Mecklenburg County
VAGenWeb
In David Dobson's book,
DIRECTORY OF SCOTS (1650-1775):BRITISH AND WEST INDIES RECORDS, James Nethery
(also Netherway, Nevery, and Nithery) is listed as a Jacobite prisoner of war in
the Rebellion of 1715. This reference can be found in other bibliographies as
well. According to The Jacobite Association of Greenwich, Connecticut, in
correspondence with this writer, James Nethery was in the Earl of Wintoun's
brigade. He was captured in the battle of Preston, England on November 14, 1715,
by the Loyalist forces of His Majesty, King George I. In May, 1716, Nethery and
seventy-nine other prisoners of war were dispatched from Liverpool, England on
the Irish ship "Friendship", with Captain Michael Mankin in charge. Their
destination was deportation to the Colony of Maryland in America. They arrived
in Maryland in August of 1716. James Nethery and fellow prisoners, John Potter
and Dugall McQueen, were purchased for a seven-year indenture by Col. William
Holland, a wealthy Maryland landowner and political leader.
It is
believed by some of us, upon the preponderance of limited evidence, that James
Nethery was the father of Thomas Nethery, the latter migrating to Mecklenburg
County, Virginia about 1760. Thomas Nethery moved from the Kinnett Township of
Chester County, Pennsylvania to an area of the South Fork of the Meherrin River.
This area would be known later as the Scotts Crossroad Community, which is three
miles northeast of the present-
day town of Chase City, off of Virginia
Highway 47.
Thomas Nethery was born in 1719 probably in the Colony of
Maryland. Very little is known of his life in Pennsylvania! Suffice it to say
that, from the Chester County tax records, we have learned that he was married,
had children, and was a land tenant.
Upon coming to Mecklenburg County, he apparently built a homestead on some fifty acres of land on Cattail Creek, a tributary of the South Fork of the Meherrin River. [Refer to the "Scotts" map depicting Neathery lands in Mecklenburg.]
The first known mention of Thomas Nethery in the Mecklenburg County, Virginia area
is actually in the Lunenburg Court records of 1763 when he was appointed to work with
Richard Witton, Thomas Erskine, John Linton, Philip Poindexter, et. al., on the
upkeep of a public road. (Lunenburg Ct. Order Bk. 9, Page 214)
According
to an early land deed of Mecklenburg County, Thomas Nethery purchased an
additional 330 acres of land, more or less, on August 14, 1769, from Richard
Witton, who served as the first High Sheriff of Mecklenburg. The purchase price
was twenty pounds "of current money of Virginia." This land adjoined the tract
he was already living on, and all of it was of a larger tract of 875 acres
received by Richard Witton in a patent at Williamsburg, Virginia on September
16, 1765. (Patent Book 36, Page 859) As referenced above, the Nethery tract was
on both sides of Cattail Creek; and, on the north and west sides of Dry Creek,
with its southern-most area being near the head-waters of Allens Creek. Allens
Creek runs southerly to the Roanoke River.
Thomas Nethery was married
three times and had children by all three wives. Unfortunately, no one knows the
names of the first two wives, although their children's names are known. They
were: Daniel Nethery of Mecklenburg County, Virginia and Guilford County, North
Carolina; Robert Nethery of Mecklenburg County, Virginia, and Burke County,
North Carolina; Mary Nethery Stone, wife of Thomas Stone of Mecklenburg County;
Sarah Nethery Jacks, wife of William Jacks of Wilkes County, North Carolina;
Thomas Nethery, Jr. of Mecklenburg County, Virginia, and Knox County, Tennessee;
William Nethery of Mecklenburg County, Virginia, and Carter County (now Johnson
County), Tennessee; and, James Nethery of Mecklenburg and Nottoway Counties,
Virginia.
On January 27, 1789, Thomas Nethery, Sr. was married a third
time to Mary Ann "Nancy" Baker in Mecklenburg County. The Rev. Thomas Scott, of
the Protestant Episcopal Church performed the ceremony. This minister of the
gospel had only recently moved to Virginia from his native Scotland. He was
allowed by the Mecklenburg County Court to declare his fidelity to the
Commonwealth of Virginia in October, 1787. In December, 1788, the Rev. Scott was
granted the privilege to solemnize marriages by the County Court.
We are not
sure of the parentage of Ann "Nancy" Baker Nethery, but we know that George
Baker signed her marriage bond. It is believed, with good reason, that he was
Nancy's father. Nancy Nethery had several sisters and at least one brother whose
name was William Baker. Thomas Nethery, Sr. and Nancy Nethery were the parents
of four children: 1DANIEL NETHERY (more about later); 2CATHERINE NETHERY (ca.
1791 - ca. 1875), who never married; 3JOHN NETHERY (ca. 1793 - 1874), who
married Nancy Westbrook in Mecklenburg County, on December 26, 1815. They later
moved to Person County, North Carolina where Nancy Nethery died. John Nethery
was then married to Elizabeth Draper. John Nethery had children by both wives.
4RICHARD NETHERY (ca. 1794 - ca. 1878), the fourth and last child of Thomas and
Nancy Nethery, was married to Martha Baker on October 8, 1830, and lived in
Lunenburg and Mecklenburg Counties. It is thought that Martha and Richard
Nethery were cousins. All five of their sons died in the Civil War! They also
had several daughters.
Daniel and John Nethery were soldiers in Col.
Grief Green's 6th Virginia Militia of Mecklenburg County, during the War of
1812. Daniel Nethery went as a "substitute" for Ned Neal, who may have been the
prominent landowner and farmer, Edward Neal, who also lived on the South Fork of
the Meherrin River, and whose land adjoined the Netherys. Both Netherys were
privates in rank and served in the Norfolk, Virginia area, from late 1813 till
mid-1814.
When Thomas Nethery, Sr. died, in the springtime of 1798, he
left a will in which all of his lands and personal properties were to go to his
third wife and their four children. He was buried in the soil of his beloved
land in a family cemetery which he had established. [Some thirteen years ago,
this writer, one of his and Nancy's many 1gr-2gr-3gr grandsons, placed a
memorial stone at their graves.] Thomas Nethery, Sr. left nothing to his
children by his first two wives, since he had provided for them when they left
him. One exception was his son, James Nethery, to whom he left a sorrel horse
which was all he intended to leave him...as is stated in the will. (Will Book 2,
Mecklenburg County, Va.) The four children of Thomas and Nancy Nethery received
67 3/4 acres each. Nancy received some 92 acres as her dowry.
Thomas and
Nancy Nethery were very poor people! They had a lot of land, but that was all.
Before he died, Thomas Nethery received living subsistance by being "put on the
Parish". After his death, there were some two or three years that Nancy Nethery
could not pay the County taxes on the land. When this land was put up for sale
by the County, at the Courthouse door in Boydton, in the early 1800s, a Nethery
neighbor named George Poindexter paid the delinquent taxes and bought the land
back for them. Now, concerning DANIEL NETHERY (1789 - 1866), the above-mentioned
first child of Thomas Nethery, Sr. and his third wife, Ann "Nancy" Baker
Nethery: He was married to SARAH SMITH (ca. 1792 - 1876) on February 14, 1816
"at Mrs. Smith's" near Boydton. Sarah Smith Nethery was a daughter of Buckner
and Mavil Smith. Buckner's parents were John Smith and Elizabeth Averett Smith.
The said Elizabeth Smith's parents were Thomas and Sarah Averett, large
landowners of Lunenburg County, Virginia. [Daniel and Sarah Nethery were the
1gr-2gr- grandparents of this writer]. They had ten children: BUCKNER SMITH
NETHERY (1817 - ca. 1890), who was married to Sarah Mallett and lived and died
in Mecklenburg; EDWARD THOMAS NETHERY (1819 - 1900), who was married to Susan
Andress Dubose (a French Huguenot) in 1860, in Monroe County, Alabama, later
moving to Caldwell Parish, Louisiana; ROBERT TAYLOR NETHERY (1821 - 1864), who
was married to Emily J. L. Smith in Mecklenburg. They later moved to Alamance
County, North Carolina. A Sergeant in Co. I, 8th North Carolina Infantry, he
died as a prisoner of war at Elmira, New York, having been captured at the
Battle of Cold Harbor, Virginia, March 31, 1864; JAMES HENRY NETHERY and RICHARD
DANIEL NETHERY, born in 1823 and 1825, respectively, and dying in infancy; MARY
ANN NETHERY (1826 - ca. 1915), who married William Mallett in Mecklenburg in
1850, and later moved to Crockett County, Tennessee. William Mallett and Sarah
Mallett Nethery, the wife of Buckner Nethery (listed above), were brother and
sister also; MARTHA JANE NETHERY (1829 - 1912), who lived in Mecklenburg County,
and Granville and Vance Counties, North Carolina. She was never married; HENRY
HODGE NETHERY (1832 - 1878), who was married to Lucy Fenner Ligon in Granville
County, North Carolina, in 1862. He was a Private in Co. I, 38th Virginia
Infantry, but had to be medically discharged in December, 1861 because of a
severe rheumatoid condition.
Most of the above listed children of Daniel
and Sarah Smith Nethery, with exception to the two who died in infancy, had
families....and rather large ones.
The ninth child, and "the seventh of
seven sons", born to Daniel and Sarah Nethery was GEORGE DANIEL NETHERY
(February 28, 1834 - December 18, 1899). He was married to Louisa Griffin, the
daughter of Mecklenburg County, Virginia citizens Hezekiah and Mary Griffin, on
August 21, 1860. [George and Louisa Nethery were this writer's great
grandparents.] George Nethery joined the Confederate Army at Clarksville,
Virginia on June 20, 1861, along with his brother, Henry Nethery, and
brother-in-law, John R. Griffin. All three were registered as Privates in Co. I,
38th Virginia Infantry, by Registrant Capt. John S. Wood. In July, 1862,
following a re-organization of the Army of Northern Virginia, George D. Nethery
was placed in 2nd Co. G, 14th Virginia Infantry, Brig. Gen. Lewis A. Armistead's
Brigade. This Brigade would be later placed in Maj. Gen. George E. Pickett's
Division of Lt. Gen. James Longstreet's First Corps, Army of Northern Virginia.
George Nethery was a good soldier, and distinguished himself further, as such,
in "Pickett's Charge" at Gettysburg, July 3, 1863, where he was severely wounded
by gunshot to the left shoulder. Nethery saw Gen. Armistead mortally wounded,
and Col. James G. Hodges of the 14th Virginia killed at the Union wall on
Cemetery Ridge. Escaping capture, Nethery was wounded again, less severely, at
Chester Station, Virginia...between Petersburg and Richmond on May 10, 1864. He
served until the end of the War, and was at Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia when
Gen. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to Union Commander Ulysses S.
Grant. Following the Civil War, George and Louisa Nethery had their family of
five children. They were: ANNA NETHERY (1865 -1887), who was married to William
Hughes Strum, son of James A. Strum and Henrietta Hester Strum. They had no
issue; JAMES DANIEL NETHERY (1866 - 1938), who married Mary Alice Guerrant, the
daughter of Clayton Guerrant; WILLIAM THOMAS NETHERY (1869 - 1948), who was
married to 1Martha Wilson, the daughter of James D. and Amy Hester Wilson of
Granville County, N. C., then to 2Sarah Howell, the daughter of Edward A. Howell
and Fanny Grissom Howell of Vance County, N. C. [Tom and Sarah Nethery were this
writer's grandparents; and, their third child and first of three sons was my
father, WILLIAM THOMAS NETHERY, JR. (1908 - 1993)]. ROBERT HOWARD NETHERY (1872
- 1921), who married Ida Obelia Harris of Vance County, N. C.; and, JOHN WALTER
NETHERY (1879 - 1898), who never married and died of tuberculosis.
The
tenth and last child of Daniel and Sarah Nethery was SARAH ELIZABETH NETHERY
(1838 - 1901). She was married to James Lewis Henderson in Granville County, N.
C., in 1865. They lived much of their early married life in Mecklenburg County.
It is said that J. L. Henderson was a Union soldier, from either Calvary Gen.
Philip Sheridan's Union Army or from the ranks of Gen. William T. Sherman.
Henderson deserted his family following the birth of their third child, and was
never seen or heard of again. Some family members believe he was originally from
Massachusetts.
So, the Netherys/Neatherys of Virginia and North Carolina,
indeed many with this surname throughout the United States, have their roots
deep in the soil of the Mecklenburg County, Virginia...very near the South Fork
of the Meherrin River.
Written and owned by J. Marshall Neathery, Rolesville, North Carolina
February 17, 2000
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This page was last updated 03/08/2024