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.