Sunday, February 21, 2021

Why did the Quaker families move from Cane Creek MM to Wrightsboro?

Ralph Hayes ralphhayes72@gmail.com sent a information about  the reason for the move from Cane Creek To Wrightsboro  of the Quaker families.  The below is taken from Raph's post to the Quaker .io group.  Ralph has kindly agreed to let me put his contact information in case you want to get in touch with him.  And if you want to add ideas of your own to this post, e-mail them to me at mosesm@earthlink.net 


If I may throw in some info on Joseph Maddock, my line.  This info is from numerous sources and I can list them if anyone is interested.

Regulator movement in North Carolina apparently came into being after the Stamp Act was enacted. An advertisement was published for representatives of each neighbor to appoint a representative to meet in August 1766 "at Maddocks Mill if no objection at which meeting let it be judiciously enquired whether the free men of this Country labor under any abuses of power...in particular to examine ...the Public Taxes..." The neighborhood of Deep River met on 20 Aug 1766 and appointed Wm. Cox and Wm. Masset  to attend a general meeting on the first Monday before November court at Maddocks Mill on Eno.  On 22 Mar  the inhabitants of the west side of Haw River sent a representative to a meeting at Maddock Mills. On a later date 12 men met at Maddock's Mill on Eno River to meet with state officials. The official did not show and the group motioned to disperse "but at the instance of Mr Maddocks we waited until he could dispatch a lad to Hillsborough to inform himself of the reasons of the Officers non appearance...". [It appears to me that Joseph Maddock was sympathetic to their cause and hoped to mediate the differences.] Other sources have the date as 10 Oct 1766.


I have lifted the below information from an on-line source to add to my main blog.  I will repeat it below with the link to the source at the end.  There are numbers interspersed which seem to be footnotes.  They are not mine.  I have checked and they must be the author's footnotes:

For nearly 13 years Maddock's Mill was the nearest grist mill to the county seat of Hillsboro. In October, 1766, however, Maddock's name and his mill became publicly linked with the Regulators,5 and from that time forward he feared that the mill and his entire North Carolina property would be confiscated by Governor William Tryon.The alarmed Maddock and other Eno Quakers swiftly entered for new lands in eastern Georgia;7 and in November, 1767, according to the old Registration of Deeds Book in Raleigh, Maddock conveyed his 20-acre mill seat to Governor Tryon's friend, Capt. Thomas Hart,8 and in July, 1768, he conveyed a 434-acre tract, a sizable portion of his plantation, to Governor Tryon himself.9 Whether or not these two conveyances- were actual sales or thinly disguised confiscations, one cannot say. In any event, by deeds and State land grant, Maddock's lands came into Thomas Hart's hands and Hartford Plantation came into existence.10 

Captain Hart (1730-1808) was a Virginian from Hanover County, an adventurer," one of "the men with silver buckles on their shoes" who invariably married heiresses and gradually pushed the less sophisticated pioneer Quakers out of their little stores and inns and acquired their mills and farmsteads – a pattern of polite, ruthless aggression in the Eno River Valley entirely fascinating and chilling to trace today from our vantage point in time.12

Oh, phooey.  The link no longer works.  I will leave it here since it give some clues where to look for this quote.





Saturday, February 20, 2021

When Was Wrightsboro founded?

 When was Wrightsboro founded?

The Atlanta Friends Meeting Newsletter  says:

We find more information at the McDuffie County website. McDuffie County’s roots go back to the 1768 settlement of Wrightsboro, Georgia’s only Quaker settlement and the southernmost point of Quaker migration in North America. Wrightsboro survived as a village until the 1920s, but all that remains of the settlement is the Wrightsboro church (c. 1810) and the adjoining cemetery. The Wrightsboro Methodist Church of the Thomson Circuit, on the site of the defunct town of Wrightsboro, has been an active organization for over 125 years.

You can read more of this site at:

https://quaker.org/legacy/atlanta/_afm_newsletters/AFM_Newsletter_2012-05.pdf

My own research supports a slightly earlier move for some of the families or perhaps all of the families who made the move to Wrightsboro from the Cane Creek MM area.  

My 4-gr-grandmother, Catherine Elliott McKinsey had brother,  Abner Elliott.  Abner married Hannah Stubbs in 1813 in Warren County, Ohio.  

Abner Elliott who married Hannah Stubbs in Warren County, Ohio

26 AUG 1813 in Warren Co., Ohio

that information from:Warren CO., OH Marriage Records 1803-1834 VOL 1

Author: Willard Heiss


Father: John STUBBS Jr b: 01 FEB 1762 in Hillsborough, Orange County, North Carolina

Mother: Jane JONES b: 22 JUN 1764 in Wrightsborough, Columbia (now McDuffie) County, Georgia


Marriage 1 Abner ELLIOTT

This would suggest to me that the families were living in Orange County, NC in 1762 but had settled in Wrightsboro by 1764.


[ I started to remove these dates.  However, it is possible that a few of the families did indeed move earlier than the date that Wrightsboro was founded.  Of course, it is possible that the place that Jane Jones was born could have been incorrect as well]


From Ralph Hayes: (ralphhayes72@gmail.com) (Ralph's information supports the date given by the Newsletter above)

Here are some land records. On 15 Jul 1768 Joseph deeded 5a of land to Eno MM that he purchased in 1759. On 25 Jul 1768  Joseph Maddock presented the first petition to the governor and Council of Georgia for a grant of land on north fork of Briar Creek called Sweetwater for a gristmill. The petition was approved but not issued until 2 Apr 1771.  Also in August 1768 a petition was read and approved  for 200 acres of land upon the north fork of Briar Creek about a mile above the land for the grist mill for a community  cow pasture.

The settlement grew fast and on 6 Dec 1768 Joseph and Jonathan Sell presented another petition to the governor that was approved on 7 Feb 1769, namely: 1) that land on both sides of Germanys Creek from the head to where it intersects the Indian line be reserved for settlers; 2) that a road be run from their settlement; 3) That the land be surveyed and grants issued to include Joseph Maddock 300 acres and 200 acres already purchased, Deborah Stubbs 300 acres, and John Stubbs 100 acres; 4) that 1000 acres be surveyed for a town to be called Wrightsborough; 5) that warrants be prepared.

So Joseph Maddock was still in North Carolina in 1766 but in Georgia in 1768. Hinshaw provides the approved dates. Rachel Maddock and kids moved to Fredericksburg MM, SC on 1769,9,3 and Joseph gc from Cane Creek, NC on 1773,8,7 and received in Wrightsborough in 1773,11,4. I suspect he moved to Georgia in 1767-1768 and never got around to moving his certificate until 1773.

Ralph









 The above photo and information is from the Explore Georgia website.

Posts about Wrightsboro

 Please send me an e-mail at mosesm@earthlink.net if you would like to write a post or a page to add to this site about your ancestors who have connections to Wrightsboro

Why did the Quaker families move from Cane Creek MM to Wrightsboro?

Ralph Hayes ralphhayes72@gmail.com  sent a information about  the reason for the move from Cane Creek To Wrightsboro  of the Quaker families...