Volume 3 Issue 1
January 2003
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Abstract
William Gentry and his son Claiborne are added to the list of comprehensive descriptions of descendants of Samuel-II Gentry provided by the current series of articles. Errors in the "Gentry Family in America" references to William are corrected.

Introduction
Information on William Gentry of Lunenburg County, Virginia, and Surry County, North Carolina is a subject of much confusion. This undoubtedly is due to a combination of misunderstanding and perhaps a mixup in data sources in the description of William's family in "The Gentry Family in America" (GFA)<1>, Richard Gentry's classic history of the Gentrys. This article will untangle these mixups and supplement GFA's description of William's family with information about William himself that was not readily accessible by GFA's compiler.

William Gentry in Virginia
William first appears on the pages of history in 1750 in the tax lists of Lunenburg County, when he was included as a tithable individual in the household of David Gentry<2a>. He is listed among the tithables of Lunenburg County again in 1752, when he was listed as a separate individual, this time in a tax district with Nicholas Gentry rather than with David<2b>. Unfortunately, Landon Bell, who abstracted the early Lunenburg tax lists in the cited reference, chose to include only a few select years of the original tax documents, and the lists for the years between 1752 and 1764 are not available — it is uncertain whether they have been lost, misplaced or destroyed. Thus, there are no further tax records of the Gentrys during a particularly critical period of their time in Lunenburg County.

The two tax citations both raise questions and answer them. Since the age for white males to be tithable in Virginia at the time was sixteen, we know that as of 1750, William was at least sixteen. David Gentry, with whom William was listed in 1750, was included in the 1749 listing, without any reference to William. If William was living with David in 1749, he apparently had not reached the age of sixteen in that year, so his date of birth was late 1733 or early 1734. If William was not with David at the time, all we can say is that he was born before 1734.

The question raised by these citations is one of relationship. We know that Nicholas-III Gentry of Lunenburg County was a son of Samuel-II Gentry, who in turn was a son of the immigrant Nicholas-I Gentry. David is believed to have been a younger brother of Samuel. The question relating to William is the following. Was William a son of David, or was he a nephew of David and a younger brother of Nicholas Gentry? There is no clear-cut, black-and-white answer to this question but we believe that the weight of evidence points strongly to the latter. It is likely he left the rest of the family who were still living in Louisa County at the time, and joined his brother and David, the two Gentry families who were the first to move to Lunenburg County. This conclusion is reinforced by the fact that although William was living with David in 1750, in 1752 he had moved to a new tax district (which was not very far away), and was living adjacent to Nicholas Gentry (probably on the latter's property).

Following William's early appearance in the tax records, he began appearing in Lunenburg County land records in 1760<3a>, when he purchased fifty acres of land along the Meherrin River not far from where he had been living with Nicholas. William's oldest child, Claiborne, was born at about this time, and it is understandable that he might want to have a home of his own rather than sharing his older brother's plantation. William sold this land in 1763 to another brother, Allen Gentry<3b>. There is no further reference in the Virginia records of William either buying or selling land. In his later years, William took on carpentry jobs, and he may have preferred building houses, barns and such to farming and possibly continued to live with Allen.

Where was William during the period between 1752 and 1760? Interestingly, a similar question can be asked about all of the Gentrys with the exception of Nicholas and Joseph who were the only ones to hold title to land for a number of years after 1752. David came to Lunenburg County along with Nicholas in 1748 when the county was first separated from Brunswick County. Despite the fact that there should have been land available for him to buy, it seems probable that until 1757 when he bought land of his own, David occupied part of the land which bordered on Joseph Gentry's property, and was owned by his father-in-law Richard Brooks and his brothers-in-law Elisha Brooks and Richard Brooks Jr. Since William was living in the same area as Nicholas in 1752, we can guess he was living with his brother Nicholas or at least in a neighboring house until his 1760 purchase of land. Allen Gentry (and their father Samuel-II) seem to have lived with Allen's brother Joseph until 1755 when Allen in turn bought land of his own. Other brothers, Simon and John, were probably living with Joseph until they left the county and died respectively. Richard may have continued to occupy the family's property in Louisa County after most of the family left and then perhaps joined Nicholas in Lunenburg County, and never took land of his own. Another brother, Samuel, likewise never owned land in Virginia, but was most closely associated with David. The youngest of the presumed brothers, Nathaniel, never appeared in any Virginia records but eventually was a neighbor of Samuel in South Carolina. It is probable that he lived with Samuel during his later years in Lunenburg County. In summary, the Lunenburg land records reveal very little about the movements of the Gentrys other than Nicholas and Joseph, and in later years, Allen.

William appears in the Lunenburg County court records in a variety of roles, beginning in 1752 when he was a defendant in an unspecified case that was dismissed without judgment<4a>. In 1759, William's wife, Lucy, was identified with William in a joint suit as plaintiffs in a case which they won<4b>. William served on a jury in three separate cases in the May 1760 session of the court and again in the October 1761 session<4d,4h>. During the period between 1759 and 1762, William appeared in a number of other court cases: as both a plaintiff and a defendant in debt proceedings; providing bail for David; and as a defendant in other unidentified actions. William's last appearance in these court cases was in 1762, so we do not know what happened to him after he sold his land in 1763.

William Gentry in North Carolina
The next reference to William is found almost ten years later in the records of the Moravian settlement at Salem, North Carolina<5>. He was hired by them to build a bridge across Muddy Creek on the road between Salem and Shallow Ford, the main point of crossing for the Yadkin River. The initial agreement was dated 29 June 1772 and he was to have the bridge completed by November 1st. He apparently made good on his commitment since on November 30th the records show that William had been paid for the job but was also asked to extend the bridge on the western end which he agreed to do.

We next find William's widow, Lucy, posting bond in 1773 for the administration of his estate, At the November 1774 and February 1775 quarterly court sessions, Lucy presented inventories of William's estate. In GFA<1>, William's daughter, Lucy, recalls that her father was drowned crossing the Yadkin River before his children had all grown. The circumstances of William's efforts at bridge building tend to support his daughter's story, although the dates 1783 and 1785 given in GFA for this drowning, are very much in error and are in fact much closer to the date of death of the James Gentry who was the nominal subject of the GFA historical sketch. It appears that William came to grief in one of his expeditions from his home (which was probably with Joseph Gentry on the west side of the Yadkin River) to his bridge site east of the river. This probably took place early in the year 1773, perhaps on the occasion of a spring flood.

We have the same problem in North Carolina as we did in Virginia of identifying where William (and his family after his death) was living since he was not a land owner of record in Surry County. Because of the location of land owned by William's brother, Joseph, on the west bank of the Yadkin River, William was probably living with him. This possibility is reinforced by a notation in the settlement of William's estate in which Joseph Gentry received "1 head of swine at large" and miscellaneous other property. After William's death, his widow and their children appear to have remained in the same general area, but on the east side of the Yadkin River in the vicinity of Muddy Creek. A record of land entry along Muddy Creek in 1787 makes reference to land bordering "widow Gentry"<6>. In addition land records for Lucy's son Claiborne, and two of her sons-in-law, Matthew Markland and Joshua Hill, refer to property along the same creek<7>.

Fig. 1 Stokes County, 1790, showing Moravian settlement,
"Wachovia" and location of Joseph and Claiborne Gentry homesteads

We have alluded several times above, to the story of William's family that is found in GFA. This article on family #219, is meant to be about a James Gentry who moved from Virginia to Guilford County, North Carolina, was married to a wife by the name of Sarah Ann Claiborne, and who drowned in the Yadkin River in 1783. This introduction to James is followed by a listing of children, all of whom are believed to be children of William Gentry rather than James Gentry. The latter had indeed moved from Virginia to Guilford County, and his wife's name was Sarah. From there on, however, GFA compiler Richard Gentry, has seriously intertwined the two families resulting in a very garbled account of what should have been a description of William Gentry.

Prior to this description, Richard Gentry did indeed mention William, but supplied him with the wrong father. GFA does not distinguish between the David Gentrys who were sons of Nicholas-I Gentry and Nicholas-II Gentry, and does not in fact acknowledge the existence of the former. In describing the David who was a son of Nicholas-II, GFA (#4, p.37), lists a William Gentry who was identified as the son of a first wife whose name was not known. This is the same William we are describing in our present article, who was in fact associated with the David who was a son of Nicholas-I rather than his nephew David.

The James Gentry referred to in GFA's article has been discussed previously in this journal (vol 1, #10 and #12), and identified therein as James-III or James Jr.. He was born about 1732 in Hanover County, Virginia, moved to Guilford County, North Carolina, in about 1783, and died there (presumably of old age) in 1785 or 1786 leaving a will identifying his wife Sarah and his three children Watson, Nancy, and "Mimey". With the exception of these elements of James' history that are included in family #219, the rest applies to William Gentry.

James Gentry's wife was named Sarah, but there is no knowledge of a middle name, and the listed maiden name for that wife is instead believed to apply to William's wife Lucy. The naming of William and Lucy's first child, Claiborne, suggests that Lucy was a part of this family which was prominent in Virginia history. We have no specific information on Lucy's parents, but there were Claiborne family members living in southern Lunenburg County during the 1750's when Lucy was married, so the possibility that this was Lucy's maiden name is certainly very plausible. This is reinforced by the naming of her first-born son.

William Gentry's Children

1. Fannie (Francis), said to have been born 26 Dec 1762, and married to a Martin Green. According to GFA, this couple moved to Harrison County, Kentucky, where Fannie lived to age 93. Census and tax records show no Martin Green remaining in North Carolina in the period from 1790 onward, but there was a Martin Green who was living in Madison County, Kentucky in 1800. Francis lived to appear in the 1850 and 1860 census (age 97). In both records she was listed as born in North Carolina.
2. Sarah, said to have married John Ball who moved to Kentucky and then to Missouri before the Civil War. The census records show a John Ball present in Rowan County, just to the south of Stokes County, in 1790, then a John Ball in Harrison County, Kentucky, and another in Madison County, Kentucky in 1800. It appears that he was not related to the John Ball who married Lucy Gentry, the daughter of Shadrack Gentry of Surry County in 1831.
3. Lucy, her mother's namesake, is named in a Surry County marriage bond dated 21 Apr 1787, as the bride of Matthew Markland Jr<8a>. It is Lucy's memories of her family that provided Richard Gentry with most of the material for the GFA family description. She moved to Madison County, Kentucky in 1804 and died there in 1807. The Markland family shows apparently four children in the 1790 census, so it is probable that this was a second marriage for Matthew<9>. Matthew and his father appear frequently in the Stokes County records from 1790 to 1800, living in the vicinity of Muddy Creek.
4. Elsie is undoubtedly the "Alce" Gentry named in a Surry County marriage bond dated 21 Apr 1787, between Elsie and Samuel Seward<8a>. She is said to have moved to the vicinity of Cincinnati, Ohio within a few years after her marriage. While Samuel Seward was in the 1790 Stokes County census, and was in the 1790 tax list in the same district as Matthew Markland, he does not appear in any of the subsequent tax lists, nor was he present in the 1800 census.
5. Mary is named in the GFA family as marrying a Wright or a Hill. We can speculate that this daughter of William was the Elizabeth Gentry who married Joshua Hill and is named in a Stokes County marriage bond dated 4 Dec 790<8b>. The timing for this marriage is right, and the only Gentrys known to be in Stokes County (which was created from Surry County in 1789) at that time were the William Gentry family. According to GFA, this daughter moved to Lexington, Kentucky. Joshua Hill appeared in the Stokes County tax lists in the same district as Matthew Markland beginning in 1791.

Census records for Stokes County in 1790<9> list two Gentrys, Claiborne (with apparently 3 children), and the widow Lucy Gentry (with 1 daughter still at home - presumably Elizabeth or Mary, whatever her right name may be). In addition the families of Elsie and Samuel Seward and of Lucy and Matthew Markland Jr are listed. The elder Lucy Gentry's name is found in no more records, and she must have died between 1790 and 1800, as there is no evidence she was living with one of her daughters at the time of the 1800 census.

Claiborne (or Claybourn) Gentry in North Carolina
The most definitive reference to Claiborne ( his name is spelled in a variety of ways in the records: Clayborne, Claybourn, Claibourne, etc.) is the record of his application for a Revolutionary War pension<14> in 1833 in Davidson County, Tennessee. This application established his military record during the war, and also the fact that he was living in Surry County, North Carolina at the time of his enlistment. His service included both brief militia actions against North Carolina Loyalists or Tories, and also service in the Continental Army for at least two years until the end of the war.

Following the war, Claiborne received a grant in 1789 for 150 acres of land in the part of Surry County that later became Stokes County. This tract of land was close to the same Muddy Creek that his father had bridged, and the boundary between Stokes County and Rowan County<7>. Claiborne apparently occupied this land beginning in 1785, as he was taxed for the land as shown by Surry County tax lists from 1785 to 1789<10a>. After Stokes County was formed in 1789, Claiborne appeared in tax lists for that county from 1790 through 1797<10b>. In November 1794, Claiborne and his wife Anne sold this land on Muddy Creek, although it continued to be listed under Claiborne's name in the tax lists until 1796.

One other source of references concerning Claiborne were less complimentary to him. During his earlier post-war years, Claiborne appears to have gotten into trouble with the law, as he was taken into justice by county court action in 1785, and on a state warrant in 1789<11>. We have no information as to the circumstances of these warrants.

Claiborne appears in the 1800 Stokes County census with apparently 6 children<15>. The census indicates that he was older than his wife, but the age shown for Claiborne (born before 1755) does not match his later pension application statements, and is clearly in error. So any apparent indication of a younger wife is meaningless. His sister, Lucy Markland, appeared in the same 1800 census, also with six children. This is the last record we have of Claiborne in North Carolina.

Claiborne Gentry in Tennessee (Minor corrections added, 5/21/2009)
We next find Claiborne in January 1803 in Davidson County, Tennessee, when he was assigned to jury duty in the county court<12>. This implies that he arrived in Davidson County a significant interval before the jury assignment so perhaps came in late 1801 or early 1802. Besides his jury service, in 1803 Claiborne was included in a work gang charged with the maintenance of a road terminating at the junction of White's Creek and Dry Fork which was located about five miles northwest of the site of Fort Nashboro. Claiborne arrived in the area while it was still very much a hotbed of Indian unrest and attacks resulting in a great deal of loss of life on both sides. The previous Gentry family living in the area had been the family of his cousin, Nicholas Gentry, who himself was killed by Indians in 1782 and who lost two sons the same way. This family had left Davidson County in 1800, so the two Gentry families did not quite overlap which helps in identifying later Gentrys with Claiborne.

Claiborne spent most of the rest of his life in Davidson County. The next reference to him was included in an 1811 tax list along with a John Gentry<13>. John's name appears just once more in the records. Presumably it was this same John Gentry who witnessed a bill of sale in 1812 for the sale of a negro slave. Claiborne's name is mentioned again in court records for 1818, 1823 and 1824 in connection with the settlement of estates<14>. The final reference, other than census records was in 1833 when he applied in court in Davidson County for a Revolutionary War pension authorized by Act of Congress in 1832 which authorized a pension of full pay for life for veterans with two years or more of qualified service<14>. Claiborne gave his age as about 72 at the time of application which would place his date of birth as 1761. The records show that he was credited with two years of service as a private in the North Carolina line. A widow's pension was not authorized by Congress until 1843. There is no later reference to a widow claiming a share of Claiborne's pension so we have no way of knowing whether his wife, Anne, was still living at the time, or whether he had remarried.

Claiborne Gentry's Children

It is probable that Claiborne's older son was named John and was the John Gentry that was taxed with Claiborne in Davidson County in 1811. The son's age could have been anywhere between 21 and 27 at the time, so he was certainly old enough to be liable for a poll tax, and in addition, old enough to have been married either just before or just after that time. The only other Gentrys that had been in the Davidson neighborhood in years prior to that were the descendants of Nicholas Gentry whom we have mentioned above. While Nicholas had a son named John, he had been killed by Indians long before that time. None of Nicholas' remaining sons had a son named John who was of the right age to be liable for taxes in 1811, and in fact there is no evidence that any of that family were still in Davidson County after 1800.

In 1830, Claiborne was living in a very mixed household<16b>. His age was given as 60 to 70 which translates to a birth between 1760 and 1770 (which is appropriate). There are two older women shown in the household, one born before 1760 thus older than Claiborne. Another woman was born between 1780 and 1790 which was a younger age than for the wife shown in 1820. The one woman appears to have been too old to the wife of the 1820 census and the other woman appears to be too young. Does this indicate a second marriage to one of these women, is it simply an example of the uncertainties of census ages, or are neither of the two women a wife of Claiborne? In 1830, besides the two older women, it appears that Claiborne was living with a son and daughter-in-law (or a daughter and son-in-law), a young grandson, and a 20 to 25-year-old female whose relationship is unclear. To further complicate matters, Claiborne was listed in Carroll County, Tennessee, rather than in Davidson County, even though two years later he appeared in Davidson County Court to claim a soldier's pension. Yet there is no other Claiborne Gentry of whom we are aware that matches this one in age. We have no explanation for this.

This was the last census record for Claiborne, and considering his age, we can readily surmise that he died between 1833, the date of his pension application, and 1840. A Jonathan Gentry living in Carroll County in 1840 was not a part of Claiborne's family, rather was a son of Elijah Gentry of Rutherford County, Tennessee. In 1840, in the Davidson County census there was a John T. Gentry whose age and family correspond well with the young family with whom Claiborne was living in 1830<16c>. This second John could not have been a younger son of Claiborne. Knowing nothing about John T. Gentry, the author has speculated that he might have been a grandson of Claiborne and a son of the older John, born in perhaps 1809 or 1810 when we know the first John was certainly of marriageable age.

Where this family moved to after 1840 is not known, as they were not listed in Davidson County in 1850, nor was the name John T. Gentry found in any other Tennessee county in that year. To carry this speculation to the limit, we can wonder whether a Mary A. Haggatt, age 36, living in Davidson County in 1850 with two Gentry children aged 6 and 10, was the widow of John T. Gentry. This seems like a morbid repetition of widows but was certainly a possibility in the times and places where they lived.

Returning to the identification of children of Claiborne, Davidson County marriage records show a Polly Gentry married George Murphy on 13 May 1808 and a Sally Gentry married Thomas Stogner on 13 Feb 1809<16>. These were both probably daughters of Claiborne, two of the three that were born between 1784 and 1790. A third marriage, by another Polly Gentry to William Roach on 18 Sep 1816 cannot be so easily explained. With a duplication of name with the first Polly, she was surely not a daughter of Claiborne. Nor does this seem to be a case of a second marriage for Polly unless for some reason she resumed her maiden name after the first marriage. The second Polly does not appear to be old enough to have been a granddaughter of Claiborne (as for example, a daughter of John). Perhaps a more likely answer was that she was a daughter-in-law whose husband had died (again using John, or John's brother as an example) and she was marrying again.

A clue as to another possible daughter is provided by a document included in the microfilm records of Claiborne's pension application. This is a record of an inquiry by a Mrs. W. B. McGee asking for verification from the Bureau of Pensions that an Elizabeth Gentry McGee, born 1787, was a daughter of Claiborne. The response to Mrs. McGee was that there was no such evidence in the file. Mrs. McGee obviously had some information leading her to ask this question. Whether her information was correct or not is an unanswered question.

Conclusion
It is the author's hope that this article will help to clarify the details of William Gentry's life and family. It is also our hope that descendants of Claiborne Gentry will make available to the public the names of any of his sons or daughters that have been identified so that we may more completely appreciate this interesting Gentry family.

References

5. Adelaide L. Fries, "Records of the Moravians in North Carolina", Raleigh, NC, 1925, Vol II (1752-1775); Edwards & Broughton Printing Co., Raleigh, NC, 1925.

14. Revolutionary War Pension Applications, File S3391, National Archives, Washington DC: Claiborn Gentrey, of Davidson Co. TN
Credited with 2 years service as a private in NC line.
Appeared in Davidson County Court of Pleas and Quarterly Sessions, Tennessee, 8 Feb 1833, age about 72 years, to testify as to military service:

15. Federal Census for 1800, 1820, 1830, and 1840

1/23/2003    (Minor revisions, 5/21/2009)