RIDDLE RESEARCH TRIP TO TN, VA & NC

 

SEP. 6-15, 1997 Mary E.V. Hill Saturday, September 6, 1997 Wow, dear Journal, here I sit in Rogersville, Hawkins Co., TN in the Hales Spring Inn, on a big old fashioned bed, writing in my Journal! I never dreamed that this day would come! It has been several weeks of unbelievable pressure to get ready to come here - to write a paper to present to Mrs. Joan Baity of Wilkesboro, Wilkes Co., NC on this next Monday, and prepare 5 notebooks of documentation to give to Jim Riddle from Texas, Rebecca Wennermark from Indiana, Jack and Betty Goins from Rogersville, TN, Chaunce and Bertha Riddle from Utah, and one for me. It all got accomplished, as well as going to work every day, and here I am! The flight was lovely today, and it is always so very interesting to see the lay of the land across this great nation! And Tennessee is just beautiful, with rolling mountains and thick woods, and many rivers. It was a very tender moment for me, as we came into the Knoxville airport, to look to the east and see the mountain range that was so much a part of William Riddle and the American Revolution here in this area, and where the seven surviving children lived. I can not say in words how grateful I am to be here! Jack and Betty, Chaunce and Bertha, Jim and Rebecca were all at the Knoxville airport to greet me, and we hugged and were thrilled that our great adventure has actually begun! Jim had driven from Dallas, Chaunce and Bertha from Utah, and Rebecca had flown in from Indiana just a few minutes before my flight arrived. Jack and Betty live in Rogersville, and are our guides and mainstays of support for our great trip. Jack had rented a van which will hold all 7 of us, and Jim insists he is going to pay for it. We will be covering more than 1,600 miles in the next eight days! We went to dinner, visited and got acquainted, and checked on plans for the rest of the week. Jim, Chaunce and Bertha and I came to the Hales Spring Inn, here in Rogersville, and Rebecca went to Jack and Betty's home to spend the night. Sunday, September 7, 1997 Dear Journal, today has been just a precious day! Chaunce, Bertha and I went to church, and it was a perfect beginning to a perfect day. After Church we changed to pants and Jack and Betty had prepared a lovely dinner at their home, with all the trimmings. It was just delicious, in true Southern style. Their home is lovely and large with a beautiful balcony which looks out over the Holston River. Everyone was very congenial, and all in all, it was wonderful. About 3 pm we headed out for Kyles Ford, Fisher Valley and the Clinch River were Jim's, Jack's, Chaunce's and Rebecca's ancestors lived. What an experience! This area is made up of mountains and deep hollers, with small streams running, and beautiful woods. The farmable ground was small, down in the bottom of the hollers and we commented this evening that we could see why these people have all left the area and gone west. It is absolutely beautiful, but how do you make a living there? There is practically no one left living in these hills and hollers, and it was quite an experience to have Jack take us from place to place I have seen on a map and find it pristine and beautiful, without folks there. Much of the ground has been bought up and is used for private hunting. We went to the home of Zachariah Minor, who had good fields and a tobacco barn and a home up above the Clinch that has been occupied since the very early 1800's. Grandma Herd - of the family that now owns the property - was sitting on the front porch in a rocking chair, and grandpaw and their son on the back porch. We walked up through the barn, with tobacco hanging in it, and up to the family grave yard on the hill. There must have been 30 grave stones, and it was very well kept. It was lovely! Herd's and Minor's are buried there. We took lots of pictures, and really enjoyed ourselves! Then we went up the road to where there is a gate, and Jack had obtained the key to the gate. We went in, and went up to where Henry Fisher (1759-1839) and his wife Happy Riddle Fisher (1777-1878), daughter of William and Happy Riddle, are buried. There are many other graves there too - James Fisher I think, and many others. We took many pictures, and wandered around quite awhile. It is very rustic, up in the woods. One would never know the graveyard was there if Jack had not known about it and arranged to take us. It was precious to be there. I am really overwhelmed - I can not really believe I was there today, finally, after all the dreaming and effort and hopes and emails to Jack. Bless Jack's heart - he is a precious gift to the rest of us! There is no way we could have done this without him. No way. We went up one side of the Clinch, and down the other, and took many pictures and talked a lot, and had a lovely time. We saw Indicut Gap, and Rebecca walked over the hanging bridge there which crosses the north fork of the Clinch. Andrew England and his wife Catherine Fisher had a mill there. I hated to leave - it was so very peaceful! We returned to Jack's and Betty's home and ate a supper of Betty's delicious leftovers and poured over maps and talked and had a fine time all in all. Tomorrow we drive to Ashe and Watauga counties, North Carolina, and see where William Riddle had his Wolf's den hideout during the Rev. War, and was captured. We will go to Wilkesboro and see where he was hung, and give my paper to Mrs. Joan Baity. I hope it all goes well. I truly do! Monday, September 8, 1997 Dear Journal, today was another truly lovely day! We are all getting along together famously, and having a wonderful experience! We set out at 8 am from our hotel - Jack and Betty picked us up - and we drove to Riddle's Knob, Elk's Creek, and the South Fork of the New River by the village of Todd, where William Riddle took Col. Benjamin Cleveland - up the South Fork of the New River and then up Elk Creek to Riddle's Knob and Wolf's Den, their hideout. Richard Riddle from Winston-Salem met us at Todd, and we were all so pleased that he could join us! We saw the spring with the sign on it, "Rittle's Spring," (it's misspelled now, but it was our Riddle's Knob for sure 200 years ago), and Meat Camp Creek, and Riddle's Creek, and went into the old Todd store, and took many pictures and talked and read documentation and had a wonderful time together! Then we headed for Wilkesboro, and after lunch which Dick Riddle bought for us, we went to the Court House and old jail and saw Col. Benjamin Cleveland's statue, and met with Mrs. Joan Baity and presented her with my paper on William Riddle. There were probably 20 or more people there in the old jail, where we met, and the press too, and it was a very good visit and interview with the reporter. We all went out and had our picture taken by Tory Oak 3rd, on the site where the original Tory Oak stood until it was destroyed in a storm a few years ago. Tory Oak Jr. is a large oak a few feet away, by the old Court house. I was able to tell the reporter more about William Riddle and his children, and it was a good experience, although Joan Baity loves the Clevelands and the reporter was guarded, though very interested. Such is life. Then we saw old Robert Cleveland's home, which they have brought from "the west end of the county" and reconstructed there in the center of the town. It was a very interesting old two story home. Then I went into the Court House with Jim and Rebecca, and for the first time in my life actually looked up deeds which dated all the way back to 1788 - Elizabeth Roberts! It was amazing! I choked up and was teary eyed to see these actual deeds right there in the court house! I've always searched from microfilms, rather than in the actual court house records, and it was truly a thrill to have my first hands-on experience with the actual old records! We had supper and then drove back to Todd and took more pictures, especially of Riddle's Knob. We were home by 8:30 pm, worn out but full of a wonderful day! Jack is so knowledgeable, and there is such a good feeling by all! Tuesday, September 9, 1997 The things we saw today were wonderful, and the experiences were most insightful! We drove up along the Clinch River to Russell Co., VA where three of the Riddle children married - Joseph Riddle to Rhoda Monk, Happy Riddle to Henry Fisher, and Isaac Riddle to Anna Grizzle. We saw the old original court house, which is now being developed into an old village area. It was most interesting! Then we drove to Cleveland, and went looking for a Grizzle Cemetery. That was an experience! They were very hard to find. It was raining, and the first one we tried to find was across a fenced field and quite a ways from the road. We gave up because of the rain. We had a U.S. Geo Survey map, made in the 1930's, which showed us the existence of two Grizzle cemeteries. We also had a DeLorme atlas of the area. But the two maps did not seem to jive. Finally Chaunc took over the map guidance, and he was able to figure out the differences, and went to the right place to find the second cemetery. Lesson: the U.S. Geo Survey maps are great to identify old cemeteries, schools and churches, but were often made 60 years ago and things have changed! There was a dam, for instance, up Dump Creek holler, that was not mentioned on the U.S. Geo Survey map and that really threw us off. DeLorme did mention it, however. The cemetery was on top of a high hill, and really was a fascinating place! Elam Grizzle and his wife Nancy were buried there, together with several others. Many tombstones! It was really quite an experience and Chaunce was thrilled to find it - like I felt about the Court House at Wilkesboro yesterday! He was like a little boy at Christmas. He would not give up, when others were saying, "Let's forget it." He really honed in on the right place. I had brought my Russell Co., VA file, and in it had the FHLC printout for the Sutherland Collection, with the note which I'd made when I looked at the Collection in Salt Lake City, that there were cemetery records for Elam Grizzle and his wife, Nancy, in the Collection, and this was the exact graveyard we found! There were more recent burials there - from the 1950's, which are not in the Sutherland Collection. It was in a very mountainous region, with a huge coal mining and power plant operation right in the area. It was of course not like that when the Grizzle's lived there, but that is what is in the area today. This experience settled for us the spelling of the name "Grizzle." John Riddle had written "Grizzel" in the margin of his copy of the Ridlon book, and so Chaunce and Bertha had kept that spelling. The tombstones showed them that it was "Grizzle" instead. Also, we have always pronounced it "Gri-zell" (accent on the second syllable) but all the locals here call the name "Griz-il" (accent on the first syllable) which was totally new to us, but which Chaunce and Bertha said they accepted and would use. It was neat! We had lunch in a tiny cafe in Cleveland - hamburgers for all, and drove on to Christiansburg, Montgomery Co., VA. Wednesday, September 10, 1997 Dear Journal, today was a truly lovely day. Everyone is being so very co-operative and we are seeing so many great things! We went to the Court House of Montgomery County, VA this morning after breakfast, and it was truly a wonderful experience! These were 7 intelligent and motivated people, and we went through drawer after drawer of files, or packets, of information on tiny slips of paper from the 1770's and 1780's. In four hours we found a gold mine of information: 1) We found two examples of William Riddle's actual mark (R) he made on court papers. He could not write, or at least did not write his signature. Instead, he made a rather large, somewhat long-tailed capitol "R" and they were done the same way on both documents. Very good to have! 2) We found two papers wherein he had law suits with others over money owed him. 3) We have never found an actual deed on his property, and did not in this courthouse. 4) We found in an index to the Miscellaneous Records A-2: Augusta Co., VA 1750-1770; Fincastle Co., VA 1750-1770; Montgomery County, VA 1770-1798. Packet 16 mentions William Riddle defendant against Nathaniel Wilson in 1769. Sad to say, this packet was missing. I hope it can be found in the Archives in Richmond. I think DeeAnn Larsen told me all these packets have been filmed by the Archives at Richmond. We shall see. That is by far the earliest we have a date for William Riddle in Montgomery County. That is an awesome find. 5) Fascinating documents of a fine against William Riddle for hiding tax he owed, and heavy fines of 500 L. for "trespassing on the case" along with other individuals - Thomas Rogers Jr. the same, William Rogers, Dozwell Rogers and George Reese. Thomas Rogers and his wife Jane, etc.. These are fascinating records!!! "Trespassing on the case," according to Black's Law Dictionary means being guilty of a non-violent crime. 6) We found in the Court Minute Books the actual records of William Riddle being accused of "inimical acts" - tory activities, and those who were accused with him. 7) We found the record of two of his children being bound out in 1782 after his death. 8) We found the court record of his wife "Hoppe" suing to get her cow back again (1782) which was illegally taken from her in 1780 by Capt. Wm. Love. It will really be fun to pour over these records and flush out the story of William Riddle! This afternoon we drove to the Chiswell Lead Mines and the location where old Fort Chiswell was. It was raining, and beautiful and green, and we read history in the car as we drove. We stopped in Chatham County at the old Court House which is now a historical society, and then drove down the Blue Ridge to Mt. Airy, Surry Co., NC. It is really sobering, for some reason, to be here. I have felt a strong drawing to these Roberts. This evening I phoned Agnes Wells, here in Mt. Airy, who was recommended to me by David Hill who attended my genealogy lecture at BYU. She was wonderful, telling me all about how to go to the Court House at Dobson and also the Surry County Genealogical Society. So, we will try that tomorrow morning. I hope we find something! She told me that Lovell or Loven's Creek (the middle fork of the Arrarat or Tarrarat River) was once called Bledsoe Creek, and Susanna Bledsoe is mentioned as a widow in the original deed of James Roberts getting this land on the middle fork of the Tarrarat. This is good information! Also she told me there was an old Primitive Baptist Church there called Old Holler P.B.C. Lots of good information! Thursday, September 11, 1997 Dear Journal, what a precious day this has been! This morning after a Continental breakfast at the motel, we drove from Mt. Airy, Surry Co., NC to the county seat - a drive of only about 20 miles or so. We went to the Surry County Court House, and although we did not find lots of information on James Roberts we did find some deeds which I will analyze later and enter into PAF. Most of the records we need have been transferred to Raleigh. We were able to purchase the county historical map Mrs. Wells told me was there, and it had excellent information on it. It mentioned James Roberts, his tory activities, and also gave a list of about 20 other men who lost their land in Surry County for tory activities. Then we drove to the Surry Community College and went to the library, where the Surry County Genealogical Society has their holdings. It was also neat! I was especially grateful that the librarian there took a copy of my paper on William Riddle and is going to bind it as a family history to have there in the Library for patrons. I am going to send her copies of Draper Manuscript documents about Col. James Roberts, and hopefully we will find out more about him this way. I was so pleased that this happened! We then drove to Pilot Mountain in Stokes Co., and enjoyed the beautiful view from the top and took lots of pictures and just had fun together. This mountain was very well known in the early days as a landmark, to the Indians, the Long Hunters and early settlers. Then we drove to the Flatt River in Persons County, and took pictures and talked about Moses Riddle and the 1755 tax list and the people who are on it showing up later in Pittsylvania Co., VA, in Henry Co., VA and in Grayson Co., VA with William Riddle. While we were driving, Jim and I began going over pages I had included in our notebooks concerning Thomas Rogers and James Roberts and the mill etc. in Stokes Co. on the Dan River and Peters Creek and then others joined in. I think we all understood a lot more clearly this complex, difficult research project! I think that probably this Thomas Rogers and James Roberts are not ours, but we need more research here. We went out to dinner, and had a lovely time in an especially nice restaurant. All were very warm and supportive as we talked about how to move this project further along. This has been an absolutely precious trip! Friday, September 12, 1997 Dear Journal, I am in a bedroom at Jack and Betty Goin's home, where I will stay the last three nights of the trip. They have the loveliest home! Betty does all kinds of delightful and attractive touches that make a house into a home, and it is lovely. They are both such gracious people - I am amazed at what a blessing it is to have gotten to know them! We left South Boston this morning, after a very nice motel and a lovely dinner last night, and drove through Halifax, Pittsylvania, Henry and Patrick counties and then up and over the Blue Ridge again. It was wonderful to see the lay of the land. We visited the old homestead of R.J. Reynolds, the great tobacco magnet. It was lovely, but not presumptions at all. The home was quite small compared to Chaunce's home and other southern homes I've seen. I am interested to see that these counties are not that large. We found streams - the Sandy River on the Dan and followed it up to the top where it goes from Pittsylvania Co. into Henry Co. briefly. We saw a number of the other streams mentioned in the land entry books of 1737-1770 and 1770-1800, such as Koger and Smith and South Mayo and Mayo etc. It was good to go over these things in the car with everyone. The drive home was beautiful, and very pleasant. We finished up the driving part of the trip today, and Chaunce and Bertha left for their drive up to Normal, Illinois by 4 pm, which was very good for them! They have to be there this next Sunday. I walked down in front of Jack's home to the Holston River and sat on the bank for almost an hour in the late afternoon sun. I thought about all we've seen, and the history which so saturates the Holston River and this whole area. We have truly had a wonderful experience walking in the footsteps of our ancestors these past six days, and I felt a deep sense of gratitude for their sacrifices, challenges, and courage that allowed us to be here today. I have a new appreciation for both patriots and Tories in the Am. Rev. - hard to put into words, but deeply felt. Each person saw certain sides of the issues, and many gave their lives for what they believed. I have a much broader perspective than I did when studying history in school! It was not "all good patriots" and "all bad Tories" - that's for sure!!! This evening Betty, Jack, Rebecca and I talked about our involvement in Riddle genealogy. We talked about where we've been in our research, and were we need to go from here. Saturday, September 13, 1997 Dear Journal, Well, today was a very pleasant, relaxed day. Jim, Jack, Betty, Rebecca and I visited and had a leisurely breakfast this morning, and looked over more genealogy until noon. We had a sandwich here, and then drove to Jack's mother's (Ona Arrington Goins) home up on Cave Ridge. It was wonderful! What a beautiful place! This is where Jack grew up, and it is one small farm after another, way up on the top of a ridge. There were grandchildren who came on a 4 wheeler, and 8 beagle dogs, and the smoke house made from the old original log house, and the old privy from the 1940's, and cows drinking out of a natural pond, and Jack's mother out on the swing on the front porch, and his cousin mowing the grass, and a barn, and on and on. It was wonderful! We had the most pleasant time there, taking pictures and visiting. It was really very special! We drove to Kyle's Ford, the Clinch River where the old Blackwater Church sat along the side of the river, and then we drove to Newman's Ridge - the mountain top where Mahalia Mullins had a home, and made and sold corn liquor. She is regarded as one of the best known of the Melungeon people. That was quite an experience! We drove way up on the ridge, for a long way pasting newer homes, and then past older places. Finally we got past civilization and went on further through beautiful woods. Finally we took a very undeveloped dirt road off to the left for as far as the van could go. Then we had to get out and walk. We walked up and down this old road for at least half an hour, through beautiful woods, until we reached a wonderful old two story log home with a front porch and two curved Mediterranean windows in front. There were a couple of out-buildings too. The story is that they made corn liquor there, and sold it. When the feds came to take Mahalia to jail, she was so heavy - she apparently had elephantitus - weighing something like 500 lbs., it is said that the sheriff who served the warrant said, "She is findable, but not fetchable." They say she was not able to leave her home for the last 7 years of her life - she could not get out the door! Wow - what hardship that suggests! When she died they had to remove a portion of the wall to remove her body, and they then built a fireplace there so they say, although it is just a big hole now and there is a fireplace at the other end of the building. However, these homes often had a fireplace at both ends and maybe the stones have been hauled off. The last time the home was lived in was in the 1950's. It is such a colorful place! It was wonderful of Jack and Betty to take us there. The rounded windows were especially interesting! The builder had carefully chipped away the old log, into a curved window. Then a strip of wood was carefully notched at 1/2 inch intervals and curved to form a frame to the windows. There were two such windows - one with the curved frame intact, and the other without the curved frame so you could see the hand-chipping with the ax more clearly. These are of a Mediterranean style, and most interesting! It is said that these curved windows are evidence of the Mediterranean heritage of the Melungeon people. Someone sure cared a lot to go to the effort to make those windows in a log home! They got their water, so it is said, by lowering a bucket down over the side of a cliff to a spring far below. Jack showed us the place, and it sure did make me appreciate the comforts of running water! We drove back to Jack and Betty's in Rogersville, and had a lovely supper. Afterwards Jack, Jim and I poured over the Land Entry book for Pittsylvania, Patrick, Halifax, Henry and Franklin counties from 1737-1770 and made a list of every Roberts in the book. It was a good thing to do, and Jim is going to analyze it for us. It will be interesting to see what we can figure out from it. It seems there were 4 James Roberts in the county at this time, and we need to identify which one was ours. Sunday, September 14, 1997 Dear Journal, We left at 8 am for the Smokey Mountains and the Cherokee reservation. We drove through the Smokey Mountains, and they were misty and beautiful. Then we went through the demonstration village which is on the Cherokee reservation and saw how the old Cherokee people lived. It was well done and very interesting. We drove back, and stopped for dinner in Gatlinburg, TN. As per the Riddle genealogy work we need to do, today Jack and I talked and we figured out that we think possibly there were brothers Cornelius Roberts, James Roberts, and William Roberts and sister Happy Roberts. That is pretty much what I have felt for a couple of years - the James and Happy part at least, but Jack fleshed out the rest with Cornelius and William added. He suspects the father is Col. James Roberts, at this point, which is what I also believe. They think Col. James Roberts is of the same generation as Moses Riddle, and that William Ingram who is on the 1767 tax list in Pittsylvania Co. living with two Madding men was the orphan William Ingraham as per his Rev. War Pension application. Therefore he would have had to have been born in 1751, instead of the 1758 he said in his pension file, to appear on that tax list as at least 16 years old. He would also not have been married, since he was in the household of the Maddings. Interesting. If we find new evidence to refute what we are now thinking I will surely consider that. But for now, I feel that Jim and Jack saw this evening what I have been seeing, and they also see the evidence behind these conclusions. They stated it, and saw it, and agreed that the documents - as good as we have them - point in this direction. I do not know that we can do better than that, unless we go into the archives at Raleigh and Richmond and find more. Maybe someday some of us can do that. But for now I have to say that this has been an unbelievably successful trip, with wonderful conclusions, and wonderful results - in several very significant directions. The newspaper clippings from Mrs. Joan Baity arrived yesterday in the mail, and the reporter quoted from my article on William Riddle. I am glad to have been able to share some of what we have found with others. This trip has been a real success in every way.