Sturgills in America

Narrative

From: A Branch of the Sturgill Family, Vol I Deccendants of FRANCIS STURGILL Sr & REBECCA HASH

pg 53-54 No attempt has been made to correct spelling or punctuation errors - THS

Many books, articles and biographies have been written about both the famous an infamous people who have become a part of American history. We can find plenty to read about inventors, politicians, outlaws and lawmen an d as we read we all form a mental image of these people. The images we form may or may not be accurate but we do see them as people. We find written material about them because they were a part of the history of our country but we should remember that they were only a part of it, the tip of the iceberg. Most of the unwritten history of America was made by ordinary people; the hunters and farmers who pushed the frontiers across the Blue Ridge mountains, across the rivers and praries, across the rugged western mountains and finally to the Pacific ocean, Joel Sturgill was such a man, he does not appear in any history books but he certainly helped to make some history.

History was made by those men and women who carved farms out of rough mountains, little valleys and open praries; by those men who built log forts and advanced civilization a few more miles; by those who hunted and fished to feed their families; by those who dared to seek new horizons; by those who joined the westward wagon trains and fought off indian attacks; by those who carried the mail on half wild mustangs; by those who drove the stagecoaches; by the merchants who founded the first towns and by the sheriffs and marshals who brought law and order to them; by the teachers and preachers who tried to educate their children and brought solace in times of trouble. history has always been made by those who dared and many of our Sturgill ancestors have been among them.

Joel Sturgill was born in 1786 in a log cabin about three miles below the forks of New River in present Alleghany Co. NC, the sixth child in a family of twelve. In 1807, the year he died, Francis Sturgill Sr. (father of Joel) bought a tract of land in present Ashe Co. NC near the Tenn. state line on Roundabout creek. Soon thereafter Joel Sturgill and his bride, Rachel Waters, built a log cabin on this land and made their first home there; this log house in which all their children were born is still standing. Joel passed this land on to his son Willilam, who passed it to his son Lewis J, who passed it to his son Mason, who passed it to his son Martin who is the present owner, the sixth generation of the Sturgill family to own and occupy this land.

There has been some controversy about the identity of Joels wife, Rachel Waters, which I hope the following will clarify. Shortly after the end of WWII my father and I went to Ashe Co NC to try to locate the land where Joel Sturgill had lived. We found the farm without any difficulty and there we met Mason Sturgill for the first time. On this trip, the first of several, I got little information because I could not get my father and Mason to stop talking long enough to ask many questions. He did, however, tell us about Rachel Waters. "Her father, John Waters, was a Frenchman who had married a Cherokee indian (other accounts say she was a Catawba but as the Cataba indians lived near the SC border at that time the Cherokee was probably correct) John Waters apparently cared little for his family as he spent most of his time away from them as he wandered around through the mountains, he eventually abandoned them entirely. Rachels mother could not care for the family of four sons and one daughter alone so neighbors took in some of them. They lived on Reddies river in Wilkes County. About 1800 a family named Lewis brought Rachel from Wilkes Co. to Ashe where Joel met her. The Lewis family settled down the creek a ways from here. Rachels mother died in Wilkes county about 1815, her father, John Waters died here in Ashe Co."

Wilburn Waters, the youngest brother of Rachel, attained some degree of fame as the man who explored the White Top mountain of Grayson Co, VA and the surrounding areas and wrote about the plants and animals of the area. A monument to him stands on the top of Mt. Rogers in the Grayson Highland State park. Shortly after Wilburn died in 183_ a man who had known him personally wrote a short biographical sketch of his life which has been used in several other books which have been written about Wilburn Waters. In this first sketch, and copied in several other publications, it is stated that Wilburn died in the home of his sister Zilpha Waters, the deed and census records of Ashe Co, NC show that this can not be correct. These records show that Zilpha Waters was the wife of Wilburns older brother, William Waters, who also lived in Ashe Co. Descendants of William Waters living in Washington Co. VA have verified this. Wilburn probably did die in the home of Zilpha Waters but she was his sister-in-law and not his sister. The only sister Wilburn was Rachel who married Joel Sturgill.

As further evidence of the identity of Rachel, she and Joel named their youngest son Solomon WATERS Sturgill and their oldest son William Sturgill named his first son WILBURN WATERS STURGILL after his uncle Wilburn. The names Wilburn and Waters also appear among the families of other descendants in Oregon and Washington who have been separated from other branches of the family for over a century know about their Cherokee indian ancestry.

From what i sknown of Joel Sturgill it is surprising that he did not become one of the historical figures of the early west now referred to as the "mountain men". An early marriage and immediate family was probably what kept him in the North Carolina mountains but even these bonds were too weak to hold him there. One must wonder even more why Rachel agreed to leave the beautiful Ashe Co. farm to move to the more rugged and less productive mountains of Scott Co VA, especially so as the youngest of their family of thirteen children was still a baby. Perhaps her indian heritage had kept the spirit of adventure alive in her blood. Whatever their reason for moving, they were enumerated in both Ashe Co. NC and in Scott Co. VA in hte census if 1830 which shows that they moved in that year. Their oldest son William and their oldest daughter Catherine either remained in Ashe Co. or later returned as both were married in that county in 1833-34. However Catherine soon joined the family in Scott Co.

William did not remain in Scott Co. if he went there at all, as public records show that he lived in Ashe Co. through 1842 and was in Carter Co. KY in 1844. In 1855 he returned to the Ashe Co. farm where he lilved out his life. In 1842 Joel and Rachel with five sons and three daughters and their families all moved again, this time to Sullivan Co. Missouri. Son Lewis remained behind in Scott Co. as did one daughter Mary Ann, who had married Joseph Harris. In 1843 Mary Ann and Joseph decided to join the others in Missouri so they both rode one horse bareback all the way to Missouri with only a burlap bag for a saddle. Their first child was born a month after they arrived in Missouri. In 1850, Joels son James George, who had gone to Missouri with the family, returned to the Ashe Co. farm where he remained until his older brother William returned in 1855, James then moved his family to Sutters Mill California where he followed the trade of blacksmith and where he lived out his life.

Two of Joels grandsons, George and William, went from Missouri to the gold town of Virginia City in Montana in the summer of 1863. The next spring they decided to return to Missouri. William stopped off in Denver on the return trip but George continued to Missouri. Rachel died in 1864 and was buried near Milan MO. In the spring of 1865 all of Joels sons and daughters in Missouri became part of a wagon train to Oregon. George Sturgill was the wagonmaster. Joel, decided that he was too old to make the trip so he returned to Scott Co. VA where he lived out his life with his son Lewis. He was buried in the Speer family cemetery on Rt 604 in Scott Co. VA

During his last years in Scott Co. Joel made several trips back to Ashe Co. NC to visit children, grandchildren and sisters still living in the area. During the late 1940's I interviewed a nephew and niece of Joel living in Alleghany Co. NC who both remembered him and his visits from Scott Co. Both of these described him as a very impressive looking man who looked like a "Kentucky Col." A great grandson of Joel living in Oregon had a picture of Joel which appears in the family album section of this history. D.A.S.

Source References

Ancestors