Jackson-Herman-Willig Family History
Our Family's Journey Through Time: 1677-1945
Bowater Beals: born in 1725 in Nottingham, Chester County, Pennsylvania. He died in 1781 in New Garden, North Carolina at the age of 55; he was buried in the Friend's Burial Ground in New Garden (Greensboro) North Carolina.
Sarah Ann (Cook) Beals: born in 1732 in Warrington, York County, Pennsylvania. She possibly died in 1781 in North Carolina in the same year her husband died (she would have been 48 years old at the time of Bowater's death), or she might have remarried and died in the 1790s in North Carolina. [researchers disagree] Her gravesite is unknown.
Marriage: Bowater Beals and Sarah Ann (Cook) Beals were married in 1752 in Warrington, York County, Pennsylvania. Children: They had 9 Children (maybe 10): Ann in 1755, Ruth in 1757, Phebe in 1759, Thomas in 1762, John Bowater in 1764, Jacob in 1766, Nathan in 1769, Mary in 1771, Sarah Charity in 1779.***************
Samuel Jackson [the "First Generation" immigrant of the Jackson Family tree] was born in Ireland about 1725-1730 (exact information is undocumented, but his son Jacob attested to the information at a later time). Samuel died in 1806 at Tom's Creek, North Carolina at about the age of 80. He was reportedly buried in the Friends Burial Ground in Westfield, North Carolina.
Catherine (Plankenhorn) Jackson was born about the same time as Jacob (1725-1730) probably in Chester County, Pennsylvania; she was the daughter of German immigrants. Some researchers believe she died at Tom's Creek, North Carolina in 1780 about the age of 50.
Marriage: Samuel Jackson and Catherine (Plankenhorn) Jackson were married about 1747 in Chester County, Pennsylvania. [not documented]
Children: Samuel and Catherine Jackson had 9 Children: Jacob in 1748, Susannah in 1751, John in 1752, Curtis in 1755, Samuel in 1758, Joseph in 1761, Elizabeth in 1763, William in 1767, and Amer in 1769.
In the 1750’s, children of John Beals, Jr. joined the “Great Quaker Migration” to North Carolina, including his youngest son, Bowater, with his newlywed wife, Sarah (Cook) Beals. During that same decade, Samuel and Catherine Jackson migrated to the same general area of North Carolina from Chester County, Pennsylvania. As it turned out, in the 1770’s three of Bowater Beals’ daughters would marry three of Samuel Jackson’s sons - which forms the continuing track of our family history.
Bowater Beals was born in 1725 in the vicinity of Nottingham, Chester County, Pennsylvania. His parents were John Beals, Jr. and Sarah (Bowater) Beals; they owned a large tract of land in the Nottingham Lots - a Quaker farming area in the strip of territory disputed between William Penn and Lord Baltimore (Pennsylvania and Maryland). Bowater was the youngest of their children, born near the Pennsylvania/Maryland border, near what is now Calvert, Maryland. In 1732, when Bowater was about 7 years old, his parents moved the family to a new Quaker farming area on the frontier along the Great Wagon Road, called Monocacy (named after the local river).
After the untimely death of John Beals, Jr. in 1748, his married children soon began moving to North Carolina. However, the unmarried youngest son, 19 year old Bowater, accompanied his mother to Warrington, Pennsylvania where she married a widower, Alexander Underwood. Not many years later, in 1752, Bowater Beals married the granddaughter of the same Alexander Underwood, Sarah Cook. Within a year, the newlyweds moved to the vicinity of New Garden, North Carolina where Bowater’s older siblings had already moved. Between 1755 and 1776, Bowater and Sarah (Cook) Beals had either 9 or 10 children (4 sons and 4 or 5 daughters) all born in the same part of North Carolina. Bowater Beals remained in that area for the rest of his life; he died in 1781 at age 55 and was buried in the Friend’s Burial Ground at New Garden (Greensboro, NC). Sarah (Cook) Beals possibly died in the same year at age 48; her grave location is unknown. [Some researchers say that Sarah (Cook) Beals remaried and died in North Carolina in the 1790s.]
An Online map from 1770 shows the Great Wagon Road route from Pennsylvania to North Carolina. The bottom left corner of the map shows where the road entered North Carolina just east of the Saureton Mountain range.
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Samuel Jackson was born in Ireland about 1725-1730 and immigrated to the Pennsylvania Colony probably as a teenager in the mid-1740s. He married Mary Catherine Plankenhorn (a German immigrant, possibly Moravian) about 1747 in Chester County.
[Note: unfortunately, early information about Samuel and Catherine has not been located in documented sources. In early colonial times, immigrants were not required to provide documents, nor were they provided with documents. Documentation about Samuel and Catherine begins in North Carolina Quaker records where they established themselves and raised their family. Their approximate dates of birth and marriage are inferred based on the dates of the recorded births of their children and their own recorded deaths in Quaker records.]
Samuel and Catherine Jackson had four children born in Chester County, Pennsylvania in the late 1740s and the early 1750s, including their oldest son, Jacob Jackson, who later married Ann Beals, the daughter of Bowater Beals. Samuel and Catherine Jackson, with their first four children, joined the “Great Quaker Migration” to North Carolina in about 1760. They had five more children born in North Carolina in the 1760s. They were among the first settlers in the frontier area located just west of the Great Wagon Road passing along the Saureton Mountain range. An area later called Westfield was accessible through a pass known as “Quaker Gap”. The Jackson’s acquired farmland adjoining Tom’s Creek, along with a growing number of newly arriving Quakers. (The Jackson homestead property on Tom’s Creek remained in the family descendants’ possession for at least four generations, as indicated by Surrey County tax records.) In those early years, the Quaker families living on the west side of the mountain range had to travel eastward through Quaker Gap to attend Quaker religious services and meetings with the already established Quaker communities on the other side (which included the Beals families). In the 1770’s, the Quaker “Westfield” Meeting was established with several Jacksons named as founding members.
In 1774, Jacob Jackson and Ann (Beals) Jackson got married at Westfield, which formed the continuation of our ancestral line. Over the next few years, other marriages occurred between the Jackson and Beals families: Curtis Jackson married Ruth Beals in 1775, John Jackson married Phebe Beals in 1779, and Daniel Beals (son of Thomas Beals who was the brother of Bowater) married Susannah Jackson in 1775. Several years later, Daniel and Susannah Beals, Jacob and Ann Jackson, and John and Phebe Jackson all joined the Quaker migration to Ohio, following in the footsteps of their famous Quaker family patriarch, Thomas Beals. The other Samuel Jackson children and their spouses remained in North Carolina - with some of their descendants retaining the Jackson family homestead at Tom’s Creek for generations.
Catherine Jackson died in 1780. The location of her grave is uncertain. (Possibly Samuel Jackson remarried, but that is debated by genealogy researchers.) Samuel Jackson continued to live at “Tom’s Creek” until his death in 1806. He probably was buried in the Westfield Friends Burial Ground in Westfield, North Carolina.
Bowater Beals married Sarah Ann Cook, daughter of Thomas and Mary Underwood Cook 10 Feb 1752 at Warrington MM, York County, Pa. Bowater Beals was received on certificate from Fairfax MM, Montgomery Co, Pa as noted at Cane Creek MM in North Carolina. Bowater Beals was recommended a minister at New Garden MM in North Carolina 1/30/1779. Their children are listed at New Garden MM (all spelled as "Beales"): Ann (b 9/3/1755 NC m. Jacob Jackson);Ruth (b 17 Jun 1757 m Curtis Jackson); Phebe (b 23 Mar 1759 m John Jackson) (the three Jacksons were brothers, sons of Samuel); Thomas (b 12 Jun 1762); John (b 26 May 1764 m. Lois Branson); Jacob (b 27 Nov 1766); Nathan (b 25 Jan 1769 m. Esther Fisher); Mary (b 17 Jan 1771); Sarah (b 17 Aug 1776); Charity (b. abt 1778 m Benjamin Hoggatt).
Shortly after they were married in Pennsylvania in 1752, Bowater and Sarah moved to North Carolina and joined the Cane Creek Community on a certificate from the Fairfax Meeting dated July 25, 1752. (Bowater was still a registered member in the Fairfax, Virginia Quaker records.) They were formally received into the Cane Creek records January 25, 1753, but would have arrived earlier than that.
Bowater was made a minister on January 30, 1779 at the New Garden, North Carolina Monthly Meeting. Bowater died shortly afterwards on February 9, 1781 and is buried at the Friends Burial Ground at New Garden.
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Cane Creek is located in north central North Carolina. According to "Cane Creek, Mother of Meetings," Friends arrived in the Cane Creek area as early as 1749, and there were around 30 families there when the Meeting was established in 1751. The New Garden Monthly Meeting, an offshoot of Cane Creek, was formally established in 1754 in what was then part of Bladen County, North Carolina. That meeting was named for New Garden MM, of Chester Co., Pennsylvania. In 1771, that part of North Carolina became Guilford County, the name now associated with the New Garden MM.
The settlers first established themselves in a beautiful rural setting about six miles west of the present center of Greensboro. They called their frontier settlement, appropriately enough, New Garden, a name which they had brought with them from New Garden Meeting in Chester County, Pennsylvania. “It is known that the first meeting in a private dwelling was in the home of Thomas Beals in February 1752. It is also known that some ninety three public Friends from the North, from eastern Carolina, and from Europe attended meetings between the years 1752 and 1778, attesting to the early importance of New Garden. This list is in the handwriting of William Hunt, one of the early members.
The earliest description of New Garden Meeting was by one of these visitors, Catherine Payton Phillips, an English Quaker, who wrote of her visit in 1753: “The 24th [of December], we went to New Garden, and stayed amongst Friends in that settlement till the 28th. This was a new settlement of Friends, and we were the first from Europe that had visited them, or traveled in these parts in the service of Truth. We had pretty close service among them, and laboured for the establishment of a meeting for ministers and elders in their monthly meetings; which we found was much wanting: and we had reason to hope that the proposition would be adopted; divers Friends being convinced of its usefulness, and seemed glad that it became our concern to recommend it.”
The names of the first families of New Garden cannot be determined in the order of their arrival, but the settlement had grown to forty families of Quakers by May 25, 1754, as attested to by the Minutes of Perquimans and Little River Quarterly Meeting of that date: “Friends at New Garden requested this meeting to Grant them the privilege of holding a Monthly Meeting amongst them by Reason of the hardship they underwent in Attending the Monthly Meeting at Cane Creek; and it appearing to this meeting that there is Near or Quite near forty families of Friends seated in them parts; In consideration of which, this meeting thought proper to grant them their request.”
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1771-1774 - Thomas, William, Bowater, John and Daniel Beals are on the Surry, NC tax list [1771 is the year that Surrey County was separated off from Rowan County, so this is from the original tax list.]
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In the Westfield-Tom's Creek section of Surry County were the Quaker families who came from New Garden and other meetings in Guilford County. They had come to Guildford from Pennsylvania and Virginia. John Hiatt had come directly to Rowan County with Morgan Bryan. In addition to the Hiatt family, there were Jessops, Jacksons, Hills, Bonds, Simmons, Hortons, Stanleys, Burchams, Pinsons, Loves, Taylors and others. These were stable families who prospered on the land. Most of these families migrated to Ohio and Indiana, but all have descendants in the area.
Settlers traveled to Surry in an orderly fashion by wagon-train with a wagon master who knew the territory. Plans were made beforehand. Knowledge of available lands came through advertising and scouting. They traveled in groups of extended family, neighbors or in groups that had a common religious bond. They followed the same pattern in settlement and in marriage. They married where they were. And if they did not migrate, they were given their portion of land adjoining the family. This pattern continued for several generations.
Deed records in Surry County and Rowan County show that the earliest settlement of people in the area which later was to center about the Old Westfield Quaker Church was between 1760 and 1770, for there are records of people buying or claiming land in that section between those dates. Since most of the early settlers were Quakers, we may assume that there was some semblance of religious group at or near Westfield before 1770.
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Westfield was originally named "Tom's Creek" but the name was later changed to Westfield in recognition of the Quaker ("Society of Friends") mission, first established here in 1760, by members of New Garden Friend's Meeting from Guilford County, North Carolina. (Powell 1968, p. 525). Early Friends from New Garden traveled through Quaker Gap in the Sauratown Mountains to establish the Meeting at Tom's Creek, and the area was referred to at the time as "the western field,' later becoming "Westfield."
The Westfield Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, better known in this area as "Old Westfield". The Meeting dates back to the 1760's when pioneer Quakers from New Garden (now Guilford College) crossed Quaker Gap of the Sauratown mountains to plant a new community in the valleys of Big Creek and Tom's Creek. Early Quakers began holding meetings at Westfield by 1772 under the care of New Garden Quarterly Meeting and continued until the monthly meeting was established in 1786. Representatives from New Garden were sent to hold services for them. This is said to have led to the name, "Westfield." The Quakers at New Garden regarded the work as a mission project and since Westfield Church was established as an off-spring of the historic New Garden Monthly Meeting, for the church records at New Garden prove that to be a fact. The Quakers at New Garden regarded the church work at Westfield as a sort of mission project in its early years, and since it was located west of Guilford College, it was referred to as "the western field", and thus came the name of Westfield.
The minutes of the New Garden Monthly Meeting for August 29, 1772 state that "Also the Friends near the Mountains request the indulgence of holding meetings on week-days among themselves." The people near the mountains were those at Westfield, so that is proof that there were enough Quakers in the Westfield section prior to 1772 to be interested in holding meetings. The minutes for New Garden for September, 1772 show that "the committee appointed to visit Friends near the mountains reports that they complied with instructions, …. And it's the sense and judgment that they (the Friends near the Mountains) be indulged the privilege of holding such meetings and appoints them the fourth day of the week." These meetings were the first official church gatherings at Westfield.
The Westfield meeting operated for several years under the guidance and care of the New Garden Monthly Meeting. It was referred to as "the little meeting nigh Tom's Creek" in minutes of the New Garden Meeting for May 29, 1773. The church at Westfield was established on a more permanent basis when the Western Quarterly Meeting met at Cane Creek on November 9, 1782 and authorized a committee to inspect the Westfield group and report at the next quarterly session. The Westfield Quakers had requested such a preparative meeting in August, 1782. Formal organization of the Westfield Meeting as a preparative body was finally and definitely granted August 14, 1784. The first recorded minutes of a regular Monthly Meeting at Westfield bore the date of December 23, 1786. Bowater Sumner was appointed first clerk.
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Research Notes about county records:
As was typical of the time, Rowan County was originally a vast territory with an indefinite western boundary. As the population increased in the region, portions were taken to organize other counties and their seats. In 1770, the eastern portion was combined with the western part of Orange County to form Guilford County. In 1771 the northeastern portion of what was left became Surry County. In 1777 the western part of Rowan County was organized as Burke County. Wilkes County was formed in 1777 from Surry and the District of Washington, now in Tennessee. Stokes County was formed in 1789 from Surry, and all of the Moravian Tract was then in Stokes.
In 1850 Stokes County was divided and the southern part became Forsyth County. The original Moravian Tract made up a large part of Forsyth County. Part of Wilkes County was annexed to Surry in 1792. This gave Low Gap and western Surry County back to Surry County. Yadkin County was formed from Surry in 1850. (These changes caused county records to be "transferred" from one county to another. The people weren't actually moving to another county - only their records were being transferred. Some researchers have mistakenly assumed that people were frequently moving to other counties when actually only the county names were changing while they remained living in the same place.)
Quaker Corner Website
Gilbert Cope, Quaker historian
Lucille Jackson, NC Jackson Family researcher
Wikitree
Geocities.Quaker meet.com