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View Tree for Joel LaneJoel Lane (b. 01 Jan 1740, d. 29 Mar 1795)

Joel Lane (son of Joseph Lane and Patience McKinnie) was born 01 Jan 1740 in Halifax, North Carolina, and died 29 Mar 1795 in Raleigh, North Carolina. He married (1) Martha Hinton on 09 Dec 1762, daughter of John Hinton and Grizelle Kimbrough. He married (2) Mary Hinton on 1772, daughter of John Hinton and Grizelle Kimbrough.

 Includes NotesNotes for Joel Lane:
US Politician. He served as a Member of the North Carolina State Legislature, State Court Judge for the State of North carolina, Member of the North Carolina State Senate from 1782 to 1794, and as a Delegate to the North Carolina State Constitutional Convention in 1788, and 1789. He also provided the site for which is now Raleigh, the capital of North Carolina.

In 1792 He deeded/sold 1,000 acres of land to the State of North Carolina to build Raleigh, NC.

BIOGRAPHY OF JOEL LANE (ca. 1740-1795)
Written by Elizabeth Davis Reid
in
William S. Powell, Ed. Dictionary of North Carolina Biography, Vol. 4. Chapel Hill NC: The University of North Carolina Press, p. 12.
Lane, Joel (ca. 1740-29 Mar. 1795), legislator, Revolutionary Patriot, planter, and vendor to the state of the land on which the capital was established, was born presumably in Halifax (then Edgecombe) County, the son of Joseph and Patience McKinne Lane. His father is thought to have been a grandson of Richard Lane of Jamestown, Va., first of the name in America and, according to tradition, a kinsman of Ralph Lane, first governor of North Carolina. His mother was a daughter of Colonel Barnabas McKinne, provincial justice and colonial assemblyman.
In the early 1760s, Joel Lane was a justice of the peace for Halifax County. In April 1761 he was appointed sheriff by Governor Arthur Dobbs, who in July named him captain of a Halifax regiment of foot under Colonel Alexander McCulloch. Extant documents list him as a citizen of Halifax as late as July 1768. By August 1769, however, he had apparently settled near Walnut Creek in that portion of Johnston County that became Wake, where he acquired several thousand acres of land. In November he was commissioned a justice of the Johnston County Court.
As representative from Johnston to the 1770-71 General Assembly, Lane introduced the bill creating Wake County, effective 12 Mar. 1771. Named a commissioner to run the Wake boundaries, he also served on the commission to choose sites for and erect the new county courthouse, prison, and stocks. These were built near his home, still standing at 728 West Hargett Street, Raleigh, slightly southwest of its original site. Wake's first county court is thought to have convened at Lane's home on 4 June 1771. From that date until his death he was a member of that court, serving from time to time as presiding justice. During those years he was licensed to operate an ordinary at his home, apparently a well-known stopping place for travelers along main roads crossing in the vicinity. From 25 May 1772 until June 1777 he was register of Wake, evidently also serving for a year as Chatham County clerk of court. For most of the period 1778-79, he was entry taker for Wake. He represented Wake in the 1773 General Assembly, where is sat on the committee on public accounts.
On 19 Jan. 1771 Governor William Tryon appointed Lane lieutenant colonel of Wake militia under his father-in-law, Colonel John Hinton. The unit did not participate in the Battle of Alamance, rather being left at home, according to Tryon's journal, "to prevent the disaffected in [Wake] from forming into a Body and Joining the Regulators in the adjacent Counties." Theophilus Hunter succeeded him in the military post in about 1773. Lane was a Wake delegate to the Provincial Congress at Hillsborough in August 1775 and at Halifax in April 1776, although he apparently was not seated at Halifax. During the Revolution he was a commissioner for obtaining and distributing salt. The 1776 Council of Safety adjourned in late August to Lane's home, where the General Assembly also met from 23 June to 14 July 1781 in addition to using the Wake courthouse.
Lane was a senator from Wake County in eleven of the fourteen sessions of the General Assembly from 1782 through 1794. He was a member of the 1788 and 1789 constitutional conventions, the latter ratifying the U.S. Constitution and the former issuing the ordinance calling for a permanent state capital to be established within ten miles of Isaac Hunter's plantation in Wake. The commission on location appointed by the 1792 Assembly spent eight days in March at Lane's home while examining various tracts of land offered for sale. From these they selected Lane's tract of one thousand acres, on which they laid out the city of Raleigh the same year. Its western boundary was within a few hundred yards of his home and the Wake courthouse. During the last six years of his life, Lane served on the first board of trustees for The University of North Caroline and was one of those offering land for its site.
Lane was married twice, both times to daughters of Colonel John Hinton of Wake. Between their marriage on 9 Dec. 1762 and her death on 9 Sept. 1771, he and Martha Hinton Lane had three sons; Henry, James, and William. With her sister Mary, he had nine more children: Nancy, John, Martha, Elizabeth, Mary, Thomas, Dorothy, Joel Hinton, and Grizelle. Descendants include members of the Moses Mordecai family who gave that name to Raleigh's Mordecai House, the original portion of which was the home of Lane's son Henry and his wife, Mary, granddaughter of Colonel Hinton. Governor and University of North Carolina President David Lowry Swain was Lane's grandnephew (grandson of Lane's brother Jesse), as was General Joseph Lane of Oregon, hero of the Mexican War and Oregon's first governor and U.S. senator. A nephew of Martha and Mary Hinton Lane, Hinton James, was the first student to enter The University of North Carolina, 12 Feb. 1795.
The deaths of Joel and Mary Lane occurred less than a week apart, Mary having survived her husband only five days when she died on 3 Apr. 1795. A small burial ground, believed to be the Lane family cemetery on South Boylan Avenue, Raleigh, was excavated in 1969, and those remains thought to be Joel Lane's were reinterred on 30 Mar. 1973 in Raleigh's City Cemetery. The Joel Lane House was acquired in 1927 by the Wake Committee of the National Society of the Colonial Dames of America in the State of North Carolina for preservation. Designated a Raleigh Historic Site, it is also listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
SEE: Chatham County Court Records, Johnston County Court Minutes, North Carolina Troop Returns of 8 May 1771, Report of Committee Establishing Capitol [sic], and Wake County Court Minutes (North Carolina State Archives, Raleigh); John L. Cheney, Jr., ed., North Carolina Government, 1585-1974 (1974); Walter Clark, ed., State Records of North Carolina, vols. 19-21 (1901-3); R.D.W. Connor, A Documentary History of the University of North Carolina, 1776-1799, vol. 1 (1953); Marshall De Lancey Haywood, Joel Lane: Pioneer and Patriot (1900); Journal of the House of Commons of North Carolina, 17 Dec. 1770; Laws of North Carolina, 1770; George W. Mordecai Papers (Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill); William L. Saunders, ed., Colonial Records of North Carolina, vols. 8-9 (1890).


WILL Of Joel LANE
Will of Joel Lane of Wake, Co., NC
In the name of God amen. I Joel Lane of the County of Wake and State of North Carolina being __ in good health and of sound and perfect mind and memory but calling to mind the certainty of death and the uncertainty of the time thereof do make and ordain this my last Will and Testament in manner and form following.

Imprimis I give and bequeath to my son Henry Lane and his heirs forever all that part of a Tract of Land which contains two hundred acres that lies on the North of Stephens Branch adjoining his own land.
Item I give and bequeath to my son James Lane his heirs and assigns forever four hundred and ninety five acres of land lying on both sides of Houses Creek.

Item I give and bequeath to my son William Lane his heirs and assigns forever six hundred and forty acres of land lying on the West side of the mountains on Harper River.

Item I give and bequeath to my son John Lane his heirs and assigns forever three tracts of land on Beaver Creek viz, one purchased of Elizabeth Taylor (?), one of Benjamin Taylor and one taken up by myself containning in the hole sixteen hundred acres also all my stock of cattle and hoggs, on the said land and also the household and kitchen furniture and plantation utinsels and the following Negroes viz Auston, Peter, Affie and Claersey and their future increas.

Item I give and bequeath to my son Thomas Lane his heirs and assigns forever all that part of the land purchased of Colo Josephe Montfort(e?) which lies west and North of the Towns Lands, also all the land purchased of William Barton and John Blake lying on the West side of _a_d Town including my manor plantation, reserving to my wife as here after mentioned, also seventy-vive acres purchased of Henry Lane North of said ___ also all that part of a tract of land which contains two hundred acres that lies on the South side of Stephens Branch also three hundred and twenty acres of land lying on both sides of Rockey Branch beginnning at a pine on the north side of said branch containing four hundred acres, also one thousand acres of land lying West of the mountains on Duck River being one half of a tract containing two thousand acres, also the following Negroes viz Jim Boy (?) Jeffry and Cloye and her future increase.

Item I give and bequeath to my son Joel Hinton Lane his heirs and assigns forever all my land lying East of the Town Lands and grassy Branch bounded on the north by my old lines, on the east by the lands of my son James Lane, on the south by the land of Joshua Sugg, and on the west by the aforesaid grassey Brancy and the Town Lands, containing by estimation four hundred acres, also five hundred acres of land lying on both sides of Simmons Branch, also three hundred and twenty acres of land lying on both sides of _ris_ey Branch, alson one thousand acres of land lying west of the mountains on Duck River being one half of a tract containing two thousand acres as aforesaid also the following Negroes viz, Vergel, Wenton and Rose and her future increase.

Item I give and bequeath to my daughter Martha Lane her heirs and assigns forever the following Negroes viz Sam, Phill, Sally & Nane(?)y and their future increase, also one feather bed & furniture.

Item I give and bequeath to my daughter Elizabeth Lane, her heirs and assigns forever the following Negroes viz Teddcrech (?), Moses & Kissey & her future increas, also one feather bed and furniture.

Item I give and bequeath to my daughter Polly Lane her heirs and assigns forevver the following Negroes viz Davie, Britain, and Judy and her future increase also one feather bed and furniture.

Item I give and bequeath to my daughter Grisseal Lane her heirs and assigns forever the following Negroes viz, Ben Selrey and Beakey (?) and their future increase.

Item I lend to my beloved wife Mary Lane during her widowhood or until my son Thomas Lane arrives to the age of Twenty one years, the use of my manor plantation, and I give and bequeath to my loving Wife Mary her heirs and assignes forever six hundred and forty acres of land lying on the head branches of Crab Tree Creek, Ready Creek, and Clack Creek, also two lotts in Averitsborough and all my Lotts and their improvements in the City of Raleigh, and also thirty acres of land be the same more or less lying between the City and Rocky Branch, and the following Negroes vix, Will Old Ned Jack, Old Rose Vitel (?) Hasty young Ned Arthur Cate and Suckey, and their future increase, and all the rest of my Estate real and personal not in here before bequeathed, cosisting of horses, cattle, hoggs, and household and kitchen furniture plantation utensils, my crop of all ___ growing on my plantation at the time of my death, all my out standing debts, and my mmoney in hand and one sett of black smiths tools, out of which she is to pay all my just debts, which my Executors her after mentioned is to see performed, and for the better support and mentainence of my children, my will is that my Wife Mary Lane keeps their estates together during her widowhood or untill they respectively (?) come to lawfull age or marry, Lastley I nominate Constitute and appoint my true and trusty friends John Whitaker, Theophilus Hunter (?) Junior Kimbrough Hinton and my two sons Henry Hane and James Lane Executors of this my Last Will and Testament and do hereby revoke and __ all former Wills by me made retifying and confirming this and none other to be my last Will and Testament, whereof I have ___ set my [paper torn] and seal this (?) day of October 179(1?).
Joel Lane Seal
Signed sealed and declared to be the Testators Last Will and Testament in the presents of
John Marshall (Jurat)
Archibald Jett
Henry D(?) (Jurat)
Jeane (her + mark) Gaffy
Wake County, June Sessions 1795
The within last Will and Testament of Joel Lane Esqr decd was duly proved in open Court by the oaths of John Marshall Seqr. and Henry Dillard Subscribing Witnesses thereto and ordered to be Recorded.
T.(? H?) Lane C. C.
Recorded in the Clerks office in the County of Wake in Book E and page (54) the 7th day of February 1798.


More About Joel Lane:
Burial: 1795, Old Ceity Cemetery, Raleigh North Carolina.

More About Joel Lane and Martha Hinton:
Marriage: 09 Dec 1762

More About Joel Lane and Mary Hinton:
Marriage: 1772

Children of Joel Lane and Martha Hinton are:
  1. Henry Lane, b. 06 Mar 1764, d. date unknown.
  2. James Lane, b. 07 Oct 1766, d. date unknown.
  3. William Lane, b. 15 Oct 1768, d. date unknown.

Children of Joel Lane and Mary Hinton are:
  1. Nancy Lane, b. 22 Jul 1773, d. date unknown.
  2. John Lane, b. 06 Mar 1775, d. date unknown.
  3. Martha Lane, b. 19 Feb 1778, d. date unknown.
  4. Elizabeth Lane, b. 06 Aug 1780, d. date unknown.
  5. Mary Lane, b. 01 Jan 1783, d. date unknown.
  6. Thomas Lane, b. 12 Sep 1785, d. date unknown.
  7. Dorothy Lane, b. 13 Dec 1787, d. date unknown.
  8. Joel Hinton Lane, b. 11 Oct 1790, d. date unknown.
  9. Grizelle Lane, b. 13 Jun 1793, d. date unknown.
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