Adjutant Augustus Agerton Willis

• Residence: Bladen County, NC - 1781
  • Reference: MyHeritage Family Trees - SmartCopy: Dec 15 2016, 4:47:45 UTC

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Born in the Chesapeake Bay area of Virginia, Agerton would later become a wealthy plantation owner in North Carolina. In 1754 first purchased land in New Hanover, North Carolina. Between 1755-57 moved to Bladen County, NC and purchased over 3,000 acres of land near Goodman's Swamp, N.C. around Cape Fear River. Agerton had one child with an unnamed Cherokee Indian slave (probably from the Lumbee Tribe). Born a slave to his father, Joseph Willis, was to gain his freedom years after his father set him free in his Will. Eventual freedom came on 6 Dec 1787 from a emancipation bill passed in the North Carolina General Assembly. Joseph fought with the Swamp Fox in the Revolutionary War, and would become the first Baptist minister to cross the Mississippi River bringing the Baptist faith into French controlled Louisiana.

Notes

From http://www.kfgeorgia.net/genealogy/getperson.php?personID=I2326&tre...

From a typewritten sheet by Jonathan D. Butcher sent to Donald Willis:

One account of their (Benjamin, Agerton, George, Daniel, Joanna) origin is derived from Judson Council’s “Hodges Council of Virginia and Descendants.” The information therein on James Council is not entirely consistent, but generally shows that James was born in 1716 in Virginia, son of John Council and grandson of Hodges Council of Isle of Wight County, Virginia. Hodges came from Devonshire, England and it is of interest to note that the given name Willis was already found in the Council family while still in England, so perhaps the two families had been long associated.

The second or third wife of James Council was Joannah Willis (1730-1791), whom he must have married about 1751 or 1752. It is further stated that James’s father, John Council, married Josie, daughter of Benjamin Willis, both of Isle of Wight County, Virginia.

I personally feel that this tradition should be approached with some skepticism, for it looks possible that the name of the wife of the father, John, has been confused with the wife of the son, James, by family tradition as often occurs.
I have not been able to document an elder Benjamin Willis in Isle of Wight County, Virginia, or indeed any trace of the Bladen County Willises there. John Council seems to have lived along the border between Hertford County, North Carolina, and Nansemond County, Virginia. These are both burned-record counties, and I have not been able to locate a probate record for him, likely because he died in Nansemond County (now the City of Suffolk). It may thus be that the ancestor of the Bladen County Willises is likewise lost with early records of Nansemond County—but if so it seems likely that the family was only briefly resident there, as they do not appear in the Virginia Land Patents.

I suspect that the lineage leads quickly back to England one way or another. Quite possibly the tradition regarding Josie Willis is incorrect, and the Willis brothers may actually have been born in England, as was apparently the tradition among the descendants of Daniel’s son, General John Willis.

References

• https://www.ancestry.com/boards/thread.aspx?mv=flat&m=4234&p=surnam...