Tag: Habersham Co. Georgia

Children of Mary Brooks (1745/1750 – aft. 15 May 1815) and Jacob Hollingsworth (1742 – 1822) — Benjamin Benton Hollingsworth (abt. 1785-1844) and Wife Joicy Jones

William D. Lindsey3 Comments

Letter of Benjamin Hollingsworth, Carnesville, Franklin County, Georgia, Governor David B. Mitchell, 7 December 1812, in Telamon Cuyler Collection, Series 1. Historical Manuscripts holdings at Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Georgia Libraries, box 46, folder 11

Or, Subtitled: “Honoured Sir — If your Dignity will permit me to make a statement to you in regard to our frontier county“

In a previous posting, I summarized the salient facts about the life of Benjamin Benton Hollingsworth, Jacob Hollingsworth and Mary Brooks’s last child — literally, the Benjamin of their declining years. As we see in the posting I’ve just linked, Benjamin was born after 1784 in Randolph County, North Carolina, and died 18 August 1844 in Benton County, Alabama.[1] We can conclude, more specifically, that Benjamin was likely born in or after 1785, since he does not appear with other males of his family on the tax list in Franklin County, Georgia in 1801, which indicates that he was not yet 16 or became 16 in 1801 after the tax list was compiled.[2] As Sadie Greening Sparks also notes, he does not appear as a drawer in the 1805 Georgia land lottery, and this means he was under 21 in 1805, therefore born after 1784.[3] Because Benjamin witnessed a deed of Joseph Dunnigan to Abner Dunnigan in Franklin County, Georgia, on 20 August 1803, a legal act that required him to be 18 years old at the time (though I’ve seen instances of minors witnessing deeds, too), I suspect he was born in 1785: see below for more about this deed.

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Children of Mary Brooks (1745/1750 – aft. 15 May 1815) and Jacob Hollingsworth (1742 – 1822) — James Hollingsworth (1777/1780 – abt. 1822) and Wife Mary Jones

William D. Lindsey2 Comments
Reproduction of what appears to be an oil portrait of Salina Zora Belle Hollingsworth Patton in Eddie Patton and Mary Ellen Patton Roberts, “The Pattons of Pelham and the Civil War,” The Pathfinder [Grundy County, Tennessee] 17,2 (June 2012), pp. 16-20, online at the Grundy County, Tennessee, History website

Or, Subtitled:

As we’ve seen, researchers have placed the birth of James Hollingsworth, the seventh child (and fourth son) of Jacob Hollingsworth and Mary Brooks, between 1777-1780 in Guilford or Randolph County, North Carolina (Randolph was created from Guilford in 1779). In their classic accounts of the Hollingsworth and Harlan families, J. Adger Stewart and Alpheus Harlan both have James born in 1777.[1] Sadie Greening Sparks thinks that he was born in 1780.[2]

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Children of Mary Brooks (1745/1750 – aft. 15 May 1815) and Jacob Hollingsworth (1742 – 1822) — Mary Hollingsworth (1770/5 – 1830/1840) and Husband Benjamin J. Wofford

William D. Lindsey13 Comments
William Tatum Wofford, grandson of Mary Hollingsworth and Benjamin J. Wofford, from Library of Congress, Prints and Photographic Division

Or, Subtitled: Further Connections of the Hollingsworth and Wofford Families in Burke County, North Carolina, and Franklin County, Georgia

As noted previously, Jacob Hollingsworth and Mary Brooks’s daughter Mary appears to have been born between 1770 and 1775. Sadie Greening Sparks assigns 1773 as her year of birth.[1] A tombstone marking the grave of her husband Benjamin J. Wofford in Bartow County, Georgia, which was apparently placed there some years following his death, gives his year of birth as 1767.[2] Sadie Greening Sparks indicates that there’s a marriage bond in Randolph County, North Carolina, showing Mary’s intent to marry Daniel Brown, but the couple did not marry and Mary’s sister Hannah married Daniel Brown instead.[3] Mary Hollingsworth and Benjamin J. Wofford had married by 1790, it seems, since he appears on the 1790 federal census in Burke County, North Carolina, next to Jacob Hollingsworth, with a male over 16 in his household and one female.[4] Both Jacob and Benjamin are near Benjamin J. Wofford’s father William Wofford on this census.

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Children of Mary Brooks (1745/1750 – aft. 15 May 1815) and Jacob Hollingsworth (1742 – 1822) — Hannah Hollingsworth (1769-1841) and Husband Daniel Brown

William D. Lindsey5 Comments

Captain John Seawell Brown (1814-1893) from his Find a Grave memorial page, Pleasant Gardens cemetery, Burke County, North Carolina; created by Richard Brown, photo uploaded by rkl

Or, Subtitled: “A Rich Jeffersonian History … Self-Sustaining Farmers of Multiple Children”

As my last posting states, I have not done exhaustive research on the family of Jacob Hollingsworth (1742-1822) and Mary Brooks (1745/1750 – after 15 May 1815). That posting also ends by telling you that, in subsequent postings, I’ll share the bits and pieces of information I have about the children of Jacob and Mary Brooks Hollingsworth. Since I have not researched the descendants of Jacob and Mary in any systematic way, it might be best to regard what I’m going to share about them in a series of postings as a guide to further research rather than a comprehensive account of these families and records about them.

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Children of Mary Brooks (d. 1787, Frederick County, Virginia) — Mary Brooks (1745/1750 – aft. 15 May 1815) and Husband Jacob Hollingsworth (1742 – 1822)

William D. Lindsey5 Comments
Fort Hollingsworth, photograph (June 2015) by Wikimedia user Gwringle, at the Fort Hollingsworth-White House page at Wikimedia Commons

Or, Subtitled: Migration of Families with Quaker Roots from Pennsylvania through North Carolina into Northwest Georgia by 1790

Chester County, Pennsylvania, Beginnings of Jacob Hollingsworth

Alpheus H. Harlan, History and Genealogy of the Harlan Family, and Particularly of the Descendants of George and Michael Harlan, Who Settled in Chester County, Pa., 1687 (Baltimore: Lord Baltimore Press, 1914), p. 33

As has been noted previously, Jacob Hollingsworth, who married Mary Brooks about 1767-8, was the son of Samuel Hollingsworth and Barbara Shewin of Chester County, Pennsylvania. In his history of the Harlan family long connected to the Hollingsworths, Alpheus Harlan indicates that Jacob was born about 1740 or 1742.[1] According to J. Adger Stewart in his classic study of descendants of Valentine Hollingsworth, the immigrant ancestor, the first son of Samuel and Barbara Shewin Hollingsworth, also named Samuel, was born about 1740.[2] Stewart evidently bases this estimated birthdate on the fact that Samuel and Barbara married in 1738. He does not suggest a birthdate for Jacob, but implies that Jacob was born about 1742. As Alpheus Harlan notes, Samuel Hollingsworth was a farmer of Birmingham township in Chester County, and died there in November 1751.[3] This suggests that Jacob Hollingsworth was born in Birmingham township in Chester County.

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