Life History

Notes

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  :James Few was born in 1746 in Hartford (present-day Baltimore County, Maryland). His parents were William Few, Sr., and Mary Wheeler (James was their second-oldest son). James migrated with his parents and siblings to Orange County, North Carolina circa 1758.
  
  Circa 1770, James married Sarah Wood in Orange County, North Carolina. They had twins, William and Sarah, who were born February 9, 1771.
  
  James may have been a carpenter, but so far no primary source documents have come to light to prove that he was or that mentions his occupation.
  
  James was executed west of Hillsborough, North Carolina on May 17, 1771, after taking part in the Battle of Alamance. He was executed by North Carolina militia troops while they were serving under North Carolina's royal Governor, William Tryon. James was hanged at the militia's camp approximately five miles northeast of the Alamance battlefield (as described by William Tryon in his orders book).
  
  His children moved to Georgia with their grandparents after his death; his wife Sarah later remarried a Loyalist officer and moved to Greenwood County, South Carolina. It is unknown what happened to his body after he was executed; either his family members retrieved it (it took about one day to get to the campsite from their home east of Hillsborough at that time; the campsite was directly on the public road from Hillsborough to Salisbury, North Carolina, just after the ford over Great Alamance Creek) or he was unceremoniously buried at the campsite in an unmarked grave nearby by the militia troops that hanged him. ...
  
  His brother, William Few, later became known for his service as an officer during the American Revolutionary War and as a politician in Georgia and New York.
  --  James Few," Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Few
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  Gregorys and Fews in Migration Patterns from the 1700s
  By Orville Boyd Jenkins
  Posted on Ancestry.com 16 October 2017
  
  One factor in reconstructing a family lineage are patterns of movement and migration.  These migration paths are helpful in finding and evaluating records in our Gregory and related Few line.  We see Gregory records in a generational pattern along the migration streams along the tidewater area or valleys southwards and westward.
  
  Westward
  Records are being discovered in the westward line from Philadelphia through Frederick and Hagerstown, Maryland, through what is now West Virginia, still part of Virginia in the era we are looking at, and on to Ohio and Indiana.  Brothers John, Richard and Benjamin Gregory, thought to be sons of Isaac Gregory of Pennsylvania, are mentioned several times in lists of residents of old Frederick County, Virginia, a large area at the northern end of the Shenandoah Valley, also on a common east-west migration route.
  
  Records for a younger Richard Gregory are found in Culpeper County and Fauquier County, Virginia, on this westward path south of the Pennsylvania border.  These two counties were established in 1749, cut out of Orange County, the original huge area from which Frederick County was originally established in 1743.  These counties bordered Frederick County on the east.
  
  Dates and locations of various records match a line of movement from the residence of Richard's likely grandfather Benjamin Gregory of Pennsylvania, into Frederick County, and later back to eastern Virginia in Prince William County, across the Potomac from Washington, DC.  This westward line of migration connects with the great Shenandoah Valley running southwestward along the eastern edge of the Appalachian Mountains in what is now West Virginia.
  
  Records for a Lewis Gregory, who appears to be a son of Benjamin, son of Isaac, are found along this Shenadoah Valley route then across into the part of Virginia that later became Kentucky, one of the areas where Fews and Gregorys come into contact.  This matches the pattern of residence and Gregory-Few marriages in some of these areas along this southward line of migration.  Details are found in individual notes for the Fews and Gregorys.  Gregorys from this lineage moved westward a bit to the part of Virginia that is now northern Kentucky.
  
  Southward
  Gregorys are found along the Shenandoah Valley which runs southwestward from Hagerstown to Bristol, Virginia/Tennessee, on the border, on through Jefferson and Cocke County, which were all one area of North Carolina, then East Tennessee (current I-81 to I-40 to Knoxville) in the 1700s and early 1800s and on toward Cherokee and contiguous counties in Alabama.
  
  We find Gregorys that appear to be from two different lineages who followed the Shenandoah or similar route from Philadelphia-Baltimore through Virginia into Tennessee, our line through the easterly route of the named east Tennessee counties, the other a bit more westerly, with members of both lines in Kentucky.
  
  These two lines seem to be connected to the same line from Pennsylvania and northern Virginia.  But there are indication of one or two separate migration streams in the same areas.  Early sources are not clear on these lines, and similar names in what may be different lineages seem to have been confused in some genealogies.
  
  I have been through all these areas and explored these lines of migration so have these in mind as I read through records and watch for connections and clues.
  
  Westward Ho
  Gregorys in the line of James Henry Gregory and Rachel Lewis are found in those counties of Tennessee from Jefferson-Cocke on to Knox, McMinn (where we find both these Gregorys, with apparently no crossover), Franklin, etc, in the westward migration route.  Gregorys of our lineage also seem to have moved northwestward through the mountain passes toward Louisville.
  
  Fews and Gregorys are connected in the states of Virginia, Kentucky (which was originally part of Virginia colony), North Carolina and Tennessee (which was originally part of North Carolina Colony) in several generations.  The Fews in North Carolina apparently followed the westerly route over the Smokies into Tennessee into Jefferson County, Tennessee, and surrounding counties where they connected again with the Gregory lineage.  We find them in the family of Francis Marion Few from North Carolina Jefferson County, Tennessee, where his daughter Letha married Andrew Jackson Gregory, my great great grandfather's brother.
  
  Crossflow
  Traffic went both ways along those Midwestern routes over a period of two centuries.  Fews moved into the Louisville, Kentucky, area from Indiana (across the Ohio River.  Gregorys and Fews also moved from eastern Tennessee into Kentucky.
  
  Great migrations northward occurred in the 1920s and later because of extensive floods along the Mississippi, destroying much of the Delta South.  The depression added to this exodus northward.  Midwestern droughts accelerated movement to California.  Further industrialization in the next two decades and after WWII accelerated this migration northward and westward.
  
  The geographical indicators are not only contiguous counties, but similarly in the counties along these common natural migration routes, which also reveal patterns of the same family decade to decade and generation to generation.  These patterns match the same kinds of patterns we find in ethnic investigations all over the world.
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  James "The Regulator" Few
  Birth 1746 Baltimore County, Maryland, USA
  Death May 17, 1771 Alamance County, North Carolina, USA
  
  James, son of William Few, Sr. and Mary Wheeler, Married Sarah Wood, parents unknown, 1770, Orange Co., NC. To this marriage twins were born: William and Sarah.
  
  This is from Tryon's own record: Friday 17, May, Alamance Camp; Army Halted. This evening the dead were interred with Military Honors, and an "outlaw named FEW", taken at the battle , was hanged at the head of the Army. This gave great satisfaction to the men, and at this time it was necessary sacrifice to appease the murmuring of the Troops, who were importunate that public justice should be immediately executed against some of the outlaws that were taken in the action, and in opposing of whom they had braved so many dangers and suffered such loss of lives and blood, and without which satisfaction some refused to march forward while others declared they would give no quarter for the future. The Battlefield in on highway 62 off of I-85 at Burlington, North Carolina.
  
  James was hanged with out a trial. He left his wife Sarah and two Children 3 months old. James was captured at the Battlefied of "The Regularors War" 16 May 1771.
  After James was hanged the family moved to Georgia where they fought the British. James's brother William Few,Jr, signed the United States Constitution for the State of Georgia.
  
  Sandra Jayne Savage Ruyle 6th Great Granddaughter of James Few.
  
  Parents:
  William Few (1714 - 1794)
  Mary Wheeler Few (1710 - 1788)
  
  Children:
  William Few (1771 - 1856)
  Sarah Few Garvin (1771 - 1855)
  
  Note: The Plaque is placed at Few Chapel Cemetery in Dickson Co., TN, not where James is buried
  
  Burial Unknown
  
  Created by Donnie Ruyle Aug 26, 2010
  --  Find A Grave Memorial #57732628, https://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=57732628
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Sources

• 1. Find a Grave Memorial Registry
• 2. North America, Family Histories, 1500-2000
• 3. 1850 Federal Census, Greenville County, South Carolina
  • 16 September, page 114, Hse/Fam #841