A Wilson Family Tree
Notes for Robert Cunningham
My information on Robert Cunningham and his descendants is collected in "Descendants of Robert Cunningham of Augusta County, Virginia: An Update to Dr. Thomas Davis Parks’ Family Record ". It is available at https://archive.org/details/CunninghamBook_202009 .
From the Parks manuscript:
Robert Cunningham emigrated from Ireland to America early in the eighteenth century, probably about 1720. From what county I cannot say, but certainly from the northern part of the island, as he and all of his family were Presbyterians and are believed to be descendants from the Cunninghams of Scotland.
He settled at Rock Spring, in Augusta County, Virginia, about 1735, at which time his daughter Martha, our grandmother, was nine years old. He had two other daughters and I believe no son.
...
I will now go back and say a few words in regard to the character and standing of Robert Cunningham as derived from conversations with his granddaughters. When he settled in Augusta County, it was almost a wilderness extending from the Blue Ridge as far west as white people dwelt, and the savages roamed and hunted over the greater part of it at will. It therefore required a man of nerve to settle down on a farm with a family, and cultivate it. Such a man was Robert Cunningham; that he was among the most intelligent of the frontier men is evinced by the fact that he was their representative in the House of Burgesses in the Colony of Virginia. And there is a tradition in the family that at least on one occasion he was engaged in debate with the Randolph of that day, and did not come off second best. I presume that he was a true Scotch Irishman, rough but sure.
"Settlers by the Long Grey Trail" says that Robert Cunningham was one of the first Burgesses of Augusta County, along with John Willson (no known relationship between this Willson and my Wilsons, but there is some DNA evidence that there might be a relationship).
"Annals of Augusta County, Virginia, from 1726 to 1871", by Joseph A. Waddell (section on The Cunninghams obtained from online edition at http://www.roanetnhistory.org/waddellsannals.html):
THE CUNNINGHAMS.
Robert Cunningham, a native of north Ireland, settled on a farm called Rock Spring, in Augusta county, about the year 1735. He was one of the first set of justices of the peace appointed in 1745, and afterward a member of the House of Burgesses. His wife was a widow Hamilton, and the mother of several children at the time of her second marriage. One of her daughters, Mary Hamilton, married David Campbell, and was the mother of John and Arthur Campbell, and others. Two of the daughters of Robert Cunningham also married Campbells. He had no son. His daughter, Martha, about the year 1750, married Walter Davis, who became the owner of Rock Spring farm. Mr. Davis never held civil office, but was an elder of Tinkling Spring church, and a man of much influence. His daughter, Margaret, married John Smith, and was the mother of Judge Daniel Smith, of Rockingham. His son, William Davis, born in 1765, married Annie Caldwell, and died about 1851, aged eighty-six. He was a man of high standing in the community, a justice of the peace, high sheriff, etc. Walter Davis, Jr., son of William, born in 1791, was for many years one of the two commissioners of the revenue in Augusta county, and noted for his faithful and intelligent discharge of the duties of his office. His wife was Rebecca Van Lear. William C. Davis, a brother of Walter Davis, Jr., removed to Missouri in 1836 or 1837. Dr. Thomas Parks, of Missouri, is the only surviving grandchild of Walter Davis, Sr.
John Cunningham, believed to have been a brother of Robert, lived in Staunton, his residence being on Lot No. 1, southwest corner of Augusta street and Spring Lane. He had three daughters and one son. His oldest daughter was Mrs. Margaret Reed, who was baptized by Mr. Craig in 1747, and died in 1827. Another daughter, Isabella, married Major Robert Burns, and was the mother of Mrs. Waterman and Mrs. Gambill, of Rockingham. The third daughter of John Cunningham, Elizabeth, married Captain Thomas Smith. The daughters of Capt. Smith were Mrs. Michael Garber, Mrs. Moses McCue, and Mrs. John Jones. Captain Walter Cunningham, only son of John, removed to Kentucky in 1788, and thus the name disappeared from the county.
We are indebted to Major James B. Dorman, a grandson of Mrs. Moses McCue, for most of the above facts.
The 1735 date for Robert settling at Rock Spring in Augusta County might be too early. Daughter Martha was probably nine years old around 1740 rather than 1735 (see notes for her). Note also that Waddell might not be an independent source for 1735; it says he got his information from James B. Dorman, but it is possible that James got his information from Parks. "The Tinkling Spring: Headwater of Freedom" by Howard McKnight Wilson has a list of the original landowners in the "Beverley Manor Patent" in Appendix A. Robert Cunningham is listed as having purchased 482 acres for £14.10 on 5 Feb 1742. However, this is not necessarily inconsistent with the above statements that he settled there about 1735 (or 1740); indeed we know that Robert was in the area before 1742 because he signed a resolution dated 14 Aug 1741 (see the notes for Walter Davis). It says in Chapter 1 of "Tinkling Spring" that many early settlers were "squatters" with no title to the land, but were able to deal with William Beverley because "Beverley needed settlers and the settlers needed legal titles to their homesteads, so he and the early settlers traded for an average of one English pound for forty acres." (Beverley needed settlers because the government wanted settlers in this wilderness area to provide a buffer for the already-settled areas against the Indians.) The first settlements in the area were in about 1730-32, so 1735 or even 1740 would have been very early on.
Augusta County was only organized in 1745, so the deed for Robert’s purchase would be in Orange County records. Augusta County was huge at the time it was organized, in theory stretching from the Blue Ridge all the way to the Mississippi River. However, Robert’s land was in the core part of the county, a little south and east of Staunton, which is the county seat (though it was not called Staunton until 1761).
This area was not safe at the time. According to “Annals of Augusta County”, the Shenandoah Valley was not inhabited at the time European settlers started arriving there in the 1720s. Quoting an earlier author, Waddell says “This delightful region of country was then only used as a hunting ground, and as a highway for belligerent parties of different nations, in their military expeditions against each other. In consequence of the almost continuous hostilities between the northern and southern Indians, these expeditions were very frequent, and tended somewhat to retard the settlement of the Valley, and render a residence in it, for some time, insecure and unpleasant.”
A major pathway for immigration to the Shenandoah Valley and beyond was called the Great Wagon Road or the Great Valley Road. From “Map Guide to American Migration Routes, 1735-1815” by William Dollarhide:
Before 1744, the “Great Warrior Path” was an Indian trading path from New York to the Carolinas. This trail marked the western frontier of the colonies, and no white man ventured across that line without fear of attacks from hostile Indians. In 1744, when a treaty with the Indians gave whites total control of the area east of the Great Warrior Path in Virginia, the way was clear for the path to evolve into the most heavily traveled road in colonial America. By the end of the 1740s, the Great Valley Road was the scene of large migrations into the wilderness of western Virginia, beginning at the Shenandoah Valley.
During the period 1745-1775, thousands of immigrants used this road. Many of them were Scotch-Irish families who had sailed from Ireland to Philadelphia or Alexandria….
The general route of the Great Valley Road today is called U.S. Highway 11 (or I-81) and is very easy to locate on a modern map….
As noted above, beginning in the 1730s, the government of the Colony of Virginia encouraged settlement in the area that would become Augusta County, to form a buffer between the Native Americans (and the French) and the more settled parts of Virginia east of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The danger increased quite a bit after the French and Indian War started, and especially after the defeat of British General Edward Braddock at what is now Pittsburgh, PA, on 9 Jul 1755. Most of the action in the French and Indian War was farther north, but there were a number of raids and even massacres in Augusta County. “Annals of Augusta County” has a long discussion of events in the “Indian Wars” from 1753 to 1764.
Many of the early settlers of Augusta County were from Scots-Irish families who had initially settled in Pennsylvania (as noted above), and it is likely that Robert lived in Pennsylvania between the time he immigrated to America and his move down to Virginia. (The Scots-Irish, or Scotch-Irish, were people who had settled in Northern Ireland from Scotland and northern England, primarily of Presbyterian faith; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotch-Irish_Americans.)
Robert sold his land to son-in-law Walter Davis in two transactions:
Augusta County Deed Book 5, pp. 448–450 (9 Jun 1753): 322 acres from Robert Coningham to Walter Davis for £75.
Augusta County Deed Book 9, pp. 331–334 (17 Apr 1761): 160 acres from Robert Cuningham to Walter Davies for 5 shillings.
Death after 1767 comes from the Ancestral File and WFT 5 # 1914. I do not know the basis for this.
WFT 22 # 1690:
His family is descended from the Cunninghams of Scotland. They were Presbyterians.
He emigrated to America from Northern Ireland about 1720.
He settled at Rock springs in Augusta Co., VA about 1735.
When he settled in Augusta Co. it was almost a wilderness.
He was a member of the House of Burgesses in the Colony of VA.
The DAR database on Ancestry.com has entries showing that Robert was born in 1735 in Augusta County, VA, and was a Lieutenant of Artillery in the Revolutionary War. However, he is apparently being confused with a different Robert Cunningham because this doesn’t agree at all with the Parks manuscript; being born in 1735 would be far too young to fit with other dates here.
WFT 5 # 1914 gives his father's name as John, and lists several ancestors before that. I'm not sure how this fits in with the brother John listed by Waddell, so I'm not including them at this time.
WFT 137 # 299:
Supplement to the Annals of Augusta County, Virginia, pages 442-443
Family History of Christian County, Kentucky 1797-1986, page 149
Davis Family Record written by Dr. Thomas Davis Parks, Elmood, MO on February 2, 1878:
Robert Cunningham emigrated from Ireland to America early in the 18th century probably about 1720. From what county I cannot say, but certainly from the Northern part of the island, as he and all his familiy were Presbyterian and are believed to be descended from the Cunninghams of Scotland.
He settled at Rock Spring in Augusta County, Virginia, about 1735 at which time his daughter, Martha, our grandmother, was nine year old. He had two other daughters and I believe no son.
Note: Some of the information in these pages is uncertain. Please let me know of errors or omissions using the email link above. ...Mike Wilson
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