Volume 18 , Issue 27

The Warwick Brothers Emigrants of 18th Century

Family tradition states that the Warwick brothers, William and John, came to America from England. The date and place of their arrival were uncertain, but by the late 1730's they had settled in the lower Shenandoah Valley in the newly formed Augusta County, Virginia.

An early historian, William T. Price, stated that the first Warwick in the area was a Lieutenant and surveyor for the Crown, sent to the area from James City. But the Augusta records make no mention of such an officer or surveyor. After a great deal of research it seems more plausible that the Warwick's were tradesmen from a merchant family in Brunswick. They were early on referred to as leather smiths and cobblers and probably came to America to raise cattle for their hides and trade for forest furs.

The Immigrant Warwick Brothers
The eldest brother, William, married Elizabeth Anne Dunlap (Dunlop) of Middlebrook sometime around 1737 in Orange County, Virginia. The following year John Lewis' frontier settlement was removed from the jurisdiction of Orange and the new eminence Augusta County was formed. Elizabeth was the daughter of Alexander Dunlap and his wife, Janet Ann McFarland sometimes referred to as "Jenot" or "Jean"). Alexander was said to have been the son of a soldier who was at the siege of Londonderry. Mrs. Dunlap was a descendent of Calan McFarland.

Alexander & Ann McFarland Dunlap had originally settled near Philadelphia before moving to Middlebrow, a settlement at the head waters of the Middle River in Virginia.

In the early 1740's the Dunlap's moved west over the Great North Mountain and settled on the Calfpasture River. It was said that they were the first to live on the "Pastures" (the area around the Calf, Cow & Bullpasture Rivers) and at that time the farthest most western settlers on the Virginia frontier.

In 1743 Alexander Dunlap was appointed Captain of horse in the militia, but the following year, 1744, he died. His widow later married Robert Bratton.

Captain Alexander and An Dunlap were known to have had at least four children" John, Robert, Alexander Jr. and Elizabeth, wife of William Warwick.

It was uncertain whether William and Elizabeth Warwick joined Capt. Dunlap when he ventured into the pastures or raised their family in Middlebrook. However, all their children were born in Augusta County (Janet or Jean, James, Martha, William Jr., John and Jacob, the latter being the youngest born in 1747).

In 1750 William Warwick patented land on Jackson's River which lies just east of the crest of the Allegheny Mountains - border between present day "old" and West Virginia in what is now Bath County.

William's brother John Warwick came with him to the area. It was known that the younger Warwick worked on the farm of William Wilson from 1757 to 1758 and may have been married into the family.

William Warwick saw service during the French and Indian War under Capt. George Wilson, appearing on this Company's Muster Roll of 11 August 1756 as a private. The ever present danger of Indian attack during these years prompted the Warwick's and other settlers along Jackson's River to retire eastward over Jack Mountain and resettle on the Cowpasture River. William Warwick patented 216 acres there in 1759. His brother John also moved to the Cowpasture at this time and took a three year lease at 4L (Lira) annually on 149 acres that belonged to James Gay. Mr. Gay had married William & Elizabeth Warwick's eldest daughter Jenot (Jean). Sometime soon after the last move, William Warwick left the Virginia frontier bound for England. He never returned. Nineteen or twenty years later it was found that Lt. William Warwick contracted a fever aboard a ship to England and died on his return to England.

In 1763-64, his brother John, his daughter Jenot married to James Gay and another daughter Martha who was married to Major John Stevenson were killed by the shawnee (Kerr's Creek massacre).

The Warwick Brothers of West Virginia
Joseph Bell was made guardian the Warwick children "until William's return." Nineteen year old John Warwick joined the punitive Boquet Expedition against the Shawnee in 1704 and was awarded 80 acres in 1780 for his services.

In 1779, after the family had been nearly twenty years with no word from William, Lt. Wm. Warwick was "given up for dead" and Elizabeth Dunlap Warwick married long time friend Robert Sitlington. Robert died 15 April 1804 and Elizabeth was still living on 3 December 1805.

James Warwick, the eldest son was probably circa 1740, married Elizabeth Crouch. The Crouch brothers (John, Andrew and James) had moved to America from Wales in the late 1740's. They were first found in Virginia in 1750 and settled on the North Branch of the Potomac River in far North Western Augusta County. The French and Indian War forced them to retire westward to the Pastures, where James and Elizabeth met and married. After the Treaty of 1764 the the Crouch's again headed west. Settling this time in Tygart's Valley. The settlement had been founded in 1754 by David Tygart and Robert Foyle on a branch the Monongalia River that now bears the former's name (Tygart Valley River).

The war with France had temporarily destroyed the settlement, but as soon as the hostilities ceased the settlers returned. By 1772 nearly all of the land in the official patents to their claims.

When Andrew Crouch and his brothers moved to the area in the late 1760's his daughter Elizabeth and son-in-law James Warwick came with them. Near the Old Brick Church in the Huttonsville District, present day Randolph County, West Virginia, James Warwick cleared the land, built a cabin and planted his crops - by virtue of this he claimed the surrounding creek bottom. It seems that one John S. William White also claimed the land.

The White brother's proposed to settle the matter by a "resort to a fight, fist and skull." James Warwick, fearing the result, traded lands with his father-in-law, Andrew Crouch, who was to clear his new title by attempting the challenge of the other claimants. Mr. Crouch met and vanquished William White who accepted the result with satisfaction. White and Crouch became close friends. John White was killed in the Battle of Point Pleasant. William White fell a victim to Indians in what was now Upshur County, West Virginia.

In 1857, historian William T. Price interviewed one Major Andrew Crouch, nephew of his loves namesake. This aged man related: "When he was six years old (circa 1773) his father, John Crouch, took him to the cornfield and while he worked the little boy sat on the fence. One of his uncles came up in great haste, bringing the news that Lewis Kinnan and three of his children had just been killed by Indians. The Crouch's hurried their families to the home of James Warwick, not far from where the old Brick Church stood. In their hurry the Crouch brothers and Warwick seized their guns to go help the families exposed to the Indians farther up the river, but, they neglected to barricade the fort, and so the little boy and the two little girls went out to the branch. While the little boy was washing the blood from his face, caused by his nose bleeding, the little girls became frightened and without saying anything, ran back into the fort and left him alone. When his bleeding stopped he went back and found the fort barricaded. The Crouch bothers had been met by some persons from the lower fort, took them along and so their wives and children were left to themselves at Warwick's to make out the best they could. When the boy came to the fort he heard his aunt in a loud voice giving orders as if there was quite a number of men in the fort. When in fact the force consisted of three white women, one black man and his wife and some children.

An Indian climbed to the roof of the fort building after night and set it on fire. The black man put it out, then the stable was fired. The black man said they should not burn the horse, he went out and carefully approached the place, seeing an Indian by the light, shot at him and let the horse out and safely returned to the fort. He dared the Indians to come on and as there seemed to be but two or three that showed themselves it seemed they were not disposed to storm the loud but little garrison. When the barn burned down and it became dark the black woman insisted on leaving the fort and giving the alarm farther down. She was allowed to do so and the next day the men came up and moved all farther down. Then the little boy and eight others went to bury the dead (Lewis Kinnan and his three children). After the burial, the men seeing no signs of Indians, believed they had withdrawn and so they disbanded. But late in the evening and Indian killed Frank Riffle near where the Brick Church stood and burned two houses not far away belonging to James Lackey.

The black man in Warwick's fortified cabin that night of the siege was a slave pf James Warwick and according to the elderly Major Crouch, James rewarded his faithful negro with his freedom for saving the fort.

The old Major Crouch also related that his uncle James Warwick was a small man and this was the reason he felt he could not take on the White brothers in a fight. Others related that James Warwick was a school teacher and a very pious man. His early education was under the tutorage of the Rev. John Craig, the compassionate Presbyterian minister of the western Virginia frontier. It was also said the Warwick brothers (sons of William) were converted to that faith by him.

If James Warwick was a small and quiet man, his youngest brother Jacob, born in 1747, was the exact opposite. According to historian Price, he was tall, muscular and quite aggressive.

In 1765, while still a teenager, Jacob Warwick married Mary Vance (1750-1823), the daughter of Colonel John P. Vance and his wife Marha. During the early years of their marriage they lived at Dunmore in present day Pocahontas County, West Virginia (all of their children were born there). Jacob Warwick was a cattleman and Indian fighter. He joined the Punitive Expedition against the Ohio tribes known as Lord Dunmore's War of 1774, as a private.

On October 10, 1774, at Point Pleasant he was among a group of men who quite by accident were credited for turning the tide of battle that day. Jacob and several other men had been detailed to kill deer for the army and were returning from the hunt that day and were mistaken by the old Indian war chief, Cornstalk, as re-enforcements, swaying his decision to surrender.

Jacob spent a lifetime fighting the Shawnee but he related "was never sure but killing one Indian." Soon after that affair at Point Pleasant, Jacob went among the Shawnee on a trading excursion to secure skins and furs. While there he saw that many white captives and not been returned as required by the treaty. At first he attempted to buy a young boy's freedom from his adopted Indian parents but they refused to relinquish him. He dropped the matter and waited until their guard was down, stole the child, and returned him to Augusta County.

There were many accounts of white captives being returned by Jacob in the history of Western Virginia and some believe that he was driven and discovered others while searching for some of his own missing children and relatives.

Warwick's During American Revolution
With the outbreak of the Revolution, Indian hostilities encouraged by the British broke out on the Virginia frontier.

On December 7, 1777, during an unexpected snowstorm, twenty-three Indians penetrated the Tygart's settlement and attacked Darby Connelly's house. Darby was at the time on the roof removing snow. They killed him, his wife and several children, taking three prisoners. They then proceeded a short distance down the river to the cabin, that of John Stuart. They killed John, his wife and child and took Miss Hamilton, his wife's sister, prisoner.

John Hadden discovered the bodies the following day and notified Capt. Ben Wilson. A group of settlers pursued the raiders but lost the trail. It was related that in time Jacob Warwick returned Mary Hamilton to the settlement. Administration of John Stuart's estate was granted on March 7, 1773 to William Hamilton. The estate of Darby Connelly was appraised by William Hamilton, John Hamilton and John Warwick.

At the same point, probably around 1774 to 1775, James Warwick relocated further south to the Greenbrier River, leaving his land to his eldest son, John Warwick. John was probably born sometime around 1759 or 1760. He married a Miss Nancy Hamilton. William Hamilton, Sr. and his wife Else (Alice) had immigrated from England via Pennsylvania to Augusta County, Virginia prior to 1749. They first took up residence in an old Indian camping hut on Back Creek, a branch of Jackson's River. Sometime around 1767 they moved to Tygart's Valley with their sons: John, James, William Jr., Andrew and Alexander Hamilton, all mature men in the 1750's.

John Warwick, (son of James, and later of Warwick's Cross Roads) married Miss Hamilton circa 1775 in Tygart's Valley. In the first year of the Revolution the area, then part of West Augusta, was formed into Monongalia County. On a list of contributors to the Continental Army housed in Monongalia County court house appeared the name John Warwick. It is related that John Warwick on several occasions drove large herds of cattle to both Virginia and Pennsylvania helping feed Washington's Army.

His uncle William Warwick Jr. served three years as a sergeant in the Virginia State Artillery for which he received a land bounty warrant #839, for 200 acres on Deer Creek.

Jacob Warwick was commissioned Lieutenant of the Augusta Militia under Capt. William Kincaid and held that rank and position throughout the war.

John Warwick's great uncle, Robert Dunlap, was killed at Guilford Court house. During the early years of the war, John and Nancy Warwick had the following children:

Delilah born circa 1777 and William, called Willie born circa 1779. John does not appear on any known Militia list; nevertheless, he was known to have participated in several Indian fights during the war years.

In March 1780, a neighbor, Thomas Lackey observed moccasin tracks in the path near Fort Hadden and while examining them he heard someone in an undertone say, "Leave him one. He will go and bring more." Lackey went to the fort and reported what he had seen and heard but it was not believed. There were at the time several men from Greenbrier staying all night in the fort, intending to start home the next morning. Among them were Lt. Jacob Warwick, who had been visiting his nephew John. When they set out, a few of the men belonging to the area, including John, accompanied them a short distance.

Although warned of the danger, they approached the spot carelessly and were fired upon by the Indians. Lt. Warwick's horse was hit and sank to the ground as if dead, but as Jacob was in the act of throwing off his cloak to fight, the horse rose and Warwick darted off at top speed. Warwick promised his horse that if he would carry him safely away, that he need never work again. Though sounded in the high, the horse did as Jacob wished. The ball was extracted and Lt. Warwick kept his promise.

The footmen from the fort were surrounded and their only chance for escape was to cross the shallow river and climb the opposite side. John McLain was killed 30 yards from the crest; James Ralston still nearer the top; James Crouch (John Warwick's uncle was wounded as he reached the crest but made his way to the fort the next day. John Nelson, after crossing the river, attempted to escape down the bank, but was met by an Indian and was killed after a desperate hand to hand battle, as was evidenced by his shattered gunstock, the upturn earth and the locks of Indian hair in his still clutched hand. John Warwick, though shaken, reached the fort unscathed.

During this time, John's father & mother, James & Elizabeth Crouch Warwick, were residing in the newly formed (1778) Greenbrier County. In 1780 the court there ordered James to be appointed constable in Capt. Hugh Miller's company. In 1781 James was summoned to the next court to show cause why he "does not qualify as a constable."

On 24 April 1783, James was called as a witness along with several women, Mary Ann Mason, Ann Williams, Ann Craig, Mary Price, Sarah Carlise and his wife in the case against Amy Bratton on suspicion of murdering her illegitimate child. The court found enough evidence of guilt and Amy was jailed, awaiting trial in Richmond.

The Migration From West Virginia
Just prior to the American Revolution the Dunlap's, Gay's and Warwick's had made several exploratory trading trips through Kentucky to what is now Ohio. In 1780 James Gay, Jr. was in the process of settling on the Elk River near present day Lexington, Kentucky when word of the Indian raid on Hadden's Fort prompted him to return and enlist in the Militia there. In 1782 James Dunlap, at age 15, the first cousin of James Warwick, patented 1 200 acres of land on the Elk River in what is now Woodford county, Kentucky, for his father, Alexander Dunlap, Jr. During Lord Dunmore's War in 1794, little James at age six was mounted on a black stallion, whose back had been tarred so as to enable him to stick to his stead, and sent with a message through Indian lines from Clover Lick to Warwick's Fort on Deer Creek to bring assistance.

In 1784, a large wagon train of kinsmen was formed, intent on settling these lands on the Elk River. James Gay Jr., Col. Alexander Dunlap Jr., John Warwick (son of William Sr) and his brother Lt. Jacob Warwick all headed westward with their families. While crossing the mountains, the advance scouts were killed by Indians and left in the path scalped and naked. The sight was too much for Jacob's wife Mary and she refused to proceed further.

Alexander deeded over his Dunlap lands at Clover Lick to Jacob and they returned to Virginia. Brother John Warwick continued on to the Elk River where his sons and daughters grew to adulthood and married. His eldest son Jacob III married Jane Montgomery and later moved to Indiana where he was killed at the Battle of Tippicanoe while serving under William Henry Harrison as a Captain. Capt. Warwick's bravery in this action of 1811 won him the esteem and admiration of his General and later President Harrison. Warwick (the spelling of the family name at the time) County, Indiana was named for him. Lt. Jacob Warwick returned to Virginia, lived at Clover Lick for some time, then settled on his Jackson's River lands. When Bath County, Virginia was formed in 1791, he was among the first Justices of the Peace. Old Lt. Jacob Warwick died January 11, 1826 and was buried on the West bank of Jackson's River near Fort Dinwiddie.

James Crouch, who had been wounded at the raid at Harden's Fort had enough of Shawnees and moved southward and settled in Washington County, North Carolina (now Tennessee). It was uncertain whether he long survived his wounds but his sons appear on Washington County Tax Lists as early as 1787. John Warwick (son of James) for the time being remained in Tygart's Valley. Daughter Nancy Warwick was born there in 1783. In the summer of 1784 he purchased the lands of William Hadden, who had moved to Fayette County, Virginia (now Kentucky), 186 acres in Monongalia County. That was the same year Harrison County was formed. Sometime before 1785 John Warwick's grandfather Andrew Crouch died leaving his grandmother Judy to be cared for.

In 1787 Randolph County was formed from Harrison. That same year John Warwick reported several of his horses had been stolen by Indians. A Tax List of that year showed John with: seven slaves, 15 horses and 69 head of cattle. Also in 1787, son Willis Warwick was born, the following year daughter Mercy Warwick was born. Due to the lack of good records, what happened during the next decade, 1790 to 1900, had been a very difficult segment of the Warwick history to uncover, nevertheless, there were enough bits and places to assemble a somewhat vague understanding of the events that transpired and how some of the Warwick's came to be in East Tennessee. In 1786, the first wife, Mary, of John Warwick passed away at their new home near the Elk River in what is now Clark County, Kentucky. It seemed arrangements were made to take a second wife, the "old maid" daughter of John Crouch, Sr., who had just recently died of a snake bite. The elder John crouch, now deceased, was, of course, one of the original Welsh immigrants and brother of James Warwick's father-in-law. Eleanor Crouch was escorted to Kentucky, to her new home and husband by two of her first cousins children," Jacob and Wyatt, sons of James & Elizabeth Crouch Warwick. After their mission had been accomplished, Jacob and Wyatt chose not to return to Virginia but remained in the Lexington area with their uncle and other kinsmen. A daughter of James and Elizabeth Warwick, whose first name was unknown, was believed to have married James Boggs. Mr. Boggs became a reined Indian tracker and an early explorer of Southern Ohio.

Sometime around the mid-1790's, James Warwick and his wife's brother, Joseph Crouch, probably encouraged by good reports from Wyatt, Jacob and Mrs. Boggs, decided to relocate in the North West Territory. They probably stopped and stayed for a while in Kentucky but it is uncertain. Regardless, by the turn of the century they had settled in Ross County, Ohio in Concord Township., he did not indicate which one.

James Warwick made his home at Old Town, once sacred capital of the Shawnee Nation, and it was here that he died sometime between 1810 and 1820. He had been accompanied to the area by his youngest son, William, born circa 1760-1770. Son, William had cleared a farm in Paint Township and had at least four sons: William Jr., James, John and Alexander Warwick. According to Old Major Crouch in 1857 one of these grandsons of James became a congressman from Ohio, but he did not indicate which one.

James Warwick's sons, Jacob and Wyatt, did not accompany him and their youngest brother, William, to Ohio but remained in Kentucky. Details of their lives there had thus far been impossible to ascertain. Wyatt Warwick appeared as a witness on a document dated 28 December 1795, concerning the transfer flanks on Elk River in Fayette County. Jacob Warwick, son of James, was found on a Montgomery County, Kentucky Tax List dated 1797. Curiously, among the men on this same list were: John Hamilton, James Lane and James Hinds. The next time their names were found in the records were 1807, living on Hinds Creek in then Knox County, Tennessee.

The John Hamilton, who appeared on the list, was the son of James Hamilton, uncle to John Warwick of Randolph county's wife. He had moved to Kentucky prior to 1774 when the area was still known as Fincastle County, Virginia.

This same John Hamilton was also an early settler of Ross County, Ohio. There was limited knowledge the Hamilton's that settled Hamilton's Cross Roads now Union County, Tennessee. The earlier mention found concerning them was in a Knoxville newspaper dated 12 August 1794, when 15 Indians attacked the Bull Run Blockhouse, stealing Hind's, Barton's and Hamilton's horses. Whether William, Peter and Alexander Hamilton of Hind's Ridge were in-laws of John Warwick of Warwick's Cross Roads is not certain. Regardless of whether there was or is not any Hamilton or Hinds connection, that may have influenced the Warwick brothers moved to Tennessee, the prime motivation as the following:

"As stated earlier the children of John Warwick's uncle, James Crouch, moved into upper East Tennessee probably as of 1787. In a contemporaneous account of the area, an early historian made mention of Warwick traders and also added that they must have been part Indian. They could find no records of Warwick's in East Tennessee at that time other than this brief passage. (It should probably be noted that there was one Martn Wyrick who settled briefly in Sullivan county before relocating in Lee County, Virginia, and it was perhaps his son William Wyrick that settles in Grainger county, but there was no known connection between the two families).

This was not evidence that any Warwick ever had an Indian bride. Nevertheless, it was possible that John Warwick may have been married more than once and that one of those wives could possibly have been a Cherokee, perhaps from the villages Northwest of Wall's Station. Yet it was probably more plausible that the old historian made his deduction used on appearance alone.

It would not have been unusual for white men on extended excursions into the wilderness to adapt the attire of the local inhabitants, some perhaps going so far as to let their pony tails down and the wearing of feathers. A third possibility was that John Warwick had been held captive as a young boy by the Shawnee, perhaps rescued by the Cherokee, and on visits dressed like them and spoke their language so well that he could be mistaken for part Indian. There were only possible explanations for the above Indian statement, and the real reason behind it may never be known. What is important is that John Warwick and probably his sons were in contact with the Crouch's there - first cousins and childhood friends of John Warwick - Joseph & John Crouch and their sons - James, John Jr, Jesse and Elijah Crouch.

On October 16, 1800 in Grainger County, Tennessee, William "Willie" Warwick, eldest son of John Warwick, of Randolph County, married Margaret "Peggy" Lane, eldest daughter of Isaac Lane and his wife Sarah Russell. This union is the earliest record of the Warwick family in what is now Union County, Tennessee.

John & his son Willie "Warwick" first appear in Anderson County in 1802, both on a tax list, and the former included in road orders from the court. On the Tax List there is no property indicated. In the Grainger County Court on Feb 1804, James LANE (brother of Margaret Lane Warwick) attests that a deed exists between the LANEs and John Warwick. It is my contention that the bulk of the Warwick land in what is now Little Valley, Union County and in particular Warwick's Cross Roads was a wedding gift to the Warwick's from the LANE family.

On Feb 6th 1805, John WARWICK purchased an additional 100 acres on Hind's Creek in Anderson County from Stephen LEWIS. In 1816 John Warwick purchased two more tracts (108 and 200 acres) in Grainger County from John Sally (SALLE) extending the Warwick holding from Hind's Creek to beyond Crooked Creek. John Warwick made his home on Hind's Creek near Well's Station - the area would soon be known as "Warwick's Cross Roads."

Like his father, James, John Warwick was a pious man, and became an ardent Baptist. It is uncertain exactly when this conversion occurred. Tindence LANE, John's daughter-in-law, Peggy's uncle, was perhaps one of the most prominent Baptist Ministers in early East Tennessee and is said to have been converted and ordained by the Rev. Shubal Stearns himself. John Crouch, Sr. and his second wife Elizabeth Cloud Lane Crouch were early members of the Big Springs Baptist Church in Claiborne County.
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