Back to the David Pryor who appears on Revolutionary War rosters 1778/1779 […read more]. The war ended in 1783 which is the same year David Pryor was recorded on a State Enumeration in Amherst County, VA. I suspect this is the same David Pryor because of a familiar name: Richard Tankersley.
Richard Tankersley was on the 1783 state enumeration in Amherst County, as was David Pryor (just a line below Nicholas Pryor). When William Pryor of Amherst County made his application for a Revolutionary War pension he stated that he and Richard Tankersley were drafted into service in 1781 [see pension application].
Because ages are sketchy on the early census I have to say there’s “a” Richard Tankersley on the 1810 Census in Amherst County, VA — on the same page with “a” William Pryor Jr. and David Pryor. David Pryor of Buckingham County is reported to have died September 1804– I’ve tried to get his will, but am told the court house burned, so still working on that. If he did die in 1804, then the David Pryor on the 1810 Census isn’t him. So If the David in 1804 wasn’t David of Buckingham, then was David in 1783 that David? Getting a headache? Well, so am I!
There’s that Sons of the American Revolution Application that states David in Amherst was the son of William Pryor. Hmmm. David was definitely not the son of the William Pryor who made the pension application in 1835, because William divulges in the application that he was born about 1752. If he had a son in 1778/1779, that son would have been a small boy.
The theory I’ve been working with for some time is that David was a 1st cousin of William the pension applicant and his brothers were John and Nicholas Pryor, and that William Pryor and wife Margaret were the parents of these brothers. Perhaps it was that older William that the S.A.R. applicant meant was the father of David. If David was another brother, why wasn’t he mentioned in William’s pension application? I’m still leaning toward them being cousins.
