Tag: Iredell County

Two Rankin Revolutionary War Pension Applications

This article is about men from two Rankin families: (1) Robert and Rebecca Rankin of Guilford, North Carolina and (2) David Rankin of Iredell, North Carolina. The families are a good Y-DNA match. David of Iredell could be a son of Robert and Rebecca, although that is unproved. They are undoubtedly at least cousins of some degree. Both belong to Lineage 1 of the Rankin DNA Project.[1]

It is easy to confuse some of the Rankin men who lived in North Carolina and Tennessee in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. That includes two men named Robert, both of whom fought in the Revolutionary War. They were both originally from North Carolina, but moved to Tennessee about 1825-1830. A commentor on our website made it clear that I had done a bad job of distinguishing them.

To clear up the confusion, lets revisit each man briefly to contrast their histories and pension applications. First, the man I call “Rev War Robert Rankin” (“Rev” stands for “Revolutionary,” not “Reverend”), then his fellow soldier “Mystery Robert Rankin.”

Rev War Robert Rankin of Rowan/Guilford, NC and McNairy, TN (1749 – 1840)[2]

Rev War Robert was a son of George and Lydia Steele Rankin of Rowan/Guilford County, North Carolina.[3]He married twice: first, to Mary (“Polly”) Cusick, probably in the early 1780s, and then to Mary Moody in 1803.[4]He applied for a pension in McNairy Co., TN on May 20, 1833.[5] Among other things, he testified as follows in his application:

    • He was born in Guilford Co., NC on May 29, 1759. (At that time, it was Rowan County; Guilford wasn’t created until 1770.)
    • He was in the battle of Guilford Courthouse on March 15, 1781.
    • He lived in Guilford until 1830. Then he moved to McNairy County, Tennessee, where he was residing when he applied for a pension.

Rev War Robert died in McNairy County on Dec. 21, 1840.[6] He is buried in Bethel Springs Cemetery; there is an image of his military tombstone at findagrave.com.[7]

“Mystery Robert Rankin” of Gibson County, TN (1748 – after 1835)

I refer to the second Robert Rankin as “Mystery Robert” because his family of origin is not conclusively proved. The records of Gibson County, Tennessee, where he applied for a Revolutionary War pension, reveal little about him. He only appeared in the 1830 census, one deed, the pension application, and a few tax records in Gibson County.

One thing, however, is obvious: the Robert Rankin who applied for a Revolutionary War pension from McNairy County, Tennessee (“Rev War Robert”) was not the same man as Robert Rankin of Gibson County, Tennessee (“Mystery Robert”). The two pension applications leave no doubt about that.

Mystery Robert testified in open court on September 7, 1832 in support of his application for a pension. [8]He said the following, inter alia:[9]

    • He was 84 years old, and thus born about 1748.
    • He served in the North Carolina militia. This almost certainly means that he lived in North Carolina when he enlisted.
    • He was in the battle of Ramsour’s Mill, where, he testified, “I lost a brother, killed by the Tories.” That battle took place in June 1780 in Lincoln County, North Carolina.

Most of the patriot troops who fought at Ramsour’s Mill were from Iredell County, NC. The Philip Langenhour papers, owned by the Iredell Genealogical Society in Statesville, establish that one of the dead patriots was named Rankin. Other Iredell and Lincoln County records provide evidence that James Rankin died at Ramsour’s and that he was a son of David and Margaret Rankin of Iredell. David and Margaret also had a son named Robert, proved by David’s will. Robert appeared frequently in the Iredell County records through the early 1820s, then disappeared without leaving any probate or cemetery records. Given the real and personal property ownership among this Rankin family, it is unlikely that Robert died in Iredell. Instead, he probably moved on.

The odds are that he landed in Gibson County, Tennessee. The evidence strongly suggests that Robert, brother of James, son of David and Margaret Rankin of Iredell, moved to Gibson County, where he stated in his pension application that he had a brother who died at Ramsour’s Mill.

I hope you read the pension applications of these two men. The amount of detail these veterans recalled is amazing – usually in 1832 or 1833, a full half-century after their service. I shouldn’t be surprised, though. My husband is a Vietnam vet, and it is clear that a war experience leaves one with very strong memories.

See you on down the road. The Rankins and I are not yet finished with each other …

Robin

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[1] See identified Rankin lineages on the project website here.

[2] National Genealogical Society Quarterly, Vol. 25, No. 4, December 1937, Revolutionary War Pension Applications. The pension application of Robert Rankin of McNairy Co., TN gave his date of birth as May 29, 1759. His widow, in her pension application, said he died on Dec. 21, 1840. See also an online transcription of Rev War Robert’s pension application, with additional information from his widow’s application, prepared by Will Graves. http://revwarapps.org/w5664.pdf.

[3] Rowan County, NC Will Book A: 141, will of George Rankin dated May 1760, proved Oct 1760, naming minor sons John and Robert and wife Lydia. See also the autobiography of Rev War Robert’s brother Shaker Rev. John Rankin, “Auto-biography of John Rankin, Sen.” (South Union, Ky., 1845), transcribed in Harvey L. Eads, ed., History of the South Union Shaker Colony from 1804 to 1836 (South Union, Ky., 1870), Shaker Museum at South Union, Auburn, Kentucky. The autobiography identifies Lydia Steele as George Rankin’s wife and the mother of John Rankin. See an article about the autobiography in Chapter 1.

[4] Guilford, NC Will Book B: 435, will of William Cusick naming three daughters of Robert Rankin (Lydia, Isbel and Thankful) and testator’s deceased daughter Polly Cusick Rankin; National Genealogical Society Quarterly, Vol. 25, No. 4, December 1937, Revolutionary War Pension Applications, identifying Rev War Robert’s second wife as Mary Moody, married in Guilford County on Nov. 22, 1803.

[5] See Note 2.

[6] For more information on Rev War Robert and his children, see the article discussing him and three other men named Robert from Robert and Rebecca’s line in Chapter 1.

[7] The Findagrave.com site poster claims that Rev. War Robert married Mary (“Polly”) Cusick in 1781. I found no evidence for that or any other specific date.

[8] Mystery Robert’s Gibson Co. pension application states his age, establishing his date of birth as about 1748. He was on the Tennessee pension roll in 1835, and may have been the grantor in an 1837 deed and a taxable on the 1838 Gibson tax list.

[9] Here is another link to Mystery Robert’s pension application, transcribed by Will Graves..

 

The Mysterious Robert Rankin of Gibson County, TN

Thanks to a winter storm and black ice on the road, Gary and I abandoned a planned trip to the North Carolina Archives. Instead, we u-turned to head home and then impulsively turned north at Birmingham toward the Tennessee State Library and Archives in Nashville. With no research plan for Tennessee, I began mucking about in county abstracts. When I stumbled over a passel of unfamiliar Rankins in Gibson County, I had a mission.

What caught my eye was the Revolutionary War pension application of a Robert Rankin.[1] He applied in Gibson County in September 1832. He served in the North Carolina militia. His sworn statement is replete with military detail; it reads as though he had a sharp mind and memory. Unfortunately, he did not identify the county where he enlisted, which might have led quickly to his family of origin. I didn’t have a clue who Robert might be, so he presented a fun puzzle to be solved.

The Gibson County records don’t reveal much about Robert. He was born about 1748 and lived in North Carolina when he was an adult.[2] He first appeared in Gibson County in 1827 when he was almost seventy years old.[3] He had no land, but owned one enslaved person.[4] He had a daughter named Margaret Finley.[5] He probably died between 1837 and 1840.[6] None of that helped identify his family of origin.

The thing that led to solving Robert’s puzzle was this: his pension application says that his brother (not named) was killed by Tories at the Battle of Ramsour’s Mill.[7] Robert also fought in that battle in June 1780. About 40 Whig patriots died there, although it was not easy to determine which dead soldiers fought for which side. That is because the combatants wore no uniforms. Loyalist Tories stuck a spring of greenery in their hats; the patriot Whigs had a piece of white paper in theirs. Those identifiers were sometimes missing from the bodies.

The largest number of patriot troops came from Iredell County. About thirteen of the forty dead patriots were members of Capt. Sharpe’s 4th Creek Company, Statesville, Iredell County, North Carolina.

Family history research rarely involves certainty, especially when dealing with records more than two centuries old. Sometimes one must play the odds. The best bet here is that Robert Rankin of Gibson County was originally from Iredell County.

A possibility appears as soon as you hit the Iredell records. Probate records include the will of a David Rankin. It was dated 1781 and proved in 1789.[8] It names his wife Margaret, son Robert, and three grandchildren: (1) David McCreary, (2) James Rankin, expressly identified as the son of Robert Rankin, and (3) David Rankin. The will does not say that grandson #3 David Rankin was Robert’s son. Grandson #3 must have had a father other than Robert. David and Margaret apparently had a second son who died before David wrote his will.

It wasn’t hard to find a candidate to be the second son. There was a James Rankin who died before January 29, 1782. James owned land in Burke County,[9] where his estate was administered. He had four minor children for whom a guardian was appointed in Lincoln County.[10] Here are the relevant records:

    • A Lincoln county guardian’s bond identifies John Alexander as guardian of minors David Rankin, Jane Rankin, Margaret Rankin and William Rankin, orphans of James Rankin.[11]
    • A Burke County administrator’s bond dated 29 January 1782 named Robert Rankin as administrator of the estate of James Rankin.[12] John Alexander was one of the securities on the bond.

On those facts, Robert and James Rankin were near kin, most likely brothers. John Alexander was part of the same extended Rankin family. Either (1) John Alexander married a Miss Rankin, or (2) John Alexander had a sister who married James Rankin. My friend Jody Thompson, a descendant of John Alexander’s brother, says that John Alexander was not married to a Rankin. Thus, John Alexander must have had a sister who married James Rankin, making John the uncle of his four Rankin wards.

Here is the critical piece of evidence. The Iredell County Genealogical Society has a collection called the “Philip Langenour papers.” They contain Mr. Langenour’s collections of stories about local families. He mentioned a Miss Alexander (no given name stated) who married a Mr. Rankin (ditto) who died in the 1780 Battle of Ramsour’s Mill.

This is the only evidence I have seen that a Rankin died at Ramsour’s Mill … other than the Gibson County pension application of Robert Rankin, whose patriot brother was killed in that battle.

The pieces of this puzzle fall together nicely. It is as good a bet as you can find in genealogy that James Rankin died in 1780 at Ramsour’s Mill, his wife was Miss ______ Alexander, and they had a son named David Rankin and a daughter named Margaret. Miss _____ Alexander Rankin’s brother John Alexander was guardian for his nephew David and his three Rankin siblings. The James Rankin who died at Ramsour’s Mill must have been a son of David and Margaret Rankin of Iredell and a brother of the Robert Rankin who was administrator of James’s estate.

Here is where we take a plunge off the high diving board without, we hope (as Jody puts it), “forcing Cinderella’s shoe to fit.” (Please forgive the mixed metaphors.)

Robert Rankin of Gibson County, Tennessee, who fought at Ramsour’s Mill and lost a brother there (and had a daughter named Margaret), is almost certainly the same man as Robert Rankin, son of David and Margaret Rankin of Iredell, and the brother of James Rankin who died at Ramsour’s Mill.

Thanks to Philip Langenour, the shoe fits quite nicely.

There is a bit more to the evidentiary trail. Robert Rankin, son of David and Margaret, disappeared from the Iredell records after February 1826 without leaving a will or estate administration there.[13] Robert Rankin of Gibson County made his first appearance on a tax list there in 1827. Jody and I had long wondered where the heck Robert went after he left Iredell. Had it not been for some black ice on I-20 a few miles east of Oxford, Alabama, we would probably still be wondering.

There is another connection between Gibson and Iredell County Rankins. Robert (proved son of David and Margaret) had two sons who remained in the Iredell/Lincoln area. One of them was Denny Rankin, who married Sarah McMinn. Robert A. Rankin and Samuel Rankin were Denny and Sarah McMinn Rankin’s sons.[14]

Robert A. Rankin began appearing in the Gibson County records in 1838.[15] Samuel Rankin was there by 1837, when he was security on the administrator’s bond of a John McMinn.[16] In the 1840 census, neither Robert of Iredell/Gibson nor his grandsons Robert A. and Samuel Rankin were enumerated in Gibson County. Robert A. and his brother Samuel had moved on to Shelby County, where both died; Samuel was Robert A.’s administrator.[17]

Finally, please note that there were two other Rankin lines in Gibson County. I found no evidence to connect any of them to the Rankins from Iredell County. Briefly, here are the other Rankin families:[18]

    • David F. C. Rankin (1823 – 1885) and his wife Susan Young. David was a son of David Rankin and Anne Moore Campbell of Rutherford County, Tennessee. The senior David Rankin was a son of Samuel and Eleanor (“Ellen”) Alexander Rankin of Lincoln/Gaston County, North Carolina.
    • Jesse Rankin, who was born in Kentucky about 1795, and his wife Cynthia Sellers. Some researchers believe Jesse was a son of Robert Rankin of Rutherford County, NC and Caldwell County, KY. Other researchers think Jesse was a son of “Shaker Reverend” John Rankin of Guilford County, NC and Logan County, KY. Both Robert of Rutherford and Shaker Rev. John had sons named Jesse.

On that note, it must be time to write an article about Jesse and Cynthia … moving on from North Carolina and Tennessee to Kentucky.[19]

See you on down the road.

Robin

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[1] See a transcription of Robert Rankin’s pension application here.

[2] Id. Robert Rankin was 84 when he applied for a pension in 1832 and was thus born about 1748. He was in the North Carolina militia, so there is virtually no doubt that he lived somewhere in North Carolina when he enlisted.

[3] Familysearch.org, Gibson Co., TN, “Tax Lists, Box 1, 1824-1835,” DGS #102863906, 1827 tax list included Robert Rankin with 1 black poll, no land.

[4] Id. The 1820s and 1830s tax lists included Robert Rankin, although he did not appear on the lists each year. He was never taxed on any land. The tax lists show a black poll with Robert in at least 1827, 1828 and 1830. I haven’t checked thereafter.

[5] The 1830 census for Gibson County had Robert as a head of household in the 80 < 90 age bracket, born 1740–50. His household included a female born 1780–90, a male born 1815–20, and one male enslaved person born 1800-06. Robert gave an enslaved person named Solomon to his daughter Margaret Finley in 1837. Gibson Co., TN Deed Book F: 55. Robert’s daughter may be and probably is the Margaret D. Fenly listed in the 1840 census for Madison County, Tennessee, born 1780-90, with an enslaved male born 1785-1804.

[6] Robert was not enumerated in the 1840 federal census for Gibson Co. and probably died between the 1837 gift deed to Margaret Rankin Finley and the census. I found no probate records for him.

[7] Here is a link to information about Ramsour’s Mill..

[8] NC State Archives and Library Search Room, File Box No. C.R.054.801.11, file folder for Rankin, David, 1789. David’s will is recorded in Iredell Will Book A: 200.

[9] North Carolina Grant No. 211, Grant Book 28: 211, Patent Book 98: 211. Grant dated 14 Mar 1780 to James Rankin, 450 acres on the south side of the Catawba River.

[10] Burke was adjacent to Lincoln County on the northwest when James Rankin obtained a grant in 1780. Iredell was created in 1788, adjacent to Lincoln on the north. See North Carolina county formation maps.

[11] Anne William McAllister & Kathy Gunter Sullivan, Civil Action Papers 1771-1806 of the Court of Ps & Qs, Lincoln County, North Carolina (1989). Bond of John Alexander dated 4 July 1793.

[12] NC State Archives and Library Search Room, File Box No. C.R.014.508.45, Burke County Estates Records, 1776 – 1934, Queen – Ritchel, file folder for Rankin, James, 1782. The file contains the original bond of Robert Rankin as administrator of the estate of James Rankin, dec’d, securities John Alexander, Joseph Steele, and Francis Cunningham. See also Familysearch.org, “North Carolina Estate Files, 1663-1979,” Burke County, Rankin, James, 1782. If you look closely, you can see the notation “Robert Rankins Admin Bond” penciled in to the left of the signatures on the second page of the bond.

[13] Iredell Co., NC Deed Book M: 271, deed date April _____, proved 1826, witnessed by Robert Rankin. That is the last “in person” appearance by Robert I found in the Iredell records.

[14] See Iredell Co., NC Deed Book T: 394, Robert A. Rankin a grantor in a deed conveying interest in estate of Dennis (sic, Denny) Rankin; NC Probate Records, Iredell Co., Wills 1808-1845, Volume 2: 274, image 149, will of Sarah Rankin naming children Robert and Samuel et al.

[15] See Gibson County Will Book B: 258, Robert A. Rankin was guardian of two Liggett children.

[16] See Gibson County Will Book B: 150.

[17] See loose probate papers, Shelby Co., TN, 4 Nov 1844 bond of Samuel Rankin as administrator of Robert A. Rankin.

[18] Some Rankin researchers think that Robert Rankin and his wife Isabel (maiden name Rankin) of Guilford Co., NC, McNairy Co., TN and Pope Co., AR may have also lived in Gibson County. I disagree. One of their descendants says she has seen no evidence the couple lived there, and I don’t see any room for them in the Gibson records.

[19] The article is i titled “Jesse and Cynthia Sellers Rankin of Gibson County, TN: Who Was His Father?” See it here.