Nancy Susannah Bradshaw

Cumberland County charged her husband William Bradshaw on two tithables in 1759. ["Cumberland County Tithable Lists for 1759", The Southside Virginian, 2:112.] They and her sisters Judith and Elizabeth, and their families, moved to North Carolina.

Updated from MyHeritage Match via brother Hezekiah Robinson by SmartCopy: Sep 9 2014, 6:09:04 UTC

William and Susannah Robinson Bradshaw moved to North Carolina from Cumberland County, Virginia, with Susannah's sister Judith, who married William's brother, Field, and her sister Elizabeth, who married Daniel Hogan.

A Burke County record of 1789 says that on March 6th, William Bradshaw sold two acres of land on the Catawba River, that included his fishery. Susannah may have died because she does not seem to appear on the 1790 census. William Bradshaw had 7 slaves in the 1790 census.

Susannah was buried on the plantation William owned on the Catawba River. A neighbor, Elizabeth Harper, probably had her eye on William for some time. Mother of an illegitimate daughter, she first made inroads into the Bradshaw family by marrying off her daughter Prudence to William's grandson, William Beach, son of Justice and Judith Bradshaw Beach. The younger Bradshaws were marrying, setting up their own households, and moving away. His children, grown and gone, William in his grief and loneliness fell prey to the wiles of Elizabeth Harper and married her. He paid the penalty for the rest of his life. Elizabeth dominated him, cut him off from his children and attempted to take over his whole estate, with the help of her daugher and son in law.

At the time of his marriage to Elizabeth Harper, William Bradshaw was in his 70's. She was much younger. William died in Overton County, Tennessee in 1817 at the age of 91. After his death his children sued Elizabeth Bradshaw and William Beach for their shares of his estate. Court depositions in Overton County, Tennessee, and Burke County, North Carolina, tell the sad story of William's later years: "hard of hearing, blind, deceived by his wife and her lazy son in law, William Beach. All of the depositions taken in Tennessee and North Carolina were against Elizabeth Harper Bradshaw and William Beach and supported the claims of William Bradshaw's children.

After their marriage, Elizabeth insisted that they move to Lincoln County, North Carolina, and then to Overton County, Tennessee, far from William's children. Elizabeth said, "I have but one child and will not be parted from her by any man on earth.". Elizabeth and William began to get the elderly William Bradshaw to sign things over to William Beach. Their plan fell apart at the death of William Bradshaw, when those who had witnessed these transactions all testified that William Bradshaw had been deceived. The Burke County, North Carolina Court Minutes of 1793-1827 reveal that William's offspring won the court battle in April, 1827.