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Rachel Cooley Grayson
Birth 1769
Orange County, New York, USA
Death 1842 (aged 72–73)
Montgomery County, Virginia, USA
Miss Rachel Cooley was likely born in the year 1769 in the New Cornwall Precinct of Orange County, New York, where her parents Thaddeus and Elizabeth Cooley resided. DNA tests conducted by the Cooley Family Association indicate Thaddeus was a descendant of Ensign Benjamin Cooley from Springfield, MA. However, his family tree descending from Ensign Cooley is unknown at this time.*
By 1782, Rachel, about age 15, moved with her family a considerable distance to Montgomery County, VA, which a few years later would become Wythe County, VA. Not much is known about Rachel Cooley, but we can imagine the conditions and sights she must have experienced and seen along the way during that arduous trip.
According to records at Daughters of the American Revolution, by 1787, Miss Rachel Cooley, age 20, married William Grayson, who had served as a Private in the Militia under Capt. McCorkle in the American Revolution. By 1801, William Grayson had passed, leaving Rachel a widow living in Montgomery County, VA -- this was noted by a Road Order issued on 7 Feb 1804:
Bird Smith, James Sallust, and Conrod Wall, three of the persons appointed to view the ground along which it is proposed to Conduct a road from ``John Cooks to New Dublin´´, This day made their report, upon which the Court are of opinion, that the road applied for will be Convenient, whereupon It is ordered, that summonses be Issued to John Cook, RACHEL GRAYSON, Curtis Elliott, Thos Cloyd, Robt Bell, Martha McCorkle Junr, Andrew Thompson, and James Reed, proprietors of the lands through which the said Road is proposed to be Conducted, requiring . . .
Rachel lived until 1842. She named her daughter Sarah Grayson, wife of John Prillaman of Franklin County, Virginia, in her Last Will and Testament.
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/116166017/rachel-grayson
