Eli Newlin

In memory of Eli and Sarah Hadley Newlin. Eli Newlin was born in Pennsylvania in 1755 and died a few miles from here 28-XII-1790 at the age of thirty-five. On the 24-XI-1779 he married Sarah Hadley, daughter of Joshua and Ruth Lindley Hadley, born 17-VII-1762. Nine years after Eli's death she married Jeremiah Piggott. She died 3-VI-1827. Her burial was probably at Rocky River Friends Meeting.
Their Children:
Ruth 1780
Joshua 1781
John 1783
Edith 1785
Mary 1786

Erected 1967 by the Southeastern Newlin Association

The following information about Eli and Sarah Hadley Newlin is quoted from "The Newlin Family: Ancestors and Descendants of John and Mary Pyle Newlin" (1965) by Dr. Algie I. Newlin and Harvey Newlin, pages 417-418:

Eli Newlin, the fourth among the children of John and Mary Pyle Newlin, was probably eleven years of age when members of the family made their trek to North Carolina. It was a great adventure for a boy approaching teen-age, and he must have faced every mile of the journey wide-eyed and full of anticipation as the family procession rolled along new and winding road that stretched through the hundreds of miles of ever changing scenes and circumstances.

Biographical data for Eli Newlin are scarce and from widely scattered sources. Even the date of his death is subject to speculation. One source, of rather long standing, had placed his death at December 28, 1789, but a recently discovered deed reveals that he purchased land months after that date. In this transaction Eli bought 148 acres of land bordering on the south bank of Haw River, for "...one hundred and fifteen pounds..." This document was signed "...the first day of September in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and ninety..."

On December 26, 1860, Eli Newlin, the grandson of Eli and Sarah Hadley Newlin, and the son of John and Esther Stubbs Newlin, made the following entry in his diary: "South Fork (a Friends Meeting near the northern border of Chatham County. Visited the old farm where my father was born and partly raised and where my grandfather died, more than seventy years ago."

The 1790 deed made four months more than seventy years before the note was made in the diary of his grandson. One wonders if the correct date is December 28, 1790 and in some way the year had been changed to 1789.

On "...the twenty-fifth day of August in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty four..." Eli Newlin bought 200 acres of land on Terrells Creek near the northern border of Chatham county. From these deeds and the sale of his land after his death it is easy to conclude that he owned close to 700 acres of land on Orange and Chatham Counties. For a few years his home was on Terrells Creek about two and one-half miles southwest of South Fork Friends Meeting House. Sarah Hadley Newlin's parents lived a short distance northeast of South Fork. In two instances documentary evidence indicates that he had moved back to Orange County a short time before his death. The census of 1790 gives his residence as Orange County. The Deed to the one hundred and forty acre tract on Haw River states that he was a resident of Orange County.

In one of the newly discovered deeds Eli is styled as a "blacksmith." He was a member of Spring (Preparative) Meeting of Friends, where his wedding was consummated in 1779. There is no known evidence that his membership in that meeting was ever terminated. It may be assumed that he was buried in the graveyard of his own Meeting where many of his relatives are buried. There were no burials at South Fork before 1800.

In John and Mary Pyle Newlin's family the six brothers and sisters married in strict conformity to the good order of the Society of Friends and, perhaps by coincidence, followed just as strictly in sequence, the chronological order of their birth.

Sarah Hadley, the daughter of Joshua and Ruth Lindley Hadley, was barely seventeen years old when she married Eli Newlin. She was the youngest, in six weddings, to repeat the marriage vows "in the face" of the solemn meetings of Friends. Soon after her twenty-fourth birthday, her fifth child was born. Eli died when she was probably twenty-eight, leaving her with the full responsibility for rearing the five children.

Eli reached the age of twenty-one just as the War for Independence began. His marriage came about the mid-point of that long struggle and three of his children were born before it came to an end. The War was very bitter in the Cane Creek valley, around Cane Creek and Spring Friends meetings. Family and community ties were broken. Murder, battles, marching British, Tory, and Whig forces subjected the people to an intense state of emotional tension not easily appreciated by their present descendants. Torn between loyalty to the Government under which they had settled the community, and the movement for independence, approximately one third of the people of the colonies were found in support of each of the conflicting sides, while the other third tried to maintain a neutral position. It is quite likely that the people of the Cane Creek valley were divided in this manner. The Society of Friends in North Carolina enjoined its members to refrain from aligning themselves, in any way, with either side in the conflict. Members were disowned for violating the pacifist position and for making any affirmation of allegiance to either of the contending government

An unverified report in the history of a Reformed Church, in an adjacent community, links Eli Newlin with one venture in support of the Whig cause: "Barney Ingle, Tobias Clapp and Eli Newlin sent to carry powder to Patriots in Hillsboro (Feb. 1781) and did so, escaping the Tories." ("A History of the Reformed Church in North Carolina; The Old Brick Church," page 117).

Two references to an "E. Newland" in the Colonial and State Records of North Carolina may be assumed to point to Eli Newlin since it does not seem likely that there was any other person with a similar name in Piedmont North Carolina at that time. In the first of these, "E. Newland" was allowed 12 shillings on claims by the Claims Commission 1776-1779. In the second, undated, "E. Newland claims amounted to 4 pounds, 14 shillings and 6d." The first of these was paid before 1781 and the second could have been for action during the War for Independence or at any time before his death, nearly a decade after the War.

Spring Meeting, which dealt harshly with infractions of the Quaker faith, and boldly recorded them in its Minutes, left no indication that Eli Newlin was ever accused of "warlike" action or any other violation of the Quaker tenets.

The children of Eli and Sarah Hadley Newlin were as prolific as any similar number of the descendants of John and Mary Pyle Newlin. Each of the first three had twelve children, the fourth had thirteen, and the fifth had six in the first twelve years after marriage. (No information about Mary Newlin and Joel Dixon after their certificates were received by White Lick Meeting, 14-I-1824).

Nine years after the death of Eli, Sarah Hadley Newlin married a twenty-six-year-old neighbor, Jeremiah Piggott, son of Jeremiah and Rachel Maynard Piggott. They had four children: Jeremiah, Jonathan, David, and Sarah Piggott. She spent the remainder of her life in Chatham County, in the area of Rocky River Friends Meeting. She survived her second husband by two years and died at the age of sixty-four.

Benjamin Vestal, the husband of Ruth (Newlin) Vestal and Achsah (Vestal) Newlin, wife of Joshua Newlin, were among the thirteen children of David and Sarah Chamness Vestal. Another of the thirteen, Ruth Vestal, married Jacob Newlin, son of John and Sarah (Holladay) Newlin, a first cousin of Ruth and Joshua. Sarah, the mother of the thirteen Vestals, was born in Frederick County, Maryland, 11-II-1742, the daughter of Anthony and Sarah Cole Chamness. She died 20-I-1822. Her husband, David Vestal, was born 16-VI-1736, d 26-X-1819, and was buried at Rocky River, in Chatham County.* Reference: Find A Grave Memorial - SmartCopy: Jan 30 2024, 15:22:35 UTC