Tennessee Pryors

You’d think a Jeffersonian connection, especially when it to an American President, a  founding father, would be documented and easy to trace. It’s not so easy when it comes to the Pryors and their connection to Thomas Jefferson.  Jefferson was born in 1743 in Albemarle County. Jefferson is probably a good reflection of how the affluent Pryors lived in colonial and early-American times. He saw himself as a yeoman farmer, an educated gentleman. These are three Pryors who had a connection to our third president.

Mitchie Pryor born about 1759 her Jeffersonian connection was through marriage to  John Randolph Jefferson born 1755. John was the brother of the third US President, Thomas Jefferson.  John and Thomas were sons of Jane Randolph, from a prominent Virginia family.  The Jeffersons owned land in Albemarle County (President Jefferson’s home Monticello is located near Charlottesville in the same county). Mitchie is reportedly a daughter of David Pryor and Susannah Ballow of Buckingham Co., VA.  Upon David Pryor’s death in 1804, Susannah moved to Nashville, TN with her son Nicholas Ballow Pryor, her daughter Mitchie (who remarried to Josiah Johnson in 1819 in Nashville), her son John C. Pryor who settled in Franklin, TN, another son Leonard Pryor who died in Sumner Co. in 1830, and her son Zachariah B. who also settled in Nashville.

Sgt. Nathaniel Pryor is connected to President Jefferson by his participation in the Lewis and Clark Expedition in 1803. Pryor was living the pioneer life in “wild west” which was Louisville, KY before he set off on the trek across the continent.  His father John Pryor was on the 1789 tax list for Jefferson County, KY and probably died before 1791 when orphans Nathaniel and Robert Pryor were bound out to Obadiah Newman.  If the boys were minors in 1791, they were likely born in the late 1770’s or early 1780’s. So how was Nathaniel Pryor living in a fairly remote area tapped for the expedition? While I haven’t made a connection, it should be noted that Meriwether Lewis was selected by President Jefferson to lead the expedition.  Prominent Pryors from Virginia were connected to the Meriwethers and Lewis families: for example Martha “Patsy” Pryor daughter of William Pryor and Elizabeth Hughes married Robert Meriwether and were on the 1850 Census in Goochland County; and Frances Morton who married Dr. Samuel Pryor in 1760 in Goochland County, later married Nicholas Meriwether. One has to wonder if Nathaniel Pryor knew Lewis as a kinsman, neighbor, or comrade on the frontier… or as all of these.

Major John Pryor who married Anne Beverly Whiting (see post Major John Pryor of Richmond, VA & John C Fremont Connection) also had a connection to Jefferson.  The book “Scandal at Bizarre: Rumor and Reputation in Jefferson’s American” tells of Nancy Randolph (remember the President’s mother was a Randolph). When Nancy was a teen it was alleged that she became pregnant out of wedlock, gave birth, and her brother in law had assisted in the murder of the baby. Nancy, a tarnished woman, lived off the generosity of relatives. President Jefferson provided her living accommodations at Monticello in 1799 and again in 1804. By 1807 she was living in Richmond with John Pryor and his wife Anne, described as the proprietors of the pleasure park Haymarket Gardens. Apparently this was no Disneyland and was an area known for drinking, gambling and cockfights.  So were the Maj. and Mrs. Pryor kin of Nancy Randolph? Was Major Pryor an uncle to Mitchie Pryor who married into the Jeffersons?