BEGATS AND BEQUEATHALS

The posting I link above also indicates that, in my view, Jacob Hollingsworth and Mary Brooks’s oldest child was their daughter Hannah, who was born in 1769, according to her tombstone in Nacoochee Methodist cemetery at Sautee in White County, Georgia.^[1] The previous posting explains why I think Hannah was Jacob and Mary’s oldest child, and provides information about her dates and places of birth and death, as well as her marriage to Daniel Brown, who is buried beside his wife Hannah. The posting linked at the head of this posting has pictures of the tombstones of both Hannah and Daniel.

As I noted in another previous posting, when Jacob and Mary Brooks Hollingsworth sold Robert Hodgin the 100 acres in Randolph County, North Carolina, that they had acquired in 1772 from John and Catherine Pickrell on 9 October 1788, a Daniel Brown witnessed the land sale.^[2] I’m pretty sure this is the same Daniel Brown who had married their oldest daughter Hannah in Randolph County, North Carolina, on 12 August 1788. When Jacob and Mary moved their family to Burke County, North Carolina, following the sale of their Randolph County land, Daniel Brown and wife Hannah Hollingsworth moved to Burke along with her parents, and are enumerated on the 1790 federal census on the same page as the Jacob Hollingsworth family.^[3]

The posting I have just linked also tells you that Daniel Brown was the son of Daniel Brown and wife Grace Thompson. The Browns were a Quaker family who moved following Daniel and Grace’s marriage in 1750 from Salem County, New Jersey, to western North Carolina. The Browns and Hollingsworths shared Quaker roots back in the middle colonies, as did the Todhunter family intermarried with the Hollingsworths, a family discussed in previous postings. Even after Quaker families lost their Quaker roots and moved south and west, they often continued intermarrying with other families from the middle colonies who had come to the colonies as Quakers.

An essay by Dr. W. Douglas Cooper of Belk College of Business, University of North Carolina Charlotte, entitled “The North Cove Valley – Some Personal Thoughts and Observations,” has valuable information about this Brown family after its arrival in Burke County — and I’ll provide extensive excerpts here because this material is so valuable for researchers of this branch of the Hollingsworth family.^[4] In this essay, Douglas Cooper indicates that he is a great-great-grandson of Daniel Brown and Hannah Hollingsworth, through their son Samuel and Samuel’s son John Seawell Brown, Douglas Cooper’s grandfather. Cooper writes,  

Following the Revolutionary War a small number of important pioneering families began to flow into the North Cove Valley. These families were important because of the permanent impact they would have on the future of the area. While a number of families came-and-went, staying for various lengths of time, their long- term effects were not profound. However, certain family names that defined the North Cove Valley in the mid-19th century still define the Valley in the second decade of the 21st century. One of the many important first arrivals, of the post-Revolution period, was the family of Daniel Brown. They were one of a small number of pioneer families that first settled the North Cove of Old Burke and stayed in the area. In this role, they played an important part in the early religious, commercial, and agricultural development of the area. Daniel and his wife Hannah Hollingsworth produced a number of children, the most notable of which was the oldest son, Samuel I, who with his wife Olive Cox produced a lineage of Browns over multiple generations that continue to play a prominent role in the life of the North Cove Valley. The Brown seeds mixed with seeds from similar pioneering families have over a 200-year period interacted and evolved a rich Jeffersonian history not well known by today’s Hamiltonian World. One defines a Jeffersonian history as one of yeoman, self-sustaining farmers of multiple children, using the land and its product together with God’s creatures to sustain themselves and their loved ones with God’s help.

Douglas Cooper also notes that, after establishing their family in the early 1800s in the North Cove Valley of Burke County, North Carolina, Daniel and Hannah Hollingsworth Brown moved with some of their children and neighbor families into Georgia to the Nacoochee Valley in what was then Habersham County and is today White County, where Daniel and Hannah are buried:

Daniel R. Brown migrated to western North Carolina to the North Cove Valley in the early 1800s. In 1806 he purchased from Joseph Wilson 300 acres in the Ashford section for general purpose farming. Daniel Brown numbered among his nine children Samuel Brown I. Samuel Brown I numbered among his nine children two sons, John Seawell Brown and Samuel Brown II. In 1822 Daniel Brown with a number of his children and their families moved from the North Cove Valley to the Nacoochee Valley area of Georgia leaving most of his North Cove assets to his oldest son Samuel I with some minor land parcels left to children staying in the North Cove Valley. After 1822, Samuel Brown and his son John Seawell farmed the original Daniel Brown properties and purchased significant additional adjacent properties where they worked the land until the 1860s with slaves and family workers. One can argue that the location of the Samuel Brown I property would suggest that Samuel Brown’s family would be supporters of the Concord Methodist Church, but he is buried in the North Catawba Church Cemetery. His son John Seawell is buried in the Pleasant Gardens area. In addition to Samuel Brown I and his wife, Olive Cox, being buried in the North Catawba Church Cemetery, so is his son Samuel Brown II and his wife Nancy Pitner buried there, along with a number of their children and grandchildren. Samuel Brown II (1821-1897) was seven years younger than his brother John Seawell (1814-1893). It is known that Samuel Brown I died in 1861 and following the Civil War, John Seawell became active in politics, serving terms in both the NC House and Senate. At this time the Samuel I farm was passed by John Seawell to his son Romulus Walter where he maintained some 200 acres in cultivation during the 1870s and 1880s with work performed by family members and hired hands, several of whom were former slaves. The Browns’ support of Methodism in the North Cove Valley can best be understood by separating the family across Samuel I Brown’s sons, Samuel II and John Seawell Brown. It is during the period, 1821 to 1870s, that one considers the locations of Samuel Brown II and the role his children play in the post-Civil War era of North Cove Valley Methodism.

As part of the Samuel I expansion of the original Daniel Brown property, an old log house on land that was later the property of Joe G. Brown and his heirs, was the home-place of Samuel II and Nancy Brown. The house and land were relatively close to McCall property that was relatively close to the North Catawba Methodist Church area.

Elsewhere in his essay, Douglas Cooper speaks of the role the Brown family played in the formative period of Methodism in the North Cove Valley of Burke County:

During the period before 1816 the Daniel Brown Family was also involved with Methodism in the North Cove Valley. Methodist records show a 2^nd Quarterly Meeting for the Morganton Conference held at Mount Zion on the 10th day of 1814 shows the Browns as contributors to the Conference and Daniel Asbury (one of the area’s early circuit riders and no family relation to Francis Asbury) as being present. Bailey’s History of Methodism in the Toe River Valley shows ‘Browns’ as a point on the Morganton Circuit. This point is thought to be at or near the site of the cemetery next to the current building that housed the North Catawba Methodist Church where Daniel Brown’s son Samuel I Brown was buried in 1861. Oral history of Brown family members also report that Francis Asbury preached on the site of this standing church structure, although not at the current but some previous church structure. Given the McCall and Brown involvement in the period before Francis Asbury’s death in 1816 in a common location and given that Samuel Brown I was buried in the church cemetery in 1861, one would find it likely that a building or buildings of the North Catawba Methodist Church existed before 1861. The deed for the current structure dated 1907 gives insight to the history of the Church.

Another online document, Marvin A. Brown and James R. Snodgrass’s “An Historic Architectural Survey of US 221 from NC 226 Near Woodlawn to the Blue Ridge Parkway, McDowell, Burke, and Avery Counties, North Carolina,” also provides excellent information about the history of the Daniel Brown family in Burke and McDowell Counties, North Carolina (the North Cove area of Burke to which Daniel Brown migrated between 1788-1790 fell into McDowell at its formation in 1842). Brown and Snodgrass’s document was prepared for the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources and is online at the department’s website.^[5]

Brown and Snodgrass indicate that Daniel Brown (1756-1852) was a pioneer settler of North Cove who arrived there prior to the early 1800s, and in 1806, he purchased 300 acres there on both sides of the north fork of the Catawba River, land that now includes part of the land of the Henry Seawell Brown farmstead. Daniel’s son Samuel (1789-1861) added to the land his father had acquired in Burke County, and prior to 1820, he built a house on the land east of the present Henry Seawell Brown house. Samuel’s son John Seawell Brown (1814-1893) also added significantly to the Brown landholdings in the area, receiving land grants from North Carolina in 1853, 1854, and 1863 amounting to 2,660 acres.^[6]

As Douglas Cooper’s essay indicates, John Seawell Brown (1814-1893; see the photo at top of this posting), a son of Daniel Brown and Hannah Hollingsworth’s son Samuel, served terms in the North Carolina House and Senate, and for that reason, quite a bit of biographical information about him is available in various places. In the 1880s, he bought the Carson House at Marion in McDowell County, a three-story plantation house built in 1793 by Colonel John Carson now listed on the National Register of Historic Places.^[7]

Here’s the information I have on the children of Daniel Brown and Hannah Hollingsworth:

1. Samuel Brown was born 6 October 1789, probably in Burke County, North Carolina, and died 17 April 1861. On 29 December 1811 in Burke County, he married Olive Cox. Both are buried in North Catawba Methodist cemetery, North Cove, McDowell County, North Carolina.

2. Mary Brown was born 28 October 1792 in Burke County, North Carolina, and died 18 May 1833 in Habersham County, Georgia. In 1810, she married Edward Williams, son of Edward Williams and Sarah Lathrop. Both are buried in Nacoochee Methodist cemetery at Sautee, White County, Georgia.

3. Sarah Hollingsworth Brown was born 11 January 1798 in Burke County, North Carolina, and died 12 May 1872 in McDowell County, North Carolina. She married Ephraim McDowell Greenlee following the death of his first wife Sarah Carr Howard in 1818. Ephraim was the son of James Greenlee and Mary Elizabeth Mitchell. Sarah Brown Greenlee is buried in Murphys Chapel cemetery in McDowell County, and Ephraim in Ebenezer Methodist cemetery at Old Fort in McDowell County.

4. Elizabeth Brown was born 2 October 1799 in Burke County, North Carolina, and died 8 January 1859 in Burke County. On 6 March 1823 in Burke County, she married James Avery, son of Isaac Avery and Margaret Stringer in Burke County. Both are buried in the Avery family cemetery in Burke County.

5. Nancy Brown was born 12 June 1801 in Burke County, North Carolina, and died 22 October 1881 at Helen in White County, Georgia. On 21 August 1822 in Burke County, she married Henry Highland Conley, son of William Connelly and Rebecca Sherrill. Both are buried in Nacoochee Methodist cemetery at Sautee in White County, Georgia.

6. Martha Brown was born 12 February 1803 in Burke County, North Carolina, and died 7 June 1892 in McDowell County, North Carolina. On 23 December 1825 in Burke County, she married William Murphy, son of William Murphy and Mary Katherine Dobson. Both are buried in Murphys Chapel cemetery in McDowell County, North Carolina.

7. James Hartwell Brown was born 11 March 1812 in Burke County, North Carolina, and died 2 December 1857. He is buried in Nacoochee Methodist cemetery at Sautee in White County, Georgia.

8. William R. Brown was born 4 March 1806 in Burke County, North Carolina, and died 4 March 1844 in McDowell County, North Carolina. He is buried in North Catawba Methodist cemetery, North Cove, McDowell County, North Carolina.

9. Matilda C. Brown was born 17 April 1808 in Burke County, North Carolina, and died 23 November 1885 at Marion, McDowell County, North Carolina. On 12 September 1828 in Burke County, she married Joseph Conley, son of John Connelly and Jane Ballew. Both are buried in the Conley family ccemetery at Old Fort in McDowell County.

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^[1] See Find a Grave memorial page of Hannah Hollingsworth Brown, Nacoochee Methodist cemetery, Sautee, White County, Georgia, created by Reuben Glen Davis Sr. and maintained by Kimmie Kitchens and Courtney Gilstrap. It has a tombstone photo by Sandy Hulsey.

^[2] Randolph County, North Carolina, Deed Bk. 5, p. 13; and Guilford County, North Carolina, Deed Bk. 1, p. 311.

^[3] 1790 federal census, Burke County, North Carolina, district 10, p. 101.

^[4] Dr. W. Douglas Cooper, “The North Cove Valley – Some Personal Thoughts and Observations,” online at Douglas Cooper’s webpage at Belk College of Business, UNCC. 

^[5] Marvin A. Brown and James R. Snodgrass’s “An Historic Architectural Survey of US 221 from NC 226 Near Woodlawn to the Blue Ridge Parkway, McDowell, Burke, and Avery Counties, North Carolina,” prepared for the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources and online at the department’s website.

^[6] Ibid., citing Joanne S. Johnston, ed., McDowell County Heritage, North Carolina (Marceline, MO: Walsworth, 1992), pp. 7-8 — which appears to be an essay about McDowell County’s history by North Carolina Department of Agriculture.

^[7] See “Carson House (Marion North Carolina),” at Wikipedia; J.G. Zehmer and Sherry I. Penny, nomination form for Carson House for National Register of Historic Places (1970), online at website of North Carolina State Historic Preservation Office; and Find a Grave memorial page for Captain John Seawell Brown, Brown family cemetery, Marion, Pleasant Gardens, McDowell County, North Carolina, created by Richard Brown.