John
Amory (d.1746) was an Indian trader associated with William Elder(s), Thomas
Nightingale,
and John Watts. John Amory was the
uncle of Robert Emory (d.1790)
and
the father of William Emory (d.1770), both of whom married daughters of
Ludovic
Grant and resided with him in the Valley town of Tamah’li in North Carolina.
Ludovic
Grant was associated with old trader Cornelius Daugherty who was in
nearby
Hiwassee. Ludovic Grant’s Cherokee wife was Elizabeth
Gouedy (pronounced
and
spelled “Coody”), the daughter or
ex-wife of another old trader, Robert Gouedy of
Ninety
Six. Thomas Nightingale and John Watts
had land transactions with Robert
Gouedy. David Hembree (father of Rev. James Hembree)
had land adjoining some land
of
Robert Gouedy in 1771. John Amory
fathered a son by a Cherokee woman; the son
was
named John Emory (b.1744) and is better known as Old John Hembree.
John
Vann entered the Indian trade as a packhorseman for James Maxwell by 1746
and
later became associated with Bernard Hughes, Robert Gouedy, and John Downing.
John
Vann’s Cherokee wife was probably Wah-li (War-le in the Lower dialect) and
she
was the sister of chief Sour Mush and the half sister of Jenny Daugherty, the
daughter
of Cornelius Daugherty. She may have
been the daughter or ex-wife of
Bernard
Hughes.
John
Vann had a brother Edward Vann (perhaps Edward Clement Vann) and perhaps
Joseph
Vann, both of whom lived near or next to John Vann. (This Joseph may just
be
a son of Edward.)
The
children of John Vann are not known for sure (nor is the date of his birth or
death)
but include John Vann, Betty Vann, and Wah-li.
His daughter Wah-li
married
a Joseph Vann (b.c.1737 d.bef.1800) who seems to be the son of Edward
Vann. Wah-li and Joseph were the parents of James
Vann (b.c.1766 d.1809), the
notorious
Chief James Vann of Georgia. This
Joseph Vann moved to GA in 1763
with
a wife and three children and resided on the Savannah River below Cagg
Creek,
at the mouth of the Little River. [Candler, GA Col Recs, IX, p.256].
(This
therefore is the likely birthplace of James Vann.) Edward Vann had land on
the
SC side of the Savannah River.
Daughter
Wah-li then married Clement Vann (b.c.1746 d.c.1830) who had no
children
of his own but is referred to as the step-father of Chief James Vann.
Clement
Vann had a younger brother Avery Vann Sr.
In
Parts Two & Three I will try to unravel the connections between the Vanns
and
the Hembrees (Emorys). Please do not
send me info on the ancestry or
exploits
of Chief James Vann – I have all that I need.
Thank you.
John
Vann entered the Indian trade as a packhorseman for James Maxwell
by
1746. [SC Commons Journal of 11 June
1746]. In May 1747 he was
sent
to the Choctaw Nation. He returned to
SC by 1749 and resided at the
trading
post at Ninety Six. He was associated
there with Bernard Hughes
and
Robert Gouedy.
In
1751 the Lower Cherokee (SC) began attacking the English traders.
Bernard
Hughes Sr. was reportedly killed in April 1751. (Turns out he
escaped
and left his post at Stecoe on the Tuskasegee River in NC (by
order
of Chief Raven) and retired to Ninety Six.)
[SC Commons Journal
of
7 May 1752] Daniel Murphy (a son-in-law
of Hughes?) was killed
farther
north. The Indians attacked Ninety Six
and John Vann fled with
his
wife and children to Augusta, GA in May 1751.
[SC Commons Journal
of
13 May 1751] When he returned to Ninety
Six he operated a trading
post
with Bernard Hughes. He was accused of
allowing runaway slaves
safe
conduct past his post and he was summoned to Charleston to answer
these
charges in Dec. 1751.
In
1752 the Creek Indians attacked the Lower Cherokee and plundered
three
packhorsemen at the Keowee village:
James Welch, John Downing,
and
William Bailus. [SC Doc Ind Affairs (2)
1750-54, p.247-9]
By
1753 many families came down from the Cherokee to live at Ninety
Six. Among these were William Emory (who fathered
two sons there:
Drury
Hembree b.1755 and Abraham Hembree b.1757), John Watts
(who
fathered John Watts Jr. there in 1753), the Cherokee widow and children
of
William Elder(s), the widow and children of Daniel Murphy, and James
Welch,
John Downing, and Robert Emory (who left his Cherokee daughter
Susannah
with the family of William Emory and went off to trade with the
Creeks
along with Richard Smith of Keowee).
By
1756 Ludovic Grant came down from the Cherokee and soon
thereafter
died.
Suspicions
and complaints about John Vann (similar to those lodged against
Bernard
Hughes) caused him to move to Georgia by 1757.
In a deposition
in
SC he gave his full name as “John Charles Vian”. [SC Ind Docs (3) p.442-3]
In
Georgia, in 1757, John Vann was commissioned as a captain in the
militia
and as a justice of the peace. [Candler, GA Col Recs VII, 691]
On
7 Feb 1758 Ezekiel Harlan (uncle of Ezekiel Buffington who married
2
daughters of William Emory) petitioned
for 100 acres on the Broad River
in
GA at Pistol Creek, next to the lands of John Vann. [Candler, Col Recs
GA
Vol VII, 723]. On 4 Apr 1758 Edward
Vann was granted 200 acres on
the
SC side of the Savannah River, next to John Vann’s plantation (which
was
soon to be seized in a lawsuit). On
23 Oct 1758 Robert Gouedy sued
John
Vann for business debts totaling L
80.
In
1758 with the completion of Fort Loudon, many of the families at Ninety
Six
returned to the Cherokee Nation.
Susannah Emory (the daughter of
Robert
Emory) at the age of 14 bore a son to John Stuart, one of the
occasional
captains at Fort Loudon (he was a
Charleston politician, not
a
soldier). This son would be known as
Bushyhead.
Also
in 1758 and 1759 the Cherokee were recruited by Virginia to help
fight
French-armed Indians in the north.
Richard Pearis of Virginia and
Richard
Smith of Keowee were the white leaders of the Cherokee but
Warhatchie
(Wauhatchy) of Keowee was the war chief.
(Warhatchie was
a
half brother of Old John Hembree’s mother).
Young Will Emory
(b.1744
d.1788), son of William Emory, was
among the young warriors
who
went north.
The
tragic Cherokee war of 1759-1761 wiped out the Lower Cherokee
but
family bonds remained strong. The half
breed clans at Ninety Six
would
have the option later of living as whites or living among the tribe
(sometimes
doing both). In 1760 John Downing and
Bernard Hughes
fled
the Cherokee and stayed at John Vann’s house on the Broad River in
GA. These type of events formed family ties that
endured.
The
extermination of the Cherokee in SC ended Charleston’s control
of
the Indian trade. Georgia, Virginia and
North Carolina took on
greater
roles. Virginians such as John Rogers
and William Ephraim
“Rim”
Fawlin (Falling) moved in among the tribe.
The Cherokee
repopulated
the SC backcountry but tribal power moved to the Overhills
(in
TN). The Buffingtons and Harlans married among the Cherokee, and
Charleston
businessman William Dewes established a trading post on
the
path between Ninety Six and Keowee.
Ellis Harlan, Ezekiel Buffington,
Richard
Fields and Robert Dewes (Due) worked for William Dewes, whose
SC
post was called Dewes Corner, then Due West (a corruption of the
pronunciation
of his name). Richard Pearis also established a trading post
on
the trading route. Joshua Pettit, a young
import from New Jersey, worked
for
Pearis briefly.
The
Revolution found many of these families together as Tories who
traveled
with the Cherokee but early crushing defeats brought the Cherokee
(and
the half-breeds) to a position of neutrality.
An unofficial warrior class
formed
among the Cherokee (and later included other tribes) called the
Chickamauga. Will Emory, John Watts, William Elder, James
Vann were
among
these warriors. White Tories often took Cherokee wives and lived
among
the tribe for safety. Some of these put
on war paint and ran with the
Chickamauga. Richard Roe, John Emory, Charles Hughes,
James Murphy,
Richard
Fields, Joseph Vann and James Welch were among the mixed blood
or
white Tories.
In
Part Three the connections will become crystal clear (yeah, right).
I
have not discovered a major connection between the Hembrees and the
Vanns
but there are many little connections which imply a long affiliation.
Here
are just a few.
The
Joshua Pettit Connection:
Joshua
Pettit (who has connections to every branch of the Hembrees) witnessed
the
illegal land cession of 150,000 acres from the Cherokee to Richard Pearis
(via
his Cherokee son George Pearis) on 21
Dec 1773. Joshua fathered a son
by
Cherokee Nannie Downing. His time with
the Cherokee was brief (his white
wife
and children moved down to SC) but his consort grew to be an important
woman
in the tribe. The children of Nannie Downing were:
1.
Thomas Pettit Sr. m. Catherine
Hughes
2.
James Crittenden m. Nancy Hughes
3.
Jennie Crittenden m. John (Jack) Wright
4.
Margaret McSwain m. Avery Vann
5.
Elizabeth McSwain m. David Welch
A
half-breed Joshua Pettit lived close to a half-breed James Emory in Sevier
County,
TN, 1840 – 1850. Other Cherokee Pettits
can be found east and west.
The
Hughes sisters were kin to Charles Hughes, the uncle of Chief James Vann.
Charles
Hughes was a grandson of Bernard Hughes Sr.
James Vann shot Charles
Hughes
c. 1792 (or c. 1806?).
John
(Jack) Wright was a trader who lived among the tribe in TN in 1797. His
brother,
Josiah (Joe) Wright owned land on Martin’s Creek (Pendleton District)
which
was part of Cherokee countryman Alexander Drumgoole’s grant and close to
lands
of John Ross, father of the Cherokee chief.
In the 1830’s the Hembrees lived
on
this land. (My Hembree/Emory ancestor
died on this land in 1863.)
An
Al-sie Wright, widow of J. Wright
(probably Josiah) was associated with the
Hembrees,
Rainwaters and Vanns in the Baptist Church.
Avery
Vann was a cousin of Chief James Vann.
Charles Hughes Vann, a tribal
member
in 1835, was probably a son of Avery Vann (there were two).
David
Welch (c.1782 – c.1835) was a grandson of Old John Hembree through
his
first wife (more on this below).
Old
John Hembree’s first wife was a Cherokee mixed blood of Ninety Six, SC,
who
died very young (c.1768). His second
wife was the white widow of John
Cantle
(d.1768), Mary Elizabeth Cantle. [SC
Hist Mag xi, 36]. She died 9 Nov
1769.
[Ibid. x, 166] The only child of his
first marriage was Elizabeth Jane
Hembree
(b.1765 SC d.c. 1798 NC). She married
John Welch who was b.1753
at
Ninety Six (son of packhorseman James Welch).
John Welch was a mixed-blood
Tory
under Richard Pearis (along with Old John Hembree) and eventually settled
on
the Valley River in NC near Tamah’li (Tomatley), the birthplace of the
Cherokee
children of William Emory (d.1770) and Robert Emory (d.1790). Some
of
the Welch children lived as white but others remained connected to the tribe.
There
is a slim chance that Elizabeth Jane Hembree did not die c.1798 but
remarried
a William Welch; her children, though,
remained with the father and
his
Cherokee wife. A daughter of his second marriage was Al-sie Welch, wife
of
Johnson
Murphy, Cherokee grandson of the Widow
Murphy who resided at
Ninety
Six. (Mixed blood Murphys also resided close to the Joshua Pettit and
James
Emory mentioned above in Sevier County,
TN.)
See
below for the Nicholas Welch who married Margaret Hembree.
On
any Cherokee list, east or west, you are likely to find Welch, Murphy,
Downing,
and Bushyhead names or descendants close together. John
Downing
partnered with James Welch when they worked for James Beamer
in
the Lower towns. Bushyhead, of course,
descends from John Stuart and
Susannah
Emory (b.1744), daughter of Robert Emory.
The Downings were
closely
related to the Vanns by intermarriage.
Chief
James Vann killed his brother-in-law John Fawling in a duel in 1807.
A
Cherokee court ruled it was murder.
(James Vann was also part of the
conspiracy
to kill Chief Doublehead in 1807.) John
Fawling was a grandson
of
William Emory (d.1770), the half –brother of Old John Hembree.
Emory
Vann was b.c. 1815 in Abbeville District, SC and was the son of
Edward
Vann (1763-1854) and Elizabeth Walls (d.1863). Emory Vann was a
cousin
of Avery Vann, therefore a distant cousin of Chief James Vann. He was
named
for an Emory, but which one?
Ezekiel
Buffington married two daughters of William Emory and the close
relationship
between the Buffingtons and the Vanns is well-established. Chief
James
Vann was killed at Buffington’s Tavern in north Georgia.
William
Hembree (b. 1774 SC d.c. 1811 SC) was the oldest son of Old John
Hembree. William’s wife was Selah Hughes, daughter of
Charles Hughes, who
d.c.
1806 (the same Charles Hughes who was shot by Chief James Vann?)
“Selah”
(SEE – lah) is a common Cherokee name often rendered “Cela” in
English
and the phonetic reverse is also a common Cherokee name: “Al – SEE”.
William
had 6 children including William Hembree Jr. (b.1796) who married an
Alsie (or Alerz) and Uriah Hembree (b.1805) who
married Elizabeth Dolly Murray.
(Uriah
was raised by his uncle Edward Hembree (1780-1863) and is often shown
as
his son.)
William’s
sons William and Uriah traded lands between the various Hembree lines.
Uriah
signed the mortgage note of 24 Jan 1831 that allowed Simeon Hembree, son
of
Edward Hembree, to buy land on Martin’s Creek that was once owned by Cherokee
countryman
Alexander Drumgoole, then Thomas Carradine, then Josiah Wright (see
above).
William
Hembree sold land on 26 Mile Creek to Edward Hembree and to David
Hembree
and later Edward Hembree bought some of David Hembree’s land.
The
Virginia Hembrees, Heatons, Rainwaters, Fowlers, Moselys, Kings, Days, and
Meadows
all resided in Granville County, NC, during the Baptist migration. So did
the
Welch family of Nicholas Welch (b.1761 NC d.1822 TN) who married Margaret
Hembree
(d.bef.1810), daughter of David Hembree.
These Welches are no relation
to
the mixed-blood family of John Welch, though they both had brothers Thomas
and
William Welch. In the 1754 militia
rosters for Granville County, all these names
are
represented.
On
12 March 1831 John Hembree (father of
Mahala Hembree) sold 75 acres on 26
Mile
Creek to Uriah Hembree for $300. This
John (b.c. 1783 d.aft 1853) was a son
of Rev. James Hembree. John Hembree married Anna Heaton and
acquired the 75
acres
from Smith Heaton, who married into the Cherokee tribe and made tribal claims
in
Georgia and Tennessee. Rev. James
Hembree was the executor of the estate of
Anna
Heaton’s father. The Heatons (Eatons)
moved with the Hembrees from Virginia,
through
North Carolina, to Spartanburg District, SC then to Pendleton District, SC.
William
J. Vann was b.1828 in SC and d. during the Civil War. He was the grandson
of
William Vann (d.bef 1795) and Martha (whose will was probated 25 Oct 1820 and
published
by Rev. James Hembree). These Vanns
owned land on 26 Mile Creek close
to
lands of Charles Hughes, William Hembree and Edward Hembree (sons of Old John)
and
the family of Rev. James Hembree (1759-1849). William J. Vann m. Mahala
(Hallie)
Hembree (b.1824 d.1888) a daughter of John Hembree (b.1783). Although this
Vann
lineage is incomplete, it is no doubt part of the family of John Vann, the
Indian trader.
William
J. Vann moved to Cumming, Forsyth County, GA, where he appears in the 1860
census. He was not the William Vaugh(a)n associated with the Haw Creek Baptist
Church.
The
Vaughan family of Forsyth County is an unrelated and well-documented family.
The
Haw Creek Baptist Church was founded by Richard Phillips in 1841. He was b.1791
in
NC and resided for a time on 26 Mile Creek in Pendleton District, SC. He married
Delilah
Rainwater, a sister of Job Rainwater.
Al-sie Wright was a charter member of this
church. She was a widow (age 56) in 1832 when she
drew land in Forsyth County and
was
still part of the church in 1856 at age 80.
She thus was the correct age to be Josiah
Wright’s
widow.
Sgt.
Kedar Heaton served with other North Carolinians in the Cherokee Expedition
under
Col.
Richard Richardson in 1759-1760. Kedar
(Cader) Vann served with Joseph Vann and
Clement
Vann in the Georgia Rangers patrolling the lands ceded by the Creeks in
1773-1774.
Far
from complete, an examination of the Hembree – Vann connection helps us to
figure out
the
Hembrees connection to the Cherokee and the Hembrees connection to each
other. Much
is
missing, but persistence and sharing has greatly improved our understanding of
these
complex
families. I look forward to your
replies and, as always, I reserve the right to
misquote
my notes and garble the facts (a sign of advancing age). With your help we can get
it
right.
Larry
Larry_petrisky@hotmail.com
1. There were Coody AND Gouedy / Goudey families
in SC and these are not the same
names.
The wife of Ludovic Grant, though, was NOT a Coody but probably a
Gouedy.
Robert Gouedy’s Cherokee descendants seem
to have adopted the Coody spelling. The
estate of Arthur Coodey of 96 District was administered 24 Mar 1783 by
Edward Vann,
Drury Murphy, and widow Edith
Coodey. Arthur was a Coody, not a
Gouedy.
2. Bernard Hughes was reported to be killed in
1751 and his death was often noted but Gov.
James Glen clarified the issue in
1752: only Daniel Murphy was killed,
Bernard Hughes
was plundered but not killed. By order of Chief Raven of the middle towns
and Gov. Glen,
Hughes retired from his post at Stetcoe
(on the Tuskasegee River in NC) and went down to
Ninety Six.
3. It was on 21 Dec 1773 (not 1775) that Joshua
Pettit witnessed the illegal land cession of
150,000 acres from the Cherokee to
Richard Pearis and Jacob Hite via Cherokee George
Pearis. [George Pettett, Pettett &
Pettit – This Family Business, (Dallas: 2001)] Joshua
Pettit and Old John Hembree got a grant
of land together in Spartanburg District in 1788.
John Hembree and John Elder joined in a
civil suit that year in Spartanburg as well.
(A
bastardy suit chased John Hembree out of
Spartanburg.)
4. Although our William J. Vann moved to
Cumming, Forsyth County, GA, he was NOT
associated with the Haw Creek Baptist
Church in that county. The William
Vaughan,
Willis Vaughan, and Delilah Vaughan shown
there are a different and unrelated family.
The Vaughan family of Forsyth County is
well-documented.