When late October rolls around, I think of my great-great-great-great-grandfather’s estate sale held on October 29, 1777.
I knew nothing about it until a few years ago, but what a treasure trove of information his estate papers held! If you aren’t interested in history or your ancestors, you probably won’t read this post. That’s all right. Perhaps a few of you will be curious enough to keep reading.
I have a special bond with my fourth-great grandfather because I live on a little sliver of the land he purchased when he got to North Carolina from Scotland in the 1760s. I walk on the same dirt he walked on. I see some of the species of wild animals he saw. I cross the same creeks he crossed. I belong to the same church he belonged to. His blood flows in my veins.
John Morison (he wrote his name with one “r”) was baptized in the Lowland Church of Scotland in Campbeltown on the Kintyre Peninsula in 1726. He and his two younger brothers came to Pennsylvania for an unknown length of time before purchasing land and settling in North Carolina in the 1760s.
John wrote his will on August 30, 1777, “being very sick & weak in body, though in perfect mind & memory.” In his will, he outlined provisions for his pregnant wife, their eight living children, and their unborn child. In less than a week, John was dead.
Although he had left such things as land, livestock, money, some farm implements, and saddles to his wife and children and the spouses of his eldest daughters, there were things that needed to be settled up through an estate sale.
Defying the fact that John’s estate sale was held in the middle of the American Revolutionary War, all the little scraps of paper and receipts from the settling of his estate survived and are preserved at the State Archives of North Carolina.
Along with all those tiny pieces of paper which indicate everything from the purchase of “burial liquor” to the educating of his children, are page after page of the record of his October 29, 1777, estate sale.
It amazes me that when combined, John’s will and estate sale tell us everything the man owned. Being the first person in his family’s history to own a piece of land, it is astounding!
He wasn’t a man of great wealth, compared to the aristocracy, but to have come from where he came from I believe he did quite well for himself and his family. He would, no doubt be amazed to know that some of his 7th-great-grandchildren now reside on some of the land he purchased in the 1760s and 1770s.
I promised you a blog post about his estate sale, so let’s get to it.
The sale
Robert Harris, Jr. served as clerk. Mr. Harris had beautiful penmanship and was meticulous in his duties that day. He wrote down every item, who bought it, and how many pounds, pence, or shillings they paid.
Items sold at the estate sale included eight horses; 19 sheep; 25 head of cattle; 17 hogs and a parcel of pigs; three hives of bees; 17 geese and ganders; 25 pounds of wool; a parcel of books; a great coat; two straight coats and jackets; one pair of blue britches; a pair of old buckskin britches; and a fur hat. (Oh, how I’d love to know the titles of that “parcel of books!”)
Also, four saddles; five bells and collars; five other collars; six bridles; two sets of horse gears; an “M” branding iron; three augurs; a drawing knife; nailing and stone hammers; a broadax; three weeding hoes; two maulrings; a wedge; a clivish; a sprouting hoe; a mattock; two falling axes; three spinning wheels; two horse trees and hangings; a cutting knife and stone; a sythe and cradle; four sickles; a flax brake; a pair of wool cards; and a pair of cotton cards.
Also, barrels for flour, rice, beef, and salt; a tapper vessel; two cedar churns; oak and walnut chests; two smoothing irons; a looking glass; one whiskey keg; and various other tools, household items, and pieces of furniture.
Other items included 6.5 pounds of iron and 14.5 pounds of steel. Steel as we know it today had not yet been developed. In 1777, steel was the name for sharpening rods used to sharpen knives and other cutting edges.
Half a wagon?
The most puzzling record in John Morrison’s estate papers is that John Springs bought half a wagon and half the wagon implements. Since no one bought the other half, it has been speculated that Mr. Springs knew that John’s wife, Mary, needed the use of the wagon but also needed the proceeds from the sale of the wagon and implements. After all, Mary was a widow with seven children still at home and a baby on the way. Perhaps Mr. Springs made a verbal agreement to let Mary Morrison keep the wagon even though he paid half the value of the wagon at the estate sale.
Another possibility is that John Morrison had bought the wagon and implements from John Springs but had only paid half the bill at the time of his death. Mr. Springs, instead of saddling Mary Morrison with the additional debt of the unpaid balance chose to simply pay her husband’s estate the half that John still owed. When Mary Morrison died in 1781, there is no mention of a wagon in her will or her estate sale.
Lots of ammunition!
Other intriguing items sold at John Morrison’s estate sale were the 17 pounds of gun powder and 55.5 pounds of lead. That’s more gun powder and lead than a farmer needed. So why did John Morrison have so much of both?
John wrote his will on August 30, 1777. By September 3, he was dead. It is speculated that he was stockpiling munitions for the patriots’ cause in the American Revolution and that he was shot by Tories, but we will never know for certain.
Janet
Janet's Writing Blog 