William Martin III was born in Chatham Co. N.C. on May 5th, 1774. The youngest of two (known) sons, he was about six years old when his brother Thomas, enlisted in the Revolutionary War. It isn’t known exactly when William left the family farm but the 1790 York Dist. S.C. Census lists a William Martin, aged 16 to 26, living alone in that county. By 1795, both Thomas and William were reported living in York District, South Carolina. At that time, they sold the land that they had inherited from their father in Chatham County. William III married Hannah Irvin. Hannah was born November 15, 1777 in South Carolina. Very little is known about the Irvin family. One of the three Martin daughters also married an Irving. It is possible that he was a brother of Hannah Irving.
"KNOW ALL MEN by these presents that I George Wilkie of the State of South Carolina, York District, hath in consideration of one hundred dollars to me in hand paid by William Martin Jr.....a tract of land which belonged to William Wilkie deceased a part is to Gabriel Washburn also a part of a tract which belonged to the afores’d Wm. Wilkie granted to John McCullough lying on luker branch.....along Gabriel Washburn’s old line....to a beach in Balmores old line....Containing ninety acres....unto the said Wm. Martin....this sixteenth of November in the year of our Lord Christ 1811."
Witnessed by Wm. Wilkie and Thomas Martin. It is also noted that Catron Wilkie was George Wilkie’s wife.
The deed of August 19, 1822 in which Thomas Sr. sells 180 acres to Thomas Jr. specifically mentions the “William Martin line” (see Thomas Martin section). From this sale we can assume that in his earlier years, William made his home on land that adjoined that of his brother’s. Many relations from Chatham and Orange Counties had immediate family members who settled in regions of Lincoln and Rutherford Counties of North Carolina and York District of South Carolina. Children from the families of McSwain, Rippy, Elmore, Davis, Ellis, Collins and Moore came here from their farms along the Haw River.
Many of these people were members of Buffalo Baptist Church in North Carolina. They lived so near the South Carolina line that many families of the area attended church and visited neighbors in York District, (now Cherokee Co.) S.C. Just a few miles across Buffalo Creek was Rutherford Co. NC. and many friends and collateral relations lived there. They lived in the area of Lincoln County which became Cleveland County in 1841 and they were near that area of York District which became Cherokee County in 1897.
William was located in the Lincoln Co. N.C. census from 1800 until he moved to Chickasaw Co. MS. Records indicate that in the early 1830's and 40's, there was a mass exodus of Carolinians from their homes and farms to the land made free by the departure of the Chickasaw Indians of Mississippi. Many Martin descendants were among those that risked the long journey to the newly formed Chickasaw County.
William and Hannah, with their youngest son still with them, arrived in Chickasaw Co. MS. in time to be enumerated in the 1840 census with several of their other children and collateral relations listed next door to each other, or in the neighborhood: William Fondren; Austin Martin; James R. Nobles and his wife, Kathy Houser; James Martin and his wife, Polly Adams; E. (Elgin) Adams; Thomas N. Martin and his wife, Parthena Houser; and Henry Hampton Houser and his wife, Unity Martin.
James Martin (my ggg-grandfather), who was a Baptist Minister, had been in the area at least since 1835, and the word had spread in the Carolinas about the new “promised land” in Mississippi. Friends, neighbors, and relatives arrived from North and South Carolina in short order, so that by the time of the 1840 census, old neighbors from the Carolinas were neighbors again in the new territory.
The Minutes and Pleas and Quarter Sessions Court of Lincoln County indicate William Martin was a man respected by his peers. In the 1830 Lincoln Co. NC. Census, he was enumerated as William Martin, Esquire, indicating a man of considerable stature in his community.
Any comments or corrections to this information would be greatly appreciated. Please send them to me... Jeffrey Lee Martin
