Family:James Lyle and Margaret Snoddy (1)

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Google Books Source:Armstrong and French, 1918

Mathew Lyle, first of the emigrant Lyles, son of James Lyle and Margaret Snoddy Lyle, was born in Ireland, about 1711, in tha family residence at Browndood, near Larne, in County Antrim. He married, it is said, before he was of age, in 1731, (it is from this tradition that we learn the probable date of his birth) Esther Blair. (Esther Blair was born about 1713, in Ballyvallah, County Antrim. Ireland. She was the daughter of Samuel Blair, and his wife, they were married in 1 690, Martha Campbell Lyle, a daughter of a James Lyle, of Toreagh, and his wife, Martha Campbell. James Lyle's father was John Lyle, and his wife was Florence Montgomery. Esther Blair was a descendant on her father's side of Brice Blair of very high lineage. Brice Blair married in Ayrshire, Scotland, Esther Peden, in 1625, and went to Ireland).

About ten years after Mathew Lyle's marriage to Esther Blair they emigrated to Virginia. The exact date is not known, but one of their children, Robert, who died young, was baptized in Larne, in 1 740, and on July 30, 1 742, Mathew Lyle's name is signed to =1 petition to Colonial Governor Gooch in Virginia, and he was evidently a resident of some standing in the colony at that time.

He settled on Timber Ridge, in what is now Rockbridge County, Virginia. From Mathew Lyle's marriage to Esther Blair there were born six children, four of whom grew to maturity. (William and Robert died young).

( 1 ) James Lyle.

(2) Elizabeth Lyle.

(3) John Lyle.

(4) Martha Lyle.

Of the foregoing:

James Lyle, first child of Matthew and Esther Blair Lyle, was born in Ireland in 1732, and died in Virginia. He accompanied his parents to Virginia about 1741. He married in Virginia about 1764, Hannah Alexander. Their children were: Joseph, Matthew, Elizabeth, Esther, Margaret, John and Archibald. Of these: Joseph Lyle married Sarah Butt, in 1 791, and had children; Mathew Lyle became a Presbyterian minister, married his cousin, Sarah Lyle, and had children; Elizabeth Lyle married her cousin, William Lyle as his second wife and had children; Esther Lyle never married; Margaret Lyle married James Alexander and had children; John Lyle, a physician, went from Virginia to Texas and nothing definite is known of him; Archibald Lyle never married. He commanded a company of cavalry in the war of 1812.

John Lyle second son of Matthew Lyle and Esther Blair, was born in Ireland about 1 736; he died in Virginia in 1 793, was captain of a militia company in 1 778, accom* panied his parents to America and married twice in Virginia; first Isabella Paxton, and, second, Frances Stuart. He had three children by Isabella Paxton; John, Esther and Mary Paxton Lyle, and by his second wife, Frances Stuart, he had two children, Alexander Stuart Lyle and Isabella Lyle. (Of these: John Lyle married Nancy Thompkins and had fourteen children, only three of whom, however, married; Esther Lyle married Joseph Paxton and had children; Mary Paxton Lyle married James MacDowell, (son of Judge Samuel MacDowell, and Mary McClung, and grandson of Captain John McDowell, who first settled on Borden's Grant in Virginia, in 1737), and had children; Alexander Stuart Lyle probably did not marry; Isabella Lyle married John McDowell and had a son, William McDowell, who married but had no children.

Elizabeth Lyle, eldest daughter of Matthew Lyle and Esther Blair Lyle, was born in Ireland about 1 734, and died in Virginia. She married twice and is ancestress of a large and influential posterity. Numbers of Tennesseans and Georgians claim descent from Elizabeth Lyle. She remained in Ireland, when her parents emigrated to America, with her grandparents and her maternal uncle, Daniel Blair. She married in Ireland, about the year 1 750, William Thompson, (died 1759), son of Thomas Thompson (b. 1697, d. 1779), and his wife, Mary Black, (b. 1714, d. 1778), who was the daughter of Samuel Black, (b. 1656, d. 1740), and his wife, Alice Murdock, (b. 1675, d. 1743). Elizabeth Lyle Thompson and her husband, William Thompson, had three daughters, Esther, Jane and Mary. Six years after the death of William Thompson (in 1759), the young widow married (1765) for her second husband, William Thompson's first cousin, Mathew Donald, (son of John Donald, and Margaret Black, Mary Black having been William Thompson's mother). Eliabeth Lyle Thompson Donald and her husband, Mathew Donald, emigrated to America in 1 775, bringing with them her three Thompson daughters, Esther, Jane and Mary, and her children by Mathew Donald. Another child, Margaret, was born at sea in 1 775 and this establishes the date of their crossing. The children of Elizabeth and Mathew Donald were Mathew Lyle, John, Samuel, Margaret* William Blair, James and Mark. Margaret was born at sea in 1 775.

Of Elizabeth Lyle's daughters by William Thompson: Esther Thompson (born about 1752) married about 1778, John McShadden; they went from Virginia to Tennessee and settled near Dandridge, and had a large family, namely, James, Thomas, Elizabeth, Jane, John, Mary, Samuel, Esther, Mathew, Archibald Thompson. A large connection of East Tennessee people comes from this family.

Jane Thompson, second daughter of Elizabeth Lyle Thompson, (b. about 1 755. d. near Dandridge, Tennessee), married James Walker, and had children: Jane and Elizabeth, (both of whom married and had children), and married a second time Andrew Cowan (who had, by a previous marriage, six children). She had three Cowan children, Joel W., Thompson and Matthew, all of whom married and had children. She married a third husband, Joel Ellis, but had by him no children. Jane Walker, (eldest child of Jane Thompson, by her first husband, James Walker), is the ancestress of the Inman family, through her marriage to John Ritchie Inman, son of Abednego Inman; their children were James Abednego, Mary A. Shadrack Walker, James M.. John W., William M., Joel C, Walker P., Elizabeth, Jane, Susan, Hannah, Matilda, Sallie and Mary, which was rather a nursery full, even for those prolific times.

Mary Thompson, daughter of Elizabeth Lyle and William Thompson, was born in Ireland about 1757; she died in 1797. She is frequently called Polly Thompson in the family record. She came with her mother and stepfather to America in 1775. She married Samuel Wear, in Augusta County, Virginia, in 1 778. Samuel Wear was a son of Robert Wear. Mary and Samuel Wear moved to what is now Tennesse and settled on Little Pigeon River, Sevier County, Tennessee, which was then a part of North Carolina. For history of Colonel Samuel Wear see Armstrong Family).

Samuel Wear married twice. After the death of Mary Thompson Wear he married Mary "Gilhan," or Gilliland, and had by her several children, though this record deals with the children by his first wife only, namely, Elizabeth, Robert, Rebecca, Samuel, Junior, John and Mary.

Elizabeth Wear, daughter of Samuel Wear, and his first wife, Polly Thompson, was born in Augusta County, Virginia, 1780, and died in Tennessee, 1820. She married Robert Armstrong, the third, son of Robert Armstrong, second, and his wife, Margaret Cunningham. They built a