At a Court of Pleas and quarter sessions held for Jefferson County in Dandridge on Monday the first day of August A. D. 1796. Present: Garrett Fitchgerald, Samuel Jack, and William Lillard Esquires.
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The Court appoint Thomas Jones Overseer of the road from Seehorn's ferry to Miller's Mill and until it intersects with the road to Dandridge.
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John Sehorn was a Revolutionary War veteran from Virginia. His home was Sehorn's Ferry on the south side of the French Broad River (today near the bridge where US-40 crosses Douglas Lake, up the river to the west of Taylors Bend (see this Rootsweb post from 2001, http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/TN-UPPER-CUMBERLAND/2001-03/0983904238).
Dandridge is across the river from Sehorn's Ferry. I don't know the location of Miller's Mill, so there's more research to determine the length of the road that Thomas was appointed to oversee.
In any case, I think this counts for meeting First Families of Tennessee status for the Jones line. The next step is to submit the package to the East Tennessee Historical Society. I'm aiming to do that later this month, and will report back on the response I receive.
That's quite a challenge to find records before 1797 in Tennessee! Looking forward to hearing more on your progress, Patrick. My only question: how will you demonstrate that that is your Thomas Jones? Do you have plat maps for the area? Or is the role of overseer independent from contiguous land ownership?
ReplyDeleteYou raise a good point. While I'm fairly certain this is my Thomas Jones, this resource isn't enough. When I get back from business travel, I'm going to pursue the microfilm loan route through the Family History Library for some of the other early Jefferson County records that are only available on microfilm. I also want to look again at the land grants filed in North Carolina for the area that became Jefferson County. This will add some time, but I think will uncover the remaining links to verify this is my Thomas Jones line.
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