CRAWFORD COUNTY, GA - BIOS Josuha Rowe Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm This file was contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by: Pat Crabtree Used with permission from Holly H. Hilden Table of Contents page: http://www.usgwarchives.net/ga/crawford.htm Georgia Table of Contents: http://www.usgwarchives.net/ga/gafiles.htm Resume of JOSHUA ROE/ROWE II, 1761-1842 By Holly H. Hilden England's voice rang clear. From her position of supremacy of the seas, she meant to bind her New World colonists to the Atlantic. Make no mistake about it. Their forays west alarmed her. Once the Appalachians were breached, English rule would not grip her intrepid children. For one hundred and fifty years the colonies had enjoyed the markets and protection of the motherland. However, the parliamentary acts of 1763 to 1770 aroused the colonists to the realization that they no longer marched as Englishmen. In the course of decades, they had become a new people---the new Americans. News of parliament's efforts to extort revenue from the Americans and deny them access to western land spread through, percolating into the hinterland of the Pamlico. Doubtless the acts were subject to discussion as the men convened at wharves, repaired roads, or exchanged greetings at their favorite ordinaries. Doubtless the Durham Creek Roes expressed their opinions openly and often. By 1760 numerous Roes claimed Durhams Creek, Beaufort County [N.C.] as home and offered Joshua Roe II constant companionship, conversation, and occupation. Born in 1761, this Joshua's neighbors were frequently relatives. With brothers he foraged in the forests, billeted with cousins on their hearths; and on occasion, eh heard an itinerant preacher speak. Along with the quickening of the Americans' need to safeguard their rights, their spirits quickened with a different light of religion. Primitive Baptist tenets attracted the backwoods North Carolinians as those of the Anglican never did. Here was a religion whose speakers expounded from stumps if need be; whose adherents gathered in homes, the out-of-doors, and by riversides. Here was a religion which confirmed their humble lives as attempts to walk in the way of the Lord. So it was that the voice of the spirit joined with that of the heart to create men and women of the 1760s who embodied the requisite attributes to forge a new nation. Land-hungry, tenacious, self-reliant, and often flawed, Joshua Roe II stands as their symbol. His life echoes the first, faltering steps of the New Republic. What a little burr he must have been. As Joshua I and Sarah Roe's lastborn child, he saw his brothers off to war in 1776; James and Jesse, as well as his uncles, John II and Shadrach I. No doubt Joshua II pestered his parents with his desire to join. They refused of course. He was, after all, only fifteen years old. Joshua II bided his time. When he enlisted in 1778, it was in a rather novel fashion; as a substitute for a Richard Wiggins in Edenton. One imagines the scene at home in Beaufort County upon receipt of the news of the accomplished fact. Joshua II's method of enlistment is the first indication that we have encountered a unique individual. Since service in wars of purpose remain among men's most stirring memories, let us turn to Joshua Roe II's pension declaration made in Crawford County, Georgia, at the age of 72, in 1833. Be prepared to be amazed. It is a record of almost total recall, of a man with the memory of a lawyer, or doctor, or the preacher he became. Joshua II starts by stating his terms of enlistment: to serve for five months under Capt. Simon Lee in the battalion commanded by Major Clinch. He pauses to apologize for not remembering the major's Christian name. He remembers, however, Col. Eaton's nickname, "Pin." There follows in chronological order the story of his service; towns at which he was stationed and rivers crossed: "Kingston, then across Cape Fear River to Elizabeth...on to 'Monk's Corners' by the 'Ten-Mile House' near Charlestowne." New officers appear, Gen. Ashe and Brig. Gen. William Bryan. On to the White House on the Savannah River "at which place there was a commissary's store...guarding prisoners at the 'Bull Pen.'" He remembers dates, crossing the river at Augusta "in February of 1779." Joshua passes on to posterity the tale of Gen. Ashe's flight before the firing ceased at Brier Creek. Then, the retreat; "crossed the river at night...joined a portion of the army at the White House;" the march downriver, the march upriver "above the White House to a place called Black Swamp" where he stayed until he "returned home to Edgecombe County, North Carolina, in or about the last of April or the first of May 1779." Are you impressed? But Joshua II is not finished as a revolutionary. He re-enlists in 1780 “in the last of June or first of July,” and is off to the “Scotch Settlement between Cape Fear and Drowding [sic] Creek.” He fell ill at “Ramsay’s Mills on Deep River” where he was “cared for by Dr. Abner Barker.” Joshua adds that he served as a scout as well “but does not feel authorized to claim anything for that service.” Finally he states that he was born on the seventh day of May 1761, and “has at home in his Bible a record of his age, but which was taken from the statement of his parents.” I would like to clarify the earlier statement in the declaration “returned home to Edgecombe County.” Joshua did not say that. He said “I returned home.” “To Edgecombe County” is a clerical error. The Roe/Rowe family of Edgecombe County has been researched intensively, and Joshua Roe II does not belong to any of its members. Further, we find on the last page of his declaration this statement, “when first called into service he lived in Beaufort County, afterwards, he lived in Craven County where he lived til about the year 1800.” Joshua returned home to his position as the youngest of five sons. According to the Beaufort County tax lists, his father’s 1779 holdings were valued at over 1000 pounds. Yet we know that by 1786 Joshua I had divided his homeplace of 350 acres among his sons without Joshua II as a recipient. Having married in 1784, Joshua II needed land, yet his father did not sell a portion of the homeplace to him. Why not? Because he was the youngest son? Were Joshua I and Sarah trying to tether the youth? In that case, they dealt with a son who possessed John Roe I’s fire and a resolution very much his own. In any case, Joshua II acquired land. Witness his 1783 Craven County land grant of 86 acres on the west side of Little Swift Creek at the age of 22, to which he added 100 acres on the east side in 1785, purchased from Moses Ernul. Thereafter followed three additional grants on Upper Broad Creek-one in 1791, and two in 1799 totaling 250 acres near Joshua Roe I. We’re dealing with a believer, a believer in the vistas the Revolution promised. We’re also dealing with a father acquiring quickly a large family. Let us continue. Before Christmas in 1798, Joshua II sold to his father land on the west side of Upper Broad Creek which is mentioned in Joshua II’s 1799 grant as “below a footway across said creek to Joshua Roe, SR.’s land.” With Joshua I’s removal to Craven County to join his son, he broke his pattern of following John Roe I. Now Joshua II leads as he had with his marriage to Sarah Rigby in 1784, in Craven County. Look at the ensuing Roe-Rigby alliances: Joshua II and Sarah’s son, Joshua III, married Elizabeth Rigby while the elders’ daughter Ann, married Jesse Rigby. Joshua III’s cousin David Roe, married Lottie Rigby, sister to the above Elizabeth! Who are these Rigbys? Researchers bent on discovering their origin must deal eventually with three brothers Richard, William, and John Rigby of New Hanover, Beaufort, and Craven Counties, North Carolina. Seafarers and an ironmonger whose ancestral home was Co. Lancashire, England. In tracing the Rigby women, we are as deficient as when documenting those named Roe. In most instances, we look in vain for glimpses of their lives. We know that they were Biblical Ruths and lighted the candles of civilization wherever they went. They planted jasmine at their doorsteps and kept locks of their children’s hair. They birthed infants and buried some. They tended the sick, fed strangers, and succored friends. They toiled after dusk, whatever the season. Beyond this, we hope that they sampled small pleasures and remembered small joys. By 1798 Joshua II and Sarah had nine children, seven girls and two boys, all North Carolinians. From the Cullen Bryant and Jeffery Robertson Bible records, we learn that three Georgia-born children followed-and that fact leads to the continuation of this saga. Georgia was on everyone’s mind. Many North Carolina sons saw service there during the Revolution, and the new government offered inducements to settle the land. Several Roes responded, as Joshua II did. A motive other than the desire for cheaper land moved Joshua as well. I feel that sometime during his service, Joshua received a call to minister and thought of Georgia as a land to lead and tend a Primitive Baptist flock. While his father joined him on Upper Board Creek in 1798, we know that Joshua II journeyed to and from Wilkes/Warren Counties, Georgia, in the interim. Though the Long Creek Baptist Church of Ogeechee membership rolls list Joshua II and Sarah in 1786, we are not sure of our accuracy as the records are so difficult to read. We look further and find Joshua II’s account listed among the inventory of John Trippe’s estate in Hancock County, Georgia, in 1794. Finally, we are certain that sometime before 1797 Joshua II was ordained at the Long Creek Church by his mentor, Rev. Jepthah Vining, as Rev. Vining died before 1797. We are all familiar with the stereotype of the early evangelists-black-frocked, white-maned, frequently poor and thus mean-spirited. Was this true of Joshua II? I cannot think of him thus. He was practical, buying land in Georgia while retaining acreage in North Carolina. He was attentive, commemorating at least one granddaughter’s marriage. He served as an upright example to his children. For instance, when Joshua II sought transferal of his pension payment to Alabama, his son Daniel attested to his identity while the clerk noted, “Daniel Rowe who has made affidavit before me…is a man of strict veracity.” Beyond these small notations, there are two facts that bear testimony to his influence as a man and a minister. First of all, a number of descendants and relatives became Primitive Baptist preachers; some he never met, but they heard of his ministry: cousin David’s sons, John and Stephen; Joshua III’s son Daniel; greatnephew Asa and his sons, Joshua T. and John. There are more, yet one feels that with the ordination of his own son Daniel, Joshua Roe II had tended his flock with care. Secondly, having influenced men to preach, his reach extended further. Roe/Rowes named their children for him. In succeeding generations we find Joshua, son of (s/o) Richard Roe II; Joshua E., s/o Daniel Rowe; Joshua Price s/o Lisha Roe, Joshua, s/o Harmon Rowe; Joshua R. Jackson, s/o Letitia Roe; Joshua Carlton, s/o Fanny Rowe; and even Joshua, s/o a Michael Roe we have not identified. There is the legacy of Joshua II’s remarkable memory in that we find four doctors among his earliest and know direct descendants: Stephen D. Rowe, Joshua R. Price, Dolly Rowe Parker, and Hill Rowe; and let us not forget one known lawyer, Styles T. Rowe. Surely Joshua II relied on this faculty to instruct his brethren. We hope that if he squelched sin, his heart sang psalms. We are sure that in his exhortations people heard a man of conviction and recalled the passion. Joshua II left his home on the Ogeechee at least once to return to Craven County. Though we have no official record of the fact, we ascertain through Joshua II’s deeds in 1812 in North Carolina, that his father had died. Within a week during November’s last days, Joshua II sold all of his property on Upper Broad Creek. The arduous trek home was a son’s final leavetaking. When Joshua II recrossed the border into Georgia, he left Durhams, Little Swift, and Upper Broad Creeks forever. However, Joshua II did not leave behind his revolutionary fervor. Revolutionaries, once their forces hold the reins of government, become strict adherents to the governments they have placed in power. So it was with Joshua II. In the 24 years he spent in Warren County, he figures in 17 carefully recorded deeds, as grantor on 10 occasions and grantee on 6. In one instance Joshua II returns to court a year after selling a parcel of land to verify his signature on the document. We imagine his pride as he transacted each deed on reading the new prologues, i.e. “…in the tenth year of American Independence.” Joshua II and Sarah remained in Georgia another 13 years, one year in Newton County and the remainder in Crawford County. Though Joshua II acquired and sold land throughout his lifetime, I am convinced that his attitude toward the possession of property left him increasingly unmoved. He saw himself as a temporary custodian of a bit of God’s work. Like his father before him, Joshua II did not leave a will, nor did any of his four sons. According to Bobby Stokes, local historian for Bibb and Crawford Counties, Georgia, the year 1837 marked a split in the Crawford County congregation of the Mt. Carmel Primitive Baptist Church in which Joshua II ministered. Some of its members left and founded a Missionary Baptist Church nearby. This event proved too much for our Joshua II. Adhering with typical tenacity to his belief that faith, not missionaries, moved men; the split, to this researcher, was the impetus for Joshua II to leave Georgia and join his son in Alabama. There is another. Joshua II was now blind. Feeling God’s breath at his back, he made his way with Sarah by his side to Daniel, in Coosa County, Alabama. Think of the courage displayed yet again. As the peroration to a lifetime of service to his Maker, Joshua II and Daniel founded Mt. Carmel Primitive Baptist Church in Coosa County. Hosea Holcomb’s History of the Baptists in Alabama alludes to it, while a deed initiated in Shelby County, Texas, dated 1848, provides concrete evidence of its existence and location once in what is now Elmore County, Alabama. Of all the Joshuas, this one was rightly named. Bearing his father’s name, he bore as well that of Moses’ successor. Pensively, we take leave of Joshua Roe II on October 2, 1842, when he received his last pension payment for service as a Revolutionary War soldier. To us it appears small tribute to a participant in the opening chapters of history’s oldest democracy. It is my belief that this steadfast child of Durhams Creek lies in an unmarked grave on a triangular-shaped piece of hallowed ground in Elmore County, Alabama. Joshua II, my friend, we met on the Ogeechee on my way to North Carolina. You bid me tarry awhile west. Careworn, yet spirited, we crossed into yet another Promised Land. There I sat with you in your Father’s House and listened to you speak. I listen still. This article was originally published in a compilation by Robert O. Godley "Roe/Rowe; the Descendents of William Roe's (D.1721-Va) Son, John".