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The Reed Family from Britain to America
REEDSDALE, NORTHUMBERLAND
The county of Northumberland is the northernmost county in England. The ridgeline of the Cheviot Hills forms the northwestern boundary of the county, where it shares a border with Scotland. The Cheviots are cut by valleys, one of which is Reedsdale, through which flows the River Reed (also Rede or Reedwater), which rises at the Scottish border and flows south till it merges with the Tyne River.
The name Reedsdale comes from the old English word rede, meaning “red”, probably due to the reddish tinge of the sand and gravel of the riverbed, plus the old Scandinavian word dalr, which means “valley”. Reedsdale is a wild place, windswept and nearly treeless, and even today is one of the most remote areas of England. This area is far from power stations, major roads, large towns, and industrial areas, and has been judged one of only three extensive areas of tranquility remaining in England.
Historically this valley has served as an important route into Scotland. The area has seen conflict since the time of the Roman Empire, when the Emperor Hadrian built his famous wall across the country to protect against northern invasion. In 1388, Otterburn was the site of a historic battle between the armies of England and Scotland, largely fought by moonlight. During the Middle Ages, Elsdon was the economic center of the area, and served as the market town and gathering place for the local clans. This area also includes the settlements of Rochester, Byrness and Carter Bar, but none are sizeable.
The land in Reedsdale is not good farmland, and is best used for cattle or sheep grazing. Cattle was the major commodity in Reedsdale beginning in the middle ages. By the 1700s, 100,000 cattle were being driven to market annually. Cattle rustling of these large herds was at its height during the 1500s. Because the land was not suitable for large scale farming, what little grain was raised was often distilled into whisky. An archaeological survey of the Reedsdale vicinity discovered remains of multiple whisky stills and corn drying kilns in the hills above the River Reed.
Reedsdale is the historic home of the Reed family, who were centered around the chief Reed residence at Troughend (pronounced trow-end). Reedsdale and its river are also the origin of the Reed name. According to Sir Walter Scott, "These Reeds of Troughend were a very ancient family, as may be conjectured from their deriving their surname from the river on which they had their mansion. An epitaph on one of their tombs affirms that the family have held their lands of Troughend, which are situated on the Reed nearly opposite to Otterburn, for the incredible space of nine hundred years."
The earliest reference to the Reeds of Troughend is from 1400, when “Thomas Reed of Redysdale” is recorded in county records as paying “to William de Swinburne in the sum of 20 pds ...for the ransom of William Moetrop of Tenedale”. In 1429 Thomas Reed is again recorded, as serving on a jury in Elsdon. In 1442, a John Reed is described as "the Laird of Troughwen, the chief of the name of Reed, and divers of his followers...a ruder and more lawless crew there needs not be..."
In the 1500s, Troughend consisted of a stone manor house and a defensive tower, as well as several other stone houses and outbuildings. The tower and manor house at Troughend are long gone, but a few of the other Reed family buildings remain, including Dunn’s Cottages, now a bed and breakfast guest house. These homes would have belonged to the better off members of the family. Many other Reeds would have lived in simple one room stone cabins, and in the tradition of the day would have shared their living space with their farm animals.
THE BORDER REIVERS
The Reeds were one of the families known in history as the “Border Reivers”. The word reive means “to steal”, and the Reivers were families living along the border between Scotland and England who survived by cattle rustling, kidnapping, and blackmail. In addition to the Reeds, some of the other Border Reiver families were the Elliots, Armstrongs, Nixons, Scotts, Grahams, Johnstones, and Halls. Their heyday was in the 1500s, and it was the violence and criminal activity of the Border region that took the Reeds from Northumberland to Ireland, and ultimately to America.
England and Scotland were frequently at war during the Middle Ages. During these wars the Border country was the primary battleground, and the livelihood of the people on the borders was devastated by the contending armies. As armies crossed the territory, homes and crops were burned, and the common people of the Borders saw little use in building substantial buildings or growing more crops than were needed for bare subsistence. Anything they built or grew would be destroyed by the next invading army. Even when the countries were not at war, tension remained high, and government authority in the territory was often weak. The inhabitants had to live in a state of constant alert, and those who could afford to built fortified “peel” towers.
The uncertainty of existence meant that families would seek security through their own strength and cunning, and improve their livelihoods at the expense of rival families. Families stole cattle from one another, burned each other’s crops, and demanded “protection money” under the threat of future raids. These raids were not considered dishonest or criminal among the border families, but were seen as matters of honor. Feuds between families in neighboring valleys were common. It took little to start a feud; a chance quarrel or unintended offense was sufficient. Feuds might continue for years, and alliances were always shifting.
The reivers were both English and Scottish and raided both sides of the border impartially, as long as the people they raided had no powerful protectors and no connection to their own kin. Many Borderers had relatives on each side of the line, despite laws forbidding international marriage, and they could claim to be of either nationality, describing themselves as “Scottish at will, and English at their pleasure”. The Reeds had strong ties to the Scottish Armstrongs, and intermarriage between the two families was common.
When raiding, the Reivers rode small hardy ponies renowned for their ability to pick their way over the boggy moss lands. They wore light armor or jacks of plate (a type of sleeveless jacket into which small plates of steel were stitched), and a metal helmet (which led to their nickname of “the Steel Bonnets”). They were armed with a lance and small shield, and sometimes also with a longbow or with one or more pistols. They invariably also carried a sword and dagger.
Reedsdale was particularly known for its lawlessness. In 1549, it was recorded that in Northumberland, "…the chief dales are Tyndale and Redesdale… These Highlanders are famous for thieving; they are all bred up and live by theft… The people of this countrey hath one barbarous custom among them; if any two be displeased, they expect no lawe, but bang it out bravely, one and his kindred against the other and his; they will subject themselves to no justice, but in an inhumane and barbarous manner fight and kill one another. This fighting they call their feuds..." In 1564, the city of Newcastle passed a law that anyone born in Reedsdale would not be hired as apprentices in the city, since they were descended from “lewde and wicked progenitors.”
The Reeds during this period lived around the manor of Troughend, home of the chief of the name Reed, the “Laird of Troughend”. John Lang, in Stories of the Border Marches, describes the times: "In the sixteenth century one of the most powerful of the clans in the wild Northumbrian country was that of the Reeds of Redesdale. Even now it is a lonely part of the south land, that silent valley down which, from its source up amongst the Cheviots, the Rede flows eastward. Bog and heather and bracken still occupy the ground to right and to left of it, and there are few sounds besides the bleat of sheep or the cries of wild birds to break the silence of the hills and moors. But when the Reeds held power the hills often echoed to the lowing of driven cattle, to the hoof-beat of galloping horses, and to the sounds of a fight being fought to the death."
The Reeds were not the only family living in Reedsdale during this time period. In a 1551 report to King Edward VI on the state of the Borders, it was recorded that the "countrey of Riddesdale standeth much by surnames, of which surnames the Haulls be the greatest and moste of the reputation in that countrey and next them the Reades, Potts, Hedlies, Spoores, Dawgs and Fletchers." Other Reedsdale families were the Andersons, Coxons, and Dunns. In censuses conducted in 1604 and 1618, the principal tenants in Reedsdale were six families of Halls, five of Reeds, three of Spores, and three of Hedleys.
One notable Reed was Percival Reed, Laird of Troughend in the 1580s and 1590s. His story has been handed down in The Death of Parcy Reed, a traditional ballad sung in the Border country. This song tells of an alliance between the Halls of Reedsdale and the Crosiers of Liddesdale in Scotland, against the Reeds. Percival Reed held the office of Keeper of Reedsdale, and as such was “the law” in the valley. He had arrested Whinton Crosier, who had been raiding in Reedsdale. This put the Reeds at feud with the Crosier family. The Halls, old friends of Percy Reed, turned against him and conspired with the Crosiers to trap him while he was out hunting. When the Crosiers ambushed Percy, the Halls watched as he was murdered. Percy stood alone unarmed against the Crosiers, and according to the ballad:
They fell upon him all at once,
They mangled him most cruellie;
The slightest wound might cause his deith,
And they have given him thirty-three:
They hacket off his hands and feet,
And left him lying on the lee.
Percy Reed’s ghost is said to still haunt Reedsdale, and has the distinction of being the northernmost ghost in England: "Far and near, through all that part of the Border that he had so faithfully kept, the spirit wandered. A moan or sigh from it on the safe side of the Carter Bar would scatter a party of Scottish reivers across the moorland as no English army could have done. …. Not always in the same form did the Keeper appear. That was the terror of it. At times he would come gallantly cantering across the moorland as he had done when blood ran warm in his veins. At other times he would be only a sough in the night wind: a feeling of dread, an undefinable something that froze the marrow and made the blood run cold. And yet, again, he would come as a fluttering, homeless soul, whimpering and formless, with a moaning cry for Justice—Justice—Judgment on him who had by black treachery hurried him unprepared to his end."
The attitudes of the English and Scottish governments towards the Border Clans alternated between indulgence and indiscriminate punishment. These families served as the first line of defense against invasion from the other side of the Border, and were often used as light cavalry in the wars between Scotland and England. But during the infrequent times of peace, when the Borderers' lawlessness became intolerable to the authorities, the local government officials, the March Wardens, would attempt to crack down on the Reivers through imprisonment and summary execution.
In 1603, Scotland and England were united under one government. With the end of war between the two countries, the new government immediately passed strict laws to bring peace to the Border country and restore law and order. King James issued a proclamation that the Border Reivers should be “prosecuted with fire and sword". Many Reivers were hung, and others were forced to serve in the British army in Europe or in Ireland. In 1607 one hundred outlaws of Tynedale and Reedsdale were pressed into the army for service in Ireland. The record doesn’t name them so we can’t know whether any Reeds were among these outlaws sent to Ireland.
It took a few decades to finally eradicate the Border Reivers, and as late as 1621 it is recorded that John Reed of Kellyburn was a prisoner in Newcastle keep, for the "felonious stealing of sheep and goodes of Edward Delavale of Alnwick Castle, gentleman, and with the felonious stealing of ffower kyne (four cows) the goodes of Robert Dalton of Weetslade." He had also been accused of reiving as far afield as the county of York, 80 miles away.
In some cases, as with the Graham family, whole families were rounded up and transported to farms in the newly established plantations in Ireland. Many Reeds went to the Ulster Plantation in northern Ireland, where they worked small parcels of land as tenant farmers.
ULSTER, IRELAND
The Plantation of Ulster was a planned process of colonization which took place in the northern Irish province of Ulster beginning in 1611. English and Scottish Protestants were settled on land that had been confiscated from native Irish Catholic landowners. The colonization of Ulster was designed to prevent future rebellion by the native Catholics.
Six Ulster counties were involved in the official government plantation: Donegal, Derry, Tyrone, Fermanagh, Armagh and Cavan. The principal landowners were wealthy “Undertakers” from England and Scotland who undertook to import tenants from their home countries. They were granted around 3000 acres each, on condition that they settle a minimum of 20 families who had to be English-speaking and Protestant. In addition to the official plantation, the counties of Antrim and Down were acquired by private Scottish investors, who settled farmers from the southwestern Scottish Lowlands.
Settlers were recruited from the Scottish Lowlands and from the Border counties of England. Many were attracted to the new plantation because of the low rents and sizeable farms they could obtain. Leases were for much longer terms than they had been able to obtain in England or Scotland, and often for 99 years. Settlers were drawn from every class: army veterans, gentlemen, nobles, merchants and craftsmen, evicted Scottish farmers, and fugitives from justice. Most came from southwest Scotland, but many also came from the unstable regions along the border with England, and it was thought that moving Borderers to Ireland would both solve the problem of Border violence, and tie down the rebellious native Catholics in Ulster. Many of the transplanted Borderers settled in the counties of Donegal, Fermanagh and Tyrone.
No records tie us to a specific location in Ireland, but evidence suggests we may have lived in County Tyrone. No comprehensive census of Ireland was undertaken during the time that our ancestors lived in Ireland. However, a census conducted in 1766, thirty or forty years after our Reeds came to America, found 12 Reed households in Ulster, eight of which were in county Tyrone, and the other four in neighboring County Londonderry. According to the "Ulster Ancestry" website, Reeds are still particularly common in County Tyrone, and these Reeds trace their origins to the Reeds of Reedsdale in England. Today, the surname Reed is among the 40 most common surnames in Ulster.
Over half of the settlers in Ulster were Presbyterians from the Scottish Lowlands, although there were also English Puritans, Quakers and Baptists, and even groups of French Protestants who were fleeing religious persecution in France. The Calvinistic, evangelical form of Protestantism that all these groups shared became a unifying and defining element of the settlers. The Scottish majority gave the Ulster Plantation a distinctly Scottish character, and even today, after nearly 400 years, their Protestant descendants in Ireland still refer to themselves as “Ulster Scots”.
By the 1630s, there were 20,000 adult male British settlers in Ulster, which meant that the total settler population, including women and children, could have been as high as 80,000. In addition to working small farms, many of the settlers became merchants in the newly built towns of the Plantation. Many more worked in the linen industry, started in Londonderry by French Huguenot settlers. The British colonists found life in Ulster much more perilous than they had been led to believe. Almost everywhere they were outnumbered by the native Irish. In addition to working their farms, the settlers also had to build and man defenses against a possible rebellion. Reeds were recorded on the settler militia rolls in 1631: David and Hugh Reed in County Donegal (equipped with swords, axe, and musket), and Adam, George, John and Robert Reed in County Londonderry.
In the 1640s, the Ulster Plantation was thrown into turmoil by civil wars in Ireland, England, and Scotland. In 1641 the Irish Catholics rose in armed rebellion, killing about 4000 Protestant settlers. About 12,000 survivors rushed to the seaports and went back to Scotland or England. An army of 10,000 Scottish soldiers arrived to put down the rebellion, but peace was not restored until 1650.
War came again in 1689 when rival Catholic King James and Protestant King William fought over the throne of Great Britain. This “Williamite War” ended in 1691 after major battles throughout northern Ireland. During the war the Protestant settlers had played a full part, assisting in the famous siege of Londonderry. Among their rewards for loyalty to the winning King William, they expected a measure of religious toleration. But the Ulster Presbyterians, though part of the victorious Protestant party, were to find themselves just as outcast as their despised Catholic neighbors.
The settlement of Ulster created a tightly knit pool of folk with a particular set of characteristics. They were hardened by conflict and violence on the Anglo-Scot Border in the 1500s, in the Irish rebellion of 1641, and in the Williamite War of 1689-1691. They were individualistic and commercially aware because of their extensive involvement in the linen industry—producing, processing and marketing. Their intellectual leaders were tied into the social and political philosophies about individual rights and forms of government that emerged from the Enlightenment. They believed in the importance of education and were a highly literate people. They were wary of rulers and particularly the structured ecclesiastical form of church government. Perhaps most important, they practiced a rough and ready brand of conservative, evangelical Protestantism.
These predominantly Scottish Presbyterian settlers in Ireland were the ancestors of the people known to American history as the Scotch-Irish. The impact of the Borderers on the stereotypical view of the Scotch-Irish has probably been greater than their numbers would warrant. Generations of Borderers had grown accustomed to fighting, and their culture included singing ballads and telling stories about their life and strife on the borders—all good material for constructing a heroic view of a people. Combined with the years of conflict and semi-independence in Ireland, they were ready-made to be pioneers on the American frontier.
The Frontier Culture Museum in Staunton, VA, features an outdoor living-history exhibit of original farm buildings from Ireland similar to the type the Reeds would have known in Ulster.
Mark
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AMERICA
In 1717, many of the Protestant settlers in Ireland began migrating from Ulster to British America. Perhaps a quarter of a million people had migrated by the start of the American Revolution, many as indentured servants, but often as families and even whole Presbyterian congregations.
Traditionally, political and religious discrimination against “non-conformist” Protestants (Presbyterians, Puritans, Baptists, Methodists) has been cited as the primary cause of migration to America. Laws passed in the early 1700s stated that Protestants who were not members of the established Church of England could not hold public office, and their ministers could not legally preside over marriages. This voided the marriages of most Protestants in northern Ireland, leaving their children technically illegitimate, and unable to inherit their parents’ property. Economic factors were probably even more important than religious or political factors in the decision to migrate. These economic factors included crop failures, increasing rents, decreasing terms of leases, rapid population growth and a decline in the demand for Ulster’s major exports of linen, cattle and whiskey.
Many were encouraged to emigrate by relatives and friends who had previously settled in America, and who reported back to Ulster about the land and opportunities available in the American colonies. Emigration was promoted at local fairs and through newspaper advertisements and by ship owners anxious to secure passengers for the trip to America.
The majority of the Ulster immigrants arrived through the ports of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and New Castle, Delaware. These areas were already settled by English Quakers and German Lutherans, so the immigrants from Ireland headed inland from Philadelphia. As the population expanded, they pushed further west till they hit the Allegheny Mountains, and by the 1740s new arrivals were moving south into the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.
About three-quarters of the Ulster immigrants to America came as indentured servants, who agreed to work for a specified number of years in exchange for the cost of passage across the Atlantic. Many were taught trades and advanced farming methods during their indentures, and upon completion of their contracts they were often provided with tools and a horse or ox to begin their own farms. The first Reeds may have arrived as indentured servants, with the sons being apprenticed to wagon makers. This was the Reed family business for over a century, and wherever our Reeds are found in the 1700s and 1800s, in Tennessee, Georgia, or Texas, many are listed in the records as wagon makers.
Sometime around 1720, Dolly Letson Reed, the widow of a Thomas Reed, was living in New Castle, Delaware, having arrived from northern Ireland. With her were two sons, William and John. Dolly Reed and her sons probably came with a larger family group of immigrants, as it was the custom for Irish immigrants to travel in large groups. Her husband might have been the Thomas Reed who is recorded as one of the leaders of a group of recent Irish immigrants who petitioned the Presbytery of Newcastle on May 18, 1720, for a preacher to be sent to them in East Nottingham, Pennsylvania. By 1738, the Reed family was numerous in the country west of Philadelphia, “along both banks of Octoraro Creek in Nottingham township, Chester County, and Sadsbury township, Lancaster county.”
Thomas and Dolly Reed’s son, William, grew up in New London, Chester County, and married Jane Mitchell sometime around 1740. Although there is no documented evidence to prove a connection between our Reed line and William and Jane Mitchell Reed, it is possible that these two could be the starting point for our American Reed family. The name Mitchell is like a “fingerprint” to identify various lines of Reeds as related. The name Mitchell has been used as a first or middle name since the mid-1700s in Reed families in Virginia, Tennessee, Georgia, and Texas. The use of Mitchell as a first or middle name has been repeated in our own Reed line for two hundred years.
By the 1740s, the Shenandoah Valley was the course of the Great Philadelphia Wagon Road, also called the Valley Road. The road went west from Philadelphia, through Lancaster and Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, then turned south through the Shenandoah Valley as far as Big Lick, Virginia (now Roanoke). There the Wilderness Road branched off toward Tennessee, while the main road continued south into the Carolinas. During the middle of the 1700s, the route was often called "The Irish Road," because the majority of the travelers were Scotch-Irish immigrants.
"Scotch-Irish" was the name given to these people who came to America from northern Ireland between 1717 and 1775. At the time the people simply called themselves “Irish”, and resented the term “Scotch-Irish” as derogatory. After living in Ireland for over a century, they no longer identified with their origins in England or Scotland, and the new settlements they founded in America were given such Irish names as Derry, Belfast, Donegal, Tyrone or Coleraine. (“Scotch-Irish” became an accepted term 100 years later, as a way for the descendants of these immigrants to differentiate themselves from newly arrived Catholic Irish immigrants in the 1840s). The Scotch-Irish immigrants to America during the 1700s headed without delay for the Shenandoah Valley, and lands further south and west. During the next 50 years or so, it is estimated that over 275,000 of them went to the American colonies. Most of them travelled into the backwoods of colonial America and the Appalachian region, extending from western Pennsylvania to Georgia. These frontier regions were settled almost exclusively by Scotch-Irish immigrants.
Reeds were living in the Shenandoah Valley by the mid-1740s, when the Augusta County court ordered a road built from Reed Creek to Eagle Bottom on November 19, 1746. Augusta County originally covered all of Virginia west of the Blue Ridge, and Reeds appear frequently in the county court records between 1745 and 1779. On May 22, 1751, Peter, John, Leonard, and Jacob Reed were listed on a petition to build a new road “from Widow Cobern’s Mill…to John Paton’s Mill”. On March 24, 1755, court records contain the entry: “Thos. Reed says that on Friday, 21st inst., John Risk assaulted him and bit off part of his left ear.” On November 16, 1779, Robert Reed was one of several men appearing before a grand jury for “retailing liquors without license”.
The first individual recognizable as one of “our” Reeds is Mitchell Reed, most likely born in Frederick County, Virginia sometime around 1760. From 1779 through 1785, Mitchell Reed and his wife Frances are listed in court records as owning 450 acres on Stony Creek in Shenandoah Co., Virginia. In 1787 Mitchell Reed is recorded on the tax list for Rockingham Co., Virginia, and as serving with the militia company of Rockingham Co. in 1788. In 1792, Mitchell is mentioned in the Augusta Co. will of his mother Mary Reed, who left property to her son Mitchell and daughter Mary McFarland. (Daughter Mary had married a John McFarland in 1774, and the two named one of their sons Mitchell McFarland). Records of Rockingham County also record a marriage between an Alexander Reed and Rebecca Mitchell in 1784, again showing a strong link between the Reed and Mitchell families.
The Reeds and McFarlands were soon on the move as a group, travelling south on the Valley Road, then turning west on the Wilderness Road. In 1791, Mitchell Reed was scheduled to appear as a witness at a trial in Augusta Co., Virginia, but the court record simply states "Mitchell Reed has removed to NC 1st Sept 1791”. This is probably a reference to Greene Co., Tennessee, which at that time was in North Carolina before the creation of the state of Tennessee in 1796. Mitchell Reed is mentioned many times in Greene Co. between 1793 and 1798.
In the early 1800s both Mitchell Reed and his nephew Mitchell McFarland are recorded in Sevier Co., Tennessee, adjacent to Knox County, where Mitchell Reed received a land grant in 1806 on Boyds Creek, owning property next to a Joseph Reed who was probably one of his sons.
Mitchell Reed was a wagon maker, and had at least four sons, John, William, Joseph and Charles, born between 1776 and 1792. There is another, younger, Mitchell Reed, born between 1780 and 1790, who might be another son of the elder Mitchell Reed. Although we are doubtless connected to Mitchell and kin, there is no documented proof of the connection. I have been working with other people researching the Reeds in Tennessee, and will hopefully find documentation one day.
Our earliest documented ancestor is Charles Reed, born in 1824, who was a 27 year old farmer living with his wife Margaret and son John Mitchell in Murray Co., Georgia, in 1850. The children and descendants of Mitchell Reed’s sons William, Joseph and Charles have been documented, and our Charles Reed does not descend from those lines. However, many of Mitchell Reed’s descendants lived in Murray and Whitfield Counties in Georgia, where our own Charles Reed was living in the 1850s. Because our documented Reeds were living in the same area, and share the tradition of the name Mitchell, there is certainly a family connection. I believe that if we are connected to Mitchell Reed, it is through his oldest son John, or through the younger Mitchell Reed.
A John Reed is recorded in 1840 in Bradley County, Tennessee, across the state line from Murray Co., Georgia. He would have been born between 1781 and 1790, and has sons listed who are of the correct age to be our Charles Reed and his brothers. The younger Mitchell Reed is also listed in Bradley Co., Tennessee, in 1840. He is of the same age group as John Reed, and also has sons listed who are of the correct age to be Charles Reed and his brothers.
While the name of Charles Reed’s father is not documented, there are clues to who he might be in how the Scotch-Irish named their sons. The usual Scotch-Irish naming pattern was: first son named after the father's father; second son after the mother's father, third son after the father. Charles' three sons are John, Elihu and Charles. His last two sons fit the Scotch-Irish naming pattern. If Charles followed this pattern in naming his sons, then Charles’ father’s name would have been John or Mitchell.
The Bible of Alvin L. Reed records that Charles Reed had two brothers, named Joe and Cam. With the large families of the time, it is likely that there were more brothers and sisters than these two.
Living near Charles in Murray County in 1850 was a Joseph Reed, aged 40, who was living with John Reed, a 30 year-old wagon maker, his wife Nancy and young sons William and Charles. These Reeds, like Charles, are likely related to Mitchell Reed, but do not fit well into the known family trees of Mitchell Reed’s other sons. It is likely that all these Reeds living in Murray Co. in 1850 were family - probably brothers - of our Charles Reed. All three, Charles, John and Joseph, named a son John. In two of three cases, John was the first son. The Reeds probably all lived in the vicinity of Dalton or Tunnel Hill, in current Whitfield Co., which was created from Murray Co. in 1851.
By 1860, Joseph Reed had married and moved back to Sevier Co., Tennessee, where he is recorded in the 1860 census working in the family trade of wagon maker. He married a Levina Ingram about 1852, and the couple had three sons, John, Charles, and Donald, and a daughter named Tennessee.
There is no mention in Alvin Reed’s Bible of our Charles having a brother named John, but the Bible record was based on memory, and most families were very large back then. John and his wife Nancy moved their family back to Tennessee in the 1850s, and then to Comanche, Co., Texas in the 1860s, where John is recorded as a wagon maker in 1870 and 1880.
The “Cam” Reed mentioned in Alvin Reed’s Bible could be the Donald Campbell “Cam” Reed, born about 1821, who lived near Chickamauga Creek in nearby Catoosa County. Cam Reed's farm was just east of the crossing of Brotherton Road and Alexander's Bridge Road in the present Chickamauga Park. During the battle, the Reed farm was a refuge for the local residents. After the battle, the Reed family found and buried Private John Ingraham, a local soldier whose grave is located on the former Reed property, and which is today maintained by the Park Service. Although the D. C. Reed house and farm are mentioned in battle reports from 1863, there is no record of Cam Reed’s family in the 1860 or 1870 censuses for the area. However, the family is recorded in the 1880 census. In 1892, Cam Reed sold his land to the United States government to form part of the current Chickamauga Battlefield Park. Court records indicate “Donald Campbell Reed sold land, lot no. 158, 9th district, 4th section of Catoosa Co., Ga., to U.S.A., February 10, 1892; 163 acres for $3,864.00.” Cam Reed died in 1917, and is buried in Westview Cemetery in Chattanooga with his wife and two of his sons.
It is possible that Charles Reed also had a sister named Georgia Ann Reed. There is a Georgia Ann Meredith living in Whitfield Co., Georgia, in the 1860 census. She is recorded living with her mother, Mary Reed. This Georgia Ann was born in 1825, and had married Cyrus Meredith. The Meredith family moved to Texas in 1851, but Cyrus died in 1859, and Georgia Ann moved the family back to Georgia. There is a possibility that this was our Charles’ sister, because Charles named one of his own daughters Georgia Ann.
Charles Reed and family were living in Murray Co., Georgia, in 1850. In 1844, Charles Reed had married Margaret Emiline Cowart. Margaret's family had moved to Georgia in about 1830 from Rutherford County, North Carolina. Margaret Cowart's mother, born Charlotte Bird, was from a once-prominent family in the Philadelphia area. Charlotte's grandfather was Mark Bird, who had served as the quartermaster general for George Washington's army at Valley Forge. Mark Bird married Mary Ross, whose brother George was a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Mark Bird had been responsible for providing the food and munitions that allowed the American army to survive at Valley Forge during the winter of 1776-77, and to successfully face the British army the following year. Mark Bird had grown rich through various mills and the iron foundry he ran at Hopewell Furnace in Berks County, PA. Many of his ironworks, gristmills, and sawmills supplied the Continental Army with the materials they needed to win the war. But his out of pocket expenditures during the Revolution had broken him, and he never received compensation from Congress for the tons of cannons, shells, lumber and flour he had supplied. The Birds sold everything they had in Pennsylvania to pay their debts, and moved to North Carolina where Mark Bird died in poverty around 1812.
In 1860 the Reeds and the Cowarts left Georgia and headed west together. They could possibly have been headed to Texas to join other members of the family who had migrated there, but they are found on Sand Mountain in Jackson County, Alabama, in 1860, where Charles “Read” is listed in the census as a "laborer". They didn't have a farm at this time, and it wasn’t for another year, on November 5, 1861, that Charles homesteaded 80 acres from the Confederate government of the State of Alabama, the west ½ of the northeast ¼ of Section 36 of Township 5S, Range 6E.
Paul Reed [my grandfather's first cousin] once told me the story that the Reeds were headed west to Texas, but the Civil War stopped them. There could be some truth to the story, and the Reeds may have been trying to avoid being caught up in the coming war. John and Nancy Reed, living near Charles and Margaret Reed in 1850, moved their family from Georgia to Texas during the war, indicating they may also have been trying to leave the destruction of the war behind them.
Jackson County, along with the other north Alabama counties, had voted against secession in 1861, and pro-Union sentiment was high on Sand Mountain. "The people of the valley more closely resembled the west Tennesseans, the great majority of them being planters, having little in common with the small farmers of the hill and mountain country, who were like the east Tennesseans. Of the latter the extreme element was the class commonly known as ‘mountain whites’ or ‘sand-mountain’ people. These were the people who gave so much trouble during the war, as ‘Tories’ and from whom the loyal southerners of north Alabama suffered greatly when the country was stripped of its men for the armies. … In January and February of 1861 there was some talk among the discontented people of seceding from secession, of withdrawing the northern counties of Alabama and uniting with the counties of east Tennessee to form a new state, which should be called Nick-a-Jack, an Indian name common in east Tennessee.”
There is some evidence that Charles Reed, like many of the people in the mountains, may have taken a neutral stand or may have been pro-union. His wife’s brothers, Erasmus, James, Elihu, and William Cowart, all joined the Union army, serving in Company B of the 1st Tennessee and Alabama Vidette Cavalry, a Union regiment raised on Sand Mountain during the war. Although of military age (37 in 1861), Charles Reed did not serve in either army, and in lieu of military service he worked at Sauta cave in the Tennessee Valley, mining potassium nitrate to make gunpowder. Industries such as mining, milling, and the railroads were accepted exemptions to military service for Southern unionists during the war. While working at the mine, he carried papers that threatened him with arrest if found over a mile away from the cave. A document dated May 14, 1864 reads:
Confederate States of America
War Department
Nitre and Mining Bureau, Office Dist No 9.
Charles Reed is exempt from removal as a conscript by virtue of his employment at the C.S. Epsom Salts Works at South Sauta, Jackson County. But, if found more than one mile from the works, without a written furlough from the Superintendent of said Works, he shall be liable to be arrested and sent to the nearest camp of Instruction, by the Enrolling officers of Jackson County, Ala. Given, by virtue of authority vested in me by Lt. Col. T. M. St. John, Bureau Supt., and in accordance with Gen. Order No 41, from the Adjt. and Inspector General's Office.
William Gabbett
Captain and Supt District No 819
Like all Southerners, Charles Reed was required to swear an oath of allegiance to the United States after the end of the war. His oath, dated October 12, 1865, stated that he had light complexion, brown hair, and blue eyes, and was 5 feet 8 inches tall.
Charles Reed’s land granted by the Confederate government was apparently confiscated sometime during Reconstruction after the Civil War, and resold to a Joseph Shankles. (Nearly all land homesteaded between 1861 and 1865 is listed as “resold” in the Jackson County Land Records). Charles obtained a new farm at some point, the southwest ¼ of the southwest ¼ of Section 5, Township 6S, Range 7E. He is on record as selling these 40 acres to a James Bankston on March 5, 1888. On September 15, 1888, he received a new homestead grant of 40 acres, the southeast ¼ of the southeast ¼ of Section 6, Township 6S, Range 7E.
Charles Reed lived on Sand Mountain until his death in 1910 at the age of 86. He appears in U.S. census records located at Kirby’s Mill, Section, Jackson County, Alabama.
Charles Reed’s oldest son, John Mitchell “Mitt” Reed (1848-1910), married Julia Ann Davis in 1868. In 1870, John and Julia Reed are located in the dwelling next door to his father Charles. On December 15, 1882, John Mitchell Reed homesteaded his own land, 160 acres in the south ½ of the southwest ¼, the northeast ¼ of the southwest ¼, and the southwest ¼ of the northeast ¼, Section 34, Township 7S, Range 6E. It was on this land that Alvin L. Reed was born in 1893, and where his children were born. The land was divided in half by Alabama State Route 35 when it was built in the 1930s. John Mitchell Reed died from typhoid in 1910.
Alvin L. Reed, youngest son of John Mitchell Reed and Julia Ann Davis, married Julia Cornelia Benefield in 1912. According to his draft registration card from World War One, he was of medium height, of slender build, with brown hair and brown eyes. His card records his claim for exemption from the draft due to having a wife and one child at home.
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Interesting. You're the first person I've encountered in nearly 40 years of looking who is likely descended from the same group of siblings.
As near as I can tell, the Reed siblings looked something like this:
Joseph Reed, 1810-?
John Reed, c. 1820-?
Sarah Louise Reed, c. 1820-?
Donald Campbell "Cam" Reed, 1821-1917
Charles Reed, 1824-1910
Georgia Ann Reed, c. 1825-?
There may also have been another sister, Frances Reed, b. about 1810.
Although the Morgan book says their father was William Reed, and bases that on a Bible entry, I have my doubts. No sibling I've found so far is named William. The usual naming pattern was to name the first son after the father's father, second son after the mother's father, and third son after the father. Joseph named his first son John. Charles named his first son John. BUT, John named his first son William, so maybe William is possible as their father's name.
John Reed and his wife Nancy moved to Texas around 1865, and are recognizable there as wagon makers in Comanche Co. in 1870, and Kaufman Co. in 1880.
Joseph Reed moved back up to Sevier Co., TN, and is listed there as a wagon maker in 1860.
D.C. Reed and his wife Elizabeth were in Catoosa Co., GA, in 1880, and in Hamilton Co., TN, (Chattanooga) by 1899.
Charles Reed (my gr-gr-grandfather) moved to Sand Mountain in northeast Alabama in 1860. My gr-grandfather John Mitchell Reed homesteaded there, and my grandfather Alvin Reed, and my father Hugh Reed, were both born near Section, AL. I was born here in Detroit, MI.
Georgia Ann Reed married Cyrus Meredith and they moved to Texas in the 1850s, but Cyrus died in 1859, and Georgia Ann was living back in Whitfield Co., GA in 1860, with her mother Mary, born about 1796.
The Reeds first show up in the Shenandoah Valley, in Augusta Co., VA, in the 1770s. Mitchell Reed was in the militia, and several court records show his name in connection with land transactions. He left for Greene Co., TN in the 1780s. (It was still North Carolina then). He settled land in Boyd's Creek, Sevier Co., TN in 1806. I was there last year, and it's right in the shadow of the Smoky Mountains.
I think Mitchell got his name from Jane Mitchell, who married William Reed in Pennsylvania in the 1740s. I can't document it, but I think that's the Mitchell connection. William's parents were from northern Ireland. There was also an Alexander Reed in Augusta Co., VA, at the same time as Mitchell Reed, and they might be brothers. Alexander married a Rebecca Mitchell in 1784, creating a second connection with the name Mitchell. They also moved into Tennessee. So there are two lines of Reeds in east Tennessee that used the name Mitchell as a first or middle name. Which one we come from - Mitchell Reed or Alexander Reed - I don't know, but it must be one of them.
There were two Reed families in Bradley Co., TN, just across the state line from Murray Co., GA, in 1840, with children of the right ages to be the above list of siblings. One was the family of a John Reed, and the other was the family of a Mitchell Reed (a younger one than the Sevier Co. Mitchell Reed).
According to the marriage records for Murray Co., GA, Sarah Reid (note spelling) married Lewis Morgan on Nov 1, 1846. The records also show my gr-gr-grandfather Charles' marriage, and they spell his name Reid as well.
Anyway, there's a lot more, and I have been working on a history of the Reeds according to what I know. I'll send you a copy if you'd like. It's a very interesting story. The Reeds of northern Ireland were originally from Northumberland in England, and lived in a little valley called Reedsdale. They were one of the "Border Reiver" families. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_Reivers
Here is what I've been able to put together on the descendents of the Reed siblings:
1 William or John(?) REED Abt 1785 -
.. +Mary(?) UNKNOWN Abt 1796 -
........ 2 (?)Frances Reed Abt 1810 -
............ +John S. Reed 1805 -
........ 2 Joseph Reed Abt 1810 -
............ +Levina Ingram Abt 1830 -
................... 3 Tennessee Reed Abt 1854 -
................... 3 John Reed Abt 1856 -
................... 3 Charles Reed Abt 1857 -
................... 3 Donald Reed Abt 1859 -
................... 3 Rebecca Reed Abt 1862 -
........ 2 Donald Campbell "Cam" Reed 1821 - 1917
............ +Elizabeth Trout 1825 - 1899
................... 3 UnknownSon Reed
............................. 4 Elizabeth Reed Abt 1866 -
................... 3 [2] James W. Reed 1851 -
....................... +[1] Lou Wanda Cynthia Morgan 1853 - Abt 1903
............................. 4 [3] William Joseph Mitchell Reed 1883 -
................................. +[4] Anna Belle Holder
........................................ 5 [5] Leonard Reed
............................. 4 [6] Henry Reed 1885 - 1927
............................. 4 [7] Sarah Louise Reed 1887 - 1944
................................. +[8] Harle Benton
............................. 4 [9] Gertie Mae Reed 1890 - 1935
................................. +[10] James Hillard Smith 1880 - 1942
........................................ 5 [11] Vincent T. "Buster" Smith
............................. 4 [12] Anna Bell Reed 1892 - 1964
................... 3 Doctor Green Reed Abt 1858 -
....................... +Catherine Julia "Kitty" Snodgrass
............................. 4 Deward Reed
............................. 4 Samuel Reed
............................. 4 Alma Reed
............................. 4 Bertie Reed
................... 3 Colonel Samuel Reed Abt 1862 -
....................... +Rhoda Cornelia Snodgrass
............................. 4 George Campbell Reed
............................. 4 Lelia Candazie Reed
................................. +Ralph Thompson Harold
........................................ 5 Cecile Corinne Harold
............................................ +Ernest E. Robinson
............................. 4 Claudia Octavia Reed 1887 -
................................. +Telfair Hodgson Witt
........................................ 5 Malcolm Reed Witt 1911 -
........ 2 John Reed Abt 1820 -
............ +Nancy Unknown Abt 1819 -
................... 3 William Reed Abt 1847 -
................... 3 Charles Reed Abt 1849 -
................... 3 John M. Reed Abt 1856 -
....................... +Rebecca J. Unknown Abt 1855 -
............................. 4 John W. Reed Abt 1879 -
................... 3 Nancy C. Reed Abt 1860 -
................... 3 James Reed Abt 1866 -
........ 2 Sarah Louise Reed Abt 1820 -
............ +Lewis Morgan 1819 - 1864
................... 3 Rufus Samuel Morgan 1846 - 1923
............................. 4 Horace Morgan
............................. 4 John Morgan
............................. 4 Edward Morgan
............................. 4 Fletcher Morgan
................... 3 [1] Lou Wanda Cynthia Morgan 1853 - Abt 1903
....................... +[2] James W. Reed 1851 -
............................. 4 [3] William Joseph Mitchell Reed 1883 -
................................. +[4] Anna Belle Holder
........................................ 5 [5] Leonard Reed
............................. 4 [6] Henry Reed 1885 - 1927
............................. 4 [7] Sarah Louise Reed 1887 - 1944
................................. +[8] Harle Benton
............................. 4 [9] Gertie Mae Reed 1890 - 1935
................................. +[10] James Hillard Smith 1880 - 1942
........................................ 5 [11] Vincent T. "Buster" Smith
............................. 4 [12] Anna Bell Reed 1892 - 1964
................... 3 George Washington Morgan 1857 - 1932
................... 3 Joseph Heiskeil Morgan 1859 - 1909
....................... +Jeannette Shull
............................. 4 William Morgan 1883 -
............................. 4 Henry Morgan 1884 -
........ 2 Charles REED 1824 - 1910
............ +Margaret Emiline COWART 1828 - 1883
................... 3 John Mitchell REED 1847 - 1910
....................... +Julia Ann DAVIS 1848 - 1912
............................. 4 Charles Madison Reed 1869 - 1912
............................. 4 Sarah Adeline Reed 1870 - 1922
............................. 4 William Pendleton Reed 1872 - 1953
............................. 4 Alice Emiline Reed 1874 - 1959
............................. 4 Lucy Caroline Reed 1877 - 1877
............................. 4 James Reed 1878 - Aft 1880
............................. 4 John Mitchell Reed 1882 - 1944
............................. 4 Margie Angeline Reed 1885 - 1910
............................. 4 Joseph Samuel Reed 1888 - 1953
........................................ 5 Helen Reed
........................................ 5 Beman Reed
.................................................. 6 Joseph Reed
.................................................. 6 Ronald Reed - 1989
............................. 4 Alvin L. REED 1893 - 1965
................................. +Julia Cornelia BENEFIELD 1895 - 1967
........................................ 5 James Lowell Reed 1916 - 1978
............................................ +Eula Mae Paul 1917 -
.................................................. 6 Doris Jane Reed
.................................................. 6 Charles Alvin Reed
.................................................. 6 James Lowell Reed
............................................................. 7 Nathan Reed
........................................ 5 Hugh Edward REED 1925 - 2007
............................................ +Annie Byrd OLLIS 1923 -
.................................................. 6 Judith Ann REED 1951 -
...................................................... +Rhuairidh MacLEOD
............................................................. 7 Allison Dunvegan REED 1971 - 1994
.................................................. 6 Mark Edward REED 1958 -
...................................................... +Barbara Jean PIGEON 1960 -
............................................................. 7 Isaac Edward REED 2000 -
........................................ 5 John A. Reed 1931 - 2002
............................................ +Gaynell Dunn
.................................................. 6 Michael Reed 1954 - 1975
................... 3 Elihu Pendleton Reed 1850 - 1895
....................... +Amanda Black 1852 - 1928
............................. 4 Ella J. Reed 1874 -
............................. 4 Guy M. Reed 1878 -
............................. 4 Elihu Reed 1886 -
........................................ 5 Van L. Reed 1908 -
............................. 4 Van Reed 1889 -
................... 3 Sarah Jane Reed 1856 -
................... 3 Nancy Adaline Reed 1857 -
................... 3 Georgia Ann Reed 1859 -
....................... +J. F. Dickerson
................... 3 Amanda Caroline Reed 1862 -
....................... +George H. Smith
................... 3 Charles Silas Reed 1867 - 1918
....................... +Lavada Dawson
............................. 4 Arthur Wallace Reed 1903 -
............................. 4 Hugh Edward Reed 1905 -
........................................ 5 Edward Nelson Reed
........................................ 5 Gerald Reed
............................. 4 Sally Reed 1906 -
............................. 4 Carl Silas Reed 1908 -
............................. 4 Paul Reed 1910 - 1992
................................. +Bessie Kate Staton 1912 -
............................. 4 Marie Reed 1913 -
............................. 4 Charles Wonnie Reed 1915 -
........ 2 Georgia Ann Reed 1825 - 1918
............ +J. N. Easterling
........ *2nd Husband of Georgia Ann Reed:
............ +Cyrus Bolivar Meredith 1818 - 1859
................... 3 Anthony W. Meredith 1847 -
................... 3 James T. Meredith 1851 -
................... 3 Palmyra Meredith Abt 1857 -
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Hi:
The book you have on the Morgans is the one that I have 4 pages from. I have been looking for that book unsuccessfully for 20 years. Any way I can tickle a copy of it from you?
In 1850 there were a couple of Reed families in Murray Co., GA. Charles Reed (27), with wife Margaret and son John Mitchell. John Reed (30) and wife Nancy, with a brother Joseph Reed (40) living with them. I think they are all related. John is listed as a wagon maker, and that was apparently the family business for many years. I also recently found the marriage record of Sarah Reed and Lewis Morgan, and they were also in Murray Co. in 1846 when they got married.
Donald Campbell Reed and wife Elizabeth are in Catoosa Co., GA in the 1880 census. They lived on the battlefield at Chickamauga, and I have a history of the battle on the shelf here that references the D.C. Reed house as being used as a refuge by the local population during the battle. Although the pages I have from the Morgan book say D.C. Reed is buried in the Parkers Gap Cemetery in Hamilton Co., TN, he and his wife are actually buried in the Westview cemetery, Hamilton Co. The name on his wife's tombstone is Rachel E. Reed, and I've never heard her referred to as Rachel before. But they are there with their sons Green and Colonel Samuel, and their wives Kitty and Rhoda, which matches the Morgan genealogy book. The E. in Rachel E. must stand for Elizabeth, as I've only seen her listed as Elizabeth or Lizabeth before.
The stones read:
D.C. Reed, May 7, 1821-Sep 30, 1917
Rachel E. Reed, 1825-1899
Green Reed, Jan 2, 1858-Feb 20, 1938
Kittie Reed, Feb 3, 1857-May 8, 1938
C.S. Reed, Oct 24, 1860-Mar 19, 1894
Rhoda Reed, Oct 15, 1863-Sep 28, 1926
I can't make a documented connection, but I believe these Reeds to be connected with the Reeds of Sevier Co., TN. Mitchell Reed, born in Virginia in 1760 or so, was the first Reed into Tennessee, and several of his descendents bear the name Mitchell as a first or middle name, as do the Reeds of Murray Co., GA. Several of Mitchell Reed's documented grandchildren are living in Whitfield Co., GA in 1860, and Whitfield was created from Murray Co. in 1852.
What is your connection with the Reeds?
Mark
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