We Are Also Wilcoxsons - Part II

by Glenn N. Holliman

Our Family Gathers in North Carolina

(Sources include Boone Family History and Genealogy at www.family-genealogy-online.com/little/boone.html, The Willcockson Society, the Salisbury, NC Enterprise-Recorder, July 24, 1975 and Salisbury Sunday Post, August 3, 1975)

Beginning in the 1750s, a migration, generally of Scotch-Irish, but also Welsh and early English colonists, began moving to the Cherokee Indian hunting grounds of Southwest Virginia and Western North Carolina. The colonists, generally second and third generations in America, thirst for land, and a lot of it, resulted in the ancestral families of our present generation moving from Pennsylvania and Maryland, south often through the Shenandoah Valley on the Great Wagon Road to the contested frontier.

The Wilcoxson's, my generation's 6th great grandparents, moving with the Boone family, acquired a land grant near the present Cooleemee, Davie County, NC. , formerly Rowan Co. There John and Sarah Boone Wilcoxson built a log cabin and continued to raise their expanding family on what became 800 acres of land. At the 'Shoals" where Cooleemee is now located (see below, center left), the Yadkin River could be forded for travel into Salisbury, NC. The original log cabins of the extended Boone family were built along this road.

On a continuous tract of land over four miles in length, the families built cabins, and it is reasonable to assume they helped one another in the construction. John and Sarah built one of the better and larger houses between 1752 and 1756, using logs as large as 18 inches by 34 feet. This home, greatly enlarged and modernized, stands today, 225 years later!

It consisted of one large 17 by 33 ft room where the family cooked, ate and adults slept. The floors were 3 inches thick of wood. The children, eventually there were 11, perhaps more, slept in a big attic room, which also provided protection in case of Indian attack.

We know that in this frontier the Quaker and Anglican Churches were left behind, and the families embraced what became the Boone's Baptist Church near their home. John and Sarah appear on the tax list in 1759. In 1778 the family moved to Booneborough, Kentucky, but after a year on the very dangerous frontier opened by Sarah's brother, Daniel, the Wilcoxsons returned to the log cabin. While in Kentucky, the Wilcoxsons were part of the pioneer party that defended the various settlements. At Boonesborough today, the Wilcoxson names are listed along with the Boones.

The Wilcoxson's sold the house in 1787 to a Abraham Welty. The 1790 census of Yadkin Valley, Rowan Co., NC lists John and some of his family living on Bear Creek. The Mylar family married into the Wilcoxson and Boone families, and their web site lists much of this material (http://www.familytreecircles.com/journal_7466.html). One of John and Sarah's son-in-laws would be killed during an Indian attack in 1788.

Next posting, some more Wilcoxson frontier events....