Life History

Notes

• Very little documentation is available for Isaac and his parents' family.  Most genealogies have no records at all.  Some identify him with the Isaac Gregory born in Virginia who moved to Union County, South Carolina, and who married Alse Gerard.  Some dispute this identification.  Some genealogies give his birth place as Lunenburg County, Virginia.
  
  Nathan Gregory, who have extensively researched the early Gregorys, has only Virginia, but reports him with the death date and location of the Richard Gregory in Union County, South Carolina.
  
  The date given by Nathan and some other genealogies is March 1797, the date for the disputed Isaac Gregory, who is noted on a historical marker as a member of the Provincial Congress in 1775 and was active in the American Revolution, as well las serving the in the North Carolina conventions.  No family information is given in the plaque.
  
  U.S. and International Marriage Records, 1560-1900
  Isaac Gregory
  Alse Gerard
  No marriage date is included in this compiled index record.
  Several Gregory genealogies identify the Isaac of this record with Isaac, son of Isaac Gregory and Jemima Fullens of Pennsylvania and Virginia.
  
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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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  A story is found about his settlement, the locations where he got land grants in Virginia and the Carolinas, and his family.  He was the first Gregory settler in the Carolinas, and was called Isaac the Elder, since one of his sons was also named Isaac.  It seems likely that this Isaac Gregory is the son of Isaac Gregory and Jemima Fullens of Pennsylvania and  Prince William County, Virginia.
  
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  Mrs. Josephine Gregory Spears of Raleigh, NC has researched the Virginia Gregorys in depth. The following chronology is available through her efforts.
  
  Isaac Gregory bought fifty acres of land from Nicholas and Tabitha Robertson of Lunenburg [Virginia] on 7 May 1762.  The land was located on the lower side of Mitchell Creek.  The witnesses to this transaction were:  Joseph Dobson, John Johnson and Jno. Dobson.  Isaac and his wife Alse sold fifty acres of land in Mecklenberg County to John Hatchell.  This land was located on Eastlines Creek.
  
  The titheables taken by Edmund Taylor in St James Parish, Lunenburg County, Virginia and later reported in Early Settlers of Mecklenberg County, Virginia list Isaac Gregory:  one tithe due for 1764 on fifty acres.  Isaac his wife and at least two children moved to Mecklenberg, NC, where he was granted two hundred acres by Governor William Tryon on 26 October 1767. The land was located, according to description found within the grant, on the south side of the Broad River on the South Fork of Brown's Creek, above the "wagon" road.
  
  Isaac obtained a Royal Grant in South Carolina as well.
  --------------------------------
  
  An anonymous researcher posted this additional helpful note about the land grants in the Carolinas.
  "According to the Gregory family history by Dr Ben Gregory (available online at Gregoryfamily.com)  the land grants were always in what is present day Union County.  Boundary was redrawn, putting that part of Mecklenberg County into South Carolina."
  --  Comment on a background story about Isaac Gregory on Ancestry
  
  The story and the comment also refer further to another grant in Cravens County, North Carolina.  The anonymous commenter notes that the information presented by Ben Gregory's family history does not mention Cravens County.
  
  Roster of South Carolina Patriots in the American Revolution, p 386
  Gregorys listed in the roster:
  (The following appear to be afamily, Isaac and his sons)
  Isaac, militia under Capt Hughes and Col Brandon, horseman and infantry, during 1782 and 1783
  Jeremiah, militia under Capt Hughes and Col Brandon, from 1779 to 1781 alternatively
  Jerrel (Jarrod), militia under Col Brandon, before and after the fall of Charleston
  Benjamin, militia under Capt Hughes and Col Brandon, from 1782 to 1783 alternatively
  John, militia under Capt Hughes and Col Brandon, from 1780 to 1782 alternatively
  Robert, militia under Capt Hughes and Col Brandon, from 1781 to 1782 alternatively
  (These appear to be from other families)
  Henry, Third Regiment, 10 February 1779 to 1 February 1780
  John, Fifth Regiment, enlisted on 16 April 1776
  John, Ediston Island Volunterr Militia, under Capt Joseph Jenkins and Col Joseph Glover
  Thomas, Second Dragoons under Capt Isaac Ross, Col Myddleton and Gen Sumter and was dead about September 1781
  
  Isaac and other members of his family were enumerated as heads of households in the 1790 census.  His sons John and Jeremiah were listed as heads of households, Jeremiah on the same age and John on the prior page.  His son Isaac was reported a couple of pages later.
  
  Another son Robert is reported on the page before John.  A female head of household named Harriett Gregory was reported next door to Isaac Sr.  Her identity is not clear.  The names of all the sons' wives are not known to us.
  
  1790 Federal Census, Union County, South Carolina, p 41
  Robert Gregory
  1 Free White Males - 16 and over
  3 Free White Males - Under 16
  5 Free White Females
  0 slaves
  
  1790 Federal Census, Union County, South Carolina, p 42
  John Gregory
  1 Free White Males - 16 and over
  4 Free White Males - Under 16
  5 Free White Females
  3 slaves
  
  1790 Federal Census, Union County, South Carolina, p 43
  Isaac Gregory
  3 Free White Males - 16 and over
  2 Free White Males - Under 16
  4 Free White Females
  
  Harriett Gregory
  1 Free White Males - 16 and over
  3 Free White Males - Under 16
  2 Free White Females
  
  Jer-h Gregory
  1 Free White Males - 16 and over
  4 Free White Males - Under 16
  1 Free White Females
  1 slave
  
  1790 Federal Census, Union County, South Carolina, p 45
  Isaac Gregory
  2 Free White Males - 16 and over
  0 Free White Males - Under 16
  1 Free White Females
  3 slaves
  
  Will of Isaac Gregory, written 13 August 1796 in Union County, South Carolina.
  Witnesses Nathan Sandage and Josiah Tyree.
  Executors nominated were his sons Isaac and Jarred (identified in other probate documents as Gerrard, his mother's maiden nanme, usually spelled Gerard).
  Survivors named in the will:
  Wife Alse
  Children:
  Jarred, Jeremiah, John, Robert, Elizabeth, Isaac
  Granddaughter Salley (parents not named)
  Son Benjamin already deceased; his children named in the will in his stead.

Sources

• 1. Ancestry Trees
• 2. South Carolina, Wills and Probate Records, 1670-1980
• 3. U.S. and International Marriage Records, 1560-1900
• 4. Roster of South Carolina Patriots in the American Revolution
  • p 386
• 5. 1790 Federal Census, Union County, South Carolina
  • p 43
• 6. Google Books
• 7. Family Data Collection - Individual Records
• 8. U.S., Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty-Land Warrant Application Files, 1800-1900
• 9. Find a Grave Memorial Registry