Digging Around In My Roots



Found that Charlie Riggan was the
oldest living Confederate veteran
in the state of North Carolina
when he died in 1947 at the
age of 105.  Seems he
loved the ladies.

One of the reasons I was excited about taking a job in North Carolina was the opportunity to get back into some genealogy research.  Seems that I have a lot of roots in North Carolina.  Of course none of them were on the outer banks so I've had to do some driving to get to the area that I need to be in to really research.  I'm having fun and learning a lot, but then the more I learn the more questions I find myself asking. 

For instance, I would like to better understand what drove my father's great, great, great grandfather to pull up roots and leave the middle of North Carolina for the middle of Tennessee.  Granted up until just a few years before he (and my mother's great, great, great, great grandfather) came to the Nashville area what we call Tennessee was still part of North Carolina.  Nevertheless, they still had to cover several hundred miles of rough terrain with very little roads and what roads were there were terribly rough.  Then you have to remember the Indians, wild animals, where to obtain vittals and such along the way, navigating the Cumberland Pass as well as rivers.  And after all that, they somehow decided to make homes west of the city of Nashville which was a thriving river town at the time. 

At least I know my two great, great, great, great aunts would have been prepared for the trip.  According to Francis Riggan's will he left them an assortment of farm tools and "two asses".  All items that would seem to come in handy while making a long trek through the wilderness, or at least that would be my guess.  Don't think you'd want to ride an ass through all that but at least you would have some beasts of burden to pull the wagon.


Have also discovered this southern girl has connections to New Jersey.  Can you believe that?  Yep, seems that my Hunt ancestors came from England and struck out to the wilderness of New Jersey. 

Memucan Hunt Sr.
Family lore says the name
comes from the book of Esther.

Memucan Hunt Jr. born
1807 in NC, later migrated
to MS to manage family
land, then went to TX
to fight for independence.
First minister of TX to the
US, first Secretary of the TX
Navy, and unsuccessful
candidate for VP of TX.

With time though they came to their senses and moved south to the wilderness of North Carolina where they formed the Jersey Settlement.  After fighting some Cherokee Indians and a couple of wars a few of the younger generation headed out for Tennessee.  Not all of them left.  One distant cousin stayed and became the first Treasurer of North Carolina.  Unfortunately only 2 years in to his term he was asked to leave concerning some mismanagement of funds.  None the worse for it he and his wife Polly (a Wade who married a Hunt which is funny since my grandmother was a Hunt who married a Wade) settled on their estate with their slaves.  Yep, seems some of my folks had some
money at one time. 

I think it would be fun to come across some explanation somewhere in a miscellaneous file of old letters, or maybe a newspaper article. What gave them the itch to move on west?  Did they travel in groups of friends and family or strike out alone like me?  I hope to find some answers.  Don't laugh.  When I learned that my great uncle (my mother's uncle) was killed by a lightening strike in 1929 I started looking at old newspaper microfiche.  Sure enough it was a front page story in the Nashville Banner.  Now, spurred on by that find I find myself driving half a day and spending hours in the state archives in Raleigh hoping to strike gold again.  If I do, you'll read about it here.