Person:Thomas Wiley (2)

About Thomas Wiley

Thomas Wiley, the husband of Jenny Wiley, was a Revolutionary War Patriot. His service included participation in the Revolutionary War in 1777 and 1778, and prior to that, Dunmore's War in 1774.

Thomas Wiley's grave is actually located in River, KY, rough terrain on a brush covered hill, not far from Jenny's grave in the Jenny Wiley Cemetery.

Association with Matthias Harman

Thomas first associated with the Longhunter Matthias Harman when Thomas and his brother Samuel joined a party led by Harman from Strasburg, Virginia, to Ab's Valley in the Spring of 1777. ^S3 He then purchased land from Harman on Walker's Creek prior to his marriage in about 1778. Mathias Harman was important in many ways in events surrounding the abduction of his wife, Jenny Wiley, by Indians in 1789. In a battle, Harman had killed the son of an Indian chief. It is thought that Jenny Wiley was abducted by mistake when the Indians came seeking revenge on Harman (they were neighbors). After her abduction, Mathias Harman launched an unsuccessful search party for her, and it was Harman's Station where she was finally able to escape to in 1790.

Military Service

A historic account of the French and Indian War tells of their returning from battle by way of the Big Sandy River with Captain Daniel Smith’s troops (my Smith family?) Smith was in charge of Fincastle’s militia. The book, “Virginia’s Colonial Soldiers” gives Thomas’s service record as participating in the French and Indian War and list him as a private. Since the soldiers were granted their land in Virginia according to their rank, he was eligible to draw fifty acres of land. His grant was in the Walker Creek section. In one account he was listed as reporting for muster with Colonel Preston’s military group and listed with twenty-nine other men from an area bounded by Rich Creek Mountain under Preston. Thomas, Robert, Alexander and John Wiley were listed on the Mason County, West Virginia web site as having fought in the Battle of Point Pleasant, with the Indian Chief, Cornstalk. (Auldin Williamson, Jane Wiley’s father-in-law, fought there, too). this is an excerpt from The Men in Jenny Wiley's Life by Olive Smith Stone which is an excerpt from the Jenny Wiley Association Newsletter, July, 2002 [1]

Memorial Marker

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1 1.2} Thomas Wiley, in Find A Grave.

   Plot: Thomas is in the same enclosure as Jenny, GPS: N 37 51.477 W 82 43.879
   *Cenotaph

2.   WILEY, THOMAS, in Daughters of the American Revolution. Genealogical Research System.

   Service Source: KEGLEY, MILITIA OF MONTGOMERY CO VA, 1777-1790, P 56; ROBERTS, MONTGOMERY CO'S REV HERITAGE, PP 210, 228-229.
   Service Description: 1) JAMES ROBERTSON'S MILITIA LIST, 1777; CAPT LOVE, MONTGOMERY CO MILITIA, 1782;
   2) SIGNED OATH OF ALLEGIANCE, 1777

3. ↑ Connelley, William Elsey. The founding of Harman's Station: with an account of the Indian captivity of Mrs. Jennie Wiley and the exploration and settlement of the Big Sandy Valley in the Virginias and Kentucky, to which is affixed a brief account of the Connelly family and some of its collateral and related families in America. (New York, New York: Torch Press, c1910).
4. ↑ Walkers Creek, Tazwell County, Virginia in what is now Bland County, Virginia