The wives of John Tucker (1755-1802): Keziah Breshears and Jenny Harrod

A man with two wives...well, there are worse things and who knows, maybe there is more to the story and it was all legal and moral. I haven't looked too much into either of their lives and background so today I'm going to focus on that and see what I can find out. We can hope too that it will help open some doors to the Tucker lineage.

Wife #1, Keziah (Kessiah) Breshears, born 1756 in NC to Basil and Ann Brashears. She married John on August 31, 1772 in Rowan County, NC.

They had two children, Mary and John. It appears that John Jr. died young. Mary grew up and married Stephen Haynes. There is a mystery here in that I cannot find anything about Keziah's death. John lists Mary in his will which is leading me to believe that Mary was in TN at that time. So the question I have is did John actually leave Keziah behind? If not, did she die giving birth to Mary and John left for the West and took Mary OR did Keziah go with and die on the way there or soon after arriving?

Family trees on ancestry indicate that Keziah died in either 1780 or 1801.

Jenny Harrod was born in 1760 in Virginia to James Harrod and Elizabeth McCarty. She went West with her family and her father was also a signer of the Cumberland Compact with John Tucker.

It is uncertain if their marriage was legal or not, but according to research, they were married by Trustee James Shaw in the second marriage ceremony in 1780 in the new settlement.

John and Jenny had 10 children:

Enoch (1784-1855) my ancestor
Hannah (1787-1872)
Nancy (1788-1840)
Henry G. (1790-?)
Sarah Sally (1790-1862) I assume Henry and Sarah Sally are twins but I haven't done a lot of research on all the kids yet to confirm dates.
Margaret "Peggy" (1793-1810)
Phoebe (1795-?)
William Riggs (1795-1860)
Samuel Alexander (1800-1891)
John (1801-1819) this doesn't match info I've read indicating he died young like his half-brother John.

There are a couple stories on what happened to Jenny after John died. One says that she was deemed a lunatic through the court proceedings regarding John's will and she was put into the care of her eldest son (my ancestor). Other stories indicate that she remarried and moved to Illinois. I have not been able to locate and hard evidence of which of these is true.

I have her death as 1810 however I think that is questionable.

John Tucker (1755-1802)

Here's what I know about John Tucker...

He was born in 1755 and it is thought that he was born in NC in either Wilkes or Rowan county. According to Rowan County's website, Wilkes county was part of Rowan county at the time John would have been born.

There is no documentation of who John's parents were but I found one family tree that indicated it may have been a Samuel Tucker (possibly 1730-1802), but I haven't been able to find anything about a Samuel that would fit into that puzzle piece other than the tree. This tree (Rowley Family tree by berke3) also suggested Samuel's father was born in 1704 but there is no name or location associated with that.

There was also a tree that show's Samuel Tucker Sr. (1730-1795) and show's a sons John and Samuel Tucker Jr. (1750-1803) and links a 1784 census report showing:

Wilkes, North Carolina, United States

Samuel Tucker Family: WM 21-60 = 3, WM -21 & + 60 = 3, WF All = 4. At this time Samuel is between 55-57 so, there are three adult males in the household, 3 male minors, and 4 females. It's unknown if the mother is still alive.

This would have been after John had moved to TN.

 

As I had said in my previous post, the first actual documentation found on John is from his marriage to his first wife Keziah Breshears (1756 - ?) on August 31, 1772 in Rowan County, NC. They had a daughter, Mary and a son (possibly John) that died young. I noticed today that I have Mary being born in 1780 however that is the same year that John signed the Cumberland Compact so I question if this is accurate because items I read indicated that Mary was the eldest so I'm not sure how this would fit into the timeline of where John was at.

 

John went west to French Lick (now Nashville) and was a signer of the Cumberland Compact on April 24, 1780. I have not found out if he was part of the group that went overland or via river to French Lick.

 

John married Jenny (Jane) Harrod in the second marriage ceremony in the new settlement. There is no record though that John divorced Keziah or if she had died before he married Jenny. Most of what I have read indicates that Keziah was abandoned and John and Jenny were not legally wed. Though I don't know...was polygamy legal in NC at that time?

I found a great resource, 1770-1790 Census of the Cumberland Settlements by Richard Carlton Fulcher.
 

John and Jenny had 10 children:

Enoch (1784-1855) my ancestor
Hannah (1787-1872)
Nancy (1788-1840)
Henry G. (1790-?)
Sarah Sally (1790-1862) I assume Henry and Sarah Sally are twins but I haven't done a lot of research on all the kids yet to confirm dates.
Margaret "Peggy" (1793-1810)
Phoebe (1795-?)
William Riggs (1795-1860)
Samuel Alexander (1800-1891)
John (1801-1819) this doesn't match info I've read indicating he died young like his half-brother John.

1770-1790 Census of the Cumberland Settlements also states on page 125 that John was wounded by Indians, who shot him, breaking his arm, at the Battle of the Bluffs, April 2, 1781. It also references another source that says he was wounded and his arm broken during an Indian ambush while returning from Freeland's Station in the Bluffs in February 1782.

In 1794, there is a roll call for Ford's Regiment in the volunteer Militia in the Territory South of the Ohio River with John's name on it. I have not been able to confirm if this is my John Tucker, however with the new information from the 1770-1790 Census I'm starting to believe it may have been one in the same.

John died in January 1802 leaving a will that apparently created a lot of debate as it was held up in court for some time. There is apparently quite a bit in the court records from the time but I have not done a lot of research to find it yet. This is what his will said though:

Will of John Tucker
Signed Oct-1798
Recorded January Term 1802

Source: Robertson Co. Tenn., Film # 0425197, SLC
Contributed by Carolyn Carlisle
© September 25, 2007

Pg. 77 Will of John Tucker 1802

In the name of God Amen,
I John Tucker of Robertson County & State of Tennessee Being very sick and weak in body,
but of a perfect mind and memory, allowing that it is for all men once to Die I recommend my Soul into the hand of God that gave it and my body & I commit to the Earth to be Buried in a Christian like & Descent manner hoping to raise at the morning of the Resurrection, and first of all I give and bequeath unto my Dearly beloved Wife Jenny Tucker, her choice of one of the Negro’s Man or Woman , also Two Horses or Two Mares, also Three grown Cows & Calves, one feather bed, half dozen of Pewter plates and also a pewter Dish, one large Kettle & one Oven one Trunk, one set of plough irons, Two Hoes, one Mattock & one Ax, also one Iron Wedge, & other such tools as the plantation must be tended During her Natural Life, and also the use of the Plantation during her life. I also give & bequeath unto

Mary Tucker my eldest daughter &
Enoch Tucker my eldest son,
Hannah Tucker,
Henry Tucker,
Nancy Tucker,
Sarah Tucker,
Margaret Tucker,
Phebe Tucker,
Riggs Tucker,

All the land Negros, money horses cows calves hogs and everything that I possess after my Just Debt is paid to be equally divided among them, and I also do appoint my true and trusted friend Samuel Hollig to be my sole executrin of this my last will and testament In writing where of I have here unto set my hand and seal this seventeenth day of October One Thousand seven Hundred & Ninety eight -----

Signed John Tucker

Signed sealed and delivered in presence of us
Dan’l Bogan Peter Spinner George G y ger

This will was proved in Open Court by the oath of Peter Spinner at the Jany Term 1802.
Order to be Recorded

This is all I have at this time but will update as I continue with my research.
 

 

The Search Goes On

When I was in college, I began getting curious about my family's history. Where do we come from? What were our ancestors like? Did we make history? I wanted to put it all together from the tidbits I'd heard growing up hearing.

When people asked, where's your family from? I'd typically response, "from all over Europe...I'm a bit of a Hines 57." I'd been told that we were German mostly on both sides of my family with a bit of Irish, French-Canadian, Native American, Polish, I think someone mentioned Italian at one point too...no one really knew for sure though so I started digging.

I put together the family tree that I knew of and was able to ask family about. There weren't a lot of details other than names and it only went back maybe five generations at most. From that, I was able to confirm a German Grandmother on my mom's side and that was the only definite I had to go on as far as "where we're from."

The summer between my junior and senior year in college, I went and worked at a camp in Missouri. My mom and Gma came down for a trip to visit family near by and I was able to take a couple days off and go with them. While we were down there, we went and visited family property, court houses and grave sites and were able to get a bit more information and dates. The branches started filling in, with details but not much to go on to extend the tree further into the past.

After college, my time got more consumed with other things and I didn't do much with my research until a few years ago when a friend offered me her Ancestry account to use; that's when things really took off!

I have now confirmed family lines to Germany, France, Russia, Ireland and Scotland. I have also been able to stretch back to the 1700s on one line, but have recently gotten stuck trying to find anything more including if my ancestor fought in the Revolutionary War. My goal is to find this information so I can possibly submit my Gma for membership in the DAR (Daughter's of the American Revolution). She is 92 so I'm starting to really rush to do this for her. She's always been interested in what I've found out so I'm always trying to find new information for her.

Where I am stuck is on John Tucker who was born either in 1750 or 1755 presumably in NC. I have no documentation of his birth. The first documentation I've found is record of his first marriage to Keziah Breshears on August 31, 1772. They had two children together before John left her (no divorce that I have been able to find) and went west as a pioneer. He signed the Cumberland Compact in 1780 which was the founding of what is now Nashville, TN. Records show that he married Jenny Harrod as part of the second marriage in the new settlement.

My family is descended through his and Jenny's eldest son, Enoch (1784-1855). There apparently was a big contest against John's will which has put quite a bit of information out there about the family however it does not go back and history any further.

My search will go on, but I'm putting this out there into the wide world to see if anyone comes upon this and give me any information to go on further.