Or, Subtitled: “An old Virginia family of English ancestry”
In a previous posting, I shared digital images of Mildred Whitlock Hurst’s Virginia death certificate and her death listing in the 1854 death register of Wythe County, Virginia.[1] Both death records give Mildred’s age as 70 when she died 8 June 1854 Reed Island Creek in Wythe County, Virginia. This places her birth in 1784. Her parents Thomas Whitlock and Hannah Phillips were living on Little Reed Island Creek in Wythe County at the time of her birth.
Photo of Williams Tavern from Library of Congress’s Prints and Photographs Division, at “Williams Tavern Restaurant,” Encyclopedia of Arkansas
Or, Subtitled: “He loved the stars and stripes as he loved his own soul, and he could not discuss the subject of secession, or hear it discussed, without getting as mad as a hornet“
I ended my previous posting about Nancy Whitlock (1778-1863) and her husband Abner Bryson (1770-1836) by telling you that the next posting would provide information about this couple’s children and about Abner’s ancestry. As I’ve begun researching the children of Abner and Nancy Whitlock Bryson, I find I’m gathering so much information that I need to break my postings about the children of this couple into several pieces. In this posting, I’m going to focus on Abner and Nancy’s first two children, Thomas Whitlock Bryson and Catharine Bryson Williams.
13 November 1839 account of Jane Brooks Lindsey in loose-papers estate file of Thomas Brooks held by Morgan County Archives
Or, Subtitled: “They were married together February 14, in the year of our Lord 1796“
Sarah Whitlock was, if I have the children of Thomas Whitlock and Hannah Phillips ordered correctly, the couple’s fourth child. Sarah’s my 4th-great-grandmother. I’ve shared all that I know about her life in a number of previous postings. As this previous posting states, Sarah’s name is recorded in a family bible that belonged to her and her husband Thomas Brooks, and which passed from them to their oldest son Charles Brooks.[1] This bible is discussed in another previous posting.
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.
William Jasper Henderson, wife Larcena, and his mother Elizabeth Hammons Henderson — Find a Grave memorial page for William Jasper Henderson, Harris cemetery, Fayette County, Texas, created by Shara Hatcher, photo uploaded by Amanda Canion
In my last posting, I stated that John Hammons’s daughter Elizabeth appears to have been born 1805-1810, and that she married a Henderson, according to Becky Shrader’s testimony about John’s children in 1831. I also concluded that, because Elizabeth is not named in the 1838 list of John’s children the linked posting cites, she had died between 1831-8. And I indicated that I had not been able to determine the name of her Henderson husband.
Or, Subtitled: “There are six now living, two dead“
In what follows, I’ll tell you what I know of the children of John Hammons and his wife who was a daughter of Thomas Whitlock and whose given name I have not discovered. I do not have proof positive that all of these children were born to John’s Whitlock wife, but since documents listing them as his children never indicate that any of these children were half-siblings to each other, I think it’s safe to assume that all are children of John’s Whitlock wife. Note that, according to Betsy Shrader in her 1831 affidavit cited below, John Hammons had two children in addition to the six listed below, who died prior to 1828 and of whose names I have not seen a record.
Or, Subtitled: “Defts who first being duly sworn on the Holy Evangalists depose as follows“
Warren County, Tennessee, Years, 1807-1819
As the previous posting indicates, John Hammons Jr. disappears from the Wayne County tax list after 1807, when he moved with his father and brothers Leroy and Woodson to Warren County, Tennessee. On 7 August 1807, John entered 100 acres in White County by virtue of warrant #1686. The land entry states that the land was assigned to John by D. Ross by his attorney J. (or T.?) Hopkins, assignee of Stokely Donelson, assignee of Patrick Hamilton. The entry was location #143 in the 3rd district, and adjoined John’s occupant claim, location #141 and Martin Harpool.[1]
Or, Subtitled: A Cross-Slit and Underkeel in Each Ear — The Value of Earmarks in Genealogy
According to Margaret Austin of Bay Village, Ohio, who researched the Hammons family exhaustively for years and shared her research notes with me in April 1997, Thomas Whitlock’s son-in-law John Hammons appears to have been born about 1770-2. Margaret based this date on the fact that John Hammons Jr. appears on a jury list in Patrick County, Virginia, on 13-14 August 1793 in the cases of Lyne vs. King and Adams vs. Mankin and Keaton.[1] Margaret Austin’s notes also state that John Hammonds Jr. provided a deposition on 8 October 1792 in the Patrick County case of Dickerson vs. Laurance, and was sued on 13 May 1793 for debt in Patrick County in the case of Senter vs. Hammonds Jr. Note the variant spellings of the surname: Hammons and Hammonds (as well as Hammon/Hammond).
Cumberland County, Kentucky, Will Bk. B, pp. 428-430
Or, Subtitled: A “Coffy” Mill, Kows, Chears, a Barrel of “Dryed” Apples, and a Large Bible
This posting is a continuation of a previous one discussing Thomas Whitlock’s final years in Cumberland County, Kentucky. That posting ended with a transcription of the will Thomas made on 22 January 1824 in Cumberland, County, which was proved in Cumberland County at May court 1830. As my final comments in the posting I’ve just linked state, in my view, Thomas likely died in 1830, perhaps in May or shortly before May. In what follows, I’ll discuss Thomas Whitlock’s estate documents, which include an estate inventory and appraisal, an account of the sale of his estate, and a final settlement.
Cumberland County, Kentucky, Will Bk. B, pp. 423-4
Or, Subtitled: “There is after 175 years of farming an air of peace and plenty — good homes, big barns, fat cattle, tall corn and tobacco, set mostly in wide valleys between low hills“
It has been quite some time, hasn’t it, since I told readers following my series of postings about Thomas Whitlock (abt. 1745 – 1830) that, having disposed of his land in Wythe County, Virginia, in May 1805 and moved to Cumberland County, Kentucky (perhaps with a brief sojourn in Surry County, North Carolina), I’d complete Thomas’s story by discussing his years in Kentucky? After I promised to do that, I spent two weeks at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, and since that time, have been busy sharing notes here on items I found during that research trip which fill in gaps in previous postings on this blog.
Begats and Bequeathals 