Pension Application of Thomas Holland S17222
Transcribed and annotated by C. Leon Harris
State of Tennessee } SS
Cocke County }
On this 27 day of February 1833 personally in open Court before the Court of pleas & quarter sessions for said County of Cocke now sitting the same being a Court of record Thomas Holland a resident of said County & State aged seventy four years who first being duly sworn according to law doath on his oath make the following declaration in order to obtain the benefit of the act of Congress passed the 7th June 1832
That he resided in the county of Montgomery in the State of Virginia when he entered the service of the united States under the following named officers and served as herein stated (towit) that in month of October the year not recollected [1780] he entered the service as a Drafted malitia man for the company Commanded by Captain Jeremiah Pierce in the Batalion commanded by Major [Joseph] Cloyd of the Virginia malitia for a tour of one month against the tories in North Carolina & was in the engagement with them at the Shallow ford of Yadkin River [14 Oct 1780] in said last named State for which tour he rec’d a discharge for his said Captain
He was drafted for a tour of three months as a mounted Rifleman and served in the company commanded by Captain Abraham Trigg in the Rigement Commanded by Col [William] Preston about three months before the Battle of Guilford [Gilford Courthouse NC, 15 Mar 1781] & was marched into Surry County N Carolina according to his present Recollection to act as Scouts against the tories & British and not long before the Battle of Guilford his Rigement joined the troops commanded by [Gen. Andrew] Pickens for the purpose of surrounding and surprising the British Col Tarlton [sic: Lt. Col. Banastre Tarleton] after the failure of that enterprise his Regement left Pickens and continued to act as scouts untill they were attacked by Col Tarltons troops in their encampment on Buffalow Creek at a place called Ridleys or Rugeley mill (he does not now recollect which) an driven over said Creek many having to pass through the mill pond when the Regement was dispersed, in the attack Captains Blackburn & Montgomery were wounded of his Regement. this attack was made by Tarlton shortly before the Battle of Guilford. [See note below.]
He was again drafted for a three months tour against the tories and cherokee Indians and was marched in the company Commanded by Captain Barnet to the Long Island of Holston [at present Kingsport TN] & was then attached to the Regement Commanded by Col Martin & there served untill he was discharged
The August after the Battle of Guilford he was drafted for one month as a guard at Paris’s [sic: George Pearis’s] Station on New River Virginia against the indians & served under Captain Paris & by him discharged
From Montgomery County he removed to what was then Green County [sic: Greene County formed in 1799 from Glasgow County, which was formed in 1791 from Dobbs County] North Carolina in August 1783 he served as a spy a three months tour in the summer of [blank] under Captain William Jobe in the first Cherokee War after the Revolution and another for three months under said Jobe in the last Cherokee War and was wounded by the said Indians by a shot through the thigh.
He was born on the 24th of December 1750 in the State of Maryland from thence his father then removed to Pitsylvania [sic: Pittsylvania] County in the State of Virginia when he was very young & from there removed to Montgomery County in said State where he lived when he entered the service he has lived since in what is now Green County Tennessee and now lives in Cocke County Tennessee
He knew none of the officers of the Regular Army
He has no documentary evidence of his service having lost his discharges and does not know of any person whose testimony he can procure who can testify as to his services except those whose certificates are hereto annexed
Question 1 Where were you Born
Ans’r In the State of Maryland County not recollected as my father left there when I was quite small
Question 2nd. Have you any record of your age.
Ans’r I have none
Question 3 Where were you living when called into service where have you lived since the revolutionary War and where do you now live
Ans’r I was living in Montgomery County State of Virginia when I entered the service I have lived since the Revolutionary War in what was at the time of my coming to it Green County North Carolina and in that part that is now Cocke County Tennessee where I now live
Question 4th How were you called into service were you Drafted did you volunteer or were you a substitute
Ans I was drafted
Question 5 State the names of some of the regular officers who were with the troops where you served such Continental & Malitia Regements as you can recollect & the general circumstances of your service
Ans I know none of the regular officers nor was any with the troops I served with to my knowledge nor do I know of any other regements Continental or Malitia except those commanded by Pickens as before stated
Question 6 did you ever receive a discharge from service if so by whom were you discharged & what became of it
Ans I recd discharges from Captains Pierce Barnet & Paris and when I left my fathers I left them in my fathers papers not knowing they would be of any benefit to me
Question 7th State the names of Persons to whom you are known in our present neighbourhood & who can testify as to your character for varacity & their belief of your service as a soldier of the revolution
Ans’r I am known to the Reverend Thomas Hall John Inman Esquire the Presiding Justice of Cocke County Court and Colonels John Howard and Alexander Smith
He hereby relinquishes every claim whatsoever to a pension or annuity except the present and declares that his name is not on the pension roll of any agency of any State
Thomas Holland
NOTES:
I could not identify the engagement in Holland’s second tour. It most closely matches the skirmish on 6 Mar 1781 at Wetzel’s Mill on Reedy Fork of Haw River in Guilford County. A Buffalo Creek empties into Reedy Fork just upstream from the site of the skirmish.
On 7 May 1834 Thomas Holland applied to transfer his pension to Clay County MO where he had moved “to obtain land on better terms to provide for children.”