BEGATS AND BEQUEATHALS

Oath of Allegiance in Support of the Revolution, 13 September 1777

I shared information in the posting just linked and in another previous one about the first record I’ve found for Thomas in Montgomery County, a 1 March 1776 deed of Jonathan Jennings to Charles Lynch to which Thomas Whitlock was a witness.^[1] The next document I find for Thomas in Montgomery County is a list of those who took the oath of allegiance supporting the Revolution, with John Montgomery administering the oath. Different sources provide different dates for the date on which Thomas Whitlock took this oath. According to Ruby Altizer Roberts, he did so on 6 September 1776.^[2] But Mary B. Kegley and Charles W. Crush give a date of 13 September 1777.^[3] Kegley says that the original list is either in the Montgomery County courthouse at Christiansburg or the State Library of Virginia. I do not find a listing for this document in the online “Guide to the Revolutionary War Collections in the Special Collections Department” of the Library of Virginia. And in the catalogue of FamilySearch, I spot nothing in the Montgomery County listings for material found at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City that appears to match this oath of allegiance document. John Montgomery reported his lists to county court on 14 February 1778.

Kegley offers valuable biographical information about John Montgomery.^[4] He was born about 1717 (or about 1725, according to some researchers) in County Donegal, Ireland, and came to America about 1733 with his parents James and Anne Montgomery, who settled in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. On 28 November 1753 in Augusta County, Virginia, he married Agnes Crockett, daughter of Samuel Crockett and Esther Thompson. As the previous posting states, following Samuel Crockett’s death, Esther remarried to William Sayers, who was one of the witnesses to the 1 March 1776 Montgomery County deed of Jonathan Jennings to Charles Lynch that Thomas Whitlock also witnessed.

By 1758, John Montgomery had settled on a branch of Reed Creek in Augusta County in what would become Botetourt in 1770 and then Fincastle, Montgomery, and eventually Wythe County.^[5] John Montgomery was a captain in the French and Indian War in a Virginia Regiment commanded by Major Andrew Lewis, served during Dunmore’s War in 1774, and was a recruiter for the Cherokee Expedition in 1776. He was a justice in 1770, 1773, and 1777 in Botetourt, Fincastle, and Montgomery, the three counties that governed this area in succession. He was a member of Fincastle’s Committee of Safety, and a signer of the Fincastle Resolutions, being designated as captain. In 1777 he was elected to the Virginia General Assembly representing Montgomery County, and in 1778, was appointed sheriff of Montgomery County.^[6] As Kegley notes, that John Montgomery was chosen to administer oaths of allegiance reflects his prominent standing in Montgomery County. John Montgomery died testate in Wythe County with a will written on 4 July 1798 and probated on 14 August 1805.^[7]

Appearing on John Montgomery’s lists of those in Montgomery County who made the oath of allegiance in September 1777 along with Thomas Whitlock are a number of names we’ve met previously in connection with Thomas Whitlock. Among those making the oath on 6 September were James Newell Sr. and William Sayers, both of whom have been discussed in a previous posting which notes that (as stated above) William Sayers was a witness to the March 1776 deed of Jennings to Lynch witnessed by Thomas Whitlock, and that James Newell Sr.’s son James Newell Jr. was another witness to this deed.

Also in John Montgomery’s list of those taking the oath of allegiance in Montgomery County on 6 September 1777 were Andrew and James Crockett, who were sons of Samuel Crockett and Esther Thompson and brothers-in-law of John Montgomery. As we’ll see down the road, Andrew and James Crockett were neighbors of Thomas Whitlock on Little Reed Island Creek in Wythe County: a 13 September 1797 road order shows them listed with David Sayers and Thomas Whitlock to view a road around Moses Austin’s plantation.^[8] And as we’ll also see later, on 2 January 1805, Thomas Whitlock was appointed along with Stephen Sanders and James Newell to examine a dam erected by Andrew and James Crockett on Reed Creek in Wythe County at their ironworks.^[9]

Also appearing in John Montgomery’s list of those taking the oath of allegiance on 6 September 1777 is Josiah Fugate, a neighbor of Thomas Whitlock’s, as we’ll find in documents discussed down the road. A land entry made by Josiah Fugate in Montgomery County in September (?) 1782 states that the tract of 200 acres Fugate entered on Little Reed Island Creek joined Thomas Whitlock.^[10] And on 24 September 1782, Josiah Fugate entered 88 acres between Carter and Gray on the south side of New River, and 264 more acres joining this on the north side of Thomas Whitlock and the south side of James Gray.^[11]

Making the oath of allegiance on the same day Thomas Whitlock made it — 13 September 1777 — was Francis Day, who appears in previous postings (and here) which note that he married Sarah Fry Herbert, widow of William Herbert, whom Colonel John Chiswell brought from Wales to manage his lead mines operation in Montgomery (later Wythe) County. As material cited in the two postings I’ve just linked notes, Sarah inherited the Poplar Camp plantation of her husband William Herbert, and by his marriage to her, Francis Day acquired that plantation.

Note that it’s possible that, since the September 1777 list of those who took the oath of allegiance before John Montgomery in Montgomery County, Virginia, includes Thomas Whitlock — and this is definitely Thomas Whitlock of Montgomery County — it’s possible this Thomas Whitlock is not the man to whom the Revolutionary service record discussed in the previous posting belongs. As we saw, the service record of that Thomas Whitlock, who served in Joseph Spencer’s company of the 7th Virginia Regiment, says that this Thomas was serving in that unit in September 1777, and sick in the hospital at the time. I’m still inclined to think that service record belongs to Thomas Whitlock of Montgomery County, Virginia, but may be wrong in concluding this.

Thomas Whitlock in Jeremiah Pearce’s/Pierce’s Battalion, 6 April 1781

The next piece of information I find about Thomas Whitlock in Montgomery County, Virginia, is that he appears on 6 April 1781 as a sergeant in Jeremiah Pearce’s/Pierce’s battalion in Montgomery County (see the image at the head of this posting).^[12] Before Montgomery County was formed from Fincastle, Pearce/Pierce was a captain of Fincastle’s committee of safety.^[13] After Montgomery was formed from Fincastle, Jeremiah Pearce/Pierce shows up in 1774 among the first militia captains mentioned in Montgomery County.^[14] Mary B. Kegley says that Pierce was probably living on New River by the fall of 1768 when survey records show him having land surveyed on the east side of the river next to David Sayers.^[15]

Kegley provides biographical notes about Jeremiah Pearce/Pierce, which state that he was a lieutenant with Captain Walter Crockett in 1774, serving in Lord Dunsmore’s War.^[16] He was a constable in New River precinct of Botetourt (later Montgomery) County by February 1770. Following William Herbert’s death, Jeremiah became a militia captain in Herbert’s place in 1776. As militia captain in 1781, he compiled the list of men in his unit that lists Thomas Whitlock as a sergeant of the unit. On 27 February 1833 in Cocke County, Tennessee, one of the men on Pearce’s/Pierce’s 1781 list, Thomas Holland, made an affidavit claiming a Revolutionary service pension, stating the following:

That he resided in the county of Montgomery in the State of Virginia when he entered the service of the united States under the following named officers and served as herein stated (towit) that in month of October the year not recollected [1780] he entered the service as a Drafted malitia man for the company Commanded by Captain Jeremiah Pierce in the Batalion commanded by Major [Joseph] Cloyd of the Virginia malitia for a tour of one month against the tories in North Carolina & was in the engagement with them at the Shallow ford of Yadkin River [14 Oct 1780] in said last named State for which tour he rec’d a discharge for his said Captain.^[17]

Kegley notes that Jeremiah Pearce/Pierce is not related to the Peirce family connected to Chiswell’s lead mines operation in Wythe County. Matthew Brady has done extensive research about the Pierce family to which Jeremiah belongs, which stems from Essex County, Virginia.^[18]

Serving along with Thomas Whitlock in Jeremiah Pearce’s/Pierce’s battalion were names we’ll see in other records of Thomas Whitlock down the road, including Thomas Foster, a lieutenant in the company, Charles Carter, and members of the Davis and Sayers family who show up often in records of Thomas Whitlock — Frederick and John Davis and Robert Sayers. 

Robert Sayers (1754 – 1826) was a son of William Sayers and Esther Thompson, who have been discussed previously. As noted above, William Sayers married Esther after the death of her first husband Samuel Crockett, and he was a witness along with Thomas Whitlock to Jonathan Jennings’s sale of land in Montgomery County on 1 March 1776 to Charles Lynch, with the deed noting that the land Jennings was selling had been granted to Colonel John Buchanan, whose executor William Preston sold it to Jennings.^[19]

The Sayers family was linked by marriage to the Buchanan family. According to F.B. Kegley, Colonel John Buchanan was a son of James Buchanan and Jane Sayers of Northumberland County, Pennsylvania.^[20] Kegley states that when John Buchanan died in the summer of 1769, his estate was administered by William Preston and others. Joseph A. Waddell indicates that William Sayers was among the early settlers of the tract of land Benjamin Borden obtained in Augusta (later Rockbridge) County, Virginia, in November 1739.^[21]

According to Patricia Givens Johnson, the Sayers, Crockett, and Buchanan families all moved to the Reed Creek area of Augusta (later Botetourt, Fincastle, Montgomery, and finally Wythe) County, Virginia, to assist their kinsman James Patton in his feud with the Calhoun family, who moved to Reed Creek from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, as did the Montgomerys, and who were claiming that Patton had no good title to his New River lands. As a result of the controversy, Patton dubbed the Reed Creek valley the “Valley of Contention and Strife.”^[22]

The Calhouns were, it should be noted, kinsmen of Colonel John Montgomery, discussed above. John Montgomery’s father James (abt. 1690 – 1756) was a brother of Catherine Montgomery, who married Patrick Calhoun (1688 – 1740/1), progenitor of the Calhoun family of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, Montgomery (and Wythe) County, Virginia, and, later, Abbeville County, South Carolina. (Patrick and Catherine are among my direct ancestors.) And as previously indicated, John Montgomery married as his second wife Agnes Crockett, daughter of Samuel Crockett and Esther Thompson — so that the Montgomery family was intertwined with the kinship network of the Crockett, Sayers, and Buchanan families, who supported James Patton in his feud with the Calhouns.

The Sayers family was in the New River region as early as 1746, according to Patricia Givens Johnson, who notes that John Buchanan, James Patton’s chief surveyor, located good tracts of land on New River for his cousins Alexander and William Sayers.^[23] John Buchanan was Patton’s son-in-law; he married James Patton’s daughter Margaret.^[24] As Joseph Waddell notes, James Patton was Benjamin Borden’s chief land agent in locating settlers on his Borden tract.^[25]

To add to the complicated interconnections between these prominent families who settled early on Reed Creek in what would become Montgomery and then Wythe County, Virginia: as Johnson notes, Esther Thompson, wife of Samuel Crockett and then William Sayers, was the daughter of Reverend John Thompson, a graduate of the University of Glasgow and Presbyterian minister who came in 1715 to minister to the Ulster Scots settlement in Lewes, Sussex County, Delaware.^[26] Johnson states that Reverend John Thompson’s first wife is reputed to have been a sister of James Patton’s wife Mary Osborne. Johnson indicates that Esther Thompson was born about 1710, and married Samuel Crockett in Baltimore County, Maryland, where the family lived from 1738 to 1748, when they sold their Maryland land and moved to New River.

The Presbyterian connection remained strong among the kinship network of the Crockett and Sayers families in Montgomery (later Wythe) County, Virginia. When Boiling Springs Presbyterian church was established on Lower Reed Creek before 12 April 1769, David and William Sayers were ruling elders of the church, along with John Chiswell’s lead mines manager William Herbert.^[27] David Sayers’s son David (1777 – 1845), it might be noted, married Rhoda Davies, daughter of Henry Davies and Jane Crockett; Rhoda’s sister Mary Davies married Thomas Whitlock’s son Charles Whitlock.

In my next posting, I’ll continue this chronicle of records I have for Thomas Whitlock in Montgomery County, Virginia, starting with a 2 November 1781 land entry he made for 400 acres on Little Reed Island Creek, land assigned to him by Charles Lynch.

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^[1] Montgomery County, Virginia, Deed Bk. A, pp. 160-2.

^[2] Ruby Altizer Roberts, “Montgomery County’s Revolutionary Heritage,” Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 46, 3 (July 1938), p. 256.

^[3] Mary B. Kegley, Early Adventurers on the Western Waters, vol. 1 (Orange, Virginia: Green, 1980), p. 148; Charles W. Crush, Montgomery County, Virginia: The First Hundred Years (Athens, Georgia: Iberian, 1994), p. 52.

^[4] Mary B. Kegley, Early Adventurers on the Western Waters, vol. 3 (Wytheville: Kegley Books, 1995), pp. 722-6.

^[5] Kegley, ibid., cites Augusta County, Virginia, Survey Bk. 1; Botetourt County, Virginia, Deed Bk. 1, pp. 270, 318; Montgomery County, Virginia, Deed Bk. A, p. 202; and Riley, “John Montgomery,” The Historical Society of Washington County, Virginia, series 2, vol. 5 (fall 1967), pp. 1-14.

^[6] Kegley cites Riley, “John Montgomery,” pp. 5-6; Harwell, Committees of Safety, p. 61; and Leonard, General Assembly, p. 126.

^[7] Wythe County, Virginia, Will Bk. 1, p. 324.

^[8] Mary B. Kegley, Abstracts of Court Orders of Wythe County, Virginia (Wytheville: Kegley Books, 1996), p. 28.

^[9] Mary B. Kegley, Early Adventurers on the Western Waters, vol. 2 (Orange, Virginia: Green, 1982), pp. 374-5.

^[10] Ibid., p. 46, citing Montgomery County, Virginia, Land Entry Bk. 1782, p. 74.

^[11] Kegley, Early Adventurers on the Western Waters, vol. 2, p. 68, citing Montgomery County, Virginia, Land Entry Bk. 1782, p. 146.

^[12] Crush, Montgomery County, Virginia, p. 96; and Kegley, Militia of Montgomery County, Virginia, 1777-1790 (Dublin, Virginia: Kegley, 1975), p. 37.

^[13] Kegley, Early Adventurers on the Western Waters, vol. 1, p. 101.

^[14] Ibid., p. 114.

^[15] Kegley, Early Adventurers on the Western Waters, vol. 3, pp. 334-5.

^[16] Ibid. The biographical information in the rest of the paragraph is from this same citation.

^[17] NARA, Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty-Land Warrant Application Files RG 15, pension file of Thomas Holland, Virginia service, S17222, available digitally at Fold3. 

^[18] See Matthew Brady, “William Pierce and Mary (Stanton) Pierce of Culpeper Co., VA,” at Genealogy of James Frank Pierce (1918-1973): Genealogical Issues website. 

^[19] See supra, n. 1.

^[20] F.B. Kegley, Kegley’s Virginia Frontier: The Beginning of the Southwest, the Roanoke of Colonial Days, 1740-1783, with Maps and Illustrations (Roanoke, Virginia: Southwest Virginia Historical Society, 1938), p. 368.

^[21] Joseph A. Waddell, Annals of Augusta County, Virginia, 1726-1871 (Bridgewater, Virginia: C.J. Carrier, 1958), p. 31. Waddell spells the surname “Sawyers,” as it was pronounced.

^[22] Patricia Givens Johnson, The New River Early Settlement (Blacksburg, Virginia: Walpa, 1983), p. 78.

^[23] Ibid.

^[24] Waddell, Annals of Augusta County, Virginia, p. 113.

^[25] Ibid., p. 30; see also Kegley, Kegley’s Virginia Frontier, p. 162.

^[26] Johnson, The New River Early Settlement, p. 78.

^[27] Ibid., p. 179; and Mary B. Kegley, Wythe County, Virginia: A Bicentennial History (Wytheville: Wythe County Board of Supervisors, 1989), p. 209.