Maj. Elijah Lige Wilbourn's biography

There's a great story about Maj. Elijah Wilbourn (1763-1819) on my Ancestry tree...given by a Susan W. Batterton in 2013.  She names times that deeds of property changed hands, but I haven't personally seen them.  However, it's an interesting story, so here it is as she published it.

"Born in the Sandy Creek section of Randolph County, NC which was previously in Guilford County, NC
Moved to Union County, SC after perhaps living in Newton County, Georgia first.
When about thirty years old, having been married about five years, he purchased from George Crossley, of Union District, South Carolina, in June 1793, 150 acres of land on Buffalo Creek.
On June 10, 1799 he sold three slaves to William Smith of York County, S.C.
On January 9, 1806, he purchased 320 acres on the southeast side of Fairforest, a branch of the Tyger River at the mouth of Mitchell Creek.
On November 14, 1807, he acquired 300 acres on the east side of Fairforest.
There were several other land transactions including two mortgages on lands to secure sums of money due him.
His estate was administered by his widow and his son William Rowntree Wilbourn.
There is a family tradition to the effect that he served as a major in the Revolutionary War; but no records of such service have been discovered.
There is no known definite record to the effect that the seven Wilbourns who turned up in South Carolina in the 1780's and 1790's were the sons of Thomas Welborn but there is a preponderence of evidence that they were. 
Elijah changed the spelling of the name back to Wilbourn while others used various spellings.
He died in Union County, SC

Elijah was born in 1763 in the area of North Carolina that later was the site of a Revolutionary War battle.  

In 1756 the Deep River section in which the Welborn/Wilbourns lived was part of Rowan County, NC. In 1770/71 it became a part of Guilford County, and in 1779 was included in Randolph County, NC.
Guilford County was formed in 1771 from Rowan and Orange Counties. The former Orange/Rowan dividing line runs north-south through the center of Guilford. Guilford County also included what is now Randolph County until 1779, and Rockingham County until 1785.
The Battle of Guilford Courthouse took place on March 15, 1781, when the armies of General Nathanael Greene and Lord Cornwallis clashed at a site northwest of the present center of Greensboro. This battleground is now a National Military Park.
Source:Susan W. Batterton on Ancestry 2013.


His father Thomas died when he was 14 in April of 1778.  I'll post about his being in the Regulator Movement in North Carolina quite a while before the American Revolution broke out.

Elijah's mother, Esther Robinson Robertson Wilbourn,  has presence in the Randolph County NC 1790 census (which I just discovered) living with 1 male, 2 females and 8 slaves. She also is on a census in 1779 under her own name in Randolph County, NC (probably after having just been widowed.)  It is interesting that all of the other Ancestry trees have mixed up her husband's death date and place with her own.  This census of 1790 clearly shows she didn't die at the same time. And several of these bizarrre trees say she was born in California in 1735.

Though Elijah married Mary (Molly) Roundtree Wilbourn in 1788 in Union District SC, he still had a listing in the 1790 census in Randolph County NC, but was in SC for the birth of his first daughter in 1791.

The 1800 census has him in Union District SC. Some of his children are given that as the place of their births, and some in Spartanburg County SC.  There were (probably) 10 children.