This article about John Hubbs appeared in the November 21-22, 1987 edition of the Times Tribune, a newspaper published in Corbin, Kentucky. It's transcribed below for ease of viewing. (Transcription was done with the aid of Google Docs OCR technology. Not perfect, but it saved me a lot of time!)
Times Tribune [Corbin, Kentucky]
PAGE ONE B, WEEKEND EDITION, NOV. 21-22 1987
Tracing Family to
13-year-old soldier
Many people in the Tri-County area can trace their family line back to a 1 3-year-old Revolutionary soldier. It all started between December 25-31, 1763, in an area known as Hanging Rock, South Carolina.
John Hubbs was born into a world where childhood was short lived. At age 13, he enlisted as a Private in Captain Carson’s Company, Colonel Pickens South Carolina Regiment. Little is known about John Hubbs’ war years, but records have been found where he received land grants in South Carolina in consideration for his military service. The earliest record of this kind bears the year 1785.
John stayed in South Carolina long enough to marry and to have two sons, John Hubbs, born in 1333, and William Hubbs, born in 1 . 1793.
Both sons followed their father, in later years, to Greene County, Tennessee. The name of' John’s first wife is not known. But. he did state in court records that she had died after the birth of their second child.
While on a trip to the stock markets in Greeneville, Tennessee, John Hubbs, a stock driver by vocation, met and married (October 5, 1795) his second wife, Rebecca Woolsey. In 1797, John moved his family to the Raccoon Valey area of Knox County, Tennessee. Most of their eight children were born there. However, their third child, Willis, was born in what is now Orange County, Indiana. What the were doing there is not clear, but they did return to Tennessee soon afterwards.
the children of this second marriage were Stephen (1798-1864), Jr. (1800-1877), Willis (1301-1831), Joshua (1302-1866), Rutha (I803-?). Sarah “Sally” (1805-1888), Polly (?), and Rachel (1810-?).
Our local lines are from John's son, Stephen, and daughter. Sarah. Stephen married Elizabeth terrell and Sarah married, Jr. They were the children of Solomon Terrell, Sr. (I770-1847), an Knox County, Kentucky, settler.
Two of John's other children married Woolseys, who were distant cousins of their mother. It is thought that the Terrell and Hubbs families met while John lived for a short time in Knox County, Kentucky.
Rebecca Woolsey Hubbs was a descendant of colonial ancestors. Her parents were Zephaniah Woolsey(1740), who was born in Marlborough, New York, and Sarah Woolsey (1747) was born in New York. Zephaniah and Sarah were no closer than fourth cousins. They were the parents of 12 children, several whom settled in Greene County, Tennessee.
Both Woolseys trace their ancestry back to Rebecca Cornell Woolsey who was born (1629) in County Essex, England, and was the wife of George Woolsey. They lived in what is new the Bronx in New York City. Her parents were Thomas Cornell (1595-1656) and Rebecca Briggs (1600-1673). Old records prove Thomas Cronell, Jr. was hanged for the murder of his aged mother.
Ezra Cronell, founder of Cornell University, organizer of Western Union Telegraph Company, and whose brother became a governor of New York, was a direct descendant off this Cornell family. William Walton Woolsey, another direct descendant, was the President of Yale from 1846-1871. Rebecca Briggs Cornell’s brother was the founder of Newport, Rhode Island.
Now back to John Hubbs...John's children were scattered across eastern Tennessee, southeastern Kentucky, Illinois and Indiana. It has been proven that he kept in touch with all of them. Travel in those days was a long and hard process. It could take weeks to cover a few hundred miles.
John's second wife, Rebecca Woolsey Hubbs was said to have died in childbirth before 1819. John married a widow, Mary Jones, and this marriage produced three sons and one daughter. All of these children stayed in Tennessee. However, this third marriage ended in divorce. In 1844 while on a visit to his son, John Jr., he became sick and died. John left behind at least 14 children and thousands of descendants. These descendants from every corner of this nation, still today, gather every other year in Tennessee for a family reunion.
Of the several hundred who attend, most of his 14 children are represented by their descendants.
Hubbs was buried in Union County (then Grainger County), Tennessee. If you go from Cumberland Gap to Knoxville, you will pass sign along the road that reads: Hubbs Graveyard, Clear Branch. In a grove of trees, just back from the highway, is a headstone for John Hubbs, Revolutionary War.
The information on the Hubbs family was provided by David Grant and information on the Woolsey-Cornell families was provided by Steve Alsip.
No comments:
Post a Comment