Life History

Other facts

Notes

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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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  My first knowledge of Francis was in May 2013, when I found death information on his daughter Letha (Leathy), wife of Andrew Jackson Gregory.  In Letha's death certificate Francis' surname was written in a scrawling handwriting, and I interpreted the name as Feese.
  
  But in October 2014, I found a memorial on Find a Grave that had put up a photo of Letha's gravestone, showing her maiden name as Few.  In some sources I have found the name spelled Fue.
  
  Tennessee, Death Records, 1908-1958
  Letha Gregory [Letha Few]
  Gender Female
  Residence Dandridge, Tennessee
  Age 75, Birth abt 1855 South Carolina
  Occupation Housekeeper
  Death 31 Mar 1930 Chestnut Hill, Jefferson, Tennessee
  Cause of death Lobar pneumonia
  Father Francis Few born South Carolina
  Mother Harrett Childs born South Carolina
  Informant Jack Gregory, Dandridge, Tennessee
  Burial 1 April 1930 Chestnut Hill Cemetery, by John C Holder and Co of Newport (Cocke County), Tennessee
  
  The surname Few led to the discovery of Francis (F M) Few and his wife Hannah M in the 1860 census in Greenville, South Carolina, with 6-year-old "Lathy," matching later censuses of Letha/Leathy Gregory, wife of Andrew Jackson (Jack) Gregory.  This pointed out another discrepancy, because Letha's mother's name is reported on her death certificate as Harriet Childs.
  
  1860 Federal Census, Greenville County, South Carolina, 27 June, Greenville, P O Gowinsville, page 34, Hse #271, Fam #236
  F M Few 40 M Farmer $75 Real Estate $460 Personal born So Car
  Hannah M Few 34 F Housekeeper born No Car Cannot read or write
  Lathy Few 6 F born So Car
  William R Few 5 M born So Car
  Lucy J Few 4 F born So Car
  James Dunlap 21 M Apprentice b So Car
  
  But in 1850, Francis was enumerated as Frank Few, living with the Weaver family, also in Greenville County, South Carolina.  This John Weaver may be the same John Weaver who was the transcriber to whom the will of William Few Jr was dictated when William wrote the will in March 1848, about one month before he died.
  
  1850 Federal Census, Greenville County, South Carolina, 18 September, p 124, Hse/Fam #912
  John Weaver 52 M Farmer $7000 Real Estate b Rhode Island [b abt 1798]
  Matilda Weaver 35 F b SC [b abt 1815]
  Angeline Weaver 14 F b SC Attended School [b abt 1846]
  John Weaver 11 M b SC Attended School [b abt 1839]
  George Weaver 8 M b SC Attended School [b abt 1842]
  Frank Few 26 M b SC [b abt 1824]
  
  Francis served in a Confederate Infantry regiment from Greenville.
  
  U.S. Civil War Soldiers, 1861-1865
  Francis M. Few
  Confederate, South Carolina
  16th Regiment, South Carolina Infantry (Greenville Regiment), Company D, Private
  
  U.S., Confederate Soldiers Compiled Service Records, 1861-1865
  Francis M Few
  Age 42, Birth Date abt 1822
  Enlistment Date 1864
  Sixteenth Infantry (Greenville Regiment)
  
  U.S., Civil War Prisoner of War Records, 1861-1865
  Francis M Few, Confederate
  16th South Carolina Regiment, Company D Infantry
  Captured Springhill [Tennessee] 15 December 1864
  This battle was part of the Franklin-Nashville Campaign of the American Civil War.

Sources

• 1. Tennessee, Death Records, 1908-1958
• 2. 1860 Federal Census, Greenville County, South Carolina
  • 27 June, Greenville, P O Gowinsville, page 34, Hse #271, Fam #236
• 3. U.S., Confederate Soldiers Compiled Service Records, 1861-1865
• 4. 1850 Federal Census, Greenville County, South Carolina
  • 18 September, p 124, Hse/Fam #912
• 5. U.S. Civil War Soldiers, 1861-1865
  • Name: Date: 2007;;
• 6. U.S., Civil War Prisoner of War Records, 1861-1865
• 7. 1880 Federal Census, Jefferson County, Tennessee
  • Dist 5, p 515B
• 8. 1920 Federal Census, Jefferson County, Tennessee
  • 7 January, Civil District 8, Enumeration District 78, page 3A, Chesnut Hill Path, Hse/Fam #46
• 9. Find a Grave Memorial Registry
• 10. 1880 Federal Census, Jefferson County, Tennessee
  • 6 June, District 177, page 31-32, Hse 267, Fam #271