The Barnett and Gibbs connections.

John Barnett, born in VA. He was the father of Anne Barnett Johnson Gibbs (born in1740 in Orange County VA, died 1831 in Union County SC.)

I've spoken about Anne Barnett Johnson Gibbs HERE. 
Her husband Col. James Gibbs was the topic of a post Here.

Back to John Barnett, 1704-1750, the father of Anne.  I'm calling him Jr, and his father Sr. 

John Barnett Jr. married Marran Frances Gibbs Barnett,  Nov 13, 1728, who was born either in 1704 or 1708 according to Christ Church Parish records, Middlesex County, VA. She died in 1782 in Orange County, Virginia.

Their only daughter that is currently listed on ancestry is Anne Barnett Johnson Gibbs (1740-1831). I'm going to stop saying Johnson in her name, since she was married to him less than a year. 


Her mother, Marran Frances Gibbs Barnett was the sister of John York Gibbs 1716-1770, who married Susanne Phillipe,
the parents of Col. James Gibbs 1740-1794.  

That Gibbs family (parents John Gibbs Sr. 1680-1775, and Mary Marron Mullin Gibbs 1680-1728) might have consisted of 11 children in all.

So now we've got the sister/brother connection which leads to a couple of first cousins getting married in the next generation.  Col. James Gibbs married Anne Barnett (Johnson) Gibbs; they were cousins. His father was brother to her mother.  I feel no different toward them because of this, and hope that most readers will understand that this happened in the past, and happened rather often in most towns.

Map of current day states who allow cousins to marry.

Anyway, the Col. James and Anne Gibbs family had 7 children, many of whom scattered west or further south from South Carolina where they were born. However, there are still cousins of mine probably in Union County SC, and I wonder if I'll ever meet them!  I'd like to visit the graves of Col. James Gibbs and his wife, which are on private land.

Today's quote:

The way to end passive aggressive behavior on your part or others' is with complete honesty and truth in any situation.

 

More about the South Carolina Gibbs family

Col. James Gibbs (1740-1794) and his wife, Ann Barnett Johnson Gibbs (1740-1831) had their first children, twins, born May 24, 1772 and Sept. 18, 1772.  

What, you have trouble believing that?  Somehow this is what I keep having to pull my hair out about at Ancestry.  One or the other was in a different year, I'm thinking...or if they were twins in fact, then they should choose which birthday to have.

I was actually looking to see if they were born back in VA where James and Anne got married in 1770 (Orange County).  Nope, they already had moved to SC for the births of their first 2 children.

More information on the not-so-likely-twins.

Agatha Gibbs White was probably born earlier, as some records state she was born "abt 1770" in Union Dist, SC.  So I've changed my listing for her. 

Zach, born on Sept. 18, 1772 according to these records, is listed in
American loyalists, biog. sketches of adherents to the British crown in the War of the Rev. By Lorenzo Sabine. Boston. 1847. (733p.):319 Vol. 62, p 186.  

Since he would have been 10 years old in 1782, I find this an interesting listing.  Perhaps it should have been linked to his father's brother Zacharias, born in 1741, who died in 1784.  And younger Zacahary is even buried in his fathers private graveyard, which would be doubtful if he'd been a Tory.

Zachariah Gibbs in Gibbs Family Cemetery, Union County, SC

I'm  relieved in a way, that Col. James was related to some of the Loyalists to the Crown, because I knew they existed, and wondered if they had records as well. Zach's birthday still is questionable, but he has a gravestone, the younger one. 

There was not only an uncle Zacharias Gibbs, but a great uncle of the same name, who lived in VA.  I would think either of them the more likely Tories.

Checking for some other sites to visit when I go looking for graves, here are some for the area around Spartanburg SC.

Cowpens National Battlefield

4001 Chesnee Hwy
Chesnee SC 29341
Area: Chesnee
(864) 461-2828

At Hannah's Cowpens, on January 17, 1781, a force of Continentals and militia from Virginia, Georgia and the Carolinas commanded by Gen. Daniel Morgan won a decisive Revolutionary War victory over British Lieut. Col. Banastre Tarleton. It was after this battle that British Gen. Cornwallis abandoned South Carolina to the Patriots and marched north to his eventual surrender at Yorktown. This battle is considered a tactical masterpiece, frequently studied in military academies around the world.

 

A treaty with the Cherokee Indian nation in 1753 opened up the area for settlers. The county formed in 1785 and got its name from the Spartan Regiment, a local militia unit that fought in the Revolutionary War

Seay House

106 Darby Rd
Spartanburg SC 29306
Area: Spartanburg
(864) 596-3501

Built as early as the 1790s, the Seay House is believed to be the oldest homestead standing in the City of Spartanburg. Interpretation by the Spartanburg County Historical Association focuses on the lives of women in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as three unmarried daughters of Kinsman Seay - Ruthy, Patsy, and Sarah - lived a simple farm life in this house. The oldest portion of this dwelling is a typical Scots-Irish log house. The logs are hand hewn, and the pipestem fieldstone chimney is a style commonly found in Virginia but unusual for Upstate South Carolina.

Musgrove Mill State Historic Site

398 State Park Rd
Clinton SC 29325
Area: Clinton
(864) 938-0100

The park's visitor center is filled with interpretive exhibits which focus on the Battle of Musgrove Mill and detail South Carolina's pivotal role in the Revolutionary War. The park's nature trail highlights the Enoree River, Cedar Shoals Creek and Horseshoe Falls, where legend has it Mary Musgrove, the mill owner's daughter, hid a Patriot soldier from the British. The park also offers picnicking and a popular fishing pond. Portions of the state park lie within Spartanburg county, but most of battle was located just across the county line in Laurens County.

Price House 1200 Oak View Farms Rd Woodruff SC 29388 Area: Woodruff (864) 576-6546
Thomas & Ann Price built their house about 1795. Price ran a general store, post office, tavern and inn. Enslaved African Americans performed much of the work for his businesses and labored in the fields of his 2,000-acre farm. Visitors may tour the brick home, a slave cabin, and hike a nature trail to learn how the environment-altering work done by settlers and slaves transformed South Carolina's frontier into a fully-integrated part of the early United States.

Walnut Grove Plantation

1200 Otts Shoals Rd
Roebuck SC 29376
Area: Roebuck
(864) 596-3501

Charles & Mary Moore established Walnut Grove Plantation when they settled in South Carolina about 1765. The Scots-Irish immigrants raised ten children in the house they built and lived in for 40 years. Mr. Moore relied on a dozen enslaved African Americans and his own large family to work his sizable farm. During the American Revolution, the Moore family, including eldest daughter Kate Moore Barry, actively supported the Patriot cause and militia even mustered at Walnut Grove. Loyalist William 'Bloody Bill' Cunningham killed 3 Patriot soldiers sheltered at the plantation. A historic site operated by the Spartanburg County Historical Association and offering tours of the centuries-old home, Walnut Grove Plantation tells the stories of the free and enslaved people who settled South Carolina and the rest of Britain's American colonies, who fought for independence, and who, in the end, built a new nation.
Here's the Source of Spartanburg SC historic sites

Today's quote:

We develop grace as we learn with the guiding hand of the universe, life will unfold exactly the way it should.

 

John Gibbs and Susanna Phillipe Gibbs from VA to SC

Col. James Gibbs' father, John, was born in Christ Church Parish, Middlesex County VA in 1716.  (Col. James Gibbs was in my post here.)

"English settlement of the area began around 1640, with Middlesex county being officially formed in 1669 from a part of Lancaster County" Wikepedia.

John Gibbs

1716–1770

Birth 5 APRIL 1716 • Christ Church, Middlesex, Virginia, United States

Death 1770 • Spartanburg, South Carolina,

Col. James Gibbs' mother Susanne Phillipe Gibbs was born in Orange County, VA. in 1720.  This was pretty early in the settlement of this area by the English colonists.

Wikipedia says this about Orange County, VA.

The first European settlement in what was to become Orange County was Germanna, formed when Governor Alexander Spotswood settled 12 immigrant families from Westphalia, Germany there in 1714; a total of 42 people. Orange County, as a legal entity, was created in August 1734 when the Virginia House of Burgesses adopted "An Act for Dividing Spotsylvania County." Unlike other counties whose boundaries had ended at the Blue Ridge Mountains, Orange was bounded on the west "by the utmost limits of Virginia" which, at that time, stretched to the Mississippi River and the Great Lakes. The colony of Virginia claimed the land, but very little of it had yet been occupied by any English. For this reason, some contend that Orange County was at one time the largest county that ever existed.^[6] This situation lasted only four years; in 1738 most of the western tract was split off into Augusta County.

One other son of John and Susanna Gibbs, namely Rev. John Gibbs, 1755-1847, served in the Revolutionary war as a Captain, North Carolina.  His grave exists near me in McDowell or Burke County, NC, and there's also possibly one in KY, because someone in the DAR requested it in 1950, and the request was acknowledged in 2000. Rev. John married twice, had about 11 kids by Rebecca, and maybe 4-5 by Hannah.   

John York Gibbs and Susanne Phillipe Gibbs both have their place of death as Spartanburg, SC, he in 1770, and she in 1786. I don't have any documentation of where they were buried. 

John had recieved a land grant of 500 acres on Fairforest Creek, Union District, SC in 1768. Union District was known as the old 96th District then.

His son, Col. James Gibbs 1740-1794, received a grant of 640 acres on the Fairforest in 1772.  (He's my ancestor, great times four grandfather.)

Top of map, green is Spartanburg Co. and next to it pink is Union Co.

 Union District History (Wikepedia)

The area that includes Union County was once controlled by the Cherokee Indians and they used it as a hunting ground. Up until recent years, one could find numerous arrowheads with little effort throughout the county.^[4]

The first European settlers in Union County came from the backcountry of Virginia and Pennsylvania; more than three-fourths were Scotch-Irish Presbyterians. It has been suggested that the first group of pioneers arrived as early as 1751. They settled in the northwestern section of the county near a small river that would later be named Fairforest Creek. According to tradition, a member of the party looked out at the thick woodlands and exclaimed, "What a fair forest!" At the time of their arrival, wild buffalo and horses abounded as well as panthers and cougars, which were called "tigers" or "tygers" by the settlers. This may be where the Tyger River got its name.

The early settlers established Fairforest Presbyterian Church, the first house of worship in Union County. Around 1754, the Brown's Creek area was first settled, about four miles northeast of the present city of Union. A log church or meetinghouse was built and shared among several denominations that could not yet afford their own separate structures. The county and county seat were named for this "Union" church. Quakers arrived in the mid 1750s and settled the southern portion of the county, establishing Cane Creek Church in the Santuc community, and Padgett's Creek Church in the Cross Keys community. The Quakers left in the early 1800s because of their opposition to slavery. Baptists from North Carolina, under the leadership of Rev. Philip Mulkey, reached the Broad River in Fairfield County, SC in 1759. They relocated to Union County in 1762 and established the first Baptist church in the South Carolina upcountry known as Fairforest Baptist Church. Many Baptist churches throughout the upcountry are descended from this original congregation. The congregation later moved to a site on present day SC Hwy 18 between Union and Jonesville where it remains to this day.

Rose Hill Plantation. The home of South Carolina "Secession Governor" William Henry Gist.

Revolutionary Period

During the first part of the American Revolution, the South Carolina backcountry was fairly quiet. Following the fall of Charleston in 1780, the British began focusing their attention on the Carolinas. At least five battles were fought in or near Union County, including Musgrove Mill, Fishdam, and Blackstock. The county also produced many notable heroes including Lt. Col. James Steen. The war divided the population between Loyalists and Patriots. This resulted in churches splitting up and settlers moving out of the area. Personal property was damaged by both sides.

John and Susanne Gibbs were my fifth great grandparents on my father's George Rogers Family Tree.

I'll give more information on Spartanburg, SC tomorrow!