I go back through and check Pryors in different ways. This week it was looking at some of the Revolutionary War pensioners. The first I’m posting about is John Prior of Burke county, GA.
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I love real estate ads from old papers. I don’t know if the houses and land were as glorious as described, but they give a good idea of where people lived and when they lived there. This ad from 1844 was placed by Samuel Pryor. I suspect this is the Samuel who married Mary Hamlin since the ad mentions Thomas Hamlin as the person who can show the property. I’m intrigued… Any ideas about his occupation?
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I came across a notice of lost or stolen property in a 1820 newspaper. Samuel Polk was on his way between Columbia and Franklin, TN when his saddle bags went missing along with numerous documents. He recreated a list of the documents.
Good lordy, did the Pryor deeds I’ve been looking for meet a similar fate? This notice opens up new possibilities of what happened to documents in the past.
Continue readingA question came up that caused me to look at the Pryors in Hempstead county, AR once again (see earlier post https://tennesseepryors.com/richard-pryor-and-virginia-boyd-pryor-relationship-to-dallas-pryors/ ) After Richard Pryor died his Arkansas property named Myrtlewood was advertised for sale in a Tennessee newspaper.
LAND AND RESIDENCE IN HEMPSTEAD COUNTY, ARK., FOR SALE
Myrtlewood, the residence of the late Major Richard Pryor of Hempstead county, Arkansas, will be offered for sale, at public auction, on the 10th day of December, 1866… For further information refer to Col. James W. Finley, Spring Hill, Hempstead county, Ark. Terms on day of sale. [1]Richard died intestate. The Administrator’s Bond lists James W. Finley (principal) and lists Jack S. B—?, Edward L Pryor, and Thomas M. Boyd as securities.[2] Edward L. was as on of Samuel Pryor of Clarksville, TN (Montgomery County). Thomas Boyd was probably a relative of Richard’s wife Virginia Boyd. When Richard’s wife died the estate was handled by Charles R. Pryor of Dallas.
Richard Pryor, James W. Finley, H. C. Boyd, and a J. Pryor were named in a list of men who were consignees of merchandise at the docks in Shreveport, LA.[3]
I ended up doing one of my relationship/event charts to work out how everyone was connected.
- Virginia Boyd Pryor died in November 1865 after her husband and after her daughter Elizabeth Pryor Stockdale (her only known child). She willed her property (engraved silver) to her executor Dr. Charles R. Pryor and Virginia Finley, formerly a Boyd.
- Virginia Finley’s husband James W. Finley was the point of contact in the 1866 ad for the sale of Richard Pryor’s estate.
- When Charles R. Pryor “of the county of Dallas” filed estate papers in 1865 for Virginia Boyd Pryor, he was represented by F. S. Stockdale, the Virginia’s son in law and the widower of Virginia’s daughter Elizabeth Pryor Stockdale.
I located an announcement of a claim against the estate of Richard Pryor by two Pryor relatives from Vicksburg, MS. Was this the Richard Pryor who died in 1864 or Agnes’ brother? –for whom we have no evidence he was Arkansas.
LEGAL
The heirs and distributees of the estate of Richard Pryor, are warned to appear in Hempstead circuit court, and answer the complaint of Agnes P Howard and William Pryor Creecy for partition and distribution of said estate.
Washington Telegraph, February 21, 1872
A marriage announcement explains Agnes’ name change from Birchett on the census to the surname Howard she was using in 1872.
MARRIED
On the 17th instant, in Richmond, Va., at the residence of Dr. T. P. Mayo, by the Rev. Thos. L. Preston, Colonel Nathaniel Howard, of Grenada, Miss., to Mrs. Agnes P. Birchett of Vickburg, Miss. We wish the Colonel and his happy bride many, many years of joy and happiness, and we know that his friends hereabouts–and that means everybody–join us in a double health to him and his.
… Grenada Sentinel, published in the Vicksburg Daily Times, September 7, 1870
I think more research needs to be done on the estate of Richard Pryor. Was Richard’s estate in probate from 1864 to 1872? Or was this another Richard Pryor? Perhaps Agnes’ brother Richard who was last recorded on a census in 1870 working as a druggist in Vicksburg.[4]
An interesting connection between several of the people was their occupation: druggist. Charles R. Pryor worked as a druggist in Dallas (see above), so did his brother Samuel B. Pryor, and Richard S. Pryor of Vicksburg worked as one, as did his nephew William Pryor Creecy.
Footnotes
[1] “Land and Residence in Hempstead County, Ark. for Sale,” advertisement, The Daily Memphis Avalanche (Tenn.), 21 November 1866, p. 4, col. 9.
[2] Hempstead Co., Ark., administrator’s bond, M:98, Richard Pryor, 28 August 1865; “Arkansas, U.S., Wills and Probate Records, 1818-1998,” Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/8638/images/007117066_00272).
[3]”Consignees of Merchandise per Steamboats,” notice, H.C. Boyd, Richard Pryor, J. Pryor, and J. W. Finley, The South-Western (Shreveport, La.), 28 May 1856, p. 3, col. 2.
[4] “C.R. Pryor,” advertisement, The Dallas Daily Herald (Texas), 20 February 1869, p. 3, col. 7.
I’ve been binge-watching Poldark on Amazon Prime. The stories include glimpses into 18th century Cornish mining. It reminded me of a dark tale that involved a Pryor that appeared in British newspapers in 1821.
On Tuesday the 20the inst. a man named James Matthews, who resides at St. Agnes, Cornwall, was apprehended on the information of a person named Simon Pryor, who resides at Redruth, and who charges Matthews with the murder of a man named John James, who was his (Matthews’s) brother-in-law, sixteen years since. The following circumstances have been stated by Pryor on oath, before the Rev. Hugh Rogers, once of the county Magistrates. In 1804, Pryor was employed as an assistant labourer, by Matthews and James, at a min called Crown Dale Mine, near Tavistock. One night Pryor and James descended by a windlass into a shaft of the mine, which was about 22 fathoms in depth. Whilst there, they bored a hole for blasting, and Pryor was drawn up by Matthews. James then laid the match to the train, and called out to his comrades to pull him up, as is usual with miners on such occasions. Matthews and Pryor wound up about five fathoms of rope, when Matthews let go the windlass and desired Pryor to do the same. Pryor refused, on which Matthews threatened to knock his brains out if he did not.–Pryor again refused, when Matthews struck him on the right arm with a pick hilt, which forced him to quit his hold, and James was precipitated to the bottom, and had his skull so dreadfully fractured that he died two days after. Pryor told the facts to his brother, who was a smith on the mine, and to some other men, but they contrived to keep him in small room behind the smith’s shop until a coroner’s jury had returned a verdict of Accidental Death. He as then induced to conceal the affair, on the ground that Matthews had a large family. Pryor had never seen Matthews from that time to the present, but he said he was so distressed on account of the concealment, that he could suppress the circumstance no longer. Matthews was committed to Bodmin Gaol, in order to be transmitted to the Devon County Goal for trial at the ensuing Assizes.
The Mines
If you want to get a feeling of how narrow, how deep and how scary these mine shafts were, there’s a photo online of one of the actual entrances to the Crowndale Mine. (view photo offsite). I have no clue of distance in fathoms so I had to open up a conversion app– the shaft was 132 feet down.
Simon Pryor(s)
There were two Simon Pryors counted on the 1841 Census: one in Breage and one in Wendron. Both towns were south of Redruth. Both Simons stated their occupation as copper miners. One was age 53 and the other was 55. If one of them is the Simon Pryor named in the newspaper story, then the miner was 16 to 18 years old at the time of the murder in 1804.