Person:Patrick Buckner (2)

Patrick Buckner was born in Ireland, as we know from his son Patrick's second marriage record, as well as a mass of circumstantial evidence. He may be the same person as a "Patrick Buckney" imported from Ireland as an indentured servant by Fielding Lewis in 1769. The earliest certain record of him in America is from militia court records of Augusta Co., Virginia, in which he was presented for appearing at a private muster of Capt. Alexander Robertson's company without arms in 1777. The court issued a fine of 5 shillings for the delinquency in 1779 (a cost something on the order of a week's wages for a common laborer), though this was a fairly common infraction and it mainly shows that he was serving in the militia. He married Molly Estes (or Estep) in Bedford Co. VA in 1783, with a prominent local landowner named Thomas Logwood acting as surety for the bond. The family appeared in Wilkes Co., NC tax lists in the mid-late 1780s, at which time they had two daughters, of whom nothing further is known. His only known son Patrick was born around 1789 or 1790. Subsequently, Patrick Sr. is only known from appearances in Russel Co., VA tax lists up to 1812. Patrick's origins in Ireland have not yet been discovered, but most Buckners in Ireland at the time lived in Limerick, so he was likely born there or nearby. The only other Buckner family currently known in Ireland in the 1750s was the family of Thomas and Sarah Buckner who had 4 children baptized from 1754 to 1759 in Knockanree, Castlemacadam Parish, Co. Wicklow, but none named Patrick. The Buckners in Ireland were a Protestant Anglo-Irish family who immigrated in the 1620s. They originally settled in Co. Waterford, but by the mid-1700s the Waterford branch was apparently extinct. While mid-18th century records are sparse, we find a steady trickle of them from Limerick, and by the late 1700s, several more fully Hibernicized Catholic Buckner families can be found, including one with the name Patrick, though he could not be the immigrant. It is probable that Patrick the immigrant originated with this group.