Person:William Darke (1)

Military Service

American Revolutionary War Veteran

Revolutionary War Pension Information

Information from “Virginia/West Virginia Genealogical Data from Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty Land Warrant Records”, Vol. 2, compiled by Patrick G. Wardell, Lt. Col. U.S. Army Ret. :

Darke, William - Bounty Land Warrant issued 8/25/1789; records lost in 1800 War Office fire; query letter in file in 1916 from descendant Carrie V. Engle, Charles Town, West Virginia, states soldier entered service in Virginia, botn 1736, died 1801, served also with General Braddock in French & Indian War & service against Indians in 1791, further states she is a descendant of Revolutionary War soldier Philip Engle Jr. who entered service in Virginia, born 1742 & died 1830. F-BLW598, R740.

Records in Augusta County, VA

From Chalkley's:

• Vol. 1 - page 231. Paul vs. Hite--O. S. 310; N. S. 110--Bill, 21st January, 1794, by Margaret Paul of Pennsylvania. Many years ago Joist Hite sold to Thos. Hart land in now Berkeley County. Hart sold a par t to John Miles of Pennsylvania. On 2d April, 1747, Miles made his will and devised the land "intail" to oratrix, his only child, an infant. She married ---- Paul, now deceased. Oratrix and father always lived in Pennsylvania. Fairfax claimed the land, was sued by Hite and lands decreed to Hite, but the Hite heirs refuse to give it up. Jacob Miller, Abraham Neil, Robt . Lowry, Philip Ingle, Godwin Swift, William Dark petition that they, with Giles Cook, are in possession of a tract of land on Elk Branch in Berkeley County, 1,300 acres, part was sold by Jost Hite to Thos. Hart and by him conveyed to petitioners. 17th June, 1803, Peter Martin, Sr., aged 73, 4 or 5 years ago, he was shown a tree that formerly stood in Cavalier Martin 's yard by Thos. Hart. 17th June, 1803, Thos. Hart, Sr., aged nearly 80 years, deposes, he was with the surveyor and his father when they surveyed Jost Hite's 1,100 acres. 27th April, 1795, Ann Thomas, aged 78, deposes at Spread Eagle Tavern, kept by John Dunwoody in Philadelphia (285 High St.), she was married to John Miles in 1739 or 1740, that by him she had a son, Griffith Miles, who died when an infant, and Margaret, the plaintiff. 27th April, 1795, John C art, aged 69 years, deposes, same place. 5th September, 1795, Edward Lucas, son of Edward Lucas, deposes. 19th March, 1787, Thos. Rutherford deposes, in 1752 as surveyor for Fairfax he made survey for Thos. Hart and an adjoining one for Miles Hart, son of Thomas. Joseph Darke owned adjoining land. In 1740 deponent saw a log house covered with clap board or shingle and n ailed roof on north side of Elk Branch on land now in dispute. The house was said to be the property of John Miles, who had purchased from Thos. Harte, Sr. 5th September, 1795, John Wright, aged 70, deposes, he came to Virginia in 1747 or 1748 and was shown the land by James Glenn, Sr., who said John Miles claimed the land. A shingled house was uncommon. 17th February , 1795, Wm. Darke deposes, he was ordered out with the militia against the insurgents (in September) which prevented him from attending taking depositions in Philadelphia. Bond, 29th March, 1735, by Thomas Hart of Warminister in County Bucks, Penna., husbandman to Jost Hite of Orange County, Va. Gentleman title bond for 2 tracts, 1,000 acres on Elk Branch on the Waggon Road from Potomack to Opeckon, 500 acres northward from above. 27th September, 1794, Thos. Hart, aged 71 years, about 60 years ago his father, Thomas Hart, purchased 1,500 acres. In 1754 Thomas, Sr., was about to remove to Carolina.

1. ↑ Family Recorded, in Greene, Katherine Glass. Winchester, Virginia, and its beginnings, 1743-1814: from its founding by Colonel James Wood to the close of the life of his son, Brigadier-General and Governor James Wood, with the publication for the first time of valuable manuscripts, relics of their long tenure of public offices. (Strasburg, Virginia: Shenandoah Publishing House, c1926)
   p 381.
2.   My Ancestors and Cousins:Information about William Darke, in Genealogy.com.

   William Darke (son of Joseph Darke)62 was born May 06, 1736 in Philadelphia County, Pa, and died 1801 in Jefferson County, Va.He married Sarah Delayea Defauze on 1757 in Virginia.
   
   https://www.genealogy.com/ftm/m/o/o/Stacy-J-Moorhead-SD/WEBSITE-0001/UHP-0214.html

3.   Society of Friends. Hopewell Monthly Meeting (Frederick County, Virginia : Orthodox), and John Walter Wayland. Hopewell Friends history, 1734-1934, Frederick County, Virginia: records of Hopewell Monthly Meetings and Meetings reporting to Hopewell, two hundred years of history and genealogy. (Strasburg, Virginia: Shenandoah Publishing House, 1936)
   pg. 129.

   In and near Winchester lived a number of the officers who had figured prominently in the Revolution and the colonial wars: James Wood, Angus McDonald, William Darke, Daniel Morgan, Horatio Gates, Charles Lee, Adam Stephen, and others. George Washington was much at home here. I n a small stone building still standing he had had his headquarters in 1756 and thereabouts while building Fort Loudoun and trying to defend the frontier against the Indians and the French. A well which his soldiers dug (blasted) through 103 feet of solid rock still continues to supply excellent water for the thirsty.
   William Darke, born in Philadelphia county, Pennsylvania, in 1736; he was reared and educated in Virginia, his parents removing thither when he was four years of age, and when he attained the age of nineteen years he joined the army, and was with Gen. Braddock at his defeat in 1755. During the early part of the revolutionary war, he was promoted to the rank of captain, and later became colonel, commanding the Hampshire and Berkeley regiments at the capture of Cornwallis, and at the battle of Germantown, while serving as captain, was taken prisoner. He was commissioned lieutenant-colonel in a regiment of levies, in 1791, commanded the left wing of St. Clair's army at its defeat by the Miami Indians on November 4, 1791, being severely wounded, narrowly escaping death, and was subsequently appointed major-general of Virgin in militia. He was frequently chosen as a member of the Virginia legislature, and in the convention of 1788 voted for the Federal constitution. He died in Jefferson county, Virginia, November 26, 1801.

4.   The "Darke Side" of Washington, Gabriel Neville, "William Darke and George Washington in Politics, Business and War." The Magazine of the Jefferson County Historical Society, 84 (2018): 23-38.
   5 Jan 2019.

   When George Washington arrived in Williamsburg in September, 1781 an old associate from Berkeley County approached him, causing a stir. Without being summoned, Lieutenant Colonel William Darke broke protocol by walking right up to the commander-in-chief to initiate a conversation. “I have never been able to account for such a motion,” wrote a junior officer who witnessed it. “I suppose it was the Colonel’s usual fire and rashness…. It was in my opinion an extraordinary and, I think unnecessary temerity.”[1]
   
   Darke lived near Duffields, which is now in Jefferson County. Initiating a conversation with the commander in chief was inappropriate then and would still be today. Darke, however, was no respecter of persons. Moreover, he and the general had known each other for twenty years and would remain connected for twenty more. In his own mind, he did not need anyone’s permission to talk to George Washington.
   
   Darke and Washington had much in common. They both grew up in Virginia on the south bank of the Potomac River in Lord Fairfax’s vast proprietary lands. They were both physically large men and belonged to the same generation, born just four years apart. They were both veterans of the French and Indian War and they both committed themselves to the War for Independence in 1775.[2]
   
   There was much that separated them as well, including seventy-five miles of river between their homes. Wealth, education, social standing, and military rank all put the colonel below the future president. Their personalities were almost opposite—Darke had that “fire and rashness” while Washington was famously patient and reserved. Washington was refined, while Darke was described as having “unpolished manners.” Nevertheless, war, business, and politics bound them together off and on throughout their adult lives.[3]
   
   https://www.8thvirginia.com/blog/the-darke-side-of-washington

5.   Bucks County Historical Society (Doylestown, Pennsylvania). A Collection of papers read before the Bucks County Historical Society. (Easton, Pennsylvania: The Society, 1880-1940)
   Vol. 4, pg. 454.

   William Darke, born in Bucks County in 1736, accompanied his father's and the Lucas family to Virginia, both families settling near the Potomac River. In 1758 William Darke married the widow of the Indian Fighter, Capt. William Delayea, and then located a homestead on the Elk Branch, at a place now called Duffields, situated between the Lucas and Engle plantations, in Berkeley County, William Darke was a noted citizen, soldier and legislator. He was called the "Hero of St. Clair's defeat", because of the valorous part he took in that great military tragedy. Much has been written of the brilliant career of this man, who deserved it all. Deeply interested in the progress of the little cosmopolitan community in which he lived; foremost in its protection and defense, and, being fearless by nature as well as gigantic in stature, his service was in command, and this service brought him ultimately to the rank of brigadier general in Berkeley County. As colonel of the troops organized in his neighborhood, he accompanied St. Clair's command to the northwest, where, on the banks of the Maumee in 1791, he repeatedly checked the Indian attacks on St. Clair's forces, until the savages finally overwhelmed them with terrible consequences. Col. Darke was badly wounded, and say his son, Capt. Joseph Darke, killed in the slaughter that brought desolation to many a Virginia home.
   
   General Darke died in 1802, leaving children: John, Samuel, Mary (who married Thomas Rutherford, of the distinguished family of that name in the valley), and Rebecca. The citizens of Ohio named a county as a memorial to him, established in 1809.

6.   Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia.

   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Darke