KINCAID-L Archives

From: Peter A. Kincaid< >
Subject: A Saga of the Kincaids by George Diehl
Date: Fri, 25 Apr 1997 20:42:20 -0300

Hello everyone!

William Kincaid, secretary of Clan Kincaid, sent me
photocopies of some articles that appeared in the
Lexington Gazette from Jan to April 1861. They
were by George West Diehl. William was missing
Chapters 3 and 12.

I will post the first chapter as it gives a profile
of the early Kincaids in America. These are very
important articles as given the date, 1861, they are
almost the root of subsequent Kincais genealogies, and
in particular that by Dr. Herbert C. Kincaid in the
early 1900s. In fact it appears that Dr. Kincaid
almost quoted parts of the article. They are also
important in that they are quite close to time of
the early settlers and within living memory of the
second generation.

Please note I left their typos as is. Furthermore,
the birth year for Thomas Kincaid was not legible
but apears to have been either 1695 or 1705.

*****
Rockbridge Notebook

"A Saga of the Kincaids"
Chapter One
by George West Diehl

Studies in genealogies of American families become
very intriguing when generations after generations
maintain same given names and when the situation is
made more complicated by the intermarriages that
have taken place. These two factors, together with
various spelling of the family name, make research in
the Kincaid clan very difficult and yet almost
interesting. Whether the name is "Kincaid," or
"Kinkead," or "Kinkhead," the fountain-spring in
Scotland is the same.

Those who bear the family name are unquestionably
related, but the kinsmanship may be quite remote as
well as very near. For instance, David Kincaid,
brother of the Laird of Kincaid, in Scotland, became
deeply involved in a political situation known as
"the Jacobite Rising" and was to seek safety over
seas. He came to Virginia, settled for a time in
Spotsylvania County then Albemarle County, and
finaly Augusta County. He is said to have been
the builder of the jail in Staunton where he lived
and reared a large family. A daughter named Jane,
or Jean, became the wife of Robert Gwin, who had
migrated to Virginia from Wales, and another
daughter, Isabella, married James Lockridge.

David Kincaid had a brother named Alexander who
did not come to Virginia, but he was well
represented by four sons, Samuel, George, Robert
and James, who appear to have accompanied their
uncle or came a few years later.

Then, there was John Kincaid who migrated to
Virginia. His son John settled in Amherst County
where his son John Kincaid, III, was born in 1771.
The movement to Tennessee drew this grandson of
the immigrant and he settled in Fincastle with
his wife, the former Nancy Grimes, whom he married
in 1796. She died in 1822 and was survived by
her husband until 1841.

Too, there was Robert Kincaid, a graduate of the
University of Dublin, Ireland. Upon reaching
Virginia, he became a tutor in the family of Col.
Archibald Cary, of "Ampthill" Here he met, wooed,
and won the daughter of his patron and Robert
and Elizabeth Cary became the ancestors of the
beloved professor of Greek in Hampden-Sydney
College for more than thirty years, Dr. Henry
Clay Brock.

Finally, among the immigrants into Pennsylvania
from Ireland was Thomas Kincaid - the name is
spelled Kinkead, also. He was born in 1--5 and
was in his early thirties when he landed in
Pennsylvania where he made is home for a few
years before joining with some Scotch-Irish
comrades in moving across the Potomac River, up
the valley of the Shenandoah, to the headwaters
of the James in what is now Rockbridge County.

In the cavalcade of Thomas Kincaid was his son
William who was born in Pennsylvania, January 9,
1736. Now in 1747, at the age of eleven, he was
a boy of the frontier, the oldest child of the
family. The Kaincaids settled upon a 263 acre
plantation which the husband and father bought
on November 19, 1747. With the aid of his good
neighbors, John Preston, Robert Lockridge, Robert
Gwin, and others, a sturdy log cabin with the
chinks well plastered against the cold of winter,
was built on the Kincaid farm.

A little more than three years passed and the
community was growing with the arrival of new
settlers. Some of the newcomer pressed on
through Panther Gap to the broad and beautiful
valley of the Wallawatoola. Then, in 1750, Thomas
Kincaid died and William now a boy of seventeen
years, was loaded with responsibility of the family.
On August 17, 1753, the Augusta County Court
appointed Thomas Fulton to be his guardian and
Robert Bratton and William Hamilton became Fulton's
sureties. This action replaced the one made by
the Court in May, 1753, when James Lockhart was
made the guardian.

On November 30, 1756, William Kincaid married
Eleanor Guy. The bridegroom was twenty years of
age and the bride was just sixteen. It was a
matter of tremendous courage for such a young
couple to develop a home on the frontier of
those days, but this is not the lone instance.
From every evidence, the young Kincaids lived on
the acres acquired by Thomas Kincaid in 1747. The
cabin was made larger to accomodate the new family
and to care for the groom's family.

(To be Continued)

Source: The Lexington Gazette. Lexington, Va.
18 January 1861.
*****

A public thanks to William Kincaid for the
articles!!

See ya..

Peter A. Kincaid
Fredericton, NB, Canada

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