When We Were Greers, Part XII

by Glenn N. Holliman

The Will of John Greer, Jr. 1782

When John Greer, Jr. (my generation's 6th great grandfather) died in 1782 in Wilkes Country, North Carolina, the Revolutionary War had just ended with the defeat of Cornwallis at Yorktown, Virginia. The back country of North Carolina had been divided between Tories, those that supported the Crown, and a larger number of American Patriots. The Greer families would be caught up in both the divisions of the Revolution in the 1770s and 80s, and the bitter war of the 1860s. In each conflict, the family would experience violence and hardship.

As noted in previous writings John Greer, Jr. was born in Joppa, Maryland and migrated down the Great Valley Road of Virginia, stopping in Augusta County in 1746 to give birth to my generation's 5th great grandfather, Benjamin Greer. According to Ancestry.com, the Greers arrived in Surry County (now Wilkes County), North Carolina about 1771.

The Regulator Movement was in full swing in western North Carolina as backwoods families protested high taxes and lack of representation in the colonial capitol of New Bern. In 1778, John was appointed a justice of the peace for the first court after the organization of Wilkes County. Evidently, the family was a leader in the community which is borne out in the careers of at least two of his sons.

Below is a contemporary road map of the Wilkes County, North Carolina area. Wilkesboro is some 74 miles west of Winston-Salem and 30 some odd miles east of Boone. The Greers, Boones, Wilsons, Osbornes, Wilcoxsons and other families kin to my generation moved to this frontier in the 1750s to the  1770s. 

In 1782, John Greer, Jr. died and his will was probated. To his second wife Nanney he left the plantation of 492 acres, and then to son Jessey after the death of Nanney. (Jessey would be a captain in the American Revolution).

There were enslaved persons in this family, a bit unusual for the frontier but not for the amount of acreage the Greers farmed. Bequeathed in continued human bondage was a Negro girl, Pheby to John's daughter Ann Mitchell, and to daughter Hannah Demoss, a Negro girl, Hannah. Hannah had married the local sheriff, Lewis Demoss.

The remainder of the estate was divided equally amongst these children: Aqulla, John, Benjamin (my 5th great grandfather), Joshua, Jessey, Rachel Mitchell, Sarah Hardgrave and Hannah Demoss. The executors were wife Nancy (spelled differently here) and a friend, John Brown. Witnesses were Archelus Walker (a next door neighbor), Nancy Walker and Sarah Greer.

On the tax list of 1782, Ann Greer, presumably the widow, has 600 acres and four enslaved persons. The majority of the family lived in Captain Abraham Demoss's district.

When We Were Greers, Part XI

by Glenn N. Holliman

The Greers Move Through the Great Valley of Virginia

to Relocate in North Carolina

Both my generation's 7th and 6th grandfathers, John Greer, Sr. and John Greer, Jr. left Maryland and moved south and west to the then frontier of western North Carolina. John, Sr. left to establish a new family. John, Jr. to acquire virgin farm land made available as the Cherokee were pushed from their historic hunting grounds.

John Greer, Jr. was born in Joppa, Maryland sometime between 1714 and 1718. He married at St. John's Episcopal Church in Joppa one Sarah Elliott, my generation's 6th great grandmother. John, Jr. would die in Wilkes Country, North Carolina in the Yadkin River Valley in May 1782. An early settler to the area, he must have prospered as he served his community as a justice of the peace. His wife then was Nancy Lowe Walker.

The map below captures the American frontier of 1763 when English Crown established the Proclamation Line, the black line in this map that stretches from New England to Georgia. No colonial settler was allowed to purchase or take Indian land west of the line. The dark purple reflects colonial settlement from 1700 to 1760.

The Greers, Boones, Wilcoxsons and another of my relations moved from Maryland and Pennsylvania down the Shenandoah to the purple circle next to the word 'frontier' in western North Carolina. Notice how far in advance this area in the Yadkin Valley around Wilkes County, North Carolina was from other Carolina settlements. This area was hunting ground for the Cherokee (just over the Proclamation line in what is now Tennessee).

This is a reproduction from Making America, published 2003 by Houghton Mifflin Company, and is not to be used for commercial purposes.

The move from the Chesapeake south evidently took place in several stages. My generation's 5th great grandfather, the Revolutionary War patriot, Benjamin Greer, was born February 9, 1746 in Augusta Country, Virginia, near the town of Staunton. Augusta County is smack in the middle of the Shenandoah Valley and was and is the Great Road from the Northeast to the Southwest in the Eastern United States. For the past half century, one travels on I-81 and since the dawn of the automobile age, U.S. Highway 11.

My ancestors - the Osbornes, Greers, Wilcoxsons, Boones, Wilsons and many others, the majority Scotch-Irish who poured off the ships in Philadelphia - began in earnest in the 1730s and 1740s to settle the back country of Virginia. With the defeat of the Tuscarora nation in eastern and central North Carolina, the Carolina frontier was pushed west toward the foothills and mountains of the Appalachian chain, into Cahawba and Cherokee and later, Shawnee hunting territory.

When We Were Greers, Part X

by Glenn N. Holliman

More on Nicholas Day, my Generation's 8th Great Grandfather
and William the Conqueror!

I thought I had exhausted my notes on the Greers, Days and Taylors in Joppa Town, Maryland when I chanced upon some more materials. Below is information in part from Wally Garchow at Ancestry.com. His work adds to the tapestry we have on our Chesapeake Bay roots.

The date of birth for Nicholas Day is uncertain, anywhere from 1620 to 1635, but he seems to have come from Wales. He died before February 4, 1704/5. Queen Anne would be on the throne of England at that time, and Maryland a colony for 70 odd years. Philadelphia had been founded only a quarter century before, so the British settlement of North America was still unfolding.

In the General Land Office Patents, the Land Commissioner's Office in Annapolis, is a statement that on February 22, 1658, "Nicholas Day, a grown man sells himself into 'slave bondage' for 'ship transportation' to the New World. He along with seven others bound himself to Richard Owens who granted them their freedom and notified his 'Lordship Grace' that they were entitled to 50 acres of land." Our 8th great grandfather evidently was an indentured servant who put in his time, and then began a successful transition to that of a colonial land owner and planter.

June 3, 1693, this great grandfather of ours purchased 200 acres of land along the Gunpowder River, a tract called 'William the Conqueror'. He paid 1200 pounds of tobacco for this extravagantly named acreage near the Gunpowder Falls. A few months later he bought another 150 acres for 300 pounds of tobacco, a piece named 'Lesser Chance'. He held onto this land until his death, when he bequeathed it to Nicholas Jr.

His daughter, Sarah Day - named after her mother - received part of his stock of 'hoggs'. Well, Sarah had married John Greer, Sr. in 1704, and lived on Greer land. Of course, no one knew how troubled Sarah's marriage to John Greer, Sr. (my generation's 7th great grandfather) would be, and that he would be hauled before a parish vestry in Joppa and charged with infidelity. Embarrassing to say the least.

The land 'William the Conqueror'? Purchased eventually by a King family who gave their name to a rural village along the Gunpowder. Google Kingsville, Maryland and 'William the Conqueror' and discover an area map and photographs of more recent colonial buildings. A marker stone with Edward Day's name on it near Highway 1 still stands. Edward Day was a descendant of our Nicholas Day.

The Gunpowder River below the Falls at Joppa Town, Maryland down stream from Kingsville, Maryland. Here the river is silted and marshy just before it flows into the Chesapeake Bay. Photo by the writer 2010.

However, the point of this article to demonstrate a rags to riches story of a great grand father, who evidently arrived as an indentured servant and died a man of some means. This is a prototype example of the America Dream in the life of an ancestor.

For more information and photographs, go to the Greater Kingsville Civic Association, Inc. on the web.

When We Were Greers, Part IX

by Glenn N. Holliman

Joppa Town, Maryland - A Place for Family Weddings!

During their first marriage, Sarah and John had numerous children. Our direct ancestor is one of their sons, John Greer, Jr., my generation's 6th great grandfather, who was born 1714, again on the Gunpowder River. He would die May 1782 in Wilkes County, North Carolina. Notice the migration south. Much of this extended family will settle in North Carolina, including our direct ancestors.

John Greer Jr. married Sarah Day Elliott at the St. John's Parish in Joppa, Maryland in 1736. A second wife would be Nancy Lowe Walker.

Below is the plot of land, roped off, where the church stood. Samuel and Mary Harrod Stansbery (Stansbury) also married at this location in 1761. In the left background is a 1962 structure, the Episcopal Church of the Resurrection, signifying the rebirth of Joppa in the 1960s, two hundred years after it achieved ghost town status.

In the 1960s a real estate development company, realizing the potential of a location along slow moving rivers, near I - 95 and only 25 miles from downtown Baltimore, created a 'new' Joppa Town. Below is an advertisement from that era.  Oh, to have 1960 prices with 2010 incomes!

When We Were Greers, Part VIII

by Glenn N. Holliman

The Troubled Marriage of John, Sr. and Sarah Day Greer

My generation's 7th great grandfather, John Greer, Sr. was born about 1688 along the Gunpowder River in Joppa, Maryland. He married Sarah Day, b 1686 in Baltimore County, at St. John's Parish, March 4, 1704.

John Greer, Sr. inherited the 75 acres that Arthur Taylor had given James Greer and Anne Taylor, and seems to have traded this land and others, buying and selling acreage around the Joppa area, a land speculator if you will. For example, in 1718, he sold land which stood above Nicholas Day's plantation and near to an Indian cabin. An interesting tidbit of history has made it through the centuries - in 1738 John Sr. was bitten by a rattle snake above the mouth of the Long Green River.

St. John's Episcopal Parish moved several times in its history. Both John Greer, Sr. and John Greer, Jr. would be married in the parish. As Joppa Town deteriorated, Edward Day, a descendant of our Day ancestors, built a new St. John's. Ironically, another set of my 7th GGPs were married at St. John's - Samuel and Mary Harrod Stansbury on April 1, 1761. All you Stansberys, please make a mental note. We can trace the Stansbery line from Maryland to Tennessee and beyond.

He was evidently snake bit in marriage also. According to vestry books in Baltimore County, our John Greer Sr. found himself admonished for co-habitating unlawfully with one Chloe Jones. While no date is given, he claims to have married Cleo. They had four children, evidently born out of wedlock.

My generation's 7th GGM, Sarah, went to live with a son, Aquilla at the Chilimara Plantation in Maryland, and later she remarried one Obadiah Pritchett. We are not sure when Sarah died - sources differ but her name is on no legal deed releases after 1747. Greer family compilations put her death between 1742 and 1747.

John Greer, Sr. with his second family of children immigrated west and south. They were living in Onslow County, North Carolina in 1752 when John died at the age of 72. One source states there were debts and the four new, minor children, were bound out to pay off his debts after his death.

The will states he left twelve pence sterling to his six sons and three daughters. However, to John Greer, Jr. (my generation's 6 GGF), Sr. left his Negro man, Jack, and two hunting guns. John Sr. may have been a gunsmith, as he left his gun stock tools and all tools to his 'Dearly Beloved Wife Cloe Greer', who was also the executrix. This court was held at Johnston on the New River in Onslow County July 1752. This is the first time human slavery emerges in a direct ancestral will of the Greers.

(Most of the above was taken from Genealogy.com under the name of John G. Greer. Sources include land, rent and court records in Baltimore County, Maryland. The Greer family history, starting on the Gunpowder River in Maryland has been well researched. Google the names, and one can spend many hours sorting through the materials. Beware, as is normal in genealogy, not all dates and names agree.)

When We Were Greers, Part VI

by Glenn N. Holliman

What do we know of our Day ancestors?

(Continuing the series of ancestral families of G.W. and Frances Wilson Osborne)

Sarah Day, my generation's 7th Great Grand Mother (7th GGM), was born 1686 in Baltimore, Maryland and died March 1758 in same county. She married John Greer, Sr. (7th GGF) March 4, 1704 in Joppa, Maryland at St. John's Episcopal parish. Her father was Nicholas Day (8th GGF), 1635 abt in Wales, England - 1704 in Baltimore, and mother Sarah Lowe (8th GGM). The couple married in 1684 in Baltimore Co., Maryland. Sarah was the daughter of William Lowe. This trail through the woods at Joppa, Maryland leads down to the Gunpowder River. Imagine if you can, wharfs, dray men, live stock and thousands of hogsheads of tobacco being loaded in ocean going cargo ships. Now a grown up river side with only a few monuments to mark the ghost town. Photos October 2010 by the author.

Nicholas Day's father was named also Nicholas Day (9th GGF) and mother was Sarah Cox (9th GGM). The birthplaces of these 9th GGParents are unknown but they married in Maryland.

These ancestors were farmers raising tobacco, and most likely corn and livestock. Their lives centered about the Gunpowder River and the town of Joppa.

In this photo below one observes the silted Gunpowder River. On this site in the first half of the 1700s were wharfs, perhaps as many as a hundred lining the river. This particular location is located precisely in the center of the western edge of Old Joppa. It is difficult to envision what was once here - one of the premier ports of the Western Hemisphere in its day. This is an Eastern ghost town!