Thomas Branch Willson

GEDCOM Note

!MARRIAGE: Letter of Meg T. Gregory, 19 Nov 1865, Spring Hill, Chester, VA
Obituary of Harriet GREGORY Willson, 13 July 1865, Spring Hill
BIRTH: DESCENDANTS OF CAPT. THOMAS FRIEND 1700-1760, (ancestors p. 137)
BIRTH-MARRIAGE: Chart by Martha GREGORY O'Brien (from Martha DuBose, Chester)
DEATH: e-mail from Kathy Emmel, 11/25/15, 12/7/15, Thomas WIllson's will in Amelia Co. WB 6, p 160-161

Thomas Branch Willson was born about 1785/90 (estimated from his wife's
1790/92 birth & their 1816 marriage). His parents were Daniel Willson (#220) &
Elizabeth ANDERSON Willson. The Willsons were from Amelia Co., VA (see FRIEND p. 137, for his ancestors).
In 1816, Thomas Branch Willson married his second cousin Harriet Gregory,
(#114) daughter of Richard Gregory (#216) and Elizabeth Wilkinson of
Chesterfield Co., VA. Thomas Branch Willson and Harriet GREGORY Willson had ten
children including:
Elizabeth Anderson Willson (1826-1863) m Richard Augustus Gregory, Jr.
Margaret "Meg" Thomas Willson (1831-c1895) m George Cox Gregory, Sr.
(husbands were sons of Richard Augustus Gregory & Frances COX G.)

Thomas Branch Willson and all but one child, Meg, had died before his
wife's death in July 1865. Harriet died at 73-75 years of age, at her
daughter Meg WILLSON Gregory's home, Spring Hill, in Chesterfield Co., VA.
Since he is not mentioned in Meg's Nov 1865 letter about the war, it is most
likely that he had died several years earlier, in Chesterfield Co.

As info below shows, Thomas Branch Willson died in 1830, just before daughter Meg was born. He left a pregnant wife and three small children, and many creditors.

Kathy Emmel e-mailed 11/25/15, response to LCHS Civil War photos:

I am going to join U.S. Daughters of the War of 1812, but to do so, I had to prove a patriot contributed in some way. Cheryl, a woman in the chapter I am joining, has been helping me. She found that Thomas Branch Willson served on the Overseers of the Poor committee in Amelia County, VA in 1784. This qualifies for joining as the ancestor did not necessarily have to be a soldier. They just had to help "grow" a new nation in some way.

In the course of looking up lots of documents proving every generation back to Thomas Willson (which I didn't have to do for the DAR since it was already done!), she stumbled across a lot of chancery court documents about creditors suing Thomas Branch Willson (our patriot ancestor's grandson) for money he owed them. This Thomas Branch Willson was the father of Margaret and Elizabeth Willson. He died in 1830 right after people started suing him (suspicious, isn't it!). He had three small children and his wife Harriet was pregnant with Margaret, your relative, who was born in 1831. In the court papers it says the baby's name was Harriet Thomas Willson, but I think that is incorrect.

If you are interested in looking at these many, many pages of documents, I will have Cheryl send them to you in a Dropbox file. Would you like them? If so, I will let her know. They are interesting! Poor Harriet - creditors breathing down her neck and four young children to raise; and who knows what happened to her husband? We are thinking he did not die of an illness as he left no will, which most of our ancestors did. So - did he do himself in or did someone else? I haven't found any record of his death!
Kathy

There are records of alcoholism in the Willson family who owned Amelia Springs. Could that have been Thomas' problem, contributing to his failure as a farmer on the poor Chesterfield soil?


Amelia Co. Court Document, p. 1-2 (e-mail from Kathy Emmel, 11/25/15, is copy of original document; later transcribed by JMSHowe):

A Court document of Amelia Co., VA, c 1831, (after Thomas Branch Willson d 1830 and just after Meg Thomas Willson b 1831), in which his wife Harriet Gregory Willson seeks to retain her dower of land, lists children: Francis, Malvina, Elizabeth and unnamed infant (Meg T. Willson). The document states that before Thomas Branch Willson died in 1830, he deeded about 500 acres he owned on Flat Creek in Amelia County, to John Booker and Francis A. Willson, recorded in Amelia Court House "in trust for certain named creditors." After T.B.W.'s death, his widow (left with four young children) states that she "never relinquished her dower right to any portion of the land, she not being a party to the deed ...referred to." The court appointed 7 men (or any 3 of them) to take a competent surveyor and lay off boundaries for 1/3 of the disputed 500 acres of land, to go to Harriet Gregory Willson as her dower portion. Evidently John Booker and Francis B. Willson were to use the other 2/3 of the land to pay creditors of T.B.W. William Gregory is listed as guardian of Harriet's four young children (including new-born Meg).