- This topic has 20 voices and 46 replies.
-
Posts
-
One of the things I’ve discovered is that people who had Indian blood but were trying to pass as white used several designations to explain their darker skin. French is one of those designations. So is Black Dutch and Black Irish.
Sure makes it difficult to know for sure when we’re doing our research.
OMGoodness. Dad may have been right all along. He used to say things just to be the Devil’s Advocate, to stir trouble, but when he told me his grandmother was part Cherokee, he was serious, telling the truth. He was crazy about his grandmother and wouldn’t lie about her. Her Gr-Grandmother was Mary Bryant, born 1785-1790 in either SC or VA, death date was January of 1871. Her partner/husband was John Polly, b. 1785 in VA, dying in 1856. I don’t have anything else on these two, and wonder if John Polly’s last name was Polly or Bryant, and why the kids took her name and not his.
Thanks for replying!
Anita B. aka Sparrow
I have greatgrandmother Mary Jane Bryant Born Sept 1868 her husband Jasper Newton Rogers born April 1865 Estill Co,Ky or VA…..
My father told me his mother Betty Jane(Meadows)Rogers was full blood indian……born Powell Co,Ky
My father’s first wife was a Meadows. Her family definitely had Cherokee in it. My brother has a book on the Meadows history with pictures of his female Cherokee ancestor. If I remember the details correctly, this Meadows family was one of the Texas Cherokee settlers. The family ran trading posts and migrated to southwestern Colorado (the Four Corners area).
rogers_va wrote: My father told me his mother Betty Jane(Meadows)Rogers was full blood indian……born Powell Co,Ky
We have established a DNA connection between our Bryant line and that of Morgan Bryan. I’m not sure how close the connection is but there is definitely a relationship. According to our Bryant history, Josiah was well acquainted with the Boone family. Montgomery Co., KY, where Josiah Sr. lived in 1810, is fairly close to Morgan Station. Morgan Bryan had a brother who stayed in Virginia, in the Botetourt Co. area. I would love to locate the brothers descendants.
Brenda Ferrell Sampsel wrote: Daniel Boone’s father-in-law Morgan Bryan was involved very heavily in the Conestoga Indian trade along with some Linville brothers. They all moved from PA into the Valley of Virginia and then some time around 1750 moved to the forks of the YADKIN area in NC……this is what Ramsey refers to as the “Carolina Cradle” between the Catawba & Yadkin rivers…… I’ve often wondered if one way surnames came into Indian communities was through their relationships with families who were in the Indian Trade…..Anyway, several of the very earliest settlers in this area where Indian traders.
Do you know anything about Lucy Bryant’s siblings? We would love to have a direct male descendant from this line participate in the Bryant/O’Bryant DNA project. This is the line that first got me started looking at the possibility of my Bryants being Cherokee.
scylar148 wrote: I have Bryant in my family that were cherokee from the Buck head or bolten community in N.C.
Possiblely some relations?
Great gradmother Lucy Bryant born 9/1850 died 7/6/1932 half cherokee from the community of cherokee mentioned.
Sincerely
I’m sorry that I missed this when it first came around….. but for Rogers, Meadows and Newton origins look east of the cherokee to tidewater Va. These families have been together since the late 1600s. They have their roots in Nansemand territory, by the 1750s they are in Old Granville Co, NC marrying Shakori and Eno saponi, by early 1800s they have migrated to Ky, Tn, Ga, Ak, Tx and other points….. no doubt continuing to marry indians and mixed bloods wherever they go. Please search this forum for these surnames because much research has been posted on this migratory group. These are my people who I lovingly call “the Shakerag indians”
I also have a Bryant, Jane, born around 1830, in the family as my g-g-g-grandmother out of North Carolina. Her family was supposed to be Choctaw (or this is at least how my grandfather ID himself–his father’s family was Saponi/Catawba).
Brenda Ferrell Sampsel wrote: Wow Brenda!!!
You are probably familiar with Henry Clay Ragland’s HISTORY OF LOGAN COUNTY. He is not altogether reliable as most of his informants were probably the grandchildren of his subjects. However, this is what he has to say about David Mounts, my Blackfoot & Cherokee (per my late grandpa Harry Steele of Beech Creek)4th great grandfather. By the way, Ragland hated Indians.
“The daughter of Peter Cline, Sr., whose name was Margaret, married David Mounts, a young man who came to the Tug Valley a short time after Cline had settled there. It is not known where he came from, but it is believed from the name that he is a descendant of a Portuguese family by the name of Mounts, which settled in South Carolina about 1750, and some of whom served under Sumpter in the War of the Revolution.” David’s children marired into the Blankenships, Steeles, Spratts, Clines, Charles, Christian & Hurley families of the Tug River Valley.
I have NEVER been able to ID David’s exact Mounts family, although I have found some interesting Mounts at the edge of the early frontier. One line has legends that they are French, but I feel pretty comfortable that they are descended from an Indian Trading family that came with the New Sweden Colony and was in Cecil County MD (near Chester, PA) before moving on with the frontier. I did find a George and a Barnabus Mounts in old Ninety Six District of South Carolina no township listed about 1779. Ninety Six was a trading center and on the trading path. The other thing that strikes me about the 1750 date is that it is about the time some old traders from PA including Morgan Bryan moved to the trading ford at the forks of the Yadkin in North Carolina. The “Carolina Cradle” settled is formed by the Yadkin & Catawba. The customers/suppliers/Indians had been moving out of the Susquehanna area for some time, first to the Potomac area, and then to the Ohio lands…..wonder if they had customers/suppliers in the Yadkin? I think there was a general migration out of Virginia around 1750 or so, however, for various reasons. (Perhaps the Fairfax suits??? Opening hostilities with the French & Indian war? I’ll have to check the dates.)
According to heresay, David was born in the Clinch River settlements around 1785. His PURPORTED sister , Sarah Mounts Wilson, wife of James Wilson (children married into Balls & Lamberts, I believe) who settled in the Wayne County area of WVA was reportedly born in Maryland some years earlier. They were purportedly in the TN/NC area for a short while, too. There is talk that they were in the Jackson River settlement in the Bath County, VA area for awhile, too. There were some Mounts in the Clinch river area early 1770’s, but records are scanty. (John, Mathias, & Absolum. I think at least one of them might have moved over from the Otter Creek area. It looks like they may have gone on to Kentucky.)
The first real documentary evidence of MY David Mount’s existence is his 1809 marriage bond in MONTGOMERY COUNTY, VA to marry Margaret Cline. A James Addair who ran a ferry over the NEW RIVER around the Radford or Narrows area signed as David’s surety. Many folks say James Addair, who was in the New River area at least by 1773, was David’s guardian. I am not sure about that. This James Addair was born abt. 1750 and is NOT the famous James Adair, Indian Trader and author of ADAIR’S HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN INDIANS, 1775. That Adair was in NC & SC & b. abt 1709…Descendants of this James Addair of New River have a tradition of Cherokee in this line…not sure if its James Addair or Kirby line his daughter married into. His descendants have been unable to find his parents/family of origin, as well.
When you say MONTGOMERY COUNTY, I think THE NEW RIVER AREA. Some interesting folks around there at that time, such as Richard & George Pearris(spelled various ways) & Hugh Caperton. All heavily involved in the Indian Trade. Richard Pearris brought the Cherokee on the Sandy Creek expedition, worked early in the Winchester area, & then was seated in South Carolina, I believe…. He had an Indian family and was given land down there by the Cherokee.
Supposedly David & Peggy Mounts went to the Tug area as soon as they were married, but the first record I pick up is a FLOYD COUNTY KENTUCKY land grant in 1821. Very soon after that, David’s land records start showing up in old Cabell & then LOGAN COUNTY VIRGINIA. This is probably just across the river. His land appears to be along the river….and finally on our BEECH CREEK of Tug River.
Up the river a ways in Wayne County in the late 1890’s Sarah Mounts Wilson’s grandson’s, Hiram & Jackson Wilson, petitioned the Cherokee Nation for membership naming Sarah’s Cherokee relations as ‘Old John Mounts, Woodall, & Raincrow.” While the petitions were discovered in the Wayne County Courthouse, no other record or disposition of the Wilson brothers’ Cherokee claims has been found.
Not many records for Logan County prior to 1850 or so. I have been watching Mounts/Mountz/Mounce folks on the frontier for awhile and I have yet to get any solid evidence of David Mounts family of origin. Many researchers have been combing around for orphan’s bonds, etc. with no luck. Just lots of stories so far….
I did find an AOFP in 1790 census of Cecil County, Maryland by the name of Alexander Mounts. Alexander is a common name among David’s descendants. This was in Octoraro Hundreds and he was surrounded by a host of AOFP. I don’t know what Octoraro Creek was like in 1790, but early on it was a site for the old Susquehanna Fort & then in the early 1700’s the site reputedly of a Shawnee village. By the mid 1800’s I have been told that it was heavily populated by blacks. I lose this Alexander after 1790. An Alexander posp up in Fleming County KY about 10 years later.
Yes, your pattern does look familliar to me!!!!
This thread is loaded with Mounts/Ratliff info…
What a coincidence. Recently found some of my folks (them daggone Foleys) mixed in with the Bryants and aforementioned Meadows, Newton, etc. According to the tribe’s historian (Bill Deyo), who is also a Bryant descendant, ours are Patawomeck (aka Potomac).
Brother Ken, we have GOT to stop meeting like this. ;~)
not!
Yes one of Nannie Bowling’s middle names is Keziah which is probably after her several greats grandmother that married a Bryant.
Have been trying to locate these guys (see Brenda Ferrell Sampsel’s message above), and resorted to the LDS microfilm of Cabell Co. tax lists, since John Addair was on the tax list in 1815, and the census in 1820 (as John Odair). Cabell County was formed in 1809 from Kanawha. John Addair was my ggg grandfather, and a son of the James Addair who signed David Mounts’ marriage bond.
John Adair first appears on the Cabell County tax list in 1811, when there are two adult males listed under his name. None of his children were anywhere near grownup at that point. David Mounts first appears in 1812, when John Adair (“Odare” now) is listed with just one adult male. It’s tempting to assume they were listed together in 1811.
David Mounts appears in 1813 and 1814, is absent in 1815 and 1816, and then is found in 1817 through 1823, where I stopped. The lower half of Cabell County became Logan County in 1824, and I think that’s where they were, but I’ll check a few more years of the list next week. I think Logan County info is pretty sparse since that’s one of the courthouses damaged in the Civil War.
John Adair is found from 1811 through 1818, spelled variously (Adair, Odare, Odear, Addair). He shows up again in 1820, but is missing 1821-1823. I know he’s on the tax list of Lawrence Co., Ky in 1823 – across the Big Sandy River from Logan County, VA. Since Lawrence was formed from Floyd County in 1822, he may turn up in Floyd in 1821 and 1822.
Throughout the 1809-1823 period there various other usual suspects: Clines, Collins, a few Trents, Farleys, Ferrells, Gwinns, and an Alexander Gibson. I need to go back and look again for James Wilson, since David’s possible sister Sarah Mounts married him – they’re supposed to be in Wayne Co., which also came from Cabell. Forgot that.
Beats crossword puzzles, at least.
David doesn’t show up on the 1820 census if you do a search on “David Mounts,” but, since that census is alphabetical, it’s easy to look at the “M”s.
Cabell Co. M33 Roll 130 p. 172 looks like
David Mountz 5 1 _ _ 1 _ 1 _ _ 1 _ _ 1
(man and wife aged 26-45, 6 boys, 1 girl, 1 person engaged in agriculture)
Cecil Cline, in Peter Cline, Revolutionary Soldier and His Descendants lists 5 sons and one daughter born by 1820 (David’s wife was Margaret Cline).
Mounts is spelled with a “z” on the 1817 tax record also…
David Mounts has an 1821 125 acre land grant on the left hand fork of Sandy River in Cabell County here:
http://image.lva.virginia.gov/LONN/LO-7/136/136_0203.tif
second page here:
http://image.lva.virginia.gov/LONN/LO-7/136/136_0204.tif
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
