The Williamson Family · a record

The line

Eight generations, one road west

Our paternal line runs through eastern North Carolina, across the state to the foothills below Kings Mountain, and stays there for the better part of two centuries. Dates come from the family tree we maintain on Ancestry, the DAR Patriot Index, North Carolina probate and census records, and the sources cited on each story page. Generations are counted from the present adult generation. Nearly every one of them lived and died within about thirty miles of the same ground in Cleveland and Rutherford counties.

  1. Sixth great-grandfather
    George Williamson c. 1735 – Aug. 1801, Halifax County, NC

    Recognized by the Daughters of the American Revolution (Ancestor A126874) for service in the North Carolina Line, the Continental establishment rather than local militia. His compiled service record survives in the National Archives (NARA M881). Our tree gives his birth as 1735 in Virginia; the DAR record says about 1745 in Edgecombe County, NC. We have not yet settled it. He married Marian Morning Thompson in 1759; she died in 1770. He appears in Halifax County in the 1790 and 1800 censuses and died there in August 1801.

  2. Fifth great-grandfather
    Anderson Williamson 1760 – 4 June 1803

    Born in Halifax, the Roanoke River town where North Carolina's Fourth Provincial Congress voted for independence in April 1776. He was sixteen. He married Elizabeth Hart (1770–1860) in 1788 and moved west to Rutherford County, where he appears in the 1800 census. He died in 1803, at 43, in what is now Lawndale, Cleveland County; his estate was probated in Rutherford that year. His story.

  3. Fourth great-grandfather
    James Archibald Bauldy Williamson 13 Apr. 1794 – 15 Aug. 1875

    Born in Rutherford County, the first of the line born in the western Piedmont. He married Nancy Crowder (1795–1853) on 24 August 1817 and raised nine children. He is in Cleveland County in the 1850 and 1860 censuses and died at Polkville.

  4. Third great-grandfather
    Anderson Crowder Williamson 9 Aug. 1818 – 21 Jan. 1895

    Named for his grandfather, with his mother's family name in the middle. He married Priscilla Mauney Washburn (1819–1888) on 7 July 1842 and farmed on Duncans Creek in Cleveland County. Nine children. He died at Lattimore.

  5. Great-great-grandfather
    Percy Decatur Williamson 20 Feb. 1845 – 1 Sep. 1927

    Married Martha J. Elliott (1845–1926) in 1867. Census records place the family near Camp Call in 1870 and at Polkville from 1900. He died at Rehobeth, Cleveland County.

  6. Great-grandparents
    Charles Decatur "Charlie" Williamson 2 Oct. 1867 – 9 Apr. 1928 and Hester Leona "Hassie" McMurry 1872–1961

    Charlie and Hassie married in Cleveland County in the 1890s and had thirteen children. Hassie brought the McMurry line into the family: her father Bartlett McMurray (1829–1907, whose Civil War pension file we hold), her grandfather Thomas McMurry (1785–1860), and before them William McMurray (c. 1745–1820), a Scottish immigrant who took one of the last Crown land grants in Mecklenburg County in 1773. That story.

  7. Grandparents
    Pierce Williamson 23 July 1905 – 1967 and Maggie Rae Jones 1909–2000

    Born at Polkville, the tenth of Charlie and Hassie's thirteen. Grandpa Pierce to those who remember him. The line continues through his children to the present generations of the family.

What is proven and what isn't

George Williamson's Revolutionary service rests on his compiled service record (NARA M881) and on the DAR-accepted entry citing Haun's transcription of the North Carolina Revolutionary Army Accounts (Vol. XI, Book A, Part X, p. 1257). His birthplace and birth year are the one open question about him. Anderson's birth, marriage, 1800 residence and 1803 probate are documented. We have no muster roll for Anderson himself. Teenage militia service in the Halifax District is plausible and unproven.

On the McMurray side, the 1773 grant proves that a William McMurray owned 150 acres on McMichael's Creek. Tying that William to our William (c. 1745–1820) still depends on his will and on deed records showing what became of the tract, and that work is in progress.

We would rather publish an honest gap than a tidy guess. If you descend from any of these families and hold a record that fills one, we would like to hear from you.