Re: Two Battles of Drowning Creek, North Catolina
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In reply to:
Re: Two Battles of Drowning Creek, North Catolina
Judy Longley 2/18/08
My step-daughter is also a Jade. Every thing you say sounds reasonable to me.
As to the pay voucher, I saw it in N.C. State Archives decades ago and had both sides xeroxed. Where the copy is now, I don't know. I was then a civilian sailor on Navy special projects ships; home once per year. There would be boxes of mail to respond to in a month. If I kept notes, it was on 4x5 cards.
Years later I tried to make another copy of the voucher (mainly to get the death date, if on it), but could not refind it in State Archives. Via the internet, I once saw a New Orleans dealer advertising a North Carolina bastardry bond on a son of a kinsman of mine. And I wondered: where did that come from? On the other hand a deed to the Bradley salt works came to me via my family legitamately. And my gteat grandfather, or his mother; did not sell the near Wilmington site of the once Bradley brickyard to circa 1900. I have a deed to a Bradley Oakdale Cemetery lot (one I go in) that was purchased just before the public could purchase them.
What struct me was the voucher's unusual obverse note was exactly; or almost exactly, what I'd seen on the Joshua James, Sr., family Bible which also said, this was my father's Bible (Capt. John James), and his father's before him. And who's before him, God only knows? If I recall correctly it was printed in 1714 and 1715, or 1734 and 1735?
John's will should still be at the New Hanover Co., N.C. (Wilmington) courthouse. I think it said John's only child, Joshua Sr., was not to be taken back to his property in Onslow County, and not to be reared "in that God forsaken County of Onslow". President Washington's observation in his 1791 Southern Tour diary before his night at "indifferent" Sage's inn (I think Hetty's older brother George Washington Sage, was already born; perhaps the President and child met?) said about the same of Onslow County.
I remember in the Bible I turned to the 23rd Psalm, and in tiny type was also recorded the pre-King James version (in bigger type). The old version was horrible compared to the bigger type King James version. The Bible also noted that Capt. John was age 16. That at age 16 he was a Captain, had a son, and was killed by Tories; is so un-usual as to indeed be noteworthy there. But on a pay voucher! Was it the same hand writing; the words were so simuliar?
Presumedly John's Society of rhe Cincinnati application papers confirm and do not conflict with the afore said, and may add to it? But that branch of the James family was as if it is no business of mine; it is all their family, only.
I'm also a descendant of Wilmington, N.C., Society of the Cincinatti Patriot, Capt. Richard Bradley, Sr. I contacted Richard Bradley, IV, in the society, and told him I had the Richard Bradley, Jr., Bible. He drove a long way to see it, questioning what right did we have to it; he was thee Richard Bradley, Sr., descendant? I explaned that personel property usually ended up with the second wife and her (my) branch. He was of the first wife's branch. No, he would not share society information on Capt. Bradley with me. Neither of us were rude with each other.
In Winston-Salem I got to know genealogist descendants of Mrs. Christian Mackenzie Fleming/Fleeming, alledgedly buried at Airlie Gardens, but missing a tombstone there now. I suggested we both pitch in for her tombstone; and also list her first husband (my line), Loyalist Capt. Philip Yonge, H.M. Surveyor-General of Georgia. These were nice people and friends; but they could not understand why mention the first husband? The second husband (theirs) mentioned, yes (and I'd agree he should be listed "too").
I did record on my missing 4x5 card the dates for both battles of two different Drowning Creeks battles; with the same Patriot colonel in both. Only a handful of Patriots were killed at the Drowning Creek Battle, near now Fort Bragg. There was another battle nearby but a few days later, in which but one or two Pariots were killed. If John James was killed in either battle; it would be likely the earlier one.
If the pay voucher date, and/or the Bible date, or the society death date; was the same as the Drowning Creek date Battle date. Then I think it likely Capt. John James was killed in that battle? But where, if recovered; were his remains buried?
Jim Miller, Southport, N.C.