<
Previous
Down the Blue Ridge
By the middle
of the century, the Talbots, the Meads and the Hailes were settled in Lunenburg County, Virginia (out of
which Bedford was later formed).
Although Bedford was another center of
Quakerism, the families became active Baptists. They held
various county and municipal
offices. Nicholas Haile
served as County Justice in 1749, William Mead took
up surveying, became a county
official and lieutenant in the militia (eventually he acquired the rank
of
colonel in the Continental
Army). Talbot
and Haile undertook a grist mill on what is still called
Hale's
Mill Creek. In about 1752, Nicholas's
widowed daughter Mary married Talbot's son Matthew
jr.
(1729-1812). Other Baltimore County families also turn up in
Bedford. The 1750 List of Tithes (drawn up by Nicholas Haile)
includes his inlaws the Merrimans as well as the Baltimore family
Wheat, who now reside at "Haile's Fork" (of the Otter River which
flows through Bedford town).
Although Baltimore County was to remain a refuge,
the Nicholas Hailes had now removed to beyond the fall
line of the James and the Rappahannock. At this time,
Virginia extended all the way to the Mississippi River.
After
Governor
Spotswood
probed the back country in 1716, the territory was named after
George II's mother, Augusta of Saxe-Gotha. Augusta County lay along
the
path
of the great migration down the Blue Ridge from Pennsylvania into the
Carolinas.
Quakers from Pennsylvania were not the
only dissenters settling here. Presbyterian
Scots-Irish, originally from England, but driven from there into
northern Ireland, had come to Pennsylvania. Some of them
entered the Shenandoah Valley via Staunton, and purchased acreage in
the Beverley Patent, granted in the name of George
II in 1736. William Beverley's tenure on this vast tract was predicated
on
inducing permanent settlers into the back country, and the McClure
family
must
have struck him as
substantial folk. Although he had put
land up for sale at ₤ 1 sterling per
40 acres, the McClures appear to have got it at a tiny fraction of that. The first known
schoolhouse in Augusta County
was on James McClure's tract "at the foot of a hill in the meadow."
James became a charter member
of the
Tinkling Spring Presbyterian Church in 1740, one of whose first
tasks was to obtain a Presbyterian minister from County Donegal, the
thirty-year-old John Craig.
That
church is still thriving near the
Fishersville exit from I-64. A few miles east of the church,
along the South River
in present day Waynesboro, young Andrew McClure took 370 acres in
1738.
His father, James, bought an adjoining 408 acres in 1739, and another
359 acres
in 1749.
This James McClure (1685-1761) had been a tailor in Raphoe, County
Donegal. When he sailed with his
wife Agnes and seven
children into Delaware Bay, his was probably not
the only McClure family among the large Scots-Irish emigration to
Pennsylvania. In 1732, his 72-year-old father, James Arthur
McClure, died at sea. Was this on the same ship with his son's
family?
Shortly after the McClures had
settled in the Shenandoah Valley, Nicholas and Anne Long Haile were
founding a new home on the other side of the Blue Ridge.
Their move there occurred sometime between the
birth of their
youngest child in Baltimore County (1743) and the marriage of their
eldest daughter up in
Bucks County(1750), that is to say, between King
George's War and the French and Indian War, when the colonists
found themselves drawn into England's
quarrel with France. Since France was allied with the hostile
Indians, their defeat of the young Colonel Washington, and their
subsequent
ambush and destruction of General Braddock's forces at the forks of the
Allegheny and Monongahela posed a dire threat to the entire route
along which
families were settling in Virginia. Nicholas's family
passed near where Mary Draper Ingles
was living in 1755, when she was robbed from her
home by the Shawnee. She gave birth to a child
while her captors were rushing
her down the Ohio River, but she at last made her
famous
escape into the wilderness
and accomplished a long, arduous return home.
Virginians were
held to a scrupulous policy toward the Indians, even during this time
of open warfare. In
an attempt to shield the colonists, Colonel Washington
founded a "chain
of
forts" from Maryland along the Blue Ridge to North Carolina.
Among
Washington's correspondence are letters from John Blair
(1731-1800), president of the
Governor's Council in
Williamsburg (later to become one of the signers of the
Constitution and, after Washington became President, a justice of
the
United States
Supreme Court). In May of 1758, young Blair wrote
to
Washington on the subject of
funds and recruits for the colonial militia. As he was writing,
more pressing business arose. Blair wrote
Last Saturday brot. me an Accot. of a
large party of Indians who in passing thro' Bedford spread themselves
in smaller Companys many Miles wide and Robb'd every Plantation they
came at. This provoked the Inhabitants to a great degree; Col:
Talbot sent out Militia to protect them, who came up with a Party of
them and seeing some of their Horses demanded restitution; but the
indians answered they must fight for them, and fired upon them, and
killed one Man; whereupon they fired upon the Indians and killed some
of them. But to save my writing I send you the accounts I
received, having ordered a strict enquiry to be made above, by Col:
Read, Colo. Talbott and Col. Maury, which when transmitted to me I
purpose to send by express to Govr. Lyttleton to beg his Assistance, to
prevent the disaffection of the Nation and the ill consequences that
might ensue on a misrepresentation . . . You may assure them if our Men
were the aggressors they will be severely punished and if the Indians
were guilty of what is charged upon them the Wise great Men our good
Friends will not blame what was done, but think they brought it upon
themeselves by their own folly.
. . . I am Sir Your very humbl Servt.
. . . John Blair
The Colonel Talbot whom Blair mentions is Nicholas Haile's
partner and Mary's father-in-law, William Talbot, age
fifty-nine.
The first of
Blair's enclosures is a letter which Colonel Talbot had addressed
to
the
clerk of Lunenberg County on May 3, 1758. Begging
for reinforcements. Talbot writes
I do everything I can to keep
a few men out on the frontiers of this County but alass I fear it will not be long they
wil Continue indeed it is very hard for men to be from there
plantations at this time of the year when they Should be planting Corn
to make the bread for their families . . . I am very uneasy
about the Cherokees there was about fifteen Came through the
Settlement where I Live and Spread themselves at least ten miles in
breadth and went to Every plantation in their way I Cant Say they did
much mischief or behaved very ill but their presence frithen the women
very much So much that if they be allowed to Come without white men . .
. with them I do not blieve our County will Stand a month Longer
there Came about nine or ten to my house they reley Seemd to me as if
they Came to See what white men and negroes we have and so see what our
Strengthe we are of, the people in general Seem to fear the return of
them with more force they made for Stanton [over the mountains,
about 50 miles north] they went to a
house where there was not any body but a man and his wife and rensacked
the house of every thing they thought Proper to take and I expect to
hear of Some murder Committed by them when they Get to the outward
Inhabitants . . . My son Matt [Mary's husband] is endeavoring to raise men to goe out
after the Indians and to lie in wait for them and tell me he is
determind if it be possible to goe till he get Some of there Scalps and
or Leave his he imagines to get about five and twenty men . . . he will
have none but what is Select Gunners and . . . good woodmen I know he
refuses Several who offer to goe because they are not Such he seems to
be very ambitious that way and I Cannot forbear incouraging him in it .
. .he will leave his wife and Children with me or at Charles. . . .
MATTW. TALBOT
As the marauders moved north, they would threaten settlements
around Winchester, where the Crank family was now located. By
"outward inhabitants," Talbot means people like the McClures who had
been
brought into the back country as a buffer against the Indians.
The Beverley Patent lay right at the gap in the Blue Ridge which these
Indians would use as "they made for Stanton [Staunton]."
Blair had also received a
note of distress from
William Mead (Anne's husband), dated May 8th--
With Sorrow I inform you . . . that
the Indians has taken all Thos. Morgans family and all are Carried away
or killd. and all the Goods Carried away and destroyed and it is the
opinion of the men that Some are Killd. by the Signs they Saw--and as
you render the Good of your Self and Country beg youl Send men
immediately . . . to relieve the Poor distressed Prisoners . . .
WILLIAM MEAD
Blair
also told Washington of a pitched battle on May 10th,
and enclosed a report
from Col. Talbot to the county clerk:
DR.
SIR
in
what Manner Shall I Represent to you the Horror and anxieties that
at this time reigns among our Inhabitants (indeed as I have not words I
must be Silent and Leave it to your imagination). Occasioned by
these banditties of Cherokees who daily are traveling through our
County . . . they Rob our houses of all things they Like So that
oftentime they Leave us not one rag of Cloaths to Shift our Selves
withall nor never a horse to goe mill or plough withall, yet these
people are Called our friends our people will bear it no Longer Indeed
I
think they have bore it to Long allready and I do not know but the
persons who have exerted them Selves in defence of their rights and
properties may be Called to a Strict account for it [he cites some examples, then
returns to his own experience] Last
Sunday there passed by 33 Indians in another parcel which Robed and
pillaged as they went Capt. Mead [Anne's husband] with
Seventeen men went in pursuit of them and wrote to me to beg I would
Send him Some assistance . . . and if they Come up with the Indians as
I expect they will and the Indians will not deliver the Horses and
other things they have Stole a Battle will insue for our people is
determined to bear Such usage no Longer . . . I beg if this Come to yr.
Hand before you Send to me that youl be so good as to Send Isham [Matthew's 20-year-old son by
a second marriage] up to me
to be Some assistance to me in these troublesome times for I am very
much afraid I must move my wife and what Small effects to some place of
Safety and I wish you would be pleased to Look out for a west house
a Small one would do for my wife and I though I will be hear as Long as
I
Can Yr. Complyance will Greatly
oblige Dr. Sir yr very Hble
Sert. MATTW. TALBOT
Ps SIR I beg youl Hasten up what men you design for our relief Dr Sir I
beg youl Let Isham Come up to me directly and be So good as to Send me
a 100 flints and if you have not a horse to Spare Let him Come afoot
the Bearer if you order him will goe to Wmburgh with the Letter to the
President--I this minute Recd yrs by Hicks and alas See our frontiers
(as you observe) is Little regarded . . . if I had the Eloquence of
Cicero I Could not tell you the anxiety of my Soul at this time for my
Self family and Inhabitants here--Keith Daughter is dead Likewise I am
informed to day that Bruff wife is Likewise dead.
Among other
entreaties, Blair sends along to Washington letters from the colonel's
older son, Charles (he and Matthew, Jr. were thirty-five and
twenty-nine at this time).
These were fairly typical circumstances all along
the
mountain ridge down to the Carolinas. Nicholas's younger
brother George (b. 1712) also moved his large family from Baltimore the same
three hundred
miles to Bedford County in Virginia. From one of his
Tennessee
grandchildren we
learn that George purchased eight Irish bondsmen in Baltimore, and took
them along to the Watauga (Crowe, p. 31). This was exactly the
way the
family had come to Virginia a hundred years earlier, providing
themselves with the labor to develop land grants.
Matthew Crank's son Thomas (1735-1782)
m. Elizabeth Richardson (b. 1745) followed this same migratory route,
moving his family beyond the fall line of the Rappahannock into
Goochland County. Their youngest child, William (1772-1854) m.
Tabitha Poindexter (1775-1854) can be traced by where their children
were born: a daughter and two sons just up the river in Louisa County;
but a third son, down the Blue Ridge in Amherst County. This was
just north of Bedford, where the Hailes were located; by Jefferson's
administration, the Cranks were in Halifax County, on Virginia's border
with North Carolina. When one recognizes the sparsity of
population along this route, one naturally wonders whether one's remote
ancestors had not in those days already made acquaintance.
Be that as it may, they
certainly seem to have had very similar
motives, as well as similar means for accomplishing them.
Mary's husband, Matthew Talbot,
became a very large
landholder both in Virginia
and in Watauga, where (although he
had been raised in the
Church of England) he
became a Baptist preacher and founded a church on Sinking Creek.
His was
the generation drawn up into the Revolution. He built a fort
on
his Watauga property which served as staging ground for the Battle of
Kings
Mountain. Matthew's oldest son, Haile Talbot, moved to
Missouri and took
a prominent role in the Missouri move for statehood. In
subsequent
Talbot family history, the Hale / Haile name continues to recur as
given name,
sometimes as
a
middle name for the girls.
Ann's husband, William Mead, was a
prominent figure in the development of New London (about 15 miles east
of Bedford). We have seen that Colonel Mead was an
important defender of the settlement. He had already figured in
the
campaign at Fort DuQuesne and would go on to serve in the War
for Independence. Ann bore William seven children before her
death
in
childbirth. Mead fathered six more children by the widow of
William
Stith (chief surveyor in Bedford). Having accumulated immense
land
holdings, he at last moved to Georgia, where he again accumulated large
estates.
Nicholas's
name, on the other hand, even though Virginia records are now
more abundant, ceases to turn up in them. His wife returned to
Baltimore and remarried there in
1760. Since Nicholas apparently did not survive his
fifties, it may be that problems
of health had contributed to his restlessness, even to his
religiosity. While his son-in-law Mead, offspring of Quakers, went on to
a
very secular career, Nicholas's own son
Nicholas (included in the Bedford
County tithes mentioned above) founded a Baptist church in
Watauga as did Nicholas's other son-in-law, Matthew Talbot.
The Indian troubles described
above may have figured in the younger Nicholas's move to Watauga.
It certainly put a great fright
into The Scots-Irish settlers up at Tinkling Spring, where a general
exodus was
prevented only by the stalwart encouragement of their Reverend John
Craig. James McClure's youngest son, Samuel--James's first child
born
in America--was one of those who left the Tinkling
Spring Community. By 1757, Samuel had made it to Hanging Rock
Creek, just across the North Carolina border into South
Carolina. In that
year he married a local girl, Sarah Rankin. Samuel and his
children remained in this vicinity until after the War of
Independence.
