Virgie Griffin Burnett's Indian Ancestry

Written by Jim Farmer / jims-email@hotmail.com               January 16, 2017 / Updated July 5, 2018

Virgie Careener Griffin Burnett

This picture is of Virgie Careener Griffin Burnett. She is my Mom’s grandmother and our family’s connection to Native America ancestors. Mostly English, she was about 10% Native American and another 10% German. She was married to Jeremiah Burnett, a Civil War Veteran who was the fourth generation of Jeremiahs in a row.

Both of Virgie’s parents, John W. Griffin and Mary Magdalene Whitman, were descendants of American Indians from various Indian nations: Cherokee, Catawba and a group of smaller nations often referred to collectively as Saponi.[i]

Saponi Nations of Virginia

It is through Virgie’s great grandmother named Miles Bunch that she connects to different tribes of the Saponi Indians. While the names of each tribe differed—Monacan, Monahoac, Tutelo, Occaneechi, Sara, and others—it was their Siouan language that joined them together.  Many backwoodsmen in colonial Virginia took Saponi women as wives, but in one case, one of her Indian ancestors was male. Most likely he had been captured as a child and then raised as a servant in the English settlements. His lineage is first identified starting with Henry Sizemore.[ii] Today many Sizemore families, along with Miles Bunch, are descendants.

 South Carolina Indians 1700-1716

Virgie Griffin’s other Indian connections have roots that go back to the late 1600s in colonial South Carolina. At that time the English colony consisted of the Charleston settlement with a smattering of plantations along the coast. The colony was barely 20 years old. Surrounding Charleston were numerous Indian nations, most which are now extinct.

Figure 2 - James Oglethorpe presenting Tomochichi to London.

From the beginning of their arrival in colonial South Carolina, our Griffins were involved in the Indian trade business. Edward Griffin, a very-great uncle to Virgie, traded with many of the coastal Indians.[iii] As was often the case for Indian traders who lived months at a time among the Indians, he had an Indian wife. In his case, she was a member of the Yuchi Nation and sister to “Old Brim,” an important Yuchi chief. English records report that Edward Griffin’s two Yuchi children had English names: Edward and Mary. He, himself, died early in 1716 when the neighboring Yamasee Indians attacked the Indian traders among them as well as the English plantations along the Carolina coast. His mixed-blood son Edward would die in 1739 fighting for General James Oglethorpe against the Spanish at Fort Mose in Spanish-held Florida.[iv]  

Figure 3 - Mary Griffin and Husband John Musgove's Trading Post Location

It is Edward’s daughter Mary Griffin, called Coosaponakeesa, who is the most famous person related to us.[v] She is often referred to as the Pocahontas of Georgia. As a young woman, Mary Griffin acted as interpreter for General Oglethorpe when he first established the colony of Georgia. She was the go-between for Oglethorpe and Tomochichi, a Yamacraw chief. Along with her husband John Musgrove, she became an Indian trader in her own right. She met with John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, and he wrote about her in his journals. When she was married to John Musgrove, her first husband, Mary Griffin had three sons, all who died young. After Musgrove’s death, she married twice again. As many Georgia records show, until her death in 1765, she fought hard to legally acquire extensive land holdings she felt were due her for her work with Oglethorpe. Hers was a time when women and Indians had few if any rights.[vi] 

Thomas Brown and The Catawba

Mary Coosaponakeesa’s uncle and Edward Griffin’s brother was called Joseph Griffin.[vii] He was addressed as “weaver” in the records and married Joyce Baker, a daughter of the wealthy Baker family of Spring Farm Plantation. Joseph and Joyce Griffin were members of the “Dissenter” religious community as they did not follow the tenets of the Church of England. They, and others like them, were allowed to settle outside of Charleston where Joyce helped found the Ashley River Baptist Church in 1736. Many of this couple’s sons and daughters married into the wealthy families of South Carolina, making our Griffins related to South Carolina’s famous generals, plantation owners, and politicians of the era. Two of their sons, William and Joseph, however, would follow their uncle Edward Griffin and cousin Joseph Cantey into the Indian trade business. It was William who was Virgie’s ancestor, and it was through him she connects to the Catawba Indian Nation.

In the early part of the 1700s, the Catawba Indian Nation inhabited most of central South Carolina and North Carolina. The Catawba spoke a form of the Siouan language like the Saponi, suggesting they shared a common heritage.  Early in the history of South Carolina, the Catawba chose to support the English of Charleston, joining them in a number of battles against other Indian tribes such as the Tuscarora of North Carolina and the Cherokee in the Appalachia Mountains.

One of the earliest Catawba Indian traders was Joseph Cantey[viii], the older cousin related to Joyce Baker Griffin. Another early Catawba trader was Thomas Brown.[ix] William Griffin would have worked with both Cantey and Brown about 1730 presumably first as a packhorse man, leading long trains of horses through the sand hills of South Carolina into the Catawba Nation. Later he may have been an Indian trader, himself, for the Catawba people.

Figure 4 - The Fork between the Wateree and Congaree Rivers showing Toms Creek. Griffin Creek is a branch off Toms Creek.

DNA testing suggests William Griffin had taken as his wife a mixed-blood daughter of Thomas Brown. [x]  William Griffin and Thomas Brown even established their homesteads together close on the trail leading to the Catawba Nation in-between the Congaree and Wateree Rivers. Today the location is part of Richland County. Thomas Brown settled on Toms Creek, and William settled on a tributary named Griffins Creek.  William Griffin and his wife, Thomas Brown’s daughter, were the parents of Virgie’s great grandfather, named John Griffin. He would be Virgie’s mixed-blood Catawba ancestor. He would also be the first of three generations named John. And he would be the husband of Miles Bunch mentioned above.

By the end of the 1730s smallpox severely decimated the Catawba Nation’s population. With the loss of the Catawba as a resource, Thomas Brown and the Griffin family had to refocus their activities away from the Catawba and begin trading with the Cherokee.

Joseph and William Griffin and our Cherokee Beginnings

Figure 5 - The Cherokee Emissaries Sent to King George in 1730.

More than likely, Virgie did not know of her Catawba or Saponi Indian connections. But she did remember being related to the Cherokee. At some point, she conveyed this to her children, for they remembered being told they were Cherokee. In 1934, when the US government reversed its decision to break up the reservations, Virgie’s children weighed the advantages to seeing if they should make a claim for their Cherokee birthright and move onto a reservation in Oklahoma. They may have even known that they had Griffin cousins who were already a part of the Cherokee Nation and living in Oklahoma. But, like many others who hoped to prove a Cherokee heritage, their ancestors’ names are not on any of the official Cherokee Rolls, and they are not recognized as members of the Cherokee Nation.

The Cherokee had been making their home in the Appalachia Mountains from time immemorial. Their early association with the English newcomers began in the 1600’s. By 1730, through the negotiations of Alexander Cumming, Chief Moytoy sent an emissary to London to meet with King George II and establish trade agreements.

Our Griffin family was involved as early as 1732 in trading with the Cherokee.  Joseph Griffin, the brother of William, was called an Indian trader in the records when he mortgaged his share of their father’s land to purchase trade goods.[xi] He would have taken these wares up into the Cherokee Nation and traded them for deerskins which were then in demand back in Europe. William Griffin’s brother Joseph had married Ann Elders, the daughter of William Elders, one of the earliest Cherokee Indian traders. After Joseph had died, she remarried to James Holmes, and together they continued to as Indian traders. After Joseph’s death, Thomas Nightingale, a merchant and saddler involved in supporting the Cherokee trade business, raised his children.[xii]

William Griffin, Joseph’s brother, would mortgage his own inheritance in 1737 and entered the Cherokee trade as well.[xiii] The route these Griffin brothers and other Indian traders took into the Cherokee Nation went from Charleston near Nightingale’s plantation, then up along the Congaree River through Amelia Township, before going to the Cherokee town of Keowee. At this time Keowee was the gateway to all the other towns and villages of the Cherokee people. The trail from Charleston to Keowee was called the Cherokee Path. 

.

John Vann, Trader at Ninety-Six

Going up the Cherokee Path but before arriving at any of the Cherokee towns, Indian traders, their packmen and their teams of packhorses often congregated at a place called “Ninety-Six.” People, later on, thought the location was called that because it was 96 miles from the Cherokee town of Keowee, but the name was originally meant to identify where the trail crossed from the Saluda/Congaree River basin into the Savannah River basin. Ninety-six is where the trail went between a number of small creeks flowing east and then a number of small creeks flowing west. This anomaly was captured on an early map as “96”, and was only meant to signify that unique place along the path, not a number of miles.

Figure 6 - The "96" notation drawn on Hunter's map of 1730 Figure 7 - Hunter's note on the distance between Charleston and Keowee

Thomas Brown, the Catawba Indian trader, was one of the first to acquire land there. He did so in 1738.[xiv] William Griffin also may have been there, although no record shows it. (William died sometime after 1744.[xv]) While each trader had their own Indian town assigned to them within the Indian Nation, Ninety-Six became a common place for them to gather, re-dress the loads on the packhorses, and better prepare for the trip up or down the Cherokee trail. It was also where they maintained pens for their horses.

Date: 6/13/1749
Deed: James Grant, Indian Trader, to John Cuthbert of Charles Town, Cooper
Bill of Sale for three branded horses purchased from Robert Ferguson, the said horses residing in a range at Ninety Six upon Wilsons Creek; and one little grey horse currently with Captain Andrew Brown at Saluda.[xvi]

About this time, other Indian traders, including John Vann, Thomas Nightingale, and Robert Goudy acquired land at Ninety-Six as well. [xvii]

1743/06/30

John Vann, Indian Trader of Ninety Six, to Thomas Brown, Indian Trader of the Congarees, Saxe-Gotha Township, bill of sale for seven mares, six colts, seven geldings, all the cattle formerly belonging to William Hanly and all the Indian trading goods at Ninety Six.

Both John Vann and Robert Goudy had been living among the Cherokee for some time, trading with them, and had as a consequence each had taken an Indian wife. According to Cherokee records, John Vann’s wife was a member of the Wild Potato Clan.[xviii] Most genealogies refer to John as “Trader John.” Only a single son is known to be their child. His name was also John Vann, and he is the mixed-blood Cherokee ancestor of Virgie.  

Figure 8 – “An Accurate Map of North and South Carolina," 1775 – Showing Ninety-Six and the Cherokee Path

About this time, in 1751, the conflicts in the Cherokee country started to heat up the tensions between the natives and the English. One of the sparks apparently was started with the theft of deer skins by Benjamin Burgess. James Francis of Ninety-Six, who was probably no fan of Trader John Vann, reported that John Vann of Ninety-six had a household of:

…unsavory character — including three Negroes, a Mulatto and a half-breed Indian — "all bearing an Equal Character with Burgess.[xxii]

By April, a small number of Cherokee warriors conspired to kill the Indian traders living among them. Traders had to flee and so did the residents of Ninety-Six. The events happening in the Indian Nation was reported by John Bryant, our ancestor. These are his words:

Deposition of John Bryant, May 4, 1751, DRIA, 41;

Memorandum [sic]

              That John Byant [sic] personally came before me and made Oath (being duely sworn) that he was in Timossy, a lower Town of the Cherokee Nation, when he was informed of Mr. Maxwell’s making his escape from Kewoche, with several white Men in his Company. Considerably before Day, he says he was credibly informed of the Affair as follows, viz.: Mr. Beamer sent one of his  Men to Hioree for Corn, who going to Kewoche aforesaid was stop’t by an Indian Fellow of  that Town who, when he knew where the said white Man was going, told him not to proceed, for there was four white Men killed, naming them to the said white Man, viz., Daniel Murphey, Barnard Hughs, Charles G___ and Thomas Langley, and further told him the Mr. Maxwell was gone off before Day with several white Men in his Company, and that there was no white Man left where he was going. … The Day following, the head Men of three Towns, viz., Tymossey, Chewee, and Ustostee, had a Meeting and proposed the Day following to have another, intending to have Mr. Beamer to hear their Talks, and also to write to the beloved Men (as they said) Below. But the Night proceeding, Mr. Beamer came to Tymossey, wherein was this John Bryant aforesaid and three more white Men. …  warning thim [sic} to make what Haste he could and follow him. Mr. Beamer, being known to be [thoroughly] acquainted with Indian Affairs, and Humours, put them to a great Surprize and caused them forthwith to hurry off, as fast as possible.

              Further the John Bryant saith not.

              Sworn this 4^th Day of May 1751 before me.                                      Jas. Francis.

 

James Maxwell made a Deposition … that on Apr 27, 1751 "... John Vann, who had fled with his wife and family from Ninety Six, told us that one John Watts and others were come that way and said they narrowly escaped with life.”
^[xxiii]

In fact, it may have been the retreat from the Cherokee Nation and Ninety-Six trading post that allowed John Vann's son John and John Bryan's daughter to meet and marry. According to an earlier land patent, John Bryan had arrived in the backcountry before 1738 settling on the Congaree River in Amelia Township.[xix] This is most likely where John Vann and his family fled when they left Ninety-Six. It is this next record that is most important. It shows that Bryan's daughter married John Vann, the mixed-blood son of the trader John Vann.

Date: March 1, 1751/1752

Deed: John Briant of Ninety-Six, Planter, to John Vann, son of John Vann of Ninety-Six. A deed of gift for one branded bay mare, six branded colts, and seven branded cows.^[xx]

The record is a deed of gift or, in actuality, the transfer of a dowry for a very unusual union between a mixed-blood Cherokee boy and an mulatto English girl. Fortunately for us, mtDNA has confirmed the connection: the maternal line of our Cherokee family was European, not Indian. In addition, In addition, Virgie's maternal DNA testing connects her to John Bryan's wife and daughter through another early Ninety-Six neighbor William McClure.[xxi] 

Then, in 1760 the Cherokee again attacked white intruders and Indian traders they found living near their territory.

January 1760 - John Downing, Bernard Hughes, and other traders fleeing [the Cherokee] Middle Settlements and by passing the Lower Town, arrived at John Vann’s on Georgia’s Broad River. ...On the Georgia frontier, the Cherokee assault failed when John Vann escaped the attack upon his home and roused the militia. …On the thirtieth Aaron Price, who had stolen [away] from Fort Prince George [at Keowee], warned Ninety-Six.

The follow-up attempt in routing the Indians was reported in the South Carolina Gazette, No. 1336 – March 15 to 22, 1760:

That on the 29^th ult. Lieuts. Barnard and Butler with a detachment of 35 from the Georgia Rangers, and 6 Chickasaws marched from Augusta to reconnoiter the upper settlements, as far as Vann’s house on Broad River, where it was said some Cherokees were encamped and would leave their women and children…but they returned without seeing any of the enemy.[xxv]

Afterward the Ninety-Six community was rebuilt and continued to grow. The Cherokee people reestablished lost villages and replanted destroyed crops and orchards. As both recovered over time, the Indian traders moved their operations closer to the Indian country along and across the Savannah River. John Vann had property that bordered the Savannah River. John Vann, Jr. established a home on the other side where the Broad River that marked the beginning of the Cherokee lands joined the Savannah.[xxiv]

Thomas Waters, Indian Trader, Merchant and Soldier

Figure 9 - Colonial Representation of the Indian Trade Business

Colonel Thomas Waters was both Virgie’s great grandfather and her great-great grandfather. There are ample DNA records to show this.[xxvi] On July 1^st, 1762, Thomas Waters, only recently having arrived from Virginia, was commissioned Quarter Master of the 2^nd Troop of the Georgia Rangers, thus beginning a long career in the British military service.[xxvii] But he also soon became an Indian trader among the Cherokee. Originally a resident of Ebenezer, Georgia, he most likely lived in Augusta. From there he traded with the Cherokee and, consequently, took his first of two Cherokee wives.

His first Cherokee wife was a mixed-blood daughter of Cherokee John Vann and the daughter of John Bryan.  mtDNA confirms that Thomas Waters’s Cherokee wife’s maternal line was not of Indian descent even though she and her descendants were, in many cases, considered to be Indian. Her connection to the Cherokee was only through John Vann, Jr.  That meant Thomas Waters’s wife was one-quarter Cherokee. But being the daughter of John Bryan also meant she had no familial connection to the Cherokee. Only through a mother’s clan was a woman be a part of the Cherokee community. 

By 1769, Waters and 2^nd Lieutenant Edward Barnard—referred to in the records as Indian traders and copartners—purchased 200 acres of land on the South Carolina side of the Savannah River near Fort Charlotte that had been recently built as protection for settlers from Creek Indians. This purchase became the Waters stockade. His neighbors were John Vann, Edward Vann, and Bryan Ward, each part of the Cherokee trade business. Across the Savannah was John Vann, son of John Vann and father of Thomas Waters’s wife.

Charleston, South Carolina

13 April 1769
James McClenachan, yeoman of Charleston to Edward Barnard & Thomas Waters, Indian Traders & copartners, of Granville County, for £325 currency, 200 acres on Savannah River, bounding SW on said river; SE on John Vaun [sic]  & vacant land on other sides...

Witnesses James Morgan, Bryan” X” Ward. Before John Pickens, Jr. J.P..
Recorded 17 October 1769.[xxviii]

At this time Thomas Waters and his first mixed-blood wife had children. Through mtDNA tests, at least three daughters have been identified.[xxix] Two of these daughters were ancestors of Virgie. Another daughter was named Oney Waters. There may have been other Cherokee daughters and sons.  According to later records, one of his daughters was the wife of George Guess, aka Sequoia, the creator of the Cherokee Syllabary.[xxx]

Figure 10 - George Guess, aka Sequoia.

Thomas Waters also had an English wife named Lydia Stuart, although her name is not known for certain. With her, he had at least four children: Philemon, David, Lydia, and Roseanna. Later on, they or their spouses are often shown in the records supporting their Cherokee cousins.[xxxi]

It is not known what happened to his first Cherokee wife, the daughter of John Vann, Jr. But later on, Thomas Waters took another Cherokee mixed-blood wife, named Sarah Hughes. She was the daughter Bernard Hughes, an Indian trader. She was mentioned later in Moravian records and may have been a aunt to Thomas’ first Cherokee wife. Thomas Waters and Sarah Hughes had two children, George Morgan Waters (born 1777) and Mary Waters (c1778). Later in life George Morgan became one of the wealthiest members of the Cherokee Nation in Georgia.

The 2nd Cherokee War

Thomas Waters’s involvement with the Cherokee people continued for many years to come. In 1773 Thomas Waters and Edward Keating sent letters requesting that the Georgia colonial government establish a reward for the capture of the murderer of two Cherokee Indians. A few years later he was instrumental in completing a treaty with the Creek and Cherokee which transferred thousands of acres of native lands into the hands of the colony of Georgia.[xxxii]

The Griffins also had family still involved in the Cherokee trade. The widow of Joseph Griffin, Anne Elder and her new husband James Holmes were prominent traders, owning a trading house and stockade at the Ninety-Six Trading Post on the Cherokee Path.

Then, in the year 1776, at the beginning of the Revolutionary War the Cherokee Nation took it as an opportunity to aggressively protect themselves against the constant encroachment of settlers coming into their homeland from Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina. A Philadelphia newspaper at the time reported those actions taken by two Cherokee warriors:

…the Glass and Terrapin came to the house of Mr. James Holmes in Keowee, where [the deponent] saw a great number of the Lower Towns Cherokee Indians, where they had taken Mr. Holmes and his wife and a white child prisoners… the Indians drove all the white people out of the house and sent a party up the river with them to guard them, except this deponent, who staid and saw them plunder Mr. Holmes’s house.[xxxiii]

The Second Cherokee War was short lived. Four armies, one from Virginia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Georgia, marched through the Cherokee Nation in what we would call today a scorched-earth campaign. The result was the loss of the Cherokee country that now makes up the north-western counties of South Carolina and parts of North Carolina. The Second War would not, however, be the last armed conflict between the Cherokee and the colonists.

Thomas Waters and The American Revolution

At the same time, the call for America’s independence from Britain was driving a wedge between people of the backcountry. There were many reasons for the split in South Carolina. The early settlers of the backcountry did not trust the plantation owners of the East. The more recent settlers, coming down from Pennsylvania, Virginia, and North Carolina, had no special connection to English rulers. But the traders and their associates were dependent on England and its British markets.

Figure 11 - Gen. Thomas Brown, Col. Thomas Water’s Commander.

James Holmes was one of those who chose to remain a staunch Tory supporter. Thomas Waters did the same. Loyal to Britain and his appointment as an Officer of the Crown, Thomas Waters remained a soldier in the British Rangers of Georgia under General Thomas Brown. He did this even as his brother  Philemon Waters became a leader of the American forces in South Carolina. As a Loyalist, Thomas Waters would fight against Georgia’s newly arrived backcountry settlers. These American patriots fought under the name “Sons of Liberty.” Many of them were there because of the land that Waters had acquired from the Cherokee and Creek. For both sides of the Revolution, the war quickly became personal.

As the war escalated in Georgia and the backcountry, General Brown had a plan, and the Cherokee became an integral part. He wanted to use Cherokee warriors against the Georgia Patriots in the backcountry employing guerrilla tactics, and he selected Thomas Waters to lead them. Up until 1782 and the end of the war, Waters lead Tory soldiers and Cherokee warriors in raids against various Georgia strongholds. Among the Cherokee was Sour Mash, an uncle of Thomas Waters's wife. Eventually, Waters’s militia came up against Andrew Pickens and Elijah Clarke. At the end, encamped at Sour Mash's village near Long Swamp and Thomas Waters's trading post, Waters’s militia and warriors were overwhelmed by Pickens’s men. Waters and most of his followers escaped safely to British Florida. Pickens would capture only the weak and elderly.[xxxiv]

Figure 12 - The Holmes Stockade at Ninety-Six Historic Park.

In addition to the fighting throughout Georgia, the close of the war in South Carolina centered around Ninety-Six. Many of the Loyalists in the neighborhood still believed Great Britain would win the war and send troops to protect them. A large British force under Lord Rawdon was still in South Carolina. Until his arrival, 100 Loyalists from around Ninety-Six retreated into to a nearby fort, now called Star Fort, with 200 local militia and 350 soldiers from the north. Together they fortified the fort and parts of the town at Ninety-Six. For 28 days the American army of General Nathaniel Greene, 1000 men strong, laid siege to the fort and stockade, without effect. The list of Loyalist militia members inside the fort included many Griffin relatives:  Cousins John Griffin Jr. and Horatio Griffin, William McClure (brother-in-law to Cherokee John Vann), Edward Vann (uncle of Cherokee John Vann) and James Holmes (husband of Anne Elders Griffin).[xxxv]

A New Nation

After the war, Colonel Thomas Waters, along with wife Sarah Hughes and their children George, and Mary, removed to the Bahamas which was still under a British rule. The newly formed states of Georgia and South Carolina confiscated his property. In fact, General Elijah Clarke, the American leader and hero of the war, commandeered Thomas Waters’s plantation in Georgia and made it his home.

The loss of property happened to many other British Loyalists, and many of them were family members. James Holmes and his wife Anne lost their home and trading post that had become part of the stockade at the Ninety-Six. The newly formed state of South Carolina turned the property into an academy for local children. Today their property is part of the Ninety-Six Historical Site Park. The stockade is excavated and marked out for tourists to explore. The Star Fort nearby that also had protected local Loyalists is also part of the park.[xxxvi]

Eventually, Colonel Thomas Waters returned to his family in South Carolina. Even some of his land may have been reacquired by son George Morgan Waters through various petitions filed in the state of Georgia. Through the help of Thomas Waters’ brother Philemon Waters, Thomas Waters’s lands along the Saluda River in South Carolina went eventually to his heirs, including Virgie’s ancestors. The location for Thomas’ English children and some of his mixed-blood children was near Philemon along the Saluda River. For years the location of the ferry across the Saluda River, called Waters Ferry, was owned by Thomas’ son, called Ferry Phil.

Stephen Cumbo and his Cherokee Waters Wife

After the war, the mixed-blood daughters of Thomas Waters and his first Cherokee wife married and settled near the Waters Ferry. One of the daughters of Thomas Waters and his Cherokee wife married Stephen Cumbo. He was a local mixed-blood individual who was a Revolutionary War veteran who fought with the “Sons of Liberty,” serving under Colonel Leroy Hammond.[xxxvii]

Columbia So Carolina 5^th March

                I do hereby Certify that Stephen Cumbo was an enlisted soldier in Captn Thomas Harvey’s Company of State Troops belonging to a Regiment Raised under the Order of Governor Rutledge & Commanded by me, that he was enlisted for ten months & served that time faithfully and Received his discharge after its separation, he was in the battle of Eutaw and in the expedition Carried against the Cherokee Indians by Genl Pickens in the Latter part of the Revolutionary War, date not now remembered, his name will be found in the Payroll of that Regiment attached to the Company Commanded by Capt. Jesse Johnson, if there are yet personnel of Record. Given under my hand this 6^th

                March 1827          S Hammond

Figure 13 - Edgefield County Court House built 1839.

At one time Hammond and Waters would have been associates in trading with the Cherokee, but by the time of the war they were on opposite sides. In 1817, after the signing of the Turkey Town Treaty, Stephen Cumbo, as the husband of Thomas Waters’s Cherokee daughter, was allowed to acquire a “reservation” of 640 acres from the United States government in South Carolina near their home in Edgefield County.  Few people of Cherokee blood in South Carolina were able to do this, but the Waters family was especially capable of accomplishing this—most likely because of Thomas’ nephew Wilkes Berry Waters, the son of Colonel Philemon Waters, was the surveyor for South Carolina who filed the grant. The land was quickly transferred to other Waters family members to ensure it did not revert to the state as expected.[xxxviii]

Stephen Cumbo and Thomas Water’s daughter had two sons, Isaac and Leroy, and one daughter named Elizabeth. Their daughter Elizabeth married a “Dutch” neighbor John Whitman. “Dutch” was the common term for the people of German ancestry who lived in the area. So many Germans lived there that lower Newberry County was called “the Dutch Fork.”(John Whitman’s immigrant ancestor was Johannes Wildermuth from Wurttemberg, Germany.) John Whitman and Elizabeth Cumbo’s daughter was Mary Magdalene Whitman, Virgie’s mother.

John Griffin and his Cherokee Waters Wife

Another daughter of Thomas Waters and his first Cherokee wife married John Taleskeske Griffin. John was the son of Catawba mixed-blood John Griffin and Miles Bunch. He eventually became a factor or merchant trading in the Cherokee Nation of Northwest Georgia. But he continued to raise a family near Ferry Phil’s.  John Griffin had children by the daughter of Thomas Waters, but he also had children by a full-blood Cherokee wife called Sarah Occore who lived in the Cherokee Nation. In 1817 these children were willing to join the first Cherokee settlers and move west, but like many others, they either returned to Georgia or never actually left.

1817 Old Settler’s Rolls

     Those willing to move west to Arkansas
Walters [Waters] Griffin, Daniel Griffin, Jack Griffin, Jas. W. Griffin, Thomas Griffin, William Griffin, William Elders, George Gess, George Waters, Riley Waters, Michael Waters, Robert Waters

Later, in 1836, John Taleskeske Griffin’s children by his full-blood Cherokee wife Sarah were forcibly removed from their home at Nottely, a village in Tennessee. These Griffin relatives were rounded up and forced to go to Oklahoma via the “Trail of Tears.” It is the enrollment records of these Griffins that show John’s Indian name as Taleskeske. The records also explain that he was not Cherokee but Catawba.[xxxix]

In contrast, those children of John Taleskeske Griffin and Thomas Waters’ daughter were born and raised in Edgefield County, South Carolina, near Waters Ferry on the Saluda River.   

The son of John Taleskeske Griffin and Thomas Waters’ daughter, named John Griffin after his father, was born in 1796. Called “Junior” in the records until his father died, he went by John Griffin in the records. By the time his son John started to appear in court records, John had added “Senior” to his name. John Griffin’s middle initial “W” is only found in one record, an Edgefield County deed recorded 13 March 1846 when he was a witness for his son John Griffin, Junior. He never used a middle initial anywhere else, and it is not known what it stood for.

Virgie’s Parents and Sisters

Figure 14 - Four sisters who married Burnett Brothers: Juria, “Sis” (Harriet), Virgie, and “Viney” (Lavinia).

John Taleskeske Griffin’s son John W. Griffin and Stephen Cumbo’s granddaughter Mary Magdalen Whitman, a daughter of John Whitman and Elizabeth Cumbo, were married in Edgefield County, South Carolina, before 1840. (Mary Magdalene Whitman was John Griffin’s second wife.) The couple remained at Rocky Creek near Waters’ Ferry in Edgefield until about 1844 when they took their young family to Tallapoosa County, Alabama, going there along with Whitman family members, John’s brother Jethro Griffin, and other Edgefield families that included the Burnetts.

Before the Griffins left Edgefield County, they had three daughters: Harriett, Mima Juriah, and Rosanna. Once the family settled in Tallapoosa, on 11 April 1847, Virgie Careener Griffin was born.  After Virgie’s birth, John and Mary Magdalene had four more children—all girls: Elizabeth, Frances, Clarissa Lavinia, and Joanna.[xl]

Virgie Careener Griffin and Jeremiah Burnett

Virgie Careener Griffin, our sole connection to Native American ancestors, married her neighbor Jeremiah Burnett on the 23^rd of September in 1863. Three of her sisters also married Burnett brothers. Soon afterward, Virgie and her sisters would have to wait and worry while the Burnett brothers fought in the Civil War. Jeremiah and his older brother John were captured at Nashville and imprisoned at Camp Douglass Prison, in Illinois. John Burnett died in Union prison.[xli]  Jeremiah, according to family stories returned to Alabama on foot.
 

After the war, Virgie and Jeremiah moved with other family members to Winston County, Alabama. Later on, when they got old enough to retire from farming, Virgie and Jeremiah traveled to Texas to stay with their grown children. Both later returned to Alabama. Virgie died February 1^st, 1931 less than two years after her husband Jeremiah passed away.[xlii]

Figure 15 - Jeremiah Burnett & Virgie Careener Griffin.

We can now wonder what Virgie would have told us about her Cherokee heritage. Her grandfather John Taleskeske Griffin died before she was born, so she did not know him. While he often went back and forth between Edgefield County, South Carolina, and the Cherokee Nation in northwest Georgia, by Virgie’s time her Cherokee cousins had already been removed to Oklahoma. But her father may have had stories to tell to tell her and her sisters. There may have been traditions to share coming from both parents about their Cherokee heritage.  We can only guess about the stories. But through DNA we can be certain, Virgie was a descendant of the Cherokee Nation as well as a descendant of the Catawba and Saponi nations, and that connection she has passed on to us.

Virgie’s Ancestry Char

End Notes

---

[i] Carrie Mazell Childress Farmer is the granddaughter of Virgie Careener Griffin Burnett through Virgie’s daughter Careener Magdalene Burnett Childress. Her mtDNA and autosomal DNA tests established Virgie’s DNA profile. For both tests reference Family Tree DNA (FTDNA) kit no. 457820. Additionally, for mtDNA see MitoSearch: 99XD5, and for autosomal see GEDMatch: 5175532-T689744.

[ii] Sizemore autosomal matches:

·         FTDNA: Franklin Delano King, Arvina Lillian Copeland

·         GEDMatch: L Dignam 5049260-A75952, Paul Lewis Jr-2967682-T935434

[iii] Journals of the Commissioners of the Indian Trade; September 20, 1710~August 29, 1718; Edited by; W. L. McDowell; Columbia; South Carolina Archives Department; 1955; page 63, et al.

[iv] “In Their Own Words This Day”; http://www.cviog.uga.edu/Projects/gainfo/tdgh-jan/jan25.htm

[v] Petitions for Land from South Carolina Council Journals, by Brent Holcomb, Vol III:1752-1753, p 248.

[vi] Sifters: Native American Women’s Lives, Sifters: Native American Women's Lives

Book by Theda Perdue; Oxford University Press, 2001. 260 pgs

[vii] South Carolina Deeds, Book "La," page 1 (see repeat: Book F page 1); also,Charleston County Wills, Volume 6 1747-1752

[viii] Dr. Burgess, “History of St. Mark’s Parish.”

[ix] John Hammond Moore , “Columbia and Richland County: A South Carolina Community, 1740-1990”, Univerity of South Carolina Press, 1993, PP 10-11.

[x] Autosomal DNA testing records that show Virgie’s connection to the Catawba and Thomas Brown:

·         GEDMatch: 2338010-A673642, 3841932-A709651, 1865278-A380739

[xi] South Carolina Deeds, Book K, page 78.

[xii] Charleston County Wills, 1760-1767. P. 371

[xiii] Hasfort researcher Randy Floyd, 10 Dec 1999: Joseph and Hannah Hasfort witnessed with their friend William Siddall [Liddel]  on 26 July 1737, a mortgage from William Griffen to Elizabeth Hawkins.

[xiv] South Carolina Archives, Series Number: S213184  Volume:  0002 Page:  00361  Item: 02 

[xv] 1744 Jury List, St. John, Berkeley, South Carolina

[xvi] South Carolina Archives, Series: S213003, Volume: 002h Page: 00077

[xvii] South Carolina Archives, Series number: s213003  volume:  002e page:  00344  item: 01 ; also

[xviii] See http://www.genealogy.com/ftm/h/i/c/James-R-Hicks-VA/GENE1-0002.html

[xix] South Carolina Archives, Series: S213184; Volume: 0002; Page: 00052; Item: 001.

[xx] South Carolina Archives, Series: S213003; Volume: 002I; Page: 00028; Item: 000.

[xxi] mtDNA testing connects to a descendant of William McCluer, Edgefield.

·         MitoSearch queen8

[xxii] Robert L. Meriwether, “The Expansion of South Carolina 1729-1765”, University of South Carolina, p. 196. online https://archive.org/details/expansionofsouth00meriuoft.

[xxiii] William L. McDowell, Jr.,”Colonial Records of South Carolina Documents Relating to Indian Affairs May 21, 1750 - August 7,1754,” Columbia South Carolina Archives Department.

[xxiv] An Index to English Crown Grants in Georgia 1755-1775, The Reprint Co., Pub., Spartanburg SC 1989, St. Paul Parish, Plat Book C, page 429, Grant Book D, page 242.

[xxv] South Carolina Newspapers,1760, Heritage Papers, 1988, p. 12.

[xxvi] Autosomal DNA testing records that show Virgie’s connection to Thomas’s Cherokee family

·         GEDMatch: 9948826- A663323

Autosomal DNA testing records that show Virgie’s connection to Thomas’s English family

·         GEDMatch: 3888456

Autosomal DNA testing records that show Virgie’s connection to Thomas’s parent’s family

·         FTDNA: Mary Smith

·         GEDMatch: 9324438, 8068956, 8919211

[xxvii] Colonial Soldiers of the South, 1732-1774, P 1048, 1049.

[xxviii] South Carolina Deeds, Deed Book O-3, Page 73 -75; Deed Book V-3, Page 202 - 204

[xxix] mtDNA testing records that show Virgie’s connection to Thomas Waters’ other Cherokee daughters

·         FTDNA: Helen Bass Brignac

·         MitoSearch: qeen8, 5KVF2, ma85w

[xxx] Not verified, but found in various genealogies.

[xxxi] From research of Jean Day, jeanday1.tripod.com/Waters_Discussion_of_the_Hudson_book.htm

[xxxii] History of Georgia, (From B. P. R. O.-B. of T., Georgia.), p. 379. JULY, 1773.

[xxxiii] http://www.ba044ancestry.com/HOLMES/HOLMES%20OF%20SC.html

[xxxiv] Richard Thornton, The Forgotten History of North Georgia, 2014, p 154

[xxxv]Bobby Gilmer Moss, The Loyalists in the Siege of Fort Ninety Six, Scotia-Hibernia Press, Blacksburg, SC, 1999.

[xxxvi] Jerome A. Greene, “Ninety-Six: A Historical Narrative” Denver Service Center, National Park Service, US Dept. of the Interior, Denver, 1998

[xxxvii] Source not found.

[xxxviii] South Carolina Archives, Series: S213192; Volume: 0046; Page: 00127; Item: 002.

[xxxix] Guion Miller Roll of Eastern Cherokee, Application No. 8683, Jan. 3, 1907.

[xl] Tallapoosa County 1860 US Census, p. 144

#885 John Griffin, age 63, born in SC, farmer, 100 real-estate, 250 personal property.
Mary 46 SC, Harriet 22 SC, Uriah 18 SC, Rose A. 16 SC, Virgi 13 AL, Elizabeth 11 AL, Frances (f) 9 AL, Lavisia 7 AL, Joanna 5 AL.

#886 Jeremiah Burnett, age 53, farmer, real estate 500, property 150, born in SC, married within the year.
Jane 26?/16 born in SC. James 18 AL, Thomas 16 AL, Bentley 14 AL, Julia A. 13 AL.

[xli] Civil War Records of the National Archives. Prisoner of War Military Prison, Louisville, Ky.; Jeremiah Burnett, Pvt., Co. A, 1 Reg., AL Inf.; Discharged to Camp Douglass DEC 20th 1864.

[xlii] Winston County Alabama Deeds Deed Book 8, page 469. “For the State of Alabama, County of Winston - Know all men by these presents, that we Jeremiah Burnett & Virgie C. Burnett his wife of Winston County and State of Alabama for and in consideration of the sum of two hundred dollars, to us in hand paid the receipt whereof is hereby acknowledged, hath granted bargained and sold and by these presents grant, bargain, sell, and convey to the said J. G. Donaldson his heirs and assign the following described real estate, to wit., N of NW and W of NW of NE section 31 T 9 R 10 west containing 100 acres more or less.