Col. Samuel Henderson

A Patriot of the American Revolution for NORTH CAROLINA. DAR Ancestor # A054821

Husband of Elizabeth Callaway

Killed by Indians near the fort

• http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=140017841 *http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=27381304

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https://www.ncpedia.org/biography/henderson-samuel

Samuel Henderson, pioneer and western agent, was born in the Nutbush area of Granville (now Vance) County, the fourth son of Samuel and Elizabeth Williams Henderson. His father was commissioned sheriff of Granville County on 6 Mar. 1754. A brother, Judge Richard Henderson, was a principal of the Transylvania Company, which engaged in the purchase and settlement of lands in the area of present-day Tennessee and Kentucky. Nothing is recorded of Samuel's education. Extant letters disclose a well-developed vocabulary but rudimentary skill in written expression. In September 1768 he served with the Granville regiment of militia dispatched to maintain peace at Hillsborough during the Regulator incidents there. These centered around the operation of the colonial court conducted by his brother Richard and other officials appointed by the government at New Bern.

Samuel accompanied Richard to Kentucky in 1775 and was present when the Treaty of Watauga or Sycamore Shoals was concluded during 14–17 March. Under this treaty, the Transylvania Company, consisting of speculators chiefly from Orange and Granville counties, acquired claim to lands in the Tennessee and Kentucky areas by purchase from the Cherokee nation. Samuel was among the original party of settlers of the lands obtained under the treaty, and he served as a representative for the settlement of Boonesborough in the legislative assembly convened by the settlers on 23 May 1775.

In July 1776 Frances and Elizabeth Callaway (daughters of Colonel Richard Callaway) and Jemima Boone (daughter of Daniel Boone) were abducted by Indians. Samuel Henderson was one of the party that rescued the women. The incident, one of the most celebrated in the early history of Kentucky, has been cited as the source of the abduction in James Fenimore Cooper's Last of the Mohicans. Henderson married Elizabeth Callaway at Boonesborough on 7 Aug. 1776, the first wedding recorded to have taken place in the Kentucky settlement.

Henderson returned to North Carolina about 1777 and settled in Guilford County where he became prominent, especially in the local militia. Despite this relocation, he continued to participate in the western settlement. On 3 July 1779, the Council of State commissioned him commissary to the detachment of militia accompanying the boundary commission for extension of the North Carolina-Virginia boundary westward; the council authorized an initial draft of £10,000. This effort continued into the next year and was largely conducted for North Carolina by his brother Richard.

On 13 May 1780 Samuel participated as a signatory in the adoption of the Cumberland Compact at French Lick (now Nashville, Tenn.). This document was the original instrument of government for the settlement area. In October of that year, he served as a captain of the Guilford County militia in the suppression of an insurrection in Surry County. And, in the following spring, he fought at the Battle of Guilford Court House, 15 Mar. 1781.

By 1782, Henderson had lost possession of the property he had obtained in the western lands under the Transylvania Company, and most of his coadventurers had been killed or dispersed. For the next twenty-five years, his activities were concentrated in North Carolina. On 3 June 1784 he was appointed a tax collector for Guilford, and during the next several years he participated in various capacities in the formation of Rockingham County. He served on the commissions that drew the boundaries and erected the courthouse and prison.

In 1784, Henderson was dispatched by Governor Alexander Martin to convey official communications to the disaffected western settlers who had formed the state of Franklin under the leadership of General John Sevier. Martin's letter of appointment instructed Henderson to ascertain whether the secession of this area from the state was intended to be permanent or temporary, and whether it was supported by a majority or by only a few leaders. Henderson executed this commission in the spring of 1785 and conveyed official responses of the legislature of Franklin and of General Sevier declining to stop the secession and stating the westerners' grievances. In 1807 Henderson moved to Tennessee, where he died at McMinnville in Warren County.

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/27381304/samuel-henderson

American Patriot He was in the party that opened Boone's Trace en route to a large tract of land, that became known as Fort Boonesboro, KY, that had been purchased from the Cherokees by his brother, Richard Henderson, a land speculator and representative for North Carolina on the western Virginia/North Carolina survey team and a jurist. That party of men established Fort Boonesboro.

He was a defender of Boonesboro, Ky, under Daniel Boone and Richard Callaway. He was in the party that rescued three girls who had been captured by the Shawnee indians. These girls were: Elizabeth Calloway, whom he afterwards married, her sister, Fanny, (both daughters of Richard Callaway) and Jemima Boone, daughter of Daniel. He was a colonel in the American Revolutionary War.

In old age he lived with his son, Pleasant Henderson, in McMinnville, Warren, TN.

The only known published obituary appeared in the March 21, 1817 issue of the newspaper The Raleigh Minerva : "DIED Lately in Tennessee, Col. Samuel Henderson, aged about 80 years. Col. Henderson was a native of North Carolina, and a man distinguished by a strong and clear understanding."

Samuel's will was probated in Franklin County, TN, in 1816, according to Ron in the research department of the Tennessee State Library Archives. Name: Samuel Henderson Birth - Death: 1746-1816 Source Citation:

• Dictionary of North Carolina Biography. Volume 3, H-K. Edited by William S. Powell. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1988. (DcNCBi 3)

Tennessee Records: Tombstone Inscriptions and Manuscripts (1933)

His wife, Elizabeth Callaway Henderson, a daughter of Col. Richard Callaway and Francis Walton, co-founder of Boonesboro, pre-deceased him 15 Aug 1815. Her burial location is unknown.

GEDCOM Note

Biography - Col. Samuel Henderson 1746 - 1817

Excerpts from "Colonel Samuel Henderson jr" by descendant Harvey HobbsHenderson "Franklin County gained a distinguished resident when Colonel Samuel Henderson, jr moved there in 1811. Born in Granville County N.C. in 1746, the son of Samuel and Elizabeth (Williams) Henderson of Nutbush Creek, Samuel moved to Guilford Co., N.C. c. 1770 where he was a landowner-farmer and Major of the county militia. Samuel was present March 17, 1775 at Sycamore Shoals on the Wautauga River when the Transylvania Company, headed by his brother Judge Richard Henderson, acquired from the Cherokee Indians land comprising most of present-day Kentucky and Tennessee. Daniel Boone, employed by the Company, had already been sent March 10 to open a trail to the site selected for initial settlement, named Boonesboro. Samuel formed one of the rear parties, arriving in Boonesboro April 20, 1775. At Boonesboro on July 14 1776 occurred...the capture by Indians of Elizabeth and Frances Callaway and Jemima Boone, the daughters of ColonelRichard Callaway and Daniel Boone, and their rescue two days later bya party which included Elizabeth's betrothed Samuel Henderson. Samuel and Elizabeth were married August 7, 1776, at Boonesboro by Squire Boone. Although Samuel and Elizabeth resided in Boonesboro for the next four years, he was often absent on surveying trips and they made several trips back to Guilford Co. In Guilford in March 1780 when her father was killed at Boonesboro by Indians, Elizabeth refused to return to that'dark and bloody ground'..... Samuel saw action at the Battle of Guilford Courthouse March 15 1781 as a Major (perhaps Colonel) of militia. Later in the year he served as Colonel when the militia was called out to rout bands of Tories. InAugust 1781 the Governor appointed Samuel Commisioner of the Peace for Guilford Co., and in 1781 and 1784 he was appointed Collector of Taxes for the Dan River District. In March 1785 he served as Gov. Alexander Martin's emissary to John Sevier, Governor of the short-lived State of Franklin.... While daughter Frances was born in Boonesboro in 1777, the other children were born in Guilford/Rockingham: Richard, 1779, Pleasant 1780 or82, Susan 1783, Salley 1786, Elizabeth 1789, Baldwin 1791, Eudocia 1794, Alfred 1797 and Julia 1801.... Samuel moved his family to Hawkins County, Tennessee in 1806/07 and toFranklin County in 1811. Already living in Franklin Co. in 1811... his daughter Frances, recent widow of Reverend James Smiley Gillespie. Son Richard was in Henderson, Kentucky, having married Ann Alves in 1807. Pleasant was in Warren County by 1805, marrying Agnes Watts Robards in 1813. Susan married Jonathon Spyker in 1805 and Salley marriedEdmond Rivers in 1807....In Franklin Co., Elizabeth married Dr. Mathew L. Dixon in 1816, Eudocia married James Estill in 1812, Alfred married Sallie Quesenberry in 1823, and Julia married Reverend Benjamin Decherd in 1818." Burial: Old McMinnville City Cemetery McMinnville, Warren County, Tennessee, USA

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Sources

<ref>A source for this information is needed.</ref>

• [https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=BAo7AAAAMAAJ&printsec=front...] The Cabells and Their Kin: A Memorial Volume of History, Biography, and Genealogy Alexander Brown January 1, 1895 Houghton, Mifflin & Company: page 295, 296
• [Family Histories 1807-1996, Franklin Co Tennessee. Article by Harvey Hobbs Henderson, descendant of Samuel and Betsy Calloway Henderson.] Turner Publishing Company, Paducah, KY, 1996. Tennessee Wills and Probate Records 1779-2008. Will of Samuel Henderson is a typescript, imperfectly done. It lists the 9 children, 6 girls and 3 boys, that the couple reared to adulthood. Signed "Sam Henderson"
• [https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/27381304?search=true] Find A Grave MEMORIAL ID 27381304

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Acknowledgements ===* WikiTree profile Henderson-2033 created by GeorgeHenderson.

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GEDCOM Note

Samuel and Elizabeth's marriage produced the first white child born in Kentucky, this apparently was Ezediel Henderson.