Person talk:Ann Houston (8)

Tentative story [11 July 2021]

Ann (Huston) Gibson moved out of the area and little information is provided in E. Rankin Huston's 1912 genealogy (p. 84 and 228): "Moved to Loss Creek, Tennessee. [Her husband] James Gibson was a merchant. He was a stout man and during the Revolutionary period his name was a terror to the Tory faction throughout not only Cumberland County, Pennsylvania but southern Pennsylvania." It turns out that the move to "Loss Creek, TN" was actually two moves, to Lost Creek in Pennsylvania and then to Tennessee. James Gibson left a will in Knox Co., TN in which he names his wife Ann Gibson, alias Houston.

Cumberland Co., PA D.B. H:129 (1779, recorded 1785) James Gibson and wife Ann to Epenetus Hart in Fermanagh Twp. on Beaver Creek, a branch of Lost Creek; (one neighbor was William Sharon, a relative of Ann's mother). On today's map, Beaver Creek doesn't seem to connect with Lost Creek. Neighboring surveys suggest that the land was on Little Lost Creek near Jericho Mill, PA. James Gibson is not on the 1763 tax list (then Lack Twp.) but is on the 1767 tax list (Fermanagh Twp.).

It's interesting to note that a William Huston, probably Ann's brother (also short of details in E. Rankin Huston's book), sold land neighboring James Gibson in 1779. (William Huston bought part of that land from James Gibson, perhaps in 1773, though there is no deed.) (A wife is not named on William's sale.)

James Gibson served in the Revolution War, both in PA and TN. PA Archives Ser. 5, v.6, p.242-3: Cpt. James Gibson, Cumb. Co.-- 4th Batt.; the list of men (1777) overlaps well with the Fermanagh Twp., Cumb. Co. 1778 tax list. Capt. James Gibson, Artillery 1777-1780, commanding a company of Artificers. Source: "Military History of Carlisle," by Tousey 1939, p. 410. After moving to (what's now) Tennessee he was probably a captain in Col. John Sevier's North Carolina Regiment.

The Gibsons apparently moved to Tennessee in 1780: In the first court meeting of the new Sullivan Co. on 11/17/1780 James Gibson and Jesse Green are to be paid for their time ("The King's Mountain Men," by White (1924), p.40).

James Gibson obtained two adjacent pieces of land along the French Broad River in today's Knox Co., TN, both by NC land warrants, the first in 1783, with Isaac Taylor, a business partner. In James' 1805 will, probated in Jan. 1806, Ann was given permission to live on the land, inherited by two sons. Ann moved when the second son's land was sold in 1814 (Knox Co., TN D.B. P1, p.51.) She may be Anna Gibson in the 1820 U.S. Census for Maury Co., TN.

--Haydeng568 15:18, 11 July 2021 (UTC)