Thomas Estes ca1761-1833

The drawing on the preceding page shows one type of work servants were required to perform. As time went by, African slaves were imported, but Africans were much more expensive to buy even though they were slaves for life. England was not able to supply all the people needed to meet the demand for servants, even with kidnaping and collaboration by unscrupulous judges to meet the demand. Indians were enslaved at every opportunity. Whole tribes were captured and enslaved from Massachusetts to South Carolina. Some powerful tribes found ready buyers for captives from raids on weaker tribes. English slave buyers supplied firearms to Indians to help in the raids. But, Indian slaves were inclined to run away and were very difficult to run down. An arrangement soon developed where American Indians were traded for Africans. The Blacks proved to be more docile and adaptable. And the Indians could not run away from the islands. One year South Carolina alone exported more than 10,000 Indians into slavery.⁴ There is evidence that some masters were very cruel as laws were passed requiring servants be given a public burial. It was intended to discourage masters from beating white servants to death. In any event, white slaves were used for the most servile labor, and were prohibited from marrying or having relations with slaves of the other sex. A happy note is once a male servant was free, he could become a land owner and start accumulating more land along with debt. Females, on the other hand, had to marry or find another form of servitude. As males outnumbered females about four to three, no one was long without a husband. In 1662 the Royal African Company was formed, with the King as a major share holder, to provide African slaves to the colonies, and it was from this time on that most slaves were black.⁵ But white slavery did not cease until after the Revolution.

Thomas Estes was born in either Louisa or Halifax Counties, Virginia around 1761. According to the pension application of his brother, John, the family moved to Halifax County about the time Thomas was born. He did not know the date of his birth, but he stated in his pension application that he was fifteen years old when the Declaration of Independence was signed.⁶ Apparently several Estes brothers moved to Halifax County around 1752-1758 and settled around Poplar Creek in what is today South Boston, Virginia. More than one thousand acres of land was possessed by a John Estes, but it was sold off a piece at a time over the next twenty years. We do not know at this writing if or how he was related. Cotton had not yet become an important crop of the south. Tobacco remained the cash crop and the medium of exchange until well after the War of Independence. Land had to be cleared, cultivated and planted. With or without slave labor, the yeoman farmer worked at back breaking labor from sun up to sun down.

Trouble had been brewing between the colonists and the crown for years. Generations of English colonists had never seen England, and had become accustomed to paying little or no tax. When the English Parliament passed tax laws to require the colonists to pay some of the expense of sending an army and fleet to fight the French in North America, the colonists, who thought of themselves as Americans now, would not have any of it. Americans were quick to resort to violence to settle differences. It was now part of their culture. They did not fear war, they were used to it as generations had been in a constant state of warfare with their Indian, Spanish, and French neighbors. They were violent with each other. When Boston was occupied by a British Army, it was only a matter of time before actual fighting began. On the 18th of April 1775 a shot was fired that still reverberates around the world. Modern day Asians, Africans, and rebels from the old Soviet Union, study the actions and read the writings of Americans from that time. When a call went out for volunteers to fight the British, sweetened with bounty money of course, there were numerous Esteses who stepped forward. From Maine to South Carolina, we find records of Estes men who answered the call. We have not found one who supported the King.

John, Ezekiel, and Abraham Estes of Halifax county, volunteered in January, 1776, and marched off to war. When John Estes returned to the Estes home in Halifax County from the 7th Virginia Militia, for Christmas in 1776, he was full of tales of his adventures in fighting the British. The previous summer, the Virginia Militia had successfully driven the Royal Governor Dunmore and his troops from the Colonial Capitol of Williamsburg, and had inflicted considerable damage to several ships of his fleet.⁷ John had been part of a gun crew that took part in the action. Things got kind of slow after that as the British did not have enough troops in the colony to put up a fight. He afterwards came down with a fever and was sent into the back country to be nursed by a widow for over a month.

It was common practice in those days, for those who could afford it, to pay another person to serve in their stead for military service. It happened that a younger brother of one of the Lieutenant's of the Company to which John Estes belonged, was looking for someone to serve the remaining year of his two-year enlistment. Thomas was eager to fill that billet. When John Estes walked back to Williamsburg to rejoin his company in January of 1777, he was accompanied by two other Estes boys, Thomas and Abram. Abram Estes, who may have been a brother of John and Thomas, had also returned home on furlough for Christmas. When they arrived in Williamsburg, they found the militia regiment had been taken into the Continental Army by General George Washington and ordered to Baltimore, Maryland, and their company had already gone. Thomas was sworn in, and we assume received some bounty for his enlistment. The soldiers marched on to Baltimore, and joined up with their company. A vaccination for small pox had been discovered some years before, and the soldiers were inoculated at Baltimore. The procedure was of some risk as it resulted in high fevers, sometimes deliriums, and certainly loss of capacity to care for ones self for as long as two weeks. The men were hospitalized and held as patients for several days until they recovered. The rest of the regiment had already been inoculated, and recovered by the time the troops who had been on furlough joined them. While the regiment went on to Philadelphia, Corporal John Estes was placed in charge of the detail of men who had to remain behind for small pox vaccination. Upon being discharged from the hospital in Baltimore, Corporal Estes took charge of about forty men and took ship to the headwaters of the Elk River an the northern end of the Chesapeake Bay. From there Corporal Estes marched his detail to Philadelphia to join his company. Upon arriving in Philadelphia, where they rejoined the regiment, they were marched to Middle Brook, New Jersey, where General Washington commanded the main army.

The British Army landed at the headwaters of the Elk River where the Estes brothers had landed the month before. The Americans attempted to stop the British from marching to Philadelphia, and engaged them in the Battle of Brandywine. Some American supply wagons including blankets for the winter were captured at that time. The Americans were driven off, but again attacked the British Army at Germantown a few days later. Here the English took refuge in a large building and shot from the windows while the Americans formed up in traditional lines and were shot to pieces. Again the Americans were driven off, and General Howe marched into Philadelphia. In November the American Army took up winter quarters at Valley Forge, while the British occupied Philadelphia only fourteen miles away.⁸ There were no blankets, and all the soldiers were poorly clothed. Sometimes a squad of soldiers had only one coat or blanket to share between them and it was passed from one to another to stand sentry duty. Food was in short supply, and some days the men did not receive a single meal. Once a flight of wild pigeons descended into Valley Forge very close to the ground and with clubs and poles the soldiers killed a great many, enough to feed them several days. Camp followers, consisting of wives, sweethearts, and prostitutes shared the shelters and food of the soldiers. A great number of enlistments were completed by the new year, and the American Army dwindled to less than two thousand men. General Howe could have easily defeated or captured the whole American force if he had marched out with a portion of his eleven thousand troops. After staying the winter through, in March of 1778, John Estes requested and received discharge papers for Thomas and himself at Valley Forge as their term of service had expired. They walked back to Halifax County, Virginia.

The disappointment of having participated in two losing battles, and the hardship of freezing duty at Valley Forge on short rations did not dampen the patriotic fervor of our grandfather. Two years later, Thomas Estes answered a call for volunteers to defend Charleston, South Carolina.¹⁰ While serving under General Lincoln, he was at the unsuccessful attempt to capture a British fort along the Stono River. General Lincoln was able to pass his troops into Charleston the day before the British completed the encirclement of the city, but he was badly out numbered, and out gunned. When the British began an all out bombardment of the city, General Lincoln asked for terms, and surrendered the city and the whole of the American army in the south on May 12, 1780. Contintental soldiers were chained and held in prison ships, but militia soldiers, of which Thomas Estes was one, were paroled to return home. Apparently he did not return to Virginia as he reported he was in attendance when General Gates was defeated by General Cornwallis, at Camden, South Carolina on August 16, 1780. South Carolina and Georgia were firmly in British hands. For the second time within three months the American army in the south was no more. The historical description of the equipage of the soldiers in the southern campaign is one to excite pity. General Nathaniel Greene did not take off his clothing for seven months. Some private soldiers were completely unclothed, and used rags and moss between their skin and their cartridge belts to relieve chafing. Thomas was discharged in September 1780 after serving seven months. This enlistment, like the first, consisted of having to participate in the most humiliating defeats experienced by the American patriots. We admire his spirit of tenacious stubbornness, and find it to be a family trait today.

The British under the command of General Cornwallis passed through Halifax County in February 1881 in pursuit of General Nathaniel Greene's army which was ferried over the Dan River at Boyd's Ferry near the Estes plantation. Private Thomas Estes enlisted a third time in March 1781 in Halifax County, Virginia for another six months term in the Virginia Militia. His commanding officer was General Paul Washington. We do not know what action, if any, he was engaged in this enlistment. Thomas was discharged at Hillsboro, North Carolina, after serving his full six months enlistment.¹¹

Upon returning to Halifax, Thomas joined his brother John who was prepared to move across the Appalachian Mountains to Washington County, North Carolina. Washington County would eventually become the state of Tennessee. George Estes of Halifax County, Virginia, reported in his pension application that he helped a family move to Washington County in the fall of 1781, and the John Estes family may have been the family he helped. George Estes, stayed in Washington County for two years, then returned to Halifax County, Virginia after serving an enlistment against the Cherokee.¹²

The Over Mountain Men, as the settlers of the Tennessee were called, were fighting the battles of Cowpens and Kings Mountain about the same time the Estes brothers were moving across the mountains to join their settlement. The settlers were in constant apprehension of attack from the Indians who were allies of the English, and were supplied by them. Although the settlers had bought their land from the Cherokee, and had negotiated a treaty of peace in 1775, the British Indian agents encouraged, cajoled, and bribed the Cherokee to attack the Americans in an attempt to create a diversion of men and material from the major war along the seacoast. There were always Indians willing to accept presents and sell scalps. The constant threat of Indian attack kept the settlements confined to the Watauga, Nolichucky, and Carter Valleys of present day Tennessee.

The Estes brothers and their families were part of a steady flow of settlers moving from the east to seek cheaper land and opportunity in the west. Although the land had been granted to an English lord by the King of England, (the Indians were not consulted) the Americans considered any unoccupied land as free for the taking. As soon as peace was official between the new Republic, the English and their Indian allies, the Americans found it safe to expand into new land. Thomas and John Estes were original settlers along the Holston River in what was to become Granger County, Tennessee. Indian raids and wars continued to be part of the life of the settlers until after the turn of the century, and it was often necessary to take refuge in one of the stations built for shelter from Indian attack. What was called stations in Tennessee, were called forts in Kentucky. The grandparents of David Crockett were killed by Creek Indians in present day Rogersville about this time. Newspaper articles from the Knoxville Gazette report a large number of Indian attacks.

Thomas Estes, was about twenty-four years old when he claimed 175 acres to farm along the waters south of the Holston. We can imagine his first home was a log cabin as this type of structure had been mad quite common with the coming of the Anglo-Scotts or Scotch-Irish who found the structure to be quite similar to the hovels they lived in in the old country. The log cabin could be thrown up in about one days time with the help of neighbors or slaves, and its loss or abandonment was nothing to be concerned about. It usually consisted of a single room of about 16x20 foot measure.¹³ Quite often two such structures would be built with a space roofed over between them to create a breezeway or dog-trot. There was no privacy. No curtain or partition separated adults and children or boys and girls with the Scotch-Irish. The English and German settlers were more inclined to build separate rooms and a loft. Cooking, eating and sleeping was done all in the same room. No beds, closets, vanities, or mirrors encouraged the occupants to spend any unnecessary time in the cabin. No habit of weekly bathing had yet developed, and most pioneers did not bother building out houses for years. When the weather would permit, all activities were conducted outside, including cooking, visiting and entertaining. A cabin without a whisky still was rare. A teetotaler was even more rare, including children. Whisky took the place of money on the frontier, just as tobacco did in the southern seaboard states. Even church tithes were paid with whisky.

Schools would have to wait for a future generation, but were not unheard of. Sam Houston had only one year of schooling when he began teaching about thirty years later in the early 1800's. David Crockett had even less, and these two frontiersmen were elected to high office, and became quite famous. Along with the severance of political ties with England, ties with the established church were also severed. Dissenting protestant denominations proliferated. Naturally the Scotts carried their Presbyterian denomination, and the English their Methodism and Baptist, both off shoots of the Episcopalian church. All were referred to as redneck by the Episcopal congregation, a name carried from the borderlands of England and Scotland.¹⁴ The term was adopted by the slaves who used it as an acceptable derogatory term for despised whites. Where all had been required by law to pay tithes and attend Episcopal services while under English rule, they were inclined to exercise this new freedom of affiliating where they chose, and they chose not to be Episcopalian. The American colonies had experienced a spiritual re-awakening before the Revolution, and after the Revolution the frontier settlements experienced one that has few parallels. Camp meetings, where congregants spoke in tongues, swooned, and spontaneously broke out into song or prayer, swept through the border settlements and were identified with the backwoods culture. That was a century before the first Pentecostal church.

We do not have any record of marriage for Thomas Estes, consequently we do not know the name of his first wife, our grandmother. His farm was located in Hawkins County, then Jefferson County, then Granger County, and today would be in Hamblen County, Tennessee. Most likely the location of the farm would be under water as the Tennessee Valley Authority built a dam on the Holston and Cherokee Lake covers the area today. During the Civil War, Union troops had a bonfire of Hawkins County records and court documents when they occupied Rogersville, and we may never learn the wife's name. He did have at least four children who grew up to have families of their own. We have identified John, Floyd, Mary and Canady Estes from this union. Floyd Estes was our ancestor. Thomas lived in Granger County for at least twenty-one years, as court documents and tax lists show him to be a duteous citizen. He served jury duty in local court. Sometime after 1805 his house burned and he lost all his records. By 1812, at the age of fifty-one, he was widowed, as he had moved to Franklin County where he married Cynthia.¹⁵ He may have moved to Alabama for a period of time as his brother John reported in his pension application that he believed Thomas to be living there in 1834.

When congress passed a law granting pension payments to Revolutionary War soldiers in June of 1832, Thomas Estes made application in Lawrence County, Tennessee, and received $80 per annum. He died September 17, 1833. His estate settlement shows he owned four female slaves, Dinah and child Phillis, and Mima and child Miriam, who were sold to make distribution of his estate. His son, John, was the administrator of the estate, and his son-in-law, Peter Counce, bought a Mulatto woman, Mima and child for $700.00.¹⁶ Floyd Estes, son of Thomas, from whom we are descended, died in 1826, seven years before Thomas. Apparently there was no correspondence between father and son as neither could write, and it was not until James H. Estes went down river to Lawrence County to see his grandfather and uncles did Floyd's widow, Achsa, and children learn of his death.

1. "Albion's Seed" by David Hackett Fischer, 1989, pp. 344-349. Mr. Fischer writes that education was seen as a base of power, and to preserve their power base, the ruling class of Virginia kept the poor in a state of illiteracy. p.347 "This condition was not an accident. It was deliberately contrived by Virginia's elite, who positively feared learning among the general population. The classic expression of this attitude came from Governor William Berkeley himself. When asked in 1671 by the Lords of Trade about the state of schools in Virginia, he made a famous reply: 'I thank God,' he declared, 'there are no free schools nor printing, and I hope we shall not have these [for a] hundred years; for learning has brought disobedience, and heresy, and sects into the world, and printing has divulged them, and libels against the best government. God keep us from both!' Even if a poor immigrant came to the colony with some education, there was nothing to read, and no books or writing material to pass on such skills to the next generation.

2. "The original list of persons of quality", Hotten, C.A. Baker, 1931, p.256; Estes Trails, 1981, 2#2. McWilliam Gany, his muster of VA, 1623: Thomasin EESTER, age 26, came on the "Falcon" in 1617. Muster of the inhabitants of Va settlements, Jan-Feb, 1624/5: Settlers living at "Elizabeth Cittie" in VA; Jan Lindblom . 7/2/1624-5: Eester, Thomasin: 26 (Servant);

3. In "They Were White and They Were Slaves" author Michael A. Hoffman II, p. 89 writes that "A white male slave had at least four years added to his time for having sex with a White female slave or for entering into a compact of marriage with her".

4. "Lies My Teacher Told Me" by James W. Loewen, 1995, Simon & Schuster. pp. 105-106. The author has his own bias and axe to grind in interpreting historical records, but he has done well in presenting facts that are generally neglected by history text books.

5. "English Colonies in America" by J.A. Doyle, M.A., 1889, Henry Holt and Company. Chapter XIII. Subheading: Establishment of Negro Slavery, "The king and his brother henceforth had a direct interest in limiting the supply of indentured servants..."

6. Pension application of Thomas Estes/Estices, W1160 dated August 28, 1832.

7. Pension application of John Estes, S3338 dated April 14, 1834. John Estes gave a more extensive and detailed account of their military service, than Thomas.

8. Both brothers reported, in their pension applications, being in these momentous battles of the Revolutionary War, as well as spending the winter at Valley Forge.

9. Pension application of Thomas Estes.

10. Ibid.

11. Ibid.

12. Pension application of George Estes.

13. "Albion's Seed" by David Hackett Fischer, pp. 657-662. Has a very extensive discussion on the cabin structure and living conditions, and how it resembled the easily constructed and inexpensive cabin found in the border country of England and Scotland. Mr. Fischer sees a continuation of the cabin in the pre-fabricated modular homes so popular in the south today, as well as the motor home and trailer Americans favor. The border folk had become accustomed to temporary housing because of short land tenancy and border raids.

14. Ibid p.758. "...The earliest American example known to this historian was recorded in North Carolina by Anne Royall in 1830, who noted that 'red-neck' was 'a name bestowed upon the Presbyterians.' It had long been a slang word for religious dissenters in the north of England."

15. Pension application of Thomas Estes.

16. Estate settlement of Thomas Estes recorded in Lawrence County, Tennessee, January 1835.

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