John Estes 1751-1840

At age 25, John was an early volunteer in the American Revolution. He served two years, first as Corporal then as Sergeant, in the 7th Virginia Militia Regiment, which was later taken into the Continental Army, during some of the most trying times of that war. He saw action at Windmill Point, Virginia where the Americans shelled Royal Governor Dunmore's fleet and drove the vessels off with considerable damage. While home for Christmas in 1776, after ten months of army life, he recruited his sixteen year old younger brother Thomas, my fourth great grandfather, to join the American cause also, and they walked to Williamsburg where Thomas was duly sworn in to serve the remaining one year of a two year enlistment of Private William Hopson, the younger brother of the Company Lieutenant. They walked to Baltimore, Maryland, where they were inoculated for small pox. After convalescing for two to three weeks they were released to join their regiment in Philadelphia. The two were at the battles of Brandywine and German Town, where the American forces were soundly beaten, then spent the winter in Valley Forge, which every school child is taught was an important crisis of the Revolution. Upon being discharged at Valley Forge in February or March of 1778, when their enlistment was up, the brothers returned to Halifax County, where we presume they were involved in working the family farm.

It is possible that the father of John and Thomas Estes died before 1780 as in the fall of 1781 the brothers elected to move to Washington County, North Carolina, which is today the State of Tennessee. They first went to the Watauga Settlement where they remained for about three years. Although the English King had forbidden any settlement by his subjects in the Indian lands west of the Appalacian Mountain Range, the Watauga Valley had been first settled by whites from North Carolina about ten years before. Most of those early settlers had been Regulators or early day vigilantes meting out their own brand of frontier justice, who had been driven out of North Carolina by the authorities, and they sought a place to live out of reach of a restrictive government. The River Dan, which runs through both Virginia and North Carolina, runs through Halifax County where the Estes family lived. A number of the settlers had originally lived along the Dan River and may have been known to the Estes brothers. While living in the settlement, they became known and came to know the people who were already becoming quite influential in early Tennessee activities. Colonel Thomas Jarnigan or Janikan was one such individual. Oddly enough, another ancestor of the Ernest Estes family, James Boyd of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, had moved to the area about the same year as John and Thomas.

The Cherokee Indians, as well as many other tribes, were allies of the British and were encouraged by British agents during the Revolution to make war on the American settlements west of the Appalacian Mountains. The British paid a bounty for American scalps, including women and children. The British under General Cornwallis were defeated at York Town in October of 1781, and surrendered to General Washington. It was not until November of 1783 that a treaty of peace was finally signed, which ceded the British territory from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mississippi River, excluding Canada, to the United States of America.

Meanwhile the Cherokee were left to continue the war with British supplies. We do not know what part John and Thomas Estes played in the war with the Cherokee, but we know that another Estes from Halifax County, Virginia, George by name and possibly a brother, served against the Cherokee Nation from the Watauga Settlement in the fall of 1782. James Boyd served from the same area against the Cherokee in 1781. The Cherokee were soundly defeated as not only did the Wataugians field a force against them, but North Carolina and Virginia also sent fighting men. Cherokee towns were burnt and crops destroyed by riding horses back and forth across corn, squash, and beans that had not been harvested. Food that had been harvested was burned or trampled into the dirt to make it unusable. Cherokee women and children were taken prisoner to be exchanged for white captives at future negotiations. The Cherokee signed a treaty in the winter of 1782-83, and more Indian land was ceded to the whites. Settlers movfed down the Holston River and among the first were Colonel Thomas Jarnigan, who claimed a nine mile stretch of land along the north bank of the Holston. John and Thomas Estes established modest farms of 163 and 175 acres on the south bank of the Holston in what is today Morristown, Tennessee. On again, off again war continued with the Cherokee for the next twenty years.

Upon Tennessee being admitted to the United States in 1796, John Estes, being one of a handful of people who could read and write, was appointed as one of the court magistrates for the newly formed county of Granger. He served in that capacity for at least the next 25 years.

In 1808, the Governor issued a warrant to seize the property of John Estes, who was surety for Ambrose Yancey, to pay $5,000.00. We do not know if Yancey had defaulted on a debt of other infraction, but we do know he too was a Granger County court clerk. Three feather beds, and furniture, ten head of cattle, two horses, one Negro woman named Lena, one woman's saddle, and one looking glass were seized by Sheriff James Corn to be sold at public auction. When the goods were put up for auction one cow sold for eighty one cents, and no one would bid on the remaining property. It appears that public sympathy was with John Estes, but we wonder who the rascal was that bought the cow. John Estes, and Thomas Henderson, who was also surety, continued to serve as magistrates. In 1832 John Estes applied for pension for his service during the Revolution and received $80.00 per year until his death January 31, 1840.

[Contributed by Leo R. Estes 1 Oct 2000 12:00am]