Notebook:Edmondson Family of Davidson County TN

Contents 1 Early Settlement Era 2 King's Chapel 3 land records 4 Formation of Davidson County		Edmondson Tapestry Register Data Notebooks Analysis Bibliography Graphics YDNA Index
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Early Settlement Era

Friends of the Metropolitan

From: Source:Anderson, 1913
The Historic Blue Grass Line: A Review Of The History Of Davidson And Sumner Counties, Together With Sketches of Places and Events Along the Route Of The NASHVILLE- GALLATIN INTERURBAN RAILWAY. By James Douglas Anderson Originally Published by the NASHVILLE-GALLATIN INTERURBAN RAILWAY, Nashville, Tennessee. 1913

Their camps were near the spring. Late one afternoon while all the workmen and the dogs were away from the camp, Neely came in from a hunt with a deer on his shoulder, put it aside and lay down and went to sleep. His daughter was busily engaged about supper. Several gun shots; Neely raised himself half up, groaned and fell back dead. The Indians rushed in and scalped him and grabbed the terrified girl and kept her going on a dead run all night until a Creek encampment was reached, thence to the Creek nation. When the salt makers got to the camp they knew not which way to go in search of the Indians, but they knew the way to Mansker's and they were there at daylight. A party, after following the trail far enough to learn, in their pioneer way, that the girl was not hurt, took Mansker's advice and abandoned the pursuit lest she be killed. She was released a few years later, married and lived in Kentucky. In 1788 William Neely's widow was killed by the Indians near Neely's Lick, and Robert Edmondson's arm was broken, but he escaped by hiding.

King's Chapel

REPORT OF INVESTIGATION: KING’S CHAPEL CHURCH AND CEMETERY A NINETEENTH-CENTURY BURIAL GROUND LOCATED IN WILLIAMSON COUNTY, TENNESSEE

http://www.blakewellsconstruction.com/PDF_Files/KC%20History.pdf

During the last week of July in 2003 ... an archaeological reconnaissance of the King’s Chapel Church site and the reputed location of its associated cemetery was conducted .... The King’s Chapel Cemetery is a historic nineteenth-century churchyard burial ground located in the 19th Civil District of Williamson County, north of SR 96 ...King’s Chapel Church remained an active congregation between 1815 and about 1849 although it’s cemetery remained in use from about 1821 until 1871. In 1849 the church and congregation relocated to a larger building located just north of Triune on the Nolensville Pike where it remains active today. King’s Chapel and Cemetery is located on a portion of a 320 acre land grant originally assigned to William Edmondson in 1787 by the State of North Carolina for service on the Commissioner’s Guard. Edmondson was a Revolutionary War veteran who served at the Battle of King’s Mountain and became on of Williamson County’s earliest settlers and government officials. Although the exact location of his grave is unknown, William Edmondson is buried in King’s Chapel Cemetery.....

In 1986, a study of the Arrington community of Williamson County by Lynne Sullivan (1986:11) describes the prominent churches in the area including King’s Chapel, one of the oldest brick churches in the county. According to Sullivan, the church was built about 1815 under the direction of Bishop McKendree and one of Williamson County’s earliest settlers and government officials, William Edmondson was buried there.

In detailing Edmondson’s life, Sullivan states that he served at the Battle of King’s Mountain and was awarded 320 acres of land in Williamson (then Davidson) County in 1787. In 1799 Edmondson was one of the commissioners to erect public buildings for the new county and was on the first jury at Franklin in 1800.

In 1976, Louise Lynch (1976:51) relayed a biographical article written by Howard Vallance Jones of Cedar Falls, Iowa concerning Major Williamson Edmondson of Arrington in Williamson County. Jones states that Edmondson was born about 1765. His exact birth date is unknown, but in an account of his service during the Revolutionary War specifies that he was in his sixteenth year in 1780. According to Jones, in 1822 a newspaper article appeared in Tennessee casting aspersions on the bravery of Col. William Campbell, Edmondson’s commander at the Battle of King’s Mountain in 1780. A number of depositions were collected by Campbells’ relatives from survivors of the battle and one of these depositions was that of William Edmondson of Williamson County. In his account, Edmondson swears that he was a private in Col. Campbell’s regiment. That he was a member of Capt. David Beattie’s Company is shown by the muster roll preserved in the Virginia State Library (Lynch 1976:53). Edmondson testified that Campbell acted with appropriate bravery. Jones further states that William and his two elder brothers Robert and Thomas came to Tennessee very early. In 1783, William served as a member of the guard for the commission laying off the lands to be allotted the officers and soldiers of the Continental Line of North Carolina. Edmondson was awarded 320 acres in 1787 on Arrington Creek, a short distance east of town on the south side of the Murfreesboro Road, now SR 96. William lived the rest of his life there before burial in King’s Chapel Cemetery. William was appointed captain of cavalry of the Mero District on December 15, 1790, and major of cavalry by June 2, 1791. As major of cavalry, he signed a petition to President George Washington asking that something be done about the Indians. In 1794, Edmondson may have participated in the Nickajack Campaign against the Chickamauga Indians near present-day Chattanooga.

As researched by Jones (Lynch 1976:57), in 1799, Edmondson was appointed one of the commissioners to erect public buildings for the new county of Williamson and served on its first jury in 1800. He was also appointed to lay out and improve the public road from the mouth of Arrington Creek to Franklin. Edmondson participated to some degree inland speculation. An inventory of his estate in 1832 lists 211 tillable acres and twelve slaves. Before 1793 he married Frances Boyd, daughter of Robert and Anne Boyd, and the couple had eight children including the two sons Robert B. and Thomas who sold the farm to William King in 1843 and moved on to Greene County, Missouri.

land records

Source:Wray, undated provides extracts of land records for Rutherford County 1804-1810. Rutherford County was original part of Davidson County. A number of records for various Edmondson's, including original NC land grants, are listed. Some apparently date to the Davidson County period.

Formation of Davidson County

ACTS OF TENNESSEE 1799, CHAPTER 3: "An Act to divide the county of Davidson into two distinct counties."

SECTION 1. BE IT ENACTED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF TENNESSEE, That the county of Davidson be divided by a line as follows, viz. Beginning at a point forty poles due north of the dwelling house of Thomas McCrory, on the waters of Little Harpeth, running thence east two miles and one hundred and four poles, thence south seventy degrees east sixteen miles and two hundred and seventy poles, thence due south to the Indian boundary line, thence with said line westwardly to the Robertson County line, thence with said Robertson County line, north to a point due west from the mouth of Little Harpeth, thence a direct line to a point on South Harpeth, southwest from the mouth of said Little Harpeth, thence northeast to the mouth of said Little Harpeth, thence a direct line to the beginning; and that county, so laid off on the south be known and distinguished by the name of Williamson. SECTION 2. BE IT ENACTED, That John Johnson, senior, Daniel Perkins, James Buford, William Edmondson, and Captain James Scurlock be commissioners; and they, or a majority of them, are hereby authorized to fix on a place the most central and convenient in said county of Williamson, for the purpose of erecting a courthouse, prison, and stocks.