Published in 1910, this volume contains an abstract of North Carolina wills. Compiled from original and recorded wills in the office of The Secretary of State.
Tryon County was formed from Mecklenburg County in 1769. At one time Tryon County included all or part of the N.C. counties of Burke, Cleveland, Gaston, Henderson, Lincolm, Polk, Rutherford, McDowell, and the S.C. counties of York, Chester, Union, Cherokee, Spartanburg, Greenville, Laurens, and Newberry. These deeds, wills, and estates should provide many missing links for the researcher working on the Carolina frontier.
The opening chapters of this encyclopedic treatment deal with the Newberry County's formation, early settlers, soldiers, notable citizens, government institutions, and social and economic development, while later chapters are given over to biographies, cemetery inscriptions, family reminiscences and folklore. At the heart of the book is a long section devoted to genealogies of pioneer families of Newberry County.
The settlers that inhabited South Carolina in the second half of the seventeenth century led lives that few in the Palmetto State today could recognize. Their land sat on the margin of a vast, largely unexplored continent, and the events and transactions that figured prominently in their daily lives reflect a frontier milieu that is both fascinating and historically significant. This book--a compilation of abstracts from the record book kept by the Secretary of the Province of South Carolina from 1675 to 1695--is an intriguing look into the inner workings of the fledgling colony. Family relationships, marriages, surnames, and the death dates of many colonists are made available to a wide audience for the first time here. Included is information illuminating the lives and social histories of masters, servants, slaves, Indians and women. Estate records, ships' manifests, inventories, apprenticeships and indentures are all represented. This primary-source material will be a boon for genealogists and historians, and a treasure for descendants and other readers alike. Editors Harriot Cheves Leland and Susan Baldwin Bates, through their exhaustive research, impart a bevy of genealogical data that will help to shed light on the history of many lines and families. Nowhere else can readers find such a wealth of information and insight into the personal lives of the first settlers of what would become South Carolina.
This is a standard reference work in South Carolina genealogy, and for the period 1766-1853 it is absolutely indispensable. Testators are listed with references to the volume and page numbers of the books in which copies of their wills are recorded. All pre-1853 South Carolina counties are covered, except for the counties of Beaufort, Chesterfield, Colleton, Georgetown, Lancaster, Lexington, and Orangeburg, whose wills, having been destroyed by fire, were not included in the original WPA transcripts from which our work derives.