fingers, and regimental tattoos.

My great grandfather, David Deighton Taylor

In modern times, families raise children and as long as there is love and care, children can thrive. In my many years of working in the field of education, I have learned that it doesn’t matter what that relationship is, as long as there is plenty of love and care. Even this week, we have learned of more terrible stories where babies were wrenched away from their birth mothers and kept in church-run baby homes, where untold died of preventable disease, almost without trace. Mothers were treated as outcasts and shamed, leading to a lifetime of trauma and guilt, that no apology can erase. It is only now that we recognise their dreadful mistreatment, and the weekly episodes of Long Lost Family on television, leave me a blubbering wreck of happy tears.

Buit what have I learned about my own Victorian era ancestors and their lives? David Deighton Taylor was a curious name to me. When I began on my quest, I noticed that this was how he had addressed himself at the time of his marriage to Julia Cooke, in Bethnal Green in 1893. Taylor is an incredibly common family name, but Deighton less so, and therefore more attractive for a researcher. At that point, I did not know who his mother was and have never found a birth record. On David’s marriage certificate, he named his father as David Taylor, a builder. I have found no record of this person and suspect that this is a lie. It would have been humiliating to have left this field empty on the marriage record and I can imagine the vicar of St Peter’s, Bethnal Green, asking the question, and him reaching for an answer. David definitely knew his mother, Mary Ann, but she had died of Tuberculosis when he was eleven years old. It was after this date that his life was thrown into chaos. David’s stepfather, William English, sent him to the workhouse and married his domestic servant. For over ten years, he was in and out of institutions, initially the Metropolitan Board of Guardians school, then the workhouse and infirmary. Marriage was the key to family life for David, but even that was cut short by Tuberculosis.

David’s marriage record led me to the name of Deighton (or Dyton)

Mary Ann herself, appeared to be illegitimate too. As I recounted in my last post, Daniel Crudgington married Jane Vincent in 1842, after his return from Australia. This was the year of Mary Ann’s birth, and she continued to use her birth surname, Deighton, at various points of her adult life. Her mother, Ann Deighton, married Daniel Crudgington in 1844, in a marriage which I believe was bigamous on his part. Mary Ann was not baptised until 1853, and her birth date given as a respectable 1845 – one year after her parents married. Was Daniel actually Mary Ann’s father? I suspect yes and my reasoning is based on the fact that he left Jane and chose to marry Ann. If Ann became pregnant and then gave birth to Mary Ann, she was, as far as I am aware, his first born. He stayed married to Ann until she died, even though there seemed to be several reasons to assume that this was not always a happy union. David described Ann as his grandmother and Daniel as his grandfather, and continued to live with the latter until his death.

Mary Ann was baptised in 1853 but actually born in 1842

My other great grandfather, George Betts, was the son of a domestic servant and her master. I know very little of his mother and father. I know that his birth name was Mead, which I suspect was his mother’s surname. My father told me that George’s paternal grandmother doted on him as her grandson, and saw that he was well-provided for and educated. My father remembered seeing a photograph of young George, dressed in a miniature sailor suit, with a slate board to practise writing. When his grandmother died, George was unofficially adopted into the Betts family, William Betts, his adoptive father, a tripe dresser. As far as my father was aware, the Betts were a good family, and he thrived. Years later, when his biological father died, he left a legacy for his son, but George refused to claim it, despite protestations from his children. He wanted nothing further to do with the name Mead. Unfortunately, this also caused him difficulties when he needed to claim disability benefit as he developed cataracts which slowly caused blindness. There were no official records of George Betts – only George Mead, a name that he had not used for over seventy years. No records existed of his adoption or that his name was ever legally changed.

George Mead listed as a “visitor” in 1871, but ten years later, he was listed as a son to his adoptive parents

George’s wife, Rebecca, was also illegitimate. I was shocked to discover this but, despite searching for the birth of a Rebecca Bull, I was unable to locate a matching record. Instead, I found a record for a Rebecca Mayes born in September 1869. No father’s name was provided, and the occupation field was left empty. Eliza Rosina Mayes had decided to go it alone, with the support of her family. Rosina married William Henry Bull in December 1870. Rebecca was listed as his daughter in the 1871 census, and I suspect that this was true. I am unsure why it took over a year to marry Rosina. Maybe Rebecca was unaware that she had been baptised with her mother’s name. My father never knew and would have been absolutely horrified.

Rebecca Mayes baptism record of 1869, one year before her mother married

More than one hundred and fifty years later, none of this matters. Life was difficult enough for Victorian women, but a single woman with a child attracted stigma. She was a fallen woman, an unfortunate, immoral, and impure in the eyes of Victorian society, but I see instead, strong women, who managed, survived and did their best with what they had. The woman that I worry about most, was George Betts’ mother. I imagine a young domestic servant, pregnant, afraid and abandoned.

I acknowledge that my illegitimate ancestors would have faced more challenges, as did their mothers. The purpose of this blog was to remember them and to share their stories. I hope that in some small way I have recognised their struggle.

The illegitimates

By Christine Swan

One of the biggest challenges faced by genealogists is that of researching ancestors where you only know half of the story. I recently read an article in Who Do You Think You Are magazine, on this very theme. This prompted me to reflect on my discoveries and minor research triumphs when, at last, another piece of the puzzle is laid down.

On my maternal side of the family, finding out about my ancestors has been straightforward. Couples were married, children came along, some more quickly than others, but, I can follow the family line without too much digging.

My paternal side has been more of a headache. Both of my great grandfathers were illegitimate, and even further back, the phrase “it’s complicated” describes the situation perfectly well. Therefore, my research is not completely reliable or whole. My late father knew his grandfather, George Betts, very well, and was a favourite grandchild. He told me many stories and anecdotes that painted a vivid picture of him. So much so, that he lives in my memories as mapping those spoken words to a virtual manifestation of them. George’s wife, Rebecca Betts, doted on my father, and the whole family idolised her for her kindness and generosity, never realising that she too, was illegitimate.

However, my father did not know his paternal grandfather, David Deighton Taylor, as he had died nine years before he was born. We have a photograph and I can confirm that he physical resembled my own paternal grandfather Albert, who I can recall now, with his thick silver hair, leathery skin, nicotine-stained fingers, and regimental tattoos.

My great grandfather, David Deighton Taylor

In modern times, families raise children and as long as there is love and care, children can thrive. In my many years of working in the field of education, I have learned that it doesn’t matter what that relationship is, as long as there is plenty of love and care. Even this week, we have learned of more terrible stories where babies were wrenched away from their birth mothers and kept in church-run baby homes, where untold died of preventable disease, almost without trace. Mothers were treated as outcasts and shamed, leading to a lifetime of trauma and guilt, that no apology can erase. It is only now that we recognise their dreadful mistreatment, and the weekly episodes of Long Lost Family on television, leave me a blubbering wreck of happy tears.

Buit what have I learned about my own Victorian era ancestors and their lives? David Deighton Taylor was a curious name to me. When I began on my quest, I noticed that this was how he had addressed himself at the time of his marriage to Julia Cooke, in Bethnal Green in 1893. Taylor is an incredibly common family name, but Deighton less so, and therefore more attractive for a researcher. At that point, I did not know who his mother was and have never found a birth record. On David’s marriage certificate, he named his father as David Taylor, a builder. I have found no record of this person and suspect that this is a lie. It would have been humiliating to have left this field empty on the marriage record and I can imagine the vicar of St Peter’s, Bethnal Green, asking the question, and him reaching for an answer. David definitely knew his mother, Mary Ann, but she had died of Tuberculosis when he was eleven years old. It was after this date that his life was thrown into chaos. David’s stepfather, William English, sent him to the workhouse and married his domestic servant. For over ten years, he was in and out of institutions, initially the Metropolitan Board of Guardians school, then the workhouse and infirmary. Marriage was the key to family life for David, but even that was cut short by Tuberculosis.

David’s marriage record led me to the name of Deighton (or Dyton)

Mary Ann herself, appeared to be illegitimate too. As I recounted in my last post, Daniel Crudgington married Jane Vincent in 1842, after his return from Australia. This was the year of Mary Ann’s birth, and she continued to use her birth surname, Deighton, at various points of her adult life. Her mother, Ann Deighton, married Daniel Crudgington in 1844, in a marriage which I believe was bigamous on his part. Mary Ann was not baptised until 1853, and her birth date given as a respectable 1845 – one year after her parents married. Was Daniel actually Mary Ann’s father? I suspect yes and my reasoning is based on the fact that he left Jane and chose to marry Ann. If Ann became pregnant and then gave birth to Mary Ann, she was, as far as I am aware, his first born. He stayed married to Ann until she died, even though there seemed to be several reasons to assume that this was not always a happy union. David described Ann as his grandmother and Daniel as his grandfather, and continued to live with the latter until his death.

Mary Ann was baptised in 1853 but actually born in 1842

My other great grandfather, George Betts, was the son of a domestic servant and her master. I know very little of his mother and father. I know that his birth name was Mead, which I suspect was his mother’s surname. My father told me that George’s paternal grandmother doted on him as her grandson, and saw that he was well-provided for and educated. My father remembered seeing a photograph of young George, dressed in a miniature sailor suit, with a slate board to practise writing. When his grandmother died, George was unofficially adopted into the Betts family, William Betts, his adoptive father, a tripe dresser. As far as my father was aware, the Betts were a good family, and he thrived. Years later, when his biological father died, he left a legacy for his son, but George refused to claim it, despite protestations from his children. He wanted nothing further to do with the name Mead. Unfortunately, this also caused him difficulties when he needed to claim disability benefit as he developed cataracts which slowly caused blindness. There were no official records of George Betts – only George Mead, a name that he had not used for over seventy years. No records existed of his adoption or that his name was ever legally changed.

George Mead listed as a “visitor” in 1871, but ten years later, he was listed as a son to his adoptive parents

George’s wife, Rebecca, was also illegitimate. I was shocked to discover this but, despite searching for the birth of a Rebecca Bull, I was unable to locate a matching record. Instead, I found a record for a Rebecca Mayes born in September 1869. No father’s name was provided, and the occupation field was left empty. Eliza Rosina Mayes had decided to go it alone, with the support of her family. Rosina married William Henry Bull in December 1870. Rebecca was listed as his daughter in the 1871 census, and I suspect that this was true. I am unsure why it took over a year to marry Rosina. Maybe Rebecca was unaware that she had been baptised with her mother’s name. My father never knew and would have been absolutely horrified.

Rebecca Mayes baptism record of 1869, one year before her mother married

More than one hundred and fifty years later, none of this matters. Life was difficult enough for Victorian women, but a single woman with a child attracted stigma. She was a fallen woman, an unfortunate, immoral, and impure in the eyes of Victorian society, but I see instead, strong women, who managed, survived and did their best with what they had. The woman that I worry about most, was George Betts’ mother. I imagine a young domestic servant, pregnant, afraid and abandoned.

I acknowledge that my illegitimate ancestors would have faced more challenges, as did their mothers. The purpose of this blog was to remember them and to share their stories. I hope that in some small way I have recognised their struggle.

The illegitimates

By Christine Swan

One of the biggest challenges faced by genealogists is that of researching ancestors where you only know half of the story. I recently read an article in Who Do You Think You Are magazine, on this very theme. This prompted me to reflect on my discoveries and minor research triumphs when, at last, another piece of the puzzle is laid down.

On my maternal side of the family, finding out about my ancestors has been straightforward. Couples were married, children came along, some more quickly than others, but, I can follow the family line without too much digging.

My paternal side has been more of a headache. Both of my great grandfathers were illegitimate, and even further back, the phrase “it’s complicated” describes the situation perfectly well. Therefore, my research is not completely reliable or whole. My late father knew his grandfather, George Betts, very well, and was a favourite grandchild. He told me many stories and anecdotes that painted a vivid picture of him. So much so, that he lives in my memories as mapping those spoken words to a virtual manifestation of them. George’s wife, Rebecca Betts, doted on my father, and the whole family idolised her for her kindness and generosity, never realising that she too, was illegitimate.

However, my father did not know his paternal grandfather, David Deighton Taylor, as he had died nine years before he was born. We have a photograph and I can confirm that he physical resembled my own paternal grandfather Albert, who I can recall now, with his thick silver hair, leathery skin, nicotine-stained fingers, and regimental tattoos.

My great grandfather, David Deighton Taylor

In modern times, families raise children and as long as there is love and care, children can thrive. In my many years of working in the field of education, I have learned that it doesn’t matter what that relationship is, as long as there is plenty of love and care. Even this week, we have learned of more terrible stories where babies were wrenched away from their birth mothers and kept in church-run baby homes, where untold died of preventable disease, almost without trace. Mothers were treated as outcasts and shamed, leading to a lifetime of trauma and guilt, that no apology can erase. It is only now that we recognise their dreadful mistreatment, and the weekly episodes of Long Lost Family on television, leave me a blubbering wreck of happy tears.

Buit what have I learned about my own Victorian era ancestors and their lives? David Deighton Taylor was a curious name to me. When I began on my quest, I noticed that this was how he had addressed himself at the time of his marriage to Julia Cooke, in Bethnal Green in 1893. Taylor is an incredibly common family name, but Deighton less so, and therefore more attractive for a researcher. At that point, I did not know who his mother was and have never found a birth record. On David’s marriage certificate, he named his father as David Taylor, a builder. I have found no record of this person and suspect that this is a lie. It would have been humiliating to have left this field empty on the marriage record and I can imagine the vicar of St Peter’s, Bethnal Green, asking the question, and him reaching for an answer. David definitely knew his mother, Mary Ann, but she had died of Tuberculosis when he was eleven years old. It was after this date that his life was thrown into chaos. David’s stepfather, William English, sent him to the workhouse and married his domestic servant. For over ten years, he was in and out of institutions, initially the Metropolitan Board of Guardians school, then the workhouse and infirmary. Marriage was the key to family life for David, but even that was cut short by Tuberculosis.

David’s marriage record led me to the name of Deighton (or Dyton)

Mary Ann herself, appeared to be illegitimate too. As I recounted in my last post, Daniel Crudgington married Jane Vincent in 1842, after his return from Australia. This was the year of Mary Ann’s birth, and she continued to use her birth surname, Deighton, at various points of her adult life. Her mother, Ann Deighton, married Daniel Crudgington in 1844, in a marriage which I believe was bigamous on his part. Mary Ann was not baptised until 1853, and her birth date given as a respectable 1845 – one year after her parents married. Was Daniel actually Mary Ann’s father? I suspect yes and my reasoning is based on the fact that he left Jane and chose to marry Ann. If Ann became pregnant and then gave birth to Mary Ann, she was, as far as I am aware, his first born. He stayed married to Ann until she died, even though there seemed to be several reasons to assume that this was not always a happy union. David described Ann as his grandmother and Daniel as his grandfather, and continued to live with the latter until his death.

Mary Ann was baptised in 1853 but actually born in 1842

My other great grandfather, George Betts, was the son of a domestic servant and her master. I know very little of his mother and father. I know that his birth name was Mead, which I suspect was his mother’s surname. My father told me that George’s paternal grandmother doted on him as her grandson, and saw that he was well-provided for and educated. My father remembered seeing a photograph of young George, dressed in a miniature sailor suit, with a slate board to practise writing. When his grandmother died, George was unofficially adopted into the Betts family, William Betts, his adoptive father, a tripe dresser. As far as my father was aware, the Betts were a good family, and he thrived. Years later, when his biological father died, he left a legacy for his son, but George refused to claim it, despite protestations from his children. He wanted nothing further to do with the name Mead. Unfortunately, this also caused him difficulties when he needed to claim disability benefit as he developed cataracts which slowly caused blindness. There were no official records of George Betts – only George Mead, a name that he had not used for over seventy years. No records existed of his adoption or that his name was ever legally changed.

George Mead listed as a “visitor” in 1871, but ten years later, he was listed as a son to his adoptive parents

George’s wife, Rebecca, was also illegitimate. I was shocked to discover this but, despite searching for the birth of a Rebecca Bull, I was unable to locate a matching record. Instead, I found a record for a Rebecca Mayes born in September 1869. No father’s name was provided, and the occupation field was left empty. Eliza Rosina Mayes had decided to go it alone, with the support of her family. Rosina married William Henry Bull in December 1870. Rebecca was listed as his daughter in the 1871 census, and I suspect that this was true. I am unsure why it took over a year to marry Rosina. Maybe Rebecca was unaware that she had been baptised with her mother’s name. My father never knew and would have been absolutely horrified.

Rebecca Mayes baptism record of 1869, one year before her mother married

More than one hundred and fifty years later, none of this matters. Life was difficult enough for Victorian women, but a single woman with a child attracted stigma. She was a fallen woman, an unfortunate, immoral, and impure in the eyes of Victorian society, but I see instead, strong women, who managed, survived and did their best with what they had. The woman that I worry about most, was George Betts’ mother. I imagine a young domestic servant, pregnant, afraid and abandoned.

I acknowledge that my illegitimate ancestors would have faced more challenges, as did their mothers. The purpose of this blog was to remember them and to share their stories. I hope that in some small way I have recognised their struggle.

The illegitimates

By Christine Swan

One of the biggest challenges faced by genealogists is that of researching ancestors where you only know half of the story. I recently read an article in Who Do You Think You Are magazine, on this very theme. This prompted me to reflect on my discoveries and minor research triumphs when, at last, another piece of the puzzle is laid down.

On my maternal side of the family, finding out about my ancestors has been straightforward. Couples were married, children came along, some more quickly than others, but, I can follow the family line without too much digging.

My paternal side has been more of a headache. Both of my great grandfathers were illegitimate, and even further back, the phrase “it’s complicated” describes the situation perfectly well. Therefore, my research is not completely reliable or whole. My late father knew his grandfather, George Betts, very well, and was a favourite grandchild. He told me many stories and anecdotes that painted a vivid picture of him. So much so, that he lives in my memories as mapping those spoken words to a virtual manifestation of them. George’s wife, Rebecca Betts, doted on my father, and the whole family idolised her for her kindness and generosity, never realising that she too, was illegitimate.

However, my father did not know his paternal grandfather, David Deighton Taylor, as he had died nine years before he was born. We have a photograph and I can confirm that he physical resembled my own paternal grandfather Albert, who I can recall now, with his thick silver hair, leathery skin, nicotine-stained fingers, and regimental tattoos.

My great grandfather, David Deighton Taylor

In modern times, families raise children and as long as there is love and care, children can thrive. In my many years of working in the field of education, I have learned that it doesn’t matter what that relationship is, as long as there is plenty of love and care. Even this week, we have learned of more terrible stories where babies were wrenched away from their birth mothers and kept in church-run baby homes, where untold died of preventable disease, almost without trace. Mothers were treated as outcasts and shamed, leading to a lifetime of trauma and guilt, that no apology can erase. It is only now that we recognise their dreadful mistreatment, and the weekly episodes of Long Lost Family on television, leave me a blubbering wreck of happy tears.

Buit what have I learned about my own Victorian era ancestors and their lives? David Deighton Taylor was a curious name to me. When I began on my quest, I noticed that this was how he had addressed himself at the time of his marriage to Julia Cooke, in Bethnal Green in 1893. Taylor is an incredibly common family name, but Deighton less so, and therefore more attractive for a researcher. At that point, I did not know who his mother was and have never found a birth record. On David’s marriage certificate, he named his father as David Taylor, a builder. I have found no record of this person and suspect that this is a lie. It would have been humiliating to have left this field empty on the marriage record and I can imagine the vicar of St Peter’s, Bethnal Green, asking the question, and him reaching for an answer. David definitely knew his mother, Mary Ann, but she had died of Tuberculosis when he was eleven years old. It was after this date that his life was thrown into chaos. David’s stepfather, William English, sent him to the workhouse and married his domestic servant. For over ten years, he was in and out of institutions, initially the Metropolitan Board of Guardians school, then the workhouse and infirmary. Marriage was the key to family life for David, but even that was cut short by Tuberculosis.

David’s marriage record led me to the name of Deighton (or Dyton)

Mary Ann herself, appeared to be illegitimate too. As I recounted in my last post, Daniel Crudgington married Jane Vincent in 1842, after his return from Australia. This was the year of Mary Ann’s birth, and she continued to use her birth surname, Deighton, at various points of her adult life. Her mother, Ann Deighton, married Daniel Crudgington in 1844, in a marriage which I believe was bigamous on his part. Mary Ann was not baptised until 1853, and her birth date given as a respectable 1845 – one year after her parents married. Was Daniel actually Mary Ann’s father? I suspect yes and my reasoning is based on the fact that he left Jane and chose to marry Ann. If Ann became pregnant and then gave birth to Mary Ann, she was, as far as I am aware, his first born. He stayed married to Ann until she died, even though there seemed to be several reasons to assume that this was not always a happy union. David described Ann as his grandmother and Daniel as his grandfather, and continued to live with the latter until his death.

Mary Ann was baptised in 1853 but actually born in 1842

My other great grandfather, George Betts, was the son of a domestic servant and her master. I know very little of his mother and father. I know that his birth name was Mead, which I suspect was his mother’s surname. My father told me that George’s paternal grandmother doted on him as her grandson, and saw that he was well-provided for and educated. My father remembered seeing a photograph of young George, dressed in a miniature sailor suit, with a slate board to practise writing. When his grandmother died, George was unofficially adopted into the Betts family, William Betts, his adoptive father, a tripe dresser. As far as my father was aware, the Betts were a good family, and he thrived. Years later, when his biological father died, he left a legacy for his son, but George refused to claim it, despite protestations from his children. He wanted nothing further to do with the name Mead. Unfortunately, this also caused him difficulties when he needed to claim disability benefit as he developed cataracts which slowly caused blindness. There were no official records of George Betts – only George Mead, a name that he had not used for over seventy years. No records existed of his adoption or that his name was ever legally changed.

George Mead listed as a “visitor” in 1871, but ten years later, he was listed as a son to his adoptive parents

George’s wife, Rebecca, was also illegitimate. I was shocked to discover this but, despite searching for the birth of a Rebecca Bull, I was unable to locate a matching record. Instead, I found a record for a Rebecca Mayes born in September 1869. No father’s name was provided, and the occupation field was left empty. Eliza Rosina Mayes had decided to go it alone, with the support of her family. Rosina married William Henry Bull in December 1870. Rebecca was listed as his daughter in the 1871 census, and I suspect that this was true. I am unsure why it took over a year to marry Rosina. Maybe Rebecca was unaware that she had been baptised with her mother’s name. My father never knew and would have been absolutely horrified.

Rebecca Mayes baptism record of 1869, one year before her mother married

More than one hundred and fifty years later, none of this matters. Life was difficult enough for Victorian women, but a single woman with a child attracted stigma. She was a fallen woman, an unfortunate, immoral, and impure in the eyes of Victorian society, but I see instead, strong women, who managed, survived and did their best with what they had. The woman that I worry about most, was George Betts’ mother. I imagine a young domestic servant, pregnant, afraid and abandoned.

I acknowledge that my illegitimate ancestors would have faced more challenges, as did their mothers. The purpose of this blog was to remember them and to share their stories. I hope that in some small way I have recognised their struggle.

The illegitimates

By Christine Swan

One of the biggest challenges faced by genealogists is that of researching ancestors where you only know half of the story. I recently read an article in Who Do You Think You Are magazine, on this very theme. This prompted me to reflect on my discoveries and minor research triumphs when, at last, another piece of the puzzle is laid down.

On my maternal side of the family, finding out about my ancestors has been straightforward. Couples were married, children came along, some more quickly than others, but, I can follow the family line without too much digging.

My paternal side has been more of a headache. Both of my great grandfathers were illegitimate, and even further back, the phrase “it’s complicated” describes the situation perfectly well. Therefore, my research is not completely reliable or whole. My late father knew his grandfather, George Betts, very well, and was a favourite grandchild. He told me many stories and anecdotes that painted a vivid picture of him. So much so, that he lives in my memories as mapping those spoken words to a virtual manifestation of them. George’s wife, Rebecca Betts, doted on my father, and the whole family idolised her for her kindness and generosity, never realising that she too, was illegitimate.

However, my father did not know his paternal grandfather, David Deighton Taylor, as he had died nine years before he was born. We have a photograph and I can confirm that he physical resembled my own paternal grandfather Albert, who I can recall now, with his thick silver hair, leathery skin, nicotine-stained fingers, and regimental tattoos.

My great grandfather, David Deighton Taylor

In modern times, families raise children and as long as there is love and care, children can thrive. In my many years of working in the field of education, I have learned that it doesn’t matter what that relationship is, as long as there is plenty of love and care. Even this week, we have learned of more terrible stories where babies were wrenched away from their birth mothers and kept in church-run baby homes, where untold died of preventable disease, almost without trace. Mothers were treated as outcasts and shamed, leading to a lifetime of trauma and guilt, that no apology can erase. It is only now that we recognise their dreadful mistreatment, and the weekly episodes of Long Lost Family on television, leave me a blubbering wreck of happy tears.

Buit what have I learned about my own Victorian era ancestors and their lives? David Deighton Taylor was a curious name to me. When I began on my quest, I noticed that this was how he had addressed himself at the time of his marriage to Julia Cooke, in Bethnal Green in 1893. Taylor is an incredibly common family name, but Deighton less so, and therefore more attractive for a researcher. At that point, I did not know who his mother was and have never found a birth record. On David’s marriage certificate, he named his father as David Taylor, a builder. I have found no record of this person and suspect that this is a lie. It would have been humiliating to have left this field empty on the marriage record and I can imagine the vicar of St Peter’s, Bethnal Green, asking the question, and him reaching for an answer. David definitely knew his mother, Mary Ann, but she had died of Tuberculosis when he was eleven years old. It was after this date that his life was thrown into chaos. David’s stepfather, William English, sent him to the workhouse and married his domestic servant. For over ten years, he was in and out of institutions, initially the Metropolitan Board of Guardians school, then the workhouse and infirmary. Marriage was the key to family life for David, but even that was cut short by Tuberculosis.

David’s marriage record led me to the name of Deighton (or Dyton)

Mary Ann herself, appeared to be illegitimate too. As I recounted in my last post, Daniel Crudgington married Jane Vincent in 1842, after his return from Australia. This was the year of Mary Ann’s birth, and she continued to use her birth surname, Deighton, at various points of her adult life. Her mother, Ann Deighton, married Daniel Crudgington in 1844, in a marriage which I believe was bigamous on his part. Mary Ann was not baptised until 1853, and her birth date given as a respectable 1845 – one year after her parents married. Was Daniel actually Mary Ann’s father? I suspect yes and my reasoning is based on the fact that he left Jane and chose to marry Ann. If Ann became pregnant and then gave birth to Mary Ann, she was, as far as I am aware, his first born. He stayed married to Ann until she died, even though there seemed to be several reasons to assume that this was not always a happy union. David described Ann as his grandmother and Daniel as his grandfather, and continued to live with the latter until his death.

Mary Ann was baptised in 1853 but actually born in 1842

My other great grandfather, George Betts, was the son of a domestic servant and her master. I know very little of his mother and father. I know that his birth name was Mead, which I suspect was his mother’s surname. My father told me that George’s paternal grandmother doted on him as her grandson, and saw that he was well-provided for and educated. My father remembered seeing a photograph of young George, dressed in a miniature sailor suit, with a slate board to practise writing. When his grandmother died, George was unofficially adopted into the Betts family, William Betts, his adoptive father, a tripe dresser. As far as my father was aware, the Betts were a good family, and he thrived. Years later, when his biological father died, he left a legacy for his son, but George refused to claim it, despite protestations from his children. He wanted nothing further to do with the name Mead. Unfortunately, this also caused him difficulties when he needed to claim disability benefit as he developed cataracts which slowly caused blindness. There were no official records of George Betts – only George Mead, a name that he had not used for over seventy years. No records existed of his adoption or that his name was ever legally changed.

George Mead listed as a “visitor” in 1871, but ten years later, he was listed as a son to his adoptive parents

George’s wife, Rebecca, was also illegitimate. I was shocked to discover this but, despite searching for the birth of a Rebecca Bull, I was unable to locate a matching record. Instead, I found a record for a Rebecca Mayes born in September 1869. No father’s name was provided, and the occupation field was left empty. Eliza Rosina Mayes had decided to go it alone, with the support of her family. Rosina married William Henry Bull in December 1870. Rebecca was listed as his daughter in the 1871 census, and I suspect that this was true. I am unsure why it took over a year to marry Rosina. Maybe Rebecca was unaware that she had been baptised with her mother’s name. My father never knew and would have been absolutely horrified.

Rebecca Mayes baptism record of 1869, one year before her mother married

More than one hundred and fifty years later, none of this matters. Life was difficult enough for Victorian women, but a single woman with a child attracted stigma. She was a fallen woman, an unfortunate, immoral, and impure in the eyes of Victorian society, but I see instead, strong women, who managed, survived and did their best with what they had. The woman that I worry about most, was George Betts’ mother. I imagine a young domestic servant, pregnant, afraid and abandoned.

I acknowledge that my illegitimate ancestors would have faced more challenges, as did their mothers. The purpose of this blog was to remember them and to share their stories. I hope that in some small way I have recognised their struggle.

(Stories of people) In 1977, he found old documents of his grandfather. The documents were proof of purity of origin. It was necessary to have such documents during Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.

An idea of creating his own family tree crossed his mind.

Read more: https://informujte.cz/en/ive-created-my-family-tree-back-to-17th-century/

#StoriesOfPeople #FamilyTree #Genealogy #FamilyHistory #History #Protectorate #CzechHistory #Archives #Ancestry #Interview #HistoricalResearch

(Stories of people) In 1977, he found old documents of his grandfather. The documents were proof of purity of origin. It was necessary to have such documents during Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.

An idea of creating his own family tree crossed his mind.

Read more: https://informujte.cz/en/ive-created-my-family-tree-back-to-17th-century/

#StoriesOfPeople #FamilyTree #Genealogy #FamilyHistory #History #Protectorate #CzechHistory #Archives #Ancestry #Interview #HistoricalResearch

Griffith James (bef. 1725? — 1795): Final Years in Pendleton District, South Carolina (1793-5)

Or, Subtitled: Horse Thieves and Baptist Churches

As the previous posting notes, after selling his homeplace in his Pough tract just southeast of Sharpsburg on 13 May 1792, and (with James Austin), after selling his 50-acre portion of the King Cole tract on 3 March 1792, Griffith James moved with his wife Mary from Washington County, Maryland to Pendleton District, South Carolina.[1] As another past posting states, Griffith and Mary moved from Maryland to South Carolina at some point in 1793. Note that the court case regarding the theft of Griffith James’ horse in Pendleton District in September 1793 discussed below also shows that this family had moved from Maryland to South Carolina by September 1793. (To read the continuation of this posting, please click the numeral 2 below.)

The Move from Maryland to South Carolina, 1793

Since Griffith and Mary’s sons John and Samuel, who are, as we’ll see in a moment, named in his will, had not shown up in records of Ninety-Six (later Pendleton) District, South Carolina, prior to 1793, these two sons, who seem to be the youngest of the couple’s children, may have been living with them in Maryland and have made the move to South Carolina with them. As the previous posting notes indicates, Griffith and Mary’s son Joseph was living in Washington County up to 1791, when he moved with wife Elizabeth Austin to Kentucky, settling eventually at Perryville in Perry County, Missouri.

In heading to Pendleton District, Griffith and Mary were joining daughters Hannah (married Thomas Leonard), Gwendolyn (married Samuel Dean), and Mary (married Harmon Cummings), who had gone to South Carolina in 1786. The posting I’ve just linked features an excerpt from Louise Ayer Vandiver’s Traditions and History of Anderson County that recounts stories passed down in the Cummings (Cummin in this source) and Dean families about the move from Maryland to South Carolina.[2] These family stories speak of the long trip through “pathless forests” in carts whose wheels were sections cut from a large tree sawn thicker in the middle than on the edges.

The posting linked in the preceding paragraph notes that Griffith James’ son-in-law Thomas Leonard had arrived with wife Hannah in their children in Ninety-Six District by 9 February 1786, when he had a survey for 180 acres on waters of Big Generostee Creek.[3] Thomas’ brother-in-law Samuel Dean had a plat for 350 acres in Ninety-Six District in the fork of the Tugaloo and Keowee Rivers on 10 March 1787.[4] The linked posting to which I’m pointing here notes the draw of this part of the South Carolina upcountry in these years: having taken the British side during the Revolution, in 1777 the Cherokees ceded to South Carolina all their lands east of the Unacaye mountains, and in 1784 the South Carolina General Assembly passed “An Act for Establishing the Mode and Conditions of Surveying and Granting the Vacant Lands Within this State.” In 1784, a land office was opened to sell land in this upcountry region at $10 per 100 acres, and a large influx of settlers poured into the region.

Also noted in the linked posting I’ve just been citing: Big Generostee runs from east to west through Pendleton District to the Savannah River, with Mountain Creek running from east to west to meet Big Generostee before the conjoined streams reach the Savannah. Thomas Leonard, Samuel Dean, and Harmon Cummings settled near the confluence of the Big Generostee and Mountain Creek a few miles west of present-day Starr and just east of what is now Lake Hartwell, which was formed from the damming of the Savannah and Keowee (or Seneca) Rivers. A hamlet called Dean’s Station, named for this Dean family and marking where Samuel Dean lived, is less than two miles north of Starr on highway 81. It seems likely that Griffith and Mary James settled in this vicinity, as well, a deduction made more compelling by the fact that after the couple arrived in Pendleton District, Mary James joined Mountain Creek Baptist church, which is some six miles north of Dean’s Station.

Proof that Griffith James had arrived in Pendleton District by June 1794 is found in a deed that Jacob Herring made to Samuel Dean on 17 June 1794: on that date, Herring sold Dean 125 acres in Pendleton District on the Big Generostee, with Thomas Leonard and Griffith James witnessing the deed.[5] I haven’t found any connection between erring made to Samuel DeanJacob Herring and the kinship network of Griffith James, other than this sale of land. Jacob appears on the 1790 federal census on the same page as John Lauderdale, whose daughter Sarah married Thomas Lewis Leonard, son of Thomas Leonard and Hannah James.[6] As has been previously shown, John Lauderdale also lived on Big Generostee, evidently not far from the Leonard, Dean, and Cummings families.

Case re: the Theft of Griffith James’ Horse in September 1793

A previous posting discusses in some detail a court case involving horse-thieving in which Griffith James is featured, since the stolen horse on which the case revolves was his and was taken from his pasture.[7] The case file shows Shadrack Lantrip making oath on 10 November 1796 that James Shockley had stolen a bright bay mare out of Griffith James’s pasture in Pendleton District on the night of 2 September [1793]. Lantrip deposed that Shockley had described the horse to him at a blacksmith shop on the waters of Generostee on the main road leading to Shockley’s Ferry.

Shockley’s or Shockley Ferry crossed the Savannah River to Georgia at a location not far south of present-day Hartwell Dam. When the dam was created on the Savannah River below the confluence of the Tugaloo and Seneca Rivers to form Lake Hartwell, the point at which Shockley’s Ferry crossed the Savannah fell into the lake. Savannah is the name given to the Tugaloo River from the point of the confluence of the two rivers, and Seneca is the name given to the Keowee River from that point as well. Note the 1787 plat for Samuel Dean mentioned above, for land in the fork of the Tugaloo and Keowee Rivers.

Shockley’s Ferry was established by Thomas Shockley of Pendleton District, who appears on the 1790 federal census on the same page as Jacob Herring and John Lauderdale.[8] Located close to Shockley’s Ferry was a Baptist church with the same name — Shockley’s or Shockley Ferry Baptist church — that was the parent church of the Mountain Creek Baptist church to which members of the James family including Griffith James’ wife Mary and her daughters Hannah, Gwendolyn, and Mary belonged.[9] Shockley’s Ferry church was formed sometime in the 1780s after a large group of Baptists gathered in Pendleton District in the vicinity of what would soon be site of the ferry crossing. The church stood on the east bank of the Savannah immediately below the junction of the Tugaloo (i.e., Savannah) and Keowee (or Seneca) Rivers.

An undated scrap of paper in the file for the case in which James Shockley was tried for stealing Griffith James’ horse has a sworn statement of Shadrack Lantrip that he made his November 1796 statement accusing Shockley of stealing the horse under fear for his life after having received a hundred lashes. The case file also has a sworn statement of Griffith James dated 2 October [1793] giving power of attorney to his son John James to recover the horse, with witnesses Patrick Bowers and Robert Linn before justice D. Brown. Another statement by an unidentified person says that Lantrip had parted with the horse at the house of Shockley, giving it to John Hendricks and Mary Spurgen, who lived on Buck Creek on the Waters of the Broad.

On 13 October 1794, a recognizance was issued by William Edmondson to Thomas Shockley and James Hamilton, giving bond to assure that James Shockley appeared in court 10 November next. On 10 November, Shockley was indicted and a jury was struck. The indictment identifies the stolen horse as belonging to John James, a farmer of Pendleton District.

On 8 February 1796, somebody not identified in the transcript — was it Shockley? — made affidavit that in 1794 before harvest, Christopher Carsey told him that Mark Powell had stolen a brown horse from William Brown and carried it into Virginia. In the fall of the same year, he and Shadrack Lantrip went to “old Mr. James’s” and stole a large bay horse from the pasture.  Lantrip promised £10 to his accomplice.  The person swearing the oath for this statement thought that in February 1796, the horse was near Three Runs. In 1795, this unidentified person and Daniel McCollum with an enslaved man named Reuben belonging to Daniel Stathers had also formed a confederacy to steal a roan horse and a bay one from the field of one Howard.

On 11 April 1796, a subpoena was issued to Daniel Stringer, James Morrow, and John Gresham to appear in court on 10 November 1796. A warrant dated 9 July 1796 was then issued for the arrest of James Shockley. This has a comment written on it that John James of Pendleton District had made oath that on the evening of 2 September 1793 a bay horse had been stolen from Griffith James, now deceased.

On 11 July 1796, Shockley was committed to jail.  On the same day, he gave affidavit denying the charges against him. On 27 July 1796, a recognizance of Thomas Shockley Sr. and Jr. was filed for James Shockley’s upcoming court appearance.

On 4 November 1796, John James gave security with Robert Rankin to appear in court on 10 November at Pickensville. On 10 November 1796, a true bill of indictment was issued. This again dates the theft as occurring on the night of 2 September 1793. When the trial ended, the jury found Shockley not guilty. 

Also on 10 November 1796, a copias was issued to Moses Little, Jeremiah Files, Shadrack Lantrip, John James, William McKerley, and Joseph McKerley to give evidence for the state. On 23 November 1796, a recognizance was issued to Shadrack Lantrip to appear in court on 10 April next to give evidence vs. Shockley. Finally, On 11 February 1797, a recognizance was issued to William McKerley to give evidence. Four days later, recognizance was issued to John James to appear in court on 10 April. If there was an outcome of the case after this date, it is not mentioned in the court file as transcribed here.

As the preceding summary of documents in the case file regarding the theft of Griffith James’ horse indicate, Griffith was living on 2 October 1793 when he gave power of attorney to his son John to recover the stolen horse, and had died by 9 July 1796 when a warrant was issued for James Shockley’s arrest. Griffith James made his will in Pendleton District on 20 April 1795.[10] The will reads as follows (a digital image is at the head of this posting):

In the name of God. Amen. I Griffith James of the State of South Carolina and County of Pendleton being weak in body but of sound Memory. bleſsed be God. do this day the twentieth of April in the year of Our Lord. One thousand and Seven hundred and Ninety five make and publish this my Last will and Testament in Manner following that is to Say First I Give to my son Joseph James all my wearing appearel which Shall be at my Decease also Ten pounds of Money it being paid of Money Due to me in the State of Maryland if It is ever collected. also I give and bequeath unto my Daughter Hannah Leonor One Dollar to be paid within One full year after my decease also I give to my Daughter Jenny Dean one Dollar to be paid to her at or with[in] One full Year after my decease, also I Give to my Daughter Mary Cummins one Dollar to be paid at the sd time also I give to my son John James one Dollar to be paid at the said time, also I give to my son Samuel James one Dollar to be paid at the said Time and all and every other thing of my Estate real & Personal which shall or may belong to me at my Death I Give and Bequeath to my Dear wife Mary James forever & I make & ordain my son John James and Son Samuel James, Executors of this my will, in trust for the intents & purposes in this my will contained to do & perform the same according my true intent and Meaning. In Witneſs thereof I the sd Griffith James have to this my last will and Testament set my hand & affixed my seal the day & year above written; Signed & Delivered by the said Griffith James For his last will & Testament — in the presence of us who were present at the signing and sealing thereof

                                                                                             Griffith James

Owen McCorkel

Jane Lesly (her mark)

James Jones

Proven by James Jones and Jane Lesly in open court

Recorded in Will Book C, Page 82

Recorded 12th April 1796

The will has no probate date, only the date on which it was recorded. It is the only estate record of Griffith James that appears to be extant. As a previous posting notes, a death date of 3 October 1795 for Griffith is stated in a study of the Dean family entitled Country Cousins: Descendants of Samuel Dean with no information about the source of this date.[11]

Given that Griffith and Mary James appear to have decided in 1792 to move to South Carolina and join their children there, and that they made that move in 1793 with Griffith dying only two years later, I think it’s likely that he was up in years by the time of his death with grown and married children born as early as 1752. It’s possible he was becoming frail and/or sick when he and wife Mary decided to relocate, and that they made the decision to join their daughters in South Carolina so that one or more of the daughters could look after their parents in the final years of the parents’ lives.

[1] Washington County, Maryland, Deed Bk. G, p. 771-2, 815-6.

[2] Louise Ayer Vandiver, Traditions and History of Anderson County (Atlanta: Ruralist, 1928), pp. 71-2.

[3] South Carolina Plat Books (Charleston Series), vol. 15, p. 127; and Ninety-Six District, South Side of Saluda, Commissioner of Locations Plat Bk. B, p. 113.

[4] South Carolina Plat Books (Charleston Series), vol. 14, p. 164.

[5] Anderson County, South Carolina, Deed Bk. C & D, p. 360.

[6] 1790 federal census, Pendleton District, South Carolina, p. 4.

[7] Washington District, South Carolina, General Sessions Case Rolls, 1792-1799, no. 49. I am indebted to researcher Beverly Dean Peoples for providing me with a transcript of documents in the file of this case.

[8] See supra, n. 6.

[9] Leah Townsend, South Carolina Baptists, 1670-1805 (Florence, South Carolina: Florence Printing Company, 1935), p. 195-8; T.H. Garrett, A History of Saluda Baptist Association (Richmond, 1896), pp. 114, 137, 262-4; Vandiver, Traditions and History of Anderson County, pp. 44, 217; and “Mountain Creek Baptist Church,” at Winthrop University Archives’ Roots and Recall website.

[10] Anderson County, South Carolina, Will Bk. C, p. 82. See also Virginia Alexander, Colleen M. Elliott, and Betty Willie, Pendleton District and Anderson County, South Carolina, Wills, Estates, Inventories, Tax Returns, and Census Records (Easley, South Carolina: Southern Historical Press, 1980), pp. 11-12.

[11] Era Josephine Morgan Davis, Louise S. Rourke, and Marc B. Smith, Country Cousins: Descendants of Samuel Dean (1996), p. 3. In correspondence with me in January 1997, researcher Barbara Morris of Bellaire, Texas, stated that the 3 October 1795 death of date was sent by Lucy Rebecca Dean to Louise Rourke in the 1980s. Louise Rourke, who lived in Citrus Heights, California, was the primary author of Country Cousins. Unless I’m mistaken, Lucy Rebecca Dean (1942-2023, m. John Kennemur) was a daughter of Richard Brown Dean and Joanne Richardson. Rebecca Dean Kennemur was a DAR member and active genealogist. This Dean line descends from Samuel Dean and Gwendolyn James through their son Richard P. Dean.

Griffith James (bef. 1725? — 1795): Final Years in Pendleton District, South Carolina (1793-5)

Or, Subtitled: Horse Thieves and Baptist Churches

As the previous posting notes, after selling his homeplace in his Pough tract just southeast of Sharpsburg on 13 May 1792, and (with James Austin), after selling his 50-acre portion of the King Cole tract on 3 March 1792, Griffith James moved with his wife Mary from Washington County, Maryland to Pendleton District, South Carolina.[1] As another past posting states, Griffith and Mary moved from Maryland to South Carolina at some point in 1793. Note that the court case regarding the theft of Griffith James’ horse in Pendleton District in September 1793 discussed below also shows that this family had moved from Maryland to South Carolina by September 1793. (To read the continuation of this posting, please click the numeral 2 below.)

The Move from Maryland to South Carolina, 1793

Since Griffith and Mary’s sons John and Samuel, who are, as we’ll see in a moment, named in his will, had not shown up in records of Ninety-Six (later Pendleton) District, South Carolina, prior to 1793, these two sons, who seem to be the youngest of the couple’s children, may have been living with them in Maryland and have made the move to South Carolina with them. As the previous posting notes indicates, Griffith and Mary’s son Joseph was living in Washington County up to 1791, when he moved with wife Elizabeth Austin to Kentucky, settling eventually at Perryville in Perry County, Missouri.

In heading to Pendleton District, Griffith and Mary were joining daughters Hannah (married Thomas Leonard), Gwendolyn (married Samuel Dean), and Mary (married Harmon Cummings), who had gone to South Carolina in 1786. The posting I’ve just linked features an excerpt from Louise Ayer Vandiver’s Traditions and History of Anderson County that recounts stories passed down in the Cummings (Cummin in this source) and Dean families about the move from Maryland to South Carolina.[2] These family stories speak of the long trip through “pathless forests” in carts whose wheels were sections cut from a large tree sawn thicker in the middle than on the edges.

The posting linked in the preceding paragraph notes that Griffith James’ son-in-law Thomas Leonard had arrived with wife Hannah in their children in Ninety-Six District by 9 February 1786, when he had a survey for 180 acres on waters of Big Generostee Creek.[3] Thomas’ brother-in-law Samuel Dean had a plat for 350 acres in Ninety-Six District in the fork of the Tugaloo and Keowee Rivers on 10 March 1787.[4] The linked posting to which I’m pointing here notes the draw of this part of the South Carolina upcountry in these years: having taken the British side during the Revolution, in 1777 the Cherokees ceded to South Carolina all their lands east of the Unacaye mountains, and in 1784 the South Carolina General Assembly passed “An Act for Establishing the Mode and Conditions of Surveying and Granting the Vacant Lands Within this State.” In 1784, a land office was opened to sell land in this upcountry region at $10 per 100 acres, and a large influx of settlers poured into the region.

Also noted in the linked posting I’ve just been citing: Big Generostee runs from east to west through Pendleton District to the Savannah River, with Mountain Creek running from east to west to meet Big Generostee before the conjoined streams reach the Savannah. Thomas Leonard, Samuel Dean, and Harmon Cummings settled near the confluence of the Big Generostee and Mountain Creek a few miles west of present-day Starr and just east of what is now Lake Hartwell, which was formed from the damming of the Savannah and Keowee (or Seneca) Rivers. A hamlet called Dean’s Station, named for this Dean family and marking where Samuel Dean lived, is less than two miles north of Starr on highway 81. It seems likely that Griffith and Mary James settled in this vicinity, as well, a deduction made more compelling by the fact that after the couple arrived in Pendleton District, Mary James joined Mountain Creek Baptist church, which is some six miles north of Dean’s Station.

Proof that Griffith James had arrived in Pendleton District by June 1794 is found in a deed that Jacob Herring made to Samuel Dean on 17 June 1794: on that date, Herring sold Dean 125 acres in Pendleton District on the Big Generostee, with Thomas Leonard and Griffith James witnessing the deed.[5] I haven’t found any connection between erring made to Samuel DeanJacob Herring and the kinship network of Griffith James, other than this sale of land. Jacob appears on the 1790 federal census on the same page as John Lauderdale, whose daughter Sarah married Thomas Lewis Leonard, son of Thomas Leonard and Hannah James.[6] As has been previously shown, John Lauderdale also lived on Big Generostee, evidently not far from the Leonard, Dean, and Cummings families.

Case re: the Theft of Griffith James’ Horse in September 1793

A previous posting discusses in some detail a court case involving horse-thieving in which Griffith James is featured, since the stolen horse on which the case revolves was his and was taken from his pasture.[7] The case file shows Shadrack Lantrip making oath on 10 November 1796 that James Shockley had stolen a bright bay mare out of Griffith James’s pasture in Pendleton District on the night of 2 September [1793]. Lantrip deposed that Shockley had described the horse to him at a blacksmith shop on the waters of Generostee on the main road leading to Shockley’s Ferry.

Shockley’s or Shockley Ferry crossed the Savannah River to Georgia at a location not far south of present-day Hartwell Dam. When the dam was created on the Savannah River below the confluence of the Tugaloo and Seneca Rivers to form Lake Hartwell, the point at which Shockley’s Ferry crossed the Savannah fell into the lake. Savannah is the name given to the Tugaloo River from the point of the confluence of the two rivers, and Seneca is the name given to the Keowee River from that point as well. Note the 1787 plat for Samuel Dean mentioned above, for land in the fork of the Tugaloo and Keowee Rivers.

Shockley’s Ferry was established by Thomas Shockley of Pendleton District, who appears on the 1790 federal census on the same page as Jacob Herring and John Lauderdale.[8] Located close to Shockley’s Ferry was a Baptist church with the same name — Shockley’s or Shockley Ferry Baptist church — that was the parent church of the Mountain Creek Baptist church to which members of the James family including Griffith James’ wife Mary and her daughters Hannah, Gwendolyn, and Mary belonged.[9] Shockley’s Ferry church was formed sometime in the 1780s after a large group of Baptists gathered in Pendleton District in the vicinity of what would soon be site of the ferry crossing. The church stood on the east bank of the Savannah immediately below the junction of the Tugaloo (i.e., Savannah) and Keowee (or Seneca) Rivers.

An undated scrap of paper in the file for the case in which James Shockley was tried for stealing Griffith James’ horse has a sworn statement of Shadrack Lantrip that he made his November 1796 statement accusing Shockley of stealing the horse under fear for his life after having received a hundred lashes. The case file also has a sworn statement of Griffith James dated 2 October [1793] giving power of attorney to his son John James to recover the horse, with witnesses Patrick Bowers and Robert Linn before justice D. Brown. Another statement by an unidentified person says that Lantrip had parted with the horse at the house of Shockley, giving it to John Hendricks and Mary Spurgen, who lived on Buck Creek on the Waters of the Broad.

On 13 October 1794, a recognizance was issued by William Edmondson to Thomas Shockley and James Hamilton, giving bond to assure that James Shockley appeared in court 10 November next. On 10 November, Shockley was indicted and a jury was struck. The indictment identifies the stolen horse as belonging to John James, a farmer of Pendleton District.

On 8 February 1796, somebody not identified in the transcript — was it Shockley? — made affidavit that in 1794 before harvest, Christopher Carsey told him that Mark Powell had stolen a brown horse from William Brown and carried it into Virginia. In the fall of the same year, he and Shadrack Lantrip went to “old Mr. James’s” and stole a large bay horse from the pasture.  Lantrip promised £10 to his accomplice.  The person swearing the oath for this statement thought that in February 1796, the horse was near Three Runs. In 1795, this unidentified person and Daniel McCollum with an enslaved man named Reuben belonging to Daniel Stathers had also formed a confederacy to steal a roan horse and a bay one from the field of one Howard.

On 11 April 1796, a subpoena was issued to Daniel Stringer, James Morrow, and John Gresham to appear in court on 10 November 1796. A warrant dated 9 July 1796 was then issued for the arrest of James Shockley. This has a comment written on it that John James of Pendleton District had made oath that on the evening of 2 September 1793 a bay horse had been stolen from Griffith James, now deceased.

On 11 July 1796, Shockley was committed to jail.  On the same day, he gave affidavit denying the charges against him. On 27 July 1796, a recognizance of Thomas Shockley Sr. and Jr. was filed for James Shockley’s upcoming court appearance.

On 4 November 1796, John James gave security with Robert Rankin to appear in court on 10 November at Pickensville. On 10 November 1796, a true bill of indictment was issued. This again dates the theft as occurring on the night of 2 September 1793. When the trial ended, the jury found Shockley not guilty. 

Also on 10 November 1796, a copias was issued to Moses Little, Jeremiah Files, Shadrack Lantrip, John James, William McKerley, and Joseph McKerley to give evidence for the state. On 23 November 1796, a recognizance was issued to Shadrack Lantrip to appear in court on 10 April next to give evidence vs. Shockley. Finally, On 11 February 1797, a recognizance was issued to William McKerley to give evidence. Four days later, recognizance was issued to John James to appear in court on 10 April. If there was an outcome of the case after this date, it is not mentioned in the court file as transcribed here.

As the preceding summary of documents in the case file regarding the theft of Griffith James’ horse indicate, Griffith was living on 2 October 1793 when he gave power of attorney to his son John to recover the stolen horse, and had died by 9 July 1796 when a warrant was issued for James Shockley’s arrest. Griffith James made his will in Pendleton District on 20 April 1795.[10] The will reads as follows (a digital image is at the head of this posting):

In the name of God. Amen. I Griffith James of the State of South Carolina and County of Pendleton being weak in body but of sound Memory. bleſsed be God. do this day the twentieth of April in the year of Our Lord. One thousand and Seven hundred and Ninety five make and publish this my Last will and Testament in Manner following that is to Say First I Give to my son Joseph James all my wearing appearel which Shall be at my Decease also Ten pounds of Money it being paid of Money Due to me in the State of Maryland if It is ever collected. also I give and bequeath unto my Daughter Hannah Leonor One Dollar to be paid within One full year after my decease also I give to my Daughter Jenny Dean one Dollar to be paid to her at or with[in] One full Year after my decease, also I Give to my Daughter Mary Cummins one Dollar to be paid at the sd time also I give to my son John James one Dollar to be paid at the said time, also I give to my son Samuel James one Dollar to be paid at the said Time and all and every other thing of my Estate real & Personal which shall or may belong to me at my Death I Give and Bequeath to my Dear wife Mary James forever & I make & ordain my son John James and Son Samuel James, Executors of this my will, in trust for the intents & purposes in this my will contained to do & perform the same according my true intent and Meaning. In Witneſs thereof I the sd Griffith James have to this my last will and Testament set my hand & affixed my seal the day & year above written; Signed & Delivered by the said Griffith James For his last will & Testament — in the presence of us who were present at the signing and sealing thereof

                                                                                             Griffith James

Owen McCorkel

Jane Lesly (her mark)

James Jones

Proven by James Jones and Jane Lesly in open court

Recorded in Will Book C, Page 82

Recorded 12th April 1796

The will has no probate date, only the date on which it was recorded. It is the only estate record of Griffith James that appears to be extant. As a previous posting notes, a death date of 3 October 1795 for Griffith is stated in a study of the Dean family entitled Country Cousins: Descendants of Samuel Dean with no information about the source of this date.[11]

Given that Griffith and Mary James appear to have decided in 1792 to move to South Carolina and join their children there, and that they made that move in 1793 with Griffith dying only two years later, I think it’s likely that he was up in years by the time of his death with grown and married children born as early as 1752. It’s possible he was becoming frail and/or sick when he and wife Mary decided to relocate, and that they made the decision to join their daughters in South Carolina so that one or more of the daughters could look after their parents in the final years of the parents’ lives.

[1] Washington County, Maryland, Deed Bk. G, p. 771-2, 815-6.

[2] Louise Ayer Vandiver, Traditions and History of Anderson County (Atlanta: Ruralist, 1928), pp. 71-2.

[3] South Carolina Plat Books (Charleston Series), vol. 15, p. 127; and Ninety-Six District, South Side of Saluda, Commissioner of Locations Plat Bk. B, p. 113.

[4] South Carolina Plat Books (Charleston Series), vol. 14, p. 164.

[5] Anderson County, South Carolina, Deed Bk. C & D, p. 360.

[6] 1790 federal census, Pendleton District, South Carolina, p. 4.

[7] Washington District, South Carolina, General Sessions Case Rolls, 1792-1799, no. 49. I am indebted to researcher Beverly Dean Peoples for providing me with a transcript of documents in the file of this case.

[8] See supra, n. 6.

[9] Leah Townsend, South Carolina Baptists, 1670-1805 (Florence, South Carolina: Florence Printing Company, 1935), p. 195-8; T.H. Garrett, A History of Saluda Baptist Association (Richmond, 1896), pp. 114, 137, 262-4; Vandiver, Traditions and History of Anderson County, pp. 44, 217; and “Mountain Creek Baptist Church,” at Winthrop University Archives’ Roots and Recall website.

[10] Anderson County, South Carolina, Will Bk. C, p. 82. See also Virginia Alexander, Colleen M. Elliott, and Betty Willie, Pendleton District and Anderson County, South Carolina, Wills, Estates, Inventories, Tax Returns, and Census Records (Easley, South Carolina: Southern Historical Press, 1980), pp. 11-12.

[11] Era Josephine Morgan Davis, Louise S. Rourke, and Marc B. Smith, Country Cousins: Descendants of Samuel Dean (1996), p. 3. In correspondence with me in January 1997, researcher Barbara Morris of Bellaire, Texas, stated that the 3 October 1795 death of date was sent by Lucy Rebecca Dean to Louise Rourke in the 1980s. Louise Rourke, who lived in Citrus Heights, California, was the primary author of Country Cousins. Unless I’m mistaken, Lucy Rebecca Dean (1942-2023, m. John Kennemur) was a daughter of Richard Brown Dean and Joanne Richardson. Rebecca Dean Kennemur was a DAR member and active genealogist. This Dean line descends from Samuel Dean and Gwendolyn James through their son Richard P. Dean.

Griffith James (bef. 1725? — 1795): Final Years in Pendleton District, South Carolina (1793-5)

Or, Subtitled: Horse Thieves and Baptist Churches

As the previous posting notes, after selling his homeplace in his Pough tract just southeast of Sharpsburg on 13 May 1792, and (with James Austin), after selling his 50-acre portion of the King Cole tract on 3 March 1792, Griffith James moved with his wife Mary from Washington County, Maryland to Pendleton District, South Carolina.[1] As another past posting states, Griffith and Mary moved from Maryland to South Carolina at some point in 1793. Note that the court case regarding the theft of Griffith James’ horse in Pendleton District in September 1793 discussed below also shows that this family had moved from Maryland to South Carolina by September 1793. (To read the continuation of this posting, please click the numeral 2 below.)

The Move from Maryland to South Carolina, 1793

Since Griffith and Mary’s sons John and Samuel, who are, as we’ll see in a moment, named in his will, had not shown up in records of Ninety-Six (later Pendleton) District, South Carolina, prior to 1793, these two sons, who seem to be the youngest of the couple’s children, may have been living with them in Maryland and have made the move to South Carolina with them. As the previous posting notes indicates, Griffith and Mary’s son Joseph was living in Washington County up to 1791, when he moved with wife Elizabeth Austin to Kentucky, settling eventually at Perryville in Perry County, Missouri.

In heading to Pendleton District, Griffith and Mary were joining daughters Hannah (married Thomas Leonard), Gwendolyn (married Samuel Dean), and Mary (married Harmon Cummings), who had gone to South Carolina in 1786. The posting I’ve just linked features an excerpt from Louise Ayer Vandiver’s Traditions and History of Anderson County that recounts stories passed down in the Cummings (Cummin in this source) and Dean families about the move from Maryland to South Carolina.[2] These family stories speak of the long trip through “pathless forests” in carts whose wheels were sections cut from a large tree sawn thicker in the middle than on the edges.

The posting linked in the preceding paragraph notes that Griffith James’ son-in-law Thomas Leonard had arrived with wife Hannah in their children in Ninety-Six District by 9 February 1786, when he had a survey for 180 acres on waters of Big Generostee Creek.[3] Thomas’ brother-in-law Samuel Dean had a plat for 350 acres in Ninety-Six District in the fork of the Tugaloo and Keowee Rivers on 10 March 1787.[4] The linked posting to which I’m pointing here notes the draw of this part of the South Carolina upcountry in these years: having taken the British side during the Revolution, in 1777 the Cherokees ceded to South Carolina all their lands east of the Unacaye mountains, and in 1784 the South Carolina General Assembly passed “An Act for Establishing the Mode and Conditions of Surveying and Granting the Vacant Lands Within this State.” In 1784, a land office was opened to sell land in this upcountry region at $10 per 100 acres, and a large influx of settlers poured into the region.

Also noted in the linked posting I’ve just been citing: Big Generostee runs from east to west through Pendleton District to the Savannah River, with Mountain Creek running from east to west to meet Big Generostee before the conjoined streams reach the Savannah. Thomas Leonard, Samuel Dean, and Harmon Cummings settled near the confluence of the Big Generostee and Mountain Creek a few miles west of present-day Starr and just east of what is now Lake Hartwell, which was formed from the damming of the Savannah and Keowee (or Seneca) Rivers. A hamlet called Dean’s Station, named for this Dean family and marking where Samuel Dean lived, is less than two miles north of Starr on highway 81. It seems likely that Griffith and Mary James settled in this vicinity, as well, a deduction made more compelling by the fact that after the couple arrived in Pendleton District, Mary James joined Mountain Creek Baptist church, which is some six miles north of Dean’s Station.

Proof that Griffith James had arrived in Pendleton District by June 1794 is found in a deed that Jacob Herring made to Samuel Dean on 17 June 1794: on that date, Herring sold Dean 125 acres in Pendleton District on the Big Generostee, with Thomas Leonard and Griffith James witnessing the deed.[5] I haven’t found any connection between erring made to Samuel DeanJacob Herring and the kinship network of Griffith James, other than this sale of land. Jacob appears on the 1790 federal census on the same page as John Lauderdale, whose daughter Sarah married Thomas Lewis Leonard, son of Thomas Leonard and Hannah James.[6] As has been previously shown, John Lauderdale also lived on Big Generostee, evidently not far from the Leonard, Dean, and Cummings families.

Case re: the Theft of Griffith James’ Horse in September 1793

A previous posting discusses in some detail a court case involving horse-thieving in which Griffith James is featured, since the stolen horse on which the case revolves was his and was taken from his pasture.[7] The case file shows Shadrack Lantrip making oath on 10 November 1796 that James Shockley had stolen a bright bay mare out of Griffith James’s pasture in Pendleton District on the night of 2 September [1793]. Lantrip deposed that Shockley had described the horse to him at a blacksmith shop on the waters of Generostee on the main road leading to Shockley’s Ferry.

Shockley’s or Shockley Ferry crossed the Savannah River to Georgia at a location not far south of present-day Hartwell Dam. When the dam was created on the Savannah River below the confluence of the Tugaloo and Seneca Rivers to form Lake Hartwell, the point at which Shockley’s Ferry crossed the Savannah fell into the lake. Savannah is the name given to the Tugaloo River from the point of the confluence of the two rivers, and Seneca is the name given to the Keowee River from that point as well. Note the 1787 plat for Samuel Dean mentioned above, for land in the fork of the Tugaloo and Keowee Rivers.

Shockley’s Ferry was established by Thomas Shockley of Pendleton District, who appears on the 1790 federal census on the same page as Jacob Herring and John Lauderdale.[8] Located close to Shockley’s Ferry was a Baptist church with the same name — Shockley’s or Shockley Ferry Baptist church — that was the parent church of the Mountain Creek Baptist church to which members of the James family including Griffith James’ wife Mary and her daughters Hannah, Gwendolyn, and Mary belonged.[9] Shockley’s Ferry church was formed sometime in the 1780s after a large group of Baptists gathered in Pendleton District in the vicinity of what would soon be site of the ferry crossing. The church stood on the east bank of the Savannah immediately below the junction of the Tugaloo (i.e., Savannah) and Keowee (or Seneca) Rivers.

An undated scrap of paper in the file for the case in which James Shockley was tried for stealing Griffith James’ horse has a sworn statement of Shadrack Lantrip that he made his November 1796 statement accusing Shockley of stealing the horse under fear for his life after having received a hundred lashes. The case file also has a sworn statement of Griffith James dated 2 October [1793] giving power of attorney to his son John James to recover the horse, with witnesses Patrick Bowers and Robert Linn before justice D. Brown. Another statement by an unidentified person says that Lantrip had parted with the horse at the house of Shockley, giving it to John Hendricks and Mary Spurgen, who lived on Buck Creek on the Waters of the Broad.

On 13 October 1794, a recognizance was issued by William Edmondson to Thomas Shockley and James Hamilton, giving bond to assure that James Shockley appeared in court 10 November next. On 10 November, Shockley was indicted and a jury was struck. The indictment identifies the stolen horse as belonging to John James, a farmer of Pendleton District.

On 8 February 1796, somebody not identified in the transcript — was it Shockley? — made affidavit that in 1794 before harvest, Christopher Carsey told him that Mark Powell had stolen a brown horse from William Brown and carried it into Virginia. In the fall of the same year, he and Shadrack Lantrip went to “old Mr. James’s” and stole a large bay horse from the pasture.  Lantrip promised £10 to his accomplice.  The person swearing the oath for this statement thought that in February 1796, the horse was near Three Runs. In 1795, this unidentified person and Daniel McCollum with an enslaved man named Reuben belonging to Daniel Stathers had also formed a confederacy to steal a roan horse and a bay one from the field of one Howard.

On 11 April 1796, a subpoena was issued to Daniel Stringer, James Morrow, and John Gresham to appear in court on 10 November 1796. A warrant dated 9 July 1796 was then issued for the arrest of James Shockley. This has a comment written on it that John James of Pendleton District had made oath that on the evening of 2 September 1793 a bay horse had been stolen from Griffith James, now deceased.

On 11 July 1796, Shockley was committed to jail.  On the same day, he gave affidavit denying the charges against him. On 27 July 1796, a recognizance of Thomas Shockley Sr. and Jr. was filed for James Shockley’s upcoming court appearance.

On 4 November 1796, John James gave security with Robert Rankin to appear in court on 10 November at Pickensville. On 10 November 1796, a true bill of indictment was issued. This again dates the theft as occurring on the night of 2 September 1793. When the trial ended, the jury found Shockley not guilty. 

Also on 10 November 1796, a copias was issued to Moses Little, Jeremiah Files, Shadrack Lantrip, John James, William McKerley, and Joseph McKerley to give evidence for the state. On 23 November 1796, a recognizance was issued to Shadrack Lantrip to appear in court on 10 April next to give evidence vs. Shockley. Finally, On 11 February 1797, a recognizance was issued to William McKerley to give evidence. Four days later, recognizance was issued to John James to appear in court on 10 April. If there was an outcome of the case after this date, it is not mentioned in the court file as transcribed here.

As the preceding summary of documents in the case file regarding the theft of Griffith James’ horse indicate, Griffith was living on 2 October 1793 when he gave power of attorney to his son John to recover the stolen horse, and had died by 9 July 1796 when a warrant was issued for James Shockley’s arrest. Griffith James made his will in Pendleton District on 20 April 1795.[10] The will reads as follows (a digital image is at the head of this posting):

In the name of God. Amen. I Griffith James of the State of South Carolina and County of Pendleton being weak in body but of sound Memory. bleſsed be God. do this day the twentieth of April in the year of Our Lord. One thousand and Seven hundred and Ninety five make and publish this my Last will and Testament in Manner following that is to Say First I Give to my son Joseph James all my wearing appearel which Shall be at my Decease also Ten pounds of Money it being paid of Money Due to me in the State of Maryland if It is ever collected. also I give and bequeath unto my Daughter Hannah Leonor One Dollar to be paid within One full year after my decease also I give to my Daughter Jenny Dean one Dollar to be paid to her at or with[in] One full Year after my decease, also I Give to my Daughter Mary Cummins one Dollar to be paid at the sd time also I give to my son John James one Dollar to be paid at the said time, also I give to my son Samuel James one Dollar to be paid at the said Time and all and every other thing of my Estate real & Personal which shall or may belong to me at my Death I Give and Bequeath to my Dear wife Mary James forever & I make & ordain my son John James and Son Samuel James, Executors of this my will, in trust for the intents & purposes in this my will contained to do & perform the same according my true intent and Meaning. In Witneſs thereof I the sd Griffith James have to this my last will and Testament set my hand & affixed my seal the day & year above written; Signed & Delivered by the said Griffith James For his last will & Testament — in the presence of us who were present at the signing and sealing thereof

                                                                                             Griffith James

Owen McCorkel

Jane Lesly (her mark)

James Jones

Proven by James Jones and Jane Lesly in open court

Recorded in Will Book C, Page 82

Recorded 12th April 1796

The will has no probate date, only the date on which it was recorded. It is the only estate record of Griffith James that appears to be extant. As a previous posting notes, a death date of 3 October 1795 for Griffith is stated in a study of the Dean family entitled Country Cousins: Descendants of Samuel Dean with no information about the source of this date.[11]

Given that Griffith and Mary James appear to have decided in 1792 to move to South Carolina and join their children there, and that they made that move in 1793 with Griffith dying only two years later, I think it’s likely that he was up in years by the time of his death with grown and married children born as early as 1752. It’s possible he was becoming frail and/or sick when he and wife Mary decided to relocate, and that they made the decision to join their daughters in South Carolina so that one or more of the daughters could look after their parents in the final years of the parents’ lives.

[1] Washington County, Maryland, Deed Bk. G, p. 771-2, 815-6.

[2] Louise Ayer Vandiver, Traditions and History of Anderson County (Atlanta: Ruralist, 1928), pp. 71-2.

[3] South Carolina Plat Books (Charleston Series), vol. 15, p. 127; and Ninety-Six District, South Side of Saluda, Commissioner of Locations Plat Bk. B, p. 113.

[4] South Carolina Plat Books (Charleston Series), vol. 14, p. 164.

[5] Anderson County, South Carolina, Deed Bk. C & D, p. 360.

[6] 1790 federal census, Pendleton District, South Carolina, p. 4.

[7] Washington District, South Carolina, General Sessions Case Rolls, 1792-1799, no. 49. I am indebted to researcher Beverly Dean Peoples for providing me with a transcript of documents in the file of this case.

[8] See supra, n. 6.

[9] Leah Townsend, South Carolina Baptists, 1670-1805 (Florence, South Carolina: Florence Printing Company, 1935), p. 195-8; T.H. Garrett, A History of Saluda Baptist Association (Richmond, 1896), pp. 114, 137, 262-4; Vandiver, Traditions and History of Anderson County, pp. 44, 217; and “Mountain Creek Baptist Church,” at Winthrop University Archives’ Roots and Recall website.

[10] Anderson County, South Carolina, Will Bk. C, p. 82. See also Virginia Alexander, Colleen M. Elliott, and Betty Willie, Pendleton District and Anderson County, South Carolina, Wills, Estates, Inventories, Tax Returns, and Census Records (Easley, South Carolina: Southern Historical Press, 1980), pp. 11-12.

[11] Era Josephine Morgan Davis, Louise S. Rourke, and Marc B. Smith, Country Cousins: Descendants of Samuel Dean (1996), p. 3. In correspondence with me in January 1997, researcher Barbara Morris of Bellaire, Texas, stated that the 3 October 1795 death of date was sent by Lucy Rebecca Dean to Louise Rourke in the 1980s. Louise Rourke, who lived in Citrus Heights, California, was the primary author of Country Cousins. Unless I’m mistaken, Lucy Rebecca Dean (1942-2023, m. John Kennemur) was a daughter of Richard Brown Dean and Joanne Richardson. Rebecca Dean Kennemur was a DAR member and active genealogist. This Dean line descends from Samuel Dean and Gwendolyn James through their son Richard P. Dean.

Griffith James (bef. 1725? — 1795): Final Years in Pendleton District, South Carolina (1793-5)

Or, Subtitled: Horse Thieves and Baptist Churches

As the previous posting notes, after selling his homeplace in his Pough tract just southeast of Sharpsburg on 13 May 1792, and (with James Austin), after selling his 50-acre portion of the King Cole tract on 3 March 1792, Griffith James moved with his wife Mary from Washington County, Maryland to Pendleton District, South Carolina.[1] As another past posting states, Griffith and Mary moved from Maryland to South Carolina at some point in 1793. Note that the court case regarding the theft of Griffith James’ horse in Pendleton District in September 1793 discussed below also shows that this family had moved from Maryland to South Carolina by September 1793. (To read the continuation of this posting, please click the numeral 2 below.)

The Move from Maryland to South Carolina, 1793

Since Griffith and Mary’s sons John and Samuel, who are, as we’ll see in a moment, named in his will, had not shown up in records of Ninety-Six (later Pendleton) District, South Carolina, prior to 1793, these two sons, who seem to be the youngest of the couple’s children, may have been living with them in Maryland and have made the move to South Carolina with them. As the previous posting notes indicates, Griffith and Mary’s son Joseph was living in Washington County up to 1791, when he moved with wife Elizabeth Austin to Kentucky, settling eventually at Perryville in Perry County, Missouri.

In heading to Pendleton District, Griffith and Mary were joining daughters Hannah (married Thomas Leonard), Gwendolyn (married Samuel Dean), and Mary (married Harmon Cummings), who had gone to South Carolina in 1786. The posting I’ve just linked features an excerpt from Louise Ayer Vandiver’s Traditions and History of Anderson County that recounts stories passed down in the Cummings (Cummin in this source) and Dean families about the move from Maryland to South Carolina.[2] These family stories speak of the long trip through “pathless forests” in carts whose wheels were sections cut from a large tree sawn thicker in the middle than on the edges.

The posting linked in the preceding paragraph notes that Griffith James’ son-in-law Thomas Leonard had arrived with wife Hannah in their children in Ninety-Six District by 9 February 1786, when he had a survey for 180 acres on waters of Big Generostee Creek.[3] Thomas’ brother-in-law Samuel Dean had a plat for 350 acres in Ninety-Six District in the fork of the Tugaloo and Keowee Rivers on 10 March 1787.[4] The linked posting to which I’m pointing here notes the draw of this part of the South Carolina upcountry in these years: having taken the British side during the Revolution, in 1777 the Cherokees ceded to South Carolina all their lands east of the Unacaye mountains, and in 1784 the South Carolina General Assembly passed “An Act for Establishing the Mode and Conditions of Surveying and Granting the Vacant Lands Within this State.” In 1784, a land office was opened to sell land in this upcountry region at $10 per 100 acres, and a large influx of settlers poured into the region.

Also noted in the linked posting I’ve just been citing: Big Generostee runs from east to west through Pendleton District to the Savannah River, with Mountain Creek running from east to west to meet Big Generostee before the conjoined streams reach the Savannah. Thomas Leonard, Samuel Dean, and Harmon Cummings settled near the confluence of the Big Generostee and Mountain Creek a few miles west of present-day Starr and just east of what is now Lake Hartwell, which was formed from the damming of the Savannah and Keowee (or Seneca) Rivers. A hamlet called Dean’s Station, named for this Dean family and marking where Samuel Dean lived, is less than two miles north of Starr on highway 81. It seems likely that Griffith and Mary James settled in this vicinity, as well, a deduction made more compelling by the fact that after the couple arrived in Pendleton District, Mary James joined Mountain Creek Baptist church, which is some six miles north of Dean’s Station.

Proof that Griffith James had arrived in Pendleton District by June 1794 is found in a deed that Jacob Herring made to Samuel Dean on 17 June 1794: on that date, Herring sold Dean 125 acres in Pendleton District on the Big Generostee, with Thomas Leonard and Griffith James witnessing the deed.[5] I haven’t found any connection between erring made to Samuel DeanJacob Herring and the kinship network of Griffith James, other than this sale of land. Jacob appears on the 1790 federal census on the same page as John Lauderdale, whose daughter Sarah married Thomas Lewis Leonard, son of Thomas Leonard and Hannah James.[6] As has been previously shown, John Lauderdale also lived on Big Generostee, evidently not far from the Leonard, Dean, and Cummings families.

Case re: the Theft of Griffith James’ Horse in September 1793

A previous posting discusses in some detail a court case involving horse-thieving in which Griffith James is featured, since the stolen horse on which the case revolves was his and was taken from his pasture.[7] The case file shows Shadrack Lantrip making oath on 10 November 1796 that James Shockley had stolen a bright bay mare out of Griffith James’s pasture in Pendleton District on the night of 2 September [1793]. Lantrip deposed that Shockley had described the horse to him at a blacksmith shop on the waters of Generostee on the main road leading to Shockley’s Ferry.

Shockley’s or Shockley Ferry crossed the Savannah River to Georgia at a location not far south of present-day Hartwell Dam. When the dam was created on the Savannah River below the confluence of the Tugaloo and Seneca Rivers to form Lake Hartwell, the point at which Shockley’s Ferry crossed the Savannah fell into the lake. Savannah is the name given to the Tugaloo River from the point of the confluence of the two rivers, and Seneca is the name given to the Keowee River from that point as well. Note the 1787 plat for Samuel Dean mentioned above, for land in the fork of the Tugaloo and Keowee Rivers.

Shockley’s Ferry was established by Thomas Shockley of Pendleton District, who appears on the 1790 federal census on the same page as Jacob Herring and John Lauderdale.[8] Located close to Shockley’s Ferry was a Baptist church with the same name — Shockley’s or Shockley Ferry Baptist church — that was the parent church of the Mountain Creek Baptist church to which members of the James family including Griffith James’ wife Mary and her daughters Hannah, Gwendolyn, and Mary belonged.[9] Shockley’s Ferry church was formed sometime in the 1780s after a large group of Baptists gathered in Pendleton District in the vicinity of what would soon be site of the ferry crossing. The church stood on the east bank of the Savannah immediately below the junction of the Tugaloo (i.e., Savannah) and Keowee (or Seneca) Rivers.

An undated scrap of paper in the file for the case in which James Shockley was tried for stealing Griffith James’ horse has a sworn statement of Shadrack Lantrip that he made his November 1796 statement accusing Shockley of stealing the horse under fear for his life after having received a hundred lashes. The case file also has a sworn statement of Griffith James dated 2 October [1793] giving power of attorney to his son John James to recover the horse, with witnesses Patrick Bowers and Robert Linn before justice D. Brown. Another statement by an unidentified person says that Lantrip had parted with the horse at the house of Shockley, giving it to John Hendricks and Mary Spurgen, who lived on Buck Creek on the Waters of the Broad.

On 13 October 1794, a recognizance was issued by William Edmondson to Thomas Shockley and James Hamilton, giving bond to assure that James Shockley appeared in court 10 November next. On 10 November, Shockley was indicted and a jury was struck. The indictment identifies the stolen horse as belonging to John James, a farmer of Pendleton District.

On 8 February 1796, somebody not identified in the transcript — was it Shockley? — made affidavit that in 1794 before harvest, Christopher Carsey told him that Mark Powell had stolen a brown horse from William Brown and carried it into Virginia. In the fall of the same year, he and Shadrack Lantrip went to “old Mr. James’s” and stole a large bay horse from the pasture.  Lantrip promised £10 to his accomplice.  The person swearing the oath for this statement thought that in February 1796, the horse was near Three Runs. In 1795, this unidentified person and Daniel McCollum with an enslaved man named Reuben belonging to Daniel Stathers had also formed a confederacy to steal a roan horse and a bay one from the field of one Howard.

On 11 April 1796, a subpoena was issued to Daniel Stringer, James Morrow, and John Gresham to appear in court on 10 November 1796. A warrant dated 9 July 1796 was then issued for the arrest of James Shockley. This has a comment written on it that John James of Pendleton District had made oath that on the evening of 2 September 1793 a bay horse had been stolen from Griffith James, now deceased.

On 11 July 1796, Shockley was committed to jail.  On the same day, he gave affidavit denying the charges against him. On 27 July 1796, a recognizance of Thomas Shockley Sr. and Jr. was filed for James Shockley’s upcoming court appearance.

On 4 November 1796, John James gave security with Robert Rankin to appear in court on 10 November at Pickensville. On 10 November 1796, a true bill of indictment was issued. This again dates the theft as occurring on the night of 2 September 1793. When the trial ended, the jury found Shockley not guilty. 

Also on 10 November 1796, a copias was issued to Moses Little, Jeremiah Files, Shadrack Lantrip, John James, William McKerley, and Joseph McKerley to give evidence for the state. On 23 November 1796, a recognizance was issued to Shadrack Lantrip to appear in court on 10 April next to give evidence vs. Shockley. Finally, On 11 February 1797, a recognizance was issued to William McKerley to give evidence. Four days later, recognizance was issued to John James to appear in court on 10 April. If there was an outcome of the case after this date, it is not mentioned in the court file as transcribed here.

As the preceding summary of documents in the case file regarding the theft of Griffith James’ horse indicate, Griffith was living on 2 October 1793 when he gave power of attorney to his son John to recover the stolen horse, and had died by 9 July 1796 when a warrant was issued for James Shockley’s arrest. Griffith James made his will in Pendleton District on 20 April 1795.[10] The will reads as follows (a digital image is at the head of this posting):

In the name of God. Amen. I Griffith James of the State of South Carolina and County of Pendleton being weak in body but of sound Memory. bleſsed be God. do this day the twentieth of April in the year of Our Lord. One thousand and Seven hundred and Ninety five make and publish this my Last will and Testament in Manner following that is to Say First I Give to my son Joseph James all my wearing appearel which Shall be at my Decease also Ten pounds of Money it being paid of Money Due to me in the State of Maryland if It is ever collected. also I give and bequeath unto my Daughter Hannah Leonor One Dollar to be paid within One full year after my decease also I give to my Daughter Jenny Dean one Dollar to be paid to her at or with[in] One full Year after my decease, also I Give to my Daughter Mary Cummins one Dollar to be paid at the sd time also I give to my son John James one Dollar to be paid at the said time, also I give to my son Samuel James one Dollar to be paid at the said Time and all and every other thing of my Estate real & Personal which shall or may belong to me at my Death I Give and Bequeath to my Dear wife Mary James forever & I make & ordain my son John James and Son Samuel James, Executors of this my will, in trust for the intents & purposes in this my will contained to do & perform the same according my true intent and Meaning. In Witneſs thereof I the sd Griffith James have to this my last will and Testament set my hand & affixed my seal the day & year above written; Signed & Delivered by the said Griffith James For his last will & Testament — in the presence of us who were present at the signing and sealing thereof

                                                                                             Griffith James

Owen McCorkel

Jane Lesly (her mark)

James Jones

Proven by James Jones and Jane Lesly in open court

Recorded in Will Book C, Page 82

Recorded 12th April 1796

The will has no probate date, only the date on which it was recorded. It is the only estate record of Griffith James that appears to be extant. As a previous posting notes, a death date of 3 October 1795 for Griffith is stated in a study of the Dean family entitled Country Cousins: Descendants of Samuel Dean with no information about the source of this date.[11]

Given that Griffith and Mary James appear to have decided in 1792 to move to South Carolina and join their children there, and that they made that move in 1793 with Griffith dying only two years later, I think it’s likely that he was up in years by the time of his death with grown and married children born as early as 1752. It’s possible he was becoming frail and/or sick when he and wife Mary decided to relocate, and that they made the decision to join their daughters in South Carolina so that one or more of the daughters could look after their parents in the final years of the parents’ lives.

[1] Washington County, Maryland, Deed Bk. G, p. 771-2, 815-6.

[2] Louise Ayer Vandiver, Traditions and History of Anderson County (Atlanta: Ruralist, 1928), pp. 71-2.

[3] South Carolina Plat Books (Charleston Series), vol. 15, p. 127; and Ninety-Six District, South Side of Saluda, Commissioner of Locations Plat Bk. B, p. 113.

[4] South Carolina Plat Books (Charleston Series), vol. 14, p. 164.

[5] Anderson County, South Carolina, Deed Bk. C & D, p. 360.

[6] 1790 federal census, Pendleton District, South Carolina, p. 4.

[7] Washington District, South Carolina, General Sessions Case Rolls, 1792-1799, no. 49. I am indebted to researcher Beverly Dean Peoples for providing me with a transcript of documents in the file of this case.

[8] See supra, n. 6.

[9] Leah Townsend, South Carolina Baptists, 1670-1805 (Florence, South Carolina: Florence Printing Company, 1935), p. 195-8; T.H. Garrett, A History of Saluda Baptist Association (Richmond, 1896), pp. 114, 137, 262-4; Vandiver, Traditions and History of Anderson County, pp. 44, 217; and “Mountain Creek Baptist Church,” at Winthrop University Archives’ Roots and Recall website.

[10] Anderson County, South Carolina, Will Bk. C, p. 82. See also Virginia Alexander, Colleen M. Elliott, and Betty Willie, Pendleton District and Anderson County, South Carolina, Wills, Estates, Inventories, Tax Returns, and Census Records (Easley, South Carolina: Southern Historical Press, 1980), pp. 11-12.

[11] Era Josephine Morgan Davis, Louise S. Rourke, and Marc B. Smith, Country Cousins: Descendants of Samuel Dean (1996), p. 3. In correspondence with me in January 1997, researcher Barbara Morris of Bellaire, Texas, stated that the 3 October 1795 death of date was sent by Lucy Rebecca Dean to Louise Rourke in the 1980s. Louise Rourke, who lived in Citrus Heights, California, was the primary author of Country Cousins. Unless I’m mistaken, Lucy Rebecca Dean (1942-2023, m. John Kennemur) was a daughter of Richard Brown Dean and Joanne Richardson. Rebecca Dean Kennemur was a DAR member and active genealogist. This Dean line descends from Samuel Dean and Gwendolyn James through their son Richard P. Dean.

Griffith James (bef. 1725? — 1795): Final Years in Pendleton District, South Carolina (1793-5)

Or, Subtitled: Horse Thieves and Baptist Churches

As the previous posting notes, after selling his homeplace in his Pough tract just southeast of Sharpsburg on 13 May 1792, and (with James Austin), after selling his 50-acre portion of the King Cole tract on 3 March 1792, Griffith James moved with his wife Mary from Washington County, Maryland to Pendleton District, South Carolina.[1] As another past posting states, Griffith and Mary moved from Maryland to South Carolina at some point in 1793. Note that the court case regarding the theft of Griffith James’ horse in Pendleton District in September 1793 discussed below also shows that this family had moved from Maryland to South Carolina by September 1793. (To read the continuation of this posting, please click the numeral 2 below.)

The Move from Maryland to South Carolina, 1793

Since Griffith and Mary’s sons John and Samuel, who are, as we’ll see in a moment, named in his will, had not shown up in records of Ninety-Six (later Pendleton) District, South Carolina, prior to 1793, these two sons, who seem to be the youngest of the couple’s children, may have been living with them in Maryland and have made the move to South Carolina with them. As the previous posting notes indicates, Griffith and Mary’s son Joseph was living in Washington County up to 1791, when he moved with wife Elizabeth Austin to Kentucky, settling eventually at Perryville in Perry County, Missouri.

In heading to Pendleton District, Griffith and Mary were joining daughters Hannah (married Thomas Leonard), Gwendolyn (married Samuel Dean), and Mary (married Harmon Cummings), who had gone to South Carolina in 1786. The posting I’ve just linked features an excerpt from Louise Ayer Vandiver’s Traditions and History of Anderson County that recounts stories passed down in the Cummings (Cummin in this source) and Dean families about the move from Maryland to South Carolina.[2] These family stories speak of the long trip through “pathless forests” in carts whose wheels were sections cut from a large tree sawn thicker in the middle than on the edges.

The posting linked in the preceding paragraph notes that Griffith James’ son-in-law Thomas Leonard had arrived with wife Hannah in their children in Ninety-Six District by 9 February 1786, when he had a survey for 180 acres on waters of Big Generostee Creek.[3] Thomas’ brother-in-law Samuel Dean had a plat for 350 acres in Ninety-Six District in the fork of the Tugaloo and Keowee Rivers on 10 March 1787.[4] The linked posting to which I’m pointing here notes the draw of this part of the South Carolina upcountry in these years: having taken the British side during the Revolution, in 1777 the Cherokees ceded to South Carolina all their lands east of the Unacaye mountains, and in 1784 the South Carolina General Assembly passed “An Act for Establishing the Mode and Conditions of Surveying and Granting the Vacant Lands Within this State.” In 1784, a land office was opened to sell land in this upcountry region at $10 per 100 acres, and a large influx of settlers poured into the region.

Also noted in the linked posting I’ve just been citing: Big Generostee runs from east to west through Pendleton District to the Savannah River, with Mountain Creek running from east to west to meet Big Generostee before the conjoined streams reach the Savannah. Thomas Leonard, Samuel Dean, and Harmon Cummings settled near the confluence of the Big Generostee and Mountain Creek a few miles west of present-day Starr and just east of what is now Lake Hartwell, which was formed from the damming of the Savannah and Keowee (or Seneca) Rivers. A hamlet called Dean’s Station, named for this Dean family and marking where Samuel Dean lived, is less than two miles north of Starr on highway 81. It seems likely that Griffith and Mary James settled in this vicinity, as well, a deduction made more compelling by the fact that after the couple arrived in Pendleton District, Mary James joined Mountain Creek Baptist church, which is some six miles north of Dean’s Station.

Proof that Griffith James had arrived in Pendleton District by June 1794 is found in a deed that Jacob Herring made to Samuel Dean on 17 June 1794: on that date, Herring sold Dean 125 acres in Pendleton District on the Big Generostee, with Thomas Leonard and Griffith James witnessing the deed.[5] I haven’t found any connection between erring made to Samuel DeanJacob Herring and the kinship network of Griffith James, other than this sale of land. Jacob appears on the 1790 federal census on the same page as John Lauderdale, whose daughter Sarah married Thomas Lewis Leonard, son of Thomas Leonard and Hannah James.[6] As has been previously shown, John Lauderdale also lived on Big Generostee, evidently not far from the Leonard, Dean, and Cummings families.

Case re: the Theft of Griffith James’ Horse in September 1793

A previous posting discusses in some detail a court case involving horse-thieving in which Griffith James is featured, since the stolen horse on which the case revolves was his and was taken from his pasture.[7] The case file shows Shadrack Lantrip making oath on 10 November 1796 that James Shockley had stolen a bright bay mare out of Griffith James’s pasture in Pendleton District on the night of 2 September [1793]. Lantrip deposed that Shockley had described the horse to him at a blacksmith shop on the waters of Generostee on the main road leading to Shockley’s Ferry.

Shockley’s or Shockley Ferry crossed the Savannah River to Georgia at a location not far south of present-day Hartwell Dam. When the dam was created on the Savannah River below the confluence of the Tugaloo and Seneca Rivers to form Lake Hartwell, the point at which Shockley’s Ferry crossed the Savannah fell into the lake. Savannah is the name given to the Tugaloo River from the point of the confluence of the two rivers, and Seneca is the name given to the Keowee River from that point as well. Note the 1787 plat for Samuel Dean mentioned above, for land in the fork of the Tugaloo and Keowee Rivers.

Shockley’s Ferry was established by Thomas Shockley of Pendleton District, who appears on the 1790 federal census on the same page as Jacob Herring and John Lauderdale.[8] Located close to Shockley’s Ferry was a Baptist church with the same name — Shockley’s or Shockley Ferry Baptist church — that was the parent church of the Mountain Creek Baptist church to which members of the James family including Griffith James’ wife Mary and her daughters Hannah, Gwendolyn, and Mary belonged.[9] Shockley’s Ferry church was formed sometime in the 1780s after a large group of Baptists gathered in Pendleton District in the vicinity of what would soon be site of the ferry crossing. The church stood on the east bank of the Savannah immediately below the junction of the Tugaloo (i.e., Savannah) and Keowee (or Seneca) Rivers.

An undated scrap of paper in the file for the case in which James Shockley was tried for stealing Griffith James’ horse has a sworn statement of Shadrack Lantrip that he made his November 1796 statement accusing Shockley of stealing the horse under fear for his life after having received a hundred lashes. The case file also has a sworn statement of Griffith James dated 2 October [1793] giving power of attorney to his son John James to recover the horse, with witnesses Patrick Bowers and Robert Linn before justice D. Brown. Another statement by an unidentified person says that Lantrip had parted with the horse at the house of Shockley, giving it to John Hendricks and Mary Spurgen, who lived on Buck Creek on the Waters of the Broad.

On 13 October 1794, a recognizance was issued by William Edmondson to Thomas Shockley and James Hamilton, giving bond to assure that James Shockley appeared in court 10 November next. On 10 November, Shockley was indicted and a jury was struck. The indictment identifies the stolen horse as belonging to John James, a farmer of Pendleton District.

On 8 February 1796, somebody not identified in the transcript — was it Shockley? — made affidavit that in 1794 before harvest, Christopher Carsey told him that Mark Powell had stolen a brown horse from William Brown and carried it into Virginia. In the fall of the same year, he and Shadrack Lantrip went to “old Mr. James’s” and stole a large bay horse from the pasture.  Lantrip promised £10 to his accomplice.  The person swearing the oath for this statement thought that in February 1796, the horse was near Three Runs. In 1795, this unidentified person and Daniel McCollum with an enslaved man named Reuben belonging to Daniel Stathers had also formed a confederacy to steal a roan horse and a bay one from the field of one Howard.

On 11 April 1796, a subpoena was issued to Daniel Stringer, James Morrow, and John Gresham to appear in court on 10 November 1796. A warrant dated 9 July 1796 was then issued for the arrest of James Shockley. This has a comment written on it that John James of Pendleton District had made oath that on the evening of 2 September 1793 a bay horse had been stolen from Griffith James, now deceased.

On 11 July 1796, Shockley was committed to jail.  On the same day, he gave affidavit denying the charges against him. On 27 July 1796, a recognizance of Thomas Shockley Sr. and Jr. was filed for James Shockley’s upcoming court appearance.

On 4 November 1796, John James gave security with Robert Rankin to appear in court on 10 November at Pickensville. On 10 November 1796, a true bill of indictment was issued. This again dates the theft as occurring on the night of 2 September 1793. When the trial ended, the jury found Shockley not guilty. 

Also on 10 November 1796, a copias was issued to Moses Little, Jeremiah Files, Shadrack Lantrip, John James, William McKerley, and Joseph McKerley to give evidence for the state. On 23 November 1796, a recognizance was issued to Shadrack Lantrip to appear in court on 10 April next to give evidence vs. Shockley. Finally, On 11 February 1797, a recognizance was issued to William McKerley to give evidence. Four days later, recognizance was issued to John James to appear in court on 10 April. If there was an outcome of the case after this date, it is not mentioned in the court file as transcribed here.

As the preceding summary of documents in the case file regarding the theft of Griffith James’ horse indicate, Griffith was living on 2 October 1793 when he gave power of attorney to his son John to recover the stolen horse, and had died by 9 July 1796 when a warrant was issued for James Shockley’s arrest. Griffith James made his will in Pendleton District on 20 April 1795.[10] The will reads as follows (a digital image is at the head of this posting):

In the name of God. Amen. I Griffith James of the State of South Carolina and County of Pendleton being weak in body but of sound Memory. bleſsed be God. do this day the twentieth of April in the year of Our Lord. One thousand and Seven hundred and Ninety five make and publish this my Last will and Testament in Manner following that is to Say First I Give to my son Joseph James all my wearing appearel which Shall be at my Decease also Ten pounds of Money it being paid of Money Due to me in the State of Maryland if It is ever collected. also I give and bequeath unto my Daughter Hannah Leonor One Dollar to be paid within One full year after my decease also I give to my Daughter Jenny Dean one Dollar to be paid to her at or with[in] One full Year after my decease, also I Give to my Daughter Mary Cummins one Dollar to be paid at the sd time also I give to my son John James one Dollar to be paid at the said time, also I give to my son Samuel James one Dollar to be paid at the said Time and all and every other thing of my Estate real & Personal which shall or may belong to me at my Death I Give and Bequeath to my Dear wife Mary James forever & I make & ordain my son John James and Son Samuel James, Executors of this my will, in trust for the intents & purposes in this my will contained to do & perform the same according my true intent and Meaning. In Witneſs thereof I the sd Griffith James have to this my last will and Testament set my hand & affixed my seal the day & year above written; Signed & Delivered by the said Griffith James For his last will & Testament — in the presence of us who were present at the signing and sealing thereof

                                                                                             Griffith James

Owen McCorkel

Jane Lesly (her mark)

James Jones

Proven by James Jones and Jane Lesly in open court

Recorded in Will Book C, Page 82

Recorded 12th April 1796

The will has no probate date, only the date on which it was recorded. It is the only estate record of Griffith James that appears to be extant. As a previous posting notes, a death date of 3 October 1795 for Griffith is stated in a study of the Dean family entitled Country Cousins: Descendants of Samuel Dean with no information about the source of this date.[11]

Given that Griffith and Mary James appear to have decided in 1792 to move to South Carolina and join their children there, and that they made that move in 1793 with Griffith dying only two years later, I think it’s likely that he was up in years by the time of his death with grown and married children born as early as 1752. It’s possible he was becoming frail and/or sick when he and wife Mary decided to relocate, and that they made the decision to join their daughters in South Carolina so that one or more of the daughters could look after their parents in the final years of the parents’ lives.

[1] Washington County, Maryland, Deed Bk. G, p. 771-2, 815-6.

[2] Louise Ayer Vandiver, Traditions and History of Anderson County (Atlanta: Ruralist, 1928), pp. 71-2.

[3] South Carolina Plat Books (Charleston Series), vol. 15, p. 127; and Ninety-Six District, South Side of Saluda, Commissioner of Locations Plat Bk. B, p. 113.

[4] South Carolina Plat Books (Charleston Series), vol. 14, p. 164.

[5] Anderson County, South Carolina, Deed Bk. C & D, p. 360.

[6] 1790 federal census, Pendleton District, South Carolina, p. 4.

[7] Washington District, South Carolina, General Sessions Case Rolls, 1792-1799, no. 49. I am indebted to researcher Beverly Dean Peoples for providing me with a transcript of documents in the file of this case.

[8] See supra, n. 6.

[9] Leah Townsend, South Carolina Baptists, 1670-1805 (Florence, South Carolina: Florence Printing Company, 1935), p. 195-8; T.H. Garrett, A History of Saluda Baptist Association (Richmond, 1896), pp. 114, 137, 262-4; Vandiver, Traditions and History of Anderson County, pp. 44, 217; and “Mountain Creek Baptist Church,” at Winthrop University Archives’ Roots and Recall website.

[10] Anderson County, South Carolina, Will Bk. C, p. 82. See also Virginia Alexander, Colleen M. Elliott, and Betty Willie, Pendleton District and Anderson County, South Carolina, Wills, Estates, Inventories, Tax Returns, and Census Records (Easley, South Carolina: Southern Historical Press, 1980), pp. 11-12.

[11] Era Josephine Morgan Davis, Louise S. Rourke, and Marc B. Smith, Country Cousins: Descendants of Samuel Dean (1996), p. 3. In correspondence with me in January 1997, researcher Barbara Morris of Bellaire, Texas, stated that the 3 October 1795 death of date was sent by Lucy Rebecca Dean to Louise Rourke in the 1980s. Louise Rourke, who lived in Citrus Heights, California, was the primary author of Country Cousins. Unless I’m mistaken, Lucy Rebecca Dean (1942-2023, m. John Kennemur) was a daughter of Richard Brown Dean and Joanne Richardson. Rebecca Dean Kennemur was a DAR member and active genealogist. This Dean line descends from Samuel Dean and Gwendolyn James through their son Richard P. Dean.

Griffith James (abt. 1725? – 1795): Sharpsburg, Maryland, Beginnings

Or, Subtitled: “I have no tradition of her parents, except their nationality, they were Welch, but Hannah was born and reared in Maryland”

“Don’t know much about history”: Sam Cooke’s song “Wonderful World” is scrolling through my head as I launch a new series of postings, this one about Griffith James (abt. 1725? – 1795). Griffith James ties into my family tree through the marriage of his daughter Hannah (1752-1842) to Thomas Leonard about 1775 in Frederick County, Maryland. I’ve just finished a series of postings about the Leonard line. This new series about Griffith James follows that Leonard series, which began with the posting I’ve just linked, about Thomas Leonard (1752-1832), Hannah James’ husband. In a posting launching a previous series about my Lauderdale family line, I offer two charts showing my line of descent from Griffith James, James Lauderdale, and Robert Leonard, family lines that tied together in my family tree when Thomas Lewis Leonard (1781-1870) married Sarah M. Lauderdale (abt. 1785 – abt. 1866) — my 4th g-grandparents. (To read the continuation of this posting, please click the numeral 2 below.)

The reason Sam Cooke’s line “Don’t know much about history” has been playing in my head as I begin gathering and organizing my information about Griffith James is this: before I undertook this gathering and organizing process, if you’d asked me what I know about Griffith James, I’d have told you confidently that I have a considerable amount of information, and that I was fairly certain I could tell you a lot about his origins, where he came from, who his parents were.

But now, I’m not so sure about that. One of the advantages of working on postings here that gather, organize, and analyze genealogical material I’ve accumulated for over fifty years is that I have a chance to look at that material from new perspectives, to correct and expand it, and in some cases, to reframe entirely what I had thought I’d known about an ancestral figure. Griffith James is a case in point.

The Documentary Trail That Begins at Sharpsburg

I’ll illustrate this point in the following posting by talking about what I know with certainty about Griffith James from the point at which a documentary trail of him begins in the area of Sharpsburg in what eventually became Washington County, Maryland. I know nothing — not with any certainty — about Griffith James before he begins showing up in records of Frederick County, Maryland, Washington County’s parent county. Prior to that point, I have not found any reliable information about where he was born, who his parents were, or where he may have lived before he settled in Frederick County prior to September 1763.

I do not know precisely when Griffith James was born. As a previous posting has shown, the gravestone of his oldest child, his daughter Hannah, in the Leonard family cemetery near Petersburg, Tennessee, gives her birthdate as 2 November 1752. If Hannah was born to a young couple who had married not long prior to her birth, then it would appear that Griffith James and his wife, whose name appears in various records as Mary, would likely have been born in the time frame 1725-1735.[1] We’ll see later that Griffith made a will in Pendleton District, South Carolina, on 20 April 1795, which was recorded (with no probate date stated) on 12 April 1796, so he died in Pendleton District between those two dates.[2] A death date of 3 October 1795 appears in a study of the Dean family entitled Country Cousins: Descendants of Samuel Dean with no information about the source of this date.[3]

Griffith James’ wife Mary, who is named in his will as “my Dear wife Mary James,” outlived him and was still living as late as 1817 when the minutes of Mountain Creek Baptist church in Pendleton District, of which Mary was a member, document a dispute between her and her daughter Mary, wife of Harmon Cummings, that began in April and continued until it was resolved in August 1817.[4] I have not found a document that provides a good indicator of when Griffith James’ wife Mary was born, or of her maiden surname.[5] As we’ll see in a moment, Thomas Dunlap Leonard, a grandson of Thomas Leonard and Hannah James, who compiled a history of the Leonard family in 1883 and who knew Thomas and Hannah personally, appears to have thought that Griffith James was married only once and that his first and only wife (i.e., Mary), whom Thomas D. Leonard does not name, was the mother of all the couple’s children.

The first absolutely certain record I’ve found for this Griffith James places him in Sharpsburg in what was then Frederick County by 4 September 1763. On 4 September 1763, Joseph Chapline made an agreement between himself and Samuel Beall, David Ross, and Richard Henderson to be partners in an ironworks to be erected in Frederick County. The agreement states that Joseph reserved to himself and his heirs his mill on the Antietam with 50 acres joining it, and that Joseph was also excluding from the land he was making available for the ironworks 215 acres he had sold to Daniel Moore and Griffith James.[6] This agreement was recorded 31 October 1765, but the agreement itself was dated 4 September 1763. (See the top of this posting for a snapshot of the section of the ironworks agreement stating that Chapline had sold 215 acres to Daniel Moore and Griffith James.)

I have searched Frederick County deeds for a deed made by Joseph Chapline to Daniel Moore and Griffith James prior to September 1763 without finding any such deed. What I do find are two separate deeds made, one to Daniel and one to Griffith, years down the road from 1763, after both men had been living with their families for years on the land that Chapline deeded to them, and which was clearly the land comprised in the 215 acres Daniel Moore and Griffith James had acquired from Joseph Chapline by September 1763.

As far as I can determine, Griffith James lived continuously on a tract of land just southeast of the town of Sharpsburg until May 1792, when he sold the Pough tract and then moved the following year to Pendleton District, South Carolina. Pough was a 75-acre tract contiguous to Hunting the Hare, one portion of which Richard Dean, whose son Samuel married Griffith James’ daughter Gwendolyn, owned, and another portion of which Daniel Moore seems to have acquired from Joseph Chapline.

Joseph Chapline patented Pough on 23 November 1761.[7] The patent record states that the tract contained 75 acres, the same amount of land that Griffith James sold on 13 May 1792 when he sold Pough (the name for the land is given in this deed) before leaving Maryland for South Carolina.[8] Though Griffith James evidently lived continuously on this land from at least September 1763, he did not receive an official deed from the Chapline family for Pough until 10 April 1787, when Joseph and James Chapline, acting as executors of their father Joseph who died in 1769, sold Griffith the Pough tract for￡5.[9] This deed specifies again that Pough was a 75-acre tract.

Note the nominal price of￡5, far less than the￡330 for which Griffith James sold Pough in May 1792. This nominal price is another indicator that though this land, for which Griffith James appears on the tax list in Washington County in 1783, was Griffith’s home tract, Joseph Chapline (and then his estate) had retained the title of it for all the years on which Griffith lived on this piece of land.[10] The ￡5 also suggests to me that Griffith James may have lived on this land all the years he was at Sharpsburg as a kind of retainer of Joseph Chapline and his family, given use of a tract of land while not holding clear title to it as he lived on it. A retainer who may have had some kinship connection to Chapline? Or a retainer doing work of some kind to Chapline while cultivating his own patch of land?

After 1761 when Chapline patented Pough until 1768, I do not find Pough showing up in the Debt Books of the Provincial Land Office of Maryland. In 1768, it is listed as 75 acres belonging to heirs of Joseph Chapline, and it continues to appear in the Debt Books for Frederick County from 1770-1773, with the name given as “Tough.” Again, these documents indicate to me that Joseph Chapline perhaps had some special arrangement with Griffith James whereby he was living on Pough as its owner in the absence of a deed prior to April 1787, when Chapline’s heirs officially deeded the land to him — though, to repeat, a 1783 tax list for Washington County shows Griffith James taxed for this tract of land.

The story of Pough and Griffith James’ ownership and occupation of it parallels the story of Daniel Moore, who owned another portion of the 215 acres that he and Griffith James had acquired from Joseph Chapline prior to September 1763. Daniel Moore’s portion of the 215 acres was a tract of 138 acres named Mores Delight, which Joseph Chapline sold him on 17 August 1754 with the deed stating that Daniel Moore was living on this land when Chapline sold it to him in 1754, and that the land was on the waters of the Antietam.[11] But though Daniel Moore lived on this piece of land up to his death in 1792, the deed for the land was not recorded until 11 May 1805.

We know that Daniel Moore lived with his wife Mary on this 138-acre tract at the time of his death because the will that he made in Washington County on 1 January 1792 states this and leaves Mary the land: “I give and bequeath unto my loving & faithfull Wife Mary the whole of my Land and Plantation on which I now live Containing One Hundred and thirty Eight Acres.”[12] Daniel Moore was taxed for this land in 1783.[13]

As we’ve seen, Griffith James’ Pough tract consisted of 75 acres. Daniel Moore’s home tract, on which he was already living prior to August 1754 and on which he continued living to the end of his life, was 138 acres. Joseph Chapline’s September 1763 ironworks agreement states that he had sold Daniel Moore and Griffith James 215 acres by that date. Put these two pieces of land owned by Griffith James and Daniel Moore together, and you have a total of 213 acres, very close to the 215 acres cited by Joseph Chapline in his ironworks agreement.

I have not been able to find Mores Delight on lists of land patents and tracts in Washington County, so I’m not certain of its precise location. There has been confusion about whether the name of this piece of land is Moses’ Delight or Mores Delight, and this adds to the difficulty of finding its location. If Joseph Chapline’s September 1763 ironworks agreement excluded 215 acres he had sold to Daniel Moore and Griffith James from this agreement, it makes sense, I think, to assume that Daniel’s and Griffith’s pieces of land were in the same vicinity and perhaps adjoining.

Daniel Moore’s will states that he had a son Richard. The 1783 tax assessment for Washington County shows Richard Moore assessed for a 50-acre tract called Hunting the Hare. As a descendant of this Moore family who maintains the West Virginia Family Tracks and Trails blog notes, the 1790 federal census for Washington County shows Richard and Daniel Moore as immediate neighbors, and on 10 April 1790, Daniel Moore and wife Mary sold 50 acres described as part of a tract called Hunting the Hare.[14] This deed suggests to me that Daniel Moore’s 138-acre home tract, Mores Delight, was likely originally part of a larger tract of 250 acres called Hunting the Hare on Antietam Creek that Joseph Chapline patented on 13 November 1747 after having claimed the land on 9 April 1744.[15]

On 22 March 1747, prior to his obtaining a patent for Hunting the Hare in November 1747, Joseph Chapline sold Richard Dean, both of Prince George’s County, 50 acres of land described as “Deans purches being part of a tract land called hunting the hair [sic].”[16] On 17 October 1747, Joseph Chapline acknowledged the deed with wife Ruhamah (née Williams) relinquishing dower rights, and on the same day, Joseph made a receipt to Richard for the £20 for which he had sold the land. The deed for this transaction is filed in Prince George’s County since the portion of Frederick County taken from Prince George’s in 1748 that became Washington County in 1776 was originally in Prince George’s.

As I stated previously, Richard Dean’s son Samuel married Griffith James’ daughter Gwendolyn about 1773 in Frederick County. We know that Richard Dean was in the location that would later become Sharpsburg along with Joseph Chapline as early as 1746, since the tax list for Antietam Hundred in Prince George’s County in that year shows both of these men taxed in that hundred.[17] This is not very long after Chapline arrived in this location around 1736, a point I’ll discuss in more detail later. Beverly Dean Peoples, the premier researcher of Richard Dean’s family, thinks that it’s entirely possible that Chapline brought Richard to the Sharpsburg area or Richard followed Chapline there due to some connection between the two men in eastern Maryland prior to Chapline’s decision to move west.

Beverly Peoples writes,[18]

When he came to this western most part of MD, Joseph brought with him men to build his home, settlers to clear the land, workers to build and work the Iron Works that he was establishing as well as men to defend the settlement from the Indians. Since this area was remote in the 1730’s and 40’s it is unlikely that many people arrived individually. Richard’s appearance in the 1740’s would possibly indicate he had contact with someone in the Chapline family in the eastern part of the state who had motivated him to [move] west.

It seems to me this is a thesis well worth considering. And given what appear to be close ties between Richard Dean, Griffith James, and Daniel Moore, I’d also suggest that it’s possible both Griffith and Daniel arrived in the Sharpsburg area not far down the road from Richard because they, too, had prior ties to Joseph Chapline and/or to Richard Dean. If Daniel Moore’s 138-acre homeplace was part of the original Hunting the Hare tract — and I think this may well have been the case — then he, Richard Dean, and Griffith Moore settled on adjoining tracts of land just southeast of Sharpsburg. Note the contiguity of Deans Purchase, Hunting the Hare, and Pough on this map of Sharpsburg that appears in Evelyn Vigdahl’s previously cited “Another Flooded River” article:[19]

Google Maps actually labels the “historic Moore farm” near the intersection of Burnside Bridge Road and Mills Road southeast of Sharpsburg as “Hunting the Hare.”[20] Both Pough and Deans Purchase are in this same location, near the intersection of Burnside Bridge Road and Mills Road.[21]

So note the following:

• By September 1763, Griffith James and Daniel Moore owned 215 acres near Antietam Creek purchased from Joseph Chapline.

• We learn from other documents that the portion of this land, 75 acres, that Griffith James owned and lived on was called Pough, and that Pough was adjacent to Chapline’s Hunting the Hare tract. Chapline’s heirs deeded this land formally to Griffith James in 1787.

• In 1747, Richard Dean bought 50 acres from Chapline’s Hunting the Hare tract; this land was given the name Deans Purchase. Deans Purchase is contiguous to both Pough and the rest of the Hunting the Hare tract.

• In 1754, Chapline deeded Daniel Moore 138 acres that appear to have been also part of the original Hunting the Hare tract, and also appear to have been contiguous to Pough and Deans Purchase. We know from a subsequent deed that Daniel Moore owned another 50 acres of Hunting the Hare on which his son Richard lived for a time.

• Griffith James’ daughter Gwendolyn married Richard Dean’s son Samuel Dean.

• The 14 February 1788 will of Richard Dean in Washington County names a daughter Mary.[22] We learn from the 7 August 1795 will of Richard’s widow Priscilla that Mary’s married name was More/Moore.[23] Noting that documents from 1761 through 1792 show Daniel Moore’s wife as Mary, and that Daniel and wife Mary named a son Richard Moore, Beverly Peoples proposes that Daniel Moore may have married another of Richard Dean’s daughters — an eminently reasonable proposal, it seems to me, even if not yet entirely proven.[24]

Joseph Chapline, Founder of Sharpsburg

Because the three interconnecting men on whom I’m focusing here — Griffith James, Richard Dean, and Daniel Moore — all acquired their adjoining pieces of land from Joseph Chapline and arrived in the Sharpsburg area in its formative period when Chapline appears to have been attracting to the area settlers with pre-existing ties to him, it’s important to take a close look at Chapline’s biography and his connection to Sharpsburg, which he founded. As John Bedell and Jason Shellenhamer note, “Of all of the early residents of Maryland’s Great Valley, Joseph Chapline was most responsible for shaping settlement along Antietam Creek in the eighteenth century.”[25]

Joseph Chapline was born 5 September 1707 in Queen Anne’s parish of Prince George’s County, the son of William Chapline (1686-1752) and Elizabeth Travers. The Chapline family, whose roots were in England and which had marital ties to the Calvert family, had been in the colonies four generations prior to Joseph, first in Virginia and then in Maryland, where family members lived in Calvert and Dorchester Counties in the eastern part of that colony.[26]

Joseph spent his formative years on his father’s plantation Forrest in the easternmost part of Prince George’s County, with his father William sending him to England for a period of time to be educated. In 1730 Joseph’s father, William, moved to the western “back-parts” on the Virginia-Maryland border, settling on the Potomac about four miles above Shepherdstown and leaving Joseph, his oldest son, in charge of the Forrest plantation and of the family’s younger children.

By 1736 Joseph had followed his father west, settling across the Potomac in what was then western Prince George’s County, and after that Frederick and finally Washington County. As Bedell and Shellenhamer note,[27]

Maryland colonial records for that period show that Chapline was an active member of a community developing west of the Monocacy River. In May 1739 Joseph Chapline was a signatory on a petition of 88 inhabitants of the “back-parts” of Maryland.

On 22 October 1741 in All Saints parish in Frederick County, Joseph married Ruhamah, daughter of Reverend William Williams and Sarah James of Carmarthenshire, Wales. Ruhamah and her sisters Sarah and Jane had come to Virginia with their father, a Presbyterian missionary, following their mother’s death in Wales. By 1739, William Williams had bought land in Prince George’s County, Maryland, in the area that would later be Frederick and then Washington County.[28]

In 1744 Joseph Chapline began patenting and buying tracts of land on Antietam Creek in the vicinity of what would soon be Sharpsburg. As Bedell and Shellenhamer indicate, one of these tracts, acquired in 1747, was the 250-acre Hunting the Hare tract.[29] It is in this period from the latter half of the 1730s into the 1740s that Beverly Peoples suggests Joseph may well have brought with him to this remote backcountry part of western Maryland men to help improve his properties, build houses and structures on them, clear and settle the land, and work his ironworks once they were established. As Beverly states, “Since this area was remote in the 1730’s and 40’s it is unlikely that many people arrived individually.”[30]

Joseph Chapline prospered and accumulated wealth and status following his settlement in the Sharpsburg area. He was a justice of Prince George’s county court from 1739-1748 and after that of the Frederick court for some years. From 1749-1768, he served in the lower house of the Maryland legislature. In 1763 Joseph founded the town of Sharps Burgh, naming it in honor of Maryland’s governor Horatio Sharpe. The town was laid out on a 200-acre tract, Hickory Tavern, that Joseph bought from Edmund Cartledge on 11 July 1763, close to his plantation Rush Bottom and adjacent to his Hunting the Hare and Resurvey on Abston’s Forest tracts. The appeal of the Hickory Tavern land for a town site was that it had a good freshwater spring and was on the wagon road to Philadelphia. In 1764, Joseph out a plan for the new town, consisting of 187 lots located around the spring, with each lot measuring 103 feet wide by 206 feet long.[31]

On 12 January 1769 the Maryland Gazette reported,[32]

Lately died in Frederick County, Capt. Joseph Chapline, who, for many Years, has been one of the Representatives for that County in the General Assembly.

Joseph was initially buried on his Elias Grove estate west of Sharpsburg, and in 1893 his great-great-niece Maria Ligget Dare had his remains along with those of his wife Ruhamah and several other family members buried in Mountain View cemetery at Sharpsburg.[33] Maria Dare indicates that Joseph died owning 12,257 acres of land.[34] According to Edward C. Papenfuse, Joseph’s landholdings at the time of his death included at least 6,385 acres in Frederick County and probably as much as 15,000 acres in Frederick County and in Virginia.[35]

I’d like to return now to the 4 September 1763 document that started this discussion of Griffith James’ early years in the Sharpsburg area. As I stated previously, the 4 September 1763 agreement that Joseph Chapline made with Samuel Beall, David Ross, and Richard Henderson to be partners in an ironworks to be erected at Sharpsburg is the first absolutely certain document I’ve found placing Griffith James in this part of Maryland.[36]

Several of my previous postings (here and here) about the Leonard family connecting to Griffith James’ family through the marriage of Thomas Leonard, son of Robert Leonard and Honor Pritchard, to Griffith’s daughter Hannah note both not only ties between Robert and Thomas Leonard Joseph Chapline and his family, but also ties between the Leonards and the Beall family to which Joseph Chapline’s business partner Samuel Beall belonged. As these postings indicate, Joseph Chapline helped construct Fort Frederick near Hagerstown in Washington County, Maryland, in 1756, and from the time that fort was constructed, a trail of documents places Robert Leonard there as a soldier guarding the western frontier of Maryland.

Moreover, when the first military company in Washington County was organized for the Revolutionary War in Hagerstown on 6 January 1776, that company was under the command of Joseph Chapline’s a son Joseph. Serving in that military company were Griffith James’ sons-in-law Thomas Leonard and Samuel Dean, as well as Samuel’s brother Thomas Dean and Richard Moore, son of Daniel Moore. Previously, in 1755, Daniel Moore had served in the Frederick County militia company of Captain Moses Chapline, brother of the elder Joseph Chapline who founded Sharpsburg.

In addition, in the years in which Robert Leonard was stationed at Fort Frederick, he was under the immediate command of Captain Alexander Beall (1712-1759). Alexander was the son of William Beall (1684-1756), whose brother John Beall (1689-1742) was father of the Samuel Beall (1713-1778) who was Joseph Chapline’s business partner in the Antietam ironworks business. Samuel lived at Hagerstown.

As this previous posting states, Alexander Beall left a will in Frederick County dated 9 April 1759 which shows him owning part of a large tract of land in that county called King Cole.[37] The original King Cole tract consisted of 1,970 acres patented to Henry Crabb on 30 August 1754.[38] As we’ll see later, by 1783, fifty acres of the King Cole tract belonged to Griffith James’ son Joseph, who obtained it from his father-in-law James Austin.[39] In April 1791, Joseph sold this land to his father Griffith James, who then sold it along with James Austin in March 1792.[40]

None of the preceding information about Griffith James tells us exactly when and how he arrived in the Sharpsburg area or where he may have been prior to his arrival there. It does, however, give us a clear snapshot confirming his presence in the Sharpsburg area prior to September 1763 and his continuous residence on a piece of land he had acquired from Joseph Chapline prior to that date. All of the information I’ve compiled above also raises some tantalizing questions:

• Did Griffith James, Richard Dean, and Daniel Moore have some connections to each other pre-existing their arrival in the Sharpsburg area? And did all or any of these men have connections with Joseph Chapline pre-dating their arrival in the Sharpsburg area?

• Since we know that Joseph Chapline had a Welsh mother-in-law whose surname was James, is it possible that Griffith James had some kind of family connection with Joseph Chapline through Joseph’s mother-in-law Sarah James? There’s also a salient fact I haven’t yet mentioned: Daniel Moore had a daughter Nancy who married John Griffith. This family, too, lived in the Sharpsburg area. Given the vagaries of the patronymic naming system in Welsh families, whereby given names of fathers pass on as surnames of sons, it’s possible John Griffith and Griffith James were related to each other: Was that, in fact, the case?

• If Griffith James was related to Joseph Chapline through Joseph’s mother-in-law, would that explain the fact that he had acquired land from Joseph prior to September 1763 — we know this from Joseph’s own testimony — for which he was not given title until 1787, though he lived continuously on this land all those years? To repeat a question I’ve already asked earlier: If Griffith James was a relative of the Chapline family, was he a retainer of the family, living on land provided to him while the family held title to the land?

Lots of questions, no answers. I ask these questions not to suggest that any of this speculation has been proven, but to put the questions out on the board for consideration, as any researcher seeks to extend information about Griffith James back beyond September 1763 in the Sharpsburg area. Another tantalizing piece of information to place on the board now: in his 1883 manuscript about the Leonard family Thomas Dunlap Leonard says the following about the parents of his grandmother Hannah James Leonard:[41]

[Thomas Leonard, son of Robert Leonard and Honor Pritchard,] married Miss Hannah James of Maryland about the year 1775. I have no tradition of her parents, except their nationality, they were Welch, but Hannah was born and reared in Maryland.

This statement, which evidently relies on information given to Thomas D. Leonard by his grandparents Thomas and Hannah James Leonard, seems to me to imply that Thomas D. Leonard thought Hannah James’ parents were Welsh-born. The Welsh background of the family is fairly evident in the names Griffith and James, both common Welsh surnames. The given name Gwendolyn, which Griffith James and wife Mary gave a daughter, is another Welsh cultural tag. I am also not forgetting that Pritchard, the surname of Robert Leonard’s wife, is yet another Welsh surname.

It’s possible, of course, that Thomas D. Leonard means to say here that Griffith James’ family had recent Welsh roots though it had been in the colonies a generation or two prior to Griffith himself. It seems to me, however, that Thomas thought Griffith James and wife Mary were actually Welsh-born and were the immigrant ancestors of this James family line. If that’s true, then it may also have been the case that this couple arrived in Maryland — perhaps even in the Sharpsburg area — directly from Wales. And that would mean attempts to find information about Griffith James prior to September 1763 in the vicinity of Sharpsburg need to look back to Wales for information. Perhaps to the Carmarthenshire family of Sarah James, mother-in-law of Joseph Chapline?

And then one final surprising piece of information: In updating my notes about Griffith James as I worked on this blog posting, I’ve unearthed a list of debts to the estate of Nathan Peddycoart, who died in 1759 in Frederick County, Maryland. Among the debts that Nathan’s widow Sarah Dorsey Peddycoart listed in her inventory of Nathan’s estate was a debt from one Griffith James for one shilling and sixpence due 10 January 1743.[42]

Is this the Griffith James who had bought land from Joseph Chapline by 1763? Given the Frederick County location of this estate record, that’s entirely possible. If this is “our” Griffith James, then this record would indicate that he was in Maryland, perhaps in Frederick County’s parent county, Prince George’s, by January 1743. If I’m correct in thinking that the Griffith James who lived at Pough outside Sharpsburg was born in the period 1725-1735, and if this record pertains to that same Griffith James, then he’d have been in this part of Maryland as a very young man in 1743.

Lots of questions, no answers. But it’s important to keep asking….

[1] The only federal census on which Griffith James appears, the 1790 census, shows him in Washington County, Maryland (p. 9) with a household comprised of two males aged 16 and over, one male aged under 15, and two females, information that is hardly helpful in determining Griffith’s birthdate.

[2] Anderson County, South Carolina, Will Bk. 1793-8, p. 82.

[3] Era Josephine Morgan Davis, Louise S. Rourke, and Marc B. Smith, Country Cousins: Descendants of Samuel Dean (1996), p. 3. In correspondence with me in January 1997, researcher Barbara Morris of Bellaire, Texas, stated that the 3 October 1795 death of date was sent by Lucy Rebecca Dean to Louise Rourke in the 1980s. Louise Rourke, who lived in Citrus Heights, California, was the primary author of Country Cousins. Unless I’m mistaken, Lucy Rebecca Dean (1942-2023, m. John Kennemur) was a daughter of Richard Brown Dean and Joanne Richardson. Rebecca Dean Kennemur was a DAR member and active genealogist. This Dean line descends from Samuel Dean and Gwendolyn James through their son Richard P. Dean.

[4] Mountain Creek Baptist church appears to have been established in the 1790s some six miles southwest of Anderson, South Carolina. Its original minutes are held by the Special Collections and Baptist Historical Collection at Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina. Microfilmed and digitized copies of the church minutes are available at FamilySearch. A transcription of the Mountain Creek minutes from 1798 to 1907 by Debbie Giles Harbin was published by the Anderson County Chapter of the South Carolina Genealogical Society in 2002.

[5] Mary James does not appear as a household head on the federal census in either 1800 or 1810. The minutes of Mountain Creek Baptist church state that in 1817, she was living with her the family of her son-in-law Samuel Dean, husband of Gwendolyn Dean. The 1810 federal census shows a female aged over 45 in Samuel’s household in Pendleton District (p. 151).

[6] Frederick County, Maryland, Deed Bk. J, pp. 793-804.

[7] See Arthur G. Tracey’s patent/tract index and map locations for Carroll, Frederick, and Washington Counties at Maryland government’s Maryland History site; and Maryland Land Office Rent Rolls 1748-1775, p. 5.

[8] See Washington County, Maryland, Deed Bk. G, pp. 771-2, stating that on 13 May 1792, Griffith James sold to Robert Hoffman for ￡330 his tract called Pough, 75 acres, with wife Mary releasing dower.

[9] Washington County, Maryland, Deed Bk. E, pp. 332-3.

[10] In 1783, Griffith James is on the Washington County tax list in Lower Antietam Hundred, taxed for the Pough property, with the acreage given as 100 acres. The tax list states that this property comprised 60 acres of woods and 40 acres arable; Griffith was also taxed for four horses and eight beef cattle: see “Washington County 1783 Tax Assessment,” Western Maryland Genealogy 7,4 (October 1991), p. 171; and “Assessment of 1783, Index,” citing Lower Antietam and Sharpsburg, p. 34 (MSA S1161-11-1. 1/4/5/54) at website of Maryland State Archives.

[11] Washington County, Maryland, Deed Bk. R, pp. 181-2.

[12] Washington County, Maryland, Will Bk. A, pp. 279-280. The will was probated 24 March 1792.

[13] See “Assessment of 1783, Index,” citing Lower Antietam and Sharpsburg, p. 35 (MSA S1161-11-1. 1/4/5/54) at website of Maryland State Archives. This transcription reads the acreage as 128 acres and gives the tract name as Moses’ Delight.

[14] Geolover, “Sarah’s Surprise, Part 2,” West Virginia Family Tracks and Trails, citing Washington County, Maryland, Deed Bk.  G-7, pp. 44-46.

[15] See Arthur G. Tracey’s patent/tract index and map locations for Carroll, Frederick, and Washington Counties at Maryland government’s Maryland History site. See also John Bedell and Jason Shellenhamer, Archeological Overview, Assessment, Identification, and Evaluation Study of Newly Acquired Lands at Antietam National Battlefield, Maryland (2014, National Parks Service), pp. 36-7; Evelyn Vigdahl, “Another Flooded River Valley: The Deans of Huntingdon Co., Pennsylvania,” at Our Family History; and “The Farmsteads of Antietam – Jacob Avey Farm,” at the website of Jacob Rohrback Inn.

[16] Prince George’s County, Maryland, Deed Bk. BB, pp. 396-7.

[17] “Tax List, Antietam Hundred, Prince George’s County 1746,” transcribed by Karen Walker for Maryland Genealogical Society.

[18] “Richard Deane (1701-1788) and His Children,” at Rootsweb.

[19] See supra, n. 15.

[20] When Joseph Chapline patented Pough in November 1761 (see supra, no. 7), the tract was described as 75 acres at the head of a spring and the foot of Elk Ridge Mountain next to Keep Tryst, Boston, and Little I Thought It. Little I Thought It is the huge tract out of which the land for the Antietam ironworks was taken. On 25 July 1769, David Ross, one of Chapline’s business partners in the ironworks, had a Frederick County grant for 8,025 acres, a tract called Boston, a resurvey of Little I Thought It, part of Keep Trieste, part of Dutch Loss, and Mill Place. The survey for this land shows it bordering both Pough and Hunting the Hare. Arthur Tracey’s map for plats in Sharpsburg district shows Pough bordering Boston on the east, with Hunting the Hare bordering Boston on the north. On the Little I Thought It tract of 6,352 acres as the site for the ironworks, see Thomas J.C. Williams, A History of Washington County, Maryland, etc. (Hagerstown, 1906; reps. Baltimore: Regional Publ. Co., 1968), pp. 23-4.

[21] For photos of the Deans Purchase portion of Hunting the Hare viewed from Pough that I took in in August 2007, please see this previous posting.

[22] Washington County, Maryland, Will Bk. A, p. 168. The will spells the surname as Deane.

[23] Ibid., pp. 161-2.

[24] Richard Deane (1701-1788) and His Children.”

[25] John Bedell and Jason Shellenhamer, Archeological Overview, Assessment, Identification, and Evaluation Study of Newly Acquired Lands at Antietam National Battlefield Maryland (2014, National Parks Service), p. 36.

[26] See ibid., and Edward C. Papenfuse, A Biographical Dictionary of the Maryland Legislature, 1635-1789 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979), pp. 210-211; Lee and Barbara Barron, The History of Sharpsburg, Maryland, Founded by Joseph Chapline 1763 (1972); Maria J. Liggett Dare, Chaplines from Maryland and Virginia (priv. publ., 1902); Thomas J.C. Williams, A History of Washington County, Maryland, etc., vol. 1 (Hagerstown, 1906; repr. Baltimore: Regional Publishing Company, 1968), pp. 23-4; Sharpsburg Historical Society, “Joseph Chapline – Founder of Sharpsburg, MD,” at the website of Sharpsburg Historical Society; and Peoples, “Richard Deane (1701-1788) and His Children.”

[27] Bedell and Shellenhamer, Archeological Overview, Assessment, Identification, and Evaluation Study of Newly Acquired Lands at Antietam National Battlefield Maryland, pp. 36-7.

[28] Dare, Chaplines from Maryland and Virginia, pp. 6, 22; Williams, History of Washington County, Maryland, pp. 23-4; and Grace L. Tracey, Pioneers of Old Monocacy (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 2002), pp. 245-7. See also Find a Grave memorial page of Ruhama Williams Chapline, Mountain View cemetery, Sharpsburg, Washington County, Maryland, created by jrrmr910, maintained by Michael J. Chapline.

[29] Ibid.

[30] “Richard Deane (1701-1788) and His Children.”

[31] Bedell and Shellenhamer, Archeological Overview, Assessment, Identification, and Evaluation Study of Newly Acquired Lands at Antietam National Battlefield Maryland, pp. 41-2.

[32] Maryland Gazette (12 January 1769), p. 3, col. 1.

[33] See Find a Grave memorial page of Col Joseph Chapline, Mountain View cemetery, Sharpsburg, Washington County, Maryland, created by jrrmr910, maintained by Michael J. Chapline.

[34] Dare, Chaplines from Maryland and Virginia, p. 7.

[35] Papenfuse, Biographical Dictionary of the Maryland Legislature, 1635-1789, p. 211.

[36] See supra, n. 6.

[37] Frederick County, Maryland, Will Bk. A, p. 127.

[38] See Arthur G. Tracey’s patent/tract index and map locations for Carroll, Frederick, and Washington Counties at Maryland government’s Maryland History site.

[39] “Washington County 1783 Tax Assessment,” p. 171; and “Assessment of 1783, Index.”

[40] Washington County, Maryland, Deed Bk. G, pp. 368, 815-6.

[41] “Biography of the Leonards,” 1883 manuscript circulated as a typescript among Leonard family members and researchers, whose current provenance is not known.

[42] Frederick County, Maryland, Inventory Bk. A1, p. 459.

Griffith James (abt. 1725? – 1795): Sharpsburg, Maryland, Beginnings

Or, Subtitled: “I have no tradition of her parents, except their nationality, they were Welch, but Hannah was born and reared in Maryland”

“Don’t know much about history”: Sam Cooke’s song “Wonderful World” is scrolling through my head as I launch a new series of postings, this one about Griffith James (abt. 1725? – 1795). Griffith James ties into my family tree through the marriage of his daughter Hannah (1752-1842) to Thomas Leonard about 1775 in Frederick County, Maryland. I’ve just finished a series of postings about the Leonard line. This new series about Griffith James follows that Leonard series, which began with the posting I’ve just linked, about Thomas Leonard (1752-1832), Hannah James’ husband. In a posting launching a previous series about my Lauderdale family line, I offer two charts showing my line of descent from Griffith James, James Lauderdale, and Robert Leonard, family lines that tied together in my family tree when Thomas Lewis Leonard (1781-1870) married Sarah M. Lauderdale (abt. 1785 – abt. 1866) — my 4th g-grandparents. (To read the continuation of this posting, please click the numeral 2 below.)

The reason Sam Cooke’s line “Don’t know much about history” has been playing in my head as I begin gathering and organizing my information about Griffith James is this: before I undertook this gathering and organizing process, if you’d asked me what I know about Griffith James, I’d have told you confidently that I have a considerable amount of information, and that I was fairly certain I could tell you a lot about his origins, where he came from, who his parents were.

But now, I’m not so sure about that. One of the advantages of working on postings here that gather, organize, and analyze genealogical material I’ve accumulated for over fifty years is that I have a chance to look at that material from new perspectives, to correct and expand it, and in some cases, to reframe entirely what I had thought I’d known about an ancestral figure. Griffith James is a case in point.

The Documentary Trail That Begins at Sharpsburg

I’ll illustrate this point in the following posting by talking about what I know with certainty about Griffith James from the point at which a documentary trail of him begins in the area of Sharpsburg in what eventually became Washington County, Maryland. I know nothing — not with any certainty — about Griffith James before he begins showing up in records of Frederick County, Maryland, Washington County’s parent county. Prior to that point, I have not found any reliable information about where he was born, who his parents were, or where he may have lived before he settled in Frederick County prior to September 1763.

I do not know precisely when Griffith James was born. As a previous posting has shown, the gravestone of his oldest child, his daughter Hannah, in the Leonard family cemetery near Petersburg, Tennessee, gives her birthdate as 2 November 1752. If Hannah was born to a young couple who had married not long prior to her birth, then it would appear that Griffith James and his wife, whose name appears in various records as Mary, would likely have been born in the time frame 1725-1735.[1] We’ll see later that Griffith made a will in Pendleton District, South Carolina, on 20 April 1795, which was recorded (with no probate date stated) on 12 April 1796, so he died in Pendleton District between those two dates.[2] A death date of 3 October 1795 appears in a study of the Dean family entitled Country Cousins: Descendants of Samuel Dean with no information about the source of this date.[3]

Griffith James’ wife Mary, who is named in his will as “my Dear wife Mary James,” outlived him and was still living as late as 1817 when the minutes of Mountain Creek Baptist church in Pendleton District, of which Mary was a member, document a dispute between her and her daughter Mary, wife of Harmon Cummings, that began in April and continued until it was resolved in August 1817.[4] I have not found a document that provides a good indicator of when Griffith James’ wife Mary was born, or of her maiden surname.[5] As we’ll see in a moment, Thomas Dunlap Leonard, a grandson of Thomas Leonard and Hannah James, who compiled a history of the Leonard family in 1883 and who knew Thomas and Hannah personally, appears to have thought that Griffith James was married only once and that his first and only wife (i.e., Mary), whom Thomas D. Leonard does not name, was the mother of all the couple’s children.

The first absolutely certain record I’ve found for this Griffith James places him in Sharpsburg in what was then Frederick County by 4 September 1763. On 4 September 1763, Joseph Chapline made an agreement between himself and Samuel Beall, David Ross, and Richard Henderson to be partners in an ironworks to be erected in Frederick County. The agreement states that Joseph reserved to himself and his heirs his mill on the Antietam with 50 acres joining it, and that Joseph was also excluding from the land he was making available for the ironworks 215 acres he had sold to Daniel Moore and Griffith James.[6] This agreement was recorded 31 October 1765, but the agreement itself was dated 4 September 1763. (See the top of this posting for a snapshot of the section of the ironworks agreement stating that Chapline had sold 215 acres to Daniel Moore and Griffith James.)

I have searched Frederick County deeds for a deed made by Joseph Chapline to Daniel Moore and Griffith James prior to September 1763 without finding any such deed. What I do find are two separate deeds made, one to Daniel and one to Griffith, years down the road from 1763, after both men had been living with their families for years on the land that Chapline deeded to them, and which was clearly the land comprised in the 215 acres Daniel Moore and Griffith James had acquired from Joseph Chapline by September 1763.

As far as I can determine, Griffith James lived continuously on a tract of land just southeast of the town of Sharpsburg until May 1792, when he sold the Pough tract and then moved the following year to Pendleton District, South Carolina. Pough was a 75-acre tract contiguous to Hunting the Hare, one portion of which Richard Dean, whose son Samuel married Griffith James’ daughter Gwendolyn, owned, and another portion of which Daniel Moore seems to have acquired from Joseph Chapline.

Joseph Chapline patented Pough on 23 November 1761.[7] The patent record states that the tract contained 75 acres, the same amount of land that Griffith James sold on 13 May 1792 when he sold Pough (the name for the land is given in this deed) before leaving Maryland for South Carolina.[8] Though Griffith James evidently lived continuously on this land from at least September 1763, he did not receive an official deed from the Chapline family for Pough until 10 April 1787, when Joseph and James Chapline, acting as executors of their father Joseph who died in 1769, sold Griffith the Pough tract for￡5.[9] This deed specifies again that Pough was a 75-acre tract.

Note the nominal price of￡5, far less than the￡330 for which Griffith James sold Pough in May 1792. This nominal price is another indicator that though this land, for which Griffith James appears on the tax list in Washington County in 1783, was Griffith’s home tract, Joseph Chapline (and then his estate) had retained the title of it for all the years on which Griffith lived on this piece of land.[10] The ￡5 also suggests to me that Griffith James may have lived on this land all the years he was at Sharpsburg as a kind of retainer of Joseph Chapline and his family, given use of a tract of land while not holding clear title to it as he lived on it. A retainer who may have had some kinship connection to Chapline? Or a retainer doing work of some kind to Chapline while cultivating his own patch of land?

After 1761 when Chapline patented Pough until 1768, I do not find Pough showing up in the Debt Books of the Provincial Land Office of Maryland. In 1768, it is listed as 75 acres belonging to heirs of Joseph Chapline, and it continues to appear in the Debt Books for Frederick County from 1770-1773, with the name given as “Tough.” Again, these documents indicate to me that Joseph Chapline perhaps had some special arrangement with Griffith James whereby he was living on Pough as its owner in the absence of a deed prior to April 1787, when Chapline’s heirs officially deeded the land to him — though, to repeat, a 1783 tax list for Washington County shows Griffith James taxed for this tract of land.

The story of Pough and Griffith James’ ownership and occupation of it parallels the story of Daniel Moore, who owned another portion of the 215 acres that he and Griffith James had acquired from Joseph Chapline prior to September 1763. Daniel Moore’s portion of the 215 acres was a tract of 138 acres named Mores Delight, which Joseph Chapline sold him on 17 August 1754 with the deed stating that Daniel Moore was living on this land when Chapline sold it to him in 1754, and that the land was on the waters of the Antietam.[11] But though Daniel Moore lived on this piece of land up to his death in 1792, the deed for the land was not recorded until 11 May 1805.

We know that Daniel Moore lived with his wife Mary on this 138-acre tract at the time of his death because the will that he made in Washington County on 1 January 1792 states this and leaves Mary the land: “I give and bequeath unto my loving & faithfull Wife Mary the whole of my Land and Plantation on which I now live Containing One Hundred and thirty Eight Acres.”[12] Daniel Moore was taxed for this land in 1783.[13]

As we’ve seen, Griffith James’ Pough tract consisted of 75 acres. Daniel Moore’s home tract, on which he was already living prior to August 1754 and on which he continued living to the end of his life, was 138 acres. Joseph Chapline’s September 1763 ironworks agreement states that he had sold Daniel Moore and Griffith James 215 acres by that date. Put these two pieces of land owned by Griffith James and Daniel Moore together, and you have a total of 213 acres, very close to the 215 acres cited by Joseph Chapline in his ironworks agreement.

I have not been able to find Mores Delight on lists of land patents and tracts in Washington County, so I’m not certain of its precise location. There has been confusion about whether the name of this piece of land is Moses’ Delight or Mores Delight, and this adds to the difficulty of finding its location. If Joseph Chapline’s September 1763 ironworks agreement excluded 215 acres he had sold to Daniel Moore and Griffith James from this agreement, it makes sense, I think, to assume that Daniel’s and Griffith’s pieces of land were in the same vicinity and perhaps adjoining.

Daniel Moore’s will states that he had a son Richard. The 1783 tax assessment for Washington County shows Richard Moore assessed for a 50-acre tract called Hunting the Hare. As a descendant of this Moore family who maintains the West Virginia Family Tracks and Trails blog notes, the 1790 federal census for Washington County shows Richard and Daniel Moore as immediate neighbors, and on 10 April 1790, Daniel Moore and wife Mary sold 50 acres described as part of a tract called Hunting the Hare.[14] This deed suggests to me that Daniel Moore’s 138-acre home tract, Mores Delight, was likely originally part of a larger tract of 250 acres called Hunting the Hare on Antietam Creek that Joseph Chapline patented on 13 November 1747 after having claimed the land on 9 April 1744.[15]

On 22 March 1747, prior to his obtaining a patent for Hunting the Hare in November 1747, Joseph Chapline sold Richard Dean, both of Prince George’s County, 50 acres of land described as “Deans purches being part of a tract land called hunting the hair [sic].”[16] On 17 October 1747, Joseph Chapline acknowledged the deed with wife Ruhamah (née Williams) relinquishing dower rights, and on the same day, Joseph made a receipt to Richard for the £20 for which he had sold the land. The deed for this transaction is filed in Prince George’s County since the portion of Frederick County taken from Prince George’s in 1748 that became Washington County in 1776 was originally in Prince George’s.

As I stated previously, Richard Dean’s son Samuel married Griffith James’ daughter Gwendolyn about 1773 in Frederick County. We know that Richard Dean was in the location that would later become Sharpsburg along with Joseph Chapline as early as 1746, since the tax list for Antietam Hundred in Prince George’s County in that year shows both of these men taxed in that hundred.[17] This is not very long after Chapline arrived in this location around 1736, a point I’ll discuss in more detail later. Beverly Dean Peoples, the premier researcher of Richard Dean’s family, thinks that it’s entirely possible that Chapline brought Richard to the Sharpsburg area or Richard followed Chapline there due to some connection between the two men in eastern Maryland prior to Chapline’s decision to move west.

Beverly Peoples writes,[18]

When he came to this western most part of MD, Joseph brought with him men to build his home, settlers to clear the land, workers to build and work the Iron Works that he was establishing as well as men to defend the settlement from the Indians. Since this area was remote in the 1730’s and 40’s it is unlikely that many people arrived individually. Richard’s appearance in the 1740’s would possibly indicate he had contact with someone in the Chapline family in the eastern part of the state who had motivated him to [move] west.

It seems to me this is a thesis well worth considering. And given what appear to be close ties between Richard Dean, Griffith James, and Daniel Moore, I’d also suggest that it’s possible both Griffith and Daniel arrived in the Sharpsburg area not far down the road from Richard because they, too, had prior ties to Joseph Chapline and/or to Richard Dean. If Daniel Moore’s 138-acre homeplace was part of the original Hunting the Hare tract — and I think this may well have been the case — then he, Richard Dean, and Griffith Moore settled on adjoining tracts of land just southeast of Sharpsburg. Note the contiguity of Deans Purchase, Hunting the Hare, and Pough on this map of Sharpsburg that appears in Evelyn Vigdahl’s previously cited “Another Flooded River” article:[19]

Google Maps actually labels the “historic Moore farm” near the intersection of Burnside Bridge Road and Mills Road southeast of Sharpsburg as “Hunting the Hare.”[20] Both Pough and Deans Purchase are in this same location, near the intersection of Burnside Bridge Road and Mills Road.[21]

So note the following:

• By September 1763, Griffith James and Daniel Moore owned 215 acres near Antietam Creek purchased from Joseph Chapline.

• We learn from other documents that the portion of this land, 75 acres, that Griffith James owned and lived on was called Pough, and that Pough was adjacent to Chapline’s Hunting the Hare tract. Chapline’s heirs deeded this land formally to Griffith James in 1787.

• In 1747, Richard Dean bought 50 acres from Chapline’s Hunting the Hare tract; this land was given the name Deans Purchase. Deans Purchase is contiguous to both Pough and the rest of the Hunting the Hare tract.

• In 1754, Chapline deeded Daniel Moore 138 acres that appear to have been also part of the original Hunting the Hare tract, and also appear to have been contiguous to Pough and Deans Purchase. We know from a subsequent deed that Daniel Moore owned another 50 acres of Hunting the Hare on which his son Richard lived for a time.

• Griffith James’ daughter Gwendolyn married Richard Dean’s son Samuel Dean.

• The 14 February 1788 will of Richard Dean in Washington County names a daughter Mary.[22] We learn from the 7 August 1795 will of Richard’s widow Priscilla that Mary’s married name was More/Moore.[23] Noting that documents from 1761 through 1792 show Daniel Moore’s wife as Mary, and that Daniel and wife Mary named a son Richard Moore, Beverly Peoples proposes that Daniel Moore may have married another of Richard Dean’s daughters — an eminently reasonable proposal, it seems to me, even if not yet entirely proven.[24]

Joseph Chapline, Founder of Sharpsburg

Because the three interconnecting men on whom I’m focusing here — Griffith James, Richard Dean, and Daniel Moore — all acquired their adjoining pieces of land from Joseph Chapline and arrived in the Sharpsburg area in its formative period when Chapline appears to have been attracting to the area settlers with pre-existing ties to him, it’s important to take a close look at Chapline’s biography and his connection to Sharpsburg, which he founded. As John Bedell and Jason Shellenhamer note, “Of all of the early residents of Maryland’s Great Valley, Joseph Chapline was most responsible for shaping settlement along Antietam Creek in the eighteenth century.”[25]

Joseph Chapline was born 5 September 1707 in Queen Anne’s parish of Prince George’s County, the son of William Chapline (1686-1752) and Elizabeth Travers. The Chapline family, whose roots were in England and which had marital ties to the Calvert family, had been in the colonies four generations prior to Joseph, first in Virginia and then in Maryland, where family members lived in Calvert and Dorchester Counties in the eastern part of that colony.[26]

Joseph spent his formative years on his father’s plantation Forrest in the easternmost part of Prince George’s County, with his father William sending him to England for a period of time to be educated. In 1730 Joseph’s father, William, moved to the western “back-parts” on the Virginia-Maryland border, settling on the Potomac about four miles above Shepherdstown and leaving Joseph, his oldest son, in charge of the Forrest plantation and of the family’s younger children.

By 1736 Joseph had followed his father west, settling across the Potomac in what was then western Prince George’s County, and after that Frederick and finally Washington County. As Bedell and Shellenhamer note,[27]

Maryland colonial records for that period show that Chapline was an active member of a community developing west of the Monocacy River. In May 1739 Joseph Chapline was a signatory on a petition of 88 inhabitants of the “back-parts” of Maryland.

On 22 October 1741 in All Saints parish in Frederick County, Joseph married Ruhamah, daughter of Reverend William Williams and Sarah James of Carmarthenshire, Wales. Ruhamah and her sisters Sarah and Jane had come to Virginia with their father, a Presbyterian missionary, following their mother’s death in Wales. By 1739, William Williams had bought land in Prince George’s County, Maryland, in the area that would later be Frederick and then Washington County.[28]

In 1744 Joseph Chapline began patenting and buying tracts of land on Antietam Creek in the vicinity of what would soon be Sharpsburg. As Bedell and Shellenhamer indicate, one of these tracts, acquired in 1747, was the 250-acre Hunting the Hare tract.[29] It is in this period from the latter half of the 1730s into the 1740s that Beverly Peoples suggests Joseph may well have brought with him to this remote backcountry part of western Maryland men to help improve his properties, build houses and structures on them, clear and settle the land, and work his ironworks once they were established. As Beverly states, “Since this area was remote in the 1730’s and 40’s it is unlikely that many people arrived individually.”[30]

Joseph Chapline prospered and accumulated wealth and status following his settlement in the Sharpsburg area. He was a justice of Prince George’s county court from 1739-1748 and after that of the Frederick court for some years. From 1749-1768, he served in the lower house of the Maryland legislature. In 1763 Joseph founded the town of Sharps Burgh, naming it in honor of Maryland’s governor Horatio Sharpe. The town was laid out on a 200-acre tract, Hickory Tavern, that Joseph bought from Edmund Cartledge on 11 July 1763, close to his plantation Rush Bottom and adjacent to his Hunting the Hare and Resurvey on Abston’s Forest tracts. The appeal of the Hickory Tavern land for a town site was that it had a good freshwater spring and was on the wagon road to Philadelphia. In 1764, Joseph out a plan for the new town, consisting of 187 lots located around the spring, with each lot measuring 103 feet wide by 206 feet long.[31]

On 12 January 1769 the Maryland Gazette reported,[32]

Lately died in Frederick County, Capt. Joseph Chapline, who, for many Years, has been one of the Representatives for that County in the General Assembly.

Joseph was initially buried on his Elias Grove estate west of Sharpsburg, and in 1893 his great-great-niece Maria Ligget Dare had his remains along with those of his wife Ruhamah and several other family members buried in Mountain View cemetery at Sharpsburg.[33] Maria Dare indicates that Joseph died owning 12,257 acres of land.[34] According to Edward C. Papenfuse, Joseph’s landholdings at the time of his death included at least 6,385 acres in Frederick County and probably as much as 15,000 acres in Frederick County and in Virginia.[35]

I’d like to return now to the 4 September 1763 document that started this discussion of Griffith James’ early years in the Sharpsburg area. As I stated previously, the 4 September 1763 agreement that Joseph Chapline made with Samuel Beall, David Ross, and Richard Henderson to be partners in an ironworks to be erected at Sharpsburg is the first absolutely certain document I’ve found placing Griffith James in this part of Maryland.[36]

Several of my previous postings (here and here) about the Leonard family connecting to Griffith James’ family through the marriage of Thomas Leonard, son of Robert Leonard and Honor Pritchard, to Griffith’s daughter Hannah note both not only ties between Robert and Thomas Leonard Joseph Chapline and his family, but also ties between the Leonards and the Beall family to which Joseph Chapline’s business partner Samuel Beall belonged. As these postings indicate, Joseph Chapline helped construct Fort Frederick near Hagerstown in Washington County, Maryland, in 1756, and from the time that fort was constructed, a trail of documents places Robert Leonard there as a soldier guarding the western frontier of Maryland.

Moreover, when the first military company in Washington County was organized for the Revolutionary War in Hagerstown on 6 January 1776, that company was under the command of Joseph Chapline’s a son Joseph. Serving in that military company were Griffith James’ sons-in-law Thomas Leonard and Samuel Dean, as well as Samuel’s brother Thomas Dean and Richard Moore, son of Daniel Moore. Previously, in 1755, Daniel Moore had served in the Frederick County militia company of Captain Moses Chapline, brother of the elder Joseph Chapline who founded Sharpsburg.

In addition, in the years in which Robert Leonard was stationed at Fort Frederick, he was under the immediate command of Captain Alexander Beall (1712-1759). Alexander was the son of William Beall (1684-1756), whose brother John Beall (1689-1742) was father of the Samuel Beall (1713-1778) who was Joseph Chapline’s business partner in the Antietam ironworks business. Samuel lived at Hagerstown.

As this previous posting states, Alexander Beall left a will in Frederick County dated 9 April 1759 which shows him owning part of a large tract of land in that county called King Cole.[37] The original King Cole tract consisted of 1,970 acres patented to Henry Crabb on 30 August 1754.[38] As we’ll see later, by 1783, fifty acres of the King Cole tract belonged to Griffith James’ son Joseph, who obtained it from his father-in-law James Austin.[39] In April 1791, Joseph sold this land to his father Griffith James, who then sold it along with James Austin in March 1792.[40]

None of the preceding information about Griffith James tells us exactly when and how he arrived in the Sharpsburg area or where he may have been prior to his arrival there. It does, however, give us a clear snapshot confirming his presence in the Sharpsburg area prior to September 1763 and his continuous residence on a piece of land he had acquired from Joseph Chapline prior to that date. All of the information I’ve compiled above also raises some tantalizing questions:

• Did Griffith James, Richard Dean, and Daniel Moore have some connections to each other pre-existing their arrival in the Sharpsburg area? And did all or any of these men have connections with Joseph Chapline pre-dating their arrival in the Sharpsburg area?

• Since we know that Joseph Chapline had a Welsh mother-in-law whose surname was James, is it possible that Griffith James had some kind of family connection with Joseph Chapline through Joseph’s mother-in-law Sarah James? There’s also a salient fact I haven’t yet mentioned: Daniel Moore had a daughter Nancy who married John Griffith. This family, too, lived in the Sharpsburg area. Given the vagaries of the patronymic naming system in Welsh families, whereby given names of fathers pass on as surnames of sons, it’s possible John Griffith and Griffith James were related to each other: Was that, in fact, the case?

• If Griffith James was related to Joseph Chapline through Joseph’s mother-in-law, would that explain the fact that he had acquired land from Joseph prior to September 1763 — we know this from Joseph’s own testimony — for which he was not given title until 1787, though he lived continuously on this land all those years? To repeat a question I’ve already asked earlier: If Griffith James was a relative of the Chapline family, was he a retainer of the family, living on land provided to him while the family held title to the land?

Lots of questions, no answers. I ask these questions not to suggest that any of this speculation has been proven, but to put the questions out on the board for consideration, as any researcher seeks to extend information about Griffith James back beyond September 1763 in the Sharpsburg area. Another tantalizing piece of information to place on the board now: in his 1883 manuscript about the Leonard family Thomas Dunlap Leonard says the following about the parents of his grandmother Hannah James Leonard:[41]

[Thomas Leonard, son of Robert Leonard and Honor Pritchard,] married Miss Hannah James of Maryland about the year 1775. I have no tradition of her parents, except their nationality, they were Welch, but Hannah was born and reared in Maryland.

This statement, which evidently relies on information given to Thomas D. Leonard by his grandparents Thomas and Hannah James Leonard, seems to me to imply that Thomas D. Leonard thought Hannah James’ parents were Welsh-born. The Welsh background of the family is fairly evident in the names Griffith and James, both common Welsh surnames. The given name Gwendolyn, which Griffith James and wife Mary gave a daughter, is another Welsh cultural tag. I am also not forgetting that Pritchard, the surname of Robert Leonard’s wife, is yet another Welsh surname.

It’s possible, of course, that Thomas D. Leonard means to say here that Griffith James’ family had recent Welsh roots though it had been in the colonies a generation or two prior to Griffith himself. It seems to me, however, that Thomas thought Griffith James and wife Mary were actually Welsh-born and were the immigrant ancestors of this James family line. If that’s true, then it may also have been the case that this couple arrived in Maryland — perhaps even in the Sharpsburg area — directly from Wales. And that would mean attempts to find information about Griffith James prior to September 1763 in the vicinity of Sharpsburg need to look back to Wales for information. Perhaps to the Carmarthenshire family of Sarah James, mother-in-law of Joseph Chapline?

And then one final surprising piece of information: In updating my notes about Griffith James as I worked on this blog posting, I’ve unearthed a list of debts to the estate of Nathan Peddycoart, who died in 1759 in Frederick County, Maryland. Among the debts that Nathan’s widow Sarah Dorsey Peddycoart listed in her inventory of Nathan’s estate was a debt from one Griffith James for one shilling and sixpence due 10 January 1743.[42]

Is this the Griffith James who had bought land from Joseph Chapline by 1763? Given the Frederick County location of this estate record, that’s entirely possible. If this is “our” Griffith James, then this record would indicate that he was in Maryland, perhaps in Frederick County’s parent county, Prince George’s, by January 1743. If I’m correct in thinking that the Griffith James who lived at Pough outside Sharpsburg was born in the period 1725-1735, and if this record pertains to that same Griffith James, then he’d have been in this part of Maryland as a very young man in 1743.

Lots of questions, no answers. But it’s important to keep asking….

[1] The only federal census on which Griffith James appears, the 1790 census, shows him in Washington County, Maryland (p. 9) with a household comprised of two males aged 16 and over, one male aged under 15, and two females, information that is hardly helpful in determining Griffith’s birthdate.

[2] Anderson County, South Carolina, Will Bk. 1793-8, p. 82.

[3] Era Josephine Morgan Davis, Louise S. Rourke, and Marc B. Smith, Country Cousins: Descendants of Samuel Dean (1996), p. 3. In correspondence with me in January 1997, researcher Barbara Morris of Bellaire, Texas, stated that the 3 October 1795 death of date was sent by Lucy Rebecca Dean to Louise Rourke in the 1980s. Louise Rourke, who lived in Citrus Heights, California, was the primary author of Country Cousins. Unless I’m mistaken, Lucy Rebecca Dean (1942-2023, m. John Kennemur) was a daughter of Richard Brown Dean and Joanne Richardson. Rebecca Dean Kennemur was a DAR member and active genealogist. This Dean line descends from Samuel Dean and Gwendolyn James through their son Richard P. Dean.

[4] Mountain Creek Baptist church appears to have been established in the 1790s some six miles southwest of Anderson, South Carolina. Its original minutes are held by the Special Collections and Baptist Historical Collection at Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina. Microfilmed and digitized copies of the church minutes are available at FamilySearch. A transcription of the Mountain Creek minutes from 1798 to 1907 by Debbie Giles Harbin was published by the Anderson County Chapter of the South Carolina Genealogical Society in 2002.

[5] Mary James does not appear as a household head on the federal census in either 1800 or 1810. The minutes of Mountain Creek Baptist church state that in 1817, she was living with her the family of her son-in-law Samuel Dean, husband of Gwendolyn Dean. The 1810 federal census shows a female aged over 45 in Samuel’s household in Pendleton District (p. 151).

[6] Frederick County, Maryland, Deed Bk. J, pp. 793-804.

[7] See Arthur G. Tracey’s patent/tract index and map locations for Carroll, Frederick, and Washington Counties at Maryland government’s Maryland History site; and Maryland Land Office Rent Rolls 1748-1775, p. 5.

[8] See Washington County, Maryland, Deed Bk. G, pp. 771-2, stating that on 13 May 1792, Griffith James sold to Robert Hoffman for ￡330 his tract called Pough, 75 acres, with wife Mary releasing dower.

[9] Washington County, Maryland, Deed Bk. E, pp. 332-3.

[10] In 1783, Griffith James is on the Washington County tax list in Lower Antietam Hundred, taxed for the Pough property, with the acreage given as 100 acres. The tax list states that this property comprised 60 acres of woods and 40 acres arable; Griffith was also taxed for four horses and eight beef cattle: see “Washington County 1783 Tax Assessment,” Western Maryland Genealogy 7,4 (October 1991), p. 171; and “Assessment of 1783, Index,” citing Lower Antietam and Sharpsburg, p. 34 (MSA S1161-11-1. 1/4/5/54) at website of Maryland State Archives.

[11] Washington County, Maryland, Deed Bk. R, pp. 181-2.

[12] Washington County, Maryland, Will Bk. A, pp. 279-280. The will was probated 24 March 1792.

[13] See “Assessment of 1783, Index,” citing Lower Antietam and Sharpsburg, p. 35 (MSA S1161-11-1. 1/4/5/54) at website of Maryland State Archives. This transcription reads the acreage as 128 acres and gives the tract name as Moses’ Delight.

[14] Geolover, “Sarah’s Surprise, Part 2,” West Virginia Family Tracks and Trails, citing Washington County, Maryland, Deed Bk.  G-7, pp. 44-46.

[15] See Arthur G. Tracey’s patent/tract index and map locations for Carroll, Frederick, and Washington Counties at Maryland government’s Maryland History site. See also John Bedell and Jason Shellenhamer, Archeological Overview, Assessment, Identification, and Evaluation Study of Newly Acquired Lands at Antietam National Battlefield, Maryland (2014, National Parks Service), pp. 36-7; Evelyn Vigdahl, “Another Flooded River Valley: The Deans of Huntingdon Co., Pennsylvania,” at Our Family History; and “The Farmsteads of Antietam – Jacob Avey Farm,” at the website of Jacob Rohrback Inn.

[16] Prince George’s County, Maryland, Deed Bk. BB, pp. 396-7.

[17] “Tax List, Antietam Hundred, Prince George’s County 1746,” transcribed by Karen Walker for Maryland Genealogical Society.

[18] “Richard Deane (1701-1788) and His Children,” at Rootsweb.

[19] See supra, n. 15.

[20] When Joseph Chapline patented Pough in November 1761 (see supra, no. 7), the tract was described as 75 acres at the head of a spring and the foot of Elk Ridge Mountain next to Keep Tryst, Boston, and Little I Thought It. Little I Thought It is the huge tract out of which the land for the Antietam ironworks was taken. On 25 July 1769, David Ross, one of Chapline’s business partners in the ironworks, had a Frederick County grant for 8,025 acres, a tract called Boston, a resurvey of Little I Thought It, part of Keep Trieste, part of Dutch Loss, and Mill Place. The survey for this land shows it bordering both Pough and Hunting the Hare. Arthur Tracey’s map for plats in Sharpsburg district shows Pough bordering Boston on the east, with Hunting the Hare bordering Boston on the north. On the Little I Thought It tract of 6,352 acres as the site for the ironworks, see Thomas J.C. Williams, A History of Washington County, Maryland, etc. (Hagerstown, 1906; reps. Baltimore: Regional Publ. Co., 1968), pp. 23-4.

[21] For photos of the Deans Purchase portion of Hunting the Hare viewed from Pough that I took in in August 2007, please see this previous posting.

[22] Washington County, Maryland, Will Bk. A, p. 168. The will spells the surname as Deane.

[23] Ibid., pp. 161-2.

[24] Richard Deane (1701-1788) and His Children.”

[25] John Bedell and Jason Shellenhamer, Archeological Overview, Assessment, Identification, and Evaluation Study of Newly Acquired Lands at Antietam National Battlefield Maryland (2014, National Parks Service), p. 36.

[26] See ibid., and Edward C. Papenfuse, A Biographical Dictionary of the Maryland Legislature, 1635-1789 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979), pp. 210-211; Lee and Barbara Barron, The History of Sharpsburg, Maryland, Founded by Joseph Chapline 1763 (1972); Maria J. Liggett Dare, Chaplines from Maryland and Virginia (priv. publ., 1902); Thomas J.C. Williams, A History of Washington County, Maryland, etc., vol. 1 (Hagerstown, 1906; repr. Baltimore: Regional Publishing Company, 1968), pp. 23-4; Sharpsburg Historical Society, “Joseph Chapline – Founder of Sharpsburg, MD,” at the website of Sharpsburg Historical Society; and Peoples, “Richard Deane (1701-1788) and His Children.”

[27] Bedell and Shellenhamer, Archeological Overview, Assessment, Identification, and Evaluation Study of Newly Acquired Lands at Antietam National Battlefield Maryland, pp. 36-7.

[28] Dare, Chaplines from Maryland and Virginia, pp. 6, 22; Williams, History of Washington County, Maryland, pp. 23-4; and Grace L. Tracey, Pioneers of Old Monocacy (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 2002), pp. 245-7. See also Find a Grave memorial page of Ruhama Williams Chapline, Mountain View cemetery, Sharpsburg, Washington County, Maryland, created by jrrmr910, maintained by Michael J. Chapline.

[29] Ibid.

[30] “Richard Deane (1701-1788) and His Children.”

[31] Bedell and Shellenhamer, Archeological Overview, Assessment, Identification, and Evaluation Study of Newly Acquired Lands at Antietam National Battlefield Maryland, pp. 41-2.

[32] Maryland Gazette (12 January 1769), p. 3, col. 1.

[33] See Find a Grave memorial page of Col Joseph Chapline, Mountain View cemetery, Sharpsburg, Washington County, Maryland, created by jrrmr910, maintained by Michael J. Chapline.

[34] Dare, Chaplines from Maryland and Virginia, p. 7.

[35] Papenfuse, Biographical Dictionary of the Maryland Legislature, 1635-1789, p. 211.

[36] See supra, n. 6.

[37] Frederick County, Maryland, Will Bk. A, p. 127.

[38] See Arthur G. Tracey’s patent/tract index and map locations for Carroll, Frederick, and Washington Counties at Maryland government’s Maryland History site.

[39] “Washington County 1783 Tax Assessment,” p. 171; and “Assessment of 1783, Index.”

[40] Washington County, Maryland, Deed Bk. G, pp. 368, 815-6.

[41] “Biography of the Leonards,” 1883 manuscript circulated as a typescript among Leonard family members and researchers, whose current provenance is not known.

[42] Frederick County, Maryland, Inventory Bk. A1, p. 459.

Griffith James (abt. 1725? – 1795): Sharpsburg, Maryland, Beginnings

Or, Subtitled: “I have no tradition of her parents, except their nationality, they were Welch, but Hannah was born and reared in Maryland”

“Don’t know much about history”: Sam Cooke’s song “Wonderful World” is scrolling through my head as I launch a new series of postings, this one about Griffith James (abt. 1725? – 1795). Griffith James ties into my family tree through the marriage of his daughter Hannah (1752-1842) to Thomas Leonard about 1775 in Frederick County, Maryland. I’ve just finished a series of postings about the Leonard line. This new series about Griffith James follows that Leonard series, which began with the posting I’ve just linked, about Thomas Leonard (1752-1832), Hannah James’ husband. In a posting launching a previous series about my Lauderdale family line, I offer two charts showing my line of descent from Griffith James, James Lauderdale, and Robert Leonard, family lines that tied together in my family tree when Thomas Lewis Leonard (1781-1870) married Sarah M. Lauderdale (abt. 1785 – abt. 1866) — my 4th g-grandparents.

The reason Sam Cooke’s line “Don’t know much about history” has been playing in my head as I begin gathering and organizing my information about Griffith James is this: before I undertook this gathering and organizing process, if you’d asked me what I know about Griffith James, I’d have told you confidently that I have a considerable amount of information, and that I was fairly certain I could tell you a lot about his origins, where he came from, who his parents were.

But now, I’m not so sure about that. One of the advantages of working on postings here that gather, organize, and analyze genealogical material I’ve accumulated for over fifty years is that I have a chance to look at that material from new perspectives, to correct and expand it, and in some cases, to reframe entirely what I had thought I’d known about an ancestral figure. Griffith James is a case in point.

The Documentary Trail That Begins at Sharpsburg

I’ll illustrate this point in the following posting by talking about what I know with certainty about Griffith James from the point at which a documentary trail of him begins in the area of Sharpsburg in what eventually became Washington County, Maryland. I know nothing — not with any certainty — about Griffith James before he begins showing up in records of Frederick County, Maryland, Washington County’s parent county. Prior to that point, I have not found any reliable information about where he was born, who his parents were, or where he may have lived before he settled in Frederick County prior to September 1763.

I do not know precisely when Griffith James was born. As a previous posting has shown, the gravestone of his oldest child, his daughter Hannah, in the Leonard family cemetery near Petersburg, Tennessee, gives her birthdate as 2 November 1752. If Hannah was born to a young couple who had married not long prior to her birth, then it would appear that Griffith James and his wife, whose name appears in various records as Mary, would likely have been born in the time frame 1725-1735.[1] We’ll see later that Griffith made a will in Pendleton District, South Carolina, on 20 April 1795, which was recorded (with no probate date stated) on 12 April 1796, so he died in Pendleton District between those two dates.[2] A death date of 3 October 1795 appears in a study of the Dean family entitled Country Cousins: Descendants of Samuel Dean with no information about the source of this date.[3]

Griffith James’ wife Mary, who is named in his will as “my Dear wife Mary James,” outlived him and was still living as late as 1817 when the minutes of Mountain Creek Baptist church in Pendleton District, of which Mary was a member, document a dispute between her and her daughter Mary, wife of Harmon Cummings, that began in April and continued until it was resolved in August 1817.[4] I have not found a document that provides a good indicator of when Griffith James’ wife Mary was born, or of her maiden surname.[5] As we’ll see in a moment, Thomas Dunlap Leonard, a grandson of Thomas Leonard and Hannah James, who compiled a history of the Leonard family in 1883 and who knew Thomas and Hannah personally, appears to have thought that Griffith James was married only once and that his first and only wife (i.e., Mary), whom Thomas D. Leonard does not name, was the mother of all the couple’s children.

The first absolutely certain record I’ve found for this Griffith James places him in Sharpsburg in what was then Frederick County by 4 September 1763. On 4 September 1763, Joseph Chapline made an agreement between himself and Samuel Beall, David Ross, and Richard Henderson to be partners in an ironworks to be erected in Frederick County. The agreement states that Joseph reserved to himself and his heirs his mill on the Antietam with 50 acres joining it, and that Joseph was also excluding from the land he was making available for the ironworks 215 acres he had sold to Daniel Moore and Griffith James.[6] This agreement was recorded 31 October 1765, but the agreement itself was dated 4 September 1763. (See the top of this posting for a snapshot of the section of the ironworks agreement stating that Chapline had sold 215 acres to Daniel Moore and Griffith James.)

I have searched Frederick County deeds for a deed made by Joseph Chapline to Daniel Moore and Griffith James prior to September 1763 without finding any such deed. What I do find are two separate deeds made, one to Daniel and one to Griffith, years down the road from 1763, after both men had been living with their families for years on the land that Chapline deeded to them, and which was clearly the land comprised in the 215 acres Daniel Moore and Griffith James had acquired from Joseph Chapline by September 1763.

As far as I can determine, Griffith James lived continuously on a tract of land just southeast of the town of Sharpsburg until May 1792, when he sold the Pough tract and then moved the following year to Pendleton District, South Carolina. Pough was a 75-acre tract contiguous to Hunting the Hare, one portion of which Richard Dean, whose son Samuel married Griffith James’ daughter Gwendolyn, owned, and another portion of which Daniel Moore seems to have acquired from Joseph Chapline.

Joseph Chapline patented Pough on 23 November 1761.[7] The patent record states that the tract contained 75 acres, the same amount of land that Griffith James sold on 13 May 1792 when he sold Pough (the name for the land is given in this deed) before leaving Maryland for South Carolina.[8] Though Griffith James evidently lived continuously on this land from at least September 1763, he did not receive an official deed from the Chapline family for Pough until 10 April 1787, when Joseph and James Chapline, acting as executors of their father Joseph who died in 1769, sold Griffith the Pough tract for￡5.[9] This deed specifies again that Pough was a 75-acre tract.

Note the nominal price of￡5, far less than the￡330 for which Griffith James sold Pough in May 1792. This nominal price is another indicator that though this land, for which Griffith James appears on the tax list in Washington County in 1783, was Griffith’s home tract, Joseph Chapline (and then his estate) had retained the title of it for all the years on which Griffith lived on this piece of land.[10] The ￡5 also suggests to me that Griffith James may have lived on this land all the years he was at Sharpsburg as a kind of retainer of Joseph Chapline and his family, given use of a tract of land while not holding clear title to it as he lived on it. A retainer who may have had some kinship connection to Chapline? Or a retainer doing work of some kind to Chapline while cultivating his own patch of land?

After 1761 when Chapline patented Pough until 1768, I do not find Pough showing up in the Debt Books of the Provincial Land Office of Maryland. In 1768, it is listed as 75 acres belonging to heirs of Joseph Chapline, and it continues to appear in the Debt Books for Frederick County from 1770-1773, with the name given as “Tough.” Again, these documents indicate to me that Joseph Chapline perhaps had some special arrangement with Griffith James whereby he was living on Pough as its owner in the absence of a deed prior to April 1787, when Chapline’s heirs officially deeded the land to him — though, to repeat, a 1783 tax list for Washington County shows Griffith James taxed for this tract of land.

The story of Pough and Griffith James’ ownership and occupation of it parallels the story of Daniel Moore, who owned another portion of the 215 acres that he and Griffith James had acquired from Joseph Chapline prior to September 1763. Daniel Moore’s portion of the 215 acres was a tract of 138 acres named Mores Delight, which Joseph Chapline sold him on 17 August 1754 with the deed stating that Daniel Moore was living on this land when Chapline sold it to him in 1754, and that the land was on the waters of the Antietam.[11] But though Daniel Moore lived on this piece of land up to his death in 1792, the deed for the land was not recorded until 11 May 1805.

We know that Daniel Moore lived with his wife Mary on this 138-acre tract at the time of his death because the will that he made in Washington County on 1 January 1792 states this and leaves Mary the land: “I give and bequeath unto my loving & faithfull Wife Mary the whole of my Land and Plantation on which I now live Containing One Hundred and thirty Eight Acres.”[12] Daniel Moore was taxed for this land in 1783.[13]

As we’ve seen, Griffith James’ Pough tract consisted of 75 acres. Daniel Moore’s home tract, on which he was already living prior to August 1754 and on which he continued living to the end of his life, was 138 acres. Joseph Chapline’s September 1763 ironworks agreement states that he had sold Daniel Moore and Griffith James 215 acres by that date. Put these two pieces of land owned by Griffith James and Daniel Moore together, and you have a total of 213 acres, very close to the 215 acres cited by Joseph Chapline in his ironworks agreement.

I have not been able to find Mores Delight on lists of land patents and tracts in Washington County, so I’m not certain of its precise location. There has been confusion about whether the name of this piece of land is Moses’ Delight or Mores Delight, and this adds to the difficulty of finding its location. If Joseph Chapline’s September 1763 ironworks agreement excluded 215 acres he had sold to Daniel Moore and Griffith James from this agreement, it makes sense, I think, to assume that Daniel’s and Griffith’s pieces of land were in the same vicinity and perhaps adjoining.

Daniel Moore’s will states that he had a son Richard. The 1783 tax assessment for Washington County shows Richard Moore assessed for a 50-acre tract called Hunting the Hare. As a descendant of this Moore family who maintains the West Virginia Family Tracks and Trails blog notes, the 1790 federal census for Washington County shows Richard and Daniel Moore as immediate neighbors, and on 10 April 1790, Daniel Moore and wife Mary sold 50 acres described as part of a tract called Hunting the Hare.[14] This deed suggests to me that Daniel Moore’s 138-acre home tract, Mores Delight, was likely originally part of a larger tract of 250 acres called Hunting the Hare on Antietam Creek that Joseph Chapline patented on 13 November 1747 after having claimed the land on 9 April 1744.[15]

On 22 March 1747, prior to his obtaining a patent for Hunting the Hare in November 1747, Joseph Chapline sold Richard Dean, both of Prince George’s County, 50 acres of land described as “Deans purches being part of a tract land called hunting the hair [sic].”[16] On 17 October 1747, Joseph Chapline acknowledged the deed with wife Ruhamah (née Williams) relinquishing dower rights, and on the same day, Joseph made a receipt to Richard for the £20 for which he had sold the land. The deed for this transaction is filed in Prince George’s County since the portion of Frederick County taken from Prince George’s in 1748 that became Washington County in 1776 was originally in Prince George’s.

As I stated previously, Richard Dean’s son Samuel married Griffith James’ daughter Gwendolyn about 1773 in Frederick County. We know that Richard Dean was in the location that would later become Sharpsburg along with Joseph Chapline as early as 1746, since the tax list for Antietam Hundred in Prince George’s County in that year shows both of these men taxed in that hundred.[17] This is not very long after Chapline arrived in this location around 1736, a point I’ll discuss in more detail later. Beverly Dean Peoples, the premier researcher of Richard Dean’s family, thinks that it’s entirely possible that Chapline brought Richard to the Sharpsburg area or Richard followed Chapline there due to some connection between the two men in eastern Maryland prior to Chapline’s decision to move west.

Beverly Peoples writes,[18]

When he came to this western most part of MD, Joseph brought with him men to build his home, settlers to clear the land, workers to build and work the Iron Works that he was establishing as well as men to defend the settlement from the Indians. Since this area was remote in the 1730’s and 40’s it is unlikely that many people arrived individually. Richard’s appearance in the 1740’s would possibly indicate he had contact with someone in the Chapline family in the eastern part of the state who had motivated him to [move] west.

It seems to me this is a thesis well worth considering. And given what appear to be close ties between Richard Dean, Griffith James, and Daniel Moore, I’d also suggest that it’s possible both Griffith and Daniel arrived in the Sharpsburg area not far down the road from Richard because they, too, had prior ties to Joseph Chapline and/or to Richard Dean. If Daniel Moore’s 138-acre homeplace was part of the original Hunting the Hare tract — and I think this may well have been the case — then he, Richard Dean, and Griffith Moore settled on adjoining tracts of land just southeast of Sharpsburg. Note the contiguity of Deans Purchase, Hunting the Hare, and Pough on this map of Sharpsburg that appears in Evelyn Vigdahl’s previously cited “Another Flooded River” article:[19]

Google Maps actually labels the “historic Moore farm” near the intersection of Burnside Bridge Road and Mills Road southeast of Sharpsburg as “Hunting the Hare.”[20] Both Pough and Deans Purchase are in this same location, near the intersection of Burnside Bridge Road and Mills Road.[21]

So note the following:

• By September 1763, Griffith James and Daniel Moore owned 215 acres near Antietam Creek purchased from Joseph Chapline.

• We learn from other documents that the portion of this land, 75 acres, that Griffith James owned and lived on was called Pough, and that Pough was adjacent to Chapline’s Hunting the Hare tract. Chapline’s heirs deeded this land formally to Griffith James in 1787.

• In 1747, Richard Dean bought 50 acres from Chapline’s Hunting the Hare tract; this land was given the name Deans Purchase. Deans Purchase is contiguous to both Pough and the rest of the Hunting the Hare tract.

• In 1754, Chapline deeded Daniel Moore 138 acres that appear to have been also part of the original Hunting the Hare tract, and also appear to have been contiguous to Pough and Deans Purchase. We know from a subsequent deed that Daniel Moore owned another 50 acres of Hunting the Hare on which his son Richard lived for a time.

• Griffith James’ daughter Gwendolyn married Richard Dean’s son Samuel Dean.

• The 14 February 1788 will of Richard Dean in Washington County names a daughter Mary.[22] We learn from the 7 August 1795 will of Richard’s widow Priscilla that Mary’s married name was More/Moore.[23] Noting that documents from 1761 through 1792 show Daniel Moore’s wife as Mary, and that Daniel and wife Mary named a son Richard Moore, Beverly Peoples proposes that Daniel Moore may have married another of Richard Dean’s daughters — an eminently reasonable proposal, it seems to me, even if not yet entirely proven.[24]

Joseph Chapline, Founder of Sharpsburg

Because the three interconnecting men on whom I’m focusing here — Griffith James, Richard Dean, and Daniel Moore — all acquired their adjoining pieces of land from Joseph Chapline and arrived in the Sharpsburg area in its formative period when Chapline appears to have been attracting to the area settlers with pre-existing ties to him, it’s important to take a close look at Chapline’s biography and his connection to Sharpsburg, which he founded. As John Bedell and Jason Shellenhamer note, “Of all of the early residents of Maryland’s Great Valley, Joseph Chapline was most responsible for shaping settlement along Antietam Creek in the eighteenth century.”[25]

Joseph Chapline was born 5 September 1707 in Queen Anne’s parish of Prince George’s County, the son of William Chapline (1686-1752) and Elizabeth Travers. The Chapline family, whose roots were in England and which had marital ties to the Calvert family, had been in the colonies four generations prior to Joseph, first in Virginia and then in Maryland, where family members lived in Calvert and Dorchester Counties in the eastern part of that colony.[26]

Joseph spent his formative years on his father’s plantation Forrest in the easternmost part of Prince George’s County, with his father William sending him to England for a period of time to be educated. In 1730 Joseph’s father, William, moved to the western “back-parts” on the Virginia-Maryland border, settling on the Potomac about four miles above Shepherdstown and leaving Joseph, his oldest son, in charge of the Forrest plantation and of the family’s younger children.

By 1736 Joseph had followed his father west, settling across the Potomac in what was then western Prince George’s County, and after that Frederick and finally Washington County. As Bedell and Shellenhamer note,[27]

Maryland colonial records for that period show that Chapline was an active member of a community developing west of the Monocacy River. In May 1739 Joseph Chapline was a signatory on a petition of 88 inhabitants of the “back-parts” of Maryland.

On 22 October 1741 in All Saints parish in Frederick County, Joseph married Ruhamah, daughter of Reverend William Williams and Sarah James of Carmarthenshire, Wales. Ruhamah and her sisters Sarah and Jane had come to Virginia with their father, a Presbyterian missionary, following their mother’s death in Wales. By 1739, William Williams had bought land in Prince George’s County, Maryland, in the area that would later be Frederick and then Washington County.[28]

In 1744 Joseph Chapline began patenting and buying tracts of land on Antietam Creek in the vicinity of what would soon be Sharpsburg. As Bedell and Shellenhamer indicate, one of these tracts, acquired in 1747, was the 250-acre Hunting the Hare tract.[29] It is in this period from the latter half of the 1730s into the 1740s that Beverly Peoples suggests Joseph may well have brought with him to this remote backcountry part of western Maryland men to help improve his properties, build houses and structures on them, clear and settle the land, and work his ironworks once they were established. As Beverly states, “Since this area was remote in the 1730’s and 40’s it is unlikely that many people arrived individually.”[30]

Joseph Chapline prospered and accumulated wealth and status following his settlement in the Sharpsburg area. He was a justice of Prince George’s county court from 1739-1748 and after that of the Frederick court for some years. From 1749-1768, he served in the lower house of the Maryland legislature. In 1763 Joseph founded the town of Sharps Burgh, naming it in honor of Maryland’s governor Horatio Sharpe. The town was laid out on a 200-acre tract, Hickory Tavern, that Joseph bought from Edmund Cartledge on 11 July 1763, close to his plantation Rush Bottom and adjacent to his Hunting the Hare and Resurvey on Abston’s Forest tracts. The appeal of the Hickory Tavern land for a town site was that it had a good freshwater spring and was on the wagon road to Philadelphia. In 1764, Joseph out a plan for the new town, consisting of 187 lots located around the spring, with each lot measuring 103 feet wide by 206 feet long.[31]

On 12 January 1769 the Maryland Gazette reported,[32]

Lately died in Frederick County, Capt. Joseph Chapline, who, for many Years, has been one of the Representatives for that County in the General Assembly.

Joseph was initially buried on his Elias Grove estate west of Sharpsburg, and in 1893 his great-great-niece Maria Ligget Dare had his remains along with those of his wife Ruhamah and several other family members buried in Mountain View cemetery at Sharpsburg.[33] Maria Dare indicates that Joseph died owning 12,257 acres of land.[34] According to Edward C. Papenfuse, Joseph’s landholdings at the time of his death included at least 6,385 acres in Frederick County and probably as much as 15,000 acres in Frederick County and in Virginia.[35]

I’d like to return now to the 4 September 1763 document that started this discussion of Griffith James’ early years in the Sharpsburg area. As I stated previously, the 4 September 1763 agreement that Joseph Chapline made with Samuel Beall, David Ross, and Richard Henderson to be partners in an ironworks to be erected at Sharpsburg is the first absolutely certain document I’ve found placing Griffith James in this part of Maryland.[36]

Several of my previous postings (here and here) about the Leonard family connecting to Griffith James’ family through the marriage of Thomas Leonard, son of Robert Leonard and Honor Pritchard, to Griffith’s daughter Hannah note both not only ties between Robert and Thomas Leonard Joseph Chapline and his family, but also ties between the Leonards and the Beall family to which Joseph Chapline’s business partner Samuel Beall belonged. As these postings indicate, Joseph Chapline helped construct Fort Frederick near Hagerstown in Washington County, Maryland, in 1756, and from the time that fort was constructed, a trail of documents places Robert Leonard there as a soldier guarding the western frontier of Maryland.

Moreover, when the first military company in Washington County was organized for the Revolutionary War in Hagerstown on 6 January 1776, that company was under the command of Joseph Chapline’s a son Joseph. Serving in that military company were Griffith James’ sons-in-law Thomas Leonard and Samuel Dean, as well as Samuel’s brother Thomas Dean and Richard Moore, son of Daniel Moore. Previously, in 1755, Daniel Moore had served in the Frederick County militia company of Captain Moses Chapline, brother of the elder Joseph Chapline who founded Sharpsburg.

In addition, in the years in which Robert Leonard was stationed at Fort Frederick, he was under the immediate command of Captain Alexander Beall (1712-1759). Alexander was the son of William Beall (1684-1756), whose brother John Beall (1689-1742) was father of the Samuel Beall (1713-1778) who was Joseph Chapline’s business partner in the Antietam ironworks business. Samuel lived at Hagerstown.

As this previous posting states, Alexander Beall left a will in Frederick County dated 9 April 1759 which shows him owning part of a large tract of land in that county called King Cole.[37] The original King Cole tract consisted of 1,970 acres patented to Henry Crabb on 30 August 1754.[38] As we’ll see later, by 1783, fifty acres of the King Cole tract belonged to Griffith James’ son Joseph, who obtained it from his father-in-law James Austin.[39] In April 1791, Joseph sold this land to his father Griffith James, who then sold it along with James Austin in March 1792.[40]

None of the preceding information about Griffith James tells us exactly when and how he arrived in the Sharpsburg area or where he may have been prior to his arrival there. It does, however, give us a clear snapshot confirming his presence in the Sharpsburg area prior to September 1763 and his continuous residence on a piece of land he had acquired from Joseph Chapline prior to that date. All of the information I’ve compiled above also raises some tantalizing questions:

• Did Griffith James, Richard Dean, and Daniel Moore have some connections to each other pre-existing their arrival in the Sharpsburg area? And did all or any of these men have connections with Joseph Chapline pre-dating their arrival in the Sharpsburg area?

• Since we know that Joseph Chapline had a Welsh mother-in-law whose surname was James, is it possible that Griffith James had some kind of family connection with Joseph Chapline through Joseph’s mother-in-law Sarah James? There’s also a salient fact I haven’t yet mentioned: Daniel Moore had a daughter Nancy who married John Griffith. This family, too, lived in the Sharpsburg area. Given the vagaries of the patronymic naming system in Welsh families, whereby given names of fathers pass on as surnames of sons, it’s possible John Griffith and Griffith James were related to each other: Was that, in fact, the case?

• If Griffith James was related to Joseph Chapline through Joseph’s mother-in-law, would that explain the fact that he had acquired land from Joseph prior to September 1763 — we know this from Joseph’s own testimony — for which he was not given title until 1787, though he lived continuously on this land all those years? To repeat a question I’ve already asked earlier: If Griffith James was a relative of the Chapline family, was he a retainer of the family, living on land provided to him while the family held title to the land?

Lots of questions, no answers. I ask these questions not to suggest that any of this speculation has been proven, but to put the questions out on the board for consideration, as any researcher seeks to extend information about Griffith James back beyond September 1763 in the Sharpsburg area. Another tantalizing piece of information to place on the board now: in his 1883 manuscript about the Leonard family Thomas Dunlap Leonard says the following about the parents of his grandmother Hannah James Leonard:[41]

[Thomas Leonard, son of Robert Leonard and Honor Pritchard,] married Miss Hannah James of Maryland about the year 1775. I have no tradition of her parents, except their nationality, they were Welch, but Hannah was born and reared in Maryland.

This statement, which evidently relies on information given to Thomas D. Leonard by his grandparents Thomas and Hannah James Leonard, seems to me to imply that Thomas D. Leonard thought Hannah James’ parents were Welsh-born. The Welsh background of the family is fairly evident in the names Griffith and James, both common Welsh surnames. The given name Gwendolyn, which Griffith James and wife Mary gave a daughter, is another Welsh cultural tag. I am also not forgetting that Pritchard, the surname of Robert Leonard’s wife, is yet another Welsh surname.

It’s possible, of course, that Thomas D. Leonard means to say here that Griffith James’ family had recent Welsh roots though it had been in the colonies a generation or two prior to Griffith himself. It seems to me, however, that Thomas thought Griffith James and wife Mary were actually Welsh-born and were the immigrant ancestors of this James family line. If that’s true, then it may also have been the case that this couple arrived in Maryland — perhaps even in the Sharpsburg area — directly from Wales. And that would mean attempts to find information about Griffith James prior to September 1763 in the vicinity of Sharpsburg need to look back to Wales for information. Perhaps to the Carmarthenshire family of Sarah James, mother-in-law of Joseph Chapline?

And then one final surprising piece of information: In updating my notes about Griffith James as I worked on this blog posting, I’ve unearthed a list of debts to the estate of Nathan Peddycoart, who died in 1759 in Frederick County, Maryland. Among the debts that Nathan’s widow Sarah Dorsey Peddycoart listed in her inventory of Nathan’s estate was a debt from one Griffith James for one shilling and sixpence due 10 January 1743.[42]

Is this the Griffith James who had bought land from Joseph Chapline by 1763? Given the Frederick County location of this estate record, that’s entirely possible. If this is “our” Griffith James, then this record would indicate that he was in Maryland, perhaps in Frederick County’s parent county, Prince George’s, by January 1743. If I’m correct in thinking that the Griffith James who lived at Pough outside Sharpsburg was born in the period 1725-1735, and if this record pertains to that same Griffith James, then he’d have been in this part of Maryland as a very young man in 1743.

Lots of questions, no answers. But it’s important to keep asking….

[1] The only federal census on which Griffith James appears, the 1790 census, shows him in Washington County, Maryland (p. 9) with a household comprised of two males aged 16 and over, one male aged under 15, and two females, information that is hardly helpful in determining Griffith’s birthdate.

[2] Anderson County, South Carolina, Will Bk. 1793-8, p. 82.

[3] Era Josephine Morgan Davis, Louise S. Rourke, and Marc B. Smith, Country Cousins: Descendants of Samuel Dean (1996), p. 3. In correspondence with me in January 1997, researcher Barbara Morris of Bellaire, Texas, stated that the 3 October 1795 death of date was sent by Lucy Rebecca Dean to Louise Rourke in the 1980s. Louise Rourke, who lived in Citrus Heights, California, was the primary author of Country Cousins. Unless I’m mistaken, Lucy Rebecca Dean (1942-2023, m. John Kennemur) was a daughter of Richard Brown Dean and Joanne Richardson. Rebecca Dean Kennemur was a DAR member and active genealogist. This Dean line descends from Samuel Dean and Gwendolyn James through their son Richard P. Dean.

[4] Mountain Creek Baptist church appears to have been established in the 1790s some six miles southwest of Anderson, South Carolina. Its original minutes are held by the Special Collections and Baptist Historical Collection at Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina. Microfilmed and digitized copies of the church minutes are available at FamilySearch. A transcription of the Mountain Creek minutes from 1798 to 1907 by Debbie Giles Harbin was published by the Anderson County Chapter of the South Carolina Genealogical Society in 2002.

[5] Mary James does not appear as a household head on the federal census in either 1800 or 1810. The minutes of Mountain Creek Baptist church state that in 1817, she was living with her the family of her son-in-law Samuel Dean, husband of Gwendolyn Dean. The 1810 federal census shows a female aged over 45 in Samuel’s household in Pendleton District (p. 151).

[6] Frederick County, Maryland, Deed Bk. J, pp. 793-804.

[7] See Arthur G. Tracey’s patent/tract index and map locations for Carroll, Frederick, and Washington Counties at Maryland government’s Maryland History site; and Maryland Land Office Rent Rolls 1748-1775, p. 5.

[8] See Washington County, Maryland, Deed Bk. G, pp. 771-2, stating that on 13 May 1792, Griffith James sold to Robert Hoffman for ￡330 his tract called Pough, 75 acres, with wife Mary releasing dower.

[9] Washington County, Maryland, Deed Bk. E, pp. 332-3.

[10] In 1783, Griffith James is on the Washington County tax list in Lower Antietam Hundred, taxed for the Pough property, with the acreage given as 100 acres. The tax list states that this property comprised 60 acres of woods and 40 acres arable; Griffith was also taxed for four horses and eight beef cattle: see “Washington County 1783 Tax Assessment,” Western Maryland Genealogy 7,4 (October 1991), p. 171; and “Assessment of 1783, Index,” citing Lower Antietam and Sharpsburg, p. 34 (MSA S1161-11-1. 1/4/5/54) at website of Maryland State Archives.

[11] Washington County, Maryland, Deed Bk. R, pp. 181-2.

[12] Washington County, Maryland, Will Bk. A, pp. 279-280. The will was probated 24 March 1792.

[13] See “Assessment of 1783, Index,” citing Lower Antietam and Sharpsburg, p. 35 (MSA S1161-11-1. 1/4/5/54) at website of Maryland State Archives. This transcription reads the acreage as 128 acres and gives the tract name as Moses’ Delight.

[14] Geolover, “Sarah’s Surprise, Part 2,” West Virginia Family Tracks and Trails, citing Washington County, Maryland, Deed Bk.  G-7, pp. 44-46.

[15] See Arthur G. Tracey’s patent/tract index and map locations for Carroll, Frederick, and Washington Counties at Maryland government’s Maryland History site. See also John Bedell and Jason Shellenhamer, Archeological Overview, Assessment, Identification, and Evaluation Study of Newly Acquired Lands at Antietam National Battlefield, Maryland (2014, National Parks Service), pp. 36-7; Evelyn Vigdahl, “Another Flooded River Valley: The Deans of Huntingdon Co., Pennsylvania,” at Our Family History; and “The Farmsteads of Antietam – Jacob Avey Farm,” at the website of Jacob Rohrback Inn.

[16] Prince George’s County, Maryland, Deed Bk. BB, pp. 396-7.

[17] “Tax List, Antietam Hundred, Prince George’s County 1746,” transcribed by Karen Walker for Maryland Genealogical Society.

[18] “Richard Deane (1701-1788) and His Children,” at Rootsweb.

[19] See supra, n. 15.

[20] When Joseph Chapline patented Pough in November 1761 (see supra, no. 7), the tract was described as 75 acres at the head of a spring and the foot of Elk Ridge Mountain next to Keep Tryst, Boston, and Little I Thought It. Little I Thought It is the huge tract out of which the land for the Antietam ironworks was taken. On 25 July 1769, David Ross, one of Chapline’s business partners in the ironworks, had a Frederick County grant for 8,025 acres, a tract called Boston, a resurvey of Little I Thought It, part of Keep Trieste, part of Dutch Loss, and Mill Place. The survey for this land shows it bordering both Pough and Hunting the Hare. Arthur Tracey’s map for plats in Sharpsburg district shows Pough bordering Boston on the east, with Hunting the Hare bordering Boston on the north. On the Little I Thought It tract of 6,352 acres as the site for the ironworks, see Thomas J.C. Williams, A History of Washington County, Maryland, etc. (Hagerstown, 1906; reps. Baltimore: Regional Publ. Co., 1968), pp. 23-4.

[21] For photos of the Deans Purchase portion of Hunting the Hare viewed from Pough that I took in in August 2007, please see this previous posting.

[22] Washington County, Maryland, Will Bk. A, p. 168. The will spells the surname as Deane.

[23] Ibid., pp. 161-2.

[24] Richard Deane (1701-1788) and His Children.”

[25] John Bedell and Jason Shellenhamer, Archeological Overview, Assessment, Identification, and Evaluation Study of Newly Acquired Lands at Antietam National Battlefield Maryland (2014, National Parks Service), p. 36.

[26] See ibid., and Edward C. Papenfuse, A Biographical Dictionary of the Maryland Legislature, 1635-1789 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979), pp. 210-211; Lee and Barbara Barron, The History of Sharpsburg, Maryland, Founded by Joseph Chapline 1763 (1972); Maria J. Liggett Dare, Chaplines from Maryland and Virginia (priv. publ., 1902); Thomas J.C. Williams, A History of Washington County, Maryland, etc., vol. 1 (Hagerstown, 1906; repr. Baltimore: Regional Publishing Company, 1968), pp. 23-4; Sharpsburg Historical Society, “Joseph Chapline – Founder of Sharpsburg, MD,” at the website of Sharpsburg Historical Society; and Peoples, “Richard Deane (1701-1788) and His Children.”

[27] Bedell and Shellenhamer, Archeological Overview, Assessment, Identification, and Evaluation Study of Newly Acquired Lands at Antietam National Battlefield Maryland, pp. 36-7.

[28] Dare, Chaplines from Maryland and Virginia, pp. 6, 22; Williams, History of Washington County, Maryland, pp. 23-4; and Grace L. Tracey, Pioneers of Old Monocacy (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 2002), pp. 245-7. See also Find a Grave memorial page of Ruhama Williams Chapline, Mountain View cemetery, Sharpsburg, Washington County, Maryland, created by jrrmr910, maintained by Michael J. Chapline.

[29] Ibid.

[30] “Richard Deane (1701-1788) and His Children.”

[31] Bedell and Shellenhamer, Archeological Overview, Assessment, Identification, and Evaluation Study of Newly Acquired Lands at Antietam National Battlefield Maryland, pp. 41-2.

[32] Maryland Gazette (12 January 1769), p. 3, col. 1.

[33] See Find a Grave memorial page of Col Joseph Chapline, Mountain View cemetery, Sharpsburg, Washington County, Maryland, created by jrrmr910, maintained by Michael J. Chapline.

[34] Dare, Chaplines from Maryland and Virginia, p. 7.

[35] Papenfuse, Biographical Dictionary of the Maryland Legislature, 1635-1789, p. 211.

[36] See supra, n. 6.

[37] Frederick County, Maryland, Will Bk. A, p. 127.

[38] See Arthur G. Tracey’s patent/tract index and map locations for Carroll, Frederick, and Washington Counties at Maryland government’s Maryland History site.

[39] “Washington County 1783 Tax Assessment,” p. 171; and “Assessment of 1783, Index.”

[40] Washington County, Maryland, Deed Bk. G, pp. 368, 815-6.

[41] “Biography of the Leonards,” 1883 manuscript circulated as a typescript among Leonard family members and researchers, whose current provenance is not known.

[42] Frederick County, Maryland, Inventory Bk. A1, p. 459.

Griffith James (abt. 1725? – 1795): Sharpsburg, Maryland, Beginnings

Or, Subtitled: “I have no tradition of her parents, except their nationality, they were Welch, but Hannah was born and reared in Maryland”

“Don’t know much about history”: Sam Cooke’s song “Wonderful World” is scrolling through my head as I launch a new series of postings, this one about Griffith James (abt. 1725? – 1795). Griffith James ties into my family tree through the marriage of his daughter Hannah (1752-1842) to Thomas Leonard about 1775 in Frederick County, Maryland. I’ve just finished a series of postings about the Leonard line. This new series about Griffith James follows that Leonard series, which began with the posting I’ve just linked, about Thomas Leonard (1752-1832), Hannah James’ husband. In a posting launching a previous series about my Lauderdale family line, I offer two charts showing my line of descent from Griffith James, James Lauderdale, and Robert Leonard, family lines that tied together in my family tree when Thomas Lewis Leonard (1781-1870) married Sarah M. Lauderdale (abt. 1785 – abt. 1866) — my 4th g-grandparents. (To read the continuation of this posting, please click the numeral 2 below.)

The reason Sam Cooke’s line “Don’t know much about history” has been playing in my head as I begin gathering and organizing my information about Griffith James is this: before I undertook this gathering and organizing process, if you’d asked me what I know about Griffith James, I’d have told you confidently that I have a considerable amount of information, and that I was fairly certain I could tell you a lot about his origins, where he came from, who his parents were.

But now, I’m not so sure about that. One of the advantages of working on postings here that gather, organize, and analyze genealogical material I’ve accumulated for over fifty years is that I have a chance to look at that material from new perspectives, to correct and expand it, and in some cases, to reframe entirely what I had thought I’d known about an ancestral figure. Griffith James is a case in point.

The Documentary Trail That Begins at Sharpsburg

I’ll illustrate this point in the following posting by talking about what I know with certainty about Griffith James from the point at which a documentary trail of him begins in the area of Sharpsburg in what eventually became Washington County, Maryland. I know nothing — not with any certainty — about Griffith James before he begins showing up in records of Frederick County, Maryland, Washington County’s parent county. Prior to that point, I have not found any reliable information about where he was born, who his parents were, or where he may have lived before he settled in Frederick County prior to September 1763.

I do not know precisely when Griffith James was born. As a previous posting has shown, the gravestone of his oldest child, his daughter Hannah, in the Leonard family cemetery near Petersburg, Tennessee, gives her birthdate as 2 November 1752. If Hannah was born to a young couple who had married not long prior to her birth, then it would appear that Griffith James and his wife, whose name appears in various records as Mary, would likely have been born in the time frame 1725-1735.[1] We’ll see later that Griffith made a will in Pendleton District, South Carolina, on 20 April 1795, which was recorded (with no probate date stated) on 12 April 1796, so he died in Pendleton District between those two dates.[2] A death date of 3 October 1795 appears in a study of the Dean family entitled Country Cousins: Descendants of Samuel Dean with no information about the source of this date.[3]

Griffith James’ wife Mary, who is named in his will as “my Dear wife Mary James,” outlived him and was still living as late as 1817 when the minutes of Mountain Creek Baptist church in Pendleton District, of which Mary was a member, document a dispute between her and her daughter Mary, wife of Harmon Cummings, that began in April and continued until it was resolved in August 1817.[4] I have not found a document that provides a good indicator of when Griffith James’ wife Mary was born, or of her maiden surname.[5] As we’ll see in a moment, Thomas Dunlap Leonard, a grandson of Thomas Leonard and Hannah James, who compiled a history of the Leonard family in 1883 and who knew Thomas and Hannah personally, appears to have thought that Griffith James was married only once and that his first and only wife (i.e., Mary), whom Thomas D. Leonard does not name, was the mother of all the couple’s children.

The first absolutely certain record I’ve found for this Griffith James places him in Sharpsburg in what was then Frederick County by 4 September 1763. On 4 September 1763, Joseph Chapline made an agreement between himself and Samuel Beall, David Ross, and Richard Henderson to be partners in an ironworks to be erected in Frederick County. The agreement states that Joseph reserved to himself and his heirs his mill on the Antietam with 50 acres joining it, and that Joseph was also excluding from the land he was making available for the ironworks 215 acres he had sold to Daniel Moore and Griffith James.[6] This agreement was recorded 31 October 1765, but the agreement itself was dated 4 September 1763. (See the top of this posting for a snapshot of the section of the ironworks agreement stating that Chapline had sold 215 acres to Daniel Moore and Griffith James.)

I have searched Frederick County deeds for a deed made by Joseph Chapline to Daniel Moore and Griffith James prior to September 1763 without finding any such deed. What I do find are two separate deeds made, one to Daniel and one to Griffith, years down the road from 1763, after both men had been living with their families for years on the land that Chapline deeded to them, and which was clearly the land comprised in the 215 acres Daniel Moore and Griffith James had acquired from Joseph Chapline by September 1763.

As far as I can determine, Griffith James lived continuously on a tract of land just southeast of the town of Sharpsburg until May 1792, when he sold the Pough tract and then moved the following year to Pendleton District, South Carolina. Pough was a 75-acre tract contiguous to Hunting the Hare, one portion of which Richard Dean, whose son Samuel married Griffith James’ daughter Gwendolyn, owned, and another portion of which Daniel Moore seems to have acquired from Joseph Chapline.

Joseph Chapline patented Pough on 23 November 1761.[7] The patent record states that the tract contained 75 acres, the same amount of land that Griffith James sold on 13 May 1792 when he sold Pough (the name for the land is given in this deed) before leaving Maryland for South Carolina.[8] Though Griffith James evidently lived continuously on this land from at least September 1763, he did not receive an official deed from the Chapline family for Pough until 10 April 1787, when Joseph and James Chapline, acting as executors of their father Joseph who died in 1769, sold Griffith the Pough tract for￡5.[9] This deed specifies again that Pough was a 75-acre tract.

Note the nominal price of￡5, far less than the￡330 for which Griffith James sold Pough in May 1792. This nominal price is another indicator that though this land, for which Griffith James appears on the tax list in Washington County in 1783, was Griffith’s home tract, Joseph Chapline (and then his estate) had retained the title of it for all the years on which Griffith lived on this piece of land.[10] The ￡5 also suggests to me that Griffith James may have lived on this land all the years he was at Sharpsburg as a kind of retainer of Joseph Chapline and his family, given use of a tract of land while not holding clear title to it as he lived on it. A retainer who may have had some kinship connection to Chapline? Or a retainer doing work of some kind to Chapline while cultivating his own patch of land?

After 1761 when Chapline patented Pough until 1768, I do not find Pough showing up in the Debt Books of the Provincial Land Office of Maryland. In 1768, it is listed as 75 acres belonging to heirs of Joseph Chapline, and it continues to appear in the Debt Books for Frederick County from 1770-1773, with the name given as “Tough.” Again, these documents indicate to me that Joseph Chapline perhaps had some special arrangement with Griffith James whereby he was living on Pough as its owner in the absence of a deed prior to April 1787, when Chapline’s heirs officially deeded the land to him — though, to repeat, a 1783 tax list for Washington County shows Griffith James taxed for this tract of land.

The story of Pough and Griffith James’ ownership and occupation of it parallels the story of Daniel Moore, who owned another portion of the 215 acres that he and Griffith James had acquired from Joseph Chapline prior to September 1763. Daniel Moore’s portion of the 215 acres was a tract of 138 acres named Mores Delight, which Joseph Chapline sold him on 17 August 1754 with the deed stating that Daniel Moore was living on this land when Chapline sold it to him in 1754, and that the land was on the waters of the Antietam.[11] But though Daniel Moore lived on this piece of land up to his death in 1792, the deed for the land was not recorded until 11 May 1805.

We know that Daniel Moore lived with his wife Mary on this 138-acre tract at the time of his death because the will that he made in Washington County on 1 January 1792 states this and leaves Mary the land: “I give and bequeath unto my loving & faithfull Wife Mary the whole of my Land and Plantation on which I now live Containing One Hundred and thirty Eight Acres.”[12] Daniel Moore was taxed for this land in 1783.[13]

As we’ve seen, Griffith James’ Pough tract consisted of 75 acres. Daniel Moore’s home tract, on which he was already living prior to August 1754 and on which he continued living to the end of his life, was 138 acres. Joseph Chapline’s September 1763 ironworks agreement states that he had sold Daniel Moore and Griffith James 215 acres by that date. Put these two pieces of land owned by Griffith James and Daniel Moore together, and you have a total of 213 acres, very close to the 215 acres cited by Joseph Chapline in his ironworks agreement.

I have not been able to find Mores Delight on lists of land patents and tracts in Washington County, so I’m not certain of its precise location. There has been confusion about whether the name of this piece of land is Moses’ Delight or Mores Delight, and this adds to the difficulty of finding its location. If Joseph Chapline’s September 1763 ironworks agreement excluded 215 acres he had sold to Daniel Moore and Griffith James from this agreement, it makes sense, I think, to assume that Daniel’s and Griffith’s pieces of land were in the same vicinity and perhaps adjoining.

Daniel Moore’s will states that he had a son Richard. The 1783 tax assessment for Washington County shows Richard Moore assessed for a 50-acre tract called Hunting the Hare. As a descendant of this Moore family who maintains the West Virginia Family Tracks and Trails blog notes, the 1790 federal census for Washington County shows Richard and Daniel Moore as immediate neighbors, and on 10 April 1790, Daniel Moore and wife Mary sold 50 acres described as part of a tract called Hunting the Hare.[14] This deed suggests to me that Daniel Moore’s 138-acre home tract, Mores Delight, was likely originally part of a larger tract of 250 acres called Hunting the Hare on Antietam Creek that Joseph Chapline patented on 13 November 1747 after having claimed the land on 9 April 1744.[15]

On 22 March 1747, prior to his obtaining a patent for Hunting the Hare in November 1747, Joseph Chapline sold Richard Dean, both of Prince George’s County, 50 acres of land described as “Deans purches being part of a tract land called hunting the hair [sic].”[16] On 17 October 1747, Joseph Chapline acknowledged the deed with wife Ruhamah (née Williams) relinquishing dower rights, and on the same day, Joseph made a receipt to Richard for the £20 for which he had sold the land. The deed for this transaction is filed in Prince George’s County since the portion of Frederick County taken from Prince George’s in 1748 that became Washington County in 1776 was originally in Prince George’s.

As I stated previously, Richard Dean’s son Samuel married Griffith James’ daughter Gwendolyn about 1773 in Frederick County. We know that Richard Dean was in the location that would later become Sharpsburg along with Joseph Chapline as early as 1746, since the tax list for Antietam Hundred in Prince George’s County in that year shows both of these men taxed in that hundred.[17] This is not very long after Chapline arrived in this location around 1736, a point I’ll discuss in more detail later. Beverly Dean Peoples, the premier researcher of Richard Dean’s family, thinks that it’s entirely possible that Chapline brought Richard to the Sharpsburg area or Richard followed Chapline there due to some connection between the two men in eastern Maryland prior to Chapline’s decision to move west.

Beverly Peoples writes,[18]

When he came to this western most part of MD, Joseph brought with him men to build his home, settlers to clear the land, workers to build and work the Iron Works that he was establishing as well as men to defend the settlement from the Indians. Since this area was remote in the 1730’s and 40’s it is unlikely that many people arrived individually. Richard’s appearance in the 1740’s would possibly indicate he had contact with someone in the Chapline family in the eastern part of the state who had motivated him to [move] west.

It seems to me this is a thesis well worth considering. And given what appear to be close ties between Richard Dean, Griffith James, and Daniel Moore, I’d also suggest that it’s possible both Griffith and Daniel arrived in the Sharpsburg area not far down the road from Richard because they, too, had prior ties to Joseph Chapline and/or to Richard Dean. If Daniel Moore’s 138-acre homeplace was part of the original Hunting the Hare tract — and I think this may well have been the case — then he, Richard Dean, and Griffith Moore settled on adjoining tracts of land just southeast of Sharpsburg. Note the contiguity of Deans Purchase, Hunting the Hare, and Pough on this map of Sharpsburg that appears in Evelyn Vigdahl’s previously cited “Another Flooded River” article:[19]

Google Maps actually labels the “historic Moore farm” near the intersection of Burnside Bridge Road and Mills Road southeast of Sharpsburg as “Hunting the Hare.”[20] Both Pough and Deans Purchase are in this same location, near the intersection of Burnside Bridge Road and Mills Road.[21]

So note the following:

• By September 1763, Griffith James and Daniel Moore owned 215 acres near Antietam Creek purchased from Joseph Chapline.

• We learn from other documents that the portion of this land, 75 acres, that Griffith James owned and lived on was called Pough, and that Pough was adjacent to Chapline’s Hunting the Hare tract. Chapline’s heirs deeded this land formally to Griffith James in 1787.

• In 1747, Richard Dean bought 50 acres from Chapline’s Hunting the Hare tract; this land was given the name Deans Purchase. Deans Purchase is contiguous to both Pough and the rest of the Hunting the Hare tract.

• In 1754, Chapline deeded Daniel Moore 138 acres that appear to have been also part of the original Hunting the Hare tract, and also appear to have been contiguous to Pough and Deans Purchase. We know from a subsequent deed that Daniel Moore owned another 50 acres of Hunting the Hare on which his son Richard lived for a time.

• Griffith James’ daughter Gwendolyn married Richard Dean’s son Samuel Dean.

• The 14 February 1788 will of Richard Dean in Washington County names a daughter Mary.[22] We learn from the 7 August 1795 will of Richard’s widow Priscilla that Mary’s married name was More/Moore.[23] Noting that documents from 1761 through 1792 show Daniel Moore’s wife as Mary, and that Daniel and wife Mary named a son Richard Moore, Beverly Peoples proposes that Daniel Moore may have married another of Richard Dean’s daughters — an eminently reasonable proposal, it seems to me, even if not yet entirely proven.[24]

Joseph Chapline, Founder of Sharpsburg

Because the three interconnecting men on whom I’m focusing here — Griffith James, Richard Dean, and Daniel Moore — all acquired their adjoining pieces of land from Joseph Chapline and arrived in the Sharpsburg area in its formative period when Chapline appears to have been attracting to the area settlers with pre-existing ties to him, it’s important to take a close look at Chapline’s biography and his connection to Sharpsburg, which he founded. As John Bedell and Jason Shellenhamer note, “Of all of the early residents of Maryland’s Great Valley, Joseph Chapline was most responsible for shaping settlement along Antietam Creek in the eighteenth century.”[25]

Joseph Chapline was born 5 September 1707 in Queen Anne’s parish of Prince George’s County, the son of William Chapline (1686-1752) and Elizabeth Travers. The Chapline family, whose roots were in England and which had marital ties to the Calvert family, had been in the colonies four generations prior to Joseph, first in Virginia and then in Maryland, where family members lived in Calvert and Dorchester Counties in the eastern part of that colony.[26]

Joseph spent his formative years on his father’s plantation Forrest in the easternmost part of Prince George’s County, with his father William sending him to England for a period of time to be educated. In 1730 Joseph’s father, William, moved to the western “back-parts” on the Virginia-Maryland border, settling on the Potomac about four miles above Shepherdstown and leaving Joseph, his oldest son, in charge of the Forrest plantation and of the family’s younger children.

By 1736 Joseph had followed his father west, settling across the Potomac in what was then western Prince George’s County, and after that Frederick and finally Washington County. As Bedell and Shellenhamer note,[27]

Maryland colonial records for that period show that Chapline was an active member of a community developing west of the Monocacy River. In May 1739 Joseph Chapline was a signatory on a petition of 88 inhabitants of the “back-parts” of Maryland.

On 22 October 1741 in All Saints parish in Frederick County, Joseph married Ruhamah, daughter of Reverend William Williams and Sarah James of Carmarthenshire, Wales. Ruhamah and her sisters Sarah and Jane had come to Virginia with their father, a Presbyterian missionary, following their mother’s death in Wales. By 1739, William Williams had bought land in Prince George’s County, Maryland, in the area that would later be Frederick and then Washington County.[28]

In 1744 Joseph Chapline began patenting and buying tracts of land on Antietam Creek in the vicinity of what would soon be Sharpsburg. As Bedell and Shellenhamer indicate, one of these tracts, acquired in 1747, was the 250-acre Hunting the Hare tract.[29] It is in this period from the latter half of the 1730s into the 1740s that Beverly Peoples suggests Joseph may well have brought with him to this remote backcountry part of western Maryland men to help improve his properties, build houses and structures on them, clear and settle the land, and work his ironworks once they were established. As Beverly states, “Since this area was remote in the 1730’s and 40’s it is unlikely that many people arrived individually.”[30]

Joseph Chapline prospered and accumulated wealth and status following his settlement in the Sharpsburg area. He was a justice of Prince George’s county court from 1739-1748 and after that of the Frederick court for some years. From 1749-1768, he served in the lower house of the Maryland legislature. In 1763 Joseph founded the town of Sharps Burgh, naming it in honor of Maryland’s governor Horatio Sharpe. The town was laid out on a 200-acre tract, Hickory Tavern, that Joseph bought from Edmund Cartledge on 11 July 1763, close to his plantation Rush Bottom and adjacent to his Hunting the Hare and Resurvey on Abston’s Forest tracts. The appeal of the Hickory Tavern land for a town site was that it had a good freshwater spring and was on the wagon road to Philadelphia. In 1764, Joseph out a plan for the new town, consisting of 187 lots located around the spring, with each lot measuring 103 feet wide by 206 feet long.[31]

On 12 January 1769 the Maryland Gazette reported,[32]

Lately died in Frederick County, Capt. Joseph Chapline, who, for many Years, has been one of the Representatives for that County in the General Assembly.

Joseph was initially buried on his Elias Grove estate west of Sharpsburg, and in 1893 his great-great-niece Maria Ligget Dare had his remains along with those of his wife Ruhamah and several other family members buried in Mountain View cemetery at Sharpsburg.[33] Maria Dare indicates that Joseph died owning 12,257 acres of land.[34] According to Edward C. Papenfuse, Joseph’s landholdings at the time of his death included at least 6,385 acres in Frederick County and probably as much as 15,000 acres in Frederick County and in Virginia.[35]

I’d like to return now to the 4 September 1763 document that started this discussion of Griffith James’ early years in the Sharpsburg area. As I stated previously, the 4 September 1763 agreement that Joseph Chapline made with Samuel Beall, David Ross, and Richard Henderson to be partners in an ironworks to be erected at Sharpsburg is the first absolutely certain document I’ve found placing Griffith James in this part of Maryland.[36]

Several of my previous postings (here and here) about the Leonard family connecting to Griffith James’ family through the marriage of Thomas Leonard, son of Robert Leonard and Honor Pritchard, to Griffith’s daughter Hannah note both not only ties between Robert and Thomas Leonard Joseph Chapline and his family, but also ties between the Leonards and the Beall family to which Joseph Chapline’s business partner Samuel Beall belonged. As these postings indicate, Joseph Chapline helped construct Fort Frederick near Hagerstown in Washington County, Maryland, in 1756, and from the time that fort was constructed, a trail of documents places Robert Leonard there as a soldier guarding the western frontier of Maryland.

Moreover, when the first military company in Washington County was organized for the Revolutionary War in Hagerstown on 6 January 1776, that company was under the command of Joseph Chapline’s a son Joseph. Serving in that military company were Griffith James’ sons-in-law Thomas Leonard and Samuel Dean, as well as Samuel’s brother Thomas Dean and Richard Moore, son of Daniel Moore. Previously, in 1755, Daniel Moore had served in the Frederick County militia company of Captain Moses Chapline, brother of the elder Joseph Chapline who founded Sharpsburg.

In addition, in the years in which Robert Leonard was stationed at Fort Frederick, he was under the immediate command of Captain Alexander Beall (1712-1759). Alexander was the son of William Beall (1684-1756), whose brother John Beall (1689-1742) was father of the Samuel Beall (1713-1778) who was Joseph Chapline’s business partner in the Antietam ironworks business. Samuel lived at Hagerstown.

As this previous posting states, Alexander Beall left a will in Frederick County dated 9 April 1759 which shows him owning part of a large tract of land in that county called King Cole.[37] The original King Cole tract consisted of 1,970 acres patented to Henry Crabb on 30 August 1754.[38] As we’ll see later, by 1783, fifty acres of the King Cole tract belonged to Griffith James’ son Joseph, who obtained it from his father-in-law James Austin.[39] In April 1791, Joseph sold this land to his father Griffith James, who then sold it along with James Austin in March 1792.[40]

None of the preceding information about Griffith James tells us exactly when and how he arrived in the Sharpsburg area or where he may have been prior to his arrival there. It does, however, give us a clear snapshot confirming his presence in the Sharpsburg area prior to September 1763 and his continuous residence on a piece of land he had acquired from Joseph Chapline prior to that date. All of the information I’ve compiled above also raises some tantalizing questions:

• Did Griffith James, Richard Dean, and Daniel Moore have some connections to each other pre-existing their arrival in the Sharpsburg area? And did all or any of these men have connections with Joseph Chapline pre-dating their arrival in the Sharpsburg area?

• Since we know that Joseph Chapline had a Welsh mother-in-law whose surname was James, is it possible that Griffith James had some kind of family connection with Joseph Chapline through Joseph’s mother-in-law Sarah James? There’s also a salient fact I haven’t yet mentioned: Daniel Moore had a daughter Nancy who married John Griffith. This family, too, lived in the Sharpsburg area. Given the vagaries of the patronymic naming system in Welsh families, whereby given names of fathers pass on as surnames of sons, it’s possible John Griffith and Griffith James were related to each other: Was that, in fact, the case?

• If Griffith James was related to Joseph Chapline through Joseph’s mother-in-law, would that explain the fact that he had acquired land from Joseph prior to September 1763 — we know this from Joseph’s own testimony — for which he was not given title until 1787, though he lived continuously on this land all those years? To repeat a question I’ve already asked earlier: If Griffith James was a relative of the Chapline family, was he a retainer of the family, living on land provided to him while the family held title to the land?

Lots of questions, no answers. I ask these questions not to suggest that any of this speculation has been proven, but to put the questions out on the board for consideration, as any researcher seeks to extend information about Griffith James back beyond September 1763 in the Sharpsburg area. Another tantalizing piece of information to place on the board now: in his 1883 manuscript about the Leonard family Thomas Dunlap Leonard says the following about the parents of his grandmother Hannah James Leonard:[41]

[Thomas Leonard, son of Robert Leonard and Honor Pritchard,] married Miss Hannah James of Maryland about the year 1775. I have no tradition of her parents, except their nationality, they were Welch, but Hannah was born and reared in Maryland.

This statement, which evidently relies on information given to Thomas D. Leonard by his grandparents Thomas and Hannah James Leonard, seems to me to imply that Thomas D. Leonard thought Hannah James’ parents were Welsh-born. The Welsh background of the family is fairly evident in the names Griffith and James, both common Welsh surnames. The given name Gwendolyn, which Griffith James and wife Mary gave a daughter, is another Welsh cultural tag. I am also not forgetting that Pritchard, the surname of Robert Leonard’s wife, is yet another Welsh surname.

It’s possible, of course, that Thomas D. Leonard means to say here that Griffith James’ family had recent Welsh roots though it had been in the colonies a generation or two prior to Griffith himself. It seems to me, however, that Thomas thought Griffith James and wife Mary were actually Welsh-born and were the immigrant ancestors of this James family line. If that’s true, then it may also have been the case that this couple arrived in Maryland — perhaps even in the Sharpsburg area — directly from Wales. And that would mean attempts to find information about Griffith James prior to September 1763 in the vicinity of Sharpsburg need to look back to Wales for information. Perhaps to the Carmarthenshire family of Sarah James, mother-in-law of Joseph Chapline?

And then one final surprising piece of information: In updating my notes about Griffith James as I worked on this blog posting, I’ve unearthed a list of debts to the estate of Nathan Peddycoart, who died in 1759 in Frederick County, Maryland. Among the debts that Nathan’s widow Sarah Dorsey Peddycoart listed in her inventory of Nathan’s estate was a debt from one Griffith James for one shilling and sixpence due 10 January 1743.[42]

Is this the Griffith James who had bought land from Joseph Chapline by 1763? Given the Frederick County location of this estate record, that’s entirely possible. If this is “our” Griffith James, then this record would indicate that he was in Maryland, perhaps in Frederick County’s parent county, Prince George’s, by January 1743. If I’m correct in thinking that the Griffith James who lived at Pough outside Sharpsburg was born in the period 1725-1735, and if this record pertains to that same Griffith James, then he’d have been in this part of Maryland as a very young man in 1743.

Lots of questions, no answers. But it’s important to keep asking….

[1] The only federal census on which Griffith James appears, the 1790 census, shows him in Washington County, Maryland (p. 9) with a household comprised of two males aged 16 and over, one male aged under 15, and two females, information that is hardly helpful in determining Griffith’s birthdate.

[2] Anderson County, South Carolina, Will Bk. 1793-8, p. 82.

[3] Era Josephine Morgan Davis, Louise S. Rourke, and Marc B. Smith, Country Cousins: Descendants of Samuel Dean (1996), p. 3. In correspondence with me in January 1997, researcher Barbara Morris of Bellaire, Texas, stated that the 3 October 1795 death of date was sent by Lucy Rebecca Dean to Louise Rourke in the 1980s. Louise Rourke, who lived in Citrus Heights, California, was the primary author of Country Cousins. Unless I’m mistaken, Lucy Rebecca Dean (1942-2023, m. John Kennemur) was a daughter of Richard Brown Dean and Joanne Richardson. Rebecca Dean Kennemur was a DAR member and active genealogist. This Dean line descends from Samuel Dean and Gwendolyn James through their son Richard P. Dean.

[4] Mountain Creek Baptist church appears to have been established in the 1790s some six miles southwest of Anderson, South Carolina. Its original minutes are held by the Special Collections and Baptist Historical Collection at Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina. Microfilmed and digitized copies of the church minutes are available at FamilySearch. A transcription of the Mountain Creek minutes from 1798 to 1907 by Debbie Giles Harbin was published by the Anderson County Chapter of the South Carolina Genealogical Society in 2002.

[5] Mary James does not appear as a household head on the federal census in either 1800 or 1810. The minutes of Mountain Creek Baptist church state that in 1817, she was living with her the family of her son-in-law Samuel Dean, husband of Gwendolyn Dean. The 1810 federal census shows a female aged over 45 in Samuel’s household in Pendleton District (p. 151).

[6] Frederick County, Maryland, Deed Bk. J, pp. 793-804.

[7] See Arthur G. Tracey’s patent/tract index and map locations for Carroll, Frederick, and Washington Counties at Maryland government’s Maryland History site; and Maryland Land Office Rent Rolls 1748-1775, p. 5.

[8] See Washington County, Maryland, Deed Bk. G, pp. 771-2, stating that on 13 May 1792, Griffith James sold to Robert Hoffman for ￡330 his tract called Pough, 75 acres, with wife Mary releasing dower.

[9] Washington County, Maryland, Deed Bk. E, pp. 332-3.

[10] In 1783, Griffith James is on the Washington County tax list in Lower Antietam Hundred, taxed for the Pough property, with the acreage given as 100 acres. The tax list states that this property comprised 60 acres of woods and 40 acres arable; Griffith was also taxed for four horses and eight beef cattle: see “Washington County 1783 Tax Assessment,” Western Maryland Genealogy 7,4 (October 1991), p. 171; and “Assessment of 1783, Index,” citing Lower Antietam and Sharpsburg, p. 34 (MSA S1161-11-1. 1/4/5/54) at website of Maryland State Archives.

[11] Washington County, Maryland, Deed Bk. R, pp. 181-2.

[12] Washington County, Maryland, Will Bk. A, pp. 279-280. The will was probated 24 March 1792.

[13] See “Assessment of 1783, Index,” citing Lower Antietam and Sharpsburg, p. 35 (MSA S1161-11-1. 1/4/5/54) at website of Maryland State Archives. This transcription reads the acreage as 128 acres and gives the tract name as Moses’ Delight.

[14] Geolover, “Sarah’s Surprise, Part 2,” West Virginia Family Tracks and Trails, citing Washington County, Maryland, Deed Bk.  G-7, pp. 44-46.

[15] See Arthur G. Tracey’s patent/tract index and map locations for Carroll, Frederick, and Washington Counties at Maryland government’s Maryland History site. See also John Bedell and Jason Shellenhamer, Archeological Overview, Assessment, Identification, and Evaluation Study of Newly Acquired Lands at Antietam National Battlefield, Maryland (2014, National Parks Service), pp. 36-7; Evelyn Vigdahl, “Another Flooded River Valley: The Deans of Huntingdon Co., Pennsylvania,” at Our Family History; and “The Farmsteads of Antietam – Jacob Avey Farm,” at the website of Jacob Rohrback Inn.

[16] Prince George’s County, Maryland, Deed Bk. BB, pp. 396-7.

[17] “Tax List, Antietam Hundred, Prince George’s County 1746,” transcribed by Karen Walker for Maryland Genealogical Society.

[18] “Richard Deane (1701-1788) and His Children,” at Rootsweb.

[19] See supra, n. 15.

[20] When Joseph Chapline patented Pough in November 1761 (see supra, no. 7), the tract was described as 75 acres at the head of a spring and the foot of Elk Ridge Mountain next to Keep Tryst, Boston, and Little I Thought It. Little I Thought It is the huge tract out of which the land for the Antietam ironworks was taken. On 25 July 1769, David Ross, one of Chapline’s business partners in the ironworks, had a Frederick County grant for 8,025 acres, a tract called Boston, a resurvey of Little I Thought It, part of Keep Trieste, part of Dutch Loss, and Mill Place. The survey for this land shows it bordering both Pough and Hunting the Hare. Arthur Tracey’s map for plats in Sharpsburg district shows Pough bordering Boston on the east, with Hunting the Hare bordering Boston on the north. On the Little I Thought It tract of 6,352 acres as the site for the ironworks, see Thomas J.C. Williams, A History of Washington County, Maryland, etc. (Hagerstown, 1906; reps. Baltimore: Regional Publ. Co., 1968), pp. 23-4.

[21] For photos of the Deans Purchase portion of Hunting the Hare viewed from Pough that I took in in August 2007, please see this previous posting.

[22] Washington County, Maryland, Will Bk. A, p. 168. The will spells the surname as Deane.

[23] Ibid., pp. 161-2.

[24] Richard Deane (1701-1788) and His Children.”

[25] John Bedell and Jason Shellenhamer, Archeological Overview, Assessment, Identification, and Evaluation Study of Newly Acquired Lands at Antietam National Battlefield Maryland (2014, National Parks Service), p. 36.

[26] See ibid., and Edward C. Papenfuse, A Biographical Dictionary of the Maryland Legislature, 1635-1789 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979), pp. 210-211; Lee and Barbara Barron, The History of Sharpsburg, Maryland, Founded by Joseph Chapline 1763 (1972); Maria J. Liggett Dare, Chaplines from Maryland and Virginia (priv. publ., 1902); Thomas J.C. Williams, A History of Washington County, Maryland, etc., vol. 1 (Hagerstown, 1906; repr. Baltimore: Regional Publishing Company, 1968), pp. 23-4; Sharpsburg Historical Society, “Joseph Chapline – Founder of Sharpsburg, MD,” at the website of Sharpsburg Historical Society; and Peoples, “Richard Deane (1701-1788) and His Children.”

[27] Bedell and Shellenhamer, Archeological Overview, Assessment, Identification, and Evaluation Study of Newly Acquired Lands at Antietam National Battlefield Maryland, pp. 36-7.

[28] Dare, Chaplines from Maryland and Virginia, pp. 6, 22; Williams, History of Washington County, Maryland, pp. 23-4; and Grace L. Tracey, Pioneers of Old Monocacy (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 2002), pp. 245-7. See also Find a Grave memorial page of Ruhama Williams Chapline, Mountain View cemetery, Sharpsburg, Washington County, Maryland, created by jrrmr910, maintained by Michael J. Chapline.

[29] Ibid.

[30] “Richard Deane (1701-1788) and His Children.”

[31] Bedell and Shellenhamer, Archeological Overview, Assessment, Identification, and Evaluation Study of Newly Acquired Lands at Antietam National Battlefield Maryland, pp. 41-2.

[32] Maryland Gazette (12 January 1769), p. 3, col. 1.

[33] See Find a Grave memorial page of Col Joseph Chapline, Mountain View cemetery, Sharpsburg, Washington County, Maryland, created by jrrmr910, maintained by Michael J. Chapline.

[34] Dare, Chaplines from Maryland and Virginia, p. 7.

[35] Papenfuse, Biographical Dictionary of the Maryland Legislature, 1635-1789, p. 211.

[36] See supra, n. 6.

[37] Frederick County, Maryland, Will Bk. A, p. 127.

[38] See Arthur G. Tracey’s patent/tract index and map locations for Carroll, Frederick, and Washington Counties at Maryland government’s Maryland History site.

[39] “Washington County 1783 Tax Assessment,” p. 171; and “Assessment of 1783, Index.”

[40] Washington County, Maryland, Deed Bk. G, pp. 368, 815-6.

[41] “Biography of the Leonards,” 1883 manuscript circulated as a typescript among Leonard family members and researchers, whose current provenance is not known.

[42] Frederick County, Maryland, Inventory Bk. A1, p. 459.

Griffith James (abt. 1725? – 1795): Sharpsburg, Maryland, Beginnings

Or, Subtitled: “I have no tradition of her parents, except their nationality, they were Welch, but Hannah was born and reared in Maryland”

“Don’t know much about history”: Sam Cooke’s song “Wonderful World” is scrolling through my head as I launch a new series of postings, this one about Griffith James (abt. 1725? – 1795). Griffith James ties into my family tree through the marriage of his daughter Hannah (1752-1842) to Thomas Leonard about 1775 in Frederick County, Maryland. I’ve just finished a series of postings about the Leonard line. This new series about Griffith James follows that Leonard series, which began with the posting I’ve just linked, about Thomas Leonard (1752-1832), Hannah James’ husband. In a posting launching a previous series about my Lauderdale family line, I offer two charts showing my line of descent from Griffith James, James Lauderdale, and Robert Leonard, family lines that tied together in my family tree when Thomas Lewis Leonard (1781-1870) married Sarah M. Lauderdale (abt. 1785 – abt. 1866) — my 4th g-grandparents. (To read the continuation of this posting, please click the numeral 2 below.)

The reason Sam Cooke’s line “Don’t know much about history” has been playing in my head as I begin gathering and organizing my information about Griffith James is this: before I undertook this gathering and organizing process, if you’d asked me what I know about Griffith James, I’d have told you confidently that I have a considerable amount of information, and that I was fairly certain I could tell you a lot about his origins, where he came from, who his parents were.

But now, I’m not so sure about that. One of the advantages of working on postings here that gather, organize, and analyze genealogical material I’ve accumulated for over fifty years is that I have a chance to look at that material from new perspectives, to correct and expand it, and in some cases, to reframe entirely what I had thought I’d known about an ancestral figure. Griffith James is a case in point.

The Documentary Trail That Begins at Sharpsburg

I’ll illustrate this point in the following posting by talking about what I know with certainty about Griffith James from the point at which a documentary trail of him begins in the area of Sharpsburg in what eventually became Washington County, Maryland. I know nothing — not with any certainty — about Griffith James before he begins showing up in records of Frederick County, Maryland, Washington County’s parent county. Prior to that point, I have not found any reliable information about where he was born, who his parents were, or where he may have lived before he settled in Frederick County prior to September 1763.

I do not know precisely when Griffith James was born. As a previous posting has shown, the gravestone of his oldest child, his daughter Hannah, in the Leonard family cemetery near Petersburg, Tennessee, gives her birthdate as 2 November 1752. If Hannah was born to a young couple who had married not long prior to her birth, then it would appear that Griffith James and his wife, whose name appears in various records as Mary, would likely have been born in the time frame 1725-1735.[1] We’ll see later that Griffith made a will in Pendleton District, South Carolina, on 20 April 1795, which was recorded (with no probate date stated) on 12 April 1796, so he died in Pendleton District between those two dates.[2] A death date of 3 October 1795 appears in a study of the Dean family entitled Country Cousins: Descendants of Samuel Dean with no information about the source of this date.[3]

Griffith James’ wife Mary, who is named in his will as “my Dear wife Mary James,” outlived him and was still living as late as 1817 when the minutes of Mountain Creek Baptist church in Pendleton District, of which Mary was a member, document a dispute between her and her daughter Mary, wife of Harmon Cummings, that began in April and continued until it was resolved in August 1817.[4] I have not found a document that provides a good indicator of when Griffith James’ wife Mary was born, or of her maiden surname.[5] As we’ll see in a moment, Thomas Dunlap Leonard, a grandson of Thomas Leonard and Hannah James, who compiled a history of the Leonard family in 1883 and who knew Thomas and Hannah personally, appears to have thought that Griffith James was married only once and that his first and only wife (i.e., Mary), whom Thomas D. Leonard does not name, was the mother of all the couple’s children.

The first absolutely certain record I’ve found for this Griffith James places him in Sharpsburg in what was then Frederick County by 4 September 1763. On 4 September 1763, Joseph Chapline made an agreement between himself and Samuel Beall, David Ross, and Richard Henderson to be partners in an ironworks to be erected in Frederick County. The agreement states that Joseph reserved to himself and his heirs his mill on the Antietam with 50 acres joining it, and that Joseph was also excluding from the land he was making available for the ironworks 215 acres he had sold to Daniel Moore and Griffith James.[6] This agreement was recorded 31 October 1765, but the agreement itself was dated 4 September 1763. (See the top of this posting for a snapshot of the section of the ironworks agreement stating that Chapline had sold 215 acres to Daniel Moore and Griffith James.)

I have searched Frederick County deeds for a deed made by Joseph Chapline to Daniel Moore and Griffith James prior to September 1763 without finding any such deed. What I do find are two separate deeds made, one to Daniel and one to Griffith, years down the road from 1763, after both men had been living with their families for years on the land that Chapline deeded to them, and which was clearly the land comprised in the 215 acres Daniel Moore and Griffith James had acquired from Joseph Chapline by September 1763.

As far as I can determine, Griffith James lived continuously on a tract of land just southeast of the town of Sharpsburg until May 1792, when he sold the Pough tract and then moved the following year to Pendleton District, South Carolina. Pough was a 75-acre tract contiguous to Hunting the Hare, one portion of which Richard Dean, whose son Samuel married Griffith James’ daughter Gwendolyn, owned, and another portion of which Daniel Moore seems to have acquired from Joseph Chapline.

Joseph Chapline patented Pough on 23 November 1761.[7] The patent record states that the tract contained 75 acres, the same amount of land that Griffith James sold on 13 May 1792 when he sold Pough (the name for the land is given in this deed) before leaving Maryland for South Carolina.[8] Though Griffith James evidently lived continuously on this land from at least September 1763, he did not receive an official deed from the Chapline family for Pough until 10 April 1787, when Joseph and James Chapline, acting as executors of their father Joseph who died in 1769, sold Griffith the Pough tract for￡5.[9] This deed specifies again that Pough was a 75-acre tract.

Note the nominal price of￡5, far less than the￡330 for which Griffith James sold Pough in May 1792. This nominal price is another indicator that though this land, for which Griffith James appears on the tax list in Washington County in 1783, was Griffith’s home tract, Joseph Chapline (and then his estate) had retained the title of it for all the years on which Griffith lived on this piece of land.[10] The ￡5 also suggests to me that Griffith James may have lived on this land all the years he was at Sharpsburg as a kind of retainer of Joseph Chapline and his family, given use of a tract of land while not holding clear title to it as he lived on it. A retainer who may have had some kinship connection to Chapline? Or a retainer doing work of some kind to Chapline while cultivating his own patch of land?

After 1761 when Chapline patented Pough until 1768, I do not find Pough showing up in the Debt Books of the Provincial Land Office of Maryland. In 1768, it is listed as 75 acres belonging to heirs of Joseph Chapline, and it continues to appear in the Debt Books for Frederick County from 1770-1773, with the name given as “Tough.” Again, these documents indicate to me that Joseph Chapline perhaps had some special arrangement with Griffith James whereby he was living on Pough as its owner in the absence of a deed prior to April 1787, when Chapline’s heirs officially deeded the land to him — though, to repeat, a 1783 tax list for Washington County shows Griffith James taxed for this tract of land.

The story of Pough and Griffith James’ ownership and occupation of it parallels the story of Daniel Moore, who owned another portion of the 215 acres that he and Griffith James had acquired from Joseph Chapline prior to September 1763. Daniel Moore’s portion of the 215 acres was a tract of 138 acres named Mores Delight, which Joseph Chapline sold him on 17 August 1754 with the deed stating that Daniel Moore was living on this land when Chapline sold it to him in 1754, and that the land was on the waters of the Antietam.[11] But though Daniel Moore lived on this piece of land up to his death in 1792, the deed for the land was not recorded until 11 May 1805.

We know that Daniel Moore lived with his wife Mary on this 138-acre tract at the time of his death because the will that he made in Washington County on 1 January 1792 states this and leaves Mary the land: “I give and bequeath unto my loving & faithfull Wife Mary the whole of my Land and Plantation on which I now live Containing One Hundred and thirty Eight Acres.”[12] Daniel Moore was taxed for this land in 1783.[13]

As we’ve seen, Griffith James’ Pough tract consisted of 75 acres. Daniel Moore’s home tract, on which he was already living prior to August 1754 and on which he continued living to the end of his life, was 138 acres. Joseph Chapline’s September 1763 ironworks agreement states that he had sold Daniel Moore and Griffith James 215 acres by that date. Put these two pieces of land owned by Griffith James and Daniel Moore together, and you have a total of 213 acres, very close to the 215 acres cited by Joseph Chapline in his ironworks agreement.

I have not been able to find Mores Delight on lists of land patents and tracts in Washington County, so I’m not certain of its precise location. There has been confusion about whether the name of this piece of land is Moses’ Delight or Mores Delight, and this adds to the difficulty of finding its location. If Joseph Chapline’s September 1763 ironworks agreement excluded 215 acres he had sold to Daniel Moore and Griffith James from this agreement, it makes sense, I think, to assume that Daniel’s and Griffith’s pieces of land were in the same vicinity and perhaps adjoining.

Daniel Moore’s will states that he had a son Richard. The 1783 tax assessment for Washington County shows Richard Moore assessed for a 50-acre tract called Hunting the Hare. As a descendant of this Moore family who maintains the West Virginia Family Tracks and Trails blog notes, the 1790 federal census for Washington County shows Richard and Daniel Moore as immediate neighbors, and on 10 April 1790, Daniel Moore and wife Mary sold 50 acres described as part of a tract called Hunting the Hare.[14] This deed suggests to me that Daniel Moore’s 138-acre home tract, Mores Delight, was likely originally part of a larger tract of 250 acres called Hunting the Hare on Antietam Creek that Joseph Chapline patented on 13 November 1747 after having claimed the land on 9 April 1744.[15]

On 22 March 1747, prior to his obtaining a patent for Hunting the Hare in November 1747, Joseph Chapline sold Richard Dean, both of Prince George’s County, 50 acres of land described as “Deans purches being part of a tract land called hunting the hair [sic].”[16] On 17 October 1747, Joseph Chapline acknowledged the deed with wife Ruhamah (née Williams) relinquishing dower rights, and on the same day, Joseph made a receipt to Richard for the £20 for which he had sold the land. The deed for this transaction is filed in Prince George’s County since the portion of Frederick County taken from Prince George’s in 1748 that became Washington County in 1776 was originally in Prince George’s.

As I stated previously, Richard Dean’s son Samuel married Griffith James’ daughter Gwendolyn about 1773 in Frederick County. We know that Richard Dean was in the location that would later become Sharpsburg along with Joseph Chapline as early as 1746, since the tax list for Antietam Hundred in Prince George’s County in that year shows both of these men taxed in that hundred.[17] This is not very long after Chapline arrived in this location around 1736, a point I’ll discuss in more detail later. Beverly Dean Peoples, the premier researcher of Richard Dean’s family, thinks that it’s entirely possible that Chapline brought Richard to the Sharpsburg area or Richard followed Chapline there due to some connection between the two men in eastern Maryland prior to Chapline’s decision to move west.

Beverly Peoples writes,[18]

When he came to this western most part of MD, Joseph brought with him men to build his home, settlers to clear the land, workers to build and work the Iron Works that he was establishing as well as men to defend the settlement from the Indians. Since this area was remote in the 1730’s and 40’s it is unlikely that many people arrived individually. Richard’s appearance in the 1740’s would possibly indicate he had contact with someone in the Chapline family in the eastern part of the state who had motivated him to [move] west.

It seems to me this is a thesis well worth considering. And given what appear to be close ties between Richard Dean, Griffith James, and Daniel Moore, I’d also suggest that it’s possible both Griffith and Daniel arrived in the Sharpsburg area not far down the road from Richard because they, too, had prior ties to Joseph Chapline and/or to Richard Dean. If Daniel Moore’s 138-acre homeplace was part of the original Hunting the Hare tract — and I think this may well have been the case — then he, Richard Dean, and Griffith Moore settled on adjoining tracts of land just southeast of Sharpsburg. Note the contiguity of Deans Purchase, Hunting the Hare, and Pough on this map of Sharpsburg that appears in Evelyn Vigdahl’s previously cited “Another Flooded River” article:[19]

Google Maps actually labels the “historic Moore farm” near the intersection of Burnside Bridge Road and Mills Road southeast of Sharpsburg as “Hunting the Hare.”[20] Both Pough and Deans Purchase are in this same location, near the intersection of Burnside Bridge Road and Mills Road.[21]

So note the following:

• By September 1763, Griffith James and Daniel Moore owned 215 acres near Antietam Creek purchased from Joseph Chapline.

• We learn from other documents that the portion of this land, 75 acres, that Griffith James owned and lived on was called Pough, and that Pough was adjacent to Chapline’s Hunting the Hare tract. Chapline’s heirs deeded this land formally to Griffith James in 1787.

• In 1747, Richard Dean bought 50 acres from Chapline’s Hunting the Hare tract; this land was given the name Deans Purchase. Deans Purchase is contiguous to both Pough and the rest of the Hunting the Hare tract.

• In 1754, Chapline deeded Daniel Moore 138 acres that appear to have been also part of the original Hunting the Hare tract, and also appear to have been contiguous to Pough and Deans Purchase. We know from a subsequent deed that Daniel Moore owned another 50 acres of Hunting the Hare on which his son Richard lived for a time.

• Griffith James’ daughter Gwendolyn married Richard Dean’s son Samuel Dean.

• The 14 February 1788 will of Richard Dean in Washington County names a daughter Mary.[22] We learn from the 7 August 1795 will of Richard’s widow Priscilla that Mary’s married name was More/Moore.[23] Noting that documents from 1761 through 1792 show Daniel Moore’s wife as Mary, and that Daniel and wife Mary named a son Richard Moore, Beverly Peoples proposes that Daniel Moore may have married another of Richard Dean’s daughters — an eminently reasonable proposal, it seems to me, even if not yet entirely proven.[24]

Joseph Chapline, Founder of Sharpsburg

Because the three interconnecting men on whom I’m focusing here — Griffith James, Richard Dean, and Daniel Moore — all acquired their adjoining pieces of land from Joseph Chapline and arrived in the Sharpsburg area in its formative period when Chapline appears to have been attracting to the area settlers with pre-existing ties to him, it’s important to take a close look at Chapline’s biography and his connection to Sharpsburg, which he founded. As John Bedell and Jason Shellenhamer note, “Of all of the early residents of Maryland’s Great Valley, Joseph Chapline was most responsible for shaping settlement along Antietam Creek in the eighteenth century.”[25]

Joseph Chapline was born 5 September 1707 in Queen Anne’s parish of Prince George’s County, the son of William Chapline (1686-1752) and Elizabeth Travers. The Chapline family, whose roots were in England and which had marital ties to the Calvert family, had been in the colonies four generations prior to Joseph, first in Virginia and then in Maryland, where family members lived in Calvert and Dorchester Counties in the eastern part of that colony.[26]

Joseph spent his formative years on his father’s plantation Forrest in the easternmost part of Prince George’s County, with his father William sending him to England for a period of time to be educated. In 1730 Joseph’s father, William, moved to the western “back-parts” on the Virginia-Maryland border, settling on the Potomac about four miles above Shepherdstown and leaving Joseph, his oldest son, in charge of the Forrest plantation and of the family’s younger children.

By 1736 Joseph had followed his father west, settling across the Potomac in what was then western Prince George’s County, and after that Frederick and finally Washington County. As Bedell and Shellenhamer note,[27]

Maryland colonial records for that period show that Chapline was an active member of a community developing west of the Monocacy River. In May 1739 Joseph Chapline was a signatory on a petition of 88 inhabitants of the “back-parts” of Maryland.

On 22 October 1741 in All Saints parish in Frederick County, Joseph married Ruhamah, daughter of Reverend William Williams and Sarah James of Carmarthenshire, Wales. Ruhamah and her sisters Sarah and Jane had come to Virginia with their father, a Presbyterian missionary, following their mother’s death in Wales. By 1739, William Williams had bought land in Prince George’s County, Maryland, in the area that would later be Frederick and then Washington County.[28]

In 1744 Joseph Chapline began patenting and buying tracts of land on Antietam Creek in the vicinity of what would soon be Sharpsburg. As Bedell and Shellenhamer indicate, one of these tracts, acquired in 1747, was the 250-acre Hunting the Hare tract.[29] It is in this period from the latter half of the 1730s into the 1740s that Beverly Peoples suggests Joseph may well have brought with him to this remote backcountry part of western Maryland men to help improve his properties, build houses and structures on them, clear and settle the land, and work his ironworks once they were established. As Beverly states, “Since this area was remote in the 1730’s and 40’s it is unlikely that many people arrived individually.”[30]

Joseph Chapline prospered and accumulated wealth and status following his settlement in the Sharpsburg area. He was a justice of Prince George’s county court from 1739-1748 and after that of the Frederick court for some years. From 1749-1768, he served in the lower house of the Maryland legislature. In 1763 Joseph founded the town of Sharps Burgh, naming it in honor of Maryland’s governor Horatio Sharpe. The town was laid out on a 200-acre tract, Hickory Tavern, that Joseph bought from Edmund Cartledge on 11 July 1763, close to his plantation Rush Bottom and adjacent to his Hunting the Hare and Resurvey on Abston’s Forest tracts. The appeal of the Hickory Tavern land for a town site was that it had a good freshwater spring and was on the wagon road to Philadelphia. In 1764, Joseph out a plan for the new town, consisting of 187 lots located around the spring, with each lot measuring 103 feet wide by 206 feet long.[31]

On 12 January 1769 the Maryland Gazette reported,[32]

Lately died in Frederick County, Capt. Joseph Chapline, who, for many Years, has been one of the Representatives for that County in the General Assembly.

Joseph was initially buried on his Elias Grove estate west of Sharpsburg, and in 1893 his great-great-niece Maria Ligget Dare had his remains along with those of his wife Ruhamah and several other family members buried in Mountain View cemetery at Sharpsburg.[33] Maria Dare indicates that Joseph died owning 12,257 acres of land.[34] According to Edward C. Papenfuse, Joseph’s landholdings at the time of his death included at least 6,385 acres in Frederick County and probably as much as 15,000 acres in Frederick County and in Virginia.[35]

I’d like to return now to the 4 September 1763 document that started this discussion of Griffith James’ early years in the Sharpsburg area. As I stated previously, the 4 September 1763 agreement that Joseph Chapline made with Samuel Beall, David Ross, and Richard Henderson to be partners in an ironworks to be erected at Sharpsburg is the first absolutely certain document I’ve found placing Griffith James in this part of Maryland.[36]

Several of my previous postings (here and here) about the Leonard family connecting to Griffith James’ family through the marriage of Thomas Leonard, son of Robert Leonard and Honor Pritchard, to Griffith’s daughter Hannah note both not only ties between Robert and Thomas Leonard Joseph Chapline and his family, but also ties between the Leonards and the Beall family to which Joseph Chapline’s business partner Samuel Beall belonged. As these postings indicate, Joseph Chapline helped construct Fort Frederick near Hagerstown in Washington County, Maryland, in 1756, and from the time that fort was constructed, a trail of documents places Robert Leonard there as a soldier guarding the western frontier of Maryland.

Moreover, when the first military company in Washington County was organized for the Revolutionary War in Hagerstown on 6 January 1776, that company was under the command of Joseph Chapline’s a son Joseph. Serving in that military company were Griffith James’ sons-in-law Thomas Leonard and Samuel Dean, as well as Samuel’s brother Thomas Dean and Richard Moore, son of Daniel Moore. Previously, in 1755, Daniel Moore had served in the Frederick County militia company of Captain Moses Chapline, brother of the elder Joseph Chapline who founded Sharpsburg.

In addition, in the years in which Robert Leonard was stationed at Fort Frederick, he was under the immediate command of Captain Alexander Beall (1712-1759). Alexander was the son of William Beall (1684-1756), whose brother John Beall (1689-1742) was father of the Samuel Beall (1713-1778) who was Joseph Chapline’s business partner in the Antietam ironworks business. Samuel lived at Hagerstown.

As this previous posting states, Alexander Beall left a will in Frederick County dated 9 April 1759 which shows him owning part of a large tract of land in that county called King Cole.[37] The original King Cole tract consisted of 1,970 acres patented to Henry Crabb on 30 August 1754.[38] As we’ll see later, by 1783, fifty acres of the King Cole tract belonged to Griffith James’ son Joseph, who obtained it from his father-in-law James Austin.[39] In April 1791, Joseph sold this land to his father Griffith James, who then sold it along with James Austin in March 1792.[40]

None of the preceding information about Griffith James tells us exactly when and how he arrived in the Sharpsburg area or where he may have been prior to his arrival there. It does, however, give us a clear snapshot confirming his presence in the Sharpsburg area prior to September 1763 and his continuous residence on a piece of land he had acquired from Joseph Chapline prior to that date. All of the information I’ve compiled above also raises some tantalizing questions:

• Did Griffith James, Richard Dean, and Daniel Moore have some connections to each other pre-existing their arrival in the Sharpsburg area? And did all or any of these men have connections with Joseph Chapline pre-dating their arrival in the Sharpsburg area?

• Since we know that Joseph Chapline had a Welsh mother-in-law whose surname was James, is it possible that Griffith James had some kind of family connection with Joseph Chapline through Joseph’s mother-in-law Sarah James? There’s also a salient fact I haven’t yet mentioned: Daniel Moore had a daughter Nancy who married John Griffith. This family, too, lived in the Sharpsburg area. Given the vagaries of the patronymic naming system in Welsh families, whereby given names of fathers pass on as surnames of sons, it’s possible John Griffith and Griffith James were related to each other: Was that, in fact, the case?

• If Griffith James was related to Joseph Chapline through Joseph’s mother-in-law, would that explain the fact that he had acquired land from Joseph prior to September 1763 — we know this from Joseph’s own testimony — for which he was not given title until 1787, though he lived continuously on this land all those years? To repeat a question I’ve already asked earlier: If Griffith James was a relative of the Chapline family, was he a retainer of the family, living on land provided to him while the family held title to the land?

Lots of questions, no answers. I ask these questions not to suggest that any of this speculation has been proven, but to put the questions out on the board for consideration, as any researcher seeks to extend information about Griffith James back beyond September 1763 in the Sharpsburg area. Another tantalizing piece of information to place on the board now: in his 1883 manuscript about the Leonard family Thomas Dunlap Leonard says the following about the parents of his grandmother Hannah James Leonard:[41]

[Thomas Leonard, son of Robert Leonard and Honor Pritchard,] married Miss Hannah James of Maryland about the year 1775. I have no tradition of her parents, except their nationality, they were Welch, but Hannah was born and reared in Maryland.

This statement, which evidently relies on information given to Thomas D. Leonard by his grandparents Thomas and Hannah James Leonard, seems to me to imply that Thomas D. Leonard thought Hannah James’ parents were Welsh-born. The Welsh background of the family is fairly evident in the names Griffith and James, both common Welsh surnames. The given name Gwendolyn, which Griffith James and wife Mary gave a daughter, is another Welsh cultural tag. I am also not forgetting that Pritchard, the surname of Robert Leonard’s wife, is yet another Welsh surname.

It’s possible, of course, that Thomas D. Leonard means to say here that Griffith James’ family had recent Welsh roots though it had been in the colonies a generation or two prior to Griffith himself. It seems to me, however, that Thomas thought Griffith James and wife Mary were actually Welsh-born and were the immigrant ancestors of this James family line. If that’s true, then it may also have been the case that this couple arrived in Maryland — perhaps even in the Sharpsburg area — directly from Wales. And that would mean attempts to find information about Griffith James prior to September 1763 in the vicinity of Sharpsburg need to look back to Wales for information. Perhaps to the Carmarthenshire family of Sarah James, mother-in-law of Joseph Chapline?

And then one final surprising piece of information: In updating my notes about Griffith James as I worked on this blog posting, I’ve unearthed a list of debts to the estate of Nathan Peddycoart, who died in 1759 in Frederick County, Maryland. Among the debts that Nathan’s widow Sarah Dorsey Peddycoart listed in her inventory of Nathan’s estate was a debt from one Griffith James for one shilling and sixpence due 10 January 1743.[42]

Is this the Griffith James who had bought land from Joseph Chapline by 1763? Given the Frederick County location of this estate record, that’s entirely possible. If this is “our” Griffith James, then this record would indicate that he was in Maryland, perhaps in Frederick County’s parent county, Prince George’s, by January 1743. If I’m correct in thinking that the Griffith James who lived at Pough outside Sharpsburg was born in the period 1725-1735, and if this record pertains to that same Griffith James, then he’d have been in this part of Maryland as a very young man in 1743.

Lots of questions, no answers. But it’s important to keep asking….

[1] The only federal census on which Griffith James appears, the 1790 census, shows him in Washington County, Maryland (p. 9) with a household comprised of two males aged 16 and over, one male aged under 15, and two females, information that is hardly helpful in determining Griffith’s birthdate.

[2] Anderson County, South Carolina, Will Bk. 1793-8, p. 82.

[3] Era Josephine Morgan Davis, Louise S. Rourke, and Marc B. Smith, Country Cousins: Descendants of Samuel Dean (1996), p. 3. In correspondence with me in January 1997, researcher Barbara Morris of Bellaire, Texas, stated that the 3 October 1795 death of date was sent by Lucy Rebecca Dean to Louise Rourke in the 1980s. Louise Rourke, who lived in Citrus Heights, California, was the primary author of Country Cousins. Unless I’m mistaken, Lucy Rebecca Dean (1942-2023, m. John Kennemur) was a daughter of Richard Brown Dean and Joanne Richardson. Rebecca Dean Kennemur was a DAR member and active genealogist. This Dean line descends from Samuel Dean and Gwendolyn James through their son Richard P. Dean.

[4] Mountain Creek Baptist church appears to have been established in the 1790s some six miles southwest of Anderson, South Carolina. Its original minutes are held by the Special Collections and Baptist Historical Collection at Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina. Microfilmed and digitized copies of the church minutes are available at FamilySearch. A transcription of the Mountain Creek minutes from 1798 to 1907 by Debbie Giles Harbin was published by the Anderson County Chapter of the South Carolina Genealogical Society in 2002.

[5] Mary James does not appear as a household head on the federal census in either 1800 or 1810. The minutes of Mountain Creek Baptist church state that in 1817, she was living with her the family of her son-in-law Samuel Dean, husband of Gwendolyn Dean. The 1810 federal census shows a female aged over 45 in Samuel’s household in Pendleton District (p. 151).

[6] Frederick County, Maryland, Deed Bk. J, pp. 793-804.

[7] See Arthur G. Tracey’s patent/tract index and map locations for Carroll, Frederick, and Washington Counties at Maryland government’s Maryland History site; and Maryland Land Office Rent Rolls 1748-1775, p. 5.

[8] See Washington County, Maryland, Deed Bk. G, pp. 771-2, stating that on 13 May 1792, Griffith James sold to Robert Hoffman for ￡330 his tract called Pough, 75 acres, with wife Mary releasing dower.

[9] Washington County, Maryland, Deed Bk. E, pp. 332-3.

[10] In 1783, Griffith James is on the Washington County tax list in Lower Antietam Hundred, taxed for the Pough property, with the acreage given as 100 acres. The tax list states that this property comprised 60 acres of woods and 40 acres arable; Griffith was also taxed for four horses and eight beef cattle: see “Washington County 1783 Tax Assessment,” Western Maryland Genealogy 7,4 (October 1991), p. 171; and “Assessment of 1783, Index,” citing Lower Antietam and Sharpsburg, p. 34 (MSA S1161-11-1. 1/4/5/54) at website of Maryland State Archives.

[11] Washington County, Maryland, Deed Bk. R, pp. 181-2.

[12] Washington County, Maryland, Will Bk. A, pp. 279-280. The will was probated 24 March 1792.

[13] See “Assessment of 1783, Index,” citing Lower Antietam and Sharpsburg, p. 35 (MSA S1161-11-1. 1/4/5/54) at website of Maryland State Archives. This transcription reads the acreage as 128 acres and gives the tract name as Moses’ Delight.

[14] Geolover, “Sarah’s Surprise, Part 2,” West Virginia Family Tracks and Trails, citing Washington County, Maryland, Deed Bk.  G-7, pp. 44-46.

[15] See Arthur G. Tracey’s patent/tract index and map locations for Carroll, Frederick, and Washington Counties at Maryland government’s Maryland History site. See also John Bedell and Jason Shellenhamer, Archeological Overview, Assessment, Identification, and Evaluation Study of Newly Acquired Lands at Antietam National Battlefield, Maryland (2014, National Parks Service), pp. 36-7; Evelyn Vigdahl, “Another Flooded River Valley: The Deans of Huntingdon Co., Pennsylvania,” at Our Family History; and “The Farmsteads of Antietam – Jacob Avey Farm,” at the website of Jacob Rohrback Inn.

[16] Prince George’s County, Maryland, Deed Bk. BB, pp. 396-7.

[17] “Tax List, Antietam Hundred, Prince George’s County 1746,” transcribed by Karen Walker for Maryland Genealogical Society.

[18] “Richard Deane (1701-1788) and His Children,” at Rootsweb.

[19] See supra, n. 15.

[20] When Joseph Chapline patented Pough in November 1761 (see supra, no. 7), the tract was described as 75 acres at the head of a spring and the foot of Elk Ridge Mountain next to Keep Tryst, Boston, and Little I Thought It. Little I Thought It is the huge tract out of which the land for the Antietam ironworks was taken. On 25 July 1769, David Ross, one of Chapline’s business partners in the ironworks, had a Frederick County grant for 8,025 acres, a tract called Boston, a resurvey of Little I Thought It, part of Keep Trieste, part of Dutch Loss, and Mill Place. The survey for this land shows it bordering both Pough and Hunting the Hare. Arthur Tracey’s map for plats in Sharpsburg district shows Pough bordering Boston on the east, with Hunting the Hare bordering Boston on the north. On the Little I Thought It tract of 6,352 acres as the site for the ironworks, see Thomas J.C. Williams, A History of Washington County, Maryland, etc. (Hagerstown, 1906; reps. Baltimore: Regional Publ. Co., 1968), pp. 23-4.

[21] For photos of the Deans Purchase portion of Hunting the Hare viewed from Pough that I took in in August 2007, please see this previous posting.

[22] Washington County, Maryland, Will Bk. A, p. 168. The will spells the surname as Deane.

[23] Ibid., pp. 161-2.

[24] Richard Deane (1701-1788) and His Children.”

[25] John Bedell and Jason Shellenhamer, Archeological Overview, Assessment, Identification, and Evaluation Study of Newly Acquired Lands at Antietam National Battlefield Maryland (2014, National Parks Service), p. 36.

[26] See ibid., and Edward C. Papenfuse, A Biographical Dictionary of the Maryland Legislature, 1635-1789 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979), pp. 210-211; Lee and Barbara Barron, The History of Sharpsburg, Maryland, Founded by Joseph Chapline 1763 (1972); Maria J. Liggett Dare, Chaplines from Maryland and Virginia (priv. publ., 1902); Thomas J.C. Williams, A History of Washington County, Maryland, etc., vol. 1 (Hagerstown, 1906; repr. Baltimore: Regional Publishing Company, 1968), pp. 23-4; Sharpsburg Historical Society, “Joseph Chapline – Founder of Sharpsburg, MD,” at the website of Sharpsburg Historical Society; and Peoples, “Richard Deane (1701-1788) and His Children.”

[27] Bedell and Shellenhamer, Archeological Overview, Assessment, Identification, and Evaluation Study of Newly Acquired Lands at Antietam National Battlefield Maryland, pp. 36-7.

[28] Dare, Chaplines from Maryland and Virginia, pp. 6, 22; Williams, History of Washington County, Maryland, pp. 23-4; and Grace L. Tracey, Pioneers of Old Monocacy (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 2002), pp. 245-7. See also Find a Grave memorial page of Ruhama Williams Chapline, Mountain View cemetery, Sharpsburg, Washington County, Maryland, created by jrrmr910, maintained by Michael J. Chapline.

[29] Ibid.

[30] “Richard Deane (1701-1788) and His Children.”

[31] Bedell and Shellenhamer, Archeological Overview, Assessment, Identification, and Evaluation Study of Newly Acquired Lands at Antietam National Battlefield Maryland, pp. 41-2.

[32] Maryland Gazette (12 January 1769), p. 3, col. 1.

[33] See Find a Grave memorial page of Col Joseph Chapline, Mountain View cemetery, Sharpsburg, Washington County, Maryland, created by jrrmr910, maintained by Michael J. Chapline.

[34] Dare, Chaplines from Maryland and Virginia, p. 7.

[35] Papenfuse, Biographical Dictionary of the Maryland Legislature, 1635-1789, p. 211.

[36] See supra, n. 6.

[37] Frederick County, Maryland, Will Bk. A, p. 127.

[38] See Arthur G. Tracey’s patent/tract index and map locations for Carroll, Frederick, and Washington Counties at Maryland government’s Maryland History site.

[39] “Washington County 1783 Tax Assessment,” p. 171; and “Assessment of 1783, Index.”

[40] Washington County, Maryland, Deed Bk. G, pp. 368, 815-6.

[41] “Biography of the Leonards,” 1883 manuscript circulated as a typescript among Leonard family members and researchers, whose current provenance is not known.

[42] Frederick County, Maryland, Inventory Bk. A1, p. 459.

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Storm & Sovereignty Season Two Episode One – Tdr Now & The Heritage Hunters Podcast is NOW AVAILABLE #timelines #genealogy #geneadons #dna #ancestry #nativeamerican #history #nickens #caulder #revolution #podcast #blog https://tdrnow.family.blog/2026/06/30/storm-sovereignty-season-two-episode-one/

Storm & Sovereignty Season Two Episode One – Tdr Now & The Heritage Hunters Podcast is NOW AVAILABLE #timelines #genealogy #geneadons #dna #ancestry #nativeamerican #history #nickens #caulder #revolution https://tdrnow.family.blog/2026/06/30/storm-sovereignty-season-two-episode-one/

Storm & Sovereignty Season Two Episode One – Tdr Now & The Heritage Hunters Podcast is NOW AVAILABLE #timelines #genealogy #geneadons #dna #ancestry #nativeamerican #history #nickens #caulder #revolution #podcast #blog https://tdrnow.family.blog/2026/06/30/storm-sovereignty-season-two-episode-one/

Aa very timely, insightful article. I have linked to the free version - My family has been here since 1621. That is not what makes me American: Philip Bump. Consider that, in 2024, about 25% of immigrants to the United States had arrived before 1990. A quarter of immigrants, then, had been here for at least 1 out of every 7 years that the U.S. has existed. https://archive.ph/AmU7D#selection-2001.1-2197.0 #democracy #immigrants #immigration #maga #politics #history #ancestry #citizenship #courts #law #presidents

Aa very timely, insightful article. I have linked to the free version - My family has been here since 1621. That is not what makes me American: Philip Bump. Consider that, in 2024, about 25% of immigrants to the United States had arrived before 1990. A quarter of immigrants, then, had been here for at least 1 out of every 7 years that the U.S. has existed. https://archive.ph/AmU7D#selection-2001.1-2197.0 #democracy #immigrants #immigration #maga #politics #history #ancestry #citizenship #courts #law #presidents

Aa very timely, insightful article. I have linked to the free version - My family has been here since 1621. That is not what makes me American: Philip Bump. Consider that, in 2024, about 25% of immigrants to the United States had arrived before 1990. A quarter of immigrants, then, had been here for at least 1 out of every 7 years that the U.S. has existed. https://archive.ph/AmU7D#selection-2001.1-2197.0 #democracy #immigrants #immigration #maga #politics #history #ancestry #citizenship #courts #law #presidents

Aa very timely, insightful article. I have linked to the free version - My family has been here since 1621. That is not what makes me American: Philip Bump. Consider that, in 2024, about 25% of immigrants to the United States had arrived before 1990. A quarter of immigrants, then, had been here for at least 1 out of every 7 years that the U.S. has existed. https://archive.ph/AmU7D#selection-2001.1-2197.0 #democracy #immigrants #immigration #maga #politics #history #ancestry #citizenship #courts #law #presidents

Aa very timely, insightful article. I have linked to the free version - My family has been here since 1621. That is not what makes me American: Philip Bump. Consider that, in 2024, about 25% of immigrants to the United States had arrived before 1990. A quarter of immigrants, then, had been here for at least 1 out of every 7 years that the U.S. has existed. https://archive.ph/AmU7D#selection-2001.1-2197.0 #democracy #immigrants #immigration #maga #politics #history #ancestry #citizenship #courts #law #presidents

A man picks random graves to research and uncovers remarkable forgotten lives

https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://www.upworthy.com/a-man-picks-random-graves-to-research-and-uncovers-remarkable-forgotten-lives/

Wait until the editors over at JNS actually read a history book some day. :fozzie_wocka_wocka:

"Today, the #American covenant is under serious pressure from two directions simultaneously.

The left has been replacing the covenant’s universal terms with group identity. The relevant question, in this framework, is not what you accept but what you are: your #race, your #gender and your position in a hierarchy of historical grievance. From the right, #ethnonationalism defines the nation by #ancestry and #culture rather than by shared obligation. In both models, the covenant is conditional, depending on which group you belong to.

Both abandon America’s founding logic. Both make #Jewish belonging in #America contingent in ways that Washington explicitly said it never could be."

https://www.jns.org/opinion/eldad-tzioni/what-george-washington-really-said-to-the-jews-of-newport

Wait until the editors over at JNS actually read a history book some day. :fozzie_wocka_wocka:

"Today, the #American covenant is under serious pressure from two directions simultaneously.

The left has been replacing the covenant’s universal terms with group identity. The relevant question, in this framework, is not what you accept but what you are: your #race, your #gender and your position in a hierarchy of historical grievance. From the right, #ethnonationalism defines the nation by #ancestry and #culture rather than by shared obligation. In both models, the covenant is conditional, depending on which group you belong to.

Both abandon America’s founding logic. Both make #Jewish belonging in #America contingent in ways that Washington explicitly said it never could be."

https://www.jns.org/opinion/eldad-tzioni/what-george-washington-really-said-to-the-jews-of-newport

Wait until the editors over at JNS actually read a history book some day. :fozzie_wocka_wocka:

"Today, the #American covenant is under serious pressure from two directions simultaneously.

The left has been replacing the covenant’s universal terms with group identity. The relevant question, in this framework, is not what you accept but what you are: your #race, your #gender and your position in a hierarchy of historical grievance. From the right, #ethnonationalism defines the nation by #ancestry and #culture rather than by shared obligation. In both models, the covenant is conditional, depending on which group you belong to.

Both abandon America’s founding logic. Both make #Jewish belonging in #America contingent in ways that Washington explicitly said it never could be."

https://www.jns.org/opinion/eldad-tzioni/what-george-washington-really-said-to-the-jews-of-newport