Source Transcript; Gilcrest, Robert A. From Gille Chriosd to Gilcrest Our Ancestors in America

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Our Ancestors in America

Chapter IV

People of the Gilchrist name were quite numerous among early immigrants to this country. The first intimation I had of this was from Dr. James Grant Gilchrist a number of years ago. He, himself, was born in New York City, and he was quite sure his ancestors of that name were in the country before the Revolution. Of late my findings have abundantly confirmed his earlier claim.

The first U.S. census, 1790, gave an enumeration of all heads of families by states and counties, with their children, male and female, and their slaves, under and above sixteen years of age. The name in its various forms is found in this census in nearly every state then represented in the Union.

The Revolutionary War Records show connections with the army as subordinate officers as early as the year 1776, the most of these from Pennsylvania.

In a collection of old parish records of eastern Pennsylvania which I found in the Congressional Library there is mention of a John Gilchrist who located in Dauphin County in the year 1730. The names of his children, were James, John, Robert

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and Elizabeth, names that have followed through the generations up to the present time.

As to our immediate ancestors, I had long entertained the tradition that Grandfather and his brothers James, John and Joseph were born in Washington County, Pennsylvania, and that the family was in that county before the Revolution. But I am obliged to give up that tradition by the findings that I have made of late.

The first compelling fact is that in the census of 1790 there are reported only two Gilchrist families in Washington County, each of those having only one son.

Another is that in the entire census there is listed on one family that could furnish four sons of the proper age at that date. That was the family of John Gilchrist of Fayette County, adjoining Washington. This family had four sons and seven daughters. This makes it look like our ancestors came to Washington County from Fayette, subsequent to 1790. But whence did they come to Fayette County?

I have some old documents, or scraps of documents, furnished me by a Mrs. Nichols, of Granville, Ohio, a number of years ago. Mrs. Nichols was a grand daughter of James Gilchrist, Grandfather's oldest brother. She was the daughter of Robert Gilchrist and Jane Fleming, and Robert was the son of James Gilcrest and Elizabeth Scott, the daughter of Patrick Scott, of Washington County, Pennsylvania. One of these documents is a fly leaf from the family bible of Patrick Scott showing that Elizabeth Scott was born May 2, 1765. Another is an ancient church letter of the Presbyterian church, showing that she was married to James Gilcrest prior to 1795, in York County, Pennsylvania, and that they had both been born and brought up in that county. Here is the form of that old church letter: "This certifies that James Gilchrist and his wife, Elizabeth, were born in these parts and from their childhood behaved themselves in a sober inoffensive manner, are in full communion in the church, and at the date hereof, are free from public scandal, church censure or anything deserving thereof known to us. Given by order of Session, Sept. 26, 1795." "Certified at Chanceford by John Slemons, V. D. M."

Chanceford is in the county York, adjoining Dauphin and Lancaster in eastern Pennsylvania, the region where the Gilchrist records of the older day are most abundant. So, it appears, the oldest of the four brothers of this family was born in York County, and was not married till after 1790 or his name would have been in the census report of that county as head of a family. Evidently, also, the family migrated before 1790 as none are credited to York County in the census of that year.

Therefore I am strongly surmising that this family migrated from York County prior to 1790 leaving James, the oldest, and we find him married and getting ready to follow to "the west," and requesting a church letter before leaving the old neighborhood, in 1795.

Another church letter sent me by Mrs. Nichols was granted to an Agnes Gilcrest in 1801 by the Cross Creek Presbyterian church. This is the form of it: "that Agnes Gilcrest lived some considerable time in this congregation, in full communion, and left us free from church censure, or any cause therefor known to us, Is certified by order of Session, T. Marques, V.D.M. May 9th, 1801, Washington County, Cross Creek Congregation."

While in Washington, Pennsylvania, I saw

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a record of the Cross Creek Presbyterian cemetery, in which there was an Agnes Gilchrist died in 1811 at the age of eighty-five years. That would make her birth in 1726.

With these letters in her possession Mrs. Nichols evidently considered them as having come to her directly as from her own ancestors along with the old family bible, and it can scarcely be doubted that she so considered this Agnes her own great grand-mother. And if hers, they ours also, that is, the grandmother of my father, Thomas, and his brothers John, Robert and Alexander. (I note the different spellings of the name in these old letters. On the back it is "Gilchrist.")

With these things all considered I do not think it a very wild surmise that John Gilchrist of Fayette County, 1790, and Agnes Gilcrest here mentioned are the progenitors of the four Gilchrist brothers found in Washington County a few years later.

These four brothers, James, William, John and Joseph, were in Washington County [Pennsylvania] prior to 1794, at least some of them. This is indicated by the real estate records of that county. Soon after that date they are all found having considerable tracts of land in the same community, near and adjoining West Middletown, in the western part of the county, not far from Wellsburg, West Virginia. There were several hundred acres in all.. Of the oldest brother, James, I have incidentally received somewhat concerning his family and descendants, and this will appear on later pages. These seem to have early started their migrations westward.

Of the third brother, John, I have learned only a few items and will insert them at this place:

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His wife's name was Margaret, and his children were Nancy Robb, Margaret McBurney, Joseph Gilchrist and Esther Chambers. These names I have from the record of his will which was probated in 1838. Nancy was the wife of a David Robb who lived next farm to us in Union County, Ohio, when I was a small boy. He was quite an interesting character, though somewhat of an oddity, as I remember him. I learned from the Guernsey County History that he was twice elected to the Ohio Legislature, and was appointed Indian Agent by Andrew Jackson. He made two trips across country to conduct Indians to the Indian Territory, from the Western Reserve.

Mr. Robb said that John Gilchrist's father educated him for the ministry in the Presbyterian church, and that he was the only one of the family who received a liberal education. He never followed that profession, however. In his will he left his children one dollar each and all the balance went to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian church for missionary purposes. Some of his descendants are still in Washington County.

Of the brother Joseph I could learn nothing except his participation in real estate transactions in the county records. In these I observed that his wife's name was Mary and that he was witness to the will of his brother John.

Now, of the second brother, William Gilcrest, (or Gilchrist), my grandfather: His history seems to indicate that he was somewhat of a trader, or a buyer and seller. The first record of him is on a farm adjoining West Middleton, Washington County, Pennsylvania, soon after 1794. In 1813 he moved from there to Belmont County, Ohio, and bought a farm of 153 acres near Flushing, and the next year

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he sold the West Middletown farm to a man by the name of Paul Dunkel. In 1828 he sold the Belmont County farm to George and Isaac Brokaw, the latter his son-in-law. That property is in the hands of the Brokaws to this day. After he had spent two or three years farming in Brook County, Virginia, he bought again, this time in Guernsey County, forty-three miles west of Wheeling on the National Road. Here he lived several years and here the younger members of the family were brought up. In the mean time, also, Grandfather had acquired property elsewhere. He owned some houses and lots in Williamsburg, Washington County, Pennsylvania, which he sold in 1832 for five thousand dollars. In the records of this transaction the name of his second wife first appears, his first having died in 1827. Then in 1819 he seems to have acquired 160 acres of land by patent, in Wayne County, Ohio, near Wooster. The original instrument, signed by President James Monroe, has been for the last several years in possession of Charles L. Gilcrest, Des Moines, Iowa, and now hangs in the Iowa State Historical Building. Grandfather's last move was to a farm he bought in Green County, Ohio, a few miles southeast of Xenia, near a little town called Paintersville. Here he died in 1850, in the eighty-first year of his age.

Grandfather and Grandmother, Jane Smith were married, probably about 1792, as their first child, Nancy, was born in 1794, and was married before they left Washington County in 1813 to William Brokaw.

Grandmother, Jane Smith Gilcrest was born in the old Fort Pitt, where Pittsburg [sic] now stands, in 1774. The fort was built by the English in 1759 and it frequently became a refuge for the surrounding settlers on occasion of the Indian raids.

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[image of house]

Bush [sic] Run Church

The First Meeting-House of the Disciples in America

This little frame meeting house was built on a three acre tract of land which Grandfather sold to Alexander Campbell, John Sharp, and Abram Alters, as trustees, for religious and educational purposes, on August 28th, 1811. It is in the record of this deed that the name is spelled three different ways, one of which is "Kalchrist."

The little house now stands on the campus of Bethany College, Bethany, West Virginia, a memento of the beginning days of the restoration movement.

[me, see Brush Run Church Wiki]

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that were still occasional in those days. It is not improbable that such an event was the cause of her having the old fort for her birth place.

Grandmother died December 13th, 1827, before they left the Belmont County farm. Grandfather married again, and his second wife survived him a number of years. Her name was Margaret. She died in Summitt [sic] County, Ohio, and her grave is in a cemetery near Ghent in that county. There were no children by this marriage.

While our ancestors are considered to have been of Scottish blood as the name indicates, yet Grandfather's descendants could hardly have been purely so. Grandmother's name was Smith, indicating either German or English, more probably the latter in this case, as the early settlement about Pittsburg [sic] was of English origin.

Religiously, being of Scottish extraction, it would be expected that our forebears would be of the Presbyterian order. That was really the case, but Grandfather and his family came early in touch with the Campbells, Thomas and Alexander, in their movement for Christian Unity and hence the restoration of the New Testament order as the only possible ground for it, and joined with them in their first organization. This organization is known in the history of the movement as the Brush Run Church. The little frame meeting house near West Middletown was built on Grandfather's farm, and he and Grandmother, the oldest daughter and her husband, William Brokaw, became charter members of the organization. Grandfather was also chosen as one of the deacons. Later they were of the party of thirty members who moved their membership with Alexander Campbell to Wellsburg, Virginia, when he, Campbell decided to get out of the juris-

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diction of the Redstone Association of the Baptist Church. That association was moving to try him for heresy; but Adamson Bentley, minister of the Baptist Church in Wellsburg, of the Mahoning Association, was more sympathetic in respect to the Restoration Movement and invited them to join with his people. Soon after that Mahoning Association joined with the movement of the Campbells, dropping the name Baptist, and becoming known as Christians only.

Quite generally Grandfather's descendants followed in the same line of religious sentiment, while I have found other branches of the family are still very largely of the Presbyterian order.

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