Person:Nicholas Elzey (1)

Vol. 1 - APRIL 14, 1778 - (280) Called Court on Andrew Wilson for murdering his wife Jane.--Guilty, and sent to Williamsburg for trial. Nicholas and Mary Elsey witnesses.

Vol. 1 - SEPTEMBER 15, 1778. - (355) It appears to the Court that Nicholas Ellzee and Mary, his daughter, recognized to appear before General Court in the prosecution against Andrew Wilson, as too poor and in too bad health to travel to Williamsburg.--sheriff ordered to convey them and bear expense out of the County levy.

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Notes

From Ancestry Message Board:

The Nicholas Elsey who is the primary focus of my own research and whom I believe to be the primogenitor of my Elsey line is first identified with certainty as an immigrant from England who arrived in America aboard the ship "TRYAL" in 1753. From that fact, all of my other conclusions about Nicholas Elsey and his history are based upon time, place, and circumstantial logic. From the Am. Rev. War Pension Application Papers of a son of Thomas Elsey we jump to the conclusion that Nicholas Elsey sojourned in Maryland immediately after his arrival because that is where Thomas Elsey is born in 1760. Regrettably, Thomas Elsey did not name his parents in his application papers but he did name (one of) his brothers, Edward Elsey ( my own GGGGrandfather). So far we have nothing to surely connect Nicholas to Thomas and Edward Elsey except that they all seem to have been at the right place at the right time to be so related.

Thomas Elsey states in his ARW pension Application papers that his family moved from Maryland "when he was a boy" to Fauquier County, VA, where they remained until 1770, at which time they relocated to Augusta County. It is from Augusta County that Thomas Elsey enlisted in the Colonial Army "as a minor (under age 21) in 1780. My GGGGrandfather also enlisted at the same time. At the end of the war, my GGGGrandfather Edwrd Elsey married a "Sally" Thompson in 1783.

The next time we find a solid record of Nicholas Elsey is in 1787 (s/b 1778) when he appears with his daughter Mary Elsey in an Augusta County Court record as a witness in a murder trial and in the court records, Nicholas Elsey is described as aged and in need of public assistance for transportation and other support during his appearance at the trial. Although I don't have direct documentation for this conclusion, I believe that this Mary Elsey is the same one who married John Lewis in Rockingham County, VA, in 1781.

The next time we see Nicholas Elsey in the public record is in 1803 in Monongahela County (formerly a part of Augusta Co.), VA, where he is one of the petitioners to the Court for maintenance work on the public road that serves his "presumed" property. I believe that his property was located on the banks of the great Cheat River at the mouth of Elsey Run, a year-round tributary to the Cheat River. Elsey Run is located about 2 miles south of Albright, WV. Source: http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/ELLZEY/2004-09/1095285247

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