No Post Again This Week, But An Update!

I had another DAR meeting this weekend, so I wasn't able to prepare a post again this week, but I did want to give a little update on the family I mentioned last time. I went to our local genealogy library a couple of Fridays ago with the rest of the State's DAR members. My one goal was to find information about this Harris line (my supplemental ancestors).

Long story short: I found information about the family, but I'm not sure how helpful it is yet.

I found a lot of records for my "son" Patriot, John, and his second wife. I even found where he adopted his wife's children from her first marriage. I have a sneaky suspicion though that the service currently linked to John may not be for John. The source of John's service is the fact that his wife Lavinia received land through a land lottery for being the "widow of a Revolutionary War soldier."

She had been widowed twice by this point though. Sometimes, widows had to prove they were married to the soldier during the time of service to receive benefits on behalf of the man. She didn't marry John until 1816. Her previous husband died in 1809, and they would have been married during his time (if he did in fact serve) during the War.

AND I still haven't proven his first wife yet (my ancestor's mom). I don't "have" to prove her name, but I feel like it would provide a better argument for my case if I can show the prior applications using Lavinia as Lucy's mom are wrong. (Not to mention proving they were wrong about her dying before they got married!)

Then, for David, my other Patriot -- and John's father -- I was able to figure out through some of the ladies who have higher levels of access to previous applications what the nature of Captain David Harris' service was. I was able to figure out the names of the men he supposedly served under, so that will make proving his service with a new source infinitely easier than trying to figure out who is who amongst all of the David Harrises around Georgia at the time.

I'll keep you updated on the progress with this family in future posts, but that's it for the update for now.

A Revolutionary War Story: Upshaws, Gatewoods, Thorntons, and a Dozier

I had originally planned to highlight Colonel William Woodford, under whom my ancestor John Threadgill served, in an effort to begin a series on men who aren't relatives but are instead men mine and my husband's ancestors knew. I did not, however, anticipate that Colonel William Woodford would eventually be promoted to Brigadier General Woodford!

This one promotion in rank drastically increased the number of documents I had to sift through. (I mean, he was reporting directly to His Excellency George Washington, himself!) Needless to say, I am still sifting through them. I will finish sorting through all of it soon, but, until then, I thought I would share the post I made to my personal family's blog, Widespread Roots, for the Fourth of July.

With today being a day of respect and remembrance of our nation's beginnings, and also being a day most people enjoy with their families, I thought I would highlight an extended family's experience in the American Revolutionary War. 

I wrote about John Upshaw's experience in the Revolution in a previous post, and I mentioned how his father-in-law, Larkin Gatewood, was a Sergeant under Captain William Tucker, who was also John's Captain during his first draft. 

John Upshaw's daughter, and my sixth great-grandmother, Sarah Upshaw married Benjamin Thornton on 12 January 1796. Benjamin was the son of Dozier Thornton and Lucinda Elizabeth Hill.

This portrait of Dozier hangs in Van's Creek Baptist Church in Elbert County, GA

Portrait copy found on various websites and forums related to Dozier and Van's Creek.

Dozier Thornton also served in the American Revolutionary War. Even Dozier's father, Mark Thomas Thornton, is thought to have aided in the War. 

Dozier and Mark are no longer accepted Patriots in the Daughters of the American Revolution. Dozier's grave has been marked twice (once by the DAR and once by the SAR) as being in the North Carolina Militia during the Revolution, though I haven't found any proof of his actual service. But I refuse to give up hope of finding it! I still have a few leads to follow, but they will require actual trips to repositories that aren't yet available online.

Application for Military Headstone for Dozier Thornton, dated 8 November 1927

There seems to be some confusion about Dozier's service online with people thinking he fought in Captain Dunston Blackwell's Division and Major David Dobbs' Battalion. This misinformation comes from a land lottery in Georgia drawn in 1825 (and awarded in 1827) where Dozier is shown as receiving lottery entries. This land lottery was not related to the War in any way. Soldiers did, however, get two drawings in the lottery. That may have sparked some of the confusion. 

The fifth person in the family to have aided in the War was (possibly) Mark's father-in-law, Leonard Dozier. (Leonard's relationship to Mark is often debated. While it is clear these two families are related, they may not be father/son-in-law.) Leonard is listed in Abercrombie and Slatten as furnishing beef for the War. 

Even despite Dozier and Mark's disputed service, this particular branch of the family tree leaves me feeling very grateful and very patriotic, especially on holidays like today. I hope everyone enjoys a safe and pleasant Fourth of July, and I hope everyone appreciates the actions of the men and women who attributed to the founding of this nation we call The Land of the Free and The Home of the Brave.

Sources:

• Application for Military Headstone, Dozier Thornton (accessed on Ancestry)
• Knight, Lucian Lamar "Georgia's roster of the revolution, containing a list of the states defenders; officers and men; soldiers and sailors; partisans and regulars; whether enlisted from Georgia or settled in Georgia after the close of hostilities"
• SAR Application for Membership, applicant: Isham Stanton Hudmon (accessed on Ancestry)
• SAR Application for Membership, applicant: Walter Wiley Thornton (accessed on Ancestry)

239th Anniversary of American Independence

Today is an American holiday. We celebrate today as the birth of our country. Today is not the day the Declaration of Independence was signed, or even when the Continental Congress began meeting to discuss our breaking free from England. Today is merely the day Continental Congress finalized the wording of the Declaration as shown by the date printed on the final copy. Even still, this is the day we celebrate America's birthday.

Continuing with my recent posts about what is considered acceptable service with the DAR, Signers of the Declaration of Independence are all accepted Patriots of the Daughters of the American Revolution. They are:

From Connecticut:

• Samuel Huntington
• Roger Sherman
• William Williams
• Oliver Wolcott

From Delaware:

• Thomas McKean
• George Read
• Caesar Rodney

From Georgia:

• Button Gwinnett 
• Lyman Hall 
• George Walton

From Maryland:

• Charles Carroll
• Samuel Chase
• William Paca
• Thomas Stone

From Massachusetts:

• John Adams
• Samuel Adams
• Elbridge Gerry
• John Hancock
• Robert Treat Paine

From New Hampshire:

• Josiah Bartlett
• Matthew Thornton
• William Whipple

From New Jersey:

• Abraham Clark
• John Hart
• Francis Hopkinson
• Richard Stockton
• John Witherspoon

From New York:

• William Floyd
• Francis Lewis
• Philip Livingston
• Lewis Morris

From North Carolina:

• Joseph Hewes
• William Hooper
• John Penn

From Pennsylvania:

• George Clymer
• Benjamin Franklin
• Robert Morris
• John Morton
• George Ross
• Benjamin Rush
• James Smith
• George Taylor
• James Wilson

From Rhode Island:

• William Ellery
• Stephen Hopkins

From South Carolina:

• Thomas Heyward, Jr.
• Thomas Lynch, Jr.
• Arthur Middleton
• Edward Rutledge

From Virginia:

• Carter Braxton
• Benjamin Harrison
• Thomas Jefferson
• Francis Lightfoot Lee
• Richard Henry Lee
• Thomas Nelson, Jr.
• George Wythe

I have not followed out the lines of most of these families. I do know at least some of them do still have living descendants. (One of Benjamin Franklin descendants came to a recent DAR Chapter Meeting of mine to teach us about the life of his ancestor.)

The DAR tags a few of them as having no living descendants, and as you can tell from the list above, not all of the signers appear in the DAR database. While it is possible some of the unlinked signers had descendants, I would imagine the likelihood of that would be extremely low given the fact that women have had 125 years to declare their lineage in the society.

While no DAR Patriot is "better" or "worse" than another, or more or less "worthy" because of the type of service he or she did, I have to say signing the Declaration of Independence has to be one of the "coolest" forms of service!

Sources:

• Constitution Facts: The Story of the Fourth of July
• The Declaration of Independence (as viewed on archives.gov)