I was looking for Gideon Martin who was on a record with a John Pryor in Virginia in the 1700’s. I naturally went to an Gideon Martin on a later census records. I don’t know if this guy matches the one I’m looking for but the census record is priceless! Lebus L. Martin’s occupation is recorded as “loafer.” Why didn’t I think of that when completing the 2010 census? [1870 Census, Fairfield County, OH]
A 1919 article on Nathaniel Pryor in published in the The American Historical Review stating that the “myth-making process has already began…[he was] to be transformed into a personality in every way foreign to the man that he was.” I don’t think the myth-making started in 1919. I think it started with their return from the west in 1806. These guys were as famous as astronauts who had gone to the moon!
For example, on 12 February 1812 the Torch Light Advertiser in Hagerstown, MD published a report that a letter dated 5 February sent to a member of Congress. It stated that the Cherokees had run in to Osage territory and killed white traders, including Nathaniel Pryor. Yes, it specifically stated his name and that he had been on the Lewis and Clark expedition.
Another report on 12 March 1812 in the Maryland Gazette (Annapolis) reported that Gen. William Clark had written to his brother in Louisville, KY that there had been an indian raid on the Illinois river and that Nathaniel Pryor had been killed.
This seems to be an erroneous report because Pryor lived into the early 1830’s, however it’s interesting that his connection to the Lewis and Clark expedition was newsworthy even just six years after their return (read about their return in Smithsonian). I think we look at Lewis and Clark as historical figures and not with the same excitement their contemporaries had for their achievement– They had gone head-long into the wilderness, beyond where most of the population dwelled in the original 13 colonies. The members of the Lewis and Clark expedition were the astronauts of their time– maybe akin to Columbus in the eyes of their contemporaries.
How famous were the members of the expedition? Well, Nathaniel Pryor was famous enough to have a “Paul Is dead” story (remember those Beatles rumors?) published about him. Was he famous enough for a Six Degree of Separation story? Remember that movie where an impostor shows up on a family’s doorstep. In the movie Will Smith’s character claimed to be Sidney Poitier’s son. Every once in a while I consider the Miguel Pryor who showed up in California in the 1820’s and wonder if he was pulling one over on the whole pueblo.
A report of cholera deaths from The Gallatin Tennessee Union (Sumner Co., TN) made it into the New York Evening Post on 10 August 1835. This may be of interest to researchers who have found diminished households between the 1830 Census and 1840 Census.
“The cholera has been more fatal in the upper part of Wilson county and the lower part of Smith, than almost any part of the US… 50 cases have proved fatal in the course of a few weeks in the neighborhood of Cainsville.” The report also includes names of some of the families who were struck by the disease, “Mrs. Hearn, N E of Lebanon, had 3 deaths in her house in one day and 2 the next.” That’s 5 members of one family!
Cholera was also in Sumner Co. “It has reached our own county at the S E corner. Mr. Puryear, Mrs. Clardy and a negro man belonging to James Walton have fallen victims.”
On 1 August 1777 an H. Pryor, Lieut advertised in Purdie’s Virginia Gazette (Williamsburg). He was seeking his friend Thomas Vaughn Nance who had enlisted with him in Col. Harrison’s artillery in York. He was entreating his friend to return to the unit before he was “deemed a deserter.” Thank goodness for Wikipedia.org, because there’s some good information there on this artillery. They formed in Williamsburg and fought in the Southern theater during the Revolutionary War, so Virginia should be the right place to start looking for this Pryor.
So Lt. H. Pryor may have been from Gloucester, Hampton, York Counties, or James City, Elizabeth City. I’ve got lots of records on the Pryors and “H” is a stand-out name in VA in the 1700’s. I have only one more Pryor that begins with “H” — Henry Pryor who was recorded in Botetourt County, VA in 1786.
Now Botetourt is interesting because this H. Pryor was looking for a Nance and there are several Nance’s later in Botetourt. Children of Joseph Pryor in Botetourt married into the Nance family: Molly Pryor married Peter Nance, and Thornton married Mary/Polly Nance.
The surname Vaughn is also connected to this line of Pryors: Joseph of Botetourt’s nephew John Alexander Pryor married a Martha Vaughn. Shadrack Vaughn married Mary Meriwether — Mary was one Joseph of Botetourt’s step nieces and nephews through his brother Samuel’s marriage to Frances Morton who had children from her first marriage to a Meriwether (I hope that had some clarity — there’s no easy way to state that relationship!)
I think we may be on our way to ID a “lost” Pryor.
I know Beaver Dam Creek does sound as posh as maybe- let’s say Polo Pony Drive– but this may have been the place to be in Henrico County, later Goochland County. The above list of deeds is from http://www.directlinesoftware.com/Pool/goochlan.txt. Remember the Perkins who shadowed the Pryors from Pittsylvania County, VA into Rockingham and other Counties in NC, and then into Hawkins/Greene County, TN and finally into Williamson County? It looks like they may have been neighbors (and probably kin) back into the 1720’s, long before the Revolutionary War. There was John Pryor on Beaver Dam Creek (see my post) and it looks like Constantine Perkins was right there too.
Another neighbor to look at is John Pleasant. Do you see him above? Isn’t it interesting that when the Pryors moved into NC there’s a John Pleasant Pryor among them? He also ended up in Tennessee with the migration to middle TN in the 1790’s.