LILLARD a Family of Colonial Virginia

LILLARD A Family of Colonial Virginia by Jacques Ephraim Stout Lillard. 1415 to 1928 Including authentic Revolutionary service references, early marriage records, wills, deeds, legal documents, original family letters of early American Lillards, etc. WILLIAMS PRINTING COMPANY, RICHMOND, VA. Copyright, 192.8, By Jacques Ephraim Stout Lillard. Ii Dedicated to HONORABLE EPHRAIM WALLACE LILLARD, MY FATHER and to HONORABLE WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN, whose conversation in the Senate Office Building, at Washington, D. C., more than fifteen years ago, inspired the undertaking of this genealogy. THE AUTHOR. TABLE OF CONTENTS ~~~ h~ I GLEANINGS FROM EUROPEAN HISTORY________________ 13 Il BEGINNI?,G OF THE AMERICAN BRANCH OF LU.LARDS___ 26 III COLONIAL VIRGINIA LILLARDS_________________________ 31 IV JAMES Lu.LARD----------------------------------- 40 V THE BRYA.""<-LILLARD CoNNE<.'TIONs ___________________ 106 VI WILLIAM LILLARD----------------------------------- 149 VII NANCY (LILLARD) GARRETT ___________ --- _ ---------- 166 VIII MosEs LILLAim OJ" NoRTH CAROLINA ___________________ 167 IX&X THE BRADLEY-LILLARD CONNECTIONS ________________ 172 XI CAPT. JOI-IN LILLARD OF KENTUCKY __________________ 181 XII CAPT. BENJAMIN LILLARD OF VIRGINIA-.. - 298 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Ephraim Lillard, II _________ ----------------····-------Frontispiece Facing Page General Christopher Lillard 16 Honorable Ephraim Wallace Lillard ____________________ 32 Rose Terrace -------------··-------------------------- 48 Genealogical Chart of the First Four Generations of Lillards in America ------------------------------··-------- 64 The Will of Thomas Lillard, I -------------------------- 112 Jacques Ephraim Stout Lillard ------------------------- 144 Gladys Kidd Lillard and Ephraim Wallace Lillard, IL____ 160 Signatures of Capt. John Lillard and His Sons___________ 192 ·Early Kentucky Land Grant to Christopher Lillard________ 208 Margaret (Prather) Lillard ------------------------------ 256 Laura James (Stout) Lillard and Jane (Crawford) Lillard_ 272 A Commission of Capt. Benjamin Lillard________________ 304 PREFATORY NOTE Among the many who have assisted in the preparation of this Gene alogy especial acknowledgment is made to Honorable Jasper Worth Lillard, of Decatur, Tenn., and to Mrs. Ada Lillard Farmer, of Frank fort, Ky., ·whose invaluable aidance the author has found indispensable; whose untiring efforts, patient researches and generous suggestions have reinforced the authenticity of this record. The author also gratefully remembers the kind co-operation of Mrs. Thomas Stinson Allen, of Lincoln, Nebraska, (sister of Honorable William Jennings Bryan); Mrs. John S. Barbour, of Fairfax, Virginia, (daughter of Judge Daniel A. Grimsley); and Mrs. Frances Carter Smith, of Yonkers, New York, (daughter of Senator French Pendleton Carter, of Virginia). Nor does the writer forget his indebtedness to David Irvine Lillard, of Chicago, Ill., for per mission to use the information contained in his book, "The Lillards," which was published in 1906; to Attorney John Turner Lillard, of Bloom ington, Ill., for the same privilege concerning his book, "Lillard"; to Mrs. Thomas Glover Ivie, of Murfreesboro, Tenn., and to others too numerous to name here. J. E. s. L. The Chalan, Seward Square, Washington, D. C. April 19, 1928. INTRODUCTION This is not a Social Register! Every tree, even family ones, must have roots as well as branches. There are some who descend while others scale the rugged wind-swept heights of success. All are included: the high, the low, the rich, the poor, the educated and the less fortunate. Who can say that the roots are not more vital than the high flung blossoming branches? Ancestry of gentle breeding is the prime inheritance. Gentility is the most stable foundation on which a man can build his future. The back ground of an honorable name enriches the tapestry of life no matter how simple the pattern. More and more Americans are asking "Who is he?" instead of "What has he done?" Our nation has fought and won its place in the sun. The mid-Victorian fashion of tracing pedigrees back to some noble or lady, regardless of whether a bastard son, a courtesan or noble's mistress, is quite past. We are Americans. Our country is old enough to have its own ancestry, its own gentry, and no greater honor can be bequeathed one than to be descended from those courageous men and women who haz arded everything in the building of our nation. "The Lillards were among the pioneers of Virginia in its early his tory and when the struggle for independence came, a number of them rendered gallant services in the Colonial Army." (From "The Lillards," by David Irvine Lillard). The real object of this book therefore, is not an effort to trace our lineage back to Adam, through William the Conqueror, but is an earnest endeavor to preserve for the future generations all American Lillard data. What has been located regarding our European antecedents while search ing for the American records, is given in a separate chapter. Fifteen years of tedious searching has gradually piled up the in formation for this work. Hour after hour, day after day, since the Spring of 19 lJ, hunting through thousands of volumes in the Library of Con gress and elsewhere; writing thousands of letters and questionnaires to members of the family; searching diligently through the County Clerks' records in Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee; miles into the country to visit old family "burying grounds" and cemeteries for tombstone inscrip tions, or to locate old family Bible records; all necessary to authenticate the names and dates. Fifteen years! a thankless task. Yet our children's children will be grateful. I have sincerely tried to state only that which can be proved by authentic Court, military or State records, family Bibles, official histories, tombstcnes and family letters or papers. Otherwise I have stated that it is traditional or legendary. I have avoided hearsay to keep out any mis statements. If errors have crept in they were unavoidable. The record is incomplete as many names and dates are missing. This is not due to neglect in trying to locate the data concerning them, but because the mem bers of that branch were not traceable, or else were unwilling to reply to my communications. I shall be glad to hear from all of these, so if at a later date I should issue a revised edition, I may then include them. That my work may be of service to the American Lillards and their descendants, I sincerely pray! JACQUES E. STOUT LILLARD, Library of Congress, Washington, D. C. April 21, 1928. The Lillard Genealogy CHAPTER I GLEANINGS FROM EUROPEAN HISTORY "Consider history with the beginings of its stretching dimly into the remote time, emerging darkly out of the mysterious eternity. The true epic poem and universal divine Scripture."-Carlyle. Normandy, one of the northern provinces of ancient France, whose shores are bathed by the chill waters of the English Channel, was in the past an ever changing boundary between France and England. One of the richest and most fertile parts of France, it was for centuries the battle field of warring nobles. On the decline of the Roman Empire it was seized by the Franks, and afterwards in the tenth century, wrested from them by the Normans, from whom it received its name. Charles the Simple gave his sanction to the conquest made by the Normans, and Rollo, their chief, received the title of the Duke of Normandy. William the Bastard, sixth in succession from Rollo, having become king of England in 1066, Normandy became annexed thereto. On the death of William it was separated from England and ruled by his son Robert, and was afterwards ruled by the kings of England until Philip Augustus wrested it from John and united it to France in 1203. In the year 1415, when our interest begins, Harfleur, a town of north ern Normandy, on the banks of tlie Lezarde River near its entrance into the Seine, six miles east of Le Havre, was the chief. port at the mouth of the Seine. While the Burgundians and Armagnacs were fighting in France, King Henry V. of England judged the moment ripe for intervention in the struggle. He had need to secure by a foreign war the throne which his father had usurped. Remembering the great booty of a former century, war with France was always popular in England. When Henry proposed a serious ex pedition, he easily obtained 6,000 men-at-arms and 24,000 archers, among whom, according to family traditions, was our ancestor, Thomas Lollard. This army landed on the coast of France, near Harfleur, on August 14, 1415. After a heroic defense which lasted a month, Harfleur, left without help, was forced to surrender. But Henry V. had lost 15,000 men, almost half his army. Too weak to attempt anything, he resolved 14 LILLARD GENEALOGY to reach Calais by a march across country, and to hurl a fresh and in solent defiance at French chivalry. The English left Harfleur on October 8, 1415. They crossed the district of Caux not without some opposition, though they were careful only to demand wine and food from the towns in order not to rouse the populace against them. They reached Abbeville on the 13th, hoping to cross the Somme, but found the fort of Blanchetaque so well guarded that they had to advance up the river as far as Amiens. Near Nesle a country man showed them a ford across a marsh, a difficult and dangerous passage. They would have been lost if they had been attacked while making this crossing, but the French army was far in their rear, while the nobles were not anxious for a fight in a marsh. They desired a pitched battle in open country, and the princes demanded from Henry that he should name the place and day. The English king replied shortly that there was no need to name either a day or a place, as they could meet him any day in the open field.

Load more