Person:John Cathey (2)

Will of John Cathey

In the name of God, Amen, I John Cathie of Lancaster County and township of Paxton, being weake of body but of good and perfect memory blessed be God for His mercies and knowing ye mortality of ye bodey and that it is appointed for all men to die. I commit my soul to God and mybodey to buried in a Christian like and decent burial and my worldly goods as followeth,

Item: I leave and bequeath to my faithful and loving wife Ana Cathie and her two children, George Cathie and Jeane Cathie allmy hole eftate goods and chattells except so much as is hereaftermentioned.

Item: I leave and bequeath all my clothes to my son Alexander Cathie.

I leave unto my grandchildren, Alice Cathie and John Cathie, one three year old heifer and one two year old heifer.

I leave unto my granddaughter, Jeane Frindell, one one year old heifer.

I leave unto my grandson, John Graham, a one year old heifer and I do appoint my wife, Ann Cathie and my son Alexander Cathie, to be my executor and executrefs to act and do according to this my last will and testement.

I leave unto my daughter, Eleanor Moorehead, if she comes to this country, five pound fifteen shillings Pennsylvania currency and if she does not come, I leave it to my wife and her two children and disclaiming and disallowing of all other wills do acknowledge this to be my last will and testement in witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and seal ye 13 day of September in ye year of our Lord 1742.

Signed and sealed in ye presence of John Brandon, Alexander Cathie, John Cathie (seal)

Lancaster County March the first anno Dom 1742/3 then personally appeared John Brandon and Alexander Cathie the two witnesses to the above written will and on their oath did declare they were present and saw and heard John Cathie, the testator, sign, seal and execute the above writing as his last will and testament and that doing thereof he was of sound and disposing mind and understanding to the best of their knowledge. Before me sa. Blunston D. Regis. Be it remembered on the first day of March anno Dom 1742/3 the last will and testament of John Cathie, deceased, was proved in due form of law and probate and letters testamentry were granted unto Anne Cathie and Alexander Cathie having first sworn well and truely to administer the said deceaseds estate and bring an inventory thereof into the registers county in Lancaster County on or before the first day of April next and also to render an account when there unto lawfully required given underthe seal of the said office.

P. SA. Blunston Dep. Register

Information on John Cathey

Genealogy Report for John Cathey and Unknown Spouse:

Descendants of John Cathey

Generation No. 1

1. JOHN2 CATHEY (UNKNOWN1) was born 1685 in Clones, Monaghan, Ireland, and died 1742 in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.

Notes for JOHN CATHEY: http://www.papapress.bonusweb.net/wvinsonli/pafg44.htm#1329

John CATHEY [Parents] was born in Ulster, , , Ireland. He died in 1743 in , Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He married UNK about 1700.

Other marriages:

Living

UNK. married John CATHEY about 1700.

They had the following children:

M i Alexander CATHEY

F ii Eleanor CATHEY

F iii Hannah Agnes CATHY

F iv CATHEY

From Rootsweb.com post:

From: KAREN THOMAS <karen95035@sbcglobal.net> Subject: Cowan, Graham, Skiles, Dobbins, Cathey Family history Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2005 19:15:23 -0800 (PST) In-Reply-To: <a9.6cf70a71.2f3e592c@aol.com>

I was going to send this in reply to another researcher, then decided to share with all researchers of these lines:

I found copies of various pages out of "The Carolina Cradle" and page 25 talks about the first settlers to Rowan County to lands by the Yadkin and Catawba (rivers? I think). I'll just type the part I think you may be interested in here: I plan on trying to get a copy of the whole book if I can. Does anyone know where I can buy a copy of the book: "The Carolina Cradle"?

I quote from Page 25, The First Settlements, 1747-1751--from The Carolina Cradle:

"In the spring and fall of 1751, the Governor's Council considered other petitions for land warrants, at least twelve of them from persons then living on Lord Granville's lands between the Yadkin and Catawba (from NCCR, IV, 1238-55). The court records of Anson and Rowan counties, the colonial land grant records of North Carolina, and the court records of Augusta County, Virginia, provide evidence sufficient to identify forty additional persons living on the north western frontier prior to 1752. Thus, before the end of 1751, the total number of identifiable inhabitants (most of the heads of families) of Granville's domain between the Yadkin and Catawba rivers may be conservatively placed at eighty-two.

It is impossible to determine which among these settlers were the initial arrivals. However, there is reason to believe that James Carter, Morgan Bryman, Edward Hughes, Samuel Davis, Robert Gamble, John Dunn, George Forbusyh, William Linville, Thomas Gillespie, John Holms, Thomas Bell, James Cathey, George Cathey, John Cathey, James Graham, Richard Graham, John Graham, Felix Kennedy, John Withrow, John Brandon, John Brandon Jr., Richard Brandon, William Brandon, John Lock, Matthew Lock, John Davidson, George Davidson, George Davidson Jr., David Templeton, James Templeton, John Still......" (I'm missing page 26), but I'll bet you that Henry Schiles and John Cowan are in this list.

And then again in the Carolina Cradle on page 37 and 38 states:

"In addition to the Bryan settlement, two other centers of population developed before 1752 on the northwestern Carolina frontier. The first of these was the so-called "Irish settlement," (in the notes, Also known as the "Cathey settlement.") located in the headwaters of Second Creek thirty miles southwest of the shallow ford. The second evolved in the vicinity of Davidson's Creek with its center near the Catawba River approximately twelve miles southwest of the Irish settlement.

By the spring of 1749, the Irish settlement consisted of at least fourteen families, including those of James Cathey, George Cathey, George Cathey Jr., Richard Graham (Sr), John Brandon, Thomas Gillespie, John Sill, James Marlin, John Holmes, Thomas Bell, Felix Kennedy, Alexander Dobbin and John Withrow. In addition (because of the close family relationships involved), it seems highly probable that the settlement included Alexander Cathey, Andrew Cathey, James Graham, James Graham Jr., and John Graham, bringing the total number of families to twenty.

With respect to the settlement process, few names carry greater significance than that of James Cathey. He and his son George were the leaders in the organization of what was probably the first English-speaking settlement to be established in North Carolina (or, indeed, in the entire South, exclusive of Virginia) so far from a navigable river. Moreover, it was on George Cathey's land that the settlers constructed the earliest known religious edifice west of the Yadkin--Thyatira Presbyterian Church (Anson Deeds, Book 1, page 272; Rowan Court Minutes, I, 2.)

James Cathey's first place of residence seems to have been Cecil County, where he purchased a tract of land from one James Scott some time between 1719 and 1724. (Cecil County Deed Books, Office of the Registrar of Deeds, Cecil County Courthouse, Elkton, MD., IV, 128--hereafter cited as Cecil Deeds) In the latter year he was referred to as James Cathey "of Chester County, Pennsylvania," (Cecil Deeds) but his son George was living in Cecil County as late as 1734 (Surveying report, "Part of Rumsey's Ramble to John McFarland," 1734 in Papers of the Rumsey Family of Bohemia Manor, Cecil County, Maryland 1662-1870 (approximately 1, 250 items in seven boxes, Library of Congress). By 1736, James and George were in Lancaster County, the home of John Cathey (John Cathey, brother of James and father of Alexander Cathey, was a resident of Paxtang (Paxton) township, Lancaster Common Pleas, Vol II (1731-32); Lancaster County Will Books, Clerks Office, Lancaster County Courthouse, Lanca! ster, PA., A-1, 77 (hereafter cited as Lancaster Wills). Accompanied by his sons George, William, and Andrew, James Cathey removed to the Shenandoah Valley in 1738, where the family settled on a tract of land adjoining the northern boundary of the Beverly Patent. (Orange County Deed Books, Office of Registrar of Deeds, Orange County Courthouse, Orange, VA, III, 7 (hereafter cited as Orange County Deeds) Records of Augusta County, III, 302.) John Cathey died in Lancaster County in 1743, whereupon his son Alexander joined the other Cathey's in Virginia. (Lancaster Wills, A-1, 77; Howard M. Wilson, The Tinkling Spring, Headwater of Freedom: A Study of the Church and Her People (Richmond, VA; Garrett and Massie, Inc, 1954), p. 472)

Some time prior to 1751, William Cathey died, leaving his land in the Shenandoah Valley to an older brother (John) still living in Ireland. The latter came to America to claim the land, but moved to North Carolina upon discovering that the rest of the family had done so. (Records of Augusta County, III, 302. John Cathey made his home on the east bank of the Catawba (in present-day Mecklenburg County) near the mouth of Davidson's Creek.)

Richard Graham married Hanna Cathey in 1736 (Records of Holy Trinity (Old Swedes) Church, Willmington, Delaware, from 1697 to 1773" translated from the original Swedish by Horace Burr, with an abstract of the English records from 1773 to 1810, in Papers of the Historical Society of Delaware, 67 volumes (Wilmington Del: Delaware Printing Company, 1890), IX, 365 (hereafter cited as "Records of Old Swedes Church"). Hanna died subsequently, for Graham refers to his wife Agnes in his will) and was a resident of Cecil County, Maryland, seven years later. (Cecil County Judgments, S.K. No. 3 (1723-30) and S.K. No. 4 (1730-32, 1736-41, 1741-43, 1746-47), Hall of Records, Annapolis, MD, S.K. No. 4 (1741-43), p. 204 (hereafter cited as Cecil Judgments). He was closely related to the numerous Grahams in the northern part of the adjoining Delaware County of New Castle (New Castle Assessment Lists (Brandywine Hundred, 1739), Hall of Records, Dover, Del, unpaginated folder (hereafter cited as New Castle Assessments, unpaginated). New Castle County Court of Common Pleas, 1703-17, 1727-40 (the original lists are in folders undesignated save by a penciled number on the outside cover). Hall of Records, Dover, Del, Folder XIV (1727-30), 7, 9, XXVIII (1733), 34, 46; XXI (1731-36), 5: XXV (1732-40), 2, 48, 50; XXVI (1738-41), 11 (hereafter cited as New Castle Common Pleas, Rowan Wills, B, 27, 89; G, 66, 67, 86, 87) and at least three of them accompanied him to North Carolina. On April 11, 1749, Richard Graham petitioned for at tract of land in Anson County and nine years later received a 567-acre tract "on each side of Second Creek, commonly called "Withrow's Creek."" (NCCR, IV, 949-50; Rowan Deeds, II, 253). James and John Graham, brothers or cousins of Richard, probably took up residence in the "Irish settlement" at the same time as he, though proof of their presence in 1749 is lacking. John Graham resided on a branch of the South Yadkin eleven miles north of George Cathey (Rowan Deeds, XXIII, 645) . James Graham's grant, dated 24 June 1751, was described as being "on the headwaters of cold water joining a branch of cane Creek about two miles from his own house southeast between him and the trading path (N.C. Land Grants, XI, 10). Graham thus lived six miles southeast of George Cathey and (as the above description indicates) might well have been there in the spring of 1749 (a tombstone in Thyatira Cemetery bears the inscription "James Graham died Jan 1, 1758, age 88". This aged patriarch, who was born before any of the other settlers considered in this study (as far as the author has been able to determine), was evidently the father or uncle of these early Grahams of North Carolina.") "

Children of JOHN CATHEY are:

i. ALEXANDER3 CATHEY, b. 1707, Ulster, Ireland; d. 07 Apr 1766, Rowan County, North Carolina; m. ELIZABETH PINKNEY, Bef. 1740, Delaware; d. Aft. 1768, Rowan County, North Carolina.

ii. JOHN CATHEY, b. 1709, prob. Ireland; d. 1764.

iii. ELEANOR CATHEY, b. Bef. 1711, prob. Ireland; m. WILLIAM MOORHEAD, Abt. 1729, Ulster, Ireland; b. Bef. 1710.

iv. MARY CATHEY, b. 1716, London, England; m. JOHN BRANDON, Abt. 1735; b. 1713, England.

v. HANNAH AGNES CATHEY, b. Bef. 1718, Rowan County, North Carolina; d. 1792, Rowan County, North Carolina; m. RICHARD GRAHAM, 1736, Wilmington, Delaware; b. 1716, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania; d. 13 Feb 1770, Rowan County, North Carolina.