At the age of 18 years, William Franklin Sr. (born 1718 in Virginia) purchased some farmland in James River Mountain and was thereafter married to his 1st wife,
Sarah Rebecca Boone. Their son, George Thomas Franklin was born on the James River mountain in 1744 (died 1816 in Warren County, Georgia). When the boy was ten years of age, his mother died. It is unknown how she died, however, the Shawnee Indians greatly harassed the settlers, taking men and women as slaves. Rebecca was descended from George Boone, a Quaker, of Philadelphia. The Boone's number 12 to 15 children and repeated family names. It may be that Rebecca was a daughter or granddaughter of one, George Thomas Boone. She most probably was a second cousin to the famous Daniel Boone.
Lord Dunmore's War
In October of 1774, the Governor of Virginia sent out all of the
Virginia Regiments to battle with the Shawnee. The two
regiments in Botetourt County went by boat on the Mississippi
River to Ohio falls where they were the first and only regiments to clash in a vicious battle with Chief Cornstalk. Each side had many casualties; in the end, Chief Cornstalk signed a Treaty of Peace.
William Franklin Sr., a member of the Militia, Love Regiment in
Botetourt County was listed as having sustained an injury.
Afterward, when the call was put out along the western frontier
for volunteers in the Continental Army to fight the British, young
Thomas Franklin went East to join the Southern Campaign of the
British regiments which had moved South to seize control of
North Carolina. Later, William Franklin and family, viz: second
wife, sons William, and others, followed.
According to the land grants given after the Revolutionary War,
William Sr., William Jr., and Thomas Franklin all served. However, based on the amount of bounty land each one received, only
William Franklin Sr. served to the end. The Militia companies
required all males between the ages of 16 and 50 to serve.
William, born in 8 was fifty-six years of age when he fought in
Lord Dunmore's War of 1774. After the war, in 1783, he would
have been sixty-five years of age, which declares that he was a
staunchly brave and determined citizen. After the war, he settled on about 1300 acres of land in Davisboro, Georgia. A method of discerning what battles he fought in can be learned by tracing the service of General William Lee, who signed the bounties. It is said that the DAR placed a monument over his grave in Davisboro, Georgia, but I have not located it.
|
William Franklin, fighter of 2 wars
Immigrants to America
Sources:
Lord Dunmore's War of 1774
Dunmore's War and Opening of the Revolutionary War
Grave of William Franklin, Davisboro, Georgia
Squire Magrudge
Boone
The Soldiers of West Virginia in the French and Indian War; Lord
Dunmore's War; the Revolution; the later Indian Wars; the
Whiskey Insurrection; the second War with England; the War with
Mexico by Virgil A. Lewis, M. A.
Warren County, Georgia
Light Horse Harry Lee
Sources: Revolutionary War Records of William Franklin, Sr., George Thomas Franklin, and William Franklin, all receiving bounty grants for their services in Warren County, Georgia, signed by Light Horse Harry Lee!
|
The Franklin families left Tidewater Virginia in the mid-1700s and settled on Pine-Run Mountain in Botetourt County, Virginia.
Pine-Run Mountain Rock Quarries. According to the Minutes of the Superior Court of Augusta County, Virginia the Franklin log cabin was located on Pine-Run Mountain (Augusta County, later Botetourt County) one mile below the rock quarry!