Ezekiel Calhoun

A typewritten message entitled "Ezekiel Calhoun and Kenton" written by Arthur M. Kent of Wytheville on 03 Feb 1970 and signed by Mrs. Louis C. Hill of Gonzales, TX, on 23 June 1970 is in the John C. Calhoun papers at the South Caroliniana library. It states that traditions handed down in the Kent family indicate that Ezekiel Calhoun came to his land in Wythe County in 1762 on business, without his family. His cabin stood near a coffee-bean tree on a small rise just above the spring. From the canes a short distance from the cabin door, a lone Indian shot Ezekiel as he stood in the cabin door. He was buried on the plantation south of the spring on higher ground. In 1970, all that remained of the grave was a flat marker with no engraving.

A brief biography of Ezekiel Calhoun is in Mary B. Kegley, EARLY ADVENTURERS ON THE WESTERN WATERS, vol. 3, pt. 2 (Marceline, MO: Walsworth, 1995), pp. 597-8.

This states that he was b. abt. 1720 in Ireland, married: Jean Ewing, and had children: John Ewing, Patrick, Ezekiel, Mary, and Rebecca. Kegley notes previously (p. 594) that Ezekiel Calhoun was granted administor of his father's estate, along with brother William, on 4 May 1743, with final settlement a year later.

Margaret Ewing Fife, EWING IN EARLY AMERICA, part 1 (Atlanta, 1995), says that Ezekiel Calhoun and Jean Ewing married in 1743-4, perhaps at Chestnut Level in Lancaster Co., PA (p. 144).Previously, Kegley had also noted that Ezekiel Calhoun accompanied his mother, four brothers, and sister Mary Noble to Augusta (later Wythe) Co, VA, before Oct. 1745, settling on Reed Creek, where the family chose lands still regarded as among the finest in the county (p. 594).

In Sept. 1746, James Patton brought suit vs. the Calhoun brothers, accusing them of being "divulgers of false news to the great detriment of the Inhabitants of the Colony" (Kegley, p. 596)-- see file of Ezekiel Calhoun's brother James on this. After this, Patton appears to have named the Calhoun section of Augusta later Wythe) Co. as the Valley of Contention and Strife, or the trace of Pride and Self-Concete (citing Preston Family of VA Papers, folder 25, file 60, library of Congress).

Monroe Pickens, COUSIN MONROE'S HISTORY OF THE PICKENS FAMILY (1951), p. 40, which says that when the Long Cane massacre occurred in 1760, Ezekiel Calhoun escaped with his family to theWaxhaw settlement where his daughter Rebecca, then 15, met Andrew Pickens, her husband-to-be. This notes that the family returned to Long Cane in 1763 after the Indians had been driven away. But note that this would have been after Ezekiel Calhoun's death, per his estate records

Sources

1. Notable Southern Families, Vol 1, Page 52