Wilkes County NcArchives Biographies.....Isbell, Benjamin October 19, 1785 - July 23, 1870
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Joseph H. Howard jhhoward@comcast.net May 21, 2007, 10:09 am

Author: Benjamin Isbell

Autobiography of Benjamin Isbell (1785-1870)

	I have this day concluded to write a Biography of my ancestors and 
myself.

	The Isbells, my father's ancestors, emigrated from England, as I have 
been informed, and settled in Virginia, and the Howards, my mother's 
ancestors, also emigrated from England, to the State of Maryland, as they have 
informed me.

	My father said he enlisted in the Regular Service at 18 years of age, 
and was 5 years in service during the Revolutionary War, which lasted seven 
years.  My father's given-name was Thomas.  He married my mother, Discretion 
Howard, in Wilkes County, North Carolina, where they had emigrated to.

	I was the oldest son, and myself and brothers were raised to the 
farming business, but all, save one, have followed merchandising more or 
less.  My brother, John Isbell, and myself commenced merchandising in 
partnership, on our father's farm where we were raised, in 1816, and agreed to 
carry it on for four years.  In the mean time I married Martha Parks.  At the 
end of four years we vended off the goods, and I emigrated to McMinn County, 
East Tennessee, then called the "Cherokee Nation," where I had made a land 
purchase, where I still live and expect to be buried.  My wife deceased, July 
15, 1840.  I have since lived at home with my children, and have always had a 
house-keeper among them. My wife and I have raised eleven children, and those 
now living are doing well.

	In the year 1820, I professed a hope of being regenerated and born 
again, joined the Baptist Church, and was baptized by Reuben Coffee.  After I 
moved to this County, I was one of the members of the constitution of the 
Baptist Church at Big Spring, and was ordained a deacon in that church.  Some 
years after that we had a Church constituted near us at Mt. Pleasant, where I 
joined.  This Church appointed me their clerk; but of late, I have resigned on 
account of not hearing well.  I think all of my children have made professions 
of having a change by being regenerated and born again.

	Soon after I removed to this County, I was requested to become a 
Justice of the Peace, and was appointed to that office by the Legislature and 
held it till a new Constitution was framed, when our time expired; I was then 
appointed again, and, after several years, I was appointed Post Master.  The 
office was kept at my house, and, having too much business to attend to, I 
resigned as Justice of the Peace, and several years after I resigned the 
office of Post Master on account of ill health.

	I have written the above for the satisfaction of my children and grand-
children.  I was eighty-four years of age on the 19th day of October last; and 
I have this day, February 17th, 1870, written out the foregoing, and signed it,

/s/ Benjamin Isbell.

P.S. My father and mother were members of the Baptist Church, at King's Creek, 
Wilkes County, North Carolina.


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