William Nathaniel Gale

William Nathaniel Gale (c1740-before 1820). He was an innkeeper in Carter and Sullivan Counties, Tennessee. He was living at Watauga, Carter County, Tennessee in 1805. From 1809 he kept a "house of entertainment" (tavern, and perhaps also an inn) in Sullivan County, Tennessee, on Reedy Creek Road (the local name for the Old Kentucky Road, now Bloomingdale Road), on the way to Lee Court House (now Jonesville, Virginia, about 45 miles away).

FamilySearch.org (2016) identifies him as a son of Samuel Gale and Rebecca Underwood, of Watertown, Massachusetts but the identification seems unlikely. It says he was born in Pennsylvania to parents who lived their entire lives in Massachusetts and whose other children were all born in Massachusetts..

He was an uncle of Catherine Helvey (married James Roberson), who named her son William Nathaniel Gale Barron after him. If William Gale was son of John Gayle and Sarah White, he would have been uncle also of Catherine Gayle (who married (?) Herndon, and John Gibbs. The two Catherines have been confused in some sources, and might have been connected in some way.

He might have been related to the William Gayle who lived at Scott County, Kentucky. He also might have been related to Thomas Amis, an innkeeper in Hawkins County, Tennessee, whose first wife was Alice Gale, daughter of Thomas and Mary Gale.

In 1823 Henry L. Sheffey testified that about 1805 he and Thomas Warner took the illegitimate son of Joseph Barron, "acknowledged by him as such", then between four and five years old to the residence of William N. Gale in Tennessee where the child was left. Gale had no children of his own as Sheffy stated, "Gale and Barron were on terms of great intimacy and friendship." The child, living in Lee County, Virginia, and identified as William N. Gale Barron stated that he went to live with Gale when he was four years old. He left Gale when he was 17 or 18 years old and spent eight months at Cumberland Gap. Gale had sent him to school about four years and he learned reading, writing and common arithmetic as "far as addition of vulgar fractions." From 1809 Gale kept a house of entertainment in Sullivan County, Tennessee, on Reedy Creek Road, on the way to Lee Court House. The boy worked at feeding horses and did other work "as bound boys do."

This affidavit and testimony was probably made in connection with the lawsuit against Thomas Warner as executor of Joseph Barron's estate, in proceedings at Wythe County in 1824. The case went to the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals and was finally settled in 1831.

Deeds and Tax Lists

• 30 August 1805 Warrant No. 409 for 100 acres from Robert L. Brashears to William N. Gale.
• 28 March 1810 William N. Gale was witness to a deed for 840 acres in Sullivan County from Isaac Shelby to Rachel Blackmore for 840 acres "A tract of land on the waters of Reedy Creek, near Sharps Branch and on the wagon road and then along Varner's Hns" in Sullivan County (Sullivan Co., TN Deed Book No. 6 1809-1815 page 165).
• 18 August 1812 Guardianship paper recorded for his niece's son William Gale Barron.
• 1812 Tax List of Sullivan County, William N. Gailes, 230 acres, 1 white male, 2 black polls.
• 1813 William Gale does not appear on the 1813 tax list of of Capt. Everitt's Company in Sullivan County.
• 26 July 1813 William N. Gale, Grant #2860, 19 acres in Sullivan County.

Sources

• Reference: FamilySearch Genealogy - SmartCopy: May 15 2016, 15:13:46 UTC
• Reference: MyHeritage Family Trees - SmartCopy: May 5 2017, 17:12:06 UTC