Just so that you will not be
alarmed by the title, let me say upfront that Abel Lanham was not a traitor to the patriot cause in the Revolutionary War, but we will get to the accusation anon.
Abel was the great-grandson of
John Lanham (1661-1745), who had come to America from Wortham, England, in
1679.[i]
He paid for his transportation by signing an indenture that bound him for five years to
Col. Benjamin Rozier of Charles County, Maryland.[ii]
In Maryland in 1679, John married a
woman named Dorothy (debate continues regarding her surname, either Shaw or
Burch[iii]),
and their son William Lanham was the grandfather of Abel Lanham. The family lived in Prince George’s County,
Maryland, for more than sixty years.
 |
| Sample Indenture |
Then William’s son John Lanham,
father of Abel Lanham, moved from Prince George’s County (formerly Charles
County), Maryland, to North Carolina, where his marriage to Comfort Brown was
recorded in 1742.[iv] John and Comfort were the parents of six
children, the youngest being Abel Lanham, who was born in Mecklenburg County in
1762.
Eighteenth-century records,
which present the name variously as both Lanham and Langham, show land grants
to Abel’s father in both Anson and Mecklenburg Counties. Interestingly, one of his Mecklenburg
properties was a land grant for 150 acres on the Millstone Branch of Fishing
Creek, near the property of Peter Kuykendal, whose daughter Jean became Abel
Lanham’s wife on December 3, 1777.[v] The Kuykendalls had been in the colonies
since 1646, arriving from Holland and living first in New Netherland, later to
become New York. At the time of their
marriage, both Abel and Jean were fifteen years old.
Much is known about Abel’s
service in the Revolutionary War since he provided a narrative of his military service in February 1837, when he
applied for a veteran’s pension. Perhaps
it is better to let Abel tell his own story, presented here with its original
spelling, punctuation, and capitalization:
 |
| First Broad River and Second Broad River can be seen in the upper left corner of the map. |
“I entered the service of the
United States the 1st of March 1778, as a volunteer, and as a
private, under the command of Captain Kerkendall [sic], in the Regiment of William Grimes in Rutherford County in the
State of North Carolina. We rendezvoused
on a creek called Sandy run. My Captain
and company were detached from the Regiment and ordered to go in quest of
outlying Tories. We crossed 1st
and 2nd broad rivers to the frontiers of the State for the purpose
of intercepting men who were in the habit of doing mischief, and then fleeing
to the mountains. We also kept in awe
[dread], such men as were inclined to harbour bad men. We marched from place to place as necessity
required, and kept the disaffected citizens from collecting together. We took ten tories in our rout, and delivered
them over to Col. [William] Grimes, who commanded our Regiment. We were kept in the service scouting about
from place to place until the last of May, when we were discharged by Col.
Grimes; having been in the service three months.
“On the 1st of
March 1779 I volunteered my service again as a private in the service of the
United States, in Rutherford County State of North Carolina under the command
of the said Captain Kerkendall, and Col. Grimes, we met at a place called the
Cross roads, I was marched from there to the frontier settlements, to a fort
called McFadden [near Rutherfordton], where we were stationed for three months
for the purpose of protecting the citizens engaged in cultivating their
farms. We were engaged while there in
marching about, sometimes across the Blue ridge, and in the [?] mountains,
guarding the passes through which it was thought the Indians would attempt to
pass into the settlement and then returned to our Fort. We were discharged the first of June 1779,
and returned home.
 |
| Blue Ridge Mountains |
“From North Carolina I, the
said Abel Lanham, went into South Carolina, on a visit to my sister, and whilst
there I volunteered again as a private on the first of September 1781, in
Orangeburg District under the Command of Captain [William] Young, my Colonel’s
name I cannot now recollect, and joined Col. or General Sumpter at Orangeburg
Court house. Sumpter lay at Orangeburg
Courthouse three months, during which time we had to subsist chiefly by
foraging. Whilst here we did nothing of
importance and during this time [General Anthony] Wayne came on there on his
way to Georgia. I was again discharged the first of February 1782. I then went to Washington County, North
Carolina (now Tennessee). The first of
September 1782, I volunteered again, in sd. County under the Command of Captain
Samuel Ware, in the Regiment of Col. John Sevier, as a private. This service I performed as a horseman. We were marched against the Cherokee nation
of Indians. We started from the Big
Island on French Broad river, and marched to Tennessee river, and crossed the
same at an Indian Town called Chota—from there to Hiwasee river, passed Bulls
town and crossed Cooses river to an Indian Town called Estanolee, from there to
little shoemaker plains and from there to old Hiwasee Town [Hiwasee Old
Town]. In this campaign we destroyed the
Indian crops and fourteen towns and returned home December 1st 1782,
when I was discharged. This was my last service as a soldier.”
 |
| Henry Timberlake's map of the Cherokee country, 1765, showing Chote about mid-way in the S-curve. |
Now let’s examine the bogus
charge of treason. On July 8, 1782, Abel
Lanham and 110 other men were charged in Rutherford County, North Carolina, of
having aided the king of England on October 1, 1780. Specifically, the charge stated that these
men “with force & Arms in the County
aforesaid Wickedly & treacherously entending and Designing as far as in
them lay to Overturn the present free Government of this State & reduce the
inhabitants thereof Under the Power of the Army of Great Britain then & now
at Open War with this State and the United States of America did then &
there with force and Arms feloinously [sic] & treacherously Knowingly &
Willfully did aid & assist the said King by Joining his Army Commanded by
Major [Patrick] Ferguson and by bearing Arms in the Service of the said King
Against the Good Government Peace and Dignity of this State.”[vi]
Now, it is
true that Major Ferguson was sweeping through the Carolinas to enlist loyalists
to fight with him. It is also true that
on October 7, 1780, just six days after the alleged treachery of Abel Lanham
and others, Ferguson was killed at the Battle of King’s Mountain. It is interesting to note that one of the
commanders of the American patriots at King’s Mountain was Col. John Sevier.[vii] It is highly unlikely that a man who had been
with Ferguson at King’s Mountain fighting against John Sevier would be fighting
with him in September 1782—just two
months after the charges of treachery were brought! And a man who had been fighting with the
patriots since 1777, at that!
Certainly the
new government of the United States never brought charges against Lanham, and
when he applied for a pension in 1837, it was granted in the amount of $20 per annum. What’s more, his second wife, Sarah Nunn
Lanham, was granted a widow’s pension in the same amount in 1840, retroactive
to 1838, the date of Abel Lanham’s death.
At least one other person on the list of the accused has also been vindicated,
Freeman Jones, who was also granted a pension after the war.[viii]
One might
wonder why such serious, yet unsubstantiated, claims could be made, and in that
context we have to look at what happened to loyalists. Some escaped to Canada. Some were tortured. Some were hanged. But in all cases their lands were confiscated
and sold, with the profit going toward the war effort. Therefore, it was a temptation to unscrupulous
neighbors to make false accusations and scoop up the land when it became
available.
 |
| A Tory under arrest by patriots |
After the
war, white settlers began to move westward and treaties were made with the
Cherokee to establish what might be called “zones” of ethnic communities. Tennessee would not become a state until
1796, but change was coming on as North Carolina started ceding land to the
federal government. Abel Lanham’s name emerges
next in August 1795 when 600 acres in what would become Grainger County,
Tennessee, were surveyed for him and another man, Alexander Martin.
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| Cherokee Territory, 1804 |
The dates of
birth for the children of Abel and Jean are all post-war. The first, Elizabeth, is reported by some
researchers as having been born in Camden District, South Carolina and by
others, Lee County, Virginia, but all agree her birth date was 4 March
1780. This date was between Abel’s second
and third deployment, and the war was still raging. The second child, Robert, born 1786, probably in Claiborne County,
Tennessee, is found in Jackson, Alabama in the 1840 census and died 1857. The third child, Solomon,
born 1 January 1788, identified his birthplace as Tennessee (or what ultimately
became Tennessee) in the census record of 1850,[ix] so this puts us on firm
ground as saying that after the war, Abel and Jean were among those who moved
somewhat to the west of their childhood homes and settled in the Claiborne
County area, where members of the family still reside today.
From 1784,
when the 600 acres were surveyed for Lanham and Martin, until November 1837,
Abel Lanham is on record both buying and selling land in not only Claiborne
County, but Greene and Grainger Counties as well.[x] In addition, he was active in the
community. For example, in about 1802,
he was one of the commissioners selected to locate the seat of justice and lay
out the town of Tazewell, Tennessee, where the first house was erected in
1803. From 1810 to 1814, he served as a
trustee for the county administration.[xi]
 |
| Statue of Col. John Sevier |
On 20 June
1797, Lanham was commissioned by John Sevier as a lieutenant in the regiment of
Grainger County. Sevier, under whom
Lanham had served during the campaign against the Cherokee during the
Revolution, was at that time governor of Tennessee. Two years later, Sevier named Lanham justice
of the peace for Grainger County.[xii]
Jean
Kuykendall Lanham died 29 August 1810 at the age of forty-eight and was buried
in the Lanham cemetery near Tazewell. Between
1780 and 1808, Jean had borne thirteen children. On September 6, 1818, Abel
married his second wife, Sarah Nun (Nunn), and from that union, eight children
were born.
It is hard to
say what caused Abel to fall on hard times in 1837 to such a degree that he
sought a veteran’s pension for the first time.
In his statement given at the Claiborne County Court in August of that
year, Abel stated that “he would have applied sooner, but he was then in
independent circumstances, and was, as he thought, able to live comfortably
without assistance from the government; he further states that he never
intended applying for a pension whilst in affluence, but that misfortunes have
of late come upon him and he has been forced to part with his property and is
now reduced to want.”[xiii]
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| Abel Lanham's Will p. 1 |
On 3 July 1838,
Abel Lanham wrote his will. The heart of
the will reads, thus, with its original conventions of language:
“I give and
bequeath to Sarah my dearly beloved wife all and singular the remainder of my
land and movable estate to be applied to raising my dear children or so much of
my said estate as may be left after all my Just debts are well and truely paid.
At the death of my wife Sarah if there be any property left it is my will that [it] be sold for cash and equally divided between my last
children. Likewise Sarah Lanham my
beloved wife whom I constitute make and ordain my sole Exutrix of this my last
will and testament.”[xiv] He died about eight weeks later on 22 August
1838 and was buried beside his first wife, Jean, in the Lanham cemetery near
Tazewell.
 |
| Graves of Jean Kuykendall Lanham (left) and Abel Lanham (right) |
But that is
not the end of the story. In 1974, Zella
Armstrong published a book entitled Some
Tennessee Heroes of the Revolution, based on the government’s Revolutionary
War pension records. On pages 20-21, she
recounts the narrative that Abel himself provided in 1837, which appears above.[xv] Then on 12 November 2005, 167 years after his
passing, the people of Claiborne County, a place carved from the wilderness by
Abel Lanham himself, was honored by the dedication of his grave. Under the auspices of the Bonny Kate Chapter of
the Daughters of the American Revolution and the General Joseph Martin Chapter
of the Sons of the American Revolution, forty to fifty people gathered by that simple countryside grave for the ceremony, which followed this program:
Trumpet call
by the Reverend Samuel Johnson
Presentation
of Colors by Rutledge High School
Welcome by
Patricia F. Hunter of the DAR
Invocation by
June Burnett, DAR Chaplain
Pledge of
Allegiance by Todd Williams of the SAR
Posting of
the Colors by JROTC of Rutledge High School
Presentation
of certificates by Virgil Herrell, Claiborne County Mayor
Historical
narrative by Ollie Ellison of the DAR
Tribute in
honor of Abel Lanham by Chuck Minton, great-grandson
 |
| Headstone of Abel Lanham, Lanham Cemetery, Tazewell, Tennessee |
In his tribute, Minton said,
in part, “We are gathered here today in honor of an individual who believed, as
most colonists of the 13 colonies did, in a dream to be free of tyranny. At the
age of 16, the man who lies here in this cromlech took up arms to defend this
dream. This dream is now called America. . . . From his youth to his death, Abel Lanham witnessed the birth
of the United States and ultimately the birth of a county known by the name of
Claiborne County. This country and this county will always remember you, Abel Lanham, for a job well done.”[xvi]
[i] U.S. and Canada, Passenger and Immigration
Lists Index, 1500s-1900s. Maryland,
Year: 1679. 281. Ancestry.com. Provo, UT, USA. 2010. Web. 26 Oct. 2015.
[ii] Charles Co.
Ejectment papers: Rozier, Henry; MSA Maryland patent libers 16:71 and WC #2:130.
Cited in Oran Stroud Lanham. “The John Lanham Family 1661.” Rev. ed. Clifford
W. Lanham and Kevin W. Lanham, eds. 1.3.5. 2012. Web. 27 Oct. 2015.
[iii] Lanham, Howard G. “Controversies
in Lanham Genealogy.” Angelfire. n.d.
Web. 27 Oct. 2015.
[iv] Yates Publishing. U.S. and International Marriage Records, 1560-1900. Ancestry.com.
Provo, UT. Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2004.
[v] Jeff Barefoot. “Records
of the Lanham Family of North Carolina, Tennessee, and Kentucky.” 1991.
Available Ancestry.com.n.d. Web. 26
Oct. 2015.
[vi]
U.S., Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty-Land Warrant
Application Files, 1800-1900. Ancestry.com. Provo, UT: 2010. Web. 27 Oct.
2015.
[vii] Michael
Toomey. “John Sevier (1745-1815).” North
Carolina History Project. John Locke
Foundation. 2015. Web. 27 Oct. 2015.
[viii]
Doris
Froehmer. “Re: Freeman Jones
Sr.-1782 Rutherford Co. Court of Pleas & Quarter.” To Jones-Freeman-L
Archives. Rootsweb. Ancestry.com. 28
Apr. 2002. Web. 27 Oct. 2015.
[ix] 1850 United States Federal Census. Provo, UT:2009. Ancestry.com Operations. Images
reproduced by FamilySearch.
[x] Barefoot.
[xi] Barefoot.
[xii] “The
Lanham Cemetery.” Claiborne County
Cemeteries. Rootsweb. Ancestry.com. n.d. Web. 26 Oct. 2015.
[xiii] U.S. Revolutionary War
Pension and Bounty-Land Warrant Application Files, 1800-1900. Images 522-23. InteractiveAncestry.com. Accessed 26
Oct. 2015.
[xiv]Barefoot.
[xv] Baltimore:Genealogical, 1975.
20-21. Ancestry.com. n.d. 27 Oct.
2015.
[xvi] “Dedication
of Abel Lanham Grave.” Claiborne Progress.
17 Nov. 2005. Cited in Joe Paine. Webworks.
JoePaine.org. n.d. Web. 27 Oct. 2015.
(c) Eileen Cunningham, 2015
(c) Eileen Cunningham, 2015
