Elijah Ross Sr. (c1754-1817)
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Elijah Ross Sr. | |
|---|---|
| Born | Elijah Ross c. 1754 |
| Died | c. September 1817 (aged 63) |
| Residence | • Long Acre, Beaufort County, North Carolina • Hyde County, North Carolina |
| Organization | Beaufort County Militia |
| Spouse(s) | Winnifred Daniel (c1775-c1850) |
| Children | |
| Family | Rosses of Farr |
| Progenitor of | Rosses of Hyde County |
| Father | John Ross the Immigrant (c1727-) |
| Public trees (may need correction) | |
| FamilySearch | LTXM-4QW |
Elijah Ross Sr. was a Beaufort County, North Carolina, landowner and militia-age man during the American Revolutionary War, traditionally identified as one of the six sons who emigrated with John Ross the Immigrant in 1774. He is the great-great-great-great-grandfather of Cathy Ross Brewer, compiler of the family history Granddaddy was a Patriot, who selected him — in preference to his brothers Benjamin Ross and John Ross, both of whom have documented pension or Sons of the American Revolution records — as the ancestor through whom she pursued Sons of the American Revolution membership for her brothers, on the grounds that he represented their direct unbroken male line.[1]
DNA evidence
Y-DNA
No documented direct male-line descendant of Elijah Ross Sr. has taken a Y-DNA test as of this writing, and no Y-DNA evidence currently exists to confirm his identity as a son of John Ross the Immigrant. See John Ross the Immigrant for the status of Y-DNA testing within this family cluster generally.
Autosomal DNA
Biography
Early life
Elijah Ross was born about 1754, traditionally in Scotland, as a son of John Ross the Immigrant (see Common discrepancies below regarding conflicting birth years given for him elsewhere in the same family history). No document from Scotland has been found naming him; the earliest record that can plausibly be tied to him is his role, alongside a man identified as Benjamin Ross, as a "sworn chain bearer" on an August 1779 survey of 100 acres on Long Acre Ridge, Beaufort County, North Carolina, commissioned for Francis Ross.[2] Chain bearers were typically family members or close neighbors of the party being surveyed, which is the principal circumstantial evidence tying Elijah, Francis, and Benjamin Ross together as likely brothers. Elijah and Francis Ross both appear on the 1779 Beaufort County tax list.[3]
Land and family in Long Acre
Edward Van Daniel, father of Elijah's future wife Winnifred, was a neighboring landowner in the Long Acre community of Beaufort County; Edward Van Daniel's sons James, John, Edward, and Arthur appear alongside the Ross brothers on the 1789 Beaufort County tax list.[4] Elijah married Winnifred Daniel, one of Edward's three daughters, in 1790 in Beaufort County.
Elijah purchased 105 acres in the Long Acre community on November 26, 1789, and an additional 100 acres on the north side of the Pamlico River in the same community in December 1791.[5] On March 20, 1811 he purchased fifty acres in Hyde County from Bridgett Mordrick — land on the west side of the Pamlico River known as "Stubes Neche," at the head of North Dividing Creek — which became the family homestead and later served as documentary evidence of the family's "direct male line" residence when descendants applied for Sons of the American Revolution membership.[6]
1779 indictment and Misprision of Treason
On November 10, 1779, Elijah Ross was among twenty-three men indicted at New Bern, North Carolina — including his brothers Benjamin and Francis Ross and several members of the Van Daniel family — for "stirring up and exciting a tumult and disorder," forcibly freeing an accused militia deserter named Willis Hodge (or Hodges) from the jailer's custody, and for building a fortification and "waging war against the state" in resistance to militia service and taxation.[7] At trial in the November 1779 session of the New Bern District Superior Court, Elijah, Benjamin, and a third man were acquitted of high treason. A second grand jury subsequently indicted twelve of the original defendants, including Elijah and his brothers, for misprision of treason (concealing knowledge of a felony); all twelve were convicted and sentenced to confinement in the New Bern district gaol for the duration of the war and forfeiture of half their estates to the state.[8] No record has been found that any of the men's property was actually confiscated, and by April 1781 Elijah, Benjamin, and Francis Ross all appear on the muster roll of the Beaufort County militia — suggesting the men were released or pardoned on condition of militia service.[9] The Beaufort County militia is credited with taking part in the Battle of Rockfish Creek, Duplin County, on August 2, 1781, though no surviving roster confirms Elijah's individual presence there.[10]
Ancestors
| Angus Ross | |||||||||
| John Ross the Immigrant (c1727-) | |||||||||
| Elijah Ross Sr. (c1754-1817) | |||||||||
| James McKenzie | |||||||||
| Isobel Unknown | |||||||||
- Elijah Ross Sr. (c1754-1817)
Elijah Ross Sr. is traditionally identified as a son of John Ross the Immigrant. No further generations are documented with certainty; see Disputed origins.
Marriage and children
Elijah Ross married Winnifred Daniel (b. abt. 1775, Long Acre Township, Beaufort County, North Carolina; d. abt. 1850, Hyde County, North Carolina), daughter of Edward Van Daniel, in 1790 in Beaufort County, North Carolina. Their eight recorded children were:
- Edward Ross (b. aft. 1790, d. July 1848), m. Clarissa Bailey
- Rhoda Ann Ross (b. 1793, d. December 10, 1857), m. Ellebird Foreman
- William "Billy" Ross (b. June 9, 1794, d. February 15, 1859), m. Mary Ann "Polly" Roland
- Elijah Ross Jr. (b. abt. 1797, d. abt. 1862), m. Susan Ross
- Martin Daniel Ross (b. January 23, 1800, d. April 2, 1851), m. Louisa (surname unknown) — direct ancestor of Cathy Ross Brewer and the line traced through the remainder of Granddaddy was a Patriot
- Winefred "Winney" Ross (b. 1806, d. bef. 1870)
- Mary Ross, m. John B. Eborn
- Elizabeth Ross, m. (Mr.) Carraway
Occupation
Farmer/planter, based on his documented land purchases in Beaufort and Hyde counties, North Carolina.
Military
Elijah Ross's only documented militia service is his appearance on the roll of "Several Divisions of the Affected Men in the Beaufort Regiment of Militia," made April 20, 1781, following his 1779–1780 prosecution for misprision of treason (see above).[10] A Revolutionary War bounty land warrant for 640 acres in what was then part of North Carolina (later the Southwest Territory, then Tennessee) was granted to him on December 9, 1797; he appears to have sold the warrant to a John Smith for eighty dollars rather than settle the land himself.[11] Unlike his brothers Benjamin and John, no record has been found of Elijah applying for a Revolutionary War pension, and he is not a registered Sons of the American Revolution patriot in his own right; Cathy Brewer's brothers were admitted to the Sons of the American Revolution through him on the strength of the land and militia-roll evidence described above rather than a pension file.
Death & burial
No will or exact date of death has been found for Elijah Ross. His death is dated to before September 1817, in Hyde County, North Carolina, on the basis of an inventory of his property taken on September 11, 1817, suggesting he died intestate shortly before that date.[12]
Timeline
- circa 1779 - Survey No. 5 for Francis Ross's 100-acre tract on the N. side of Pamplico river high up the ridge, known by the name of Long Acre, beginning at a pine on Robert West's line, N. 45 E. 175 poles to a pine, W. 100 poles to a cypress in the [swamp?], S. 45 W. 175 poles to a pine near the piney savanna, E. 100 poles to the first station, chain-borne by Benjamin Ross and Elijah Ross, surveyed by Isaac Chauncey[13]
- circa 1779 - Survey No. 53 for Francis Ross's 300-acre tract on the N. side of Pamplico river and on the E. side of Long Acre, beginning at a pine on Robert West's line, S. [?] 320 poles to a [?], E. 160 poles to a pine in the pocosin, N. 32 E. 320 poles to Robert West's line, thence with that line to the first station, chain-borne by Benjamin Ross and Elisha (probably Elijah) Ross, surveyor [I.] Chauncey[14]
- April 20, 1781 - Elisha Ross listed in Division No. 4 on the roll of Affective Men in the Beaufort Regiment of Militia, returned by Colonel William Brown[15]
- December 1, 1783 - Elijah Ross's entry recorded for 105 acres on the N. side of the Pamlico River and E. side of Long Acre Ridge, bounded by Ellison's line and his own home line, including the place called Mulberry Island; warrant issued by Reading Blount, Entry Taker for Beaufort County[16]
- December 1785 - Deed from Francis Ross, Aurelia Ross to Elijah Ross, per the Beaufort County General Index to Real Estate Conveyances.[17]
- March 25, 1788 - Survey No. 395 for Elijah Ross's 105-acre tract On the North side of Pamplico river and in Long Acre, beginning at a pine on his own line, S. 20 E. 85 poles to a bay, S. 70 E. 200 poles to a gum, N. 20 E. 85 poles to a gum, thence to the first station, chain-borne by Charles Latham and Phineas Latham, surveyor W[illiam] [Shaw?][16]
- 1789 - Elijah Ross entered a grant for 100 acres on the N. side Pamplico River in Long Acre in Beaufort County, North Carolina[18]
- March 1789 - Deed from Elijah Ross to Benjamin Gaylord, per the Beaufort County General Index to Real Estate Conveyances. (Not the same transaction as the bk. 6 p. 123 deed of Benjamin Gaylord to Elijah Ross (1789 June) -- different page/month; two separate deeds between the same two men.)[19]
- June 1789 - Deed from Benjamin Gaylord to Elijah Ross, per the Beaufort County General Index to Real Estate Conveyances. (Not the same transaction as the bk. 6 p. 101 deed of Elijah Ross to Benjamin Gaylord (1789 Mar) -- different page/month; these are two separate deeds between the same two men.)[20]
- November 26, 1789 - Elijah Ross was granted the 105 acres he entered in 1783[16]
- November 16, 1790 - State Grant from State of North Carolina to Elijah Ross, per the Beaufort County General Index to Real Estate Conveyances. (Index lists two grants to Elijah Ross at this same book/page (1790 Nov 16 and 1792 Jun 2); both entries kept.)[21]
- December 20, 1791 - Elijah Ross was granted the 100 acres he entered in 1789[18]
- June 2, 1792 - State Grant from State of North Carolina to Elijah Ross, per the Beaufort County General Index to Real Estate Conveyances.[21]
- March 1796 - Deed from Elijah Ross to Isaiah Woodard, per the Beaufort County General Index to Real Estate Conveyances. (Year not reprinted at this row; carried forward from the last printed year (1796).)[22]
Research notes
Loyalist misattribution
In 2021, while researching this family, Cathy Brewer found that another online genealogy researcher had identified Elijah Ross as a Revolutionary War Loyalist, based on the 1779 New Bern indictment discussed above. Brewer's subsequent research into the original court records concluded that the underlying prosecution — for helping to free a jailed militia deserter and for resisting militia drafts and taxation — is better read as a dispute internal to the Patriot cause (over conscription and taxation) than as evidence of Loyalist sympathy, and that Elijah, Benjamin, and Francis Ross were acquitted of the high treason charge itself, being convicted only of the lesser charge of misprision of treason.[23]
Disputed origins
Elijah Ross's identity as a son of John Ross the Immigrant rests on family tradition (independently recorded by two descendant lines) and on his consistent documentary association with Benjamin and Francis Ross as a neighbor, land-deed chain bearer, tax-list co-entrant, and co-defendant in Beaufort County between 1779 and 1791 — but not on any document that directly names his parents. See John Ross the Immigrant for the fuller discussion of which six men are traditionally counted as the Immigrant's sons.
Common discrepancies
- Elijah Ross's birth year is given variously as 1750, 1754, and 1759 across different parts of the same family history compilation; see Early life above.
- One record index transcribes his surname as "Rose" rather than "Ross"; the underlying document is confirmed to read "Ross."[24]
Sources
- ↑ Brewer 2022, p. [1].
- ↑ Brewer 2022, p. [20].
- ↑ Brewer 2022, p. [21].
- ↑ Brewer 2022, p. [22].
- ↑ Brewer 2022, pp. [48-49].
- ↑ Brewer 2022, pp. [50-51].
- ↑ Brewer 2022, pp. [23-24].
- ↑ Brewer 2022, pp. [41-42].
- ↑ Brewer 2022, p. [40].
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 Brewer 2022, p. [45].
- ↑ Brewer 2022, pp. [42-43].
- ↑ Brewer 2022, p. [51].
- ↑ "Beaufort Co. File no. 905, Francis Ross". North Carolina Land Grant Images and Data. North Carolina Historical Records Online – via State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh NC, microfilm call # S.108.453.
- ↑ "Beaufort Co. File no. 909, Francis Ross". North Carolina Land Grant Images and Data. North Carolina Historical Records Online – via State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh NC, microfilm call # S.108.453.
- ↑ Brown 1781, p. 1.
- ↑ 16.0 16.1 16.2 "Beaufort Co. File no. 1182, Elijah Ross". North Carolina Land Grant Images and Data. North Carolina Historical Records Online – via State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh NC, microfilm call # S.108.454.
- ↑ Beaufort Co. bk. 5 p. 478
- ↑ 18.0 18.1 "Beaufort Co. File no. 1219, Elijah Ross". North Carolina Land Grant Images and Data. North Carolina Historical Records Online – via State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh NC, microfilm call # S.108.454.
- ↑ Beaufort Co. bk. 6 p. 101
- ↑ Beaufort Co. bk. 6 p. 123
- ↑ 21.0 21.1 Beaufort Co. bk. 7 p. 516
- ↑ Beaufort Co. bk. 8 p. 158
- ↑ Brewer 2022, pp. [26-31].
- ↑ Brewer 2022, p. [53].
Bibliography
- Brewer, Cathy (2022). Granddaddy was a Patriot. Self-published family history.
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