Since I just wrote about one or two or three David Pryors, I thought I should mention one more. There’s a David Pryor in who appears on the 1790 Census (first US Census) in Georgetown, SC. He’s also on the 1800 and 1810 Census. I found an obituary for his daughter, so I can ID at least one of his children:
On Monday night, the 13th inst. on Waccamaw, at the age of 23 years, Mrs. Sarah W. Allston, consort of Joseph W Allston. Esq. and daughter of the late capt. David PRIOR.
The obit was published in The Evening Post, NY on 25 Sept. 1819. I searched for Sarah’s husband and found there is a Joseph W Allston on Waccamaw, Georgetown, SC on the 1820 Census. We can now take a safe guess that Sarah Prior was born about 1796. I’m not the first to find the obituary– when I Googled David Prior I found a nifty list of Waccamaw planters.
David is referred to as “Capt.” Did he serve in the military or was that an honorary title? He was over 45 years old when counted on the 1810 census, so he would have been born in 1765 or earlier. The Waccamaw list gives his year of birth as 1757. He may have been too old to have fought in the War of 1812. There’s only one David Pryor/David Prior who served in the Revolutionary War [see last post]. The one who is on the Revolutionary War rosters served in a VA company and had neighbors of the same names as those men who served with him. I have to guess these are 2 different David Pryor/Priors.
The origins of this David Prior in SC may be fairly clear. His grave marker is on Find A Grave [see marker]. It states when he died and his age measured out in years and month, which puts his birth date around May 1757. In the Connecticut Birth Records on Ancestry.com there’s a David Prior born in May 1757 to Azariah and Abigail Prior in Lebanon, CT (New London County). Nice! That’s a possible link to David’s ancestors.
So we have 2 David Priors on southern census records in 1810 after David in Buckingham County was deceased in 1804 (we need a source for this date!). Still more digging to do!