John Nicholson, Revolutionary War Soldier--part 2
THROUGH
MOUNTAIN MISTS
Early Settlers of Union
County, Georgia
Their
Descendants...Their Stories...Their Achievements
Lifting the
Mists of History on Their Way of Life
By: Ethelene Dyer Jones
John Nicholson,
Revolutionary War Soldier--part 2
In October, 2000, the Blue Ridge
Mountains
Chapter, Sons of the American Revolution, held a ceremony at the Pleasant Grove Cemetery
in memory of John Nicholson, Sr., Revolutionary patriot.
Last week’s column recounted his four terms
of Revolutionary service, each of three
months, making a total time of one year as a soldier.
Patriot John Nicholson had an
interesting
life after his Revolutionary War experiences.
An article by historian Robert
S. Davis, a
descendant of Patriot Nicholson, recounts incidents involving John
Nicholson,
Sr. that took place in a disputed area sometimes known as Old Walton County.
He, along with some other settlers, took out a land grant and
settled in
the area of the French
Broad River Valley
in Cherokee Indian Territory sometime before 1786.
The land grant was possibly a reward for
service in the Revolution.
The frontiersmen believed these
were
western lands belonging to South
Carolina.
However, that state had the grants annulled and withdrew claims
to these
“western” settlements. The grantees
petitioned Congress for annexation to South Carolina.
When
their appeals failed, the settlers formed their own government in 1793. The area– much like the State of Franklin in Tennessee that
John
Sevier had settled–became known as “The Orphan Strip” because it was
not
claimed by South or North
Carolina
or Georgia.
In 1798, the Federal Government
secured The
Orphan Strip officially from the Cherokees, and, believing it to be
below the
boundary of the 35th parallel separating North Carolina from
Georgia, ceded it to Georgia in 1802.
Settlers in The Orphan Strip had
kept
minutes of their official meetings.
These were signed and submitted to Governor John Milledge of Georgia,
together with a petition that their settlement be recognized. The Georgia Legislature acted on the
Governor’s recommendation, and on December 10, 1803, the “Orphan Strip”
became Walton
County,
named for George Walton who was then the last one living of Georgia’s
signers of the Declaration of Independence, had been a Congressman, and
was a
former Georgia Governor.
This “old’ Walton County is not
to be
confused with the present-day Walton County, with Monroe as its
capital,
founded from a portion of Jackson County on December 15, 1818. The “Old Walton” was right along the North Carolina
and Georgia
border,
and extended over to the South
Carolina line.
Elected to represent Walton County
in the Georgia Legislature were two citizens, John Nicholson, Sr. and
John
Akins. The county was described as
very
mountainous and “inhabited by an orderly and industrious people”
numbering
about 800. In the state census soon
after Walton
County was formed,
the John Nicholson
family was listed with eleven whites in the household.
We may not have read about “The
Walton War”
in the history books, but it was fought because of the confusion over
who owned
the Orphan Strip--North
Carolina
or Georgia. The two states could not
agree with reports of the surveying team.
Buncombe
County claimed the
land. The “bandittery” of the area had
“taken arms”
and were committing “depredations on the honest civil citizens of the
county.” The citizens retaliated,
and
several skirmishes ensued.
John Nicholson himself was taken
prisoner
and put in jail in the Morgan
District. When he came to trial, charges against him
were that he refused to accept North Carolina’s claim to the
contested Walton
County.
In 1807, both the North Carolina
and the Georgia Legislatures
agreed to a new survey. That team found
that Walton
County was well
above the 35th
parallel. But Georgia
did not
want to relinquish claim so easily and so in 1811 hired a
nationally-known
surveyor, Andrew Ellicott, to run the disputed line.
He found that the line extended even farther
south than the 1807 team had determined.
John Nicholson, who had served in the Georgia Legislature from Old Walton County
in 1806, 1808 and
1809 had to give up his political representation by virtue of finding
himself
again a citizen of Buncombe
County, NC. The “Orphan Strip” became a part of both
Buncombe and Transylvania
Counties in North Carolina.
In 1820, John Nicholson was
enumerated in Buncombe
County with his
wife (both he and she
above 45 years of age), and one son and one daughter, each between 10
and 16.
His next move evidently was to Habersham County, Georgia, where, in 1833, he
sold
468 acres of his Buncombe County, NC land for $600 to Benjamin Wilson. A witness to the deed was John Erwin who
married Nicholson’s daughter Sarah in 1823.
By 1830, John Nicholson, Sr. was in Hall County, Georgia
with his son, John, Jr. (1802-1884). It
was while in Hall
County he applied
for and
received a Revolutionary War pension of $40 per year.
As an old man, he moved to Union County, Georgia, although, as we
saw in
last week’s account, he already owned land and paid taxes in Union
in 1850. On March 26, 1855, records show
that he
applied for bounty lands in Union County
available to
Revolutionary War veterans. He was then
living in the home of his son, Alfred Nicholson (1799-1874, who had
married
Mary “Polly” Chastain), in the Harmony Grove community, Arkaquah
District. From there he went to live with
his daughter,
Vica Nicholson Akins, near Pleasant Grove, where he died December 10, 1858.
A landed gentleman, a patriot, a
legislator, a farmer, a mover-and-shaker of his time, this 96-year old
man had
lived through almost a century of upheaval and change in America.
So far as is known , his
children were: (1)
James Nicholson; (2) Mary “Polly” Nicholson (1791-1868) who married
Rene
Chastain; (3) Walter Nicholson (1795-1859) who married Dorcas Hogsed;
(4)
Elizabeth “Betty” Nicholson who married Benjamin Burke; (5) William
Harrison
Nicholson (1797-1864) who married Jane Duckworth and Jane Blocker; (6)
Alfred
Nicholson (1799-1874) who married Mary “Polly” Chastain; (7) Daughter
who
married Porter Owenby and moved to Union County; (8) Luvicia Nicholson
(1802-?), who married Lewis Akins; (9) John Nicholson, Jr. (1802-1884),
who
married Elizabeth Allred; and (10) Sarah Nicholson (1803-1882), who
married
John Erwin.
Genealogists who puzzle over how
some of
Nicholson’s children were listed on census records as having been born
in
Georgia and others in South
Carolina
or North Carolina
can now know that it hinged on that Old Walton
County
dispute as to which state owned the “Orphan Strip.”
c2004 by
Ethelene Dyer
Jones; published Mar. 4, 2004 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville,
GA.
Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
[Ethelene
Dyer Jones is a retired educator, freelance writer, poet, and historian.
She may be reached at e-mail edj0513@windstream.net;
phone 478-453-8751; or mail 1708
Cedarwood Road,
Milledgeville,
GA
31061-2411.]
Updated August 25,
2009
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