This brief report is an attempt to establish some documented information about a John Montgomery (abt. 1755? – 1825) who died in Lawrence County, Tennessee. A number of researchers have given John a middle name, Mosley. I have not yet found any evidence of a middle name or middle initial, and am deliberately avoiding using the middle name/initial in this report, since creating undocumented middle names for ancestral figures can lead us seriously astray as we attempt to document those figures’ lives.
Pages for this John Montgomery are available at WikiTree, MontyHistNotes, and Clan Montgomery Society International Genealogy Database.[1] These sources offer conflicting information about John Montgomery:
- WikiTree has him born about 1765 (in Ireland?) and dying about 1840.
- MontyHistNotes and Clan Montgomery have him born in 1757 in North Carolina and dying in 1825.
- All three sites give his father’s name as Hugh Montgomery of Wymess Bay, Renfrewshire, Scotland.
- All three sites have John marrying Sarah Jane Moore, with WikiTree placing the marriage in Haywood County, North Carolina, and the other two sites placing it in Burke County, North Carolina.
- WikiTree places John Montgomery on the 1790 census in Burke County, North Carolina, on the 1800 census in Buncombe County, North Carolina, on the 1810 census in Haywood County, North Carolina, and on the 1820 census in Lawrence County, Tennessee.
- MontyHistNotes place John in Rowan County, North Carolina, in 1800 and Wilkes County, North Carolina, in 1810.
- Clan Montgomery has John in Wilkes County, North Carolina, in 1800 and 1810.
Haywood County was formed from Buncombe in 1808.[2]
Buncombe was formed from Burke and Rutherford in 1791.
Burke was formed from Rowan in 1777.
John Montgomery could not have married Sarah Moore in Haywood County in 1787, as WikiTree reports, since Haywood did not exist in 1787. It was Burke at that time. All three sites listed above place this marriage in 1787. Note that John Montgomery could not have married in Buncombe in 1787, either, as the other two sites indicate, since that county was formed from Burke only in 1791.
FamilySearch’s Family Tree for John M. Montgomery cites a 1785 Rowan County record of the marriage of John Montgomery to Sarah Williams and claims that this is a record of the marriage of John M. Montgomery to Sarah Moore.[3]
In 1785, Rowan was east of Burke, which is where John Montgomery would likely have been living when he married Sarah Moore around this same year, if records placing him in Haywood County at its formation in 1808 (see below on these records) indicate where John was living at the time of his marriage to Sarah Moore.[4]
Since John Montgomery is entirely new to me and I’m beginning this search as a “cold” search in which I’m starting by surveying information and documents gathered about him on the preceding sites, and since basic pieces of information at these sites conflict with each other, I’m starting the search by working backwards from the final period of John’s life. I want to find reliable records that I know can be pinned to the particular John Montgomery I want to research here, which may point to where he lived before he moved to Lawrence County, Tennessee.
A Find a Grave memorial page for John Mosley Montgomery (this is the name as stated here) states that he is buried in Nelson cemetery at Crewstown in Lawrence County, Tennessee.[5] Two photos of a shared memorial marker with information about John Montgomery (no middle name or initial stated) are offered here. The marker, which is a Nelson stone showing the name of John’s daughter Jane and her husband John Nelson, says that John Montgomery was born “ca. 1750s” and died in 1825. The site has no information about who erected this marker or when it was placed. It appears to date many years after John’s death.
Lawrence County, Tennessee, Records for John Montgomery
Lawrence County was created in 1817 from Hickman and Maury Counties.[6] If John was in Tennessee prior to 1817, it’s possible he’d have been in one of the two latter counties. Court records for Lawrence begin in 1818, land records in 1819, and probate records in 1829.
An obituary of John Montgomery’s granddaughter Jane Nelson Bailey in the Lawrenceburg Democrat on 23 June 1913 contains valuable information about John Montgomery’s whereabouts prior to his move to Lawrence County, Tennessee.[7] The obituary says that Jane Bailey was descended from two of Lawrence County’s early families, Montgomery and Nelson, who came there from Haywood County, North Carolina. The obituary also states that Jane was the youngest daughter of John Nelson, who settled on Shoal Creek about one hundred years prior to 1913, and that Jane’s mother was the daughter of John Montgomery, who ran a tavern on the Military Road in antebellum days.
This obituary establishes the close ties of the Montgomery and Nelson families, ties indicated by the marriage of John Montgomery’s daughter Jane to John Nelson. It also suggests that both John Montgomery and John Nelson came to Lawrence County, Tennessee, from Haywood County, North Carolina, and that these families came together from there to Lawrence County at some point after 1813 — before 1820, since John was on the 1820 federal census in Lawrence County by that date.
The process of working back to find trustworthy records of John Montgomery should move, then, from Lawrence County, Tennessee, back to Haywood County, North Carolina.
I find sparse information about John Montgomery in Lawrence County records, and this is not surprising, if the information on his shared tombstone that he died in 1825 is correct. John did not live long in Lawrence County prior to his death and was likely an aged man when he settled there. He does not show up in the county’s index to deed records. I find the following pieces of information about John in Lawrence County records:
• On 5 May 1818, John Montgomery testified in court in the case of William Davis v. Abner Taylor. John was holding property of Taylor in his hands as garnishee, and the court gave judgment against John as the garnishee.[8]
• At the same court session, John Montgomery was a juror in the case of Duncan McIntire vs. Daniel Pearce.[9]
• On 4 January 1821, John Montgomery was listed on a road crew to work on the Military Road under John McDonald.[10]
• On 1 December 1820, George Hanks entered 160 acres in Lawrence County as assignee of John Montgomery, 7th surveyor’s district, range 3, section 4, by virtue of two warrants. Withdrawn 14 December 1820.[11]
• On 23 December 1826, Sarah Montgomery located 140.10 acres in Lawrence County, range 5 and same section (?) agreeable to occupant laws of 1826. This land bordered Mitchell Ross.[12]
Having exhausted Lawrence County records, I now move back to Haywood County, North Carolina, where the obituary of John’s granddaughter Jane Nelson Bailey, which gives the appearance of reporting accurate information known to her family at the time Jane died in 1913, points us.
Haywood County, North Carolina, Records for John Montgomery
Note: if John Montgomery came to Lawrence County, Tennessee, from Haywood County, North Carolina, then the claim of MontyHistNotes and Clan Montgomery that John was in Wilkes County, North Carolina, on the 1810 census — ten years before he shows up on the census in Lawrence County — needs to be examined critically. By 1810, Wilkes was several counties northeast of Haywood County. On 2 August 1832 in Wilkes County, North Carolina, a John Montgomery gave an affidavit for a Revolutionary pension.[13] The affidavit states that this John Montgomery was born in Stafford County, Virginia, in 1756, did Revolutionary service in Virginia, and then moved to Wilkes County, North Carolina, not long after the Revolution ended. John had lived in that county continuously from the period immediately after the Revolution to 1832.
This is the John Montgomery enumerated on the 1810 census in Wilkes County, North Carolina, and is a different John Montgomery from the man in Lawrence County, Tennessee, by 1820. WikiTree appears to be correct in placing the man who was in Lawrence County by 1820 in Haywood County, North Carolina, in 1810, and before that in Buncombe County in 1800 and in Burke County in 1790 (perhaps: see my subsequent set of notes on Burke County). Again: Haywood was formed from Buncombe in 1808, and Buncombe from Burke and Rutherford in 1791.
The John Montgomery who moved to Lawrence County, Tennessee, by 1820 is found in Haywood County, North Carolina, records as soon as they begin after the formation of that county in 1808. This suggests that he was likely in Buncombe County prior to 1808, and that will be the county to which I turn my attention after I survey records for him in Haywood County, which include the following:
• On 3 November 1809, Robert Love deeded 17 acres of land for the purpose of building a courthouse for the new county, with the recipients of this land deed named as John Montgomery, Hugh Davidson, John Dodson, John Bryson, and Holliman Battle, commissioners appointed to erect the courthouse. The land was on Richland Creek going southwest from Robert Love’s dwelling house. Robert Love signed with witnesses Thomas and Nancy St. Clair, and the deed was acknowledged at court in December 1811 and recorded at the same court session.[14]
Note: the commissioner John Bryson (1769-1851) of the preceding Robert Love deed was a son of James Holmes Bryson and Sarah Countryman. James, who was a brother of my ancestor John Bryson (1740/1750 – 1824), was in Rowan and Lincoln County, North Carolina, records up to about 1790, then briefly in Pendleton District, South Carolina, in 1790, and by 1799, in Buncombe County, North Carolina, records. He then begins appearing in Haywood County, North Carolina, records when the county was formed in 1808. His Revolutionary pay voucher back in Rowan County was signed by Will Cathey (see below on this name).
James Bryson’s son John Bryson was in Buncombe County on the 1800 federal census and then by 1810 in Haywood County, after he helped organize Haywood in 1808. The Davidson family to which the commissioner Hugh Davidson belonged was closely connected to the Brysons and lived near them in Rowan (later Iredell) County, North Carolina. These families all moved together from old Rowan County, North Carolina, to western North Carolina soon after the Revolution, with a brief sojourn in the South Carolina upcountry. The Davidson and Bryson families came to North Carolina together from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, with other Ulster Scots families.
• On 4th Monday in March 1809 at the first court session in Haywood, John Montgomery was among those considered in an election for county entry-taker (he didn’t win the election).[15]
• On 29 March (or June?) 1809 John Montgomery was on a list of men summoned to the next county court session, evidently for jury duty. George Cathey, James Bryson, Thomas Lenoir, and Elijah Deever were in the same list.[16]
• On 26 March 1811 William Dever, John Montgomery, John Stephenson, Hugh Davidson, John Bryson, John Dobson (note that the name was Dodson in the previous record), and H. Battle, commissioners appointed by the state of North Carolina to lay off the place whereon the public buildings of the county would be constructed, reported that they had sold the tract donated by Colonel Robert Love for $903 to John Welch Sr. to defray the expenses of erecting the county buildings. The deed was signed by Wm. Devor (i.e., Dever), H. Battle, J. Bryson, Hugh Davidson, with William Cathey Jr. and James Cathey (mark) witnessing.[17]
• On 3 November 1813 John Montgomery and John Nelson sold Thomas Lenoir 140 acres on the west side of the east fork of Pigeon River bordering George and William Cathey, the old line of Jacob Beffles, the old line of Mary Miller, and Waightstill Avery. John Montgomery signed with John Nelson making his mark and with witnesses William Montgomery, G. Washington Jones (signing by mark), and Benjamin B. Brookshire (making his mark).[18] The deed was acknowledged in court June 1816 and recorded 30 September 1816.
Note that this deed provides substantial evidence supporting the conclusion that the John Montgomery whose daughter Talitha Jane married John Nelson and who moved from Haywood County, North Carolina, to Lawrence County, Tennessee, with John Nelson is, indeed, the John Montgomery found in Haywood County records from the county’s formation in 1808 up to the period shortly before 1820, when John Montgomery appears on the federal census in Lawrence County, Tennessee.
• At December 1813 court a quitclaim of Robert Henry to John Montgomery dated 6 October 1813 was presented to court and recorded.[19]
• 12 April 1815: John Montgomery entered 640 acres in Haywood on main fork of Pigeon River for complement.[20]
• On 21 June 1815 a bastardy bond was filed in court against Anne Montgomery, with William Dever acting as the county official and a Thomas whose surname I cannot read, giving a bond for $5. I suspect that Thomas is the father of the baby born to Anne Montgomery. Anne signed the bond along with John Montgomery and David Mc(Feters? Peters?). It’s stated that the bond was to save the court from having to support the base-born child.[21]
Note that this document helps us establish when John Montgomery made his move to Lawrence County, Tennessee — after June 1815 and before 1820, when he appears in Lawrence County on the federal census.
Solid documents establish that the John Montgomery who died in Lawrence County, Tennessee, in 1825 (if his shared tombstone has a correct date) and who was in that county by 1820 came there from Haywood County, North Carolina, and was in Haywood County at the county’s formation in 1808, with seeming connections to others (e.g., Brysons, Davidsons, Catheys) who came to this part of western North Carolina from old Rowan (later Iredell) County, North Carolina, after the Revolution. It’s very likely that John Montgomery was in Buncombe County, North Carolina, before 1808, as the Brysons also were. Buncombe is the next place I intend to search as I keep working backwards for solid documentation of this John Montgomery. In my view, the suggestion that this John Montgomery had the middle name Mosley should be subjected to serious critical examination, as should the suggestion that he was the son of Hugh Montgomery of Wymess Bay, Scotland. For now, I’m working with the theory (which could, of course, be proven wrong) that the John Montgomery who died in Lawrence County, Tennessee, has roots in the Ulster Scots colony that came to old Rowan County from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, prior to the Revolution.
[1] “John M Montgomery (abt. 1765 – abt. 1840),” WikiTree, page managed by Carolyn Govan; “John M Montgomery 1757-1825,” at Keith Montgomery’s MontyHistNotes; and “John M Montgomery 1757-1825,” at Clan Montgomery Society International Genealogy Database.
[2] “Haywood County, North Carolina Genealogy,” at FamilySearch Research Wiki; “Buncombe County, North Carolina Genealogy,” at ibid.; “Burke County, North Carolina Genealogy,” at ibid.
[3] “John Mosley Montgomery, about 1750-1825,” at FamilySearch.
[4] “History of County Formations in North Carolina 1664-1965,” at George W. Durman’s The State of North Carolina site.
[5] “John Mosley Montgomery,” Find a Grave memorial page, Nelson cemetery, Crewstown, Lawrence County, Tennessee, created by Bill Gunn, maintained by Janette Jenkins, photos of memorial marker by Gail Stanford and Bill Gunn.
[6] “Lawrence County, Tennessee Genealogy,” at FamilySearch Research Wiki.
[7] “Obituary,” Lawrenceburg [Tennessee] Democrat (23 June 1913), p. 4, col. 5.
[8] Lawrence County, Tennessee, Court Minutes Bk. 1, 1818-1823, p. 20, WPA transcription (1936) at Tennessee State Library.
[9] Ibid., p. 29.
[10] Ibid., p. 317.
[11] Lawrence County, Tennessee, Land Entry Claims Bk. A, 1820-1836, Oct. 1820-June 1824, no. 196.
[12] Ibid., p. 218, no. 52.
[13] NARA, Case Files of Pension and Bounty-Land Warrant Applications Based on Revolutionary War Service, compiled ca. 1800 – ca. 1912, documenting the period ca. 1775 – ca. 1900, RG 15, Revolutionary pension files of John Montgomery, Virginia, (file W980), available digitally at Fold3.
[14] Haywood County, North Carolina, Deed Bk. A ,pp. 147-8.
[15] Haywood County, North Carolina, Court Minute Bk. 1809-1815, p. 1.
[17] Haywood County, North Carolina, Deed Bk. A, pp. 139-140.
[18] Ibid., pp. 420-1.
[19] Haywood County, North Carolina, Court Minute Bk. 1809-1815, p. 66.
[20] Haywood County, North Carolina, Land Entries Bk. A, p. 69, no. 170.
[21] Haywood County, North Carolina, Court Minute Bk. 1809-1815, p. 113.
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