John Vannoy is often referenced as John Francis Vannoy, but I have been unable to find an actual record referencing him as such, so we will just call him John.

Once I started focusing on John, he wouldn’t leave me alone and just kept leading me (pushing me?) to more and more. What’s been uncovered is utterly amazing, including the 700-mile path of his life – from bucolic, quaint New Jersey when it was the frontier to literally the mountaintops. What an incredible life, and there’s still so much we don’t know.

Here’s what we know for a fact about John Vannoy’s lineage. The early portion is based on original documents in my possession, sourced by Yvette Hoitink, a professional genealogist based in the Netherlands. The later research on John Vannoy in New Jersey and North Carolina is primarily mine, with a lot of references to previous work of others.

• John Vannoy was born sometime probably between 1716 and 1719 in Hopewell Township, Hunterdon County, New Jersey, and died sometime between 1772 and 1778 in Surry or Wilkes County, NC. The birth date of November 25, 1716, is given, as is the same date with the year of 1719, but I have never seen an actual source for this information other than other people’s trees. If anyone has a source, I’d be incredibly grateful if you’d pass it on.
• John Vannoy was the son of Francis Vannoy, who was born in 1688 in New York. He moved to Hunterdon County, NJ, around 1714 and died there between September 1768, when his will was written, and July 1774, when it was probated. John’s mother, Francis’s wife, was Rebecca Anderson/Andriesen, the daughter of the Dutch couple Kornelis Andriesen and Annetje Opdyke.
• Francis Vannoy was the son of John Francis Vannoy (Joannes Franciscus van Oijen), who was born in 1654 in Venlo, the Netherlands. He died between May 13, 1699, when he wrote his will, and March 17, 1700, in New York, when his wife/widow received a land grant. The surname in New York is also spelled Van Oy.
• John Francis Vannoy was the son of Govert Vannoy (van Oij or Oeij or Oeijen) born in 1620 in the Netherlands and died in 1664, probably on the island of Texel in the Netherlands.
• Govert was the son of Jan Hendricks van Oij born about 1575 in Buren near Zaltbommel in the Netherlands, near the small village of Oijen.

The phrase “van Oijen” would mean “of” or “from Oijen.”

This lineage is important because of what later generations said, and wrote, about John and his family.

Now that we know who John’s parents were, and where the family was from, the next logical question is the identity of his wife. That’s where we run into challenges.

John reportedly married Susanna (possibly middle name Baker) Anderson, born about 1720 in Hopewell, NJ. She reportedly died in 1816 in Wilkes County, NC. There was family oral history, provided by Andrew Vannoy, John’s grandson, that Susannah and John were cousins, although Andrew didn’t provide any names. There appears to be an assumption, or maybe family knowledge not recorded, that the “cousin” connection was from the Andreissen side

Other oral history stated that Susanna was the daughter of Andrew Anderson (Andreisen), the son of Cornelius Andriesen. Andrew is indeed the son of Cornelius, which would make Andrew the uncle of John Vannoy. Andrew’s daughter, if he had one, would be John’s first cousin. First-cousin marriages were not unusual in colonial America. Unfortunately, the extracted will of Andrew Vannoy didn’t mention any daughter, Susannah, or other children. He left everything to his wife, suggesting he may not have had children.

Rev. William Hamilton Eller (1842-1922), John’s great-grandson, copied the Vannoy family Bible records from the Bible of his grandfather, Jesse Vannoy, of Wilkes County, NC. Jesse was born in 1781 and died in 1875. Jesse was the son of Nathaniel Vannoy, the son of John Vannoy.

The information was then rewritten by Rev. Eller into one of the Eller family Bibles and eventually published in the New England Historical and Genealogical Register – Boston, Mass. In an article titled “John Vannoy Bible 1741-1904 NC, TN, OK (or OR) from Jan 1955, Vol 109 issue 1.”

Eller described the emigrants as French Huguenots who were driven to England, then to Holland, and then back to England, from where they came to America. He said one branch settled first in South Carolina and later on the Yadkin River in Davidson County, NC. Eller repeated the tradition that they were descended from the Cromwell family in England and from the Royal House of Hanover. He transcribed records, adding notes of his own.

You can read what James W. Hook (1884-1957) and Eller had to say about John Vannoy, here.

I’m sure Rev. Eller believed what he recorded to be absolutely true, and thank goodness he recorded what he did, but much of the early oral history has been disproven since that time. There is nothing to indicate that the Vannoy family was descended from French Huguenots, and the trips to England, Holland, and England seem to be somewhat fanciful. It’s not entirely impossible, but I suspect that the French connection came from the way the surname sounds, in part because that’s exactly what I thought when I first heard the name. The Dutch portion is accurate, so there was a thread of truth, which is often true with stories long passed down through generations of the family game of “telephone.” The question is, of course, which thread and in what context?

John’s children were documented from various sources, including the Bible record, as follows:

• Rachel Vannoy was born on April 12, 1741, and was reported to have married Neil Patton, but I was unable to confirm this. However, she also married John Darnell sometime around or before 1771. They had four sons, including twins, before John reportedly died at the Battle of Hanging Rock in the Revolutionary War when the twins were but three months old. In January 1782, Rachel was ordered to deliver “what orphan children she had in possession” to the court, and in April she was granted administration of John’s Estate. In 1785, with Andrew Vannoy, she posts a bond to administer another estate, and in October of 1787, apprenticeship records show that the twins, Benjamin and Joseph, born May 6, 1780, were apprenticed to Andrew Vannoy “to learn the occupation of farmer, read, write and cipher.” In 1787, she was shown on the state census with one male child under the age of 21, and in 1795, her land was mentioned in a neighboring deed.
• Andrew Vannoy was born on August 12, 1742, and died on October 9, 1809, in Wilkes County. His marriage license was issued on October 18, 1779, with Susannah Shepherd, daughter of John and Sarah Shepard.
• Abraham Vannoy was born on January 15, 1745. We have no further information about Abraham, so it’s also possible that he died relatively young.
• Francis Vannoy was born on August 13, 1746, and died near Barbourville, Knox Co., KY, on July 26, 1822. The first record of Francis appeared in the court claims in 1765 in Rowan County, NC. By 1779, he was a juror in Wilkes County, where he received land grants for seven parcels of land between 1779 and 1799 for a total of 710 acres. He moved to Knox County around 1815 based on lawsuits in Wilkes County. Francis had as many as 19 children, not all proven, by at least two wives.
• Nathaniel Vannoy was born on February 16, 1749. He died at Greenville, SC, at age 87 of measles at the house of his daughter, Mrs. Sallie Cleveland, on July 26, 1835. “He was a soldier of the Rev. War and served with Col. Benjamin Cleveland at King’s Mountain.” His obituary further stated that he was “half English and half French in stock,” neither of which was accurate, and that he was the first white man to be born in western NC, which is doubtful. His wife was Elizabeth Ray “of Ashe Co., NC.” Nathaniel was also one of the early Baptist preachers in Wilkes County.
• Hannah Vannoy, born March 26, 1751, married the Reverend Andrew Baker. There’s some question about whether her name was actually Susannah or Katherine, as noted below.
• Daniel Vannoy was born on February 22, 1752, and married Sarah Hickerson on October 2, 1779. He died sometime after January 1795 and is not found in the 1800 census or later records. The family didn’t leave because his children remained in the area. His son, Joel Vannoy, married Elizabeth Saint Clear in March of 1817 in Wilkes County, and Little Hickerson signed their marriage license as bondsman. Little Hickerson was also known as Samuel Stewart, as discussed in this article, and was a nephew of Sarah Hickerson.
• Susannah Vannoy was born July 6, 1754, and may have married John Long, Sr.
• Katherine Vannoy was born on December 26, 1755.

Eller and others mention a man by the name of John Francis Vanay who settled in South Carolina by 1736 when he received a land grant, followed by another grant to a town lot in Purrysburgh the next year. Eller speculated that this is our John, who then moved to the Jersey Settlement at the mouth of Potts Creek in Rowan County, NC, near present-day Linwood.

I have verified the South Carolina records, and the spelling of the surname as well. I cannot make any connection between John Francis Vanay in SC and the John Vannoy known to have settled in the Jersey Settlement. I was not able to find any disposition of the John Francis Vanay land in South Carolina nor any other records. I suspect that this is where the middle name of “Francis” attributed to our John originated. The John Francis Vanay of SC could be (and probably was) a descendant of the original Long Island settler, John Vannoy, born in 1644.

The Jersey Settlement

John Vannoy married Susannah (supposedly Anderson), probably about 1740, based on the April 1741 birth of their oldest known child. They migrated to North Carolina with other NJ folks who established a community known as the Jersey Settlement on the Yadkin River in what is now Davidson Co., some 40 miles southwest of present-day Greensboro.

The Jersey Settlement of North Carolina had its roots in New Jersey.

Origins of the Jersey Settlement

From Morgan Edwards, A.M., Baptist Minister; fellow of Rhode Island College 1770-1792, “Materials Toward a History of the Baptists;” first pub. 1790, we discover:

The February 1699 Burlington County, (NJ Court) received a “Petition of some inhabitants above the falls for a new township to be called Hopewell, as also a new road and boundaries of Said town…”

The Township’s location was described c1770:

Hopewell is situated 40 miles S.W. of Philadelphia, bounded on the East by the Province line, West by the Delaware River, on the North by Amwell Twp., and on the South by Assunpink Creek, and included the Indian village of Wissamensen at the head of Stony Brook, some miles north of the falls of the Delaware.

You can see a John Van Noy on an 1875 map, here. There’s another Vannoy as well and at least one Updyke. Lots of people from this cluster of families stayed when others left for the next frontier.

In her book First Families of Jersey Settlement, published in 1996, Ethel Stroup describes the origins of the Jersey Settlement in North Carolina, which, of course, originated in New Jersey.

Its first settlers were Hopewell citizens who migrated after being swindled by Proprietors and royal Governors, especially Dr. Daniel Coxe and his son Col. Daniel Coxe, two powerful and greedily villainous Proprietors, in “The Coxe Affair.”  What these Jersey men endured in Hopewell directly affected the Yadkin’s Revolutionary generation, explaining why Jersey Settlement had reacted so violently against N.C.’s corrupt Gov. William Tryon’s sticky-fingered royal officials, John Frohock, Rowan Court Clerk, and Edmund Fanning, King’s Attorney, whose thievery and injustices caused the 1771 Regulator War (considered by historians the first true battle of the American Revolution), and caused Charles Lord Cornwallis to call central North Carolina “a hornet’s nest of rebellion.”

The earliest families of Jersey Settlement came from Hopewell Township, Hunterdon County, New Jersey, about 1745, where some had been members of Pennington’s Presbyterian Church, and others were Quakers and Baptists who baptized their children in St. Mary’s Episcopal church for practical, political reasons.

They were founding this settlement so that they (and groups that followed) could recoup losses suffered when New Jersey’s Supreme Court invalidated deeds to thousands of acres in Hopewell, land their fathers had purchased as wilderness.

The first NC settlers list did not include John Vannoy or his father, but did include Cornelius Anderson, nephew of John’s mother, Susannah Anderson Vannoy, through her brother, Bartholomew Anderson/Andriesen. Cornelius would also have been related to John Vannoy’s wife, assuming that the family history that they were first cousins was true.

By the time John Vannoy became an adult, the ongoing land conflict in Hopewell made it obvious that there was likely no future of land ownership there.

In 1731, calamity befell these honest and hard working settlers when “Col. Coxe and other heirs of the late Dr. Coxe” declared that most of Hopewell belonged to them, a claim without an honest basis, e.g., improper surveys or failure to pay — but the West Jersey Society lacked a court record proving Dr. Coxe’s transfer to them. His heir, Col. Coxe, had enough political clout to induce Hunterdon’s Supreme Court to order High Sheriff Bennett Bard to serve perhaps a hundred or more Hopewell residents with Writs ordering them to “Pay” for their land a second time or “Quit.” Those who failed to repurchase their own farms then received “Writs of Ejectment” which called them “Tenants” and “Tresspassers” on Coxe’s land! On April 22, 1731, in an impressive show of unity, fifty of the earliest settlers of Hopewell entered into a written agreement and solemn compact to stand by each other and test the validity of Col. Coxe’s claim. They hired an attorney, Mr. Kinsey, and filed a counter suit naming Col. Daniel Coxe as sole defendant. The Township had more people, but some were not affected, having purchased [directly] from Coxe. Others considered it useless to fight a man as powerful as Col. Coxe, so did not join in the law suit. The August 1732 term of the New Jersey Supreme Court issued Writs of Trespass & Ejectment against each settler who had not repurchased. The fifty men who sued were identified from their individual records.

Bartholomew Anderson was noted on the list, as were Francis and Daniel Gano, and one John Hendrickson, which I only note here due to the similarity to the name Hickerson and Y-DNA matches to Henderson men whose ancestor is from Hunterdon County.

Long story short, after numerous appeals in courts beset by crooked politicians, the final appeal was exhausted in 1734, and the settlers had but three choices: pay, remove, or revolt.

Historian Ralph Ege (born in Hopewell in 1837) wrote about the great dilemma:

This verdict caused the most distressing state of affairs in this township that was ever experienced in any community. Some moved away immediately, but the majority stayed, at least initially, and assumed the financial burden. Cattle and personal possessions were sold, and a great struggle began which impoverished many families for years to come. Then came the great excitement incident to ejecting the settlers from the farms which they, or their fathers had purchased, and on which they had built dwellings, barns and fences. Their lands had cost them only fifty cents per acre, it is true, but they had purchased them in good faith and spent the best years of their lives in clearing them. Many had mortgaged them to pay for the expense of improvement consequently not being able to incur the additional expense, they were compelled to leave their homes and seek new homes elsewhere, risking for the second, and for some of them the third time, the perils of the wilderness.

In 1734, John Vannoy would have been 15 and 18 years old, a very impressionable young man. He would have watched his father agonize over what to do and listened as the other men discussed their horrible dilemma.

John’s father, Francis Vannoy:

• Was not on the list of “50 men”
• Was not evicted or escaped the state in subsequent years “for debt,” which was charged to men who refused to repay to purchase their land and were therefore charged “rent,” which they also refused to pay
• According to his 1768 will, Francis owned land at his death

Given this, we can presume that Francis did indeed repurchase his land from the swindling Coxe family.

About half of the families on the infamous “50 men” list left in the next few years to areas where they felt there was less corruption, available land, and honest people.

A popular destination was the upper Shenandoah Valley where the first settlement was started in 1730 when guide Morgan Bryan led a group of Quakers walking from Pennsylvania to the upper Potomac. He settled his own family on Opequon Creek, an area that in 1738 became Frederick County, Virginia.

About 1732, another guide, Jost Hite, opened the first wagon road as far as Winchester, settling his group of Pennsylvania Germans on a different stretch of Opequon Creek.

Comparison of records for early settlers in the upper Valley shows many with surnames identical to those in New Jersey’s “Coxe Affair.”

The greatest concentration of New Jersey migrants was along Back Creek (the next creek west of Opequon) in a small, mountain community where a peak was fortuitously named by its early settlers “Jersey Mountain.”

This information is important because it weaves people from these places together in unexpected ways.

However, things weren’t always peaceful on the frontier, either. Farming was difficult, Indian raids necessitated building forts and required a conscripted militia, and many of the original New Jersey settlers were now either middle-aged or elderly. Given what had happened in New Jersey, they didn’t want to be squatters, either, and they hoped for a better environment.

North Carolina beckoned.

By May 1741, Bladen County issued deeds on the Great Peedee (Yadkin). It was no accident that the Hopewell group chose its north bank to found their “Jersey Settlement,” an area described as: “Ten square miles of the best wheat land in the south, located in (modern) Davidson County, near Linwood. The exact year in which the Jersey Settlement was made on the Yadkin is not known. It is probable that this settlement left New Jersey and arrived on the Yadkin between 1747 and 1755. It was composed of many people from New Jersey who had sent an agent there to locate and enter the best land still open to settlement.” [John Preston Arthur, A History of Watauga County, N. C., (1915) p.88].

A great attraction for these victims of political corruption was that in 1745 North Carolina was exceptionally well governed. Gov. Gabriel Johnston was an honest, capable Scottish physician and professor who on arrival found the colony in pitiable condition, and tried earnestly to better its welfare. “Under (Johnston’s) prudent administration, the province increased in population, wealth and happiness.”  [C. L. Hunter, Sketches of Western North Carolina, (1877), p. 7].

About 1745, the New Jersey group (perhaps a dozen or more families) left Back Creek in a wagon train bound for the Yadkin. Based on events after arrival, their leaders were probably Jonathan Hunt and Thomas Smith, but they were almost surely guided by the famous “Waggoneer” and explorer, Morgan Bryan who guided other groups to this general area, and in 1748 brought his own family from the Opequon to form Morgan’s Settlement on the south bank of Deep Creek, four miles above the “Shallow Ford” of the Yadkin. [Robert W. Ramsey, Carolina Cradle, Settlement of the Northwest Carolina Frontier, 1747-1762; (U.N.C. Press, 1964; 4th printing 1987), p. 31].

So began the River Settlements, best reached from the north via an old Indian warpath, widened and renamed The Yading Path. About 1745/6 Thomas Smith received land on Swearing Creek, but his Bladen deed is missing (as are many others.)

At the time of the formation of Rowan County in 1753, two of the Yadkin settlers, Col. George Smith and Jonathan Hunt, were important enough that the Assembly would not approve the bill for the formation of Rowan County until the names of Col. George Smith, and Capt. Jonathan Hunt, were re-inserted. Their names had been in the original bill for formation, but had been deleted and other names substituted by his Majesty’s Council. Early Jersey Church served Episcopalians, Baptists and Presbyterians, with later sermons, marriages and baptisms performed by visiting preachers, including Moravians, and catechism lessons by Lutheran Rev. David Henkel. [George Smith (1713-c1799) s/o Andrew, Jr., brother-in-law to Jonathan Hunt; Smith Bible; Rep. James Whitaker (1779-1871) of Cherokee Co., N.C., My Memoirs, private publication].

While one might presume that the earliest settlers in the Jersey Settlement did not maintain contact with their family members either in Virginia or New Jersey, we know that’s not true based on a number of factors, including deaths that occurred in North Carolina that were recorded in Bibles in Hopewell, New Jersey.

Furthermore, Morgan and others traveled back and forth, guiding new families to various locations in Virginia and North Carolina. Morgan would have carried news and possibly letters with him, too.

The first settlers would have invited others to join them in the beautiful valley of the Yadkin River. Even if Hopewell residents didn’t have immediate family there, they often had more distant family, as did John Vannoy and Susannah Anderson. Furthermore, they knew the families from church, and they knew they had a support structure before they packed up their possessions, loaded them into a wagon, hitched up the horses or oxen, and set off on the Great Wagon Road from the Yadkin River to Philadelphia for the new frontier, as seen on this 1749 map. New settlers swelled the ranks of the North Carolina Counties.

History of the Jersey Settlement from the History of Watauga County. Chapter VIII:

First Light on the Jersey Settlement.- From a sketch of the Greene Family of Watauga, by the late Rev. G. W. Greene, Baptist missionary to China, we learn that “about the middle of the eighteenth century a colony moved from New Jersey and settled in Rowan County, North Carolina.”

Bishop Spangenberg mentioned the 400 families from the North had just arrived in 1752 and the fact that most of the land east of Rowan County had already been taken up at that time. (Id. Vol. IV, p. 1312.)

Anson County was formed from Bladen County in 1748. Rowan County was formed from the northern part of Anson County and was intended to incorporate all of the lands within the Granville District that had previously been in Anson County.

Rowan County

John Vannoy is not found in the records of Frederick County, Virginia, or elsewhere using the FamilySearch AI Search for all of Virginia. He is not found in either Bladen or Anson Counties, but he was in Rowan County by September of 1753 when he registered his stock mark.

John was in his mid-30s, had been married for 13 or 14 years, had seven children, and most certainly wanted to own his own land that he could one day bequeath to his children. He yearned to escape the constant drama and trauma associated with the “Coxe Affair.” No one wants to live in a cesspool of corruption.

One day, something served as the final straw, and they decided to go.

The Vannoy family, with children ranging in age from newborn to 11 or 12, piled into the back of their wagon. They would have been very hopeful as the wagon creaked over the dirt road and mountains, lumbering toward this new chapter of their lives, perhaps singing as they went.

Leaving the known for the unknown is every bit as much an act of faith as religious beliefs and rituals.

Rowan County Courthouse, September 3, 1753:

3^rd Tues September 1753 – John Vanoy prays his mark and brand to be recorded granted his mark a swallowfork in the near ear and a half crop in the right, brand J V

A swallowfork looks like this, and a half-crop means cutting half the ear off. Yea, pretty offputting, but that was the way of life for a very long time. Livestock was corralled in barns and fed during the winter but set loose to graze in the woodlands, mingling with the animals of other settlers during the rest of the year. Stock marks were the only means of identifying your animals.

Note that Squire Boon, Daniel Boone’s father, was one of the esquires present in the court that day.

Given that John registered his stock mark at this point in time, it’s probably when he arrived in Rowan County from the Jersey settlement. Finding a place to live before winter and registering your stock mark would have been the first things he did.

The pioneer Presbyterian Reverend Hugh McAden recorded in his journal that he spent the night of September 5, 1755, at the home of John Vannoy after having ridden 45 miles that day. The fact that he was Presbyterian and stayed with John probably indicates that John was Presbyterian, too, at least at this point in his life.

McAden goes on to say:

Next morning, came to Henry Sloan’s, at the Yadkin Ford, where I was kindly entertained till Sabbath day; rode to the meeting-house and preached to a small congregation.” Here there appears to have been a congregation of some strength that had a meeting-house, but had become divided,—“Many adhere to the Baptists that were before wavering, and several that professed themselves to be Presbyterians; so that very few at present join heartily for our ministers, and will in a little time, if God prevent not, be too weak either to call or supplicate for a faithful minister. O may the good Lord, who can bring order out of confusion, and call things that are not as though they were, visit this people!” One cause of the divisions in this congregation arose from the labors of a Baptist minister among them by the name of Miller.

After preaching, he visited some sick people, and went home with James Smith, about four miles. On Tuesday, he “preached again at the meeting-house, and went home with Cornelius Anderson, about six miles – a judicious, honest man, I hope, who seems to be much concerned for the state of the church and perishing souls.”

It’s worth noting that Cornelius Anderson was John Vannoy’s relative, as was the Smith family. Rebecka Andriesen (Anderson) married John Smith. She died in North Carolina in 1785. Her brother was Bartholomew Anderson, father of Cornelius Anderson. Her sister married Francis Vannoy, father of John Vannoy.

These people were clearly Presbyterian, too. However, during the Regulator Movement, McAden and three other Presbyterian ministers supported the colonial government, calling upon their brethren who signed the Regulator oath to repent. That’s very likely when John Vannoy converted to the Baptist faith.

Rowan (County) Deed abstracts (1753-1785 by Linn) tell us who John’s neighbors were.

March 8, 1758 – McCulloh to David Jones 40 pounds 545 ac adj Robert Gamble, John Vanoy and Jeremiah Green, John, Willis Ellis, John McGuire (deed badly damaged)

David Jones and wife Hannah to Thomas Parker Esq. for 51 pounds VA money land adj Robert Gamble, John Vanoy and Jeremiah Green, no witnesses (deed badly damaged)

Next 2 pages of the deed book are missing

This “Jersey Settlement” is now a part of Davidson County, and lies near the Yadkin River, opposite Salisbury. H. E. McCullough of England had secured grants to large tracts in North Carolina, tract No. 9 containing 12,500 acres, including much of the land of the Jersey Settlement.

From a sketch of the Greene Family of Watauga by the late Rev. G. W. Greene, Baptist missionary to China, we learn that Jeremiah Greene bought a 541-acre tract described as lying “on the waters of Atkin or Pee Dee” on Pott’s Creek. This creek passes near the village of Linwood, within a mile of the Jersey church, and empties into the Yadkin, not far away. This land was bought in 1762.

Note that today part of the Yadkin and Potts Creek have been flooded by the High Rock Damn and are now High Rock Lake.

John Vannoy is found on a 1759 tax list as well.

John is listed as a juror several times over the next several years, which tells us that he owned land, even if we don’t know exactly where it was located.

• October 21, 1757
• October 17, 1759
• January 23 and 24, 1761
• April 24, 1761

Eller said that John is “said to have lived” in the Jersey Settlement until about 1772 and sympathized with the Regulators in their opposition to the unjust tax and service fee policy of the British Government under Governor William Tryon.

After their rebellion was crushed at Alamance in May of 1771, many of the settler’s homes along the Yadkin River were pillaged and destroyed and the home of John Vannoy is said to have been one of them. He, therefore, disposed of his farm and moved westward to a safer place in the mountains of Wilkes Co., NC. See chapter VI in “The Rowan Story” by James S. Brawley, 1953 and the book “Some Neglected History of NC” by William E. Fitch, for more about the “Regulator” movement which some historians say was the first battle of the Revolution.”

The Wilkes Co. Reddies River book states:

Apparently John lived in or near the Jersey settlement in Rowan Co prior to his coming to Wilkes. He was a staunch Baptist in his religious beliefs and sympathized with the “Regulators” in their opposition to the unjust and oppressive policies of the British Government under Governor Wiliam Tryon.  Consequently, his home was one of those pillaged and destroyed by the troops of Gov. Tryon in the early summer of 1771, and Mr. Vannoy and his family were forced to flee for their lives.

The remoteness of Reddies River about 75 miles upstream beckoned unto these persecuted people and it is here that they found their new homes. The 1771 tax list of Surry Co. shows John and his sons, Andrew and Francis, as being taxable.

Eller states that John and Susannah Vannoy were staunch Baptists in their religious beliefs and also says that John and Susannah “identified with the great religious revival that the Baptist church, through George McNiel and John Gano, were introducing throughout southern Virginia and the Yadkin Valley in NC.”

If John had not already become Baptist, the Regulator Movement did it. John Vannoy was reported by some to have been a minister, but I have found no evidence for that. Maybe he preached in his zeal to whomever would listen. How could one NOT have strong feelings about what was going on?

We find John appearing in the Surry County Court notes three times in 1757 and then in 1760 as John Venoy, a juror.

Also, in 1757, John Venoy and Frederick Michael were securities for Hance Licans (probably Hans Laicans/Lycans) as administrators in the estate of Daniel Halsey.

A lull in activity between 1762 and 1764 may have resulted from the Cherokee’s displeasure with the uninvited settlers. The Creeks had joined the Cherokees in warfare against the settlers, forcing many to flee and the ones remaining to huddle in their fortified homes.

The conflict began in Virginia with settlers killing Cherokee warriors returning from fighting the French, causing the Cherokee to attack white settlements in North Carolina in the spring of 1759.

A peace treaty was reached in 1761, but settlers continued to ignore British promises not to settle on Cherokee land and continued to do so after the Proclamation Act of 1763.

Settlers began to flow back to Yadkin Valley from wherever they had sought refuge and attention was refocused on the tax controversy. Baptists and other dissenters were frustrating Gov. William Tryon’s plan for the Established Church.

In 1764, John Venoy (and others, including Morgan Bryant) were ordered to lay out a road from White’s ford on Yadkin to the Shallow ford on said river:

January 10, 1765 – Ordered that a road be laid out leading from Whites ford on the Yadkin River to the Shallow ford on said rover and that the following persons lay out the same to wit Morgan Bryant, Abraham Creson, John Howard, Silis Enyard, Henry Shedmore, Francis Reynolds, Edmund Denny, John Vannoy, Thomas Barton, Luke Lee, Samuel Hays, Samuel Bryan, Henry Shedmor (Skidmore?) overseer from Millers to the Shallow ford. Edmund Denny from Christion Millers to the White’s ford

John was a juror when the following action took place in court the following day.

January 11, 1765 – John Bridges Jr., Richard Perkins Jr., and Robert Biggam Perkins have feloniously taken and lead away 2 stone horses and one gelding of the price of 5 pounds each the property of persons unknown supposed to belong the some of our Indian Allies the Cherokees and herby ordered a warrant be issued…

Attending court was akin to attending the movies, watching a thriller on TV, or social media today. Everyone retired to the tavern afterward to discuss what had happened and to eat and imbibe, of course. Men rented a room as well, sleeping multiple men to a bed so they could be present for court the following day.

Also, in 1765, John’s son, Francis, was paid for a wolf scalp.

In the Rowan Court Notes book from 1753-1772, John Vannoy was a juror in the case of Thomas Foster vs George Smith. It’s likely that he was related to George Smith, given that Rebecka Andriesen, sister of John’s mother, married John Smith. The couple and their children came to Rowan County.

John Vannoy and son were listed in 1768 on a tax list with two polls, meaning two men in the household were of age. This causes me to wonder where his other sons were, because three of them were of age too.

Rowan Court Minutes 1768-1772

February 15, 1770 – road order including Daniel Boone to lay off a road from the Shallow ford to Millers about 2 miles below said Millers the nearest and best way through the Great Gap of said Brushey Mountain the best way to George Boons at the mouth of Bever Creek to strike Mr. Montgomery’s road near the main Yadkin River.

This road order is incredibly important.

This is the first entry that connects John Vannoy with the Wilkes County area. Note that Shallow Ford is about halfway between the Jersey Settlement and Wilkesboro, noted here with Miller’s Creek. Brushey Mountain is just south of Wilkesboro.

Beaver Creek, where the Boone cabin was located, is found about 10 miles further west, and dumps into the Yadkin near present-day Ferguson.

This road would eventually be extended to Kentucky and become known as the “Daniel Boone Trail.” It was likely the same route that Francis Vannoy, who knew Boone, would follow through the Cumberland Gap some 40+ years later.

In the next entry, Page 3:172:

Henry Skidmore appointed overseer of the road from the Shallowford road to Hunting Creek and inhabitants of Deep Creek to work thereon. Edmond Dinney overseer from Hunting Creek to Fishers Creek with inhabitants from Little Elkin on both sides of the Yadkin up to Mulberry Creek to work thereon. John Vanoy from Fisher’s Creek to the upper end with the inhabitants from Mulberry Creek on both sides of the Yadkin to the head of the river to work thereon.

The head of the Yadkin is near Blowing Rock, in the mountains a few miles south of Boone, NC.

According to a note from Jason Duncan, Wilkes County historian, in 2019 on the Daniel Vannoy article, this is probably Fishing Creek which seems to be appropriate when looking at his database.

This is not a trivial distance for John to manage, and he tells us that he was a fit mountaineer at 50-55 years of age. I’ve approximated the route along the Yadkin from Fishing Creek to the head of the Yadkin, which is around 90 miles through challenging and difficult terrain.

Here’s a picture of the stunning Yadkin Valley from the Thunder Hill Overlook on the Blue Ridge Parkway. In reality, this landscape is often enveloped in fog, and the road is high and treacherous. I’ve driven it, never realizing its significance. This was the termination point of John’s road crew – the end of the line – but the beginning of the next chapter for John and his sons.

This one photo, alone, caused me to look upon John with immense respect. This rugged terrain tells us about his character and bravery – that he was tenacious. He appeared to fear nothing.

This is truly God’s country where every person succeeds or dies by their wits and survival skills. There’s no help here.

This land, these mountains, they challenge and change you.

John returned, at least briefly, but his life was never the same.

He was forever changed.

Mulberry Creek

Mulberry Creek dumps into the Yadkin at Wilkesboro, which was originally called Mulberry Fields.

We’ve now connected the dots for John Vannoy from the Jersey Settlement to not only Wilkesboro, but Mulberry Creek where his son Andrew Vannoy obtained a land grant for 50 acres in 1789 and 600 acres in 1790, adjoining the Hall family.

Today, Andrew’s land is dissected by Highway 18, just beneath McGrady.

But before we visit Wilkes County, let’s visit the Jersey Settlement and follow John’s life path.

Visit to the Jersey Settlement

In May of 2012, I visited the area of the Jersey Settlement in former Rowan, now Davidson County, NC, and, thankfully, wrote an account of my visit. You always think you’ll remember, but reading something you wrote years ago makes you realize just how much you forget.

While this is but one part of the early Vannoy family history, it is one of the most relevant chapters of John Vannoy’s life – and critically important to the lives of his children – some of whom were born in the Jersey Settlement. His eldest children probably had faint memories of New Jersey and the long wagon ride. Perhaps they shared these stories with their grandchildren half a century later – around the fireplace on crisp winter evenings as the winds howled in the mountains.

The Jersey Settlement formed who this family was and informed how they got to both North Carolina and Wilkes County. Taken as a whole, it was quite a journey, fit for a made-for-TV documentary, complete with power brokers and rife with danger, conflict, and betrayals. And just think – we only know tidbits!

John Vannoy would have been about 36 years old, give or take, if he arrived in the Jersey Settlement in 1752. He lived there for just shy of two decades, along the Yadkin River in Rowan Co, NC, near the mouth of Lick Creek at a spot long remembered as the old Vannoy Fish Dam. In 1771, when the area was terrorized by Gov. Tryon’s troops who pillaged and destroyed the Yadkin settlements after Alamance, John and his family reportedly fled to the mountains in what later became Wilkes County.

Did they? Is there evidence?

John clearly knew this land better than any other living white man, perhaps with the exception of Daniel Boone and his father.

The Jersey Settlement, Then and Now

Now that we know the settlement story, let’s try to locate the Jersey Settlement today. That was my 2012 challenge.

This 1775 map of North Carolina shows the few roads of the time, including the Trading Road into Salisbury and Potts Creek. I’ve marked the location of the Jersey Settlement.

A larger view shows the Jersey Settlement near Salisbury, along with the Mulberry Fields near the top left. This shows us the path that John Vannoy would have taken as the family migrated from his land in the Jersey Settlement to where he settled north of Mulberry Fields. Mulberry Fields is now the area where Wilkesboro is found, but at that time, “Mulberry” followed Mulberry Creek and its branches from the Yadkin River north to the ridge of the mountains.

John knew this. He laid out that road in the wilderness, and along with his road hands, made it so.

I used contemporary Google maps to trace the route John Vannoy would have taken, along with his family.

John’s son, Nathaniel, settled at or near what is now Wilkesboro. Daniel tried unsuccessfully to settle there. Andrew settled at McGrady. Daniel, Nathaniel, and Francis also obtained land grants further west in the mountains.

The road between Wilkesboro and Laurel Springs appears to be the old road North through the Valley, but not the one John laid out. That road continued west from the mouth of Mulberry Creek and the Yadkin.

At best, this is rough terrain. At worst, impenetrable. Maybe that dissuaded Governor Tryon’s troops from pursuing the fleeing families. Maybe simply chasing them away was enough.

John Vannoy would have sought shelter overnight, and possibly longer, at Fort Dobbs both when laying out the road and later. The horses could have rested and been fed, and the humans too. The fort as a soldier’s garrison was abandoned in 1761, but the structure was certainly still standing in 1770 or 1771 when John would have been traveling northwestward. It was shown on the 1775 map.

Today, from an aerial view, we can still see the outline of Fort Dobbs itself, which was a blockhouse, along with the palisade and moat.

Today, a blockhouse is being reconstructed.

John Vannoy, just past half a century, and his sons, ranging in age from about 20 to 28, would have seen something similar as they approached the abandoned Fort Dobbs on horseback.

The Jersey Settlement

In an online article, which I believe was written by Teddy Barclay Pope in 2000, subsequently posted on a Rootsweb list, and is today preserved on the North Carolina GenWeb project, we find additional information, which I’ve both quoted and summarized where appropriate.

Beginning around 1740, some people from New Jersey, and the congregation of the Baptist Church now known as Old School Baptist Church of Hopewell, New Jersey (above), began to migrate to North Carolina to an area called Jersey Settlement. Eventually, they built a church called Jersey Church.

The original church in New Jersey, now a museum, was simply called the Hopewell Meeting House and was a one-story stone structure constituted about 1747.

In North Carolina today, the Jersey Baptist Church is the largest church in the area, located on Jersey Church Road in present-day Davidson County.

The museum representative at Hopewell told the writer that their records name some people who were in a suit about land that was in North Carolina as their money had been taken in a scam. They had to pay twice. She called some of the names out over the telephone, but the writer did not hear the name of Barkley and did not write down the other names. She said that this suit was why they had any record of the names of people from Hopewell New Jersey going to North Carolina.

It’s a good thing the mention of this lawsuit still exists, because without it, there would be no direct evidence that the NJ group was the same group in the Rowan County Jersey Settlement. Obtaining those lawsuit records, if they still exist, would be very enlightening.

The Early Jersey Church and the Regulators War

The church secretary at Jersey Baptist Church read to the writer from the church history book, which is a bounded published book in its second printing and now has an index. The book tells of about 125 young people who migrated from the congregation of Old School Baptist Church in 1756 to Rowan County North Carolina and formed a settlement called Jersey Settlement. They had a grant of 100,000 acres of land, within the Granville grant, for settling. Their preacher was John Gano. John Gano was not at the time an ordained minister, because the Hopewell Church thought he was too young and too inexperienced to be ordained by them.

On Nov. 15, 1757, Gano and his family, a handful of possessions and a heart full of faith, arrived in the valley. He built a log dwelling for his family on the banks of Swearing Creek.

By the first of July, the settlers had completed their meeting house on a gentle hilltop overlooking the rich valley.

In another document, the Rev. George McNiel is noted in conjunction with the early Jersey Church and the Regulators Movement, although I have found no evidence of that. He certainly would have known Gano as a fellow backwoods preacher.

Born about 1720, McNiel was one of the earliest Baptist preachers in this region and eventually settled in Wilkes County. His descendants, as well as those of the Sheppard family, intermarried heavily with the Vannoys in Wilkes County and lived in close proximity.

It was not John Gano’s intent to stay permanently in the Jersey settlement.

He went back to Hopewell, NJ, but came to visit the Jersey Settlement several times. He also asked for a missionary to go to Jersey settlement to work with the people there.

The minutes of Jersey Baptist Church began in 1784. Earlier minutes were lost, but by then, the church had been meeting for thirty years.

The following information about the Baptists in Rowan County was found in James Ervin’s book “A Colonial History of Rowan County, North Carolina,” published by the University of North Carolina in 1917.

Information as to the Baptists in early Rowan is very meager. When the Rev. Hugh McAden passed through this section in 1755, he found a meeting house in the Jersey Settlement. There was much confusion in the congregation, many of whom were Baptists and several professing to be Presbyterians. One cause of the trouble arose from the labors of a Mr. Miller, a Baptist minister. With the aid of a Rev. Mr., Gano, Miller established a Baptist Church in the Jersey Settlement.

Benjamin Miller preached there as early as 1755, and the facts indicate that there were already Baptists on the Yadkin when Benjamin Miller visited the settlement. The Philadelphia Association has in its records of 1755 the following reference: “Appointed that one minister from the Jerseys and one from Pennsylvania visit North Carolina.” But Miller appears to have gone to the “Jersey Settlement still earlier than 1755.” (p.17).

Another preacher who visited the Jersey Settlement was John Gano. He had been converted just before this time, and was directed by Benjamin Miller, pastor of Scotch Plains Church, New Jersey, to take the New Testament as his guide on baptism. He became a Baptist, and, learning of Carolina from Miller, decided to visit the Jersey Settlement on his way to South Carolina. This he seems to have done in 1756. During his stay at the settlement, he tells us in his autobiography that “a Baptist Church was constituted and additions made to it.” He left the colony early in the year 1759, and so the church must have been organized between 1756 and 1758.

There’s more to this story, though.

The predominant church in the British Colonies was the Church of England. Its ministers, educated in England, did not appeal to the residents and “dissenting ministers” soon had the ear of the people. The Jersey Settlers, as a result, were soon swept up in the heat of political controversy.

During the next decade, the settlers in North Carolina were to engage in a struggle that would have a resounding effect across the colonies – the struggle between the “Regulators” and the imposition of taxation and the Established Church.

Upon the formation of Rowan County in 1753, a courthouse was built, and Governor Dobbs sent officers, attorneys, and tax collectors to be supported by the settlers’ taxes – the same as any other county in any other colony.

County taxes, poll taxes, and a vestry tax were imposed with the Vestry Act, providing “that the clergy may have a decent and comfortable maintenance and support.” The clergy, of course, meant Church of England ministers who were provided with a home to live in and a salary.

Baptists did not believe in paying taxes to support a minister of the Church of England, especially ones who wanted to tell them how to worship.

At the same time, the local agricultural community was suffering from a deep economic depression due to severe droughts throughout the preceding decade. Crop loss caused farmers to lose not only their direct food source, but their primary means of income as well, which led many to rely on the goods being brought in by newly arrived merchants.

Since income was greatly reduced or nonexistent, the local planters often fell into debt, which could not be paid off immediately. In turn, the merchants would rely on lawyers and the court to settle unpaid accounts. Debts were not uncommon at the time, but from 1755 to 1765, the number of cases brought to the docket increased 15-fold, from 7 annually to 111 in Orange County alone. Court cases could often lead to planters losing their homes and property, so they grew to resent the presence of the new merchants and the lawyers – in addition to the taxing authorities, politicians, and Church of England ministers.

The shift in population and politics eventually led to an imbalance within the colony’s power structure. The newly arrived and well-educated lawyers used their superior knowledge of the law to their sometimes unjust advantage. A small clique of wealthy officials formed and became an exclusive inner circle in charge of the area’s legal affairs. The group was seen as a ‘courthouse ring,’ or a small group of officials who obtained most of the political power for themselves.

John Gano was a natural leader and formed a protest group of some 700 people who met in 1758 to formulate a set of articles, one calling for an end of the vestries. This event began a long, bitter struggle between religious settlers who were not members of the Church of England, pitted against the forces of the early colonial government.

In 1759, political disputes waned slightly as an all-out effort was waged to conquer the warring Cherokees – a result of the French and Indian War.

The Creeks had joined the Cherokees in warfare against settlers, forcing many to flee and the remaining families to huddle in their fortified homes, hoping for the best.

Gano decided that his obligation to protect his family was as great as his duty to the settlement. He returned to New Jersey and later became a chaplain in Gen. George Washington’s Revolutionary War forces.

After peace was reached with the Indians in 1763, settlers began to flow back into the Yadkin Valley, and attention was refocused on the tax controversy. Baptists and other dissenters resumed attempting to frustrate Gov. William Tryon’s plan for the Established Church, which ultimately led to the Battle of Alamance in 1771.

Small acts of resistance and petty violence continued during that time, and the Regulator sympathizers increased.

The most heavily affected areas were said to be Rowan, Anson, Orange, Granville, and Cumberland counties. It was a struggle between the majority of North Carolina’s population—mostly lower-class citizens, farmers, and tradesmen—and the wealthy ruling class, which comprised about 5% of the population who maintained almost complete control of the government. Needless to say, their interests were not necessarily those of the common man.

North Carolina’s colonial court met in Hillsborough. In September 1770, the Regulators entered Hillsborough, broke up the court, and dragged those they saw as corrupt officials through the streets. The mob attempted to have the judge try the cases pending against several Regulator leaders.

The presiding judge, Richard Henderson, who became a land speculator, quickly adjourned the court until the next morning to avoid being forced to make a ruling in the presence of an angry mob of Regulators. He escaped during the night.

Infuriated and robbed of justice, the Regulators rioted the next day, destroying public and private property alike. The courthouse was systematically and symbolically vandalized, and the King’s lawyer, Edmund Fanning, was severely beaten. Human waste was placed on the judge’s seat, and the body of a long-deceased slave was placed upon the lawyer’s bar. (I’m horrified on several levels!)

The mob continued to destroy shops and property in the town, and ultimately brought their destructive band to Fanning’s personal residence. After destroying all of the furniture and drinking all of his alcohol, the entire house was picked apart. Henderson’s barn, along with his stables and home, were burned to the ground. They cracked the church bell of the Church of England, but stopped short of looting the church further due to their “religious beliefs.”

At that time, disrupting court and hanging officials in effigy was an accepted practice to draw attention to one’s cause, especially as a protest. This time, though, things clearly got out of hand, although the Regulators did not destroy the courthouse. They called for a resumption of order and just rule.

From the government perspective, this was clearly an escalation from earlier protests, could not be ignored, and set off a chain of events that led directly to the Battle of Alamance eight months later, in May of 1771.

While there were someplace beween 2000 and 6000 men involved at the Battle of Alamance, only nine men on each side were killed, and other than the seven Regulators executed, everyone else who was captured in battle was fully pardoned in exchange for pledging allegiance to the crown..

Following the battle, Tryon’s militia army traveled through Regulator territory, where he forced Regulators and Regulator sympathizers to sign loyalty oaths and destroyed the properties of the most fervent Regulators. He also raised taxes to pay for his militia’s defeat of the Regulators.

Many of the Regulator leaders remained in hiding until 1772, when they were no longer considered outlaws with the expiration of Johnson’s Riot Act, and others moved westward.

This clearly affected the parishioners of the Jersey Church, most of whom were Regulators, and was a turning point in the Jersey Settlement.

The next frontier beckoned.

Jersey Church Cemetery and Records

By 1771, the Jersey Church had been in use in some capacity for at least two decades.

But where?

The graveyard of the Jersey Baptist Church contains many very old graves and markers. Some of these stones have inscriptions that can be read, but others, not so much. The Jersey Baptist Church had a section of land they thought was for expansion of their graveyard. When they began to attempt to use it, they found that it was already full, containing even older unmarked graves. At that time, they didn’t know why the graves were unmarked. It might have been that the graves had markers earlier that had deteriorated and were removed. It might have been that the graves were not marked to conceal the number of dead from the Indians, who would have been better able to determine the number of living by knowing the number who had died. Whenever a new grave was to be dug, and it was found that it had already been used, by a bone or a button or a piece of cloth coming up, the object was replaced and left further undisturbed.

Various books have made several mentions of Jersey Settlement and the church.

Land was deeded for a church in the area, but it was for a Presbyterian Church. Researchers were cautioned not to discount this as being the Jersey Church because it could very well have been and probably was. The church was “started” more than once. Although the present Jersey Church personnel were not aware of it, other family records and other types of records make mention of three distinct groups using the same building. It is not understood if the three groups formed one congregation, or if there were three distinct congregations using the same building. I’d guess that when it was “started” depended on which religious group you were a member of.

In early Virginia, it was common for multiple congregations, particularly Baptists and Methodists, to use the same building. Both were considered dissenting religions. Prior to that, meetings were held in members’ homes.

One Barclay family paper, written by Margaret Barkley of Waco, Texas, who visited Rowan County to research, mentions a Quaker meeting from Manalapan, New Jersey, that turned their meeting in New Jersey into a Baptist congregation and migrated with their religious leader John Gano to Rowan County NC. Margaret’s report, complete with a bibliography, stated that they met with the Jersey Church congregation. The Jersey Baptist church personnel said that they knew nothing about any Quakers whatsoever in connection with their church. Margaret said that contact with the Quakers produced no information of a Quaker Meeting there. We do know that Squire Boone is mentioned in various records, and the Boone family was Quaker.

We also know that Morgan Bryan, one of the leaders who let wagon trains to the Jersey Settlement, also founded the Hopewell Friends Meeting, originally called “Opeckan,” in Frederick County, VA, on Opequon Creek. His granddaughter, whom he raised, married Daniel Boone.

Margaret writes:

Robert Barclay of Rowan was born 1-9-1717/18 in Dublin Ireland. He came to America and settled sometime before 1755, as in that year the Baptist congregation of Manalapan, New Jersey, which had formerly been members of the Quaker sect, went to North Carolina under the guidance of Rev. John Gregory, and, with two other denominations, built a church which they called the Jersey Church. The other denominations fell by the wayside and the church became, and is today, Baptist. The American Revolution, two earthquakes, and time have destroyed many of the graves there.

Deed book 23, page 14, 1-29-1814, states that Joseph Haden of Rowan County let John Darr of Rowan have 183 acres on Richard’s Creek adjoining Benjamin Todd, Thomas Adams, Caleb Campbell and George Fezor, being part of a track originally owned by the deceased Robert Barclay, which Walter and Robert Barclay let Thomas Durham have 5-18-1789. Vol. 17, Deed Book, page 327, dated 10-2-1797, shows that Robert and Walter Barclay sold by deed made in Kentucky two tracts of land in Rowan County.

In Conclusion

The Jersey Baptist Church is located on Jersey Church Road, a two-mile road just off the main NC highway. It is at one end of the road and the school is at the other end. Jersey settlement was between Salisbury and the later Lexington. Salisbury became the county seat of Old Rowan County.

Finding the Jersey Settlement

The Barclay deed gives us one landmark, Lick Creek gives us another and the Jersey Church itself gives us a third. I was not able to find Richard’s Creek or any other mention of it, but I was able to find both the Jersey Church and Lick Creek, where it empties into the Yadkin River.

On the map below, Jersey Church is location B and the place where Lick Creek Church Road crosses Lick Creek is location A.

In the bigger picture, the Jersey Settlement was located between Charlotte and the Greensboro/Winston-Salem area in NC.  It is an area of pleasant, relatively flat, very fertile farmland bordering on the Yadkin River.

It’s about 19 miles from Jersey Church to the location on Lick Creek, but today, you have to go around the area where High Rock Lake has now flooded the lowlands. You can see on the map below that this area forms a semi-circle. The railroad bridge was in place before the Yadkin was flooded to form that lake and you can see it still runs along the Yadkin, crossing Lick Creek at the mouth, the stated location of John Vannoy’s fish dam. If the old road paralleled the railroad bridge, and it probably did, then it would have been about 10 miles, not 19, from the Jersey Church to the Lick Creek location.

The landowner on the North side of Lick Creek in 2012 was Mr. Robby Cole, now deceased. I owe him a huge debt of gratitude for information, access and permission to publish.

Mr. Cole was very accommodating when I knocked on his door and provided lots of information, including the fact that a fish dam had been discovered right at the mouth of Lick Creek years earlier. I asked him which side, and he couldn’t remember outright but said it might have been on the other side of the river. Regardless, it was at the mouth of Lick Creek.

I’ve never been so excited about a fish dam.

Cole Road is the blue line on the map connecting with Lick Creek Church Road.

The railroad marks the old edge of the river, so that’s a great landmark to follow. Today, some of the creeks feeding into the Yadkin River, now High Rock Lake, are also swollen near the edge of the river/lake. However, using the railroad as a guideline gives us information as to the path of the former river.

The map below shows the elevated area of the river. Robby said the authorities had purchased about 40 acres to flood.

Mr. Cole’s family obtained the original land patent for the land on the north side of Lick Creek. Robby believes John Vannoy lived on the south side of Lick Creek.

Today, that land is owned by a timber company, but Mr. Cole said that he remembers a very old homestead on that hill in the 1950s. The only part of that property not owned by the lumber company is a small tract along the road owned by a local businessman who is also a history and genealogy buff. I stopped, but he wasn’t at home.

The older aerial map above shows a silver train on the track near the mouth of Lick Creek, and a more recent map below shows a closer view of both the fish damn area, the mouth of Lick Creek, and the hill that held the old homestead.

The map above shows the alluvial deposits in the river at the mouth of Lick Creek, while the map below shows the terrain much more clearly. The area circled in red is a hill.

This is the area where the old homestead stood, where John Vannoy lived, and where his fish dam was located. Ironically, there is no land grant or other direct evidence that he lived here other than the history stating that the Vannoy Fish Dam was on the East side of the Yadkin at the mouth of Lick Creek.

I found John associated with four land grants in 1761, but none as a grantee, only in a supportive capacity.

I have not been able to check the Rowan County deed records in person. He may have owned land that might be more specific as to location. Hopefully, the old Rowan County deeds will soon be included in the FamilySearch AI tool.

My visit to the Jersey Church area began at the church itself. It has had additions over the years, but the original part of the church built in the 1840s is shown below.

Behind the church is the large cemetery with even more unmarked graves. Older graves were marked by wooden markers or fieldstones on the frontier, not by inscribed tombstones as we know them today.

Several of these trees look old enough to have been here when church members were first being buried. Perhaps these trees were left to shelter the graves. One tree has literally grown around an early tombstone.

While our John Vannoy and his wife did not die in Rowan County, it’s unlikely that they lost no children while living there. While we don’t know where, our flesh and blood is likely buried here. It’s certain that John attended numerous funerals in this cemetery, some 270 years ago.

I wish this tree could talk.

While John isn’t buried here, it’s likely that at least some family members are.

We know nothing about his son Abraham, other than his birth date and that he didn’t show up in the records for Rowan, Surry, or Wilkes County. The fate of John’s daughters, except for Rachel, is also uncertain, as is that of his wife. We know with certainty that John and his wife both had cousins among the Jersey Church congregation members.

This photo of the Jersey Church sign shows the kind of farmland that surrounds the church. After clearing, this land would have been flat and easy to plow. Church members would have worked as a community to help one another.

In 1771, Benjamin Merrill, one of the church’s most prominent members and a leader of the Regulator movement, raised 300 men, mostly from this congregation, to rebel against the governor for what they perceived as unfair taxation and corruption. The governor was also raising troops, and the Regulators marched as a show of force, hoping to intimidate the government forces into withdrawal. They camped along Alamance Creek.

Unfortunately for the Regulators, what they had in passion, they lacked in leadership. They were sorely unprepared for what followed.

On May 9^th, the Regulators intercepted General Waddell and his 100 men, causing them to fall back to the Salisbury District, where he was reinforced by Tryon and his 1100 men. They marched against the Jersey Settlement Regulators and their comrades-in-arms at Alamance, defeated them, scattering their forces, and captured 12 men, including three officers of the colonial militia – Benjamin Merrill, Capt. Robert Messer and Capt. Robert Matear. Six men were tried, convicted, and hung on June 19th, 1771, by Governor Tryon in Hillsboro.

Fortunately, it was “only” a defeat, not the bloodbath it could have easily been.

The Regulator movement and defeat at Alamance would have had a deeply chilling effect on the balance of the congregation, causing many of the 300 men to depart before retribution could be exacted on them and their families.

The Regulator uprising is the stated reason for John Vannoy’s departure to Wilkes County. The 1770 road order shows that he had clearly been there and knew the way, having literally carved that road out of the primeval forest with his own hands.

The first deed for the Jersey Church property was recorded in 1775. William Frohock sold about 3 acres “including the Meeting House & Burying Ground near Swearing Creek” to the “trustees of the United Congregation, consisting of the “Professors of the Church of England, the Church of Scotland, and the Baptists in the Jersey Settlement.” Clearly, the church was already in use, as was the burying ground.

The Jersey Church standing today was built in 1842, probably either replacing or built beside the original church. Regardless, the original church that John attended for at least two decades stood on this land, adjacent to the cemetery. At least two of his children would have been baptized here.

Even though a newer building exists today at Jersey Church, I knew my ancestors stood on that land, cleared the trees, built the church, baptized their babies, buried their relatives, maintained the cemetery, and then, in 1771, moved on, leaving everything behind, perhaps having been burned out.

How difficult this must have been for them just 20 years or so after having left everything behind once before, when leaving New Jersey.

Lick Creek

From the church, I drove to Lick Creek Church Road, knowing that John himself followed this path to and from church and saw this very land more than a quarter of a millennium ago. Of course, it would have looked very different then, but it was still the same land.

This photo is Lick Creek from the bridge of Lick Creek Church Road that crosses Lick Creek. Due to the flooding of the Yadkin when the dam was built, this creek may be slightly wider than it was before, but probably not much, especially away from the lake.

This field rises gently to the northeast of the bridge and creek. This may not have been John’s field, but he surely saw it every day.

An old lane borders the creek but appears to be muddy, and a “no trespassing” sign is clearly posted. The creek itself seems to be rather slow-moving and has some backwater tendencies. It’s hard to say how much of this is from the flooding or if the creek was always sluggish.

I love my Jeep when I’m traveling. I always feel safe. It will pretty much go anyplace and do anything I ask of it, and I asked a lot of her in North Carolina. Sometimes, she (ahem) gets me into trouble:)

Lick Creek standing on the bank.

Before meeting Mr. Cole, I thought this old house might have been connected to John Vannoy, but he says this is not the original house and it was a Cole property. It has a very similar feel to the old Joel Vannoy home in Claiborne County, TN, built in the mid-1800s. The fireplaces at each end were used to heat the home. I wondered at that time if John Vannoy’s house was like this or if it was a simpler log cabin type of structure, but I have a much better idea now.

John’s home would have been much smaller and a small one-story log home, especially given that the homes owned by his sons on the next frontier, Wilkes County, in 1798 were only 16×18, 17×21, 13×15 and 12×14, except for John’s son Nathaniel who was wealthier. Sometimes, the outbuildings, such as external kitchens, barns, and stables, were larger than the log cabins they lived in.

For comparison purposes, this is what was left of the Daniel Boone cabin in the late 1800s, built in 1799 in what would become Missouri. His cabin would have been very similar to those built along the Yadkin.

Here, looking back towards Lick Creek, the tree line, and the bridge.

The property to the north of Lick Creek has been owned by the Cole family since the original land grant. That makes it easy to eliminate this property, unless John Vannoy rented or leased his land. The original Cole homestead stood on the hillside of the Cole property on the Yadkin River side.

Robby was very, very generous and allowed me to photograph the countryside from the hilltop.

This series of photos forms a panorama of the mouth of Lick Creek, from the Cole hilltop, followed by a series of photos that include the hilltop where Mr. Cole says the original (Vannoy?) homestead on the property across Lick Creek was located.

I am turning slowly from the top of the hill on the Cole property, drinking in the landscape.

Lick Creek is just this side of the tree line. The Vannoy land is across the creek in the trees.

In the distance, you can see the creek pass beneath a railroad bridge, where it empties into the Yadkin.

Mr. Cole remembers the remnants of a very old homestead on the replanted portion of this hill across Lick Creek. The hill borders the mouth of Lick Creek, across from the Cole property, and would be the only reasonable location for the Vannoy fish weir at the mouth of Lick Creek.

Robby said the homestead was on the replanted portion of this hill. Are we looking at the hill where John Vannoy lived while tending his fish dam on the river?

Viewing John’s land. I can see him clearing and working the land with his sons.

Thank goodness for that fish wier and the description on the East side of the Yadkin at the mouth of Lick Creek. Otherwise, we would have never been able to discover where John Vannoy lived.

It was here that John’s sons grew to manhood. It was here that his youngest two children were born. It may be here that his eldest children lived as newlyweds. It might be here that family members are buried, too.

This is the land that John so hurriedly left behind when Governor Tryon destroyed and pillaged the farms of the Regulator families.

Did they watch their farm burn?

By 1771, John was over 50 years old and had five strapping adult sons. Andrew was 29, Abraham 26, Francis, 24, Nathaniel, 21 and Daniel, 19.

They probably felt they had far more to lose by staying than going while they could – especially since they were fresh off of the expedition to lay out the road from here to the head of the Yadkin River.

They might well have felt that God had provided, or that God had at least given them a sign.

This photo is taken on the far edge of the Cole property. It shows the view back up the hill, with Lick Creek to the right.

If John Vannoy was on his land down at the creek, working with his fish weir, this is the hill he would have seen. It may or may not have been cleared, although farmland along the river was flatter and more fertile than steeper, rockier lands, so the Cole men had likely cleared this field.

This is the closest point to the mouth of Lick Creek that you can access today without a boat. In the 1700s, the water level would have been lower before the Yadkin was flooded.

If I turn around, you’ll see that I’m at the end of the land that’s not swampy.

The mouth of the Creek is just over the railroad trestle. Because of the height from which these photos were taken, the creek shows better in these photos than in the photos where I was at eye level with it.

This next series is another panorama of Lick Creek at eye level from the furthest solid point on the Cole property, closest to the creek. I had to be careful not to get my Jeep stuck. I don’t think even Mr. Cole’s farm equipment would have been able to pull me out from there.

Unfortunately, you can’t really see the mouth of the creek because the railroad bridge obstructs the view somewhat. The Yadkin is running parallel with the railroad bridge on the other side of it.

I was standing at the red star, photographing towards the bridge.

I needed a canoe!

Walking on the Cole land, looking at John Vannoy’s land.

I must admit, right about this time, I began to wonder if they had alligators here like they do in eastern NC.

Lick Creek was probably smaller and shallower when John lived here.

Fish weirs were created to trap fish, usually by stones, baskets, sticks or fences today, or some combination thereof, and channel fish into a trap from which they can’t escape.

The Martinville Fish Dam in Virginia is a historic Native American fish weir that was probably similar to the Vannoy fish weir.

I sure wish we had some, any, documentation of the remnants of the weir that was found and when. Given that the Yadkin was dammed nearly a century ago, I’m not surprised that this information was lost. When the weir was discovered, it was probably either thought to be interesting or, in the way, or both.

This last picture of the creek shows as I looked back upstream towards the road. The Cole property is on the left and in front of me, and the Vannoy land is across the creek where the trees are today.

Mr. Cole also told me that he believes there are graves – perhaps Indian (he thinks), slaves, or early settlers, supposed to be buried in the field near where the tree overhangs on the left in front of the white trailer. He has never planted there and neither did his father or grandfather.

I’ve always wondered…

Westward Ho

This land along the Yadkin in the Jersey Settlement is both incredibly beautiful as well as fertile and relatively easy to farm, especially in comparison to Wilkes County which is mountainous – the land of the Blue Ridge Parkway.

The key here is the Blue Ridge range of the Appalachian Mountains. A Wilkes County photo is shown here. It’s difficult to believe that 70 miles makes this much difference, but it does. Land in Wilkes County can only be farmed in patches. It’s not gently sloping with rolling hills, but a landscape of rugged mountains.

Surry County, which eventually became Wilkes and Ashe, was, of course, the next frontier.

John Vannoy’s son, Nathaniel, went even slightly further west and owned land on Mt. Jefferson, in today’s Ashe County, NC, at about 4,600 feet, part of the Mount Jefferson State Natural Area. He had several other land grants in this area too, most unable to be plotted today. He also had land on Lewis Fork adjoining Robert Cleveland.

John Vannoy’s son, Daniel, also obtained land near his brother Nathaniel’s land on Beaver Creek in what would become Ashe County. John Vannoy, likely with his sons assisting, laid out roads to that area in 1770, just before they needed this dense, mountainous escape.

Francis Vannoy obtained land near or adjacent his brothers, Nathaniel and Daniel, in Ashe County as well as on Reddies River, just north of Wilkesboro. His land is also not placed on a map today.

The Vannoy land all had one thing in common. It was not in the Yadkin Valley on the lower elevations by the River, and it was high enough that shelter and cover were readily available. No one who didn’t know the land would ever find you.

The Vannoy men had a leg up on everyone else, because they had laid that road out in 1770. Perhaps fate had smiled on them.

Perhaps they led the way for others. While they had been guided in 1752 from New Jersey to the Jersey Settlement, perhaps two decades later, they were the guides.

Vannoy Road in Wilkes County

Today, in Wilkes County, Vannoy Road runs from Buckwheat Road down to old NC 16, just north of Andrew Vannoy’s land grant.

I drove part, but not all of this road when visiting Wilkes County in the 1990s and early 2000s.

At that time, Vannoy Road was, at least in part, a two-track road where two cars could not pass. It snaked around the mountain, hanging precipitously on the edge, at least on a good day.

On hairpin turns, you have to honk before completing the turn, and listen for an oncoming car to honk as well to prevent a head-on collision. Geoge McNiel, my now-deceased cousin who rode with me the day I took these photos, says that, at higher elevations, Vannoy Road is nearly impassible in some places.

This is the man who drove the entire county, including its most remote places, with his wife for decades to document cemeteries.

Normally, I would view an unpaved two-track as somewhat of an invitation and a welcome challenge, but when the locals tell you no, it’s no. I decided to content myself with the photo, above.

Fortunately, in the 20+ years or so since I’ve been there, the road has been at least partially paved.

OK, let’s take a ride using Google Street View!

Here’s a lovely view from the paved portion of Vannoy Road.

The scenery is spectacular.

This land was not originally granted to anyone, which, I’m guessing, meant that everyone hunted here and used it more or less as community property.

Vannoy Road runs alongside Reddies River, probably following exactly where the old animal path and horse trail originally were.

In some places, the road had slid down the embankment and had been reconstructed and repaved.

Cabins were built along waterways. The higher, the better because the water was clean and had not been contaminated by people or animals. The Reddies River, which is more of a stream at this elevation, runs right behind this ancient cabin.

Be still my heart!! Is it possible?

Could this possibly be one of the Vannoy cabins?

Indeed, according to Jason’s land grant map, here, this cabin is on Vannoy land. Note that this land, none of it, appears to have been granted until beginning in the 1850s. However, many grants remain unplaced on the map and we do have multiple land grants to Francis Vannoy on the Reddies River. He filed for 150 acres in 1779, two grants in 1782 for 100 acres each, and another for 100 acres in 1783. All four grants, totalling 450 acres, are located someplace on Reddies River, which could clearly have been in this area – near his brother Andrew.

Some of this land was even too high, inhospitable, and remote for the early settlers. The higher and more remote the land, apparently, the later the land was granted to anyone.

That doesn’t mean people weren’t living there, though. This is maybe three miles from Andrew Vannoy’s land grants, and maybe not even that far.

Driving on down the road, there’s a one-lane bridge, even today, at the intersection of Vannoy Road and Sheets Gap Road.

Vannoy Road turns to dirt above the intersection with Buckwheat, which is where I took that photo of the Vannoy Road sign many years ago.

I’m very surprised the Google car drove on this dirt road, at all. Lots of one-lane bridges on the dirt part.

This is the area that cousin George described as dangerous, one lane and in some places, “nearly impassible, especially as you come ‘round the mountain.”

We continue to climb in elevation. Not much land has been cleared here, and the road snakes across many streams, now corralled in culverts under the road. There are also lots of S curves.

George told me it was one lane. He said it was treacherous if it was wet or, “God-forbid, snowy.” I asked him what would happen if you met another vehicle, and he said, “Well, someone gets to back up.”

I couldn’t help but cringe.

Right then and there, I decided I was not driving this road.

The terrain became more rocky and mountainous, and the road more like a two-track.

S-curves became switchbacks, and the overhanging forest is so dense that the road looks dark.

Still, the road climbed.

“Antique” cars, either abandoned or wrecked half or three-quarters of a century ago, litter the mountainside below the road. They are eternally rusting, clearly never meant to emerge again. School buses, campers, and other sorts of trash have also been dumped in the days since our Vannoy ancestors homesteaded this rugged terrain.

Eventually, Vannoy Road emerges at Sparta Road, still part of Miller’s Creek. Sparta is Highway 18, just above Andrew Vannoy’s land.

Despite the extremely remote location, there were at least two small churches that I “passed by” on my Google Drive, and I think there were at least a couple more.

There are more churches per capita in Wilkes County than anyplace else in the nation.

Eventually, even the Google car gave up in some places. It probably only drove on because there was no place to turn around.

Another Vannoy researcher who lived in Wilkesboro told me years ago that if you turn north at Deep Ford Hill and go “5 or 6 miles up that road and cross the river at least twice, then turn right, everything you see on both side of the road was Vannoy land to the top of the mountains.”

Debra was right. Deep Ford Hill sits at the bottom of Old NC 16.

The Vannoy Land

Francis Vannoy’s land is unplaced on Jason’s map, but we know it’s on Reddies River someplace, plus he also had land on Beaver Creek, so near Daniel and Nathaniel’s land in Ashe County.

Daniel tried to patent land near Wilkesboro in 1778, but that didn’t work, so he wound up with land on the other side of the Blue Ridge Parkway in Ashe County.

I placed the Vannoy lands on an aerial map of Wilkes and Ashe Counties as best I could with the limited information we have. Many of the high elevations and streams were some of those affected recently by Hurricane Helene. That’s the last thing I ever expected here.

It seems that the Vannoy men found the furthest distant, highest, most remote, and difficult-to-access locations in Wilkes County and settled there.

Years ago, I wondered what would possess a man to leave the land on Lick Creek with a steadily producing fish dam for these difficult-to-farm mountains. Hardly an even trade. Wilkesboro is about 70 miles “upriver” from the Jersey Settlement. It’s a relatively short jaunt today, but then, it was several days by wagon, mostly uphill and increasingly difficult with every mile.

Of course, now we know the answer to that question.

It’s likely that John Vannoy’s move to Wilkes County was prompted by his role in the Regulator Movement, Regulator Insurrection or Regulator War – whatever you choose to call it. In fact, he may have moved to Surry County as a fugitive. Or after being burned out of house and home. Or all of the above.

His son, Abraham, could have died in the process.

In 1772, John would have been someplace between 52 and 56 years old. We know he’s alive then, with two adult sons living at home, but he’s gone in the next tax list we have in 1774.

What do we know about where John Vannoy and his sons were in 1771? Fortunately, we have at least some tax lists.

Tax Lists

Surry County was formed on April 1, 1771 from Anson County.

The information below is extracted and condensed from “Surry and Wilkes County 1771-1800 Taxables” by William Perry Johnson.

The large areas covered by the early tax lists include all of the present-day NC counties of Allegheny, Ashe, Forsyth, Stokes, Surry, Wilkes, and Yadkin, along with parts of Caldwell and Watauga – a rectangular area about 35 miles wide and 90 miles long. Much of Wilkes County prior to the Revolution was considered to be the area that eventually became part of eastern Tennessee. Prior to 1771, present-day Wilkes was under the jurisdiction of Rowan County, with the courthouse at Salisbury, 60 miles away.

It was 60 miles in the other direction to present-day Tennessee.

From 1771 to 1777, Surry County encompassed the entire 35 by 90-mile area, including the area that would become Wilkes County in 1778.

• 1771 and 1772 tax lists are complete
• No list for 1773
• 1774 is complete
• 1775 is about two-thirds complete
• No list for 1776
• 1777 is about one third complete

1771 tax list:

• John Vannoy 1
• Francis Vannoy 1
• Andrew Vannoy 1

The 1771 Surry County tax list is important because it shows that the Vannoy men, including John, had left the Jersey Settlement, which remained in Rowan County.

One thing is certain, John did make it to the part of Surry County that became Wilkes County.

1772 tax list

• Andrew Vannoy 1
• John Vannoy 3
• Francis Vannoy 1

Charles Hickerson arrived between the tax list in 1771 and the one in 1772

This list is important because it accounts for John and all of his sons except Abraham.

The 1773 list is missing.

Benjamin Cleveland’s 1774 list:

• Francis Vannoy with Leonard Miller, in all 2
• Nathaniel Vannoy 1
• Andrew Vannoy 1
• Thomas Hall, Jesse Hall, Thomas Hall, in all 3
• Thomas Owens, Thomas Owens, Barnet Owens
• Charles Hickerson, David Hickerson, in all 2
• Daniel Vannoy 1

John Vannoy is missing, although he could have been living with one of his children. Given that both Nathaniel and Daniel were still living with John in 1772, and he is missing but they are both present two years later and listed individually, even though only Nathaniel had married, suggests John may have died.

This is an important group because they applied for land grants that are near each other in Wilkes County, and Daniel Vannoy married Charles Hickerson’s daughter.

An unidentified Jacob Hickerson purchased 200 acres in 1774.

1775 John Hudspeth list of taxes:

• John Darnold (probably Darnell), Andrew Vonoy 2
• Charles Hickerson 1
• Frances Vonoy 1
• Nathaniel Vonoy 1
• Daniel Vonoy 1
• Thomas Owen 1
• William Owen Sr and Barnard Owen 2
• David Hickerson 1

John Darnell married Andrew Vannoy’s sister, Rachel, and the two families are living together.

To summarize, John Vannoy is present in 1772 with two additional adult males who would be Nathaniel and Daniel. The tax list is missing in 1773, and John is missing in 1774 and 1775, but his four sons are all listed.

The Surry County estate list shows nothing, and neither does the “Surry County Court Pleas and Quarter sessions 1763-1774” by Linn.

Where is John?

Wilkes County is Formed

Wilkes County was formed in 1778 from parts of Surry County and Washington District, which is now Washington County, Tennessee.

John Vannoy may have survived until the Revolutionary War arrived on his doorstep.

Earlier researchers reported that John gave material aid for the war, for which his estate was paid in 1778. He was subsequently recognized as a Patriot, although I was unable to find any Wilkes County entry about John. If anyone has any reference to John, being paid as a patriot, or his estate in either Surry or Wilkes County, please do share.

At least three of John’s sons served in the Revolutionary War, plus his son-in-law, John Darnell.

• Andrew Vannoy served as a Captain in the 10^th NC Regiment and was later granted land near Murfreesboro, TN. Andrew is mentioned in the NC State papers, volume 5, as a Captain in the Revolution who wrote a letter asking for coats, shoes, frocks and blankets for his men. This unit was active for a year. Formed at Kinston in April 1777, they served at the Battle of Brandywine Creek, the Battle of Germantown, and Valley Forge, where they disbanded in June of 1778.
• Francis Vannoy served as an overseer of roads in Wilkes County in 1778 and as a juror in 1778 and 1779, which qualifies as Revolutionary War military service. Additionally, he was on an expedition to the New River with William Lenoir in November of 1780.
• Nathaniel Vannoy was sheriff of Wilkes County during the Revolutionary War times and a private in his brother Andrew’s company in Benjamin Cleveland’s regiment. At the direction of Col. Benjamin Cleveland, Nathaniel hung three Tories from an oak tree for horse stealing, a remnant of which still stood in 1925 beside the Wilkes Co. Court House. He joined the regiment of Col. Benjamin Cleveland as Sergeant Major and served throughout the Kings Mountain Campaign.

The Wilkes County residents were probably thrilled to have formed their own county. The distance to the courthouse, especially on the frontier, was always a source of concern. Surry County’s seat is Dobson, about 50 miles away from Mulberry Fields, the village destined to become Wilkesboro, the seat of newly-formed Wilkes County.

This 1778 Wilkes court entry references the Mulberry Field meeting house and that they are going to erect a courthouse, prison, pillory, and stocks.

By 1778, Nathaniel, Andrew, Daniel, and Francis Vannoy were all serving as jurors in Wilkes County court sessions, which implies that they all owned land.

On June 4, 1778, Nathaniel, Andrew, Daniel, and Francis Vannoy, along with David Hickerson, were laying out a road from the end of the road at Roaring River, the best and most convenient way to the courthouse. I wonder if this qualifies Daniel, John’s fourth son, as a Revolutionary War Patriot too. I believe so because David Hickerson was recognized by the DAR based on this service.

Where Did John Live?

First, let me say that there’s no answer to this, but we do have hints.

I’m speculating here, but I think that maybe John originally settled on Mulberry, where Andrew’s land was located. My reason for thinking that’s a possibility is because just south of and adjoining Andrew’s patent is the land of Benjamin Ray. Nathaniel Vannoy, Andrew’s younger brother, married Elizabeth Ray.

Let’s look at the order in which John’s children married, and to whom.

In 1772, Francis and Andrew are living in their own homes, which strongly suggests that they have married, while Daniel and Nathaniel are living with John.

However, the marriage record for Andrew occurred 7 year later, in 1779. Does this suggest that Andrew had an earlier wife that we know nothing about? (I almost hate to breathe those words.)

Birth Year and Name	Land Location	Spouse & Marriage Year	Spouse’s Parents	Spouse Parent’s land
Francis Vannoy born 1746	Reddies River & Ashe County	Millicent Henderson (unproven) c 1768	Thomas Henderson?	unknown
Rachel Vannoy born 1741		John Darnell c 1771	Isaac Darnell	Darnell family lives near Andrew Vannoy, Darnell’s Branch intersects with Mulberry above Andrew’s land
Nathaniel Vannoy born 1749	Multiple locations in Wilkes & Ashe	Elizabeth Ray 1773	William Ray	Benjamin Ray 1789 land is just below Andrew Vannoy on Mulberry
Daniel Vannoy born 1752	Ashe County	Sarah Hickerson 1779	Charles Hickerson	Mulberry Creek 1778
Andrew Vannoy	Mulberry 1780, 1788	Susannah Shepherd 1779	John Shepherd

Andrew’s land is located on Mulberry Creek, and both Nathaniel and Daniel married women whose families are also found on Mulberry Creek. This may suggest that John settled there, which means that his two sons left at home, Nathaniel and Daniel, married women whose families lived nearby.

Furthermore, Andrew may have applied for a grant for the land where John originally settled, or Francis, who lived nearby, may have. They could not apply for land grants in this area until after the Revolutionary War.

The Vannoy Cemetery

This also begs the question of where John Vannoy is buried.

We know that there was a “meeting house” at Mulberry Fields in 1778 when the county was formed, but many families, if not most, had family burying grounds on their land near their homesteads.

The entry for the Elder James Vannoy Cemetery in Wilkes County is very interesting.

James Vannoy (1792-1857) was the son of Andrew Vannoy, who lived on Mulberry Creek.

The James Vannoy cemetery is located on his land.

The FindaGrave entry for Andrew Vannoy says:

Andrew died on October 9, 1809. He and Susannah are likely buried in a family cemetery on top of a ridge on the east side of Mulberry Creek, on present-day SR1766 in Wilkes County, NC. There are no tombstones for them, but there are several rocks in the section of the cemetery in which two of their children have inscribed markers.

I would love to know exactly where this cemetery is located. Perhaps the Wilkes County Historical Society would look this up in cousin George McNiel’s records to see if he has a location for the cemetery.

• Andrew’s daughter, Sarah, married Isaiah McGrady, and they are buried on a plot on their land.
• Andrew’s son, Enoch Vannoy, married Letitia McGrady and is buried in the Roberts Cemetery in McGrady.
• Andrew’s daughter, Mary “Polly” Vannoy, married the Reverend John Owens and is buried in the Taylor Cemetery in McGrady.
• Andrew’s daughter, Elizabeth Vannoy, married Presley Brown and is buried in the Taylor Cemetery in McGrady.

If I were a betting person, I’d bet that John Vannoy was one of the first burials in the Elder James Vannoy Cemetery.

When John Vannoy arrived in Surry County, he was one of the earliest settlers, and established churches didn’t yet exist. Early Baptists built the Meeting House in Mulberry Fields, but that doesn’t mean people were buried there. In 1778, the court met in the Meeting House and decided it was the perfect location for the new Courthouse. No remnant of the original Meeting House or cemetery, if there was one, remains.

The 1798 Tax List

By 1798, John Vannoy had been gone for probably 25 years. Some of his sons, however, still lived in Wilkes County when the 1798 tax list was taken.

Jason Duncan’s book, 1798 Wilkes County, NC Tax List, provides a glimpse of life in Wilkes County.

We’ve already viewed the locations where these families lived, but the tax list lets us view their farms, homes, and outbuildings, providing unparalleled detail.

Daniel Vannoy sold out in 1795 and disappeared. Unfortunately, we’d have to do deed research to find the 100 acres that Daniel Vannoy sold to Patrick Lenin Cavender on the South Beaver Creek branch of the South fork of the New River. The cabin there in 1798 was assuredly the same one that was there in 1795 when Daniel sold.

By 1798, Andrew Vannoy owned 450 acres on Mulberry Creek which is 200 acres less than his land grant, so he had sold some.

Andrew’s land was valued at $169. His cabin was 16×18 and valued at only $3, and his outside kitchen was 14×10 and was valued at $2.

Andrew raised 10 children in this home and likely buried four more in the family cemetery. His wife cooked in the outside kitchen.

The cabin on the Reddies River on Vannoy Road today is probably about the size of Andrew’s cabin.

Francis Vannoy owned a total of 310 acres valued at $100. His land is noted as being on the Reddies River, the North Fork, adjoining William Kilby. His dwelling house is 17×21, one story, with hewed logs and a shingle roof, valued at $46, much more than Andrew’s home. He also has two out houses, which do not mean outhouses as in bathrooms, valued at $4.

Francis raised 16 children here, and that’s without an outside kitchen unless one of the out buildings is a kitchen.

Nathaniel Vannoy had done quite well for himself. He had a total of 690 acres on seven tracts. Only one, on Lewis Fork, adjoining Robert Cleveland, had any homes or buildings. This tract was 125 acres of clearly prime farmland valued at $250.

The dwelling house is 16×24 with a shingle roof and is valued at $30.

He has a 14×16 outside kitchen valued at $3.

He has one cabin that’s 12×14, valued at $2, which reflects the fact that in 1800, he enslaved three people.

His property includes a 10×12 shop valued at $3, a 6×12 corn crib valued at $1, a second identical corn crib, two stables worth $2, and a 13×30 barn valued at $8, almost three times as much as Andrew’s humble cabin up on Mulberry Creek.

It appears that Nathaniel’s oldest son, John Vannoy, owns 150 acres on Lewis Fork, adjoining W. Roberts. John married Elizabeth Kilby, daughter of William Kilby, Francis Vannoy’s neighbor. They have a 13×15 cabin, a shop, and stables – not a bad start. They have already welcomed one child, beginning the next Vannoy generation.

It’s likely that one of these men still lived on the same land that John settled, probably in the same cabin.

Unfortunately, Rachel Vannoy Darnell, John Darnell’s widow, is not on the tax list. Other women are listed, so I presume she would be if she were living. This tells us that Rachel has likely died or possibly remarried, but we have no evidence for that either.

What we do have, however, is something as informative as a tax list.

Rachel Darnell submitted the results of the sale of the estate of John Darnell at the April 1786 term of court.

While the widow was entitled to one-third of the value of her husband’s estate, the goods still had to be sold – including “her” things – as the husband literally owned everything except the clothes on her back.

The value is listed in pounds, shillings, and pence. I’ve normalized spelling where I can and am sure.

Item	Value
One pot	1.15.0
One plow	0.6.0
One sifter (?)	0.3.6
One box (of) iron	0.8.0
One tub	0.1.6
One ax	0.12.6
One frying pan	0.7.6
2 bells	0.7.6
3 head of sheep	2.8.0
One cotton wheel (spinning wheel)	0.6.6
17 table spoons	0.9.0
One linen wheel (linen spinning wheel)	0.8.0
2 chairs	0.4.0
One Bible and “rithmetick”	1.1.5
One table	0.2.0
One bed	0.10.0
One bed	3.3.0
One boock (book)	0.0.6
One slee (slu, ?)	0.3.6
One mare	10.5.0
One mare	8.15.0
One cow and calf	4.3.6
One cow	3.0.0
Total	40.0.6

Let’s note what’s missing here.

• For starters, a gun. All men needed and had a gun both to hunt and for defense of their families.
• There are no hides or things like feathers listed.
• No chickens or fowl
• There are also no pigs or “shoats,” young pigs, which was a food staple.
• There are no crops.
• No food like “bacon,” which would be a ham hung in the smokehouse, or flour.
• There are no knives or butchering tools.
• There is a plow but no wagon or gears.
• There is one ax but no other tools. No saws or hoes or even a hammer. No nails.
• There are no clothes listed, which means he had one set of clothes that he was buried in, and she likely has one set, too.
• There’s no fabric or loom.
• There is one pot, but no hook to hang it from, and one frying pan – that’s it. Rachel was cooking for at least four people when John died, and possibly more.
• I’m a bit baffled at the 17 table spoons, especially given that there are no knives or forks. And 17?
• There aren’t any kitchen hooks either for hanging pots in the fireplace to cook.
• No butter churn.
• No basins or pewter listed.
• Two chairs, which meant that everyone else probably sat on wooden benches that would have been crudely fashioned from felled trees.
• There are no plates, dishes, or earthenware, which means they would have been using hollowed-out wooden trenchers.
• Most men had a supplementary skill other than farming, such as a miller, shoemaker, carpenter, blacksmith – but we don’t see anything like that for John.
• There were no saddles or bridles for the horses.
• There are no curry combs or anything that suggests a barn.
• There are two beds but no bedsteads, bedclothes, blankets, or quilts. Since they didn’t specify featherbeds, these would have been straw beds lying on the floor.
• There’s nothing like a chest or trunk.
• There are no candles, candlestands, candle molds, or wax.
• No oil lamp.
• There are no bottles, razors, or anything personal like a watch or a looking glass.

How did John farm? How did Rachel manage before he died, let alone after?

No wonder her children were bound out as orphans.

What happened to Rachel? Her life was exceedingly difficult by any measure.

She is mentioned in 1795, when she would have been 54 years old, but not thereafter.

While this family appears “poor,” and they assuredly weren’t wealthy, we can combine this estate inventory with the 1798 tax list for the Vannoy men, and glean a much clearer picture of what life in those mountains was like for “normal people” in their 16×18 foot homes.

Welcome to normal life on Mulberry Creek, living in a very small “dwelling house” with one set of clothes to your name, a straw bed on the floor, one pot, frying pan, and tub to care for your large family, and very few creature comforts.

This was probably exactly like John Vannoy’s life, although he may have had even less when he died – especially if what little he had was burned in Rowan County. Perhaps this is why there is absolutely no record of his death – no estate sale – because he literally had no estate.

Summary

John Vannoy’s life took him to two different frontiers. He grew up in the midst of the Coxe Affair, which assuredly influenced his life. He saw what his parents and neighbors suffered through, and the gut-wrenching decisions they were forced to make. No good or fair choice – only unjust ones. Do I want to accept this bad option or that one?

John opted to leave New Jersey, and his aging father, Francis, whose will written in 1768, gave John, the eldest, 5 pounds more proclamation money than the others. Francis died in 1774, his will being probated in July. Ironically, John may have predeceased his father, but his father was probably unaware.

John had removed to the Jersey Settlement in Rowan County, NC, by 1753 when his stock mark was registered and may have arrived before that in a wagon train of settlers from Hopewell Township.

His experiences in New Jersey amid the crooked land swindlers primed him for the Regulator movement, where local farmers revolted against what they perceived as unfair taxation and crooked politicians.

Been there, done that!

PTSD before PTSD was a thing. John probably thought, “Oh, no, not again.” The situation simmered for years, but when push came to shove, the Regulators were defeated without much effort by government troops. The destruction of their farms as retribution may well have driven John Vannoy and his adult sons to the next frontier, just as Surry County was spun off from Rowan.

John and four of his adult sons settled in the highlands of Surry County in 1771, the part that would become Wilkes.

A few years later, John’s story came to an end someplace in the wilderness but heralded the beginning of the Vannoy family in Wilkes and Ashe Counties, a legacy that continues today with more than 2300 scattered descendants.

Fortunately, we can peek back in time.

The Vannoy Blackburn Farm

Today, the Vannoy Blackburn farm near Will Vannoy Road  and Dick Phillips Road in Ashe County, owned by Appalachian State University, preserves authentic Appalachian cultural structures from times gone by, including:

• The historic Blackburn and Vannoy homes dating from the 1800s
• Several outbuildings like the Vannoy men had on the 1798 tax list, including a spring house, corn cribs, and barns
• The Blackburn/Vannoy cemetery

Although the two homes aren’t the original structures, the new houses would have been built on the old farm, so the Appalachian culture and farming methods employed are relevant to a century earlier as well.

Both Nathaniel Vannoy and Francis Vannoy obtained land grants in this immediate vicinity and purchased additional surrounding land. Daniel lived nearby. The Blackburn family owned adjacent land, and the Vannoy Blackburn farm includes both a Vannoy and Blackburn homestead.

This farm, 369 acres in total, was obtained from the estate of Beulah (Blackburn) and Reeves Vannoy, a descendant of Nathaniel Vannoy, and is located on two tracts on the original Francis Vannoy land, some of which is located on fertile bottomlands along a stream.

The report prepared by ASU in 2010 states:

There is an old growth forest ridge of white oaks, chestnut oaks, and red oaks; with some individual trees that are likely over 150 years old. One corner is marked by a hickory tree that is likely over 200 years old. This old growth forest, with its significant understory and hundreds of larger century old trees is an impressive sight and is valuable as a “living museum”, giving an idea of the substantial regional forests of the past.

I’m glad they are preserving this relic of the past in its stunning setting. I think Francis, Nathaniel, and Daniel would be too.

The views from Will Vannoy Road over the New River Valley are spectacular.

John Vannoy and his sons, who, in 1770, laid out the original road from the Jersey Settlement to here, chose well.

Very, very well.

John would be proud.

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Ahh, my daughter – you’re here! In Louisbourg. I’m overjoyed, and my heart sings!

I thought no one would ever come. That no one would ever find me. But alas, you have!

It’s been almost 290 years since I, Jacques Bonnevie, passed from my mortal body on Île-Royale at Fort Louisbourg, the place you call Cape Breton Island, right across the bay from where you’re sitting right now.

Look up, you can see the fort in the distance out your window. Gaze across the bay. I’m buried on the spit of land right there, to the left of the fort, across the water with the sun glinting and sparking.

That’s the sprite of my spirit, dancing on the waves, so joyful that you are here.

Yes, my girl, I can see you. And your mother too, who accompanies you in spirit – and her ring that you wear. She’s standing right by your side and walks with you. Did you know that? Continue reading →

Recently, I received a lovely email from Jason Duncan.

Roberta,

In an article that you wrote on November 17, 2019, you mentioned Braddock Harris and his wife Rachel Hickerson.

https://dna-explained.com/2019/11/17/sarah-hickerson-1752-1760-before-1820-silent-member-of-a-feuding-family-52-ancestors-262/

You included information about Braddock’s attempted rape conviction in Wilkes County, but the document that you found didn’t specify who the victim was. On a recent trip to the NC Archives, I found a document in the Criminal Court Papers that identifies the victim as Ann Alexander, the step-daughter of Isaac Darnell.  I’m sending the front and back of that paper, dated January 9, 1786.

I’m not sure yet exactly who Isaac Darnell was, but I know the Darnell family settled in the eastern part of Wilkes in the vicinity of Bugaboo Creek and Little Elkin Creek. Darnell is still a popular name in the area.

As you noted, Braddock’s punishment was to be paraded across the court yard from Humphries to Smothers/Smithers. Within the past few months, I’ve been able to pinpoint where Spencer Humphries’ home and tavern was located.  It was about 50 feet from the (then) courthouse door. This point on Google Maps is the SW corner of Humphries’ house:

https://maps.app.goo.gl/MP8Xr4qPNzu21JPL9

This is based on William Lenoir’s map and survey notes from when he was laying out the town of Wilkesboro in 1800. I found this a few months ago. One of the points that he mentioned was the SW corner of Milley Humphries’ porch. Her husband Spencer had died a few years earlier, and she still lived there. The courthouse was on the west side of the house near the tree line. The “stocks” were 70 feet south of the Humphries house. Coincidently, when I park my car to go into work at the Wilkes Heritage Museum, I’m parking in the very spot where Braddock Harris walked carrying his sign!

Jason Duncan

Wow, just wow. This is exactly why I write these articles!

Before I go on, Jason writes about the old courthouse on his website, here, with a sketch, and the 1800 map of Wilkesboro by William Lenoir.

Braddock Harris

Jason found the original criminal charging bill.

Whereas complaint being made to me ? Herndon Justice Peace for said county by Isaac Darnel that Bradock Harris did on Thursday last violently abuse his step daughter Ann Alexander by forcing her to lie with him and did greatly hurt and bruise her the said Ann (missing) her great dammage and against the (missing) dignity of our state of N Carolina (missing) command you in the name of the (missing) to immediately take the body of the (missing) Harris and then bring before me or some Justice of the said County to answer the above (missing) humane charge and to be further dealt with as the law directs. (Can’t read) jail (or bail) not given under my hand this 9^th day of January 1786.

Signed by Joseph Herndon and witnessed by Alexander Gilbreath and (illegible.)

That’s ugly. Really ugly. “Forcing her to lie with him” does not sound like “attempted” to me.

Here’s what I wrote in my original article before Jason had found this information:

I was researching Daniel Vannoy and Sarah Hickerson. In an every-name index book, Daniel Vannoy was listed as a court juror on April 26, 1786. The case heard before the one in which Daniel sat as a juror is transcribed below, simply because I found the topic and entry so unusual.

State vs Bradock Harris – indicted assault, jury called, jury find guilty. Ordered defendant fined 5 pounds and be CARTED up and down the court yard from Humphries to Smothers with this inscription wrote in large letters on paper and fixed to his forehead and read loudly by the sheriff at each place. THIS IS THE EFFECTS OF AN INTENDED RAPE and the last part of the punishment be inflicted between hours of four and five o’clock this evening.

Court was adjourned for one hour and following were present: Charles Gordon, Russell Jones and William Nall, Esquires.

The caps are in the court record – not mine.

Thanks to Jason, we now know where that punishment took place.

The red pin marks the southwest corner of Humphries house, and the museum is a block to the right of the red pin.

The old courthouse was just to the left of Humphries home and tavern – a great location for the local watering hole where everyone would have gathered on court days to imbibe and discuss the various goings-on. Court was the local entertainment and sometimes was quite juicy. Like on that fall day in 1786 when Braddock Harris was carted up and down the street, being publicly shamed with the sign affixed to his forehead and read loudly by the sheriff for those who might not be able to read for themselves.

Everyone in the entire county and probably all neighboring counties knew about that and likely talked about it for years. That might have been a deterrent for others, but it was probably horrific for Ann.

According to Jason, the stocks were about here!

Whoever thought a mundane parking lot could or would hold so much incredible, and forgotten, history. I’d love to hear those tavern conversations!

I was excited, of course, but had to wait to get home to reply.

Hi Jason,

How interesting!

These families are definitely intertwined.

In my database, I have some information about the Darnell family because John Darnell, born about 1750, married Rachel Vannoy about 1771, the daughter of John Francis Vannoy and Susannah, whose last name is said to be Anderson.

Rachel and John Darnell had four children, but the parents were both deceased before Oct 23, 1787, because 2 of the children, Benjamin and Joseph, were bound to Andrew Vannoy as orphans.

John Darnell is the son of Isaac Darnell and (presumably) Nancy, his wife, whose last name is unknown. I don’t find another Isaac Darnel in the county at or near that time.

Of course, if Ann Alexander was the step-daughter of Isaac in 1786, that means that her mother was married to an Alexander sometime before that date.

I wonder if we will ever get those early Wilkes County pioneers sorted out.

Is it alright if I post this updated information, attributed to you?

It may well help someone someday.

Thank you so much,

Roberta

Of course, I had to start digging right away.

Jason provides a wonderful mapping resource for Wilkes County genealogists where he places the land grants for early, and not so early, settlers. You can check it out, here.

According to his database:

• Edward Harris patented 230 acres in 1778/1779 on the north fork of Fisher Creek, in map grid J10.
• Isaac Darnell patented 240 acres in 1779/1782 on both sides of Fishers Creek, map grid section K11.

I found both of those land grants.

Thanks to Jason’s streams, I was able to measure the distance on today’s Google Maps from roughly the center of each grant. Both grants would have been about half of a square mile, and there’s no way to know where the cabins were located on that grant.

As you can see, these families lived less than two miles apart and probably attended the same church. At least, did, prior to October of 1786.

After that, all bets were off. Braddock is lucky that Isaac Darnel didn’t kill him. Or Isaac’s wife, Ann Alexander’s mother.

That area was then and is still heavily wooded.

Jason’s reply to me:

Do you have any families who were still in Wilkes County in 1798?

I recently discovered the 1798 Federal Direct Tax list for Wilkes. The National Archives says that this list only exists for one county in NC (Iredell), but I found the Wilkes list among the William Lenoir papers. The list includes details for over 1,000 landowners.

I’m attaching a sample page from the “V” section.

This page tells us that Francis Vannoy owned 310 acres on the North Fork of Reddies River and that his dwelling house was 21’ x 17’ made of hewed logs with a shingle roof. It’s an amazing amount of detail for this time period!  I’ve transcribed the whole list and compiled it into a book.

Jason Duncan

Now, I’m really excited!

Of course, I ordered the book immediately, and as soon as it arrived, I checked for both Harris and Darnell, but found nothing in the right geographic location. But even that provided useful information.

Isaac Darnell was likely deceased by 1798 as he was born around 1729, and Braddock Harris – well, that’s a whole other story.

Braddock Harris

Braddock didn’t make many friends. I’m still utterly stunned that he was married about the same time he was publicly humiliated after being convicted of assault during an attempted rape. He married Rachel Hickerson, daughter of Charles Hickerson, about 1786. I still, for the life of me, can’t understand that.

Given that Braddock was convicted in October, he and Rachel may have been newlyweds at the time. Their first child was born in either 1787 or 1788 at the latest.

In the 1790 census, they are shown with two children.

In 1790, their house was robbed and burned, and Rachel’s sister was involved by aiding and abetting and concealing the arsonist. I kid you not. You can read the rest of the story, here. The Hickerson’s were at war.

In 1791, Braddock sold his land, or what was left, to Henry Carter.

This was followed by slander and assault charges brought against Braddock. He seemed to be a trouble magnet – or perhaps an instigator.

By 1800, Braddock Harris and Rachel Hickerson had moved to Laurens County, SC. It’s no wonder. In the census, they are shown with two children, ages 10-15, plus 3 more females under age 10. Those children, ages 10-15, would have been born between 1785 and 1790, so Braddock and Rachel likely married either shortly before or right after Braddock’s attempted rape conviction.

In 1806, from South Carolina, Braddock sold the last of his Wilkes land to a Sebastian family.

I can’t help but wonder if Braddock continued to get into all sorts of trouble in South Carolina.

They continued to move. In 1810, they were still living in Laurens County, but they were listed on an 1819 tax list in Franklin County, Georgia.

In the 1830 census, they lived in Coweta County, Georgia, where Braddock died.

I was able to find numerous deeds and transactions in all of those locations, including judgments against Braddock using the new FamilySearch Full Text AI, given that his name is relatively unique.

Ann Alexander

After all of this, I still have no idea who Braddock’s victim, Ann Alexander, was. There were early Alexander families living in the area, but I was unable to determine if she belonged to one of these families, or perhaps Isaac Darnell had married her mother before settling in Wilkes County.

Poor girl may have wanted to just disappear and did so in the records. It concerns me that there is absolutely nothing. I hope she was alright and nothing “happened” to her as retribution. Braddock seems like a dangerous person, involved in violent behavior.

My heart goes out to Ann, especially in that time and place. I’ve never seen any allegation of or a rape case in all the years I’ve been doing genealogy, so this must have been remarkably violent.

Furthermore, we all know that absolutely everyone knew about it. The inherent questioning about, shaming, and suspicion of the female involved is exactly why rapes aren’t reported today – let alone almost 240 years ago. I shudder to think what she went through.

I checked the Wilkes County marriage records and didn’t find her there. I hope she simply went someplace far away to live with an aunt, married, and had a wonderful life among people who had never heard of Braddock Harris.

The 1798 Tax List

Of course, I ordered Jason’s 1798 Tax List book immediately, here.

I have several Wilkes County families and I wanted to see if they were listed in the 1798 tax list that had lain undiscovered for more than 225 years.

The legacy of many families rests in the land.

Not only did these families carve humble homesteads out of the wilderness, but the land is trackable. It was either sold, if they were setting out for the next frontier, or inherited – along with whatever buildings had been built. Improvements, as they were called.

Even if the original ancestor had died by 1798, we can use grant, deed, and acreage information, along with Jason’s tax list, to find the homestead later, often still in the same family.

One of the most interesting aspects of the 1798 tax list is the painstaking detail, including home sizes and out-buildings.

Years ago, I was shocked to discover that my ancestor’s “mansion house,” as stated in the deed, was a paltry 12 by 16 feet, the size of my living room. Another was a huge 16 by 20. This was the norm on the frontier, not an exception – and these folks considered themselves lucky.

I’ve kept a spreadsheet for years with tax and census information for each of my Wilkes County ancestral families – and thanks to Jason’s careful transcriptions, now I know even more.

Wilkes land grants, courtesy of Jason, can be found here. Clicking on the grid number shows the associated map location.

I am incredibly indebted to Jason for what is clearly decades of work – and his love for the history of Wilkes County, North Carolina. His website can be found here. Notice he’s had a website since 1995. Thank you Jason!

Join me next week when I use the 1798 tax list and Jason’s maps to put more meat on the bones of the Harrold, McDowell, Hickerson, Vannoy, McNiel, Rash, and Sheppard families of Wilkes County.

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Genealogy Research

• Legacy Tree Genealogists – Professional genealogy research

Jean (Jehan) Gaudet (Godet) was given the nickname of the “Abraham of Acadia” by Father Archange Godbout because his descendants are so numerous. In fact, Jean has the most known descendants of any of the founding Acadian fathers. As of September 2024, known descendants on WikiTree numbered 234,478, and I’m one among them.

That’s the size of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway seating, the largest sporting venue in the world. Think about that for a minute.

Viewed another way, a straight line of all of his descendants would stretch for about 100 miles as the crow flies – almost twice the distance from present-day Annapolis Royal in Nova Scotia, or Port Royal as he would have known it, to LaHave, and back again.

I imagine Jean would find that unfathomable. I find it unfathomable.

Despite that, because he was one of the earliest settlers, we don’t have a lot of information about him.

Our first actual glimpse of Jean Gaudet in Acadia is also our last.

1671 Census

In 1671, the French took a census of Port Royal. Only 66 Acadian families lived in the town of Port Royal beside the fort as well as up and down the Riviere Dauphin between Port Royal, today’s Annapolis Royal, and Bridgetown, a dozen or so miles upriver by canoe.

In 1671, Jean or Jehan Gaudet was already setting records.

Listed second in the census, we find Jean Gaudet, age 96. listed next to Jacob Bourgeois, age 50, the surgeon, who lived on Hogg Island at Port Royal. Jean’s son, Denis Gaudet, age 46, with his wife and family are listed on Jean’s other side. It’s unclear whether Jacob Bourgeois is listed in actual enumeration order or was listed first because of his social position within the community.

I mention this because we know that many Acadian families moved upriver after the British depredations of 1654, and families associated with Jean Gaudet lived upriver, not in Port Royal.

Jean Gaudet was a stunning 96 years old, the oldest person in Acadia, and was noted as a laborer. More likely his sons did the laboring on his behalf. Jean would have been born about 1575, in France. His second wife, Nicole Colleson was 64, and their child Jean, 18, was born about 1653 and lived at home. They had 6 cattle, 3 sheep, and 6 arpents of land in 2 locations. I can’t help but wonder where those two parcels of land were located and why there were two.

Most people had a few arpents of recovered salt marsh on which to graze their cattle and sheep.

Jean’s family and who they married provide insight into the neighbors.

• Son Denis Gaudet was 46, so born about 1625. He was married to Martine Gauthier, 62, and had 5 children including son Pierre.
• Living two more houses away beside Michel De Forest was Jean’s daughter, Marie Gaudet, 38, born about 1633, the widow of Etienne Hebert, who had 10 children, including a baby who was just one year old, along with 4 cattle and 5 sheep. She had clearly just recently lost her husband.
• Another house away we find Jean’s granddaughter, Marie Gaudet, 20, married to Olivier Daigre, 28, with 3 children, 6 cattle and 6 sheep.
• Thirty-five houses away, so quite some distance, Jean’s granddaughter, Anne Gaudet, 27, lived with her husband Pierre Vincent, age 40, with their 4 children.
• Two houses further, Jean’s daughter, Francoise Gaudet, 48, born about 1623, lived with her husband Daniel Leblanc, age 45, with their 7 children.

The De Forest, Daigre and Hebert families lived on the south side of the river, and the LeBlanc clan lived near BelleIsle, on the north side.

Jean’s son, Jean, didn’t live long, but managed to marry three times before his death – first to Marie Francoise Comeau about 1672, then to Jeanne Henry about 1680 in Pisiguit, then to Jeanne Lejeune dit Briard whom he married around 1694 before his death the same year.

Jean, the progenitor, had died by the 1678 census when Nicole Colloron, “widow of Godet,” is listed with a boy, Jean, age 3, born in 1674 and a girl, age 4, unnamed, born in 1673. These are clearly not her children given that she was age 64 seven years earlier in 1671. She appears to be living on the south side of the river, based on the neighbors.

Jean Gaudet’s First Wife

Given Nicole’s age of 64 in 1671, she was 32 years younger that Jean Gaudet. His older children were 48, 46, and 38 in 1671, meaning the oldest could have been born to a young Nicole when she was 17.

However, Stephen White states that Nicole was probably a widow who married Jean Gaudet in Acadia about 1652 and André-Carl Vachon suggests, “As she got married around 1652, she must have arrived between 1644 and 1650. Why? (…) In 1644, there were 20 families (in Acadia), and we do not believe that this family was among them. Then, the ship Le Fort arrived in Acadia on September 23, 1651, and we think it’s a bit tight in terms of time to settle in Acadia and then court the widower Jean Gaudet and marry him in 1652. However, there is a possibility.”

I actually don’t think it’s tight at all, especially if her husband died on the way over and Jean had children to raise. There weren’t a lot of wives to choose from in Acadia and they both needed a spouse.

I will add that if Nicole was Jean’s first wife, it’s very difficult to explain the 20 years between the birth of daughter Marie in 1633, and son Jean in 1653.

I have no proof either way, so I’m just providing information here, but strongly suspect that Nicole was Jean Gaudet’s second wife, and his first wife remains unknown.

Where Did These People Live?

In 1671, they lived in Gaudet Village.

We know that people collaborated with their neighbors, and they married people they saw regularly. We find the names of the people Jean Gaudet’s children and grandchildren married among the neighbors along the river.

The Gaudet Village is now known as Bridgetown. Jean isn’t specifically listed on this reconstructed map, but his grandson, Pierre, is and we know that Jean lived beside Pierre’s father, Denis, in the 1671 census.

We can see that the Hebert Village is nearby. While Etienne Hebert isn’t listed on this later map reconstructed from the 1707 census and a 1733 map, this is where the various Hebert families settled. Jean Gaudet’s daughter married Etienne Hebert.

The Forest, De Forest, Foret homestead abuts the Hebert land on either side of Bloody Creek.

Olivier Daigle, married to Jean’s granddaughter, lived directly across the river from the Gaudet Village which is now Bridgetown.

According to a 1733 map at the Nova Scotia Archives based on the 1707 census route, the Hebert and Gaudet families lived in close proximity near a bend in the Riviere Dauphin, now the Annapolis River, at the mouth of Bloody Creek.

Village des Gaudet was formed by Denis Gaudet and his two sons, who built a farm on the north bank of the Annapolis River about 1667. Given that Jean was living beside Denis in 1671, this strongly suggests that Jean’s homestead was here too, at least by this time. It wasn’t always, but we’ll get to that in a minute.

In 1733, George Mitchell’s map shows five houses at this site. Elizabeth Coward’s book about Bridgetown places the Gaudet homestead location south-east of present-day Riverside Cemetery, on land later owned by the Chipman family, on lot number 133 in Granville Township.

I’m not so sure Jean’s original homestead wasn’t actually in what is today the cemetery.

This map from MapAnnapolis shows a very slightly varied location, but only a few feet different.

Based on that map, the original Gaudet home looks to be in this general location.

Maybe the Nova Scotia GIS map will help me.

While I wasn’t able to find Lot 133 specifically, I was able to location Chipman Avenue that just happens to dead end into the Riverside Cemetery. That makes perfect sense.

We know that some members of the Chipman family were buried in the Riverside Cemetery in the late 1800s, but we don’t have a burial location for the earlier generations, although I think I might have a hint.

The English often used the same cemeteries that the Acadian families utilized prior to their removal in 1755 and subsequent reallocation of their land to British subjects in about 1760. The new settlers just moved to an unoccupied portion of the older cemetery and began burying their dead.

There are a few early cemeteries in Bridgetown, but only a couple that interest us.

The Old Pioneer Cemetery, on Riverview Drive, and the Riverside Cemetery at Riverside and Chipman fit with the location of those early homes.

There were burials in the late 1790s in Riverside, and assuredly more unmarked prior to that time.

Where Did Jean Gaudet Live?

Gaudetville, of course – on the east boundary of present-day Bridgetown! When Jean first arrived, there was no Gaudetville, only forest and swampland. Like all Acadians, they cleared a place to live and dyked the marshes to create farmland. The village grew up around his family and the name would follow later.

We know that whenever Jean first settled there, he would assuredly have dyked the land and about three years later, begun farming the reclaimed marshland. His son would have taken over as Jean could no longer do the heavy work, then his grandsons after that.

On Google maps, you can easily see the fields and today’s sewage plant. This would have been prime real estate with lots of marshland available. Dyking the river provided large fields where marshes used to be.

Back then, Jean would have lived above the marsh on a high point, ridge or hill. I was unable to location the reference of Ruffle’s Hill.

Old Town Cemetery is the red arrow at left, and Riverview at right.

Recently on a trip to Nova Scotia, I took a drive to find Jean’s land.

Come along!

Searching for Jean

In Bridgetown, I drove down Riverview Drive, attempting to see the river. Today, houses obstruct the view, but on the North side of Riverview, I stumbled across the Old Town Cemetery.

You can see that there are no marked graves in the part closest to the street where I’m standing.

There’s a lot of space with no burials, which means unmarked graves.167

I drove on down Riverview Drive to Riverview Cemetery where the road turned to dirt and also angled left, ultimately becomin Chipman after meandering through the cemetery.

There are few roads in the cemetery, and the only burials I could see are contemporary. Furthermore, the area beside the cemetery is entirely overgrown marsh and weeds, so I wasn’t about to go trekking down there.

Riverview Drive entered the cemetery from the west, and Chipman exited to the north.

Depending on which map or tidbit you reference, the Gaudet homestead(s) were either near the upper arrow, or are SSE of the cemetery, close to the lower arrow. Or perhaps both if there were 5 buildings.

One way or another, I was certainly in the neighborhood, within a few feet.

The map view without the vegetation is easier to see.

I drove up Chipman and noticed some soil displaced, having been bulldozed. That’s often what happens to the old foundations of Acadian homesteads. You can’t mow around them and all these generations later, many people have no idea about the history they are disturbing. (Sorry about the photo angle.)

However, this pile didn’t have any foundation stones, hallmarks of an Acadian homestead.

I wanted to stop and ask someone, but there were several “No Trespassing” signs and since no one knew where I was, I decided not to press my luck.

I drove on down Chipman, taking a photo through the trees to the west of the road.

On the right side of the road, if the upper arrow location is accurate, the homestead would be someplace in this natural area behind this property.

The forested area would be higher and can support trees, where the other area to the upper right would be wetter, only supporting marsh grasses and such. The perfect location for Acadian settlers.

We don’t know exactly when Jean Gaudet died, but it was sometime between 1671 and 1678. He was between 96 and 103 years of age, and he was very likely buried someplace nearby.

Parish records prior to 1702 no longer exist for the church in Port Royal.

We know there was at least one other “mass chapel,” St. Laurent, at BelleIsle and some burials occurred there. It’s possible that Jean was buried someplace near his home, here, or at BelleIsle, or less likely, in the more distant cemetery at Port Royal.

My guess would be in Gaudetville, or at St. Laurent in BelleIsle, but that’s speculation based on both location and convenience. The difference would be that the burial grounds at the Mass House would have been consecrated, and the grounds near the Gaudet home would (probably) not have been blessed by the priest. However, Acadians were practical and did what needed to be done.

Note that the “mass house” church or chapel, St. Laurent, is very close to the LeBlanc Village, meaning to Jean’s daughter. Taking a body all the way back to Port Royal by canoe, especially in the winter, seems both unnecessary and risky.

There are 17 burial records that specify St. Laurent in the Registers of Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Port-Royal, 1702-1755. This is not complete since most burial records did not include the exact burial location. Furthermore, the parish records prior to 1702 no longer exist.

The church at Port Royal was burned in 1654, rebuilt beginning in 1673, and burned again in 1690. A chapel was added to the fort in 1709, but when Fort Port-Royal was surrendered in 1710, the fort chapel was turned into a barracks for British troops.

Parishioners either worshipped in the Saint-Laurent Chapel or private homes. They buried their dead either in the St. Laurent cemetery, the fort cemetery, Cemetery of the Cross in present day Lequille, or in a now-lost cemetery near the Melanson settlement, probably near Stony Beach. There may have been and probably were other locations as well.

The Gaudet family continued to expand in the Bridgetown area. Soon, Bernard Gaudet, 1692-1747, son of Pierre Gaudet and Marie Blanchard set up housekeeping nearby.

Not long after I left, a Gaudet interpretive panel was placed in Jubilee Park in Bridgetown, marking the location of where Bernard settled and honoring all Gaudets who founded Gaudetville, now Bridgetown.

Should you be able to visit, walk along the river, clear your mind, and drink in the landscape as our ancestors would have known it.

Now that we’ve shared what we know of Jean’s later life, let’s step back a century in time to France.

France

Jean Gaudet was unquestionably born in France sometime around 1575. He would have come of age about 20 years later and would typically have married by 1600 or so.

We know almost nothing about his life in France, but a few things might be suggested, based on the history we do know.

Although Champlain visited and mapped the region in 1604, Acadia as a settlement for families really wasn’t on anyone’s radar until 1632 when Isaac de Razilly, a naval captain and knight of Malta, teamed up with Cardinal Richelieu to expand France’s reach into North America.

Photos of placards were taken at the Fort Point Museum located at the original Acadian settlement location of La Heve.

The powerful Cardinal Richelieu, who just happened to be Razilly’s cousin and the King’s Chief Minister and Spokesperson helped smooth the way and fund the endeavor.

The King signed Razilly’s patent on April 20, 1632, and Razilly arrived in present-day Nova Scotia on September 8^th, 1632 to take possession of Acadia for France. He established his headquarters at La Heve with 300 soldiers and colonists, plus three monks. Unfortunately, we don’t have a list of names, but we do know that there were 40 families, which accounts for 80 adults, plus their children. If each couple had only 2 children, that’s 160 people without counting the French soldiers. It’s certainly possible that Jean Gaudet, along with his first wife and at least his first two children, born in 1623 and 1625, were among this group. His third child, Marie, was born about 1633 so she could have been born either in France or La Heve, if Jean Gaudet was in fact on this ship. I’m not convinced that he was, but I also can’t say that he wasn’t.

The King named Razilly Lieutenant General of New France, but more specifically, Governor of Acadia. No drawings or paintings of Razilly exist.

Razilly’s trusted cousin and lieutenant, Charles de Menou d’Aulnay was tasked with keeping things running smoothly which he did quite aptly. One of his responsibilities was to recruit men for the ocean crossings with trades and skills needed to establish the new colony.

Therefore, when Razilly died unexpectedly in 1635, d’Aulnay was well-positioned to take over the leadership of the fledging French colony in Acadia.

La Heve

I visited the original Acadian settlement, beautiful La Heve, now LaHave, where the Fort Point Museum is located today.

La Heve, named after “Cap de la Heve”, France, was located on the southern coast of Nova Scotia, on a peninsula of land at the mouth of the LaHave River.

The fort established there was named Fort Sainte Marie de Grace and is now the location of the Fort Pointe Museum. Nothing exists of the original fort, having been abandoned in 1636, burned in 1653, and the ruins lost to subsequent coastal erosion, but the cemetery remains.

The French, as well as other nations, often “justified” their colonization by claiming they were interested in saving savage souls.

Many of the old stones in the adjacent cemetery have been conserved, but none with French markings.

This 1744 map shows the fort and the habitation, or village where people lived.

I visited the old Fort site in August of 2024 and walked where our Acadian ancestors walked.

These cannons are not from the original fort site, but from the appropriate time period.

The river and bay meld into one here.

Coastal erosion has taken a toll, with much of the original fort site lost to the sea. The remaining fragile soil is reinforced with large rocks.

Photo of the same location today.

Based on the map, the habitations would be on the peninsula of land on the right.

A Gaudet descendant installed a seat for reflection and contemplation in this beautiful location.

I was surprised to find this here. Jean Gaudet certainly could have been among the early settlers, but we don’t know that he was.

It felt very welcoming nonetheless – a wink and a nod, perhaps.

I walked down to the shoreline.

The beach is peaceful and beautiful.

The barrier islands help shelter the mainland from the maritime winds. The Cormorants dry their wings on the rocks protruding from the water.

The tranquil stillness of this place, interrupted only by bird cries and the gentle sounds of the sea, invites reflection, offering a glimpse into what life might have been like for our ancestors.

This peaceful haven would have stood in stark contrast to Europe with constant wars, pestilence, plagues, and death. Having said that, I’m sure that these few pilgrims to the New World desperately missed their families, with no way of knowing how they were doing, or communicating with them outside of an occasional ship – if that.

The museum sits near the shoreline just above the beach.

Much of the original fort’s land has eroded away today.

Nicolas Denys who arrived within the first year described this little bit of Heaven in his journal.

The houses and village for inhabitants were located on that little peninsula, at right.

Whether Jean Gaudet was here or not, other Acadian families assuredly were, so I took a photo of Mom’s ring over the view experienced by our ancestors.

The earliest Acadian families, those who subsequently settled at Port Royal in 1636 when d’Aulnay moved the seat of Acadia away from this rocky coastline to the fertile Annapolis Valley, began their lives, here, in this new frontier.

Their humble homes would have stood where these larger houses stand today. I squint to try to ignore the modern buildings and imagine their smaller wooden structures with their outside ovens. Their children played on this beach, probably collecting “pretty rocks.”

The rocks on the beach are truly beautiful. Yes, I was one of those “rock collector” children, too.

I had begun my walk back when I noticed something familiar from the beach and climbed back up the embankment to have a better look.

Are the ghosts of Acadians still here?

Acadians are known for planting apple trees, and given that they only lived here for four years, I can’t help but wonder if these ancient apple trees were theirs. Who else would have planted them? Few others lived here, and probably not directly in this location. More likely in the habitation.

I had tarried long enough by the shoreline, although it pained me to leave. I was so drawn here, but I was already going to have to drive back down twisty curvy roads in the dark, so it was time to “get a move on,” as my mother would have said, and explore further.

Acadian Oven

Outside the museum, I found an Acadian oven.

Cooking inside was a fire hazard, so as much as possible was done outside.

Every Acadian family would have eaten this bread – everyday.

I bet they had some wonderful raspberry jam, compote, or even fresh raspberries from Raspberry Island to go with those biscuits.

My cousin, Mark, purchased Ginger Biscuits at an Acadian bakery and we shared them as treats for a week in Annapolis Royal. I love enjoying ancestral food, which connects me to them in the most primal way.

By the time I left Canada, I found myself reading in French, again, so long as it wasn’t script, and not realizing it until I reached a word I didn’t know.

I’ve always had a passion for French. And France.

I didn’t notice the embedded star in the oven until later – the pebbles assuredly from the beach..

It’s possible that Jean’s first wife and one or more children perished here, so like any good genealogist, I had to visit the cemetery.

This garden is either at or near where the small Catholic chapel stood.

I love the arbor entrance.

On the other side of the chapel garden, we find the cemetery.

Lots of space for unmarked graves. The lone marked stone in the middle commemorates Razilly. We don’t know where he is actually buried, so it’s not his tombstone.

Ironically, I met a couple and their children walking here and we discovered that the wife and I have other Acadian lines in common. They were here for his more recent family burials. Small world.

On July 2, 1636, Razilly died and was buried in the churchyard at La Heve.

The cemetery also backs up to the sea on this spit of land.

It appears that Jean Gaudet and d’Aulnay may have some history, and not just after arrival in Acadia.

This is why I’m not convinced he was at LaHave.

Let’s go back to France!

1634 in Martaize

In 1634, one Jean Godet was mentioned in a document in Martaize, below. If this is our Jean, then there are others of the same surname listed. If this is not our Jean, it’s certainly possible that it’s the same family given the d’Aulnay connection.

ChatGPT translated from French to English, thus:

Oath to the King, 1634, by Nicolle de Jousserand, for her fiefs located in the parish of Martaizé. (reported on p. 37), Sheet 2.

“I, in the freche of the Godets, declare twelve bushels of wheat measured by Loudun and the last three hundred in feudal rent due (owed) by Jean Gendre, Jean Godet, René Godet the younger, Francois Godet, the widow Vincent Besard, Pierre Giroire and Renée Besard his wife, Jean Besard, Simon Joubert, the heirs Pierre Bourg of Sauseau and the heirs Francois Godet by reason of a piece of land and signer being on land and signer remaining on land is of the Rondonay the whole containing together and holding two septiers six bushels…”

Fresche means land tenure, and deniers of cens in this context means feudal tax.

Nicolle de Jousserand is the Dame d’Aulnay, the mother of Charles de Menou d’Aulnay, discussed in this French article by Genevieve Massignon. Researcher, Gregory MW Kennedy discusses d’Aulnay’s rather tragic life, here, in English. He also presents a fresh perspective about the development of Acadia, along with its overshadowing by New England.

As we are often wont to say, “It’s complicated.”

It’s worth remembering that more recent researchers have the benefit of documents coming to light that were not previously known or available on this side of the Atlantic. Even today, many records still lay in archives, unindexed and unrecognized for their historical significance.

Massignon mentions the Gaudet family, including someone named Jean Gaudet, along with several other Godet family members in this document, here, too. Unfortunately, the original French document seems to be incomplete. I have taken the liberty of having her transcript translated by ChatGPT.

I have bolded either Acadian surnames or similarly spelled surnames that might represent Acadian surnames, along with relevant places. The maps and photos are my insertions in order to help both you and me understand what we are reading.

I visited Martaize with an Acadian historical tour, including the church. The Catholic church was the center of every French village, and many of the descriptions in this document reference Martaize or the church in Martaize.

The cemetery was always just outside the church, in the yard, but there is no cemetery there today.

Across from the church is the location of the original cemetery, according to the local historian, beneath this house.

Keep in mind that this village was small at that time. Everyone knew everyone else, worshipped in the same church, and had probably been related for centuries.

Note that the translated portion of the document above is translated slightly differently in this longer document, below. The handwriting is relatively poor, written in French script, and not entirely legible. I also discovered that the original French notarial document included by Massignon is not complete, but her transcription appears to be except for portions truncated when scanning. Of course, I really need that one sentence and who knows what the rest of the document holds..

Transcription and ChatGPT translation begins here:

From the King, My Sovereign Lord, I, Nicolle de Jousserand, wife and spouse of Messire René de Menou, Knight, Lord of Churnizé, having no shared property with him, authorized by Justice to pursue my rights, daughter and heiress of the late Messire René de Jousserand, who was the lord of Londigny, Angliers, Aulnay, Triou and the fief of Beaulieu otherwise known as Rallette which was at Arnaudeau in the parish of Martaizé and its surroundings, and of Lady Renée Robin, my late mother living in this town of Loudun: declare and hold to be due to your castle in the town of Loudun, as the case may arise, the things which follow, in both wheat and in money, from the inheritances declared hereafter.

And firstly the rents in wheat due each year, and each feast of St. Michael, to my said fief of Beaulieu otherwise known as Rallette. Namely, from the fresche (land tenure) of the Fourniers, the number of eighteen bushels of wheat, measured by Loudun, and three last deniers of cens (feudal tax) due by René Gueniot, son of the late Louis Gueniot, Jean and Pierre Vinattières, the widow Vallantin Brault, the widow François Breault, Françoise Havard, Philippe Guerin, Joachin Chesneau, François Boier, René Mesteau, the heirs Mathurin Pintier, Antoine(?) Halbert, René Girard, the widow Guespin, the widow and heirs Bertrand Buet, Helie Escuier, Louis Mirebeau, and the lord of Richemond, for a piece of land located in the terroir of the Turzée, behind the lordship of Saunonne: adjoining the two parts with land from said Saunonne and another to the land of Vincent Gouin, and another to the pathway leading from Saunonne to the field of Prunet by the hand of Senexrte and another to the land of Mathurin Rousseau, containing the said piece of land four septiers, one bushel, and a quarter at the lord’s oak tree on the measure of Loudun.

Also in the fresche of Coindre, the number of thirteen bushels of wheat by the measure of Loudun and six last deniers of cens and this feudal rent is due by Louis Seuirau, the widow Pasquier Bricault, Blais Cesuet, Maurice Coindre, the heirs Jeanne Bourg, Jean Potiron, Louis Rocher the elder, Louis Rocher the younger, frescheurs of the said fresche due to a lodging, houses and appurtenances, stables, courtyards, leases, and livestock: the whole held together situated in the village of Martaizé, containing five and a half boisselées and a quarter.

Bordering on one side the path leading from the cemetery of the said Martaizé to Saint-Clair, and on another side to the stream that descends from the mill of the Grange to the mill of the Mousseau, and on another side to the land of the heirs Maurice Blanchard, and another side to the land of Brilloire and the lands and oak groves of the lord of Chasteauganne. The said lodging is possessed by the aforementioned individuals.

Also, a piece of land located in the terroir of the Moys, below St. Cassien, containing two boisselées three quarters at the oak tree: adjoining the land of the heirs Jehan Poirard, locksmith, on one side, the land of the heirs Aubin Gaudet on the other, the land of René Minier, esquire, lord of Bassereau, on another, and the land of André Mauxilion on the other side.

Also, in the fresche of the Godets twelve bushels of wheat, measured by Loudun, and three last deniers of cens as feudal rent owed by Jean Gendre, Jean Godet, Jehan Moncontour, René Godet the younger, François Godet, the widow Vincent Bizard, Pierre Giroire and Renée Bizard his wife, Jean Bizard, Simon Joubert, the heirs Pierre Bourg of Sauseau and the heirs François Godet, by reason of a piece of land and vineyard located in the terroir of the Rondenay: the whole containing together and holding two septiers six bushels and a quarter. Adjoining on one side lands that belonged to the widow Jean Fouquetteau Chasseinges, married in second nuptials to Master François Brosseu, and on another side the land of the heirs of Michel Bizard and on the other side the vineyard of the heirs Jean Lasne.

Also, the number of five bushels of wheat, measured by Loudun, and three last deniers of cens and feudal rent owed by Gaspar Mauxilion and three last deniers of cens and feudal rent, for lands situated at the place and village of Martaizé called “la Pousseterie,” containing about two boisselées of land: adjoining on one side the land of the lord of Chasteauganne and on one end the house and appurtenances of Antoine Rousseau and Toussaint Mauxion, and on the other end the land of Louis Renault, who is outside the fresche with another section next to the garden of the farmhouse at the garden of the school farmhouse depending on the lordship of Lespinay and by another section next to said Renault.

Also, Antoine Halbert, laborer living in Martaizé, in the fresche of Pasquiert Bricault, owes me two bushels of wheat, measured by Loudun, and three last deniers of feudal rent for a small plot containing a half boisselée of land or about that size, situated by the main road leading to the village of Martaizé from Loudun, and adjoining the appurtenances of said Halbert and adjoining a path between the presbytery of Martaizé and the vine trellis leading out of the main road described above.

Also, Pierre Richelot, esquire, lord of Piau Ligere, son of Elie Richelot, esquire, lord of La Roche, and the late demoiselle Renée Minier, owes me four bushels of wheat, measured by Loudun, and a chicken for feudal rent, for a piece of land near the cemetery of the said Martaizé and adjoining the path leading to Baspollet in Martaizé, containing six boisselées of land or about that size, and adjoining the land of Guillaume Lepère and one end next to the land of Louis Minier, esquire, lord of Chasteauganne.

Also, René Bricault owes me, in the fresche of the Roches, one bushel of wheat, measured by Loudun, and a feudal rent for a path that passes by the house of La Grosserie and touching the land that once belonged to the late Jacques Gautefroy, who owned a mill, yard, and farm located in the village of Martaizé: adjoining on one side the presbytery and the house and lodging of Antoine Halbert.

Also, René Godet, laborer, and Aubinne Godet, widow of the late Pierre Iniatier, and Jean Potiron of St. Clair owe me three bushels of wheat, measured by Loudun, a capon, six deniers of cens as feudal rent, for a piece of land located in the terroir of the Gazilland near…(sentence missing in French transcript – need complete original document.)

Also, Louis Renault in place of Antoine Renault owes me six bushels of wheat, measured by Loudun, a capon, and a chicken for feudal rent, for a piece of land located in the village of Martaizé, containing about two boisselées of land: adjoining one hour’s distance from one end next to the field of the lordship of Saunonne, on the other to the watercourse of the Chesneau descending from the Moulins Mousseau to the mill of Gietal, and on the other to the land belonging to Jacques Girault; also, a piece of woodland located in the terroir of the Pontignou, containing about one boisselée of land: adjoining the land of Pierre de la Planche, on another side the land of the heirs of André Montillier, on another side the land of René Girard, and on another side the land of Jeanne Teteveau, widow of Simon Nivart; also, another piece of woodland located in the terroir of Le Pineau, containing about one and a half boisselées of land: adjoining the land of Louis Prudhomme…

…the land of Antoine Halbert, and another adjoining the path leading from Martaizé to Monslandrault on the right; also, another piece of land located in said terroir, containing about a quarter of a boisselée: adjoining the path on one side, and on the other side the land of Anthoin Halbert, and on the other side the land of Pierre Gouin.

Also, the widow of Isaac Bricault, Louis Seureau the younger, Jean Guet, Guy Barrault, the widow Pierre Chapeau for Marie Chapeau, his daughter, owe me one chicken and six deniers of cens as noble rent, feudal and domain, for a piece of land containing one boisselée, located in the terroir of Pontignou, adjoining on one side the field of Guillaume Lepère, on the other side the land of Guillaume Gaillard, on another the land of the lord of Richemont, and on the other side the land of Germain Ranteau.

Also, Guy Barrault, Jean Savarri on behalf of Michelle Barraut, his wife, owe me one and a half bushels of wheat, measured by Loudun, and two deniers of feudal rent, for a house, courtyard, and garden: all held together as it has been pursued and includes, situated in the village of Martaizé in the Bassereau of said place; adjoining on one side the appurtenances of Louis Guerin and the heirs Jean Godet and on the other side the widow Isaac Bricault and on the other side the land of… adjoining the land of Gaspar Montillier, one hour away, and on the other side the land of Gaspar Constance and René Fouscher and on one side the land of René Girard and on the other side the land of René Theuillieu.

Also, Louis Guespin the elder, Helie Vinatier, the widow René Beaulieu, Joachim Chesneau, Marc Pouschau, Pasquier Blanchard, Louis Pouschau, Anthoinme Montillier, and Jeanne Pouschau owe me three bushels of wheat, measured by Loudun, and four last deniers in the little fresche of the Sarazins, for a piece of land located in the terroir of the Petits Moys, containing one septier and about one boisselée: adjoining on one side the small path from the Grange that goes to Angliers, on one side the land of Pierre Malherbe, on another side the land of Grétal by one end, and on the other side to the lord of Longchamp to the heirs of Aubin Godet, and on one end to the land of Mr. Bonneau, one hour away to the land of François Blanchard.

Also, the heirs of the property tenant Morice Godet owe me six bushels of wheat and ten bushels of oats and cens for the amount of three months rent on a property located at the barn of Chasteauganne: adjoining on one side the land of the heirs of the tenant Jean Ferron to Michau Mousseau, on the other side the land of Philippon Ferron and other lands that used to belong to Pineau.

Then follow the rents of one denier owed per year and firstly: the heirs of the property tenants Moricet Tem and Berthelot Boulet owe three deniers of cens for a piece of courtyard land located in Pontignou: adjoining the courtyard of the heirs of the tenant Guillaume Arnaudeau. Also, one denier of cens owed by the heirs of the tenant to the late Messire Guy de Beaussay, for a piece of land located in Joismont which was previously held by Moricet Trion, containing one mine or about that size: adjoining the land of the heirs of the tenant Guillaume Arnaudeau. Also, the heirs of the tenant to the late Marc Saulnier owe twelve deniers of cens for the piece of land from a man to the lord, located in the courtyard lands of the heirs of the tenant Guillaume Abraham.

Also, the heirs of the property tenant Perrot Poussechant owe two deniers of cens for a piece of courtyard land located in said place, adjoining the courtyard lands of the tenant Emeri Ricot. Also, the heirs of the tenant Jean Poussechant owe fifteen sols of cens for a lodging located in Martaizé: adjoining the house of the heirs of the tenant Jean Girard and the lodging of the heirs of the tenant Jean Guerin.

Also, the heirs of the property tenants Anthonine Minier owe nine deniers of cens for a piece of meadow land located near Rinneaux: adjoining on one side the meadow of the heirs of Marc Vincent and on the other side the meadow of the heirs of Jean Vinattier. Also, six deniers of cens owed for a lodging located in Lousche Pinard: adjoining the lodging of the tenant Cheneau who goes to Grenard, which was all rented from the lord. Also, the heirs owe cens for the land of the lord of Hilleret Mousseau. The heirs of the tenant also owe and to the courtyards of the Arnaudeaux. The aforementioned things I acknowledge to hold in faith and liege homage and to the duties above mentioned, with all justice, lordship concerning and regarding low justice and everything that depends on it, according to the reason and custom of the country of Loudunois, and by reason of the aforementioned things, the said faith and homage, duty or service is due to them with honor, service, and reverence with all submission and obedience, such as a liege man owes to his lord of fief and faith. And I make a formal declaration that if I possess more than what is declared above, I will declare it and employ it in these present declarations as soon as I am made aware of it. And, to present this present acknowledgment and judgment and to request its reception, I have appointed my special procurator, the bearer of this, along with affirming before the Royal Notaries undersigned, that the said acknowledgment is true and that I had it drawn up as best as I could. In witness of this, I render the present acknowledgment and bail, signed by my hand and of the said Royal Notaries at my request, and have it sealed with the Royal Seal of Loudun today, the twenty-first day of October, the year one thousand six hundred thirty-four.

Signed:

Nicolle de Jousserant and Aubri, royal notary in Loudun at the request of the said lady Jousserant

ET Pasquier, royal notary in Loudun at the request of lady Jousserant, widow

October 21, 1634

You’re probably excited, just as I am, but please do not jump to any conclusions and add to your tree just yet.

So, let’s take a deep breath and maybe freshen our tea before moving on with our analysis.

Analysis – Are There Messages?

Note also the surnames of Bourg, Brault/Breault, Guerin, Giroire/Girard, Blanchard, Halbert (Hebert?), Vincent, and Besard/Bizard/Brousseu – all exact or similar names to known Acadians.

By the way, if you’re thinking that Antoine Halbert is assuredly Antoine Hebert of Acadia – he’s not. Antoine Halbert in this document was an adult in 1634, and our Antoine Hebert, possible brother to Etienne Hebert of Acadia, was born about 1621. I know what you’re thinking next – yes, he could be a son but we really, really need marriage records or SOMETHING concrete.

The village of La Chaussée is located near the village of Aulnay in France. I wrote about La Chaussée, here.

La Chaussée parish registers reach back to 1626. After examining those registers, Geneviève Massignon wrote that:

“More than half of the entries in the parochial registers from 1626 to 1650 involve the family names which we find among the 53 family names included in the census of 1671 in Acadia: Babin, Belliveau, Bertrand, Bour, Brault (Braude, in the feminine form), Brun, Dugast, Dupuy, Gaudet (Gaudette, in the feminine form) Giroire, Joffriau, Landry, LeBlanc, Morin, Poirier, Raimbaut, Savoite, Thibodeau. In addition, the family names of the wives of the settlers include Chevrat, Gautier, Guion (Dion), Lambert, and Mercier. The names of Blanchard, Bourg, Brault, Giroire, Godet, Guérin, Poirier, Terriot are among the names found in the censuses of the mother of Charles d’Aulnay for her Seigneurie.”

In the book, Acadia; the geography of early Nova Scotia to 1760 published in 1968, author Andrew Clark, on page 397, states:

“Of the group at Port Royal after 1635, known surnames that have survived, compiled from parish registers and other records, are, according to Antoine Bernard, Aucoin, Gaudet, Martin, Dugas, Trahan, Landry, Pitre, Melanson, Caissy, Colleson, and Pesely. Histoire de I’Acadie (1939). p. 20. These would be drawn from the fifteen or twenty married engages among Razilly’s original three hundred and from the Scots.”

Summarizing Nicole Jousserant’s document, we have several Godet/Gaudet individuals mentioned as follows:

• Aubin Godet heirs – land below St. Cassien (towards Martaize) – it’s 2.4 miles from St. Cassien to the church in Martaize. Also mentioned a second time after the path from La Grange, then “on the other side to the lord of Longchamp to the heirs of Aubin Godet.”

Using these locations to triangulate the possible location of Aubin Godet, and thus, his heirs, we find the following.

The location of “the little fresche of the Sarazins,” which could well have been Le Doismon, was also mentioned. Given this information, I believe that today’s Le Doismont could well be where Aubin Godet lived.

Look at this stunningly beautiful medieval building at the turnoff from the main road between St. Cassien and Martaize, headed towards Le Doismont.

The tiny farming village of Le Doismont is ancient too – the houses and barns morphed into one – many still in use today. You can identify the medieval buildings from this timeframe and earlier by the reinforcement X irons on the outside walls, known as anchor plates, which reinforce the internal beams and strengthen the stone or masonry walls, preventing bowing.

In the aerial photo below, you can see the main road, the old farm at the turnoff, and Le Doismont at right.

Come take a drive in Le Doismont here, on this historic one-lane road. You can’t get lost – it’s only a block in either direction from the T intersection that doesn’t even have a stop sign. Regardless of whether this is exactly Aubin Godet’s farm or village, and even if it’s not “our” family – the farming community of wherever they lived would look almost exactly like this – so savor this unspoiled step back in time into history.

But we’re not finished yet.

Nicole continues: Also the following people in the fresche of the Godets by reason of a piece of land and vineyard located in the terroir of the Rondenay: the whole containing together and holding two septiers six bushels and a quarter:

• Jean Godet
• Rene Godet the younger
• Francois Godet
• Francois Godet heirs

This clearly tells us that these people are related to each other and Aubin – most likely all his descendants.

Nicole again: In addition to the above people, others in the fresche Godet that owed tax were Jean Gendre, Jehan Moncontour, the widow Vincent Bizard, Pierre Giroire and Renée Bizard his wife, Jean Bizard, Simon Joubert and the heirs Pierre Bourg of Sauseau.

Given all these people together, I strongly suspect it was this little farm village. They lived adjacent and farmed the surrounding fields, attending church in the closest larger village of Martaize. I can’t help but get excited about seeing all those Acadian surnames noted as neighbors.

Nicole continues:

• Aubine Godet, widow of Pierre Iniatier
• Rene Godet laborer

Aubine is clearly the feminine fort of Aubin, so she would be a daughter, sister, or other relative. Aubine Godet and Rene Godet are mentioned together with Jean Potiron of St. Clair who jointly owe tax in the terroir of Gazilland which appears to be within a block or two of the church in Martaize – although the original Rue de Gazillon could have extended further, to another small village which no longer exists today. Roads in France outside of villages are now given road numbers which replaced the original local names making this detective work more difficult.

The following two people appear separately.

• Jean Gaudet’s heirs are mentioned in Martaize adjacent Louis Guerin and Michelle Barraut.
• Morice Godet’s heirs are mentioned as owing tax, but not in a location I can place. His property is at the barn of Chasteauganne and a Lord of Chasteauganne is mentioned elsewhere. There is a Chasseignes near St. Cassien, above Le Doismon.

These people would all have been buried in the cemetery in Martaize.

We have three Godet men mentioned with heirs, plus several living people. Aubine would have inherited as a daughter.

One last thing. If you’re wondering if there are any other French records of interest for Jean Gaudet, there might be.

Another Jean Gaudet was buried at St. Velluire on January 2, 1654, at the age of 82 years, so born about 1572, just three years before our Jean Gaudet of Acadia. This might be Velluire, not far from La Rochelle, although I do not have the original burial record. There’s no way to know if this is the same family as the Godet family of Martaize, or not, or if either one of them are “our” Godet family.

One thing is for sure, the Godet family of the Martaize region was clearly well-established, given that they are found in locations throughout that region, according to Madame Jousserant. Furthermore, several men appear to be deceased and have heirs, suggesting that they were older men. This family was assuredly in the right place at the right time. In 1634, our Jean Gaudet would have been 59 years old. Whyever he would have wanted to set off for the new world baffles me. Opportunity, adventure, or perhaps family encouragement.

Unfortunately, Acadian Jean Gaudet only had two sons that lived, his namesake Jean, and Denis. I wish there had been an Aubin or Aubine, which would have been very suggestive.

All of this information, of course, is our attempt to determine if the 1634 Nicolle de Jousserant document is referencing our Jean Godet/Gaudet or even the right family. If so, he was clearly in Martaize in 1634. If not, it could still be the same Godet clan given their close association with the d’Aulnay family and other Acadian surnames.

There are two Jean Godets mentioned – one living and one deceased so Jean is clearly a family name. Unfortunately, Jean (Jehan) is equivalent to John in English and is quite common.

The 1687 Document

In attempting to determine when Jean Gaudet and his children arrived in Acadia, we must also take into consideration the 1687 document signed by several Acadians, including Jean Gaudet’s son-in-law, Daniel LeBlanc.

Given that d’Aulnay died in 1650, this means that Daniel LeBlanc would have had to have been in the colony prior to that time in order to serve as an eyewitness to the number of forts, ships, houses, and mills built by d’Aulnay.

“We, Michel Boudrot, Lieutenant-General in Acadie, with the older settlers of the land, certify that the deceased mister d’Aunay Charnisay, formerly the King’s Governor of the coast of Acadie, constructed three forts along this coast; the first one at Pentagouêt, the second at the Saint-Jean River (in 1645 only), and the third at Port-Royal; these forts were well supplied with all the canons and munitions required! There are three hundred regular men to defend these forts.

We certify also that the late d’Aulnay Charnisay ordered the construction of two mills; one was powered by water, the other by wind power and he ordered that they build at Port-Royal five pinasses, several dories, and two small ships of seventy tons each. As well as two farms or manors and associated buildings; houses as well as barns and stables(…)

We certify that the above is true as we have seen this; we have signed this in good faith at Port-Royal on October 15, 1687, in the presence of Mr. de Menneval, King’s Governor of all of Acadie, and Mr. Petit, Grand Vicar for the Grand Bishop of Québec, and the vicar of this place Port-Royal.

Also having signed; Mr. Boudrot, Lieutenant-Governor ; François Gaunizzot (Gautherot) Bourgeois ; Pierre Martin ; Mathieu Martin ; Claude Tériot ; d’Entremont, King’s prosecutor.

Also marked by: Antoine Bourg, Pierre Bouet (Doucet), Denis (Daniel) LeBlanc ; Abraham Dugast.”

Jean Gaudet’s daughter, Francoise, was married to Daniel LeBlanc about 1650, after the death of her unknown Mercier husband, so this confirms that Daniel was in Port Royal prior to 1650. He was born about 1626, so he either came with parents who died before the first census and are unknown, or as a young man, given that d’Aulnay was only governor from 1636 through 1650.

Some researchers have suggested that Jean Gaudet’s three eldest children married in France, if this is true then that means that the Mercier, possibly LeBlanc, Gaudet (Godet), Gauthier and Hebert families were all living in very close proximity to each other in France, and likely attended the same or neighboring churches.

We have no evidence of that in LaChaussee where records exist back to 1626, but the translated records of d’Aulnay’s mother do include one Antoine Halbert which could possibly be Hebert. Unfortunately, the script is difficult and the spelling was not standardized at that time.

In the Poitou region of France, now Vienne, not far from Richelieu where the Cardinal lived and Martaize, Loudon, and LaChaussee, locations of known Acadian families, according to Kennedy, we find swampy regions that were dyked and drained with the same techniques that were used along the Riviere Dauphin and other Bay of Fundy locations in Acadia.

It would have made perfect sense to recruit people with this rather unique skill set for Acadia as well, and it just so happened they were within the sphere of influence of both Razilly and d’Aulnay – although this skill set was not needed at La Heve.

You can see that Aulnay is directly between Martaize and La Chaussée

Both Razilly and d’Aulnay were Seigneurs in La Chaussée, which meant they owned the land and charged rent to the peasants who farmed there.

Can we draw any conclusions from this 1634 document without further research? No. Can we dismiss it? Absolutely not, especially given the other possible Acadian surnames.

We need more information or a Y-DNA test for any male Gaudet (or similar spelling) who descends from this line or region in France – meaning not descended from Acadian Jean Gaudet. If this is you, I have a DNA testing scholarship just waiting – please reach out.

In 1635 and 1636, d’Aulnay recruited additional French families to settle in Acadia. The St. Jehan departed La Rochelle for La Heve with colonists on April 1, 1636. There is a passenger list, but Jean Gaudet or a similar name is not listed.

After Razilly’s death, d’Aulnay decided to remove the government of Acadia to Port Royal, on the opposite coast for better farmland.

I know that my ancestors knew both Razilly, and d’Aulnay. They spoke with this man. How I would love to be a fly on the wall.

While this move from one location to another sounds fairly peaceful, in actuality, it wasn’t. This era became known as the Acadian Civil War. One way or another, Jean Gaudet was involved.

Acadian Civil War

D’Aulnay moved several settler families from La Heve to Port Royal, while Charles de Saint-Etienne de la Tour, the French Commander of Acadia, built a new Fort Sainte-Marie at the mouth of the St. John River in New Brunswick. It would later be named Fort La Tour, not to be confused with the locations of those same names on the southern coast of Acadia at and near La Heve.

Those two men were sworn enemies and proceeded to go to war with each other over who would control Acadia. Lives were needlessly lost on both sides. Their personal war lasted five long years, affecting all French people living there.

In 1640 La Tour attacked Port Royal with two armed ships, but had to surrender.

In 1642, d’Aulnay established a blockade of La Tour’s Fort Sainte-Marie.

D’Aulnay arranged for La Tour to be charged with treason and disrespecting the French Crown. La Tour couldn’t go to France, on pain of being arrested on those charges, so his wife traveled to France on his behalf and advocated for him, apparently effectively. She returned with a warship so that La Tour could defend himself.

In the spring of 1643, another battle took place when La Tour attempted to capture Port Royal again, this time with the ship his wife brought from France along with four armed British ships out of Boston manned by 270 English mercenaries. The British must have enjoyed this immensely. D’Aulnay lost six men and seven more were wounded. For some reason, La Tour did not attack the fort in Port Royal, which was only defended by 20 men, but he burned the mill, killed livestock, and seized furs, gunpowder, and other supplies before departing.

D’Aulnay was furious.

This had literally turned into an ego-driven Civil War between two men, but in 1645, d’Aulnay eventually won – but it was ugly.

In 1645, La Tour went to Boston requesting aid from the British once again. That sure smells like treason to me.

While he was gone, d’Aulnay took advantage of that opportunity by seizing all of La Tour’s possessions, including Fort La Tour at St. John, along with other outposts.

The infamous siege of St. John began on Easter Sunday, April 13^th, when d’Aulnay mustered 200 men, probably every French soldier and Acadian man, sailed across the Bay of Fundy and arrived at La Tour’s fort, which was under the control of his wife, Francoise-Marie Jacquelin, in La Tour’s absence. She was young, age 23, but was known as the Lionesse of LaTour for her battle savvy and brilliant defense of the fort.

After five days of fighting, d’Aulnay offered quarter to all soldiers if Francoise-Marie would surrender the fort. Knowing she was outnumbered, she agreed to his terms, but then d’Aulnay reneged and hanged every one of the men in La Tour’s garrison as Francoise-Marie was forced to watch with a noose around her own neck. Three weeks later, while still in d’Aulnay’s custody, she too died. And no, we don’t know how or why.

With his fort gone, his garrison swinging from the gallows, and his wife dead, La Tour retreated upon his return and went to live in Quebec, where he continued in the fur trade.

After La Tour’s defeat, d’Aulnay traveled to France to receive honors from the King.

By this time, Acadian families must have been totally exhausted. The 9 years between 1636 and 1645 would have been filled with almost constant conflict and angst. Without church records, we don’t know who died in the attacks, who married, or anything else for that matter.

We know that Jean Gaudet’s daughter, Francoise, married her Mercier husband and had their one child sometime about 1645. She remarried to Daniel LeBlanc around 1650, having their first child around 1651. Was her first husband a victim of the French-on-French warfare? It’s possible.

It’s also possible that Jean Gaudet and his family weren’t yet in Acadia, but it’s not probable based on that 1687 document signed by Francoise Gaudet’s second husband, Daniel LeBlanc, testifying to d’Aulnay’s accomplishments.

For those living at Port Royal, I can only imagine the fear leaping into their throats every time they saw distant sails entering the harbor, especially if there was more than one ship.

From Easter of 1645, d’Aulnay governed all of Acadia without interruption, and they would finally have five years of peace.

By 1645, Jean Gaudet would already have been 70 years old. Surely he did not arrive in Acadia in his 70s. He much more likely arrived closer to 1635 when he would have been 60. I imagine that he was a fit, spry, and healthy man. Today, he would have been looking at Social Security – yet he was striking out for a new frontier. Perhaps his children wanted to go and he didn’t want to be left behind. We will never know, but kudos to him for bravery and spunk!

Between 1640 and 1645, besides waging battle with La Tour, d’Aulnay recruited additional families who arrived on many ships, but there’s only one known passenger list – in 1641.

In Charles d’Aulnay’s “memoir” of 1644, He details a long list of responsibilities, including the establishment of 20 families and 17 missionaries, the salaries and maintenance of 200 soldiers and workers, and the construction and maintenance of mills, churches, forts, and ships.

Based on engagement contracts signed in La Rochelle, most of the people who arrived in Acadia clearly either died or returned to France. Many were single men who would have completed their work contracts and returned home to families or to find a bride. Given the warfare, I’m not surprised that few wanted to stay.

With La Tour out of the picture, d’Aulnay improved Acadia. New ships were built, mills erected, and marshes dyked.

In 1647, a commission was issued, making him governor and lieutenant-general in Acadia.

D’Aulnay’s time as governor was short-lived, though, because in 1650, he died in a canoe accident, calling the governance of Acadia into question once again.

After d’Aulnay’s unexpected and untimely death, La Tour saw an opportunity. I can’t help but wonder if he was somehow involved in making that opportunity, but that’s pure speculation on my part.

La Tour returned to France and sought to reestablish himself in Acadia. He was successful, and his title was restored, making him d’Aulnay’s successor. He returned in 1651 with Philippe Mius d’Entremont, a rather mysterious figure who, two years later, was awarded a fiefdom or seigneury, only the second in all of Canada, at which time he became the Baron of Pobomcoup, today’s Pubnico. More about Mius in a future article.

When La Tour became governor, I can only imagine the terror that gripped the hearts of the Acadians who had fought AGAINST him so many times.

Not to mention d’Aulnay’s widow, Jeanne Motin, and their eight children, ages newborn to 11, who were living in Port Royal. She must have been utterly terrified. She sent her children to France to be cared for by relatives. They never returned, and she never saw them again.

Motin’s immediate future was defined by d’Aulnay’s creditors raiding and looting Port Royal for anything of value, which meant the Acadian families suffered. All those years of settlement and warfare were expensive, and d’Aulnay’s creditors intended to collect.

You’re not going to believe what happened next.

Plot Twist

On February 24, 1653, Jeanne Motin and La Tour decided, for the good of Acadia, to bury the hatchet – and not in each other.

They married – each other. I kid you not. It wasn’t just a marriage in name only either, as they went on to have five children in the next decade. I can only imagine those dinner table conversations and the shock experienced by everyone in Acadia. It did, however, end an era of conflict, at least for a little while.

Jeanne died a decade later, shortly after having her 5^th child with La Tour.

D’Aulnay left a thriving colony, but the intense French recruitment era came to an end with d’Aulnay’s 1650 death.

Four years later, in 1654, it would end altogether for another 16 years.

1654 – The British

In 1654, the British attacked again. The Acadians must have felt like they were living in an incessant war zone.

By 1654, Denys estimated that there were about 270 residents at Port Royal. If you divide that by 5 for the (estimated) size of an average family, you only have about 55 families. If you divide by 7, you get around 40 families. Probably in addition to men at the various forts scattered about in various locations, including Port Royal.

Jean Gaudet, at 77 years of age, would have witnessed the English attack upon and capture of Port Royal by the British in 1654. At that time, most people actually lived in or within sight of the town, not up the river. We know this because later, it was stated by Denys that people moved upriver after the 1654 attack.

Jean Gaudet might, even at 77, have been one of the 130 men who defended the fort. He seems rather irrepressible.

Understanding that they were both outnumbered and outmanned against 200 professional British soldiers, plus 100 New England volunteers, the Acadians negotiated terms that allowed them to retain their property and continue worshiping as Catholics. Soldiers and officials, who would have nothing left to defend or reason to stay, would be transported back to France. Most of the residents would remain and be unharmed.

That’s the best they could hope for, all things considered.

However, after their surrender, the British violated the surrender terms they had just agreed to by desecrating, looting, and destroying the Catholic church at Port Royal.

This 1686 map shows the location of the church that was later rebuilt (2), the cemetery (4), and the ruined fort (3).

The good news is that in 1654, the British didn’t burn the village. The Acadian families must have been, once again, petrified.

In 1654, all transport ships and settlers from France stopped until France reclaimed Acadia in 1670, just one year before the census that showed Jean Gaudet at 96 years of age.

This series of historic events tells us unquestionably that Jean Gaudet arrived sometime between 1632, when Razilly first began settlement in earnest, and 1654 when all French immigration ceased.

Given that Jean Gaudet’s eldest son, Denis, married about 1645 to Martine Gauthier, presumable in Port Royal, and his daughter, Francoise, married a Mercier about 1644, then remarried to Daniel LeBlanc about 1650, it’s probable that Jean Gaudet was in Acadia prior to 1644, and almost certainly before 1650.

Maybe additional documents will be found in France to provide previously undiscovered information. Is it too much to wish for baptismal and marriage records??

For a long time, things were relatively peaceful in Acadia despite the English overlords. In 1667, the ownership of Acadia was returned to France in the Treaty of Breda with nary a drop of Acadian bloodshed. The official transition was delayed until 1670, but that, too, was peaceful.

After regaining control, the French immediately took a census in 1671. Surprisingly there were 361 Acadians in the Port Royal area, up from the 270 estimate in 1654. Some people would have died, of course, but apparently, more were born, and some, especially soldiers, would have arrived after control was returned to France – although they don’t seem to have been enumerated.

By 1671, Jean Gaudet was 96 years old and had seen more of life than any other person in Acadia. He was born before Champlain even set out to explore those waters.

Imagine the stories he would tell us if he could.

Unanswered Questions

Aside from the questions we’ve already posed, there are a few other things I’ve wondered about.

Jean Gaudet’s first wife’s mitochondrial DNA was haplogroup J1b2.

Was she his first wife, or was he married previously in France? I wonder because he was born about 1675, but his eldest child found with him in Acadia was born about 1623. He would have been 48 years old at their birth. That’s certainly not impossible, but it is improbable. Normally, he would already have been fathering children for 20 or 25 years by the time he was 48 years old – not having his first child. He could easily have had 10 or 12 children prior to 1623 and already been a grandfather.

Did he have a first wife we don’t know about who died along with all of their children? Did his first wife die, and her family took their children to raise? Did his wife not die, but some children were left behind in France? Were some of his children already married and didn’t want to leave? What was going on in his life? Was he truly a bachelor until age 48? Was his J1b2 wife his first or a subsequent wife?

If he married his haplogroup J1b2 wife about 1622, and had children in 1623, 1625, and 1633, that very strongly suggests that a child was born in 1627, 1629, and 1631, and subsequently died.

Based on mitochondrial DNA results, the mother of his first and third child was the same, or at least shared the same haplogroup. Their descendants are exact matches.

That alone speaks to the fact that, assuming he didn’t marry prior to 1622, he lost half his children before the 1671 census, plus their mother. This man witnessed and endured a great deal of heartbreak.

Was he actually single for an extended period? Did his wife die before the next child would have been expected in 1635, or did they have more children, and his wife AND additional children all died later?

What happened in Jean’s life between 1633 when his youngest child from his J1b2 wife was found with him in Acadia in 1671, and 1653 when his next child, John, was born to Nicole?

His J1b2 wife that gave birth to Francoise, Denis and Marie would have had to be born no later than 1608 and could have borne children until about 1650ish, not long before he married Nicole. If she lived that long, they would have buried at least another eight children.

That’s devastating.

Moving on Up

We don’t know when Jean Gaudet moved upriver, only that he was one of the furthest away from Port Royal. I don’t know if that means he left first and had his pick of locations, or last and moved beyond the other settlers to available land. Either way, he did well for himself and his descendants, obtaining a significant marsh area.

Jean’s First Wife Was Not Native American

I can debunk one theory conclusively.

Some researchers had suggested that Jean Gaudet arrived very early, perhaps even with Champlain, and stayed, taking a Native American wife.

His two daughters both carry their mother’s mitochondrial DNA, having been passed from mother to mother to today’s descendants through all women.

In the Acadian AmerIndian DNA Project, we have four people descended from Jean Gaudet’s (presumed) first wife through both daughters. Their haplogroup, J1b2, is assuredly European, not Native American, so we can definitively put that rumor to bed.

Y-DNA

In the Gaudet Y-DNA Project, several male descendants of Jean Gaudet have tested.

Only one, kit number 129804, has taken the Big Y test, but only the earlier Big Y-500, not the more refined and robust Big Y-700 test.

The resulting haplogroup, G-YP786 is about 1300 years old, according to Discover, and has no matches to any other men. I’m not surprised, given the restrictions on DNA testing in France. Discover depends on multiple testers to produce the most relevant results. The most common recent ancestral date is identified for testers, so the more testers from a particular line, the more refined the results.

I would very much like for this gentleman and at least one other Gaudet descendant to upgrade to the Big Y-700 so that we all can learn more about our fascinating ancestor, Jean Gaudet.

For example, who is their most recent Ancient Connection, and where was that burial found? Where did our Gaudet line come from and when did they arrive in France? Ancient Connections and Discover tools provide information about a lineage prior to the adoption of surnames that isn’t available to us any other way.

Jean Gaudet – Still a Mystery Man

For all the tidbits we have about Jean Gaudet, there’s far more that we don’t know about him. So much uncertainty remains.

I have my fingers crossed that a Gaudet whose ancestral locations are known in France will take a Y-DNA test. Having an actual French match outside of the descendants of Jean’s two sons would be extremely beneficial.

While prior researchers dug relentlessly in early records for information about Jean Gaudet, cousin Mark, who is an extremely methodical and painstaking researcher is having a go at this as well. We are hoping that new records have become available or old records have been indexed. Something. Anything! Fingers crossed.

And Jean, if you’re listening, it would be immensely helpful if you could just stand up and wave so we know where you are😊. Some quarter million of your descendants would like to speak with you about our ancestor warranty!

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