Family History by Robert Monroe Fleming (Sr.)

Notes on Fanily History by Iva Causey Fleming
(Part 11)

Transcribed by Robert M. Fleming Jr.


Continuing life of Joeeph McCormick, Brother of Andrew.

Two incidents connect themselves with her which may bear mention. In 1855 her cousin, Richard Ellis Sherwill, was pastor of a church in Tennessee about twenty miles distant from columbia. He had woed and won and was ready to wed, a daughter of Dr Reed. Who was a member of his congregation, and the time was set for the marraige ceremony, 8pm, February 7, 1855. He wrote to his brother preacher, Frierson, advising him of these interesting facts. Frierson replied that the same dy and hour and been set for him to wed Harriet McCormick at Columbia. And that shedesired her cousin, Richard Ellis Sherrill should officiate as minister at their marriage. It was announced that Mr.Sherril and Miss Reed should hold their day, and that Mr. Frierson and Miss McCormick should wed the dy following and that each of the bridal parties should be present at both functions and the respective clergymens should marry each other to his chosen bride. A few years before Mr. Frierson's death his wife set heart on having her Father's surviving children meet once more at the Old Homestead. All of the children who had survived infancy were then living, except Joseph and Christopher. She set her hand to work to bring the fruition to this wish and hope of her heart. Christopher's widow was residing at Easton, California. Andrew was settled at Benson in Arizona. Fielding was in Monroe, Louisiana. John lived on the Old Homestead in Missouri. James was near at Farmington. And Harriet, the promoter lived at that time in N Alabama. She wrote to each, proposing and urging that they meet at the Old Homestead on the next anniversary of the birth of the oldest brother. Martha, from the setting sun, wrote with loving regrets, that she could not be away from her farms and her children to go so far away, so long. Andrew Guy, having lived to be near his three score and ten years, was putting his house in order for a longer journey, and could make a fast promise to come, but would try. The others said that God willing, they would meet. When the day came, September 16, 1884, that had been agreed onas more convenient to all than August 22, the oldest brother Fielding Lewis, a widower from May 28, 1878, with his two unmarried daughters, Rebecca and Catherine, was there. Harriet and her husband came from Alabama. James and his wife and his two sons came from Farmington. John Adams and his family, except his oldest Son James Crittenden, who was in business in Arizona with his Uncle Andrew, were there. And on the morning of the anniversary Andrew came. When the feast was ready the reunited family took their proper places at the table. Fielding Lewis presided. And Mr. Frierson said grace. The experience of each reader may give it's color to this picture.

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STEVENSON - (loose leaf sheets note) continue from page 48 in book, 18 - RMF note - start on page 46.

The maiden name of my maternal grandmother, (Juge McCormick), was Elizabeth Stevenson. She was the younger child of William Stevenson. He was born in County of Derry or Antrim, Ulster, Ireland, about 1725. There is a question as to which county. He was a strict Scotch-Irish linage in blood and religion. He received a common education and duly served his time as an apprentice in the tailor's trade before he left the year1748 from Ireland to immigrate to America. And settled in that part of Pennsylvania afterwards embraced in Washington County. He duly established himself there among kindred Scotch-Irish Presbyterian people who who had formed that section of a considerable colony.In the last century the tailor's trade presented a wide and attractive avenue to wealth and influence. A few years after his settlement in Penn. William Stevenson married Miss Mary Mc?elland. Int the Spring of 1761. Certainly and possibly at an earlier date, he visited the country between the Catawba and South Yadkin Rivers, in N Carolina. He received a grant of land from Lord Granville, dated April 4, 1761. But continued to reside in Penn., carrying on or closing out his business there until the fal of 1763. When he removed his family to N Carolina and settled on the land granted to him April 1761, then embraced in Rowan County. Now in Iredell. South and very near to the city of Statesville. This grant to Mr Stevenson purports on it's face to be for only 339 acres. But it's boundaries as set out by field notes in the deed, with controlling calls for a fixed natural objects, embrace, and Mr Stevenson under it held more than one thousand acres. He built his home at the source of a spring branch that issued from the [the rest of the line slopes downward below the bottom of the carbon paper and out of sight] which the branch flows. and about two mile from the "Fourth Creek Meeting House". Commencing near the confluence of the South Yadkin and the main Yadkin, a number of large creeks called in their order, First, Second, Third, Fourth, and Fifth Creek, enter the South Yadkin on it's opposite side from the Southwest. All,of these streams drain the same water shed of the divide between the Catawba and the Yadkin. And flow in the same general direction. Nearly parellel and near to each other, the course of the creek trending slightly towards the river till one by one each flows into it. The other side of the divide is drained in like manner by Elm Shoal Creek, Buffalo Shoal Creek, Reedy Creek, and other large creeks flowing from the Northwest into the Catawba, which received similar tributaries from the Southwest of which Lyle Creek in Catawba and Lincoln Counties has received mention in the last chapter. Third Creek is the largest and longest of those named as flowing into the Yadkin. Mr Stevenson died in the Spring of 1809. He and his wife had born to them and reared to maturity, a family of seven sons and three daughters, besides two daughters who died quite young.

Note: (Stevenson) continue to page 44 separate loose sheets.

The old "Fourth Creek Meeting House" was the place of worship and of all public meetings for all the settlers on all these creeks between the Catawba and the South Yadkin. And for a few families on the further side of each of these rivers. It was permanently located about 1756. Though the congregation had begun to be united several years earlier and to meet at points near the one finally chosen and retained, permanently. The first settlements on the Catawba were made about 1740. By 1745 there were numerous settlements in the territory which in 1762 was erected into Cabanus and Mecklenburg Counties. And by 1750 the settlements had extended and become dense for a frontier section, and began uniting themselves into church congregations. What is now Iredell County was embraced in Anson, till Rowan was was constituted in 1753. Of which it remained a part till 17?8. When Iredell was was established and it's County seat located at the Statesville town site. Which embraced the "Fourth Creek Meeting House". The settlements preceded the surveys and grants of land, as they had done on the ohter frontiers. The first authorized surveys in what now constitutes the area of Iredell County was made in 1750. In February, 1751, a tract was surveyed for and granted to Col. Thomsas A Allison. And in July of that year two tracts were surveyed for and granted to William Morrison. One of these surveys was dated 12, and the other July 13, 1751. And both were embraced in one deed of grant by John,Earl of Granville, and signed "Granville", by Francis Corbin of the odious memory so notorious in the war of the Regulation, in 1770. This tract was near the site afterwards chosen for the Concord Church. Which is a few hundred yards from the Iredell Station, on the Atlantic Tennessee and Ohio Railroad. This grant to William Morrison is number nine of the grants made by Lord Granville in Anson County. The tract on which the town Statesville is built was granted by the Earl to John Olyphant, and was prior to the grant in February, 1751 to Col. Allison. For the field notes in his deed call for a beginning point or corner in the line of John Olyphant's land. Mr Olyphant sold and conveyed his grant to Fergus Sloan, who was the first settler on the small branch of Fourth Creek, thereafter called "Sloan's Branch", at a spring about one half mile from the spot where the Fourth Creek Meeting House, now now Statesville Church stands. In this pioneer cabin home the widowed Mother of Andrew Jackson and her son, then a mere lad, found welcome shelter and generous hospitality. The original cabin stood there for a century, and was at last destroyed by an accidental fire. The land for the townsite was conveyed by Mr Sloan to the board[?] of town commissioners in 1778, when the county was established and the count seat was located. Then Mr Fergus Sloan was the Father of William Sloan who married Jane Stevenson. And went West in 1807 with Andrew McCormick and Robert Stevenson, as mentioned in the last chapter. He was also the Father of a daughter who married Thomas Hall, a brother of Dr James Hall. Prudence Hall, a daughter of Mr and Mrs Thomas Hall, married the elder William Stevenson's son, William. This son, William, was born in 1763, and was an infant in arms when this Stevenson family settled on Third Creek. in 1773. one William Sharp, a lawyer and prominent citizen, who was a skilled practical surveyor and draftsman, and who in early times done much work in the district surveyor's office, made a map of the Fourth Creek congregation settlement, embracing the area within a circle.The circumference of which was ten miles distant from the "Old Meeting House". He drew also nine inner circles with their circumference lines one mile apart. And laid down on this area the true course and distance of the streams South Yadkin and Catawba, each with their tributary creeks and branches, as they respectively cut the lines of the circumference of these circles. And fixed and designated by a distinct round spot the exact location of each settler's home. And plainly wrote the full name, sometimes, but rarely using innital letters. Only for the Christian name of each male head of the family occupying the respective homes at the time. I have in my possession an accurate copy of that map in all it's details and remarks. It shows 196 family settlements within tthe circumference. And of the 196 male heads of the families III bear distinctly different family names. There are Andrew McKenzie, John stevenson, and William Stevenson on the North side of Third Creek and only a few miles from the"Meeting House". William Stevenson being furthest West and nearest the "Meeting House" and John Stevenson next below William, as the water runs, and Andrew McKenzie next below John Stevenson. Each of these men was an elder in the Fourth Creek Church on June 8, 1778, when the Rev. James Hall, afterwards doctor of divinity was ordained and installed pastor of the united congregation of Fourth Creek, Concord, and Bathany. The war for independence was then, in 1778, flagrant in parts of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York and N Carolina. And N Carolina had sent and kept full her quota of men and supplies. The young men had gone out to the front but the war had not then touched these Fourth Creek congregation homes. It became nearer to them in 1780 and 1781. And William Stevenson lost his son, Thomas, in the conflict and wounded himself at the battle of Camden. As yet (June 8, 1778), the way of life went on, children were born and given to the Lord in baptism, young men and maidens married and were and were given in marriage. The farm and the work shops had their wanted care six days in the week. And alway on one day each week, and sometimes oftener, the whole congregation, by some representative from each family met at Fourth Creek or Concord or Bathany for holding fellowship as christians and uniting in their worship of prayer and praise and giving to the Lord. The early missionary preachers had held services at Bethany and Concord, as well as at Fourth Creek, before 1778. The congregation was styled the "United Congregation of Fourth Creek, Concordand Bethany".It appears that an evangelist, Rev. Mr Spencer, had organized a church at Fourth Creek before 1765, or early in that year. In 1776, Concord appears to have been organized as a church and Bethany in 1779. That is to say these respective neighborhoods were authorized to elect and have ordained and installed their own elders and deacons. But all continued under one pastorate, and worshiped and worked together as a united church and congregation until 1790. William Stevenson was become a patriarch. Beside his son, Thomas, who died in the army in the war of Independence, He had six sons and three daughters, who married and became heads of families in his life time and survived him. He had prospered in his store and had added field to field until West of Concord to East of Statesville he owned more than four thousand acres of the best farming land between the Yadkin and the Catawba rivers. He was what the good old Scotch and Scotch-Irish fathers delighted to call a "Child of the Covenant". In his early boyhood he had been generously fed on the sincere milk of the "Word". He was cherished as a lamb of the Good Shepherd's flock. When he reached the period of individual responsibility he began to show a disrelish of the Gospel diet, to draw from the flock and lodge ouside the fold. His life work was well-ordered and decorous, but in the pride of intellect he kindled his own fire, composed himself about with sparks, and walked in the light of the fire and in the sparks that he had kindled. Remaining ignorant of God's righteousness he went about to establish his own righteousness and did not submit himself to the righteousness of God. How long this continued, we do not know. Further than that it continued until he fell under the preaching of Whitefield. When that inspired evangelist first visited the section in which Mr Stevenson lived, and began to stir all classes of men, this child of the covenant held aloof. the enthusiasm of his friends and neighbors seemed ludicrous to him. And he made amiable sport, as even men of sober purity do of such intense [illegible word] exercises and exhortations as revivalist indulg and inspire. One evening, when his companions and friends had all gone, or were going, to the meeting, and the young free thinker was lonely or curious and in a humor to enjoy the sport, he went to the gospel-tent and one might now go to the circus-tent to see the "Greatest Show on Earth". All unconsciouslyhe, led by the Sovereign Spirit. That evening was God's opportunity to purge the conscience of this self relying moralist from dead works. And he who had been far off was brought very nigh to the gracious throne. And walked and talked with the hallowed Father throughout all the rest of his earthly journey. He was richly endowed with mental and moral qualities. By nature and by education he was qualified for the office of senior ruling elder in a church of which the patriot, soldier, and great preacher, Dr James Hall was pastor.


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©2009 Robert M. Fleming Jr.

This page was last revised on 9 September 2009.