Knox County TN Pryors: William Pryor from Botetourt Co., VA?

Posted on by

Click image to enlarge

Who knows, I may look at the projected line of Harris Pryor, thinking they connect to John Pryor and Mary New only to find they connect to another line all together. I’ve had to tweak the Botetourt County Pryor Chart by “annexing” some of the Knox County Pryors.

I also looked up William Anderson (the guy on the Harris Pryor bastardy case) in the the Virginia Chancery Cases. I found a man by that name had been sued by Archibald Franklin (who appears to be the relative of Harris Pryor (Sr) as he had a son in law named Edmund Franklin).

There’s another Chancery case in Bedford County, VA filed in 1805:  Thornton Pryor vs Archibald Franklin, et al. Joined as plaintiffs Thornton Pryor, Peter Nance, and John A. Anthony against Thomas Creasy.

Lets go  back to Knox County. I was able to get my hands on a 1836 case from the Knox County Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions: State vs. William Pryor and Pryor Nance. This is one of those twists in the road where the Pryors give me a true headache — are we looking at one Pryor line or two Pryor lines in Knox County?

The headache stems from Botetourt County, VA where descendants of Samuel and Prudence Pryor married into the Nance family. Then by 1805 there’s the lawsuit mentioned above in Bedford County that appears to involve the Botetourt line. In the same year John Pryor (son of Joseph Pryor from Botetourt County?) married Sally Nance in Bedford County (Peter Nance surety). It doesn’t make it true, but numerous researchers have posted online that Pryor Nance in Knox County is the son of Peter Nance and Mary “Polly” Pryor. Pryor Nance married in Knox County in 1833; I haven’t seen any earlier records of the Nance family in Knox County.

The 1836 court record is very short, all that was located is a sheet tallying the costs, it includes the following names:
Justin Lindsey
C—? L Cox, warrants
Sheriff (William) Dunlap
James Badgett witness
Allen Perry witness
J. P. Kennedy witness
Susan Badgett witness

Allen Perry and James Badgett are on the same page of the 1830 Census in Knox County.

I’m glad I write a blog and it’s always in flux. I have thought that the Pryors in Knox County who match the names of sons of Harris Pryor in Bedford County, VA were all his sons, however we need to leave the decision open pending more documentation– William Pryor and some of the other Pryors in Knox County appear to be from the line that settled Botetourt County, VA.

This discovery also changes my own list of 5 lines to test for my own Pryor family DNA. I need a DNA tester from the family of Harris Pryor (his children and their descendants or from his brother’s descendants). If Harris is from the line of Boutetourt County Pryors, I won’t need a DNA tester at all– because we aren’t related.

Using the Knox County records, I tried to separate out Harris and William Pryor:

1799 – William Pryor signed petition for tax relief
1805 – Harris fathered child with Keziah Maxey
1806 – Harris Pryor on the tax list
1807 – Harris Pryor married Keziah Maxey
(1819 Harris Pryor in Louisville)
1830 – Harris Pryor (born 1761-1770 with 3 males in his household ages somewhere between 15 to 30 which may include the child born in 1805 to Keziah Maxey)

1830 – William Pryor on the census (born 1791-1800, likely not the William Pryor who signed petition in 1799 – ages don’t match up)
1831 – Deed William and Nancy Pryor & Burwell F. Badgett to Jabez Thurman, witnessed by Reuben Tipton, Nancy Badgett, and John Gordon
1835 – James Pryor married Lucy Cruse, bondsman Jacob Kennedy and William Pryor
1839 – Samuel Pryor married Merrian Crews

I can’t completely tease out the Pryors or merge them together as one family, however it should be noted that by 1820 Peter Nance was in Breckinridge County, KY as was Juggy Pryor (Harris’ sister) and her husband Richard Mays.

HINT: If you want to see the chart larger… just click on it .

Category: About TN Lines, Virginia Pryors | Tags: , ,

Knox County, TN – Mrs Pryor Kept A Tippling House (1834)

Posted on by

Knox County Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions. State v. Elizabeth Pryor

One of the old court cases that came out of Knox County was filed in October 1834 against Elizabeth Pryor. She’s referred to as Mrs. Pryor in the documents. I don’t know who she was married to or if she was a widow at the time.  She was charged with running a “tippling without a license.”

Now I do have my suspicions. I suspect she was kin to William Pryor because Allen Perry was her security and his name shows up in the case of the State vs. William Pryor and Pryor Nance (1836).

It’s a rather short case document filed against Mrs. Pryor. Her conviction reads

…unlawfully kept a tippling house an sell and retail spiritous liquors by a less quantity than a quart to Joel Williams and divers other persons… without having first obtained  a license.

William Huson (or Huston?) was the informant.

The members of the jury were
Samuel Stirling, foreman
William McLemore
Samuel R. King
Robert Childers
Martin Kirkpatrick
Young (or James) Edmundson
Harvey Walker
DD Deust
William Hussen
John Karns (or Korns)
Samuel Catrell
William McBoth (McBooth?)
DL Dearmond

 

Category: About TN Lines | Tags: ,

Knox County TN Pryors: The Bastard Child of Harris Pryor

Posted on by

I contacted the Knox County Archives and requested a copy of the bastardy case filed in 1805 against Harris Pryor. I’ve seen these cases in other counties and they can be chuck-full of great information like the child’s name, the witness names. Unfortunately this was a one page record. Perhaps it was a short-lived case because Harris not only agreed to support the child, but married the mother, Keziah Maxey in 1807.

First, the most disappointing thing: it doesn’t say who the the child was. The child was neither named in the case nor does the case hint at the child’s sex through references to “he” or “she”. Drats! However, there is information on the date the child was born– Keziah swore out her statement naming Harris on 17 September 1805 and at the time stated her child was born about 3 months prior to that date.

I think Harris may have made some moves between TN, KY and VA. In 1801 Harris (Jr.) was on the delinquent tax list in Knox County and we know he was in Knox County at the time the suit was filed in 1805 and he was in Knox County in 1807 when he married Keziah. By 1819 he was in Louisville, as he had been sued by William Dickinson in a Chancery Suit filed in Bedford Co., VA. He reported he was living in Louisville in 1820 (his sister Juggy Pryor Mays was in Breckinridge County, KY).  Keziah Maxey’s family was from the same area of VA as the Pryors: Harris Pryor (Sr) was in Prince Edward County, VA in 1784 as was Keziah’s father Shadrack Maxey.

The mother-lode of information may be in the names of the two men who stood as security for Harris Pryor: William Anderson and Benjamin Burnett. Again, these names hint that I’m on the right track when I connect Harris Pryor to the Pryors in Sumner County and Overton County, TN.

Allen L. Pryor of Sumner County, TN married Elizabeth Talley, the daughter of William Anderson Talley who was born in Cumberland County, VA and named for his maternal grandfather William Anderson.  Hmmm… I wonder if the Anderson on the suit and the Andersons in the Sumner County Pryor line are connected?

And the Anderson surname crops up over and over again in the Sumner County Pryors and their relations– Lucy H. Talley, another daughter of William Anderson Talley, married Robert Anderson Wright in Sumner County. When Allen L. Pryor’s wife died  he remarried to Margaret McWhirter, the spinster daughter of Isaac McWhirter and Emaline Anderson Tyree (daughter of Samuel C. Tyree and Elizabeth Anderson).  Anderson Woodson witnessed the will of Edmund Taylor (grandfather of Allen L. Pryor). Edward Pryor, son of William and Spicy Pryor of Overton County, TN, had a son named William Anderson Pryor.

Lots of Anderson connections.  So my next question was about the Burnetts. Are there Burnett connections to the Pryors?

John Pryor, who is our best suspect to be the father of William (married Spicy Taylor) and John (married Massie Taylor — they are the parents of Allen L Pryor), purchased land in 1788 in Campbell County, VA– the deed was witnessed by William Burnett. Later John Pryor witnessed a 1790 deed in Campbell County, VA with Martin Rector. Martin was married to Betsy Burnett.

There’s a marriage between a William Pryor and Sallie Burnett in 1826 in Roane County. I wonder if William was Harris’ son who was born in 1805.

Online I found a brief bio of Benjamin Burnett http://genforum.genealogy.com/burnett/messages/4347.html. This seems to be the man who was security for Harris Pryor (Jr) in 1805. There are several VA Chancery cases involving Burnetts in Bedford County (the same county that Harris Pryor hailed from), however the Buckingham County cases are not in the database.

So stay tuned. We’ve got more digging to do.

Category: About TN Lines | Tags: , , , , , ,

Explaining Botetourt County, VA Pryors

Posted on by

Chart - Botetourt

Here goes… Botetourt County.

It’s another of my charts that attempt to make sense out of what we’ve found this year. I’ve used numbers in identifying the Pryors who link to the line of Samuel and Prudence Thornton. I’ve used letters for the Pryors who I can’t yet identify a line. Even then I think there are a few questionable matches… they just may not be from the lines they appear to be from!

  • I’m pretty sure that Joseph, Luke, and John were brothers. They are named as brothers in Luke’s (#2) will. Joseph owned land on Looney’s Creek.
  • I’m certain that Samuel Pryor (#8) was NOT the brother of Joseph, Luke, and John because their brother Samuel died in 1766 (see Chancery Court suits in prior posts). Samuel seems likely to be the Samuel Thornton Pryor who was the executor of his father William Pryor and his mother Sarah (Wood) estates. I’ve gone through the other grandchildren of Samuel and Prudence who were named Samuel and they were either dead or living in other counties, or too not yet adults in 1800 to be called as a witness on the suit involving Norvell. There’s always the possibility that he’s not that Samuel, but the Samuel who eventually married Fannie Ferguson and died in 1815 in Anderson County, TN.
  • John Pryor (#9) who sold land on Looney’s Creek is possibly, though not probable yet, Luke and Joseph’s brother. John was married to Mary Dennis. He died in 1785, so perhaps he was cleaning up his estate when he sold the land.  He may also be the John Pryor who was in Albemarle and Campbell County, however not enough information is available and we don’t have the name of his wife.
  • I’m not convinced that John (#9) who was married to Mary on Looney’s Creek is the same man who fought in Captain Preston’s Rangers. I think the one who fought with the Rangers is more likely to be an older John Pryor.
  • The Mitchell Bible said Samuel and Prudence had a son Frank Pryor. So where is Frank or Francis in records????

This was a good exercise to see who was in Botetourt and when. All ideas welcomed.

Category: Virginia Pryors | Tags: , , ,

Connecting Richard Pryor to Dick Pryor’s Racetrack in Nashville

Posted on by

A runaway slave offers our next clue in the identity of Richard Pryor who had a horse track in Nashville.

In 1832 a $100 reward was offered for the return of a runaway slave, a mulatto young man by the name of Warren, aka John. He was 17 or 18 years old and about 4ft. 6in (dang, that’s small by today’s standards!).  He spoke English, French, and Spanish which makes me wonder if he was from the Caribbean or had traveled. The ad placed for his return stated,  “He was in Clarksville, on Cumberland river, Montgomery county, Tenn., and was when a boy owned by Richard Pryor, who employed him as a race-rider in Lexington, Bowling Green, Nashville and other places. He was afterwards sold to Livingston Lewis Leavell of Trenton Christian Co., KY. who brought him to new Orleans, about 4 years and a half ago.”
Wayback Machine link

Yes there’s a Livingston Levell living in Christian County on the 1830 Census, but more importantly it gives us more insight into Richard “Dick” Pryor and his racing activities. One glaring thing is that he was using child slaves as jockeys. The ad also indicates he was traveling between the Kentucky towns named, Nashville and perhaps also in Clarksville.

There was William Pryor, the young naval mid-shipman from Clarksville, who had been gambling in Nashville when killed (read post). I’ve speculated that he was the son of Samuel counted on the census records in Montgomery Co., TN. I’ve also speculated that Samuel was the brother of Thornton Pryor and one of the Bourbon County, KY Pryors who were horse-trading in Nashville. We also know from the truncated will of Joseph Pryor of Bourbon county that he had sons named Samuel, Thornton, and Richard. This is looking like a solid lead toward identifying Richard Pryor and  his racetrack.

 

Category: About TN Lines, Kentucky Pryors | Tags: , , , ,
← Newer Entries Older Entries →