Thank you Ancestry.com for putting up wills in Tennessee! Access these record has given me the opportunity to see if there are some Pryors I’ve missed. I had found Zach B. Pryor of Nashville, TN on the index long ago, so it’s awesome to see his actual will.
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I’ve got another old petition in my hands. Petition Sundry Inhabitants South of French Broad, filed in 1789 by men living on the NC frontier (the French Broad River area would become Greene County, TN).
I recently mentioned this petition again in a post: Connecting Pryor from 1789 TN Frontier to 1840 MO Census
And like the petition filed by the Inhabitants of the west country, we now have 2 more Pryor signatures: William Pryor and Joseph Pryor. Joseph’s signature is very unique, using an old-fashioned “s” that looks like an “f”.
Discover Kingsport (an online history outline of Kingsport, Sullivan Co., TN), states mentions Gilbert Christian several times as well as John Pryor. Christian was from Virginia and first explored the area in 1769. Moses Looney was there by 1774 and John Pryor was living in the area by December 1787 (date the petition was submitted to the NC State Senate.
I think this is the John Pryor who stated his place of birth as England and year of birth as 1757 on the 1850 Census in Sullivan County.
I’m holding another example of why researchers need to get their hands on original documents or good photocopies of them. It’s the Petition of the Inhabitants of the Western Country, a petition filed by men living on the NC frontier (later Tennessee) to the General Assembly of North Carolina.
There’s a good transcription available online (see Google book), “The State Records of North Carolina, Volume 22” (pub. 1907), however the original is so much better. The reason it’s better is that it shows the signatures. We can get a sense of who signed it with whom because the pen (or was it a quill?) changes with groups of signatures.
The other fascinating thing is that the signatures are in a different order than how they are displayed on the online transcription. For instance, Moses Looney appears in the left column online and John Pryor is right (there’s a middle column in-between). On the original, Looney’s signature is directly under John Pryor’s. Gilbert Christian signed above John Pryor.
There’s yet another point that stands out. John Pryor didn’t sign his name using a “y”. It’s signed John PRIOR! Am I being too pedantic? Probably not.
Discover Kingsport (an online history outline of Kingsport, Sullivan Co., TN), states mentions Gilbert Christian several times as well as John Pryor. Christian was from Virginia and first explored the area in 1769. Moses Looney was there by 1774 and John Pryor was living in the area by December 1787 (date the petition was submitted to the NC State Senate.
I think this is the John Pryor who stated his place of birth as England and year of birth as 1757 on the 1850 Census in Sullivan County.
I’m having one of those mini-meltdowns that genealogy researchers may have. This one was spurred by David Crawford‘s Louisville will– the one I’ve referenced because it was witnessed by John Pryor and William Pryor, and because Crawford had ties to Amherst County, VA and perhaps to the Pryors there.
I try not to moan too much about the quality of documents especially when they’re 210 years old. However, I was surprised to see that the copy looks like someone in the past had enhanced the fading writing by writing over the original. Ugh.
The purpose of ordering the will was to gain a handwriting sample of John and William Pryor. No such luck. First, it’s a copy of the will written within the court transcript of 1805 . Even if it was an original, John Pryor signed his name with a “X”. William signed his name Wm Pryor, or at least it was transcribed as such.
One interesting piece, though, is that the will and the codicil was proved in Amherst County:
At a court held for Amherst County the 20th day of Sept. 1802 this will with the codicil was proven by the oaths of Wm. Pryor and John Pryor two subscribing witnesses there to & ordered to be recorded & certified for obtaining __________ in due form is granted to John Crawford, Wm Crawford, Nelson Crawford, & Charles Crawford the executors in said will named, they having made oath & given bond with Charles Taliaferro, Danl. Wanwich, Nelson Anderson, & Wm Pryor the security in the penalty of forty thousand Dollars amount money conditioned as the law directs. — Testr. L. Garland D. C.
The will was later recorded in Jefferson Co., KY:
At a County court held for Jefferson County on Monday 4th March 1805.
The transcript of David Crawford will on the motion of Nathan was produced in open court & ordered to be recorded. — Warden Pope
This seems to indicate that John and William Pryor were in Amherst County in 1802, not Jefferson County. There’s another perk of getting the original and not relying on truncated versions from books; the will opens with the statement “I David Crawford of Amherst County and State of Virginia being of sound mind…” which seems to indicate that Crawford was residing there when the will was executed. It’s then more likely that John Pryor and William Pryor were witnesses in Amherst County rather than Jefferson County, KY.
I was looking for one of my other lines that traveled through Kentucky and it looks like I’ve stumbled upon the signature of John Pryor and maybe another KY Pryor. Continue reading