Where Were Our Ancestors in 1776?

Our Griffin roots were in Wales, then immigrating to Connecticut.     Benoni Griffin, Jr., father of our Jonathan Griffin, lived in Simsbury, CT during the Revolution.  His father, Benoni Sr. was a "Loyalist" during the American Revolution.   Other Loyalists/Royalists moved out to Nova Scotia, but Benoni stayed where he was.   Perhaps it was because his wealth was in land, cattle and sheep, things that could not be easily moved.   Despite being loyal to the crown, he did furnish cattle for the starving American Army.   George Washington appealed to Governor Trumbull for help to feed and clothe the men, and Washington’s  comment was, ' Only Brother Trumbull could have made it happen, and it could only happen in Connecticut.'   Trumbull, Washington, and Benoni  Griffin were all Masons.   There are certain appeals that MAY NOT be ignored by a Mason.   However, nephew Stephen II, son of Benoni's dead brother was in the colonial Army too.   Perhaps he had no choice but to feed when appealed to.     We have no mention of Benoni Jr. during the Revolution. His son, Jonathan, was born in 1777.  This family migrated to western Virginia.

William Sharp Sr., was the father of Rachel Sharp who married Jonathan Griffin.  William is described in records from the American Daughters of the Revolution as serving as a private and fifer in Capt. Lewis  Pelham's Company, Colonel Parker's Virginia regiment in 1778.  Mr. Sharp was likely in Bath county VA prior to 1769 to be  familiar with the Greenbrier property he was granted that year and he located his permanent homestead here about 1773.  He saw service as a  scout, spy and soldier against the Indians and the British.   His own parents had been killed by Indians, as well as those of his wife, Mary Meeks. 

Another ancestor, Joseph Rodgers, would have been about 20 at the time of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.   He was the grandfather of our 2 gt grandmother, Elizabeth M. Rodgers Griffin. They hailed from Madison County VA, near the Rapidan River.   Joseph probably knew or knew of the patriots who came from  that area… Madison, Monroe, and  Jefferson.    Joseph’s son, James Rodgers, was married to Elizabeth Jackson,  daughter of Drury Jackson,  who was a Revolutionary Soldier, serving from 1776 to 1778.  Part of his service took place at Charleston, SC, and he mustered out at Valley Forge.  We have many documents concerning Drury’s service and pension.  

Drury Jackson’s wife Elizabeth Bryan(t), was daughter of Jeremiah Bryan(t),  a man of the same area of Virginia (Madison and Culpeper counties).  His wealth was in land, which he claimed by “tomahawk claim”, making improvements and staking out much land to the west of Virginia. Then he did a lot of trading and selling.  He was not mentioned as taking part in the Rev. War, but was probably expanding his own interests to the west.

 On our Terry side of the family, our known ancestors were still in England till 1840’s .  The McGills were in Ireland  until early 1800s.   The Frost family were in Massachusetts and Connecticut at the time of the Revolution. The DAR has record of our Samuel Frost, serving as a private in the 10th Regiment of Connecticut.   He was part of campaigns in New York in 1776 under Brigadier General Walcott. 

On our maternal branches of the family, I have recently found info that our 4 Gt Grandfather, Robert Cochran, was a Revolutionary Soldier from South Carolina. He was one of the first men to declare against the "Tories" in that state. Another maternal ancestor, Samuel Lowry, born 1757 in North Carolina, states in his pension application that he enlisted in 1775 (only 18 years of age) and served for 6 months. By 1776, he volunteered with a regiment fighting Indians, then joined "the company commanded by Samuel Young, and served as a Ranger, and was employed in resisting the scouting and plundering detachment from Lord Cornwallis' army which was then on its way to little York". After the war, he lived in South Carolina and became a medical doctor. (Coincidentally, my Gt Grandfather was named Samuel Young Griffin. I wonder if he was named for this Revolutionary Soldier.)

Our Easter ancestor, James Easter, originally from Virginia, served in Georgia as a Rev. Soldier in 1778. Muster rolls during that year listed him in Brunswick, and White Plaines, Georgia. He later brought his family to Georgia, perhaps on a land grant for his service. I guess he didn't feel a loyalty to the King who had granted his Virginia land, thirty years before.

Our Grant ancestor, Thomas Grant, was still an infant in Scotland, at the time of the Revolution. He possibly came to America as an orphan, indentured servant, ending up in Tennessee.

Fifth Great Grandfather, James Dillard III, was from Williamsburg, Virginia, a most interesting city during that time. On May 15, 1776, the Virginia Convention passed resolutions urging the Continental Congress to declare American independence from Britain. James is shown to have been a Captain in the 10th Virginia Regiment, retiring to Amherst, VA, after the war. His son John Dillard of Amherst was a Colonel, as declared by descendants who applied as members of the Sons of the American Revolution.

We continually discover more generations and try to chronicle ancestors' lives here in the United States and back into the colonies. We begin to relate to these ancestors as real people and wish we knew more about their lives.

Week #12 Theme is Membership

John McCool's Church Membership I have collected much information about my husband's, Great Grandfather, John McCool. As we followed the timeline of his family, we find the church as a constant in his life. John was the grandson of Irish immigrants, John Calvin McCool and Mary Cunningham, who arrived in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania in the early 1800s. Their first association with the Reformed Presbyterian Church of Deer Creek in that county, was about 1811. The minister of that congregation, James McConnell, was also an Irish immigrant. They may have come to America from the same part of Northern Ireland. The following are some quotes from various essays I've found about that congregation. In 1802, Robert Porter and others organized the Deer Creek Associate Reformed Church and began the long tradition of service to our Lord Jesus Christ. In the early 1800s, services were held outside or in homes . People came from miles around to worship at the open-air pulpit, sitting on logs or on the ground, with worship services often lasting all day. In 1811, the Rev. James McConnell, fresh from Ireland, was called as the first pastor. During Rev. McConnell's tenure, a log church was built in 1817. The first brick structure was erected in the middle of the cemetery in 1834. Two sons of the immigrant, John Calvin McCool, were James Robert and William. They were members of the Reformed Presbyterian Church. James R. and his family followed brother, William, to Iowa. The towns of Le Claire and Princeton were on the Mississippi, just above Davenport, Iowa, ferryboat ride from Rockport, IL. The following is quoted from the church history in Le Claire, Iowa. “When the pioneers came to this area, family and friends tended to travel together and settle near each other. So it was in 1840's a little band of Associate Reformed Church members left their homes at Deer Creek, near Butler, PA., and arrived in Berlin, now a part of Le Claire, Iowa. {We believe their route was on a steamboat on the Monongahela, Ohio, and Mississippi Rivers.} They homesteaded on the open prairie west of Le Claire near what we know as Argo. The first church services were in the log cabins of James McConnell, about 1 3/4 miles straight east of our present church. They later met in other cabins and the Parkhurst and Campbell schoolhouses in Le Claire township. They brought their own benches for sitting through the long services, because you see, there were 12 adults and all their children and that would tax any cabin. The meetings were called "The Society" and were held on the Sabbath Day. The services consisted of singing a Psalm (no musical instruments were permitted in the church until 1906), reading God's word, and prayers. These services were very lengthy. After the Psalm’s explanation, there was a sermon, then a thirty-minute intermission and another service containing a sermon. If any member left during intermission, they were classified as "lukewarm Christians". The Sabbath ended by the study of the catechism in their homes.” In 1849 James McConnell built a new barn where on May 21, 1849, nine adults met and were formally organized as an Associated Reformed Congregation under the Presbyterian Church. These members were William Jamison and his wife Martha, their daughter Martha Ann Jamison, James McConnell and his wife Mary, William McCool and his wife Lydia, William Stark and his wife Sarah. On May 26, 1849, three members were added: Andrew Jackson Jamison, his wife Elizabeth, and his brother John Jamison. These comprised the 12 charter members." Eloise Kiedrich, 2001 Most of the above named members were related in some way and had traveled together from Pennsylvania. Some may have come together all the way from Ireland. Gerry's Gt Grandfather, John McCool, son of James R., was born in Pennsylvania in 1843, and would have been a small child when the group traveled west. He grew up as an active member of the church described above. In 1861 he and many young men of that congregation joined the Union Army, and were involved in major battles, mainly in Tennessee and Mississippi. He returned home in 1864 and volunteered to "run the mail" to the areas near Deadwood, South Dakota... a dangerous area. But by 1868, he came back to Iowa and married Anna Rosalie Powell. At that time the railroad had been opened to Nebraska and land was there to claim. So by 1872, the McCools and several other church families traveled together to the area near Kearney and claimed their homesteads. The first official church organized in the area of Cedar Township, Nebraska, was the United Presbyterian. It was organized in John McCool's sod house by Rev. David Inches of North Bend, Neb., on December 20, 1882. The charter members were: John McCool, Mrs. Rose Ann McCool, James E. Miller, Mrs. Ann J. Miller and George W. Duncan." - Buffalo County History Book (Photo below is a sod house in Nebraska, not that of John McCool.) The concept of membership was the "glue" that caused these believers to bond together even as they crossed the new country at least twice (possibly even from the homeland in Ireland.) Membership in the body of Christ. Membership of an extended family. Membership in a traveling group. And Membership as citizens of a new land.

The Luck of the Irish

My Irish immigrant family brought the Luck of the Irish with them. Maybe 8 year old Mary McGill had a lucky penny in her shoe when she came from Ireland to Canada in the early 1800s. Her life was hard; her husband, Patrick, who was 30 years her senior, worked in the timbers or building the canal. But the records show that at least they had a house, as opposed to the neighbors who lived in wooden shanties. When Mary was widowed, with 3 young children, she was lucky to join a group who made their way west to the United States. In Iowa City, although she was ill, Mary was lucky again, to find a man who would help her write a will, making sure her children were cared for. My Gt Grandfather, Daniel Patrick McGill, was her youngest child, age 5, when she died. The Shafer family, who fostered Daniel, were childless but raised him as their own and even sent him to the University. The foster father and mother just "happened" to be related to Eva Frost, who was eventually married to Daniel Patrick. There was illness during those years in Iowa, but Daniel was lucky to survive. Sadly, his sister, Bridget, brother, John, John's wife, and one baby died. One of Daniel's nephews remained, and that lucky boy was fostered by Daniel and Eva. Years later, after the family moved to western Iowa, Daniel was lucky enough to see a flyer that told of land opening for homesteads in Oklahoma Territory. In 1889, he made his way to Arkansas City, Kansas, and boarded a train for the new frontier. Daniel, and 3 other pioneers, jumped from the train, and set off west across the prairie. As luck would have it, they came to a place where 4 quarter sections were marked with stakes. Since McGill was the only one who had a large family, he was the lucky one chosen to claim the land with the best source of water. His family, including my grandmother, age 8, came from Iowa by covered wagon to join him on the homestead. And here I am, one of the lucky descendants to come from this family, and lucky to have that story preserved for more than 200 years after little Mary McGill crossed the Atlantic. The picture above is of Daniel P. (seated) and Eva McGill (standing center) and their family on the homestead west of Edmond, Oklahoma. This land is still pasture land and the pond is still there.

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks. Week #10 Theme - Translation.

This subject had me stumped. I wasn't going to post as I haven't had any research that needed to be translated. So far, all our ancestors have been in English speaking countries. Then I realized... If it hadn't been for a translation, our family tree would have been very different. 6th Gt Grandfather, John Griffin, hailed from Wales before arriving in the colonies in about 1635. There is a possibility that John's ancestors' Welsh name was Pengruffwnd. I'm unable to find proof of this, or any proof of the timeline when John's name became Griffin. But I'm very happy that it was changed. And I'm sure that all the young men among his descendants, who carry Griffin as their first name today, would be very happy too.

Week #7 Theme is "Outcast"

Although our family tree doesn't show anyone who was shunned or cast out. We have several cases where a parent disapproved of a child’s choice of a mate. We also have a few cases where a child left the home on his own due to a dispute. Every family probably has these stories. I’ll just mention a few here. Charlotte Clark of Kent, England was daughter of a man of military position. John Clark was Steward of Royal Ordnance Hospital, in Woolwich. When Charlotte was in her early 20s, in 1836, she married William Terry, a wheelwright / carriage maker. He was also from Kent, but further east near Dover. I always wondered how they met, as their classes would not have associated (think of Jane Austen novels of the era.) They went to live in Deal, and later sold their carriage making business and migrated to America in 1848. An early letter we have found written by Charlotte's daughter, Amelia, says that Charlotte married against her parents' wishes, and was disinherited by her father, for marrying beneath her station. William and Charlotte had 10 children, 7 of whom lived to marry and have children. They were such an adventuresome family, with descendants pursuing education and business ventures all across our country. We have met (in person and online) cousins from each of those family lines, and are thankful that Charlotte met and married William, our Great Great Grandparents. In my husband's family, we have Rose Marguerite McCool, Gerry's grandmother. Her mother, Anna Roselee Powell McCool, had died in 1893, when Rose was only 14. The next year, her father, John, married a second wife. The older children had left home, but there were 5 children under 10 in the family. Story has it that Rose did not get along with her step mother. She probably had to help keep house and be a nanny to the babies. After about a year, Rose met Jordon Burris, a southerner who worked on the railroad, which didn't set well with her father, a staunch Union veteran. John was also a very strict Presbyterian, and Jordon may not have lived up to the standards John had set for his daughters. After their marriage, Rose was estranged from her father for 30 years, although she remained close to all her siblings who had scattered through several western states. She was able to see him again before his death in 1933. A sad story that is repeated in too many families. But as I am writing this on Valentine's Day, I think that both the young women above married for love, and their marriages stood the test of time.

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks 2023 - Week #6 - Social Media

Once upon a time, in a galaxy far far away (well... 24 years ago) before Facebook or Instagram, there was a site called MyFamily dot com. It was somehow a step child of Ancestry dot com. There were private group sites with a small annual fee. Members could be invited, similar to the private groups on Facebook. In August of 2000, a few 2nd cousins (descending from a common Great Grandmother, Lizzie Terry Griffin) got together on the above site to reminisce about our childhoods and find out more about our family. We nicknamed the group "The Lizzie Site" or just "The Liz". Soon we found more about Lizzie and her life, her Terry parents, and her husband's Griffin family. Each one of us contributed photos, letters, and memories. We contacted more relatives and picked their brains. A few of us did a lot of genealogical searching and built out our family tree to share. We got acquainted across the miles, and planned a couple of reunions in Oklahoma, where Lizzie had homesteaded. I'm not sure how we were able to "branch out", but we quickly added Terry and Griffin descendants.... 3rd, 4th cousins and maybe further. We found friendships and even traveled to visit one another. This group lasted from 2002 until 2014 when it was closed down by its parent company. During that last few months, a couple of us salvaged all the photos and many historical finds, gathering them according to the appropriate family lines. It was a sad time when the site closed. We had added over 150 relatives from all different branches. Many didn't want to go over to Facebook and we lost track unless we were in email conversations. Today the many posts from MyFamily dot com groups have been saved by a group called Spokt. One can access with his or her old email and password, and search for photos or articles. I often go to the Spokt site to find posts that were memorable. Many of us have also joined private Facebook group, still finding new relatives and sharing photos and stories. If you were part of a MyFamily group who didn't know about Spokt, you should do a search and try to access using your email which you used “in those days”.

Week #5 Theme is "Oooops!"

We all make mistakes, follow rabbit trails down the wrong path, fail to record our sources of information, etc. So every family researcher has probably said "Ooops." I had to choose just one. Early in our research, we used Gerry's Grandpa Grimes' family history booklet to begin following the Grimes family. He had recorded direct family lines back to John Power Grimes, born in Georgia 1814, and challenged Gerry to go further. When you first begin to do searches, you grasp and collect the new "facts" wherever you can find them. So we found the father of John Power Grimes, Thomas Miner Grimes. And on to William Grimes, father of Thomas. He claimed a land grant in Georgia, 1784, for his father's Revolutionary service. Not realizing that William Grimes was a common name, I latched onto a little news item of the era which said "William Grimes, nephew of Mr. Mebane, was scalped and killed by Indians on the Harpeth River in Tennessee." Our family ran with it even though that river is nowhere near Elbert County, GA. Every time we traveled from Georgia back to see family in Oklahoma, we had to cross the Harpeth River. I think we held up traffic on the bridge near Nashville, taking pictures of that river, stopping short of tossing flowers, (a la Billy Joe McAlister). Our kids probably told about it in Show and Tell. I wrote up a history as far as we had researched, including poor, scalped William, and passed copies out to cousins. After a couple of years of searching, I came across a will of OUR William Grimes. He died at age 49, and the will was submitted in Elbert County, GA. I'm pretty sure that William didn't write a detailed will before traipsing off to Tennessee, about 430 miles into Indian lands. About the same time, I discovered a William “Graham”, who was related to a Mebane and was killed by Indians in Tennessee. I have since apologized to all the close family, but distant relatives may be still spreading that news item. Now I guess I should make my apologies to the Grahams and Mebanes for glomming onto their family history. Oooops!

 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks. 2023 Week 4, Theme is "Education".

My cousins and I have contributed for years to the history of the family, especially my Griffin family. Our Gt grandmother Lizzie Terry Griffin has been our inspiration. A widow bringing young children from Kansas to Edmond OK soon after the Land Run, and homesteading on land near Portland and Waterloo Rd. Central State College, later University of Central Oklahoma, in Edmond was just getting started and she sent many children and grandchildren to the school. And now many descendants and their spouses have attended, since those early days to the present. There is a bench on campus to memorialize her. In 2015, she was honored post-humously to The Luminary Society at UCO. The Luminary Society was developed as part of the 125th celebration year. She was one of only 125 outstanding members of the UCO community to be chosen since the establishment of the Territorial Normal School of Oklahoma, from 1890 to the present. I believe this honor was well deserved and partly happened because of our family research together. Our matriarch has influenced so many, and the numbers have grown to include Lizzie's Great Great Grandchildren just at Central State/ University of Central Oklahoma... not to mention those who have gone on to other institutes of education.

 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks. Week #3 theme "Out of Place"

When attempting to complete the time lines of each of my direct ancestors, I try to find them in census or other records and add those to my Ancestry "Facts". But I could not find our Grandpa Charley Griffin in the 1900 census. His mother lived in Oklahoma, as did many other cousins, uncles, etc. on land that was claimed in the Land Run of 1889. I knew that Charley Griffin and Hattie McGill were married in Oklahoma in 1906, and my father, Dan Griffin, was born in 1907. I found a plat map where Charley owned property in Oklahoma in 1906. But where was Charley when the 1900 census was taken? My father had said that at one time Charley worked at a livery stable in Colorado. Could that be a clue?

I let it ride for a while and followed some other family members. Colorado? Hmmm. Now I've found that Edgar Griffin, a 1st cousin of Charley went from Kansas to Colorado and married in 1899. In 1900, his family is located in Central City, Colorado, where Andrew is working as a "Hackman" and neighbors work in the gold mines. I believe a hackman drove a wagon. Could that be similar to one who works at a livery stable? I can picture that Charley and his cousin took off for the Colorado gold fields, but ended up with a job at the livery stable. Charley made some money and came back to marry his sweetheart, Hattie, in Oklahoma where he purchased some land, and became a farmer. Somehow the census takers missed my grandpa. I believe he might have been out on his horse or looking for gold that day, not "Out of Place"...HE knew where he was.