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Zachariah Rankin
b.Abt 1757
Facts and Events
References
- ↑ ABSTRACTS OF WILLS OF WASHINGTON COUNTY, REGISTERED AT LITTLE WASHINGTON, PENNSYLVANIA. [1], in Publications of the Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania. (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania, 1855-1947)
6:140.
Zackiriah Ranken of Smith Township, Washington County, yeoman,
dated October 17, 1785, proved October 24, 1785; wife Nancy; child not
named; father William Ranken; executors, Thomas Chery, sr., and
brother William Ranken; witnesses, Robert Lyle, Thomas Cherry and
Isaac Wells. 1, p. 52.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Doddridge, Joseph; John S. (John Sturgis) Ritenour; Wm. T. (William Thomas) Lindsey; and Narcissa Doddridge. Notes on the settlement and Indian wars of the western parts of Virginia and Pennsylvania : from 1763-1783, inclusive, together with a review of the state of society and manners of the first settlers of the western country. (Parsons, West Virginia: McClain Print. Co., 1960)
60.
... The cases of the two unfortunate victims of the hydrophobia, here alluded to, deserve some notice.
Capt. Rankin was bitten by the wolf at his own door. Hearing in the dead of night a noise among his beasts in the yard, he got up and opened the upper part of his door, which was a double one. The wolf instantly made a spring to get into the house. Rankin, with great presence of mind, caught the wolf in his arms as he was passing over the lower half of the door and held him fast on its upper edge, and against the door post, until a man belonging to the household jumped out of bed, got a knife and cut the wolf's throat ; but the wolf in the mean time bit him severely in the wrist. If I recollect rightly he lived but a short time afterwards.1
1 Capt. Zachariah Rankin died on the farm now occupied by Alex McCalmont, near Hickory, Washington county, Pa., about the 20th of October 1785. His will as seen in the register's office at Washington, Pa., is dated Oct 17, 1785, and is witnessed by Robert Lysle, Thomas Cherry and Isaac Wells. He died three days after he wrote his will. He was attended by names I have forgotten. He was buried in the old Cherry grave yard, in Mt. Pleasant township, Washington county. - (Simpson.)
- An unpublished manuscript from the Morgan County [Ohio] Historical and Genealogy Society.
Zachariah Rankin ("Capt. Zack"), born 1757 or 58, died Oct 1785. Killed a wolf with rabies. It bit him severely. After suffering terribly, "Capt Zack" made his really pathetic will and died within a week after he had contracted hydrophobia. He willed his farm of 250 or 300 acres to his "beloved wife Nancy" and to his "child as yet unborn" when it should reach the age of 18 years. Zack had married Ann Perrin ("Nancy"). Approximately three months after Zachariah's untimely death, a little daughter was born (Jan. 1786) to Ann Perrin Rankin. The baby was named Abigail for her grandmother Rankin. She may have lived in the home of her Rankin grandparents for her mother remarried a man named Kent and lived over in Harrison Co., Ohio. When Abigail was 18 years of age, her uncles Matthew, Samuel, Jesse went to court to see that "Abby" Rankin, their niece, daughter of their deceased brother Zachariah, should receive her inheritance, the farm where he had lived and originally part of father William's large tracts. This place of Zack's was on a hill above "the middle fork of Raccoon Creek". In 1805, Abigail married a man named Jesse Woods. and the next year (1806) she sold the farm and tradition says they went to Texas.
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