The Patriot Edward Williams

Many books have been written about famous people and heroes during the American Revolutionary War. Most of the biographies are written about people whose names are readily recognized. Little is written about the extraordinary lives of ordinary men during those times. My great-grandfather Finis Brackenridge “F.B.” Williams blessed us with a family history which he wrote when was over ninety-four years old. This book is written about his great-great-grandfather, who lived to be 104 years old. He was born in England, and came to America about 1758. He may have lived to be the oldest Revolutionary War veteran. The Daughters of the American Revolution accepted Edward Williams as a Patriot in June 2014.

F.B. Williams gave us enough information to allow us to learn much more about his ancestor. Proving his identity required “thinking outside the box,” when other veterans had an uncomplicated documentation path to follow. This book has educational value, family value, and historical value for researchers trying to prove difficult lines where documentation seems to falter. Edward Williams has eluded even well-seasoned genealogists. Individuals have tried to prove Edward’s identity for as long as thirty years. This book may help others to continue their research in ways they would not otherwise have imagined.

Early Virginia Colonial Families

In Early Virginia Colonial Families, The Crittendens, Downs, Lees, Ludwells, Taylors, and Collateral Families, authors Wanda Tucker and Sue Ward uncover previously unknown information about many well-known American figures and families. The Lees of Virginia, the Crittendens, the Downs, the Taylors, and other families are explored, using birth, death, land and marriage records to determine the lineage of these families, much of which has never been discovered.

Records from a church in England revealed extensive information about the Lees. The Crittenden family and its ties to the Lees is explored, and new information about the Ludwells, Taylors, and Downs families is presented. James Lee of Williamsburg is tied to the Lees of Virginia as well. Newly found documents establish the parentage of Peggy Crittenden Williams, the wife of Edward Williams, the subject of the book The Life and Times of Patriot Edward Williams. Peggy, who has been thought by many to have been a Native American, is proven to be a descendant of the Lees of Virginia, and is related to American Presidents, Secretaries of State, famous Generals, and other important persons.

There are thousands of works written about the Lee family.  Finding the correct information is no easy task.  The authors have done an outstanding job locating and interpreting original material, and connected collateral families, in the process eliminating errors and correcting previous claims.  Early Colonial Virginia records and records in England tell the story.  These researchers have combed numerous courthouses, libraries and performed extensive research at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City.   In some cases, fewer than three remaining copies of a book sourced still exist.  The authors cite extensive sources proving their findings.

This book also contains an addendum with new information discovered about Edward Williams since the publication of The Life and Times of Patriot Edward Williams.

Pershanna Wilson Sherrill Williams

After publication of The Life and Times of Patriot Edward Williams and Early Virginia Colonial Families, the Crittendens, Downs, Lees, Ludwells, Taylors and Collateral Families, an unsolved mystery remained. Though Edward’s Revolutionary War service was uncovered in the first book, it was unknown where Williams was between arriving in the Colonies about 1758 and joining the fight in 1780 or so. There were some land records in South Carolina, but nothing else had been found. The second book traced the family of his wife Peggy Crittenden, but no one knew whether she was Edward’s only wife. His first record with Peggy appears in 1786 (is this date correct?), when Edward would have been about forty-five years old.

An Edward and Pershanna Williams witnessed the will of John Owens in 1774 in Ninety Six District, South Carolina.  This was the same name as Edward’s close friend and war comrade but it was not known for certain if this was the same Edward Williams, and no one knew who Pershanna might be. 

On July 4, 2018, author Wanda Tucker woke up with the strong feeling she needed to revisit Pershanna, and contacted co-author Sue Ward for every detail she knew of this person, who had never even been identified as male or female. After years of dead ends, within a few days Wanda was able to identify Pershanna Wilson Sherrill Williams, a woman who had been lost to time. 

The Free Family – From Pennsylvania to Germany, South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama

The tracing of the Free family throughout the early 1700s through the mid-1800s has presented some unique challenges. The name of one ancestor, Jacob Free, was so commonly used by the various lines of the family that separating the groups proved difficult. On the other hand, the repetition of certain names down through the lines is one of the few means of tracing the family. Other means, such as tracing collateral families has also been valuable, since Dunker Baptists, as the original Frees were, rarely maintained marriage, birth, or death records.

Land records and census records were invaluable resources in tracing the earliest of the Jacob Frees. In 1790, there are three Jacob Frees in Orangeburg, and a Jacob Frey in Newberry. Not all are related, as I will show. Where exactly they lived is shown by their land records and by those of their neighbors.

In determining the structure of this document, I considered how to best arrange the information for a clear understanding of the family. After long consideration, I decided to follow a chronological timeline, with stories and/or asides appearing as needed within it. Some segments are broad time periods and some are narrow. More detail is added in where it is available. Some of the sections are simply land records which are necessary to explain the family relationship from the first family members down to the present day, which was my original goal.

Every family member is not accounted for, but the information contained here is sufficient, I believe, for almost any family member to trace their line back to the first Frees in South Carolina.