Loose-papers estate file of Hugh Calhoun, Abbeville County, South Carolina, box 18, pkg. 287
I’ve just added a few new pieces of information to my previous posting discussing Ezekiel Colhoun, son of Ezekiel Calhoun and Jean/Jane Ewing, and wanted to draw readers’ attention to this new material. As I worked last week on organizing my information about Patrick Colhoun, immigrant progenitor of the Calhoun family of the Long Cane settlement in the South Carolina upcountry, I did some research regarding a Hugh Calhoun who seems to be related to the family of Patrick Colhoun, and who died in Abbeville County, South Carolina, in 1799.
About Patrick Colhoun, the immigrant ancestor and father of Ezekiel Calhoun and his siblings Mary (Noble), James, William, and Patrick Calhoun, not a great deal is known with certainty. What researchers have thought they’ve known over the years has often turned out to be wrong, as such scant documentary evidence as we now have about Patrick has emerged. A case in point is the longstanding tradition that this immigrant ancestor was named James Calhoun and not Patrick. As Brian Anton explains in an excellent must-read article at his Genealogy of the Calhoun Family site, for quite some time there was confusion due to a persistent tradition, including among some members of the Calhoun family itself, that the given name of the immigrant ancestor was James – when the sparse documentation that has survived for this immigrant progenitor now shows he was named Patrick.[1]
The Statutes at Large of South Carolina: Containing the acts from 1786, exclusive, to 1814, inclusive, arranged chronologically (Columbia: Johnson, 1839), p. 495
In a previous posting, I discussed the difficulties I encounter as I try to pinpoint when the last three children of Ezekiel Calhoun and Jean/Jane Ewing were born. As I note in that posting and previous ones linked in that same posting, I am confident that Ezekiel’s will names his sons and daughters – in separate lists, sons in one list, daughters in another – by order of birth. Ezekiel’s son Ezekiel is named following Patrick and would have been Ezekiel Calhoun’s last son, and Jean/Jane is named after her sister Catherine and would have been Ezekiel Calhoun’s last daughter.
18 December 1779 letter of Major Alexander Noble to General William Moultrie, in Preston Davie Collection, 1560-1903, collection 3406, Wilson Special Collections Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, available digitally
Or, Subtitled: “I am your Obedient HblServt. Alexdr. Noble Majr”
Establishing Catherine’s Birthdate
As a previous posting notes, the will that Catherine Calhoun’s father Ezekiel Calhoun made on 3 September 1759 in Granville (later Abbeville) County, South Carolina, appears to name his sons and daughters by their order of birth, with the sons listed separately from the daughters.[1] Ezekiel’s will lists Catherine after her sisters Mary and Rebecca. Rebecca’s date of birth, 18 November 1745, appears on her tombstone in Old Stone Church cemetery at Clemson in Pickens County, South Carolina.[2] The next child in the family of Ezekiel Calhoun and Jean or Jane Ewing is thought to have been their son John Ewing Colhoun, who was born in either 1749 or 1752, as we’ve seen.
Ezekiel Calhoun’s will, South Carolina Will Bk. 1760-7, pp. 181-2
This posting is a continuation of a series about Ezekiel Calhoun which began with this previous posting, which focused on the Calhoun family’s years in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, after they arrived there from County Donegal, Ireland, in 1733, their subsequent move to Reed Creek in Augusta (later Wythe) County, Virginia, before October 1745, and their relocation to the Long Cane area of Granville (later Abbeville) County, South Carolina, in 1755.
4 May 1743 bond of Ezekiel and William Calhoun with John Noble and James Mitchell for administration of estate of Patrick Calhoun, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, in probate records of Lancaster County copied by George T. Edson in 1936; a photocopy is in the John C. Calhoun papers at South Caroliniana library, University of South Carolina, Columbia
In this and a subsequent posting (a two-part series), I’ll be discussing Ezekiel Calhoun (abt. 1720 – 1762), son of Patrick Colhoun and Catherine Montgomery, the immigrant ancestors of this Calhoun family. Ezekiel was the father of Mary Calhoun Kerr, who was previously discussed. Ezekiel’s life history moves from County Donegal, Ireland, where he was born, to Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, where his parents settled in 1733, to Augusta (later Wythe) County, Virginia, where the Calhoun family moved from Pennsylvania by October 1745, and finally to the Long Cane settlement of what became Abbeville County, South Carolina, where the family settled in February 1756 — though, as we’ll see, Ezekiel died back in Virginia on a trip he made there at the end of his life to check on his property in Augusta County.
Begats and Bequeathals 