Arthur Parr - Revolutionary War Service Part 2

Colonial patriots may have seen the end of the war in sight if they could just dislodge the British from the South.  Count Pulaski had left General George Washington's side to create the first calvary that was called Pulaski's Legion and headed south to help fight the British and end the war.  The battle in Stono did not go well for either side.  But the Patriots were on to a new battlefield - Savannah, Georgia.  General Huger's South Carolina Regiment and Pulaski's Legion were joined with the Continental army from Georgia with the combined patriot forces under the command of General Benjamin Lincoln.  French Admiral Count Charles-Hector Theodat D'Estaing of France provided necessary naval and troop support.  But nothing went as planned for the patriots.
On October 4, 1779, the French began the bombardment of Savannah, causing much damage but without breaking the British hold on the city.  By October 9, Count D'Estaing and General Lincoln determined it was time for a direct assault and made plans for a dawn attack on the west side of town. It was protected by 3 British forts.  These three forts were controlled by American Loyalists.  The most exposed fort was Spring Hill Redoubt, which was manned by South Carolina Loyalists.  The French troops attacked first and, at one point, raised the French flag over Spring Hill Redoubt.  But the loyalists were able to regain the fort.  The patriots arrived, and the South Carolina 2nd Regiment raised their flag on Spring Hill Redoubt, only to have their leaders shot down by the Loyalist troops.  At daylight, the number of dead and dying French and the patriot forces were staggering.  Despite this, Count Pulaski decided to lead a cavalry charge against the fort.  The count was killed by canister fire from the fort, and the cavalry retreated.  That signaled the end of the Siege of Savannah and a considerable loss to the patriot cause.

Siege Of Savannah

What was Arthur's role in this?  Without Arthur's testimony in his pension application, it would be logical to assume he was still with Captain Kirkland (South Carolina Militia). Was the militia part of the South Carolina 2nd Regiment attack?  What was important enough for him to recount in his pension application was being assigned to Count Pulaski, but he can't recall what Captain he was under.  So was he one of the ones who survived the 2nd Regiment's assault on Spring Hill Redoubt, and did he then go back with Count Pulaski for a second assault?  Or was he with Count Pulaski for the entire siege?  Either way, he survived when many of his fellow soldiers were killed. And he must have been discharged again, probably back at Purysburg where General Lincoln took the troops after the Siege of Savannah.

Early in 1780, he volunteered for the 5th time. He went to Charleston to join up under Captain Joseph Kirkland again.  Captain Kirkland was promoted to colonel, and Benjamin May was made Captain in his place.  According to Arthur's pension application, he was sent to Orangeburgh a few days after the British attacked Charleston.  The British landed 8500 troops at North Edisto Inlet on February 11, 1780.  The Siege of Charleston began on March 28. It ended on May 12 when General Benjamin Lincoln surrendered all the Continental Army that was in South Carolina and all the South Carolina militias.  Arthur was taken as a prisoner of war by the British. The high ranking patriot officers were traded for British officers that the patriots had been holding as prisoners of war, but the rest were imprisoned on boats in Charleston Harbor.

Arthur, like many others, was given parole, but the parole came with conditions: the parolees had to take an oath to the Crowne and be ready to serve when called upon by His Majesty's government.  Apparently, Arthur was called up to serve the Crowne, so he fled to North Carolina.

General Horatio Gates was named the head of the Continental Army's Southern Command after General Lincoln's surrender.  While heading south from his home in Virginia, with an augmentation of troops, he passed by the place where Arthur was staying.  Arthur took this opportunity to volunteer for the patriot cause for the 6th time, under Lt. Colonel Porterfield, who led the Virginia State troops and light infantry with 6 companies. When General Gates entered South Carolina, the British were waiting.  The first battle was at Little Lynches Creek, with neither side actually hitting anyone with their long-range rifles.  The British retreated to prepare for meeting up with Lt. General Charles Lord Cornwallis at Camden, South Carolina. On the night of August 15, 1780, Lord Cornwallis directed his troops to leave Camden intending to surprise Gen Gates troops and attacked them at their camp in Clermont.  Gen. Gates had ordered his troops to leave Clermont at 10 PM on the night of August 15, 1780, to attack Cornwallis in Camden in the morning.  Lt. Col. Porterfield's troops were assigned to follow the advance cavalry on the left side.  They were followed by the main body of the army, made up of two Maryland Brigades and the militias of North Carolina and Virginia.

The two armies met in the dark.  The British fire disrupted the patriot cavalry with men and horses falling back on the Maryland Brigades and causing them to scatter.  The patriots reassembled and continued fighting. Lt. Col. Porterfield was killed early in the fighting. In the morning, the battle became more severe. When the Virginia Militia were met with fixed bayonets from the British troops, they threw down their arms and fled.  This decimated the patriot troops' strength on the left, and part of the North Carolina militia fled with them.  General Gates abandoned his troops and fled with the militias. The very weakened patriot army was no match for the British forces and was forced to retreat.  Around 650-750 patriots were killed, injured, or taken as prisoners of war.  The troops retreated to Salisbury and Hillsborough, North Carolina.

Arthur ends his testimony about his military service for his pension, stating that was his last "assay in the armies."  Arthur started out as a private but said that he was a sergeant for most of the war.  Arthur settled in Rowan County, near Salisbury, after his time in the American Revolution.  He served 7 times in the Revolutionary armies - once by draft and 6 times as a volunteer.  His service time covered over 4 years.  He entered military service at 17 and left when he was 22.  Two years later, he married Mary Morgan, and they had eleven children.  Their youngest son, Morgan, is my great-great-great-grandfather.

Young Arthur Parr - Revolutionary War Service, Part 1

Arthur Parr was born July 5, 1758, in Rowan, North Carolina. He was the first son of Arthur Parr (Maryland) and Margaret Wright (Hillsboro, North Carolina).  When Arthur was 6 years old, his father died from injuries received transporting an Indian to jail.  Margaret was left with 6 children to raise.  At some point after her husband’s death, she married Peter Starnes, who moved Margaret and her children with him to Camden District, South Carolina, around Winnsboro around 1768-1770.

In 1776, Arthur Parr, now 17, was drafted into the South Carolina militia.  He was drafted into the 2^nd Regiment, in a company commanded by Captain Thomas Woodard, Fairfield District.  He was marched to Charleston and stationed at Sullivan Island as a guard. He was on duty at Sullivan Island and watched the 2^nd battle in Charleston Harbor on March 21, 1776, when the South Carolina Provincial Navy defeated a British warship for the first time.  His tour of duty was completed shortly after this event. It obviously made a significant impact on him, and he began volunteering for military service.

Arthur Parr then volunteered to join the Captain Joseph Handcock’s (Captain John Hancock?) company under Colonel Jonas Beard, Lower District Regiment (aka Dutch Fork Regiment).  For this tour of duty, he fought the Cherokee Indians on Indian frontiers until the Spring of 1777 when he was discharged from duty at Lyndleys Fort or Elosons Fort.  (The two settlers forts were close together and by 1832 when Arthur was dictating his service record, he could no longer remember which fort he was discharged from.)

Arthur immediately signed up again, this time under Captain Joseph Kirkland, in the Fairfield Regiment, commanded by Colonel John Winn.  Arthur knew this campaign under the title of “The Augustine Campaign”, but it was also known as the 3^rd Florida Expedition.  The Georgia Rangers have twice before attempted to take control of East Florida away from the British. This 3^rd time, they convinced General George Washington to support the expedition with additional troops from other states.  Arthur spent three months on this campaign until the patriots failed to take East Florida for the 3^rd time.  After he returned to South Carolina, he was stationed at various places on the Savannah River until late 1777 or early 1778.

Next, he was headquartered at Purysburg (Purrysburg), but marched to Charleston and stayed there until the fall of 1778 when he returned to Purysburg and was discharged.

In the spring of 1779, he volunteered for the 4^th time. Again he served under Captain Joseph Kirkland.  His first assignment was to destroy the road between Savannah and Charleston.  He completed that assignment about June 1, 1779.  Following that, he moved to the mouth of Stono Creek opposite the Isle of St. Jans and was in the battle of Stono Ferry between Savannah and Charleston led by Brigadier General Benjamin Lincoln.  The left-wing of the battle formation was led by South Carolina Continental Brigadier General Isaac Huger.  Arthur’s Fairfield Regiment was part of the left-wing.  At Stono Ferry, the patriots were attacking a British encampment on one side of the Stono River and a Hessian camp on the other side.  The battle ended as a draw with the British and Hessians maintaining their positions.  The British were prevented from pursuing the patriots by the surprising action of Count Casimir Pulaski and his cavalry force.  That must have really intrigued young Arthur because he managed to get himself attached to Pulaski's calvary for the Siege of Savannah.

Fish in Nebraska

Researching our family is always tricky for a couple of reasons -1) They continuously move and have for hundreds of years, and 2) they re-use first names to a ridiculous degree. And then we have the Fish and Work problem.  Since those are common English words, it is challenging to search out the names because the search becomes swamped by all the uses of those ubiquitous words.
But I am beginning to get a handle on at least part of the Fish family because of the homestead records I talked about in the previous post.

My great-great-grandmother Harriett B Fish married Enoch Parr August 20, 1857, in Wayne, Iowa, where both families temporarily resided.  Harriett and Enoch's first four children were born in Wayne, Iowa but the youngest, my great grandfather Elmer Clyde Parr, was born on the homestead in Oak Grove Township, Franklin, Nebraska.  The closest town is Bloomington.

Harriett was the youngest child of Abner Fish and Sally Featherstone, who resided in Washington County, Ohio, at the time of their marriage and possibly until Sally died.  I think Abner & Sally had about 10 children -- not all of which I have been able to trace.   Harriett, her sister Silence, and brother Robert all ended up in Franklin, Nebraska.  Until I was able to find Robert Fish's homestead records, I wasn't sure he actually survived the journey from Iowa to Nebraska.  But as it turns out, Robert came to Nebraska before his other siblings.  He was a Postmaster, first in Iowa and later in Nebraska.  But he also was a homesteader.  His homestead was in Turkey Creek Township, which was the township northwest of Oak Grove.  He completed his home on March 16, 1873, which started the 5-year proving period for the homestead.  He bought a significant amount of land in Oak Grove Township along the Republican River in October 1873.  Not many people actually bought property from the government at that time, so he must have been reasonably prosperous.

 Robert's homestead paperwork was fascinating because he died while homesteading.  As far as I can tell, the only record of his death is in the homestead records.  His wife Julia took over the farming part of "proving" the homestead and raising their five children: Wallace, Mary, Laura, Lavinia, and Rufus.  Not only did the homesteader have to make declarations in that they met the requirements to "prove" a homestead, but they also had to come up with two or three other people who could attest to all the same questions.  One of the men who filed an affidavit to testify to the homestead was Silence's son John Swaney.

Learning About Nebraska Homesteads

To learn about Nebraska homesteads, I had to learn something new from Towner County, North Dakota's Clerk of Court, Jolene Hoffert.  Her office was terrific in looking up all kinds of land records for my McGee ancestors.  When they found everything they could, Jolene told me to use the homestead paperwork she pulled to get more information at the National Archives.  I thought the paper I got from the Bureau of Land Management (for the states they have scanned) and the ones from Towner County was all the information there was.  Jolene told me to contact the National Archives and pay a fee ($5 when she last did this), and you could get all the information that was collected to "prove" the homestead.  Well, that was interesting, but when I first checked at NARA, I saw that homestead packages were $50. Indeed a rise in price since Jolene last pulled data from them on homesteads!  But the data is tempting. So I recheck the NARA website and pay a little more attention -- there is a notice that some of the homestead packages are on Fold3.com.  Since I already have a subscription to Fold3, I took a look.  They only have homestead records from Nebraska, but since I have ancestors who homesteaded in Nebraska, this was a big bonus.

I pulled the records for Enoch Parr's homestead in Oak Grove Township (between Bloomington, NE, and Kansas state line).  There were 34 pages of documents - routine, confusing, fascinating.  I had to study history again to figure some of it out.

So we have the Homestead Act of 1862, which allowed pretty much any adult the opportunity to earn 160 acres of free land by building a house on it, living there, and then farming some portion of it for 5 years.  If you succeeded, Uncle Sam gave you the deed to the land for a fee of about $18.  Well, in Nebraska, there were multiple governing Acts.  In addition to the Homestead Act, there was the Preemption Act of 1841.  I don't know what they did in other states, but those Nebraska homesteaders worked every angle.  The Preemptive Act of 1841 allowed people to "squat" on public land and attempt to build a home and farm. Before the government could offer the property for sale to someone else, they had to offer it first to the "squatters" for $1.25/acre.  So if they staked a claim under the Preemptive Act and couldn't meet all the Homestead Act requirements, they could buy the land.  If they could meet the Homestead Act requirements, they would file a "Pre-emption-Homestead Affidavit" that converted the claim from Preemptive to Homestead and only pay filing fees.  Enoch Parr did convert his land from Preemptive to Homestead, but more on that another day.

Cando Cemetery Mystery

The Sacred Heart Cemetery in Cando, North Dakota, holds the graves of my great-great-grandparents, William Michael McGee and Isabel/Isabella Carney.  In 2008, my 3rd cousin, Rita Matejka, went to Cando and cleaned up the gravestones and chopped away at the bush that was covering the headstone and took some pictures.  She posted the images on Find A Grave.  So when I went to the cemetery, I was expecting to see what I had seen on Rita's pictures.  But no such thing -- the gravestone looked very new and very, lovely and the bush was covering the stone.  But I didn't have my computer with me so I couldn't really examine the differences. With help from our new friend, Gerald Maurseth, I chopped away at the overgrown bush so my husband could take pictures.  The next day, I contacted Rita's aunt, Betty Teichmann, to see what she might know about a new gravestone.  Betty gave me her brother Gary's name and phone number to see what he knew.  I had a lovely conversation with Gary as we drove across North Dakota.  We didn't solve the question of what appeared to be a new gravestone, but did solve two other family mysteries!
Mystery #1: Who was the McGee that my uncle John met in Minnesota right before he was transferred to Florida?  Well, it was Jerry.  Someone Jerry worked with decided to introduce the two McGees and what a surprise to all of them to find out Jerry and John were cousins (2nd - meaning their grandfathers were brothers).  Before they could meet up again and talk, John was transferred.
Mystery #2:  Why did Aunt Tress visit "strangers" in Minnesota and not her own nephew, John McGee?  Jerry had the answer to this also.  Jerry's parents had gone to Cando for some event, and my grandfather's sister, Theresa Irene McGee Lampman (aka Tress), was there also.  At the family event, Jerry's parents invited Tress to come home with them for a visit.  So Tress made an unplanned visit to Minnesota to spend some more time with her cousin.
Now back to the gravestone.  After looking at the pictures my husband took and comparing them to Rita's images on Find A Grave, I realize that the tombstone is not new but maybe has a new face?  Here is the link to William McGee on Find A Grave - http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=29228651
My new pictures have pushed Rita's pictures off the front page, but if you click on the photo tab, you can see both of our images.  Is it possible to "polish" up granite and bring back that kind of detail?  Or did someone come in a do a more elaborate refinishing? Who is the person who spent the time and money to do this?
Strangely enough, while I was talking to Jerry, he told me that his daughter Rita was in Orlando, Florida, on vacation -- very close to where John McGee and most of his family now live.

Here is the view of the cemetery from the street.  The McGee tombstone is the one on the right with the big bush next to it.  I should have trimmed it down some more.

UPDATE:  Rita looked at the pictures and said the stone looked the same as when she saw it.  Her image was hampered by rain and bad lighting, and we had bright sunlight that made the stone really shine.

Homestead National Monument & Homestead ACT of 1862

In Beatrice, Nebraska, the National Parks Service has a National Monument dedicated to the Homestead Act of 1862.  The Homestead Act was signed by President Abraham Lincoln on May 20, 1862, after 11 states had seceded from the Union. Passing the act before that point had been delayed by fighting over slavery issues.  Homesteaders were required to sign an oath of allegiance to the United States, and if they violated that oath, they lost the homestead.  This prevented homesteaders from aligning themselves with the southern states that had seceded.  Also, the homesteaders had to build a house and farm the land to "prove" the homestead and get title to the property.  "Proving" a homestead took 5 years.
To prevent boundary disputes, the government surveyed all the public land and divided it all up into square blocks called "townships." These townships consisted of 36 "sections" that were 1 square mile each.  These sections were then subdivided down into square "quarter sections" and then again into square 40 acre lots.  Each homesteader was allowed 4 of these 40 acre lots.  Each lot had to have a common border with another lot in the homestead.  So a homesteader could choose a full quarter section and have a square lot or could choose a lot configuration that looked like a "T" or an "L."  My great-great-grandfather, Enoch Parr, picked a lot configuration that resembles a Tetris shape in the Oak Grove Township in Franklin, Nebraska.
Here is what the land looks like today.  Likely, the original homestead building was back near the trees and the creek that ran through the property.

Enoch & Harriet Fish Parr's Homestead

My great-great-grandfather William Michael McGee and great-grandfather John Carney McGee homesteaded in North Dakota near the town of Cando, in Coolin Township.
Here is what William's homestead looks like today.  His homestead was a standard quarter section.  There is nothing left that would indicate where the house was.

William & Isabella Carney McGee's Homestead

John's homestead was also a standard quarter section. Here is what it looks like today. Trees were not a natural part of the landscape in this part of North Dakota, so someone planted them there -- likely around a house that is no longer here.

John Carney & Margaret Callahan McGee's Homestead

My family homesteaded in the late 1800s, but the Homestead Act was still in effect until 1976 in the lower 48 states and 1986 in Alaska.  The Homestead National Monument of America has exhibits from the original homesteader all the way to the last homesteader.  It is worth a trip to see a piece of history that impacted how this country was settled.

Finding your family's homestead land can be quite tricky.  In North Dakota, the streets in the townships are not labeled.  We were fortunate to get help from Gerald Maurseth from Cando's Pioneer Foundation/Museum, who is also a retired Postman.

In Nebraska, we had help from Gary and Jaynette Keim, who are with the Franklin County Historical Museum.  In Nebraska the streets are labeled but wouldn't have been enough for us to find the boundaries of the homesteads.  Other members of the museum helped us find family records that the museum had stored.

http://www.nps.gov/home/index.htm

Why History?

In school, I was never interested in history. Actually, I was rarely engrossed in any type of class that didn't involve figuring things out.  History class was all about events with dates to be memorized - not something to be figured out.
In college, studying engineering, I found myself needing to take a history class.  I picked out one that sounded at least partially engaging- Colonial American History.  I got lucky in that class.  We had one of those temporary visiting teachers from another country.  The country was the United Kingdom, and the teacher told us on the first day of class that he was going to teach the lesson as if he was in England.  And in England, the period of American Colonialism was not "American History"; it was "English History" because, until after the American Revolution, there was no such thing as a country called "The United States of America."  Instead of memorizing dates, he kept us focused on why the people of that time did what they did.  And when you focus on the people and puzzle out why they did what they did, history becomes much more enjoyable.