On 11/18/11 8:22 AM, "marsha moses" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Bill, Do you have any additional information on:
> 
>> Later he volunteered under Capt. Francis Shelton, of Henry, who was raising a
>> force to put down the Tories, then causing alarm in the hollows of Dan River,
>> on the North Carolina line.  Shelton's men visited persons known to be
>> disaffected to the American cause and prevented injuries from tories.  The
>> headquarters was with a tory named McGowan, who lived in Henry
> 
> Dates?  Specific events?

This bit quoted by Bill Davidson appears to be from the pension application
of Giles Davidson, but is a little bit garbled as the Capt. Shelton
referenced here was Eliphaz, not Francis, Shelton. There are quite a few
pension applications that refer to service against the Tories in the Hollows
area of then Henry Co., now Patrick Co.. I wouldn't call the McGowan farm an
official "Headquarters" though. That kind of implies something it was not.
This was just a local tory sympathizer & community leader, not anything
official or government related.

> My Silas Wooten says in his pension application that he enlisted in March 1781
> at Boyd's Ferry.  My own research shows that to be a Ferry across the Dan
> River about where the railroad tracks cross the river at New Boston.  Silas
> says that this was on the Roanoke River.
> 
> Silas called the Dan River the Roanoke.  A variant name for the Dan is the
> South Branch of the Roanoke River.   The question is:  Was Silas a local?  Was
> this river more often called the Roanoke in that time period than the Dan?

Have you looked at the Fry-Jefferson map, from 1751? This map shows the
Roanoke river as the river downstream of the confluence of the Staunton and
the Dan rivers. So Boyd's Ferry would have been on the Dan river, not the
Roanoke, but close to the Roanoke portion of the river. Maybe Silas was a
little confused on the exact location, easy to happen during wartime, or so
many years later in his pension application, especially since this area was
so close to where several rivers merge and the names of the rivers change.

You can view the Fry-Jefferson map on the LOC web site & download a copy for
yourself - 
http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/h?ammem/gmd:@field(NUMBER+@band(g3880+ct
000370))

The Fry-Jefferson map also has Johnson's & Lovill's Creeks marked. They both
start at the SE side of the Blue Ridge & flow S. into the Ararat River,
which then empties into the Yadkin. This is the area known as the "Hollows"
that was being referred to in those pension applications. Lovill's Creek was
sometimes called Loving's Creek and is in present day Carroll Co..

Here's a map showing the general location of the Hollows, at the bottom of
this web page - 
http://www.freestateofpatrick.com/ararathistory.htm

I've seen "The Hollows" labeled in this same location on several late 1800's
maps. It's the area around Willis Gap road, in VA, north of Mt. Airy, NC.

> ...  I am interested in knowing the time period
> that the Tories were particularly active in northern NC .....trying to
> recruit.....and other details to fill out my "story" in this time period.
>
> In addition my Salmons family and Hensley family would have been living in
> Pittsylvania/Henry area in this same time period.  I have reason to be
> interested in any information about when and details of anything anyone has on
> these events.   Marsha Moses

There are quite a few pension applications of men who served from the Henry
Co. area transcribed on the Southern Campaign web site. You can search on
names or keywords, places, etc. and find a lot more background information
in these records.

http://southerncampaign.org/pen/#pensions

There is also more background information in several local history books, if
you haven't seen these before -

"History of Patrick and Henry Counties, Virginia", by Virginia G. Pedigo,
Lewis Gravely Pedigo - which is in the Heritage Quest database & many
libraries.

"A history of Henry County Virginia: with biographical sketches...", by
Judith Parks America Hill (on several pay web sites and many libraries).

"Henry County: a proud look back" by Lela C. Adams, et al.

There's also good background information in the Maude Carter Clements books
on Pittsylvania Co. history. There are some excerpts here -
http://www.victorianvilla.com/sims-mitchell/local/clement/mc/index.htm

And the New River Notes web site has Revolutionary War information too -
http://www.newrivernotes.com/nrv.htm

C.Etter 

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