At 04:22 PM 3/4/99 -0500, Greg Scalf wrote:
About 1797/98 John Sturgill who was a brother of my ggg grandfather,
Francis Sturgill, married Jemima WELLS and in 1812 they moved to present
Wise Co. VA but later crossed the mtn into Letcher Co. KY where Jemima died
in 1856 so what research I did on the Wells family was in an attempt to
identify Jemima. Her death record identifies her parents as Zacharia Wells
and Abagail Osborne.<<
Has anyone seen this death record??!!! If it REALLY says this, then this
could answer our long standing question about who Zachariah's wife was.
That is assuming that the person who gave the information had a clue.
>For some time I thought that the Zachariah Wells of the Fincastle
records
and the Zachariah of the Wilkes Co. NC records were all of the same man and
published this opinion in my "Preliminary History of the Sturgill Family"
in 1960. After finding more records later I changed my mind.
>One thing is certain, such records dated after 1780 could not have
been
of "old " Zacharia.<<
We all agree on this!
>Both local traditions and some public records leave little doubt
that
old Zachariah {I} had a son named Zacharia {II} who married Abagail Osborne
about 1797 . She was probabvly a daughter of Capt. Enoch Osborne who had a
daughter named Abagail born 2//26/1778 but she may have been a niece.<<
We have a lot of the same old speculation here. If he has any facts, we
need to obtain them.
There is a very old local tradition that after Zacharia {II} heard
about
the hanging of his father without giving him a chance to prove his
innocense he swore that he would hang Ben Cleveland. There must be some
truth in this because Cleveland either sold or abandoned the property he
had in NC and moved to SC where he later died<<
I personally would not put a bit of confidence in local "traditions" of
the 20th century pertaining to events of the 18th century. We need facts.
There are many ways such a "tradition" could have come about and one of the
most obvious is a researcher confusing the two families.
>it is equally certain that old Zack did not serve as a scout for
the
Fincastle militia in 1774 so this must have been his son Zack {II} who
disagreed with his father<<
Why?
It is also uncertain which Zack bought the two tracts of 100a each in
Wilkes Co. NC in 1778 but I believe that this was old Zack.<<
Again, why? If this could be proven, we would have a link, but I submit
there is no proof. Only speculation.
Jeremiah Wells who was listed as the fourth child was the father of
Johnathan B. who gave the information for this history and he should have
known who his uncles and aunts were.<<
AND, who his grandfather and grandmother were.
I too found the pension applicatrion filed by a Zacharia Wells from
Sullivan Co. TN and I see no connection between him and the Wells families
of western VA. but no doubt there was an earlier connection in England. <<
Why? I see no reason to assume this. But, then I have seen too many Wells
to fall into that trap.
>Dave Sturgill<<
Someone needs to probe Dave for more information and any REAL documentation
he may have. However, it sounds like he is simply speculating on the
connection between the hung Zachariah and the one our interest centers
around. Yet, he may have confirmation of Abigail Osborn being the wife of
Zachariah if he has a copy of Jemima Sturgill's death certificate and it
does show her mother's name.
Orin R. Wells
Wells Family Research Association
P. O. Box 5427
Kent, Washington 98064-5427
<ORWells(a)bigfoot.com>
http://www.rootsweb.com/~wellsfam/wfrahome.html
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