Guilford-Randolph County NcArchives Military Records.....Knight, John Revwar - Pension ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/nc/ncfiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Nancy Poquette npoq@hotmail.com June 18, 2006, 2:53 pm Constructed History Of Captain John Knight KNIGHT, JOHN-Virgil White source does not give county where soldier enlisted, but likely to have been the part of Guilford County which became Randolph County. Pension was not reviewed. THOMAS GIBSON-“That at eighteen years of age he volunteered under Captain JOHN KNIGHT for the remainder of the war, holding himself ready to service when called on. He volunteered the month of the Battle of Guilford, he thinks March, in the County of Randolph, then part of Guilford County) and that throughout the whole of his service he was employed against the Tories, who were very numerous and dangerous, and in guarding the country against their depradations, burnings and murders.” “After joining Captain KNIGHT’s company they went in pursuit of Colonel FANNING, who headed the Tory party in North Carolina and who had become notorious for his many outrages, cruelties and murders, and in Randolph County, fell in with a party of his followers and had a skirmish with them at a place called Larrance’s. They also fell in with another Tory party on Little River in the same county, where the Whigs prevailed. They were thus employed in watching and chasing the Tories for about two months, when KNIGHT’s company joined a company from the upper part of Guilford under the command of Colonel GILLESPIE, at a place now called Randolph Old Courthouse, or the Crossroads.” “Thence they marched down Deep River into the neighborhood of the Buffalo Ford, when they learned that Colonel FANNING with his Tory crew had retreated into South Carolina, about the Waccamaw settlements thence they returned to the Crossroads, thence to Colliers’ on Caraway Creek in Randolph County, where KNIGHT’s company remained sometime to guard Colonel COLLIER’s house, who had become obnoxious to the Tories. There, hearing of some outrage committed by the Tories about two miles from COLLIERS, he, with about twenty men under Captain KNIGHT went in pursuit of them; but managed so incautiously as to be perceived and fired upon in the night, by them, in which skirmish (which was a short one, the Tories soon flying) a ball grazed his head and Captain KNIGHT was also wounded in the head by a ball. He (GIBSON) conveyed KNIGHT to his (GIBSON’s) father’s, where he guarded him until his wounds got well.” “He, then, with his company rejoined Colonel GILLESPIE’s company under Colonel John SAPP or SOPP at the Crossroads aforesaid, and the three companies marched into Moore County, where they were piloted by a boy to the rendezvous of the Tories, and where they killed some, took some prisoners and dispersed the rest. Thence they returned into Randolph, when the other two companies left KNIGHT’s.” “He states further that he was in a skirmish between KNIGHT’s company and some Tories on Jackson’s Creek in Randolph, he thinks in the fall of 1781, in which one Tory was killed. That he was also under Colonel BALFOUR in a battle with the Tories in which three Tories were killed. He also recollects that he served with a Colonel ISAACS who commanded a company from the mountains in the western part of NC, and who came in pursuit of Colonel FANNING, the time he can’t recollect. He states also he served in Captain HODGE’s company from the Haw Fields on Haw River, and acted as a pilot for him.” “…He thinks that he can establish a part if not the whole of his service by MANRING BROOKSHIRE under whom as lieutenant he served a part of his time. Also by PETER VIEWCANON? BUCHANON?, etc.” WILBOURNE GIBSON-“I was drafted into the service of the United States in Randolph County, North Carolina in the spring of 1781. The precise month and day I do not recollect, and served for and during the term of three months. The captain of the company in which I served was John KNIGHT, Colonel [THOMAS] DOUGAN, Major [JAMES] DOUGAN, brothers. Names of the sergeants and corporals not now remembered. When my term of service was ended, I received from Captain JOHN KNIGHT, a regular discharge and considering it as no value or importance whatever, and being totally unlearned, it has long ago been lost and destroyed.” “Under the command of the aforesaid officers, I was out on scouting expedition most of the time in and through the counties of Randolph, Rockingham, Stokes and Guilford, and was in several skirmishes with the Tories, but no general engagement. Colonel FANNING, as he was called, was the Tory that we were after most of the time, as he was constantly destroying of property, burning of houses, etc.” “I recollect on one evening we were in a little town called Hillsborough, and were compelled to leave it for the want of provision, and on that very night, this Tory, FANNING took the town and all the inhabitants were made prisoners, and one gen’l, General TYRON, among the rest, and on that same night our company formed behind a fence along the road to take them by surprise, but we were afraid to fire for fear of killing our own friends who were prisoners, and so we mounted our horses which had been hitched back in the edge of the woods and retreated, and on the next day we had a skirmish at Mendenhall’s Mill, in which we were defeated, but Colonel FANNING got his arm broke, etc…” “The houses of John KNIGHT and Col. and Major DOUGAN, and many? other houses were destroyed by this same FANNING.” DANIEL MERRELL-“He further states that after the entry of LORD CORNWALLIS into North Carolina, there was a general insurrection of the Tories in the state, particularly in the counties of Guilford and Randolph and the adjacent counties, who spread consternation throughout the whole country by their barbarities, burnings and murders, and that after the Battle of Guilford, March 15th, 1781, he was repeatedly called out by Captain JOHN KNIGHT, by Colonel COLLIER and by other officers to defend the country against the outrages of these Tories. These services were generally of short duration, for he was called out upon the spur of the moment upon some inroad of the Tory party, some outrage and cruelty perpetrated by them, or upon some apprehension that they were organizing a force to do mischief. It was indeed a Tory warfare when the summons to arms might be, and was often, the light of a dwelling house on fire, or women and children…”-next pages missing. JOHN MERRILL-“That in the year 1781, he volunteered at the courthouse in Randolph County in the light horse under the command of Captain THOMAS DOUGAN, Major JAMES DOUGAN, and Colonel JOHN COLLIER. That they ranged about the country. That at that time the company with whom he served had a rencounter with Tories in the County of Guilford on the 15th day of April 1781, where he received a severe wound with a sword on his head, the marks of which are now to be seen. His brother’s [BENJAMIN MERRILL] horse was shot under him, and his captain, then JOHN KNIGHT, received two balls in his head. About the 30th of July, 1781, he received his discharge as may appear by the discharge herewith filed, marked B.” Additional Comments: Constructed History is my term for a soldier who did not file for a pension himself, but about whom there is enough evidence from other soldiers to form an equivalent to a pension application. Most of the testimony comes from other men mentioning the officer or non-comm. officer, but in some cases, the actual soldier himself testified on behalf of other men, thus revealing his own history. File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/nc/guilford/military/revwar/pensions/knight336gmt.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/ncfiles/ File size: 8.0 Kb