Peter Albritton, Sr.

info from ancestry.com

1. ID: I0116
2. Name: Peter Albritton (4)
3. Sex: M
4. Birth: 1741 in Princess Ann County, Virginia
5. Death: 1798 in Pitt County, North Carolina

Father: James Albritton (3) b: 17 SEP 1705 in York County, Virginia

Mother: Elizabeth ? b: ABT. 1710 in York County, Virginia

Marriage 1 Susannah ? b: WFT Est. 1722-1747

   * Married: ABT. 1758 in Pitt County, North Carolina

Children

  1. Samuel Albritton (5) b: 2 APR 1759 in Pitt County, North Carolina

  2. James Albritton (5) b: 2 JUL 1761 in Pitt County, North Carolina

  3. Elizabeth Albritton (5) b: 2 MAR 1763 in Pitt County, North Carolina

  4. Mary Albritton (5) b: 24 JAN 1767 in Pitt County, North Carolina

  5. Adam Albritton (5) b: 10 APR 1769 in Pitt County, North Carolina

  6. Jonathan Albritton (5) b: 19 MAR 1771 in Pitt County, North Carolina

  7. Joel Albritton (5) b: 9 JUN 1773 in Pitt County, North Carolina

  8. William Albritton (5) b: ABT. 1775 in Pitt County, North Carolina

  9. Peter Albritton (5) b: 2 JAN 1776 in Pitt County, North Carolina

 10. Luke Albritton (5) b: 8 MAY 1778 in Pitt County, North Carolina

Peter Albritton was born in the latter 1730s or about 1740 in Princess Anne County, Virginia. While a young boy or possibly a mere toddler, Peter’s parents sold their property in the Virginia Colony and moved into the Province of North Carolina, and Peter grew up living along the Tar River in present-day eastern Pitt County and along the New River in coastal Onslow County. Peter’s mother died when he was still a young boy, with his stepmother, Amy, raising him from a young age. In fact, she may have been the only mother Peter knew.

Peter Albritton first paid taxes in Pitt County, North Carolina as an adult male in 1763. On 20 June 1764, for £20 “proclamation money,” he purchased 200 acres of land in Pitt on the south side of the Tar River, “on a prong” of Chicod Creek now known as Cow Swamp. Over the next two decades, he increased his land holdings there to 950 acres by 1785. His plantation adjoined that of his father, located on what are now known as Cow and Cross Swamps, south of the Tar River and near present-day Black Jack and Grimesland, in eastern Pitt County.

Between about 1783 and 1795, many of Peter Albritton's sons left his plantation south of the Tar River where the extended Albritton had lived since 1755 and moved north, across the river to Grindle Creek and settled on the plantation of their uncle, Peter's brother, James Albritton Jr. Peter's eldest surviving son, James Albritton, and both of his known daughters, Elizabeth and Mary, moved in the early 1780s, soon followed by Adam and Jonathan, with Joel Albritton moving there by 1794. We do not know the motivation for most of Peter’s children to leave their father’s farm and move across the river to their uncle’s neighborhood, but those who moved are the only ones who remained in Pitt County into the nineteenth century. While these children of Peter left numerous descendants in the Grindle Creek region, now called the Pactolus Community, Peter’s sons who remained on Cow and Cross Swamps through 1800, including William, Enoch, and Peter, Albritton Jr., as well as the elder Peter's nephew, James, all emigrated from Pitt County just a few years later.

By early 1797, Peter Albritton had reached his mid-fifties, a typical lifespan for most Albritton males in that era. He had perhaps decided to follow his sons to Grindle Creek north of the Tar River, where he had already acquired a tract of land, or perhaps his health had begun to fail, leading him to put portions of his plantation in the names of his sons who still lived on and worked the family land. On February 4th and 6th, he made a series of transactions, selling portions of his plantation to these sons. Peter Albritton Sr. died sometime between February 1797 and early 1799, presumably after the death of his son, James. It is unclear if Peter died on his Cow Swamp plantation where he had spent his adult life, or if he left after selling his land to his four sons in February 1797 and joined his brother and other children on Grindle Creek, on the north side of the Tar River. In 1800, Peter’s youngest son, Luke, lived on Grindle Creek beside his siblings and his household consisted only of an older woman, presumably his mother, Peter’s widow. Thus, it is possible that Peter, his wife, and Luke had moved across the Tar in 1797 or 1798, and Peter died there.

None of Peter Albritton’s recorded Pitt County land transactions name his wife, nor does any other known source reveal any information about her. It does appear that she survived him and lived with their youngest son, Luke, in 1800 and 1810. Born in 1778, Luke was still single in 1800, and his household consisted of himself, a female aged 45 years and older, and five slaves. Luke had married by 1810, when his household included three males and one female aged under 10 years old. Luke is aged 26–45, and the female aged 16–26 is presumably his wife. Luke’s household also includes a white female aged 45 and over, as well as twelve slaves. This older female in Luke’s household in 1800 and 1810 does appear to be Peter Albritton’s widow, and if so, she died sometime after 1810.