Page 18 - People & Places In Time

Jamestown to Tulare County
Looking at our family history and I believe this thought applies to most families whose history dates to the country’s founding for both the Smith and Mitchell sides of my heritage, I can only wonder at the consistent motivation to move on toward new prospects, a new country, new land.
William Cox arrived to the barest of settlements in 1610 on the James River, near its mouth where it empties into the Chesapeake Bay. The Mayflower didn’t sale to America until 1620. The Chiles and Hutcheson families left England a few years later to join a still struggling Jamestown. As Quakers they faced nearly insurmount- able difficulty for the most part, troubles of their own making in England. Flight to America was all that remained for them, having lost all they had in England. Their arrival here was no less difficult because of their religion, but also by the rigors of building whole new communities.
As Scots-Irish immigrants the Duff family left Ireland under threat from the English Crown related to Samuel’s activities with the failed Irish Rebellion. Eventu- ally finding a larger community of Presbyterian, Scots-Irish settlers in southwestern Virginia, Tennessee and North Carolina.
The Solomon Mitchell family came up from another Scotch-Irish, Presbyte- rian settlement near Abbyville, South Carolina, to Rogersville, Tennessee forty miles south of the Duffs in Stickleyville, Virginia.
By the early 19th century two branches of my heritage were settled within one hundred miles of the other, in the Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee corner of the country, at the very heart of what will become the Confederacy. On the Mitch- ell-Duff side, as substantial land owners they also owned slaves, several of them fight- ing and dying in the Civil War.A&L
Other family lines are less documented yet still became part of the westward migration. Of course, not all picked up stakes, in one family book there are docu- mented descendants of James Smith numbering into the many hundreds, some of those living only a few miles from the original farm in North Carolina.
Including multiple generations can integrate people from every corner of the country, but I’ve chose to focus in this chapter on the Mitchell-Duff and Smith- Hutcheson branches of my heritage. Mitchell and Smith of course are the respective sir-names of my Mother and Father.
I have some history on my Grandmother Mitchell, who’s maiden name was Bogle, but not much. I have even less for my grandmother Ruby (Moss) Smith who married my grandfather in Colorado. She had mentioned once of being originally from Pennsylvania, German background, but that’s all I have.
England to Delaware
It’s clear, that for James Smith my 3rd GGF, his decision to leave England came about when confronting the reality of too few choices available, a fresh start must have appeared his best option. Still, it seems, such a big step to those of us liv- ing with such abundance and security. James of course, had his carpentry tools and skills, and America in the late 1700’s had emerged from The Revolution with so much promise.
James was born in England on January 6, 1766, to Robert and Hanna Smith my 4th GGP. He would spend his early years in England. While still a young man, his parents died. According to English law at the time his older brother inherited all of their parents’ possessions. With his parents gone and his brother holding what little was left, James had no ties to hold him to England and so, emigrated to America. Tra- dition goes that he landed in Delaware and lived there for a short time. Then around 1790-94, he arrived in Surry (now Yadkin) county, North Carolina. It is here that he met a girl with the name Elizabeth Hutchins, who was a Quaker by birth.
The Virginia Colony
Unlike her husband James Smith, Elizabeth came from a family who had lived in America for many years and who had established themselves prominently, first in Virginia and then North Carolina. They were almost all Quakers, and very good ones at that, with a great deal of devotion, belief and strength of character.
There were numerous Hutchins families that appear early in the history of the colonies, our immediate family of Hutchins being those that were first found along the James River in Virginia. Nicholas Hutchins land grant was located about twelve miles, by paved road, past the James River from Richmond. It was about three miles below Dutch Gap. A distance of 50 miles along the James River. With Richmond as
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the center you could approximately locate this family for the first 100 years in the colony. Nicholas Hutchins (Elizabeth’s 2nd great grandfather) is the first with research- able records indicating the family arrived in Virginia Colony as early as 1625.
The members of the Nicholas Hutchins family were birthright Quakers, which means that religion was a serious matter to be taken into their daily lives. The Quaker religion emphasizes tolerance, simple living and service to their fellow man. They op-