The Emigres

North Carolina in the 1700s may have had lots of Quakers (see Robert Lamb), but it was hardly an ideal spot for Friends. North Carolina was a slave state, with increasingly severe pro-slavery laws. Around 1800 Quakers began leaving, often in large bands, on foot and by wagon. Indiana Territory, which included present-day Illinois and Indiana, was a favored destination. In 1800, that territory had been formed from Northwest Territory, whose ordinance stated “there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude.” But then it was decided that this allowed slaves purchased outside the territory to be brought in and retained. Quakers anticipated that laws permitting the retaining of slaves would soon be overturned, and many were when abolitionists took control of the Indiana Territorial legislature in 1809. Four of Robert and Rachel’s children were among the territory’s Quaker settlers.

Daughters Deborah (d 1847) and Ann (c1773–1845), with their husbands, Moses Hoggatt (b 1757) and David Reynolds (c1771–1823), headed to Vigo Co, Indiana. There they helped establish the Honey Creek Friends, which had its first meeting on 9 Sep 1820. Moses and David were there on that date and were appointed to committees. The following year, Deborah Hoggatt and Ann Reynolds were made elders. And, in 1822, Moses was appointed one of the trustees to hold title to the property. But Honey Creek Friends Meeting did not last long. It was discontinued on 14 Feb 1829 and the exact location of the log meeting house is not even known.

Moses Hoggatt established a store at the Honey Creek settlement, and the area became known as “Hoggtt's Store.” It was located on the old Vincennes wagon road. Later, the name was changed to “Prairieton” when Moses and Deborah’s son Robert laid out the town in 1837.

John and Phebe’s marker (back, right)
 in Lamb Cemetery (Find A Grave).

Robert and Rachel’s son, John (1778–1853), and his wife Phebe Macy (1778–1850) traveled a little further than the others, going across the Wabash River to Vermilion Co, Illinois, where On 4 Oct 1828 they and their three daughters were accepted into the Vermilion Friends Meeting. The family had some conflict with the Vermilion Friends. In 1832, their son, Simeon (yes, another one), was chastised for having a “marriage contrary to discipline,” and in 1843 was “disowned” after joining a Methodist church. Their daughter Lydia had been earlier “disowned,” in 1833, following a report that she had a non-Quaker marriage. John and Phebe were buried in a Vermilion Co cemetery, now called “Lamb Cemetery, rather than in a Quaker burial ground. The Vermilion Friends Church is still active, after 200 years.

John went to Vermilion, Deborah & Ann, to Honey
Creek, Simeon to Blue River, all in Indiana
Territory. The map shows present-day states.

Robert and Rachel’s son Simeon and his wife Mary stopped their travels at Blue Water Friends, in a part of Clark Co, Indiana, that would soon become Washington Co. They were there by 1809, when Simeon was one of the signatories of a petition to president James Madison, disapproving of a possible reappointment of pro-slavery William Henry Harrison as territorial governor.

Simeon is the subject of our next blog. See you then.

Robert Lamb

 Verne Crabtree Summers’s grandmother Mary Ann Lamb was a descendant of Quakers, a blessing for family historians. The Society of Friends were notoriously diligent record keepers. And for that reason I find researching the Lambs, fascinating. The Summers family is the subject of this blog and the book I am attempting to finish. Nevertheless, I plan to use the next few blogs to review Mary Ann Lamb’s line. Be prepared.

Members of a movement begun in England by George Fox in the mid-1600s, Quakers were persecuted there because of their “radicalism”—equality of sexes, pacifism, refusal to pay tithes, opposition to the state church, among other things. Thus, when Pennsylvania was founded in 1681 by William Penn, a wealthy Quaker, thousands of Friends left England heading to the new colony. But as Pennsylvania grew, it became more difficult to acquire land. Many Quakers left the colony and moved southward to North Carolina, where land was still available for purchase or settlement. And soon North Carolina became a Quaker stronghold

Probably sometime around 1740, Robert Lamb, Mary Anne’s great grandfather, traveled from England to North Carolina. Many people have reported Robert as being born in North Carolina to a Henry and Elizabeth Lamb, but investigation has shown otherwise. Quoting from a book by Martin Styles on Henry and Elizabeth’s descendants:

Robert Lamb was not a son of Henry and Elizabeth. He was an emigrant from England. Haverford College has the journal and some letters of William Hunt (ca. 1733 – 1772), a minister from New Garden MM, NC. In 1772 he was traveling in the north of England, and in one of his letters home to his wife mentioned that he had seen Robert Lamb’s mother, and to tell Robert that she was well. Unfortunately, he’s not clear what her name was or even just where she lived.

A descendant claims that Robert was actually a Scot and arrived in America as a stowaway, and that is certainly possible. Quakerism began in Scotland with the Cromwellian occupation in the 1650s, though, owing to even greater persecution, it was more limited there than in England. William Hunt is known to have visited Scotland during his trip and could have met Robert’s mother in that country.

Robert Lamb lived near the present town of Randleman, about
10 miles south of New Garden Meeting House and Greensboro.

On 13 Nov 1756, Robert received a land grant of 429 acres in Rowan Co, North Carolina, on the “N fork of Deep River.” Now that seems strange. Deep River is nowhere near Rowan Co., today. But in 1753, Rowan Co was huge, and was later divided, several times. In 1770, eastern Rowan was combined with western Orange County to form Guilford County, where Robert Lamb ended up as did part of Deep River and Robert's land. And in 1787 he obtained an additional 150 acres on Polecat Creek, a Deep River tributary According to Guilford Co Genealogical Society maps, Robert lived a little north of the Deep River/Polecat fork, and that certainly agrees with his land acquisitions.

The third New Garden Meeting House, Guilford Co,
North Carolina (John Collins, 1869).

North of Robert’s property and a little west of Greensboro, the Society of Friends, in the early 1750s, established the New Garden Meetings, and a meeting house was constructed around 1757. It was at this new meeting house (which later burned, in 1784, and was replaced) that, on 2 Aug 1757, “Robert Lamb & Rachel Tayler apeared . . . & Declared thire intention of marrig with Each other.” And on 29 Sep 1757, at New Garden, Rachel Taylor and Robert Lamb did just that.  Rachel, daughter of Simeon Taylor, was from Opekan, Virginia. “Opekan” was the name originally given to what became known as the Hopewell Friends Meeting House, in Frederick Co, Virginia. What Rachel was doing in North Carolina is uncertain, for her parents did not move from Hopewell to New Garden until 1784.

Robert and Rachel lived out their lives in what became Guilford County. They were there on 15 Mar 1781, during the Revolutionary War’s Battle of Guilford Courthouse. Part of the action occurred at New Garden Meeting House, when British forces heading north from Deep River Meeting House encountered an American unit at New Garden. New Garden Quakers helped care for the wounded from that battle. Robert and Rachel were there when British America became The United States of America. And they were there when several of their descendants left North Carolina, seeking “free” states, but that is an upcoming story.

It is interesting that also in Guilford Co at the time were Joseph and Mary (Jackson) Summers Summers, whose great great grandson John William Summers Sr. would one day marry Robert and Rachel’s great great great granddaughter Verne Cumi Crabtree. (Do you suppose the Summers and Lambs met?)

On 4 Feb 1814 Robert signed with a mark his Guilford Co will, which acknowledged his wife, and named three sons—Samuel, Simeon, and John–and four daughters—Elizabeth, Ester (“Esther” in other documents), Deborah, and Ann. But, we know of two more daughters, Margaret and Rachel. Rachel, who died 26 Dec 1809, was not living when her father made his will. And it is likely that neither was Margaret, especially since Robert’s will names a single grandchild, possibly, “Margate Balden,” though the handwriting is difficult to read. “Margate” is likely “Margaret,” the daughter of a deceased Margaret Lamb, and “Balden” could be “Baldwin.” It is claimed by many that a Larkin Baldwin married Margaret the daughter of Robert and Rachel, but Larkin’s marriage was to a “Hetty” Lamb and occurred on 27 Nov 1815, almost two years after Robert had written his will.

A handwritten note with Robert's 1814 will states “Last Will & Testament of Robert Lamb Decd Feby Two 1815.” Robert had apparently died by that date. We don’t know when his wife, Rachel, passed, but Robert probably went first since a still-living Rachel is mentioned in Robert’s will.

And this brings us to Robert and Rachel’s son Simeon. Mary Anne Lamb’s grandfather and the subject of a future blog. But first we need to look at the Quaker migration from North Carolina, for Simeon and some of his siblings were among the emigres. Lambs on the lam is the subject of our next blog.

A Crab Tree

Timothy Franklin Crabtree of Kentucky was the grandfather of Verne Cumi Crabtree, wife of John William Summers Sr., one of the Wittenberg, Missouri, Summers Family. Few records exist for the early Kentucky Crabtrees, but with a lot of sleuthing, we can construct Timothy’s probable family tree. That’s right, a Crabtree tree, or, to avoid redundancy, a Crab Tree.

Some Crabtree connections and probable connections (with lots of spouses left out).

If you want the excruciatingly mind-numbing investigatory details (omitted here to keep from boring readers), contact me or better yet get an electronic copy of a few pages on this subject from a draft of A Summers Saga, The Wittenberg Summers. To get a free electronic copy of those pages just click on the link below. You don’t need the Dropbox app. If you get a "Log in or Sign Up" message just ignore it. Press the "Download" button at the top left of the web page. You will then get a small popup window saying “Log in or sign up” Do neither. At the bottom of the small window there is a bar that says “Or continue with the download only”. Press that bar. Message me if you have problems.

Download

Someday (I hope) you will be able to get a copy of the entire book, and really be bored with excruciating details.