Category: Paternal Family Lines

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Ira Ayers Joins the “Tree Army”

April 23, 2011 Dennis Ayers 1 comment

Ira Lawson Ayers was born in 1913 and raised on Walnut Mountain in Campbell County, TN, in an area called Stinking Creek which later came under the Pioneer, TN post office. He was the oldest son of Martin Ayers and Hannah Depew. His middle name supposedly came from the doctor who delivered him. This is probably true since there was a Dr. Alonzo Lawson living in that same district in the 1920 census. Where his given name came from is a mystery since Ira was not a common name in the South. Perhaps it was a mistake of some kind since all his folks called him “Arie”. No original birth certificate was ever recorded.

As expected, Ira grew up working on the farm and attending school, but after his mother died of TB when he was 12 years old, he had to quit school to help take care of his two sisters and brother. Even after his father remarried and had still more children, Ira was heavily depended on for help with the younger ones. He developed a stern temperament like his father. His youngest sister, Geneva, likes to tell the story about the time their father went to town and left Ira in charge of the others. The children had a pet chicken named “Dooty Hicks” which they took into the house and put in the room where Ira was napping. The chicken jumped on the bed waking him which made Ira very angry, much to the amusement of the children.

Ira had brown hair and brown eyes. He eventually grew to be 5 ft. 10 in. tall and was very slender as a young man weighing about 155 Lbs. Strangely, his friends in the area nicknamed him “Hoss”, perhaps because he was such a hard worker.

In the 1930s, America was in the grip of the Great Depression with over 25 percent unemployment. As one of President Roosevelt’s New Deal programs, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCCs) was established in 1933 to give employment to young men and to help develop and preserve natural resources. So, in June 1935 when he was 21, Ira left home for the first time and joined, along with two and a half million other young men, the CCCs which some called “Roosevelt’s Tree Army”. In the CCCs he earned $30 per month plus room and board. The government sent $25 of his pay home to the parents, but his father saved half for Ira to have when he returned. After the first issue of free clothing, he had to buy any replacements needed. It was a military style life with barracks, mess halls, exercise and work.

Back on the farm, Ira had cut down many trees and split a lot of logs. As a result, he had become skillful wielding an ax. This despite an accident one time in which his swing got misdirected by a tree branch, causing him to cut into his left calf muscle rather deeply. So in the “Tree Army” he was naturally put to work using an ax. His first nine months were spent in the Smoky Mountains National Park near Seiverville, TN where he helped clear land for roads and tourist areas. He then got transferred closer to home to the CCC camp at Lake City, TN near the Norris Dam which had just been completed in the previous year. There he spent seven months clearing land for campgrounds around the Dam. However, once again he fell victim to a similar accident with the ax as before, and severely chopped his left foot. He was sent to the Army hospital at Ft. Oglethorpe, Georgia (near Chattanooga, TN) for recovery which took about three months. He then returned to the camp at Norris Dam for the last eight months of his tour and was honorably discharged from the CCCs in Sept 1937.

Looking back, Ira always said he enjoyed his time in the Tree Army. The thing he remembered most……. “they always had plenty of food to eat”.

Later after coming back home, he and his brother Addison worked for a time in the coal mines at “Charlie Hollow”. Aileen remembers Ira onetime getting frost bite on his ears walking to the mines early in the morning in the winter. They paid some board to their father and saved most of the rest of their pay. Their brother Tom remembered them counting their savings on the kitchen table.

James LaFayette Ayers and Betty Ayers

April 21, 2011 Dennis Ayers No comments exist

The only other name as popular as William in the Ayers families of Stinking Creek was James, and again middle names were often used to help separate individuals. James LaFayette Ayers married Elizabeth (Betty) Ayers who was Martin Ayers’ sister. They were second cousins. Although James and Betty are not bloodline ancestors, their tangled love story is worth telling.

Born in 1873, James was the son of William Bailey Ayers and Nancy Jane Douglas. He grew up on a farm, but as a young man he moved from Stinking Creek and became a teamster (a driver of a team of horses). He was 5 ft. 11 in. tall and had dark hair with blue eyes, and a big black mustache. He first married Sarah Boshears in 1892 and they had two children.

In February 1898, the mysterious sinking of the American battleship The Maine in the Havana harbor killing 266 sailors, quickly led to armed conflict between Spain and the U.S. Although the main issue was Cuban independence, the short Spanish-American War was fought in both the Caribbean and the Pacific. The Navy was ready, but the Army was not well-prepared. In the spring of 1898, the strength of the U.S. Army was just 28,000 men. The Army wanted 50,000 new men, but received more than 220,000, through volunteers and the mobilization of state National Guard units.

Although James Ayers had a young family, at age 25 he left home to be one of those who volunteered from Tennessee. He was probably seeking adventure. In July 1898, he mustered in as a private in the 6th US Vol Army at Camp Wilder in Knoxville, TN. From there the regiment was transferred to Camp Thomas near Chattanooga, TN which had horrific living conditions. The camp

had rapidly grown to a city of over 30,000 men with inadequate supplies and sanitation. Disease and illness were rife. The 6th would remain at this camp longer than any other unit, and while the regiment was there in August 1898, an armistice was reached between the U.S. and Spain ending the war’s fighting. Although the war ended abruptly, the 6th Volunteer Army was ordered to serve as an occupation force and raise the American flag on the newly acquired island of Puerto Rico. They served on that tropical island from October 1898 until February 1889 when they were ordered back to the continental U.S. Most of the men wanted to stay in the Army, but the whole regiment was mustered out on March 15, 1899 at Savannah Georgia, at which time James returned home to Campbell County.

Then his first wife, Sarah, died in 1902. Their children went to live with James’ parents. In July of 1905, James and Betty Ayers, one of Martin Ayers’ sisters, fell in love and were married.

Around 1908, James and Betty moved to Monroe County which is between Knoxville and Chattanooga, TN. The Babcock Lumber and Land Company that was formed in 1907 performed logging operations on more than one-quarter million acres in the Smokey Mountains of Tennessee and North Carolina. A logging railroad was built, and James became a section foreman for a track crew. He and Betty also operated a boarding house for about a dozen railroad workers.

By the time he registered for the World War I draft in 1918, James was too old to serve. However, his registration shows that he was then working as a track foreman for the company in Blount County, TN. Also, in the 1920 census he and Betty lived together in Blount County. They had no children together. Then sometime after that, the family story goes that James just left the house one day and never returned. Betty never heard from him again and she sadly returned home to stinking Creek.

What happened to him? One the one hand, some researchers believe that James then married a widow named Elllen Riggs (Akins). However, there doesn’t seem to be any record of such a marriage, but she did change her name to Ayers by the 1930 census when she lived in Blount County with 2 children but no husband.

On the other hand, there is proof that James LaFayette Ayers was admitted into the National Homes for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers system (probably much smaller versions of today’s Veteran’s Hospitals). He was diagnosed with a number of seemingly minor disabilities such as hemorrhoids, muscular rheumatism, varicose veins, etc., but was accepted nonetheless. Perhaps his rheumatism was severe. He first was admitted at the Central Branch home located in Dayton, Ohio for the period from November 1921 to November 1925. He was readmitted a second time at the Mountain Branch home located in Johnson City, TN from March 1929 to Sept 1932. His papers show that he listed his wife as Betty Ayers. James died in August 1936 in Johnson City at age 63.

Did James Lafayette Ayers leave his wife Betty for the widow Ellen Akins or did he leave to go off to the Veterans Home without explaining? There is the very strong likelihood that he did both, and it is clear he spent over seven years in the Veterans Home. Whatever the real story, after he died Betty Ayers was able to draw a widow’s pension for his service in the Spanish-American War for the rest of her life until she died in 1959 at age 79.

Betty Ayers was a wonderful, caring woman and deserved better from her man. She lived out the rest of her life in the old log cabin on Walnut Mountain that she inherited from her brother Matthew

around 1918. She worked tirelessly in her garden and helped with Martin’s family when his first wife died. At times she had her father and mother and her sister, Lucy, live with her, but they all eventually moved on or died. She never seemed afraid to live there by herself….except for one instance. One of her neighbors had some cows wearing cowbells that must have roamed free, and they would come around at night and wake her up. So, one time she got up irritated in the middle of the night and went outside to shoo them away. After she got them moved on, she heard a panther scream nearby. She was so frightened that she couldn’t run back to the cabin fast enough! Scared her half to death!

Aunt Betty, as everyone called her, never had a family of her own, but she was remembered very fondly by her nieces and nephews. In the end, she died alone in her old log cabin.

Years later, a man named Harold Phillips, cousin to Frank Collingsworth, Geneva’s husband, went to considerable trouble to disassemble and rebuild Aunt Betty’s old log cabin down in LaFollette. He had an interest in old structures did the work mostly by himself. The only part worth saving was the kitchen half which is pictured below. Unfortunately, it is now being used only as a shed. No stashed away money was found.

Kitchen part of Aunt Betty's Log Cabin — **Kitchen part of Aunt Betty’s Log Cabin**

Martin Van Buren Ayers

April 18, 2011 Dennis Ayers 3 comments

Martin Ayers ca 1915 -- Click to Enlarge — **Martin Ayers ca 1915**

Martin Van Buren Ayers, born in 1883 in Campbell County, TN, was the fifth child but oldest son of William Reilly (Black Bill) Ayers. As such, he grew up knowing hard work on the family farm. Eventually though, as a young man Martin made his way off the farm to find different work.

The exact year is not known, but before 1910, Martin ventured to the nearest small town of LaFollette. There he got a job as a carpenter at the LaFollette Iron Furnace. In 1910, at age 27, he was living in a boarding house in LaFollette with five other borders. Also about this same time he was involved with a woman named Susan Archer and she had an out-of- wedlock child named Minnie. For whatever reasons, life and work in town must not have suited him very well, because not long after that he was back farming in Stinking Creek.

Martin was a medium sized person, about 5 ft 9 in tall, weighing about 155 lbs, with brown hair and

brown eyes. In 1912, he married Hannah Mae Depew whose father had married Martin’s sister Florence in 1907 and moved next door. Hannah was 18 and 11 years younger. They had four children: Ira, Rose, Mary and Addison. Martin was a quiet person, and he had a stern temperament. All the children had to work hard and obey.

In 1915, after renting a farm on Walnut Mountain for a couple of years, Martin and his brother, Matthew, bought the 107.5 acre property. Matthew took 54 acres and Martin took about 42 acres after selling 11 acres to a neighbor. Matthew was later killed by a timber cutting accident around 1918 and their sister Betty inherited his land.

The original log house on Martin’s farm was located close to the spring near the road. This is probably where the oldest children were born. His Father-in-Law, Bill Depew, helped him build a new house with sawed lumber farther up the hill. This new house had a kitchen, living room and a bedroom, and of course a path out the back door. In addition to working on his farm, Martin also worked for a time at a sawmill in the Stinking Creek area. Most of the time Martin’s family subsisted on animals raised and crops produced on the farm. Whenever shoes, clothing, or something from the store needed to be bought, Martin would raise the cash by selling pigs or maybe selling corn to the mill to be ground into cornmeal.

Martin Ayers' Farm — **Martin Ayers’ Farm**

Tragically, Hannah contacted tuberculosis and died in 1926 at only age 32, leaving Martin with 4 children between 7 and 12 years old. Ira, the oldest, had to drop out of school to take care of the younger children while his father continued to work the farm. In addition, Martin’s mother Malinda had died just a year before. It was a difficult time, but fortunately his sister Betty, who lived in an old log home nearby, helped out some with food preparation and became like a second mom to the children.

Martin’s father, “Black Bill”, and his second wife, Lizzie Gross, had moved to her house in LaFollette on Rose Hill. That house was near where Eullalia Hatmaker lived. So, they introduced Martin to Eullalia whom he dated awhile before asking her to marry him and move up to Walnut Mountain on the farm. She was 19 and 27 years younger, so it was not an easy decision for her, but she eventually agreed and they were married in 1929. Martin proceeded to have five more children with Eullalia by 1941: Aileen, Bill, Hannie, Tom and Geneva.

Aileen says that sometime before she was born, Martin was struck by lightening. It tore off his clothes and shoes and he was burned badly. They wrapped him in a white sheet and packed him in cold mud and he came out of it seemingly unharmed. The lightening also set the house on fire.

Aileen also tells the story that her dad used to ride his horse over the mountains to LaFollette. On one occasion, he went to purchase some goods, and tied his horse up at the edge of town. While he was shopping, the horse got loose and headed back toward home. Along the way, someone caught the horse and removed his saddle and bridle, but the horse once again broke for home. When the horse arrived back at the homestead without rider and saddle, the family thought something bad had happened to Martin. Neighbors gathered with lanterns to go out hunting for him, but just then Martin arrived by foot much to everyone’s relief.

Youngest son, Tom, grew up on the farm working beside his father. He said once they had an old mule named “John” that was a good work mule. But old John had a major attitude problem and wouldn’t let Tom or anybody else ride him.

Tom also liked to tell stories about his Dad being hard of hearing and making lots of bobbles guessing what people said. One time they were working in the field when a jet flew over and made a loud noise. Tom told his father that it was just a jet breaking the sound barrier. His dad replied “What was it doing making sand bags”.

As Martin and Eullalia got older, Aileen and her husband, Gene Huckelby, bought the old homestead

to get them to move off the mountain down to LaFollette. So in August 1954, Martin finally moved to town again after farming on the mountain for 43 years. They moved into a house on Andy Baird Drive that Eullalia had inherited from her Uncle. They later added indoor plumbing to their new residence, and lived there very comfortably in their declining years..

Martin fought tuberculosis for a number of years, but eventually died of pneumonia in 1967 at age 84. He was buried in Hall Cemetery off Stinking Creek Road next to his first wife Hannah. Eullalia also lived to age 84 before dying in 1994. She is buried in the Baird Cemetery next door to the their old house in LaFollette. Her faithful son, Tom, who never married and died in late 2008, is buried beside her.

William Riley Ayers….aka “Black Bill”

April 16, 2011 Dennis 2 comments

Elihu Ayers’ fourth son was named William Riley Ayers, born in 1852 in Campbell County, TN. Supposedly, he was given his middle name to distinguish him from his cousin, William Bailey Ayers, son of his father’s brother James.

At the age of 20, William married Malinda Bolton from another long-time Stinking Creek family, whom he probably met when she visited her Uncle’s family two houses away from William’s house. He and Malinda proceeded to have a family of four boys and five girls in the next 18 years. They had a farm off of Stinking Creek Road. In 1903, the whole family almost died from typhoid fever. Their son Mitchell did die.

William was a quiet fellow and very easy going. He was of medium build and had black hair and brown eyes. He had a black mustache and a big long black beard. All the neighbors called him Black Bill to distinguish him from all the other Bill Ayers living in the area. It’s said his hair never turned gray. Unfortunately, there don’t seem to be any existing pictures of him.

Bill was fortunate not to have been in any wars. He was too young for the Civil War and too old by the time some men in Campbell County went to fight in the Spanish American War.

Bill’s wife Malinda died in the early 1920s (no record). At first he moped around, then one day he spruced up in a shirt with a stiff front and walked across Walnut Mountain to the small town of LaFollette to see a woman named Lizzie Gross. He later married her around 1925, after which they lived in her house on Rose Hill Road in LaFollette. It is believed that Bill originally met Lizzie through the Hatmaker family.

In 1935, William would have been in his 80s, yet his granddaughter Aileen remembers him and Lizzie walking all the way from LaFollette to visit them at their Walnut Mountain home. This was about 7 miles as the crow flies, but much longer walking through the hills. Then after the long walk, she remembers Lizzie and him having fun by jumping off the high end of the porch along with the grandchildren. She says they always had lots of fun together.

Black Bill Ayers died in 1940 at age 88 of an apparent stroke. Instead of being buried in LaFollette, he was buried next to his first wife, Malinda, in Hall Cemetery off Stinking Creek Road.

Elihu Ayers in the Tennessee Mountains

April 15, 2011 Dennis No comments exist

Bailey Ayers had four sons. By about 1840 they had all moved from Kentucky across the border into Tennessee. The sons names were John (Jackie), Elihu (Lihu), James (Jim), and Elcanah (Cain) with our ancestor being Elihu Ayers. They eventually homesteaded in the mountains of Campbell County in a remote area called Stinking Creek, which is a long valley with Pine Mountain on one side, Walnut Mountain on the other and the the unfortunately named stream running the length of the valley for about 20 miles.

The first people, other than the native Indians, to inhabit these mountains and valley lands were the long hunters like Daniel Boone and a few before him. Liking the abundance of game, clear water and fertile land in the valleys, these hunter-explorers became the first settlers to make their homes in an untamed wilderness.

The first settlers actually sought out isolation, and perhaps this is why the Ayers brothers too moved to the Stinking Creek area from Kentucky which was quickly gaining population in the 1800s. For these backwoods settlers, however, death was a constant concern. Disease and accidents were prevalent. There was a continuous threat of being killed by wild animals or even other humans. Hospitals were nonexistent, and doctors were few and far away. Children were delivered by midwives, and many infants and mothers died in childbirth. They lived in log cabins, farmed and hunted the land, and had large families.

Their homes were built by cutting logs by hand, and they also made crude furniture from logs. They split logs to make fence rails. It was back breaking work. Big open fireplaces were built out of rocks and used for preparing meals. They raised corn, tobacco, cotton, and potatoes as crops, and had gardens for other vegetables. They raised cattle, sheep and hogs as livestock with kept chickens for eggs. The hogs and chickens usually ran free around the farm and adjacent fields and woods. The forests furnished deer, wild turkeys, squirrels, fish and rabbits. Their clothes were hand made from the cotton and the sheep wool. They made lye from hickory wood ashes and boiled it with animal grease to make soap.

The Ayers brothers certainly did their part of propagating the family genes as they gave the Stinking Creek area many descendants. For example, our ancestor, Elihu Ayers, married Theresa (Thursey) Wilburn and together they had eleven children, eight of which were boys, and the boys that lived to adulthood in turn had large families. So, the Ayers name quickly became prominent in that part of the county with many of the same given names such as Elihu, John, James, William, etc., repeated over and over again through generations.

Crayon Portrait of ggGF Elihu Ayers 1818-1896 — **“Lihu” Ayers**

In 1860, Elihu was age 41 and already had his large family. He had a farm valued at $600 (~$15,000 in 2010) which was larger than his two next door brothers, and a personal estate of $275. He is said to have had a high tempered nature.

In 1861, the Civil War became a tragedy both nationally and locally. Just prior to the outbreak of the war, Campbell County had a population of 6712 with only 61 people owning a total of 366 slaves. Since the ownership of slaves directly impacted only a few, and no one in the mountains, there was little sentiment in Campbell County for the Confederate cause. In fact, this was true for most of the counties of Eastern Tennessee, but despite their resistance to separate from the Union, they were outvoted by the rest of the state. So, Campbell County became an island of Union sympathy surrounded by a sea of Confederate support, with many men in the county joining Union regiments formed not far away in Kentucky. Early in the war, the nearby Cumberland Gap at the border of Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee, was thought to be of strategic importance to both sides. As a result, Campbell County suffered greatly at times in 1862 and 1863 as both armies fought and scavenged in the county as they tried to secure the Gap for their side.

It is totally unclear the extent to which Elihu Ayers and his various relations in the Stinking Creek area may have participated in the Civil War. Many records were lost, especially for the Confederate service. Existing Confederate and Union service records simply do not list any Ayers from Campbell County. Perhaps his age and family situation, and the fact that he was a farmer living far off the beaten path on the backside of nowhere in the mountains, allowed Elihu to somehow avoid the conflict. Interestingly, he had cousins in Virginia and in southern TN, (tracing back to old Nathaniel Ayers in VA) also named Elihu, who did in fact fight in the war for the South.

Elihu was a farmer his whole life. He died at age 77 in 1896 just a year after his wife Thursey died.

Bailey Ayers in the War of 1812

April 9, 2011 Dennis Ayers No comments exist

Bailey Ayers was born in North Carolina and moved to Kentucky around 1800 with his family. At the age of 19, Bailey became one of many Kentucky volunteers in the War of 1812.

As a result of the treaty after the Revolutionary War, the U.S. gained control of the land between Kentucky and the Canadian border, called the Old Northwest Territory. However, despite the treaty, the British still kept forts in the territory, and continued to supply the Indians with arms. The renowned Indian chief, Tecumseh, formed a Confederation of numerous tribes, and the Confederation’s brutal raids hindered American expansion into potentially valuable farmlands in the territory. Americans on the western frontier greatly resented this interference, and this aggravation was just one of numerous insults by the British that led up to the U.S. declaring war.

Some of the major battles of the ensuing War of 1812 were in the Old Northwest Territory, along the Canadian border, and fought in large part by Kentucky militiamen. After a British victory and subsequent massacre of a large number of Kentuckians in the area that is now Michigan, the governor of Kentucky asked for 2,000 more reinforcements. Instead 4,000 enthusiastic Kentucky volunteers were formed in August 1813 in Newport, KY, (near present day Cincinnati) and sent to aid. Bailey Ayers was one of those brave individuals, and he joined the Kentucky Mounted Volunteer Militia commanded by Colonel Taul.

After the Americans recaptured Detroit, they continued to pursue the retreating British and their Indian allies across the Canadian border. They caught up with them about 50 miles away in Ontario where the key Battle of the Thames River took place. When American scouts reported that the British lines were spread extremely thin, General Harrison decided on a daring strategy: a cavalry assault by the Kentucky mounted troops directly on the British lines. The British were not prepared for this type of assault and when the first wave of horseman quickly rode through the British lines, and then turned on the British from the rear, British troops quickly surrendered. The American forces then went on to defeat the Indian allies, killing most of them including their leader, Tecumseh, who had refused to flee. This victory for the Americans was the final battle in the Northwest and most of the Indian tribes abandoned their association with the British. The Americans had defeated the British and the Indians in the territory once and for all.

War of 1812 Map — **War of 1812 in Northwest**

As a member of the Mounted Militia, Bailey Ayers was no doubt one of the horsemen involved in the victory. He later returned home to the mountains of Wayne County, KY where he married Mary Guffy and they eventually raised a family of four sons and three daughters. Sometime before 1820 the family moved slightly east to Whitley County, Kentucky, and then before 1840 moved across the Tennesee border into Campbell county, Tennessee. He died there after 1860.

Becoming Kentucky Pioneers

April 7, 2011 Dennis Ayers No comments exist

As can be clearly seen from stories up to now, our Ayers ancestors possessed a pioneering spirit that kept urging them ever onward to new lands of promise and hope. Nathaniel Ayers in North Carolina was like those before him.

Up until the mid 1700s, the French had control of land west of the Appalachian Mountains, and essentially kept the English settlers hemmed in the East by playing the Indians against them, and by relying on the seemingly insurmountable mountains. However, after the British defeated the French and Indians in 1763, the French conceded all contested lands to the Mississippi River. This initially was a cause for celebration for the settlers wanting to move to the new frontier lands. However, the royal proclamation of 1763 did much to dampen that celebration as it in effect closed off the frontier to colonial expansion, ostensibly to calm the Indians and regulate trade and settlement.

Daniel Boone, the legendary wilderness scout, was born in Pennsylvania and raised as a Quaker. Like the Ayers family from Maryland, Daniel’s family was one of the many that migrated southward, settling in western North Carolina in 1750. As a young man, he was known to be fearless and for taking long hunting expeditions into Indian territory. The region beyond the settled borders of Virginia and the mountains was called Kentucky and it was a total wilderness. Despite the proclamation and some resistance from American Indian tribes such as the Shawnee, in 1775 Daniel Boone blazed his Wilderness Trail through the Cumberland Gap in the Appalachian Mountains over into Kentucky. He pushed even further into the state beyond the mountains and founded the Fort Boonesboro settlement in the fertile central region. See map at the end.

After the colonists finally defeated the British in the Revolutionary War, all the land to the Mississippi was then ceded to the Americans, and some adventurers began traveling there. However, in the early years, many travelers fell victim to hostile Indians. Soon though, with this new opportunity to homestead and a new route through the mountains marked by Boone, more than 200,000 settlers migrated to the Kentucky frontier by 1800. Nathaniel Ayers and his family from North Carolina were among these early pioneers.

It is believed Nathaniel’s wife was Mary Leake and they had at least one child in NC about 1794, named Bailey Ayers. Kentucky was admitted as a state in 1792, and the Wilderness Trail was widened to accommodate wagons pulled by oxen. It is difficult to pinpoint, but it is believed the family relocated to the new state around 1800. We know for certain though, that by 1810 they were living in Wayne County, KY, a mountainous area near the border with Tennessee. The family had 3 males and 6 females. It took hardy souls to homestead in this area, which was nothing but wilderness, and still occupied by scattered Indians. At this time there were less than 800 families in the county. Settlers lived within riding or walking distance of each other and they had large families, with their children and grandchildren inter-married into each others families. This area today is part of the Daniel Boone National Forest.

Nathaniel Ayers is mentioned as helping with a land survey in 1808 in Campbell County, Tennessee, and in county court records in 1815 and 1818. At that time Campbell County was larger than today and the western part of it was just across the state border from Wayne County, KY. Did he actually move to TN for a time? I think the answer is probably not because he apparently lived in an area close to the border between KY and TN which was in dispute and not officially settled until 1820. So, the border moved around him.

Nathaniel then disappears from all other records until he applied for his Revolutionary War pension from Laurel County, KY in 1836. It must be assumed he was living with the family of one of his daughters and was not a head of household. It is also assumed that he died sometime after 1836 in Laurel County which is a short distance northeast of Wayne County.

When Nathaniel Ayers first came into Kentucky, why did his family settle in the mountains instead of pushing further into the central area of KY where the land was certainly more amenable to farming? One strong possibility was that he already knew other family or friends who had previously relocated there. Another reason is that all the best lands had already been settled on before he arrived. The actual reason is unknown today. Whatever the reason, the mountain way of life he entered set the course of history for the next five generations of Ayers families.

Wilderness_road — **Daniel Boone’s Wilderness Road**

Ayers from NC in the Revolutionary War

April 3, 2011 Dennis Ayers No comments exist

Folks, this is a little longer post than normal, but it contains a lot of historically important information to help put our ancestors lives in perspective. Sorry, but you gotta learn some history.

The Revolutionary War started in Massachusetts in 1775. However, by 1779, the British had been slowly driven from most of the North, and in frustration shifted their hopes to military campaigns in the South. They were hoping to take advantage of much loyalism in the Southern back-country. In 1780, after first taking South Carolina, the British Army, commanded in the South by Lord Cornwallis, was ordered to reclaim North Carolina from the rebels and push on into Virginia. Refer to the map at the end of this post for battle locations.

As mentioned earlier, Thomas Ayers had several sons in his family. While residing in Surry County, NC, they were drawn into the war. Although much of the time they were involved in informal, but violent, battles between loyalists and rebels, one of them also participated in two major battles with regular British troops which turned the tide of the war in the South.

It is not known if Thomas’ family, like his father’s, were also Quakers who were against violence. However, it is known that some Quakers, out of necessity, temporarily suspended their memberships during the war and then rejoined afterwards.

The extreme delay of providing pensions to veterans after the war was a sad, drawn out affair, and not until a Special Act of Congress in 1832 were pensions made available to the majority of surviving veterans. Fortunately, due to these detailed pensions applications in which they had to explain when and where they fought, we are able to get a glimpse into the lives of our Ayers ancestors during the war. I’ll try to capture some of the significant highlights below.

In 1780, Thomas Ayers Sr., was about 46 years old, his son Nathaniel about 25 years old, son Elihu about 19 and son Thomas Jr. about 9. While it would be unthinkable today, Thomas Jr., when still only a young lad, saw much violence and fighting action as he later stated in an affirmation for another pension applicant:

“I was too young to be put on a list of soldiers but I prefomed a voluntary servitude as hard as any soldier that is against Tories. I had to run many a time when over powered by them to save myself. I fought in my Father’s place he being old. Old and young had to fight it was a time of trouble in this country as I before stated the Tories was so bad.”

Elihu Ayers saw the most service. He first entered as a volunteer private in the militia in January 1778. He served a little over 12 months during which he only participated in skirmishes against the Tories (loyalists) and not against the foreigners. He traveled the area around Surry and Wilkes counties defending Whigs (rebels) and their property from the ravages of the Tories. During this term of service, he was present and assisted in “half hanging” William Combs whom they let off on promise of better behavior, and in hanging two other men condemned by a Court Martial. He obtained a discharge from this term of service which was some years afterwards burned in his Father’s House.

Elihu entered his next tour of duty in April 1780. Initially, he again was employed in the surrounding country to keep down the Tories and retaking and restoring property to the Whigs taken by the Tories. Then in the Fall of 1780, he was marched to South Carolina where he participated in the famous Battle of King’s Mountain. The British, under Colonel Ferguson, fought in their traditional close-packed European fashion. The frontiersmen, however, played by different rules, moving from tree to tree picking off Ferguson’s men with their long and much more accurate frontier rifles. Many British were killed with few prisoners taken, and Elihu Ayers personally witnessed the death of Colonel Ferguson. King’s Mountain was a stunning defeat for Lord Cornwallis. After that General Washington sent one of his most experienced officers, Nathaniel Greene, to the South to drive the British out.

Elihu returned to North Carolina for a short furlough, but in the Spring of 1781, he was marched to the very important battle of Guilford Courthouse in Guilford County, NC, which was only 50 miles from his home in Surry County. There, he was part of the militia who panicked and ran from the scene of action. It was a terribly bloody battle from which the Americans, led by General Greene finally retreated, but it left both sides grieviously wounded. The battle was significant, however, in that Cornwallis began to fully realize that he could no longer count on the Loyalists for help, and that victories in the Carolina territory would always elude him. Frustrated he turned his attention back to Virginia where he was also unsuccessful and the war finally ended with an American victory at Yorktown later in 1781.

In 1786 Elihu married Lydia Owen and they later moved to Patrick County, VA. He finally received a pension beginning in 1834 until he died in 1844. You can read a complete transcription of Elihu Ayers’ pension application in his own words here (R335).

Meanwhile, Thomas Ayers’ oldest son, Nathaniel, who is our direct ancestor, was also called into service as a militia man in August of 1780. He too was marched to South Carolina to the Battle of King’s Mountain. However, he did not participate in the battle, as he had been sent to a powder maker, for powder. As it turned out, the Tories had already taken the powder maker, and his powder and the main battle was over before Nathaniel returned. He met the victorious soldiers with the prisoners and marched with them and was held in service until some time in November or December and was discharged.

In February, Nathaniel was again called into service with the same militia company. The object was to join General Greene’s forces, but they kept missing them as Greene, endeavoring to avoid an early engagement with Cornwallis kept changing his positions. As a result, they never did join with Greene before the Battle of Guilford Courthouse. On the other hand, they frequently fell in with parties of the enemy and had little skirmishes. He was then discharged in May 1781.

Since Nathaniel Ayers did not complete at least six months service, he was deemed not eligible for a pension. You can read a complete transcription of his pension application in his own words here (R336).

I wonder if the Ayers clan in North Carolina, was aware that some of their cousins back in New England and New Jersey also fought and helped win the Revolutionary War.

I heartily recommend viewing “The Patriot” movie released in 2000 starring Mel Gibson, which does a very creditable job in depicting the horrific conditions and events in the Carolinas during the Rev War.

RW Map — **Revolutionary War in the South**

Ayers from NC in the Revolutionary War AYERS Line

April 3, 2011 Dennis 1 comment

Folks, this is a little longer post than normal, but it contains a lot of historically important information to help put our ancestors lives in perspective. Sorry, but you gotta learn some history.

“I was too young to be put on a list of soldiers but I prefomed a voluntary servitude as hard as any soldier that is against Tories. I had to run many a time when over powered by them to save myself. I fought in my Father’s place he being old. Old and young had to fight it was a time of trouble in this country as I before stated the Tories was so bad.”

I wonder if the Ayers clan in North Carolina, was aware that some of their cousins back in New England and New Jersey also fought and helped win the Revolutionary War.