Lt. Joseph Oates

The Oates family of Duplin, Sampson. Our Heritage by Claude Moore.< PDF >

Nearly every week I receive some inquiry about data on the pioneer Oates family which now has descendants all over the country. It is believed by genealogists that this family originally came from Denmark and that they settled in Corn- wall, England in the 9th cen- tury. The name in Danish was "Utz". The great castles of Perran Sabolire and St. Agnes in Cornwall were built by the Oates family. We find a settler by the name of Oates living in Warwick County, Virginia, after 1652.

James Oates. (born 1660) was living in Perquimans County, North Carolina, in 1696. He received land grants there. He married a Mrs. Elizabeth Eivens after 1693. His will was probated in Perquimans County in 1704. He left one son, Joseph, born on August 7, 1697.

Joseph Oates married Elizabeth Wyatt and later received land grants in Chowan and Bertie counties, and in 1747 and 1749 he received land grants on Goshen Swamp in what later became Sampson and Duplin. Joseph and Elizabeth Oates had three sons: Capt. John Oates, Capt. James Oates and Capt. Jethro Oates, all officers in the Dobbs County Military, prior to the American Revolution.