BEGATS AND BEQUEATHALS

The Matter of Mary’s Birthdate

Mary is named after Charles and James as an heir of James Whitlock in his 22 November 1757 estate settlement in Louisa County, which allotted his daughter Mary Whitlock an enslaved woman Janey along with £2 3s 11d.^[1] Mary is also named by her grandfather Thomas Christmas in his 29 December 1768 will in St. Martin’s parish, Hanover County, which makes bequests to the children of his daughter Agnes Christmas Whitlock, naming Mary as Mary Jones, and which places Mary’s name after those of Charles and James, just as the estate settlement does.^[2] Taken together, the two documents indicate that Mary married William Jones between 22 November 1757 and 29 December 1768.^[3]

As the postings linked in the previous paragraph note, Mary’s brother Charles appears to have been born about 1739 and her brother James about 1740. As has also been previously discussed, numerous published accounts and family trees state that Mary Whitlock was born on 15 April 1741 and her husband William Jones on 31 October 1735. I have tried without success to track a source for those dates, which appear in published works, DAR and SAR membership applications, family trees, etc., with no indication of their source. In the posting I’ve just linked, I state,

These dates appear to be citing a bible record that passed down among the descendants of this family; I have not found specific information, however, about such a bible or who may have owned it when these DAR/SAR applications were made, but these applications make clear that DAR/SAR accepted this information as factual and correct. 

Thomas Eugene Jones offers the previously stated dates of birth for Mary Whitlock and William Jones in his The Jones Family, published at Fountain Inn, South Carolina, in 1956.^[4] At the end of the section of his book which states these dates of birth for Mary and William, Thomas Eugene Jones writes, “Above Records Furnished by Troy Jones, Laurens, South Carolina.” George Troy Jones (1892-1977) was a great-great-grandson of William Jones and Mary Whitlock. In his 1959 book on the Martin Dial family of Laurens County, South Carolina, Hastings Harrison notes that Troy Jones supplied information for the book “including tombstone legends recently copied by him.”^[5]

The SAR membership application of Warren Andrew Burdette, who entered the Maryland Society of SAR as a descendant of William Jones in 1965, and which offers the previously cited dates of birth for William Jones and Mary Whitlock, has an annotation noting that his information about the birthdates of William and Mary Whitlock Jones is from “DATA-LIB. F.C.M. (2) Fannie Moore.” The material in this file was also apparently cited in the DAR membership application of Willie Cooley Belk (#211087), who entered a South Carolina chapter of DAR as a descendant of William Jones.^[6] I am assuming the notation about Warren A. Burdette’s source for his information regarding the birthdates of William Jones and Mary Whitlock points to a DAR file connected to the membership application of Willie Cooley Belk.

This is unfortunately all I can tell you at present about documented proof of the birthdates commonly given in various sources for William Jones and wife Mary Whitlock. Since most published accounts offering these birthdates also have specific birthdates for the couple’s children, I’m inclined to think these dates are from a family bible, though, if so, I have never seen mention of it anywhere. Many published accounts go on to state that William Jones was born in Alberbury, Shropshire, England. Again, I see no citations anywhere to prove that the William, son of Nathaniel and Sarah Jones, baptized in that parish on 21 October 1735 is the William Jones who married Mary Whitlock. Thomas Eugene Jones and other sources do state that William Jones was born in England, but without pointing to a source for that assertion.

I certainly think the birthdate of 15 April 1741 for Mary Whitlock is plausible, though I’d be more comfortable in recording it if I knew its source. As I note above, her birth seems to fall after those of Charles (about 1739) and James (about 1740), and it is followed by that of her sister Ann and brother Thomas, who seems to have been born about 1745. These pieces of information suggest a birthdate for Ann somewhere in the years 1742-1744.

Biographical Accounts of William Jones in Virginia

Thomas Eugene Jones (again citing Troy Jones of Laurens, South Carolina) says that William Jones came to Virginia from England as a young man and settled on the Rappahannock River, marrying Mary Jones in Virginia and moving with her and their children to South Carolina following the Revolutionary War.^[7] In notes he posted in a discussion at the Sloan family forum at Genealogy.com on 3 February 2007, Jones descendant Chad S. Williams says that William Jones sailed from Bristol, England, in December 1752 aboard the Royal Widow, and settled on the Rappahannock River in Virginia.^[8]

Move of the Jones Family from Virginia to Caswell County, North Carolina, by 1761

Though Thomas Eugene Jones’s history of this family makes it appear that the family moved directly from Virginia to Greenville County, South Carolina, where William Jones died in 1823, William and Mary Jones initially moved to Orange County, North Carolina, where William appears as a chain carrier for surveys in 1761-2.^[9] The family did not move to South Carolina until 1793, buying land on Durbin Creek in Laurens County near the Greenville County line, and then settling in Greenville County — though a record I’ll discuss in a moment indicates to me that by 1787 William Jones already owned land on Durbin Creek in Greenville County. Greenville was formed in 1786 from land ceded by the Cherokees in 1777 to Ninety Six district. Thomas Eugene Jones notes that William Jones settled near Durbin Creek in the lower part of Greenville County near the Laurens County line, and that he also appears in Laurens County records.^[10]

On 12 November 1765 in Orange County, North Carolina, William Jones bought 202 acres on County Line Creek from John Cantrill/Cantrell.^[11] When Caswell County was formed from Orange in 1777, this land fell into Caswell County, where William Jones and wife Mary sold it on 20 March 1778 to Robert Cartwright, all of Caswell County, for £200.^[12] William signed this deed with Mary making her mark. William Jones begins appearing on the Caswell County tax list in 1777.

Records place William Jones in Caswell County up to 28 September 1793, when he sold the last of his land there and made his move to South Carolina — so I’m not quite sure how to read the payment made to him in South Carolina for militia duty from 7 May to 28 August 1781.^[13] He was issued payment for £12 17s 1½d for his militia service. The South Carolina audited account record for this payment does show that on 10 September 1785, William Jones wrote a note to Edward Blake and Peter Borquett, Commissioners of the Treasury for Ninety Six District, authorizing them to issue payment to James Carson for Services done the Public of So. Carolina,” so it appears that William Jones did this militia duty in South Carolina, hence his payment by that state.

Since we know from a 14 February 1787 South Carolina plat for Nathaniel S. Austin Sr. for land in Ninety Six in what became Greenville County — I’ll discuss this in a moment — that William Jones had land next to the land Austin had platted for him on that date, did William Jones have dual residences in North and South Carolina for a period prior to his move in 1793 to South Carolina?

According to Chad S. Williams, an order of Caswell County court in 1782 shows William Jones being named to work on a section of road in that county, so it seems clear to me that he retained a residence in Caswell County up to 1793, when he sold his final piece of land there with the deed stating that he was of Caswell County.^[14]

On 13 October 1783, William Jones was granted two tracts of land in Caswell County by the state of North Carolina. Both tracts were on County Line Creek. A tract of 350 acres adjoined William Kimbrough, James Rice, Brooks, Parks, and William Jones’s own land.^[15] Another tract of 188 acres adjoined land of Richard Estis, James Rice, and William’s own land.^[16]

William Jones continued on the Caswell County tax list in 1786 and 1790. In 1787, he was enumerated in Gloucester district of Caswell County on the state census of that year with a household comprised of two white males 21-60, four white males under 20 and above 60, four females, and seven enslaved people.^[17] Listed on the same census page with William Jones is a Gooch family that had also come to Caswell County from Louisa County, Virginia, to one of whose members William Jones would make his final Caswell County land sale in 1793.

The Significance of Nathaniel Austin of Hanover-Louisa Counties, Virginia, and Greenville County, South Carolina

A plat made for Nathaniel Austin Sr. on 14 February 1787 for 500 acres in Ninety Six district shows Austin’s land lying on both sides of the dividing line between Laurens and Greenville Counties on the north fork of Durbin Creek of the Enoree River, with William Jones and his son Richard owning adjoining pieces of land.^[18] This plat is noteworthy both for sketching a precise picture of where William Jones held land in 1787 in Greenville County, and also for showing us that Austin and William Jones held adjoining land in Greenville County. Nathaniel Jones came to South Carolina from the very same places in Virginia in which the Whitlock family lived: this Austin family appears in the 1750s in St. Martin’s parish, Louisa County, Virginia, and prior to that in St. Paul’s parish in Hanover County, Virginia. The family of James Whitlock (with wife Agnes Christmas) is in records of St. Paul’s in Hanover, where James was born about 1718, up to around 1740, and then begins appearing in records of St. Martin’s in Louisa, where James Whitlock died in 1748. The Austins moved from Louisa County, Virginia, to South Carolina in 1761 or 1762.^[19]

Nathaniel Austin Sr. is said to have been born in England in 1720, and to have come to Virginia as a young man — a story similar to that told about William Jones. The Austin surname and proximity of Nathaniel Austin to William Jones on Durbin Creek in Greenville County attracts my attention because Mary Whitlock’s sister Ann, about whom next to nothing is known, was married to an Austin husband by the time her grandfather Thomas Christmas made his will in 1768. I have been unable to find any information about Ann other than her listing as an heir in the 1757 Louisa County, Virginia, estate settlement of her father James Whitlock, which named her as Ann Whitlock and left her an enslaved woman named Doll and  £12 3s 11d, and the 1768 Hanover County, Virginia, will of her grandfather Thomas Christmas, which named her as Anne Austine.^[20]

I’m tempted to think that Ann’s husband fits somewhere in the family of Nathaniel Austin, though I have no proof of this at present. I have not even found his given name or other information about this family.

The 1790 federal census for Caswell County, North Carolina, is not extant, but as I noted above, William Jones Sr. appears on the tax list in Caswell County in 1790. On 21 August 1793, William Jones bought from George Wilson of Laurens County, South Carolina, for £150 a tract of 200 acres on Durbin Creek in Laurens.^[21] The deed states that William was living in Caswell County, North Carolina, at the time. It was signed by Wilson by mark with witnesses Richard Jones (William’s son) and James Wilson. The deed was recorded 14 October 1793. The preceding deed in the deed book is one by John Wilson to James Gilbert for land on Durbin Creek, with William Jones witnessing the deed.

William Jones’s Move to Greenville County, South Carolina, 1793

On 28 September 1793, with the deed stating that he was of Caswell County, William Jones Sr. sold to David Gooch of the same county for £40 100 acres on the south fork County Line Creek adjacent to William’s old line.^[22] William signed with Thomas Yancey and James Turner witnessing, and the deed was recorded at October court 1793. 

The deed makes no mention of Mary Whitlock Jones. Since it appears to me William was selling his homeplace in Caswell County to move to South Carolina and his wife would likely have relinquished dower rights for the land sale, I’d be inclined to think that Mary had died by this time, though as I’ll note in a moment, some researchers have her dying in Greenville County, South Carolina, in 1825. And the 1800 and 1810 federal censuses in Greenville County show William’s household with a female in his age category, 45+ — see below.

Note, too, that when Mary’s brother Charles Whitlock and wife Esther sold their land in Albemarle County, Virginia, in March 1778 to move to Surry County, North Carolina, they sold it to William Gooch. Both the Gooch and Yancey families were Hanover-Louisa County, Virginia, families, as were the Whitlocks. David Gooch (1763-1831) to whom William Jones sold his Caswell County land in 1793 was the son of William Gooch (abt. 1714 – 1802) and Frances Rice. William Gooch lived in St. Martin’s parish in Hanover County up to the latter part of the 1760s, when he moved to the part of Orange County, North Carolina that would become Caswell County.

On 13 February 1796 in Laurens County, South Carolina, William Jones and Nathaniel Austin witnessed the sale of 92 acres in Laurens by Thomas Butler of Edgefield County to William Collins.^[23] A William Jones with wife Mary who lived on Duncan Creek in Laurens is also found in the county’s deed records during this period, but seems to be a different man than William Jones with wife Mary Whitlock. Not only did the second William have land in a location different from where Mary Whitlock’s husband William Jones held land, but deed records state that his parents were John and Hannah Jones, and Hannah was living in the 1790s.

William Jones appears as William Jones Senr. on the 1800 federal census in Greenville County, South Carolina (p. 276, #1273), with sons John and Richard listed either side of him (#1272 and 1274). His household has one male 10-15, one male over 45, one female 10-15, and one female over 45, along with seven enslaved persons. If the older female is wife Mary, then she apparently did not die in Caswell County, North Carolina, prior to 1793. On the same census page on which William appears a John Auston (i.e., Austin) is enumerated. Is this Nathaniel Austin Sr.’s son John, who is given a middle name Edward in various accounts of this family?

In 1810, William Jones is again enumerated on the federal census in Greenville County, South Carolina (p. 498). His household is comprised of a white male 16-25, a white male 45+, and a white female 45+, with ten enslaved persons. William’s son Richard is listed next to him, with Richard’s brother John one household removed from Richard. On the same page are John and Thomas Austin (the spelling is Auston here).

The 1820 federal census for Greenville County shows William Jones with only a male aged over 45 in his household, and eight enslaved persons. This census suggests that the older female in the household in 1800 and 1810 died between 1810 and 1820. If this was William’s wife Mary, she predeceased her husband. Once again, John Austin is enumerated on the same census page, as is Col. William Austin. William is definitely a son of Nathaniel Austin Sr. I’m inclined to think that the John Austin listed on the same census page with William Jones in 1800, 1810, and 1820 is also Nathaniel’s son John, who appears in family trees as John Edward Austin.

William Jones made his will in Greenville County (the will uses the term “Greenville District”) on 27 February 1823.^[24] The will does not mention his wife Mary — another indicator to me that Mary predeceased William. It names the couple’s children living when William made his will — Thomas, Richard, Elizabeth, William, Milley, Solomon, John, Polly, and Abner — and states that their son Moses had died and his heirs were to have a share of the estate. William signed with witnesses Joseph Lyon, John Bruce, and Thomas Howard. The will was probated 15 September 1823. The same published accounts of this family that give William Jones a birthdate of 31 October 1735 state that he died 1 September 1823.

A Find a Grave memorial page for Mary Whitlock Jones states that she died 21 September 1825 in Greenville County.^[25] As I’ve previously stated, I’m tempted to think that Mary died before William made his will.              

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^[1] Louisa County, Virginia, Inventory Bk. 1743-1790, pp. 39-40. A digital image of this document is here.

^[2] Though the will was made in Hanover County, Virginia, it was recorded in Bute County, North Carolina. Bute was divided in 1779 into Franklin and Warren Counties (Bute then ceasing to exist), and the will ended up in Warren County, North Carolina, Will Bk. A, pp. 105-9. The will would also likely have been filed in Hanover County, but that county’s records almost all burned in 1865, and if the will was of record in that county, it’s now lost in Hanover records. A digital copy of the portion of Thomas Christmas’s will naming his Whitlock grandchildren is here.

^[3] In her biographical notes about William Jones at his Find a Grave memorial page, Sharon Smith Logan states that William Jones married Mary Whitlock in Hanover County, Virginia, about 1760: see Find a Grave memorial page of William Jones, Jones family cemetery, Fountain Inn, Greenville County, South Carolina, created by Dana Law, maintained by Pam Miller. In notes he posted in a discussion at the Sloan family forum at Genealogy.com on 3 February 2007, Jones descendant Chad S. Williams says that William Jones and Mary Whitlock married in 1756, though in my view, taken together, her father’s estate settlement in 1757 and the will of her grandfather Thomas Christmas in 1768 indicate that she married between those years.

^[4] Thomas Eugene Jones, The Jones Family (Fountain Inn, South Carolina; 1956), p. 1.

^[5] Hastings Harrison, Martin Dial and Related Families, with Their Ancestors, Descendants, and Connections: Compiled from Original Records, Letters, and Other Materials Collected over a Period of Ten Years (Dallas, 1959), p. 185. Biographical information about George Troy Jones is on pp. 233-4.

^[6] National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution, Sons of the American Revolution Membership Applications, 1889-1970(Louisville: NSDAR, 1970), #91011, available digitally in Ancestry’s database, U.S., Sons of the American Revolution Membership Applications, 1889-1970.

^[7] Jones, The Jones Family, p. 1.

^[8] See supra, n. 3.

^[9] In his February 2007 posting to the Sloan family forum at Genealogy.com cited previously (see supra, n. 3), Chad S. Williams states, “William Jones was named as a chain carrier on a Land Grant survey in the section of Orange County, North Carolina (later became Caswell County) in 1761 and 1762.”

^[10] Jones, The Jones Family, p. 1.

^[11] I don’t find this deed listed in the grantor-grantee index to Orange County deeds. My information about it is from Chad S. William’s notes in his February 2007 posting to the Sloan family forum, which does not cite the deed book: see supra, n. 3. The deed was registered at Orange County court on the 2^nd Tuesday in November 1765: Orange County, North Carolina, Registration of Deeds 1753-1793 pt. 2, p. 126B, available digitally at FamilySearch.

^[12] Caswell County, North Carolina, Deed Bk. A, p. 62. 

^[13] South Carolina Revolutionary Audited Accounts Bk. V, pp. 19-20, audited account 4125. These records were transcribed by Will Graves at the Southern Campaigns American Revolution Pension Statements & Rosters website.

^[14] This court order is mentioned in Chad S. William’s notes in his February 2007 posting to the Sloan family forum: see supra, n. 3. The notes do not provide a citation of the specific court minutes in which this court order appears.

^[15] North Carolina Grant Bk. 54, p. 331, grant #528.

^[16] North Carolina Grant Bk. 53, p. 31, grant #617.

^[17] Alvaretta K. Register, comp., State Census of North Carolina, 1784-1787 (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 2001), p. 21.

^[18] South Carolina Plat Bk. 36, p. 39. The grant for this tract was made 6 March 1797, and is recorded in South Carolina Land Grants Class 2, Bk. 42, p. 218. The grant also states that the tract adjoined land owned by William Jones.

^[19] See Aurelia Austin, Captain Nathaniel (Nathan) Austin of Gilder Plantation, S.C. and His Sons in the American Revolution(Atlanta, 1986); S.S. Crittenden, The Greenville Century Book: Comprising an Account of the Settlement of the County, and the Founding of the City of Greenville, S.C. (Greenville: Greenville News, 1903), pp. 9-10; and Aurelia Austin, “Story of Nathaniel Austin and Sons in the Revolutionary War,” Greenville [South Carolina] News (26 October 1970), p. 94. See also Find a Grave memorial page for Capt. Nathaniel Austin Sr., Austin family cemetery, Simpsonville, Greenville County, South Carolina, created by Grey Ghost.

^[20] See supra, n. 1 and 2.

^[21] Laurens County, South Carolina, Deed Bk. E, pp. 44-5.

^[22] Caswell County, North Carolina, Deed Bk. H, pp. 245-6.

^[23] Laurens County, South Carolina, Deed Bk. F, p. 112.

^[24] Greenville County, South Carolina, Will Bk. B, pp. 46-7.

^[25] See Find a Grave memorial page for Mary Whitlock Jones, Jones family cemetery, Fountain Inn, Greenville County, South Carolina, created by Pam Miller.