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Archiver > BOZEMAN > 2001-02 > 0982114785


From: John Coats <>
Subject: Re: [BOZEMAN] Quakers or Loyalists?
Date: Tue, 13 Feb 2001 19:39:45 -0600
References: <NEBBKIIMKDMHBGEAPHJICEGLCBAA.RenaeBC@att.net>


That name "Meade". I betcha that's where Meady Bozeman came from.

John Coats

Renae Bowers-Carnahan wrote:

> Ok folks, here is what I found.
>
> I went through the Encyclopedia of American Quaker Genealogy looking for
> every name in the 3 emails related to this discussion.
> While I searched all 6 volumes, only Vol. 1 and Vol. 6 have parts of North
> Carolina in them. Vol. 1 has North and South Carolina with part of Georgia.
> Vol. 6 has Virginia and part of North Carolina. These are the names I
> found.
>
> Sutton
> Sarah, George, Nathaniel, and Rebecca were listed in Perquimans Co., North
> Carolina in the 1725-6 time frame. Others were William in 1809, Caleb in
> 1820, and Mary in 1889.
>
> David Mote (also spelled Moat)
> He was married with children in Union County, South Carolina in 1753 and the
> family slowly migrated south. They were in Wrightsboro, Georgia by 1774.
> There was a son David Mote, Jr. but no indication of his age except that he
> was listed separately on a membership roster for the Bush River Monthly
> Meeting (Newberry Co., South Carolina) sometime in the 1770’s. This would
> imply he was an adult since spouses and children were not listed. So if
> this is the same David Mote, it was probably Junior.
>
> Sellers/Sellars
> Gertrude and Baxter were in South Carolina in the late 1800’s.
>
> FYI. All 6 volumes are in a database on Ancestry.com, however, I strongly
> suggest you locate a copy of the books and view them before using the
> on-line database. The organization of the online version is confusing
> unless you have seen the book. In addition, Ancestry.com does not give any
> indication of what the abbreviations mean and most of them are unique to the
> Quaker Meeting Hall language.
>
> Regardless of that issue, here are a few other family names that may be of
> interest during another search.
> Holloway
> Hollingsworth
> Rowe/Roe
> Rice
> Meade
> Demsey/Dempsey (as a male first name with a variety of last names)
>
> I also noted that it was in the 1770’s that the Georgia General Assembly set
> aside a 40,000-acre tract of land in Columbia County for the Quakers (now
> McDuffie Co., west of Augusta, GA). The Quakers founded a town by the name
> of Wrightsboro there. This town no longer exists. The Quakers abandoned it
> in the 1810’s when they all moved to Ohio.
>
> Since this wasn’t a very fruitful search, I turned my attention to the
> Loyalist option.
>
> Then the librarian directed me to several books on Loyalists in the
> Revolutionary War. I only had 1 hour left before the library closed, so I
> had to work fast. Lo and behold the very first book I checked listed John
> Bozeman in Major Patrick Cunningham’s Little River Regiment of the
> Ninety-Six Brigade. This was in Volume 1 of “Loyalists in the Southern
> Campaign of the Revolutionary War,” written by Murtie June Clark and
> published in 1981. I know this is not Samuel’s line, so I’ll leave it to
> another email to tell you what I learned about him.
>
> Ok, back to hunting for Samuel.
>
> The oath mentioned in the Bond for Departure was part of the state’s first
> treason act in April 1777. According to “The Loyalist Experience in North
> Carolina (by Carole Watterson Troxler, 1976), “The law directed that the
> oath be offered to crown officials and merchants trading directly with
> Britain; they could take it or give bond to leave the state within 60 days.
> It could be administered to anyone, however, and it came to be used with the
> militia even before a law specified that it be offered to every adult male.”
>
> Here is a copy of the “Oath of Allegiance” mentioned in the Bond of
> Departure.
>
> “I will bear faithful and true allegiance to the State of North Carolina,
> and will to the utmost of my Power, support and maintain, and defend the
> independent Government thereof, against George the third, king of Great
> Britain, and his successors, and the Attempts of any other Person, Prince,
> Power, State, or Potentate, who by secret Arts, treason, Conspiracies, or by
> open Force, shall attempt to subvert the same, and will in every Respect
> conduct myself a peaceful, orderly Subject; and that I will disclose and
> make known to the Governor, some Member of the Council of State, or some
> Justice of the Peace, all Treasons, Conspiracies, and Attempts, committed or
> intended against the State, which shall come to my Knowledge.”
>
> The following excerpt from another book, “The Loyalists in North Carolina
> During the Revolution,” (by Robert O. DeMond, 1940) is particularly
> interesting. “In the summer of 1777 it was estimated that two thirds of the
> people of Bladen County were Tories and were contemplating leaving the
> state. At this time an oath of allegiance to the state was required of
> every citizen, and those refusing to take it were required to leave the
> state within sixty days….
> On his visit to Wilmington the later part of July 1777, General Ashe thought
> that the Tories were a real menace. He found there several Scotch Tories and
> other disaffected persons from Cross Creek and Bladen County and learned
> that under the pretext of coming down for salt they intended seizing the
> powder magazine by surprise. To prevent this, he ordered out all the
> militia of the county, but secured only three hundred men. It seemed that
> the attempted march of the previous year might be repeated. Colonel
> Robertson of Bladen County was ordered to be in readiness to attack and
> harass the Tories should they leave Cross Creek….”
>
> The “attempted march of the previous year” refers to an incident known as
> the Battle of Moore’s Creek. There is a National Park to commemorate the
> Battle. It is only a few miles from where Samuel Bozeman lived in Bladen
> County. I did not find a list of participants on this, but there may be
> more information available from the Park Service or other sources.
>
> Notice the timing of these two paragraphs, the summer of 1777. These
> passages seem to indicate that the adult males in Bladen County were asked
> to take the oath in the summer of 1777 when Colonel Robertson was raising
> the militia to prevent a takeover of the Wilmington powder magazine. Anyone
> who refused would have been given a Bond of Departure and their property
> seized.
>
> Shortly after the Act, which included the Oath of Allegiance, there was an
> Act allowing the state to confiscate property of anyone who did not
> physically present himself to the state and take the oath. Here is a brief
> excerpt and a link where you can see it on-line (yes, it is an awfully long
> link, but it worked when I tested it).
>
> “An act for confiscating the property of all such persons, as are inimical
> to the United States, and of such persons as shall not in a certain time
> therein mentioned, appear and submit to this state, whether they shall be
> received as citizens thereof, and of such persons as shall so appear, and
> shall not be admitted as citizens; and for other purposes therein mentioned
> ... A true copy from the original. J. Sitgreaves, Assist. C. H. C. December
> 28, 1777. [Newbern, 1778] [Negative photostat]. -- Piece 1 of 1,”
>
> Available at:
> http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=rbpe&fileName=rbpe21/rbpe211/211
> 0020c/rbpe2110020cpage.db&recNum=0&itemLink=D?rbpebib:41:./temp/~ammem_Mhye:
> :@@@mdb=aap,aaeo,rbaapcbib,aasm,ftvbib,aaodyssey,hh,gottscho,mharendt,bbpix,
> bbcards,magbell,lbcoll,rbpebib,calbkbib,cwband,gmd,cwar,cola,consrvbib,bdsbi
> b,coolbib,coplandbib,dag,musdibib,fsaall,papr,aep,papr,papr,dcm,cmns,flwpabi
> b,afcreed,cowellbib,toddbib,lomaxbib,ngp,raelbib,gottlieb,mtj,alad,gmd,wpa,m
> al,scsm,mcc,gmd,papr,gmd,aipn,papr,ncpm,ncpsbib,omhbib,gmd,pan,vv,wpapos,psb
> ib,pin,presp,lhbprbib,qlt,gmd,ncr,relpet,gmd,papr,papr,dukesm,mussm,denn,ams
> s,fpnas,papr,runyon,wtc,detr,hlaw,lhbumbib,varstg,horyd,mgw,hawp,nawbib,suff
> rg,papr,nfor&linkText=0
>
> So, at this point, it could go either way, but it seems more likely to me
> that Samuel was a Loyalist, at least in 1777. Remember that when
> Declaration of Independence was written in 1776, historians estimate that
> only 1/3 of the populace supported it. Regardless of how unfair they
> thought the Crown’s practices were, most people believed they could work
> within the British system to make changes. As time went passed, more people
> changed to support the rebel cause. As I’m studying this, I have learned
> that many people switched sides several times during the war. Men may have
> served in BOTH the Continental and British armies. Later they would claim
> to have been forced to serve in one or the other. Perhaps it was true,
> perhaps not, but apparently possible.
>
> Where in Georgia did Samuel Bozeman go? If he went to Wrightsboro, then
> there is still hope for the Quaker connection. If they went toward
> Savannah, they were probably Loyalists, as this was a known British
> stronghold. Apparently it was common for Loyalists and other people who
> simply wanted to stay out of the war to go to Florida as well.
>
> It’s too bad this particular Bond of Departure had the date torn away. If
> it were placed in one of these months or shortly thereafter, it would be
> more convincing evidence. If there are quite a few that are all similar in
> the same time frame, and from the same place, that might lead to one
> conclusion or another too. I did not have time to locate the book you
> mentioned as your source, Ron. If you get a chance to look at it again,
> perhaps this historical information will help lead us somewhere.
>
> Please don’t shoot the messenger, but the circumstantial evidence appears
> pretty strong to me that Samuel was a Loyalist in 1777.
>
> Since I started this for you Ron, tell me what you want me to do next. Do
> you think it is worth the effort to pursue a potential Quaker connection or
> not. The original records are stored at Guilford College in Greensboro. I
> was given the impression it will take a little work to get permission to see
> them though.
>
> There are plenty more resources available on the Loyalists. I gather that
> quite a few books have been published on the subject beginning about 1980.
> I guess the bicentennial spurred some interest in researching and presenting
> the "whole truth" about the war, rather than the one-sided version we were
> all presented as children.
>
> I’ll make another posting soon regarding John Bozeman and what I’ve learned
> surrounding his situation. I would appreciate any information about him
> that might help me locate additional records and identify him for certain.
>
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