Tombstone of Catherine Calhoun, Long Cane massacre site in McCormick County, South Carolina, near Troy in Greenwood County, photo by David Gillespie
I began my recent posting about Patrick Colhoun, Catherine Montgomery’s husband and immigrant progenitor of the Calhoun family that settled in the Long Cane region of South Carolina in February 1756, by stating that not a great deal is known with certainty about Patrick. In that posting, I tried to pinpoint what is known with certainty, and to sort fact from the abundant fiction that has passed down in accounts of the early days of this family in America, including the claim that his name was James or James Patrick, when it was, in fact, plain Patrick.
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.
Augusta County, Virginia, Chancery Court case, Whitlock vs. Whitlock, box 10, file 38 (1803-4), available digitally via Library of Virginia’s Virginia Memory chancery records collection
Or, Subtitled: “He was Living in the House with Thomas Whitlock at the time his Sone Charles was killd by the fall of a tree”
The next child of Thomas Whitlock (abt. 1745 – 1830) and wife Hannah Phillips, their third child if I have their children in correct order, was a son Charles Whitlock. A number of previous postings contain biographical information about Charles. As I state in a previous posting, in my view, Thomas and his siblings were likely raised by their older brother Charles after the Whitlock parents, James Whitlock and Agnes Christmas, died, James in 1749 in Louisa County, Virginia, and Agnes between 1750 and 1757, probably also in Louisa.
I don’t have documentary proof of my deduction that, as the oldest of James and Agnes’s children, Thomas’s brother Charles brought his younger siblings to Albemarle County, where he lived from 1760 or a bit earlier up to around 1780, when he moved to Surry County, North Carolina. But such information as I have suggests to me that this is what happened. As the posting linked above states, in my view Thomas Whitlock named his only son Charles after the older brother who raised him.
Undated [1804] survey of Thomas Whitlock’s land, Wythe County, Virginia, in Augusta County, Virginia, Chancery Court case, Whitlock vs. Whitlock, box 10, file 38 (1803-4), available digitally via Library of Virginia’s Virginia Memory chancery records collection
Or, Subtitled: In Which I Read the Fusty Old Documents and Summarize Them, Saving You the Trouble
As the previous posting tells you, in this posting I’m going to discuss the lawsuit filed in September 1799 by William Davies, guardian of Agnes and Hannah Whitlock, the orphan daughters of Thomas Whitlock’s son Charles, which ended with Thomas’s sale of his land in Wythe County, Virginia, in 1805 and with his and wife Hannah’s move to Cumberland County, Kentucky.
Or, Subtitled: Road Orders, Estate Appraisals, and Dams Interfering with Fishingfor Catfish
I’m now picking up the story of Thomas Whitlock’s life in 1790, when Wythe County was formed from Montgomery, where Thomas was living from before March 1776. If you click the “previous post” link beneath this posting, that will take you to the posting that precedes this one, and if you want to read the entire series of postings I’ve now written about Thomas Whitlock, simply click “previous posting” at the bottom of each new posting you open in the series.
Mary B. Kegley, Early Adventurers on the Western Waters, vol. 3 (Wytheville: Kegley Books, 1995), pp. 334-5
As the previous posting told you, I’ll now begin sharing the information I have about Thomas Whitlock’s years in Montgomery and Wythe Counties, Virginia, from 1776 to 1805, when he and wife Hannah moved to Cumberland County, Kentucky, from Wythe County, Virginia. Wythe was formed from Montgomery in 1790, and Thomas’s land fell into Wythe County at that point.
NARA, Compiled Service Records of Soldiers Who Served in the American Army During the Revolutionary War, Virginia, 7th Regiment, #2577, RG 93, available digitally at Fold3
Or, Subtitled: What a Close Reading of an Historical Document Might Reveal
Or, Subtitled: “Sir, this is to let you no that you may let robert humprey hav mareg lisons”
Jesse Brooks, son of Thomas Brooks and Margaret Beaumont/Beamon, was born in Frederick County, Virginia, in 1783-1786. His death listing in the 1860 death register of Edmonson County, Kentucky, shows him dying in that county on 30 January 1860, aged 75.[1] A digital image of the death listing is above. This document states that Jesse’s parents were Thomas and Margaret Brooks and that he was born in Virginia.
Will of Thomas Brooks, 4 November 1804, Wythe County, Virginia, Wythe County, Virginia, Will Bk. 1, pp. 308-9
Or, Subtitled: Fertile New Land, Lead Mines, Shot Towers and Forges, and Movement from the Middle Colonies into the Valley of Virginia
With my first posting about Thomas Brooks (abt. 1747-1805), I shared my information about Thomas’s life in Frederick County, Virginia, up to 1792, when he moved his family to Wythe County, Virginia. My account begins with a March 1767 deed of Patrick Rice to his son John, which Thomas witnessed, the first certain record I have of him in Frederick County. Since, as my posting indicates, I have not found information about Thomas’s father, I haven’t been able to track this family line sufficiently to say with any certainty where Thomas Brooks was born — a point to which I’ll return when I discuss in more detail the information I have about Thomas’s mother Mary, who made her will in Frederick County on 9 July 1786, with the will being probated on 4 April 1787.
Thomas Brooks’s affidavit, 10 March 1804, Wayne County, Kentucky, in Whitlock v. Whitlock, Commonwealth of Virginia Chancery District Court, Staunton, box 10, file 38
Or, Subtitled: “A Rough Hardy Race of Men, Very Large & Stout, & Altogether an Excellent Population, for a New Country”
Thomas and Sarah Brooks Establish Their Young Family in Kentucky (1798-9)
In the previous posting about Thomas Brooks (1775-1838), I track him up to 1798, when he moved with wife Sarah Whitlock and infant daughter Jane from Wythe County, Virginia, to Pulaski (soon to be Wayne) County, Kentucky. As that posting notes, when the Brooks family made that move, Thomas and Sarah were a young couple, he 23 and she 24. You may have noticed that the previous postings discussing the Virginia beginnings of this Brooks family cited no records for Thomas in Wythe County other than tax records — with the exception of the record in his family bible stating that Thomas and Sarah married 14 February 1796.
Begats and Bequeathals 