Robert Jordan, of Halifax County

Not the son of William Jordan, of King & Queen County

Of Halifax County, VA. Booklet concerning entire Jordan family is in the South Boston public library, Library of Virginia, NC State Archives, and DAR library in Wash. DC - "Beneath the Black Walnut" (S. Jordan, 1999).

Biography

ROBERT JORDAN, SR.

https://jordans-journey.com/2021/08/31/jordan-family-roots-revisited/

Robert Jordan, Sr. was born August 9, 1755, and he is the earliest Jordan from whom we can establish a direct and provable line of descent. Robert married Elizabeth Church, daughter of Richard Church of Amelia County, Virginia, in 1778. Probate and tax records show that Robert and Elizabeth arrived in Halifax County, Virginia, before January 1779, and they settled in the easternmost section of the county just north of the Bannister River. They appear to have been friends and neighbors of Captain Joseph Ligon, Sr., who lived in the vicinity of what is now the Staunton River State Park (two of Elizabeth’s sisters married men named Ligon).

For a year or so Robert worked as a manager on the Ligon plantation, but by 1791 Robert and his family had relocated to the region near present day South Boston, having purchased 300 acres of land on Halfway Creek. Robert evidently became a successful planter, and for the years 1796-98 he was also the Commonwealth-appointed inspector for Dunkirk Warehouse on the Dan River.

Henry Jordan, Continental Army veteran and a presumed younger brother of Robert, lived in King and Queen County for some years before relocating to Halifax County in 1797. He bought 120 acres of land on Stokes Creek. Henry later sold that land to his brother Robert Sr. and nephew Robert Jr. before moving on to Tennessee in 1807.

Robert and Elizabeth had eleven children, eight boys and three girls, Mary, William, Robert, Elizabeth, Martha, Richard, Samuel, Henry, Elam, John, and Elijah. Elijah, our ancestor, was the last child.

Remaining in the south-central region of Halifax County the remainder of his life, Robert Jordan, Sr., died on January 25, 1816.

"Robert Jordan son of Samuel Jordan was born in 1717. He was a baron and on account of his oath of loyalty to the King of England, it is said that he was a Loyalist in the Revolutionary War and persuaded his young son, Robert Jr., not to join the Revolutionist. His other two sons, William and Henry, were soldiers in the Revolutionary War and crossed the Delaware with Washington."

Source: Wirt Johnson Carrington, A History of Halifax County (Virginia) (Richmond, VA: 1924), p. 216 < AncestryImage >

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From https://www.geni.com/discussions/274428?msg=1675819

This source posits a Robert Jordan born 1717 as father of the Robert Jordan of Halifax County, VA, born 1755 and assumes that the elder Robert's father was a William Jordan, somehow related to both Thomas Jordan the Quaker of Chuckatuck and a Samuel Jordan married to Elizabeth Fleming who died 1761 in Amelia County - in other words, an extremely confused account (see more detailed discussion at https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Jordan-2122).

The most recent research by a careful descendant of the younger Robert Jordan, of Halifax County, of Halifax County, including Y-DNA analysis, suggests that he may have been the son of a William Jordan, of King & Queen County of Gloucester and then King and Queen County, and that this William was not directly descended from Samuel Jordan of New Kent County or his father Thomas 'the Quaker' Jordan of Chuckatuck, but rather from a closely related line (see discussion at https://jordans-journey.com/2021/08/31/jordan-family-roots-revisited/).

References

1. ”Children of Col. Samuel Jordan of New Kent County” (Geni discussion) 1/11/2024 at 3:57 PM.