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Gc 973.34 All1m 2040258
M. L.
REYNOLDS HISTORICAL GENEALOGY COLLECTION
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ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01079 0290
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X. REVOLUTIONARY SOLDIERS BURIED IN ALABAMA.
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Publications of the Alabama Historical Society, volume 5
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X. REVOLUTIONARY SOLDIERS BURIED ÍN ALABAMA.
"Names that adorn and dignify the scroll, Whose leaves contain the nation's history."
-Fits Greene Halleck.
BY MRS. P. H. MELL, Clemson College, S. C. Late State Historian, Alabama Division, Daughters of the American Revolution.
The writer offers these brief biographical sketches of Revolu- tionary soldiers, pioneer settlers of Alabama, with the hope that they may prove of interest to the citizens now living in the State. These soldiers came to Alabama when this country, now so rich and populous, was a wilderness of dense forests and swamps, peo- pled by savages and wild animals. Trees fell before the sturdy strokes of their axes, lands were cleared and cabins built; so homes were made and bravely defended, and law and order began to reign over the land.
In studying the early history of any country it is of importance to know the characteristics of the settlers; not only the popular leaders, but representatives of all walks of life, for the sum total of individual histories and individual opinions makes up the his- tory and politics of the State. When the majority of the first set- tlers are law-abiding, patriotic men of good sense and firm prin- ciples, then the State will find her growth and prosperity assured.
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For a period of years after the Revolution, Alabama was any- thing but "a land of rest." The French struggle was over, but Spaniards, English, Americans and Indians contended for the mastery of the territory. This is probably the reason why there are no Revolutionary land grants to be found in the State. During the Revolution the white inhabitants of Alabama were loyal to the crown and therefore they were not entitled to bounty lands. The thirteen original States gave liberally to their soldiers. Ohio, Ken- tucky and Tennessee were thickly peopled with old soldiers and their families who settled on bounty lands. But there were no free lands in Alabama, prices were high and in 1819 public lands
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sold for as much or more at the sales in Huntsville and St. Ste- phens as the same land would bring to-day.
We therefore know that only a few hundred Revolutionary sol- diers settled in Alabama, while there were thousands in Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee. In 1840, Alabama has a list of only one hundred and eighty-nine in the United States Census of Pen- sioners, while Kentucky has over nine hundred and other States correspondingly large numbers.
The Alabama Daughters of the American Revolution are en- deavoring to locate and mark as many of the graves of these sol- diers as possible and also to learn something of the history of each soldier. This is a difficult task, for early histories of the first years of the State are condensed and bare of details, only prominent men and notable events being described. To find out anything about these heroes involves researches in family records, old newspapers, the few local histories which have been published, and inscriptions on tombstones in city cemeteries, country church- yards, and old plantation family burial grounds. This work will be continued from year to year until Alabama has been thoroughly explored for the last resting places of these pioneer heroes.
In preparing these sketches the writer is indebted for valuable information to Hon. Thomas M. Owen, Secretary of the Alabama Historical Society, and Director of the Department of Archives and History of Alabama; to the regents and members of the Alabama Daughters of the American Revolution chapters and also to the descendants of some of the soldiers.
CAPTAIN WILLIAM ARMISTEAD.
"Though mixed with earth their perishable clay, Their names shall live while glory lives to tell True to their country how they won the day."
The grave of this soldier is described in Ball's Clarke County, Alabama, pp. 475-6. We learn that a Capt. William Armi- stead of Virginia and three sons, Robert, Westwood and John, be- came citizens of Clarke. The father was a man of strong pecu- liarities, a gentleman of the old school, wearing knee buckles and retaining English tastes. Ile was twice married and had three sons and three daughters. One daughter married John Morriss, in North Carolina, and moved to Alabama; another daughter
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married Edmund Waddell, in North Carolina; the third married Dr. Neal Smith, a gentleman of prominence in his day.
The grave stands alone, neatly end'osed with rocks and pickets on a hill near Amity church in the family burial ground, on the plantation bequeathed by him to his son-in-law, Dr. Neal Smith, about ciglit miles from Grove Hill.
The following is a copy from the marble slab:
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In memory of CAPTAIN WILLIAM ARMISTEAD, a soldier of the Revolution, a native of Virginia, who departed this life March Ist, 1842, aged 80 years.
The following notes on the family and ancestry of Capt. Wil- liam Armistead are taken from the William and Mary Quar- terly,1 vols. vi, vii, viii :
Capt. William Armistead was doubtless a son of Anthony Arm- istead and brother of Anthony, Robert, Westwood and Alexan- der Carver. Two of his brothers were killed in the Revolution.
"It is to be regretted that so exhaustive and learned a genealogy as Presi- dent Tyler has prepared should be marred by so palpable an error as his suggestion that Captain William Armistead was the son of Anthony Armisteads; since he gives from the records the names of the latter's children by Mary, his wife, who long survived her husband (as the wife of one Williams), and William is not one of them; the supposition that he married, secondly, Elizabeth Lee, is out of the question.
Tyler's genealogy is so complete that he not only proves Capt. William Armistead not to have been a son of Anthony', but not even a grandson of Lieutenant-Colonel Anthony'.
There is no doubt in my mind that our Revolutionary soldier was a grandson of Anthony Armistead, of Warwick, son of William, a brother of Lieutenant-Colonel Anthony -for the locality of his birth, the names of his children (Westwood and Starkey), the ownership of land in North Carolina by that branch of the family and his own removal thither, are strong presumptive reasons for the belief; and they are clinched by the evident impossibility of his having been the grandson of Anthony", of Elizabeth City. Note, especially, that while the Westwoods were kinsmen of both the Elizabeth City and Warwick families, the Starkeys were kin to the latter alone.
It must be remembered that Elizabeth City and Warwick counties are adjacent, and together form but a small territory.
I hope to be able, in a short time, to contribute a note clarifying the question : who was Capt. Armistead's father ?-- W. B. NEWMAN, of Talla- dega, Ala.
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He saw his brother Westwood killed at the battle of Brandywine; and he himself joined the army when only sixteen years of age. We will give his line of descent from this interesting Virginia family.
(1) ANTHONY ARMISTEAD, of Kirk Deighton, Yorkshire, and Frances Thompson, his wife, of the same place, had issue:
(2) WILLIAM ARMISTEAD, baptized Aug. 3, 1610, in "All Saints Church," the only church in the parish of Kirk Deighton. He emigrated to Virginia about 1635, and obtained large grants of land in Elizabeth City county, and subsequently, Gloucester county. He died before 1660. He, married Anne - and had issue, among others :
(3) ANTHONY ARMISTEAD, ancestor of President Tyler, resided in Elizabeth City county. He was one of Sir William Berkeley's court-martial in 1676 to try the Bacon insurgents, justice of the peace, and captain of horse in 16So, burgess in 1693, 1696, 1699, and one of the committee in 1700 to report a revision of the laws, which was approved by the general assembly in 1705. Capt. Armistead married Hannah, daughter of Dr. Robert Ellyson, of James City county. This Robert Ellyson appears in the Maryland records as early as 1643 as "barber-chirurgeon" and after holding the office of sheriff of St. Mary's, emigrated to Virginia, where he was high sheriff of James City county, sergeant-at-arms of the house of burgesses in 1657-58, and a leading burgess in 1656, 1659-60, 1660-61, 1663, with the rank of captain. The wife of Capt. Anthony Armistead survived him, her will being proved in Elizabeth City court in 1728. They had issue, among others :
(4) ANTHONY ARMISTEAD, lieut .- col. of militia in 1724, jus- tice and high sheriff of Elizabeth City county, married, it is be- lieved twice; first, Anne, who united with Anthony Armistead in a deed in 1717; second, Elizabeth Westwood, sister of William Westwood. Anthony Armistcad's will was proved Dec. 18, 1728. He had children; several daughters who were affectionately re- membered by their nephew, Capt. William Armistead. One of his sons :
(5). ANTHONY ARMISTEAD married Mary, daughter of An- thony Tucker and Rosca, his wife. It is thought that there was a second marriage to Elizabeth Lee and that Capt. William Armis- tead was a child of this marriage. A family of Lees has long re-
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sided in the neighborhood of Elizabeth City county. Issue, among others :
(6) WILLIAM ARMISTEAD, the subject of this sketch, born 1762, died 1842. We append a copy of his Revolutionary ser- vices taken from the archives at Washington and sent to us with other information by his descendant, Mrs. Sallie Jones Feathers- ton, of Rome, Ga. After the Revolution he moved to Warren, thence to Randolph county, North Carolina, and married (1) Re- becca Kimbell, near Warrenton. The family Bible gives authentic information for the births of their children: I. Westwood, born Aug. 24, 1791 ; 2. John Kimbell, born Dec. 16, 1792; 3. Eliza- beth Lee, born Oct. 13, 1794; 4. Martha, born Sept. 1, 1796. He married (2) Elizabeth, widow of John Morriss and daughter of Mr. Lewis and his wife, Jane Westmoreland, of Halifax county, Va. His second wife had one son by her first husband, John Mor- riss. Issue by second marriage with Elizabeth Lewis: 5. Robert Starkey, born Nov. 5, 1800; 6. Jane Westmoreland, born April 10, 1802.
Capt. William Armistead moved in 1819 to Clarke county, Ala., and died there in 1842. His son, Westwood, married Elizabeth Boroughs, daughter of Bryan Boroughs and Sally Waddell, in North Carolina, came to Alabama and died in 1845. His children were James W., Bryan, William W., Robert S., Emma, who mar- ried - Cunningham, Elizabeth, married her second cousin, John Kimbell.
The second son of Capt. William Armistead, John Kimbell, married Julia Gaines. They lived in Wilcox county, Ala., thence he moved with his family to Mississippi about 1840. Issue : Wil- liam, James, Gen. Charles Armistead, of the Confederate army, John, and Dr. E. R. Armistead, of Prescott, Ala.
The third son of Capt. William Armistead, Robert Starkey, mar- ried Ann Carney, moved to Texas in IS35, and died in 1866, with- out issue.
The oldest daughter of William Armistead, Elizabeth Lee, mar- ried his step-son, John Morriss, and lived in Alabama; and his second daughter married Edmund Waddell of North Carolina, an uncle of Westwood Armistead's wife.
The youngest daughter of Capt. Armistead married in Ala- bama in 1821, Dr. Neal Smith, a native of Moore county, N. C.,
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son of Malcolm Smith. Malcolm Smith, and Malcolm Smith, Sr., were soldiers of the Revolution and though of Scotch descent, their worst foes were the "Scotch Tories." (See Ball's Clarke County, Ala., and Brewer's Alabama for sketches of Dr. Neal. Smith.) Issue: Julia Elizabeth, married ( 1) David White, a na- tive of Virginia, (2), James M. Jackson; Sarah Louisa married John B. Savage; Margaret A. married (1) Kirkland Harrison, of South Carolina, (2) Asa M. Lewis, of Texas; Robert Neal married Miss Watkins, from Virginia; Jane married James D. Bryant, of Wilcox county, Ala .; Martha Rebecca married (1) Richard Starkey Jones, of Selma, and (2) Mr. Rixey; Catharine Jeanet married Dr. H. G. Davis ; Mary Caroline married Thomas Boroughs, Jr.
The Revolutionary services of Capt. William Armistead, copied from archives at Washington, D. C., Record Book E, vol S, p. 9:
"William Armistead was born in Elizabeth City, Va., about 1762. He entered the U. S. service at Williamsburg, Va., under Captain Spiller Dent, 1777, Virginia State Troops; marched to Valley Forge, joined Muhlenburg Brigade; pursued the British on their retreat through Jersey; was in the battle of Monmouth; afterwards detached from Muhlenburg Brigade and attached to troops under command of General Wayne and Major Llewry ; marched to Hudson river; stationed between West Point and Stony Point for some time; was at the storming of Stony Point, 1779. After long service marched to New Brunswick on Raritan river ; remained in Philadelphia some time. After serving three years, marched back to Williamsburg, Va., and was there with the other troops regularly discharged."
William Armistead, of Clarke county, Ala., is down on the U. S. Pension List for 1840.
The following additional facts as to his family are supplied by William B. Newman, of Talladega :
John Morriss and his wife, Elizabeth Lee Armistead, had four children :
(1) William Armistead, married Naney, a sister of the late William J. Hearin, of Mobile.
(2) Rebecca Kimbell, married Thomas Boroughs, brother of Westwood Arnistead's wife.
(3) Washington.
(4) Martha Jane, married Samuel Forwood, a Marylander,
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who was executor, with Westwood Armistead, of William Armis- tead's will.
Rebecca Kimbell Morriss had by her husband, Thomas Bor- ouighs, the following children :
(1) Anne Elizabeth, married (1) Henley W. Coate, first judge of probate of Clarke; (2) James Addison Newman, of Orange county, Virginia.
(2) William Morriss, married Laura Jenkins, of Monroe county.
(3) Thomas, married his cousin, Mary Caroline Smith.
(4) Martha Jane, married her cousin, Captain Thomas Isham Kimbell, of Clarke.
(5). Rebecca, married Frank Stallworth, of Falls county, Texas, a native of Conecuh county, Ala.
(6) Mary Louise, died unmarried.
(7) Bryan, married Elizabeth, daughter of James Shelton Dick- inson, a member of the second Confederate congress.
REUBEN BLANKENSHIP.
"Simple they were, not savage; and their rifles Though very true were yet not used for trifles."
Reuben Blankenship is mentioned in the list of Alabama pen- sioners in the U. S. Census for 1840. His age then was given as seventy-three; so he was born about 1767 and was a youth dur- ing the Revolution. In 1840 he was living in Coosa county, and he was buried at Poplar Springs church in that county.
This information was given by D. B. Oden, of Childersburg, . Ala.
THOMAS BRADFORD.
"The night dew that falls though in silence it weeps Shall brighten with verdure the grass where he sleeps." -Thomas Moore.
The following description of the grave of this Revolutionary soldier was copied from Rev. T. H. Ball's Clarke County, Ala- bama, p. 476. The writer has endeavored vainly by correspond- ence and advertisements to obtain information of the life and de- scendants of Mr. Bradford. Apparently he is totally forgotten by the world and "in this secluded nool: where peace and quiet reign,
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this honored soldier sleep his last long dreamless sleep forever." Ball says :
"Not many miles north of Amity church, on this same Choctaw line, stands the grave and memorial stone of another Revolution- ary soldier.
"THOMAS BRADFORD .- A slight enclosure surrounds this lone burial spot, and the headstone, with its few and simple words, re- minds every passer-by of man's mortality, and also that the dust is sleeping there of one of the soldiers of '76, the Immortal Band of whom a South Carolina patriot, and eloquent Christian lawyer, asks the touching, the thrilling question, 'Shall they meet again in the amaranthine bowers of spotless purity, of perfect bliss, of eternal glory?'
"Thomas Bradford had two sons, Brasil and Nathan."
JAMES CALDWELL,
"Green be the graves where our heroes are lying."
This Revolutionary soldier is buried in the cemetery at old Da- visville, in Callioun county, Ala., one and one-half miles south of Iron City station, twelve miles east of Anniston, on the Southern railroad. The "oldest inhabitant" could give no information con- cerning the soldier.
The tomb is built of brick; about 8 feet long, 63 feet wide, and 5 feet high. The shingles of the roof are badly rotted. A plain marble tablet is let into the wall of the tomb, bearing this inscrip- tion :
Sacred to the memory of . JAMES CALDWELL, who died October 2nd, 1847; in the 98th year of his age. He was a soldier of the Revolution.
The above account was furnished by W. B. Bowling, of Lafay- ctte, Ala.
Efforts have been made in vain to find the history of this old sol- dier. It is said that he came from South Carolina. He is another one of those forgotten heroes whose graves are scattered over the State.
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"To forget the heroic past, is to introduce the germ of future decay."
JERRY CHANCELLOR.
"After life's fitful fever he sleeps well."
This soldier of the Revolution is buried in a country church- yard at Pine Level Methodist church, in Autauga county, eighteen miles west of Montgomery.
A short sketch of the life of Jerry Chancellor may be found in the Memorial Record of Alabama, vol. ii., p. 895. He was born in England and canie to America with his father and two brothers, when sixteen years of age. This was during the Revolutionary war. After remaining a short time in Virginia, the father and his two oldest sons, William and Jerry, came to South Carolina, Icav- ing the youngest son, Jackson Chancellor, in Virginia. Tradition says that Chancellorsville, Virginia, was named for the family of this youngest son.
When the Chancellors arrived in South Carolina they found the war raging violently all around them and it became necessary for them to decide what their own course should be. The father, whose loyalty to England could not be shaken, told his sons that he should join the British; the sons declared that they admired the Americans for standing up for their rights and they intended to cast their lots with the people of their adopted country. The father and sons never met again, but fought on opposite sides un- til the close of the Revolutionary war. We do not know in what regiment Jerry Chancellor served, but Saffell's Records, p. 293, states that Nov. 1, 1779, William Chancellor was a private in the South Carolina regiment commanded by Lieut. Col. Francis Mar- ion, Seventh Company, Thomas Dunbar, captain.
Jerry Chancellor married Galatea Gilbert and settled in South Carolina after the Revolution, where he remained until I81S, when he organized a colony in South Carolina and came with them to Alabama. They settled on the Autauga side of the Alabama river. He remained with this colony until his death. Descend- ants of Jerry Chancellor are now living in Childersburg and in Coosa county. His grandson, William S. Chancellor, was one of the oldest Masons in Alabama.
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JAMES COLLIER.
"And who were they our fathers? In their veins Kan the best blood of England's gentlemen, Her bravest in the strife on battie plains, Her wisest in the strife of voice and pen."
-Halleck.
James Collier, a Revolutionary soldier, is buried on his planta- tion near Triana, Madison county, Alabama, about twenty miles from Huntsville.
His wife is buried beside him and their monuments, with in- scriptions, are now standing in a full state of preservation in the old family burying ground. The inscriptions are as follows:
To the memory of JAMES COLLIER, who was born in Lunenburg Co., Va., Oct. 13th, A. D. 1757, and died the 20th of August, A. D. 1832. "And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: whom I shall see for myself and my eyes shall behold and not another."
To the memory of ELIZABETH BOULDIN,
of Charlotte Co., Va., wife of James Collier, who was born the 13th of Feb., A. D. 1763, and died the 23d of Feb., A. D. 1828.
"All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as
a flower of the field, for the wind passeth over it and it is gone and the place thereof shall know it no more."
James Collier was the son of Cornelius Collier and Elizabeth Wyatt, of Lunenburg county, Va., He was descended from Charles Collier, of King and Queen county, Va., on his father's side, and his mother was nearly related to Sir Francis Wyatt, Co- lonial governor of Virginia. It was the old flax wheel of his (James Collier's) cousin, Mary Collier, the ancestor of the late Prof. G. Brown Goode, which suggested the insignia of the Daughters of the American Revolution. James Collier was wounded at the battle of Eutaw Springs by a sabre cut across his check, in a hand-to-hand encounter with a British soldier. He killed the soldier and carried the scar on his face to his grave. His brother, Wyatt Collier, was killed at the same battle when only a boy.
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James Collier married Elizabeth Bouldin, July 3, 1788, daughter of James Bouldin and Sally Watkins, of Charlotte county, Va. He was a large land owner in Lunenburg county and resided there until 1802, when he, with his little family, followed his father and other relatives to Abbeville District, South Carolina. He was a large planter in that State until 1818, when he followed his sons to the territory of Alabama, his older sons having settled in that part of the Mississippi territory, now Alabama, in 1812. He settled on a large plantation in Madison county, where he lived and died.
His wife, Elizabeth Bouldin, was the daughter of James Boul- din, who was the oldest son of Colonel Thomas Bouldin of Co- lonial fame, who settled in Lunenburg (now Charlotte) county, Virginia, in 1744, coming from Pennsylvania. His wife was Nancy Clark, nicce of Captain Richard Wood of the English navy. This family of Bouldins are noted for their intellect and their love for the legal profession. Virginia boasts there has never been a generation without a judge, even to the present day. This couple left a large family of sons, but there were only four grandsons among the grandchildren. Governor Henry Watkins Collier was a son of James Collier. He was closely connected with the politics of Alabama from 1822 until his death in 1855.
The ancestry of James Collier is as follows :
(1) Charles Collier of King and Queen county, Virginia. One of his children,-
(2) John Collier, Sr., (1680-1735), who was married three times, by his third wife, Nancy Eyres, had issue, among others :
(3) Cornelius Collier, born 1725, married Elizabeth Wyatt in Gloucester county, Va., about 1750, lived in Lunenburg county, Va., was a soldier in the Revolution and moved to Abbeville Dis- trict, South Carolina in 1788; he had four sons and one of them was-
(4) James Collier, the subject of this sketch.
The facts of this article were furnished by his great-grand- daughter, Miss Elizabeth R. Benagh. James Collier is mentioned in the Memorial Record of Alabama, vol. ii, p. 415.
REV. ROBERT CUNNINGHAM. "Soldier of Christ, well done!"
Rev. Robert Cunningham lies buried near the central part of the old cemetery in Tuscaloosa. A stately marble shaft marks
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his grave ; the epitaph which covers the four sides of the shaft is in Latin, showing among other things that he had been a soldier of the Revolution, and pastor of Presbyterian churches in Georgia and in Lexington, Kentucky.
These inscriptions are as follows :
On the west face :
Hic Sepultus Jacet Vir ille Admodum reverendus ROBERTUS M. CUNNINGHAM, D. D. Belli Revolutionis, Americanae miles fidelis. etiamque Crucis Domini Jesu Christi :
On the east face :
Ecclesiae Presb. in Republica Georgiae Pastor Multos annos. Et in urbe Lexingtonia Rep. Kentuckiensis Eundem honorem tulit.
On the south face :
Qui De Religione, de Patria Optime meritus : Maximo suorum et bonorum omnium Desiderio Mortem obiit, Die Jul. XI : Anno Domini : MDCCCXXXIX : Aetatis suac LXXX.
On the north face :
Uxor dilectissima Hoc monumentum ponendum Curavit.
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The facts concerning the life of this distinguished man are mostly taken from Saunders' Early Settlers of Alabama, p. 197. The author says that the importance of historical societies is shown from the fact that very little information could be ob- tained for this biography from any source until he wrote to the Presbyterian Historical Society of Philadelphia, when he promptly received a circumstantial account of the events of his life.
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