Tag: William Wofford

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) — 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 (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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The Children of William Lindsey (abt. 1733-abt. 1806): Dennis Lindsey (abt. 1755-1795) (4)

William D. Lindsey2 Comments

Dennis Lindsey Probate File 1
12 January 1795 bond of Mary Lindsey with Nathaniel Woodruff and William Moore, in loose-papers estate file of Dennis Lindsey, Spartanburg County, South Carolina, Probate Court, estate file 1111

Or, Subtitled: Cittles, Chears, Coffy Pots, and Canters: What Can Be Gleaned from an Estate File

Dennis Lindsey’s Estate Documents: Prefatory Comments

Estate or probate files (or, in Louisiana, they’re called succession files) can, in my experience, run the gamut from genealogically astonishing — they can name all the heirs of the decedent and identify them as full or half-siblings, for instance — to disappointing. Too many of my ancestors left wills naming “my wife and all my children,” and estate files that show their estate being inventoried, appraised, and sold, without including any division of the proceeds of the estate naming the heirs of the decedent. Continue reading “The Children of William Lindsey (abt. 1733-abt. 1806): Dennis Lindsey (abt. 1755-1795) (4)” →

The Children of Dennis Linchey/Lindsey (abt. 1700-1762): William Lindsey (abt. 1733-abt. 1806) (2)

William D. Lindsey2 Comments

Spartanburg County 1825 Mills Atlas Map, Library of Congress
Robert Mills, “Spartanburgh District, South Carolina,” from Mills’ Atlas of the State of South Carolina (Baltimore: F. Lucas, Jr., 1825); in the Library of Congress, call number G3913.S7 1820.M5, and digitized at the LOC website

Or, Subtitled: A Reminder of How Much We Can Learn from Migration Patterns and Land Records

Settling in South Carolina

By July 1768, William Lindsey was claiming land north of the Enoree River in what would later become Spartanburg County, South Carolina. For those interested in the currents of migration that brought early settlers to Spartanburg County, a good research aid is Frank Scott’s essay entitled “Migrations into Spartanburg Co.” at the SCGenweb site for Spartanburg County. As Scott notes, “After the French and Indian War, the Snow Campaign and a treaty that ceded the Cherokees’ claim to Spartanburg County, the area was finally opened to permanent settlement.” This brought an influx of settlers to the area between 1765-1770. Continue reading “The Children of Dennis Linchey/Lindsey (abt. 1700-1762): William Lindsey (abt. 1733-abt. 1806) (2)” →