The North Fork Burnetts (Burnet) Who Were a Remarkable American Family Characterized As Strong fighters and Adventuresome Settlers
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UNCATEGORIZED Date: August 19, 2015Author: teeeagle 7 Comments an ancestral blog by Terrell Ledbetter . Revised January 17, 2019 If you see this blog copied onto another ancestral site, the person that did the copy/paste did so without permission and is in no way associated with this historical account. The Black Mountain range consisting of twenty 6000 feet mountains forming a “J”, stand majestically over a mostly wilderness land that is (for most purposes) preserved from settlement, hunting and rampant logging because it serves as the watershed for the City of Asheville, North Carolina. You have seen the valley with the large lake supplied by steep mountain streams in movies. One movies in particular showcases the valley— “The Last of the Mohicans.” There is a family story to this land which falls below Black Mountain Gap and Potato Knob on the Blue Ridge Parkway near Clingman’s Dome and Mt. Mitchell. The prominent family in this picture is the Burnett family of the North Fork of the Swannanoa River. Frederick McCloud Burnett (March 24, 1882‐February 4, 1961) published “This Was My Valley” in 1960, a year before his death. Fred M. Burnett was the great‐grandson of Frederick Thomas Burnett Sr. and the son of Marcus Lafayette (Fate) Burnett. He was former district supervisor of the Interstate Commerce Commission from which he retired in 1949 to live in Ridgecrest. The stories he portrayed had occurred as long as three generations before or about a hundred and sixty years. It is easy to understand why there would be confusion. Here in 2019, we have the benefit of census records, marriage and death certificates, land transaction records, copies of personal letters, grave markers, and many collaborating stories of past times. Based upon public and personal records, the following is my depiction of the North Fork Burnetts (Burnet) who were a remarkable American family characterized as strong fighters and adventuresome settlers. The stories told by Fred. M. Burnett saved tales we would otherwise never hear, and we are all grateful to him for saving our history. In this blog, I attempt to unwound the confusion over dates and names that have been erroneously used over settlement of the North Fork upper valley. The fact that the opening chapters of the book stated that the Burnett family settled in North Fork is 1762 magnifies the many inaccuracies in the book. Land records and census records clearly show the Burnett family was in Morgan, Rutherford County in 1800. Before beginning the story, it is appropriate to build background on general settlement in the Swannanoa Valley. In 1784, Col. Samuel Davidson settled on Christian Creek, a tributary of the Swannanoa River. He was killed by Cherokees and his wife retreated to the safety of Old Fort, some sixteen miles to the east. Samuel’s twin brother, Maj. William Davidson, along with volunteers such as Capt. William Moore and Col. Daniel Smith, tracked to Cherokee raiders down and killed them near present day Biltmore Forest. In 1785, these men moved into the Swannanoa Valley and were granted land to settle. Maj. Davidson settled at Bee Tree. The significance of William Davidson to the Burnett family will be discussed further below. Subseqently, Buncombe County was formed in 1792. Soon the State of North Carolina issued Land Grants to those that would file on unsettled land. Here men began to file and claim parcels of land along the branches of the upper Swannanoa headwaters called Right Fork of the Swannanoa and the Left Fork of the Swannanoa. Early claimants of land on the North Fork of the Swannanoa and the Laurel Branch were David Taylor and Hamilton Kyle (1804). Four years later, some of this land was sold to our Burnett ancestor. The story begins with Philip Burnet (born in Scotland in 1688) relocated to New Castle, Delaware in 1712 with his son Frederick Thomas Burnet (born 1708). Son Thomas, as he was called, relocated once again years later to Brunswick County, Virginia. Subsequently he had three sons born in Brunswick County: Jesse Burnet was born in 1733, Thomas in 1735 and Joseph in 1743. These brothers lived in the Morgan District of Rutherford County, North Carolina at the outbreak of the Revolutionary War. The Burnet family had taken up land on the Second Broad River north of Catheys Creek near present day Bostic. When the Revolutionary War broke out local gossip was that the Burnet brothers were sympathizers to the British King or Tories (Loyalists). What appears to be more truthful is that the British presence in the area pressured locals to join the British Militia or else face losing property or facing hanging. The oldest brother, Jesse, forty‐seven at the time, tried to remain independent. Brothers Thomas and Joseph were possibly on opposite sides of the war. It has been written in various accounts that Joseph and Thomas died the same day, October 7, 1780. It is believed that Thomas had been taken by Tories (Colonists loyal to the British King), tied to a tree and shot. This could have actually been the opposite, shot by Patriots. The locals had suspicions as to who were Loyalists or Patriots. During the battle the militia on both sides looked and dressed the same, except the Loyalists stuck a pine needle in their hats while the Patriots stuck a paper in their hats. A grandson applied for Thomas to be a Son of the American Revolution, so the offspring thought Thomas to be a Patriot. Joseph, thirty‐seven, reported to Captain Hezekial Williams of Steve’s Creek Regiment of Loyalist Militia (British). Loyalist reported to British Major Patrick Ferguson of the 71st Foot. Two hundred‐ninety of the Loyalists were killed that day. The Patriot Militia with men such as John Sevier, Joseph McDowell and Isaac Shelby lost twenty‐nine killed that day. Some reports from Gilbert Town, Rutherford County in 1780 indicated that Jesse was a Tory at the time of the battle. Reports show that Joseph was killed in battled fighting for the British. Of a puzzling nature, Joseph Burnett is listed in the 1790 Rutherford County census and is shown as living near Jesse Burnett. I believe this Joseph to be a son of Jesse. There also seems to be a female and a young male living with Jesse in 1790 that were not his children. This could possible be the family of slain brother Joseph. Thomas Burnett’s wife remarried a Gasperson shortly after Thomas’ death, therefore Jesse would not have to be housing that family. Margaret Else (estimated birth of 1740) was rumored to be he first wife of Thomas Burnet and was reputed to have ridden a white horse to the battlefield on that October day in 1780. She was in search of relatives and loved ones. A Dutch woman, she later married a Warren. In “This Was My Valley,” Fred. M. Burnett wrote: “She must have been an intrepid woman, with the courage and resourcefulness required to live in the wilderness, for Granny Else left for those to come after her a legend that she rode a white stallion alone to Kings Mountain seeking and finding her men who had joined other riflemen in the Revolutionary engagement. She did not know a battle had been fought until she met the hardy patriots returning from it. She was so sure she would find them alive, she brought food and clothing with her. She found them near Lincolnton on their way home.” Obviously the original Granny Else was Margaret Else, not Peggy Null (see next paragraph) because of the ages of the two women on that October 7, 1780 date. To add to this confusion, both women were named Margaret Peggy (Margaret Peggy Else and Margaret Peggy Null). I think she was married to some member of the Burnet’s, possibly an older generation than Thomas , if not to Thomas born in 1735. She was said to have crossed the Atlantic as a young woman with her family on the same vessel as the elder Thomas Burnet (father of the Thomas Burnet brother of Jesse and Joseph). Captain Philip Null was one of the Colonial Revolutionary War heroes, having fought most of the major wars in the conflict. He himself had his throat cut earlier in the war in North Carolina and was found and nursed to health by his wife Anna Marie Margaret Bushong (her parents had migrated from Germany two generations before). Philip and Margaret had a first child, a daughter named Margaret Peggy Null born on August 22, 1780. She was about seven weeks old when the Battle of Kings Mountain was fought. Her father was the second generation in America from a French Hugenot family which had moved from the Alsace/Lorraine area of Germany. The Nulls had settled along the South Fork of the Catawba, west of present day Lincolnton, North Carolina. Philip’s land was directly west of where the battle of Ramsaur’s Mill was fought. The Null farm was about thirty miles east of the Burnet farm. After the death of his two brothers, Jesse Burnet joined the Colonial cause, fighting battles including Guilford Court House in 1783. Thomas had remarried a few years before his death at Kings Mountain to Elizabeth Littleberry. They had two sons; Littleberry Burnett and Swan Pritchett Burnett The fate of Margaret Else is unknown other than her possible remarriage. The son of Swan Pritchett Burnett was Joseph Jefferson Burnett who wrote a lengthy letter to nephew Dr. Swan Moses Burnett on September 29, 1886 detailing some of the Burnett heritage.