Errors of The Reeves Review II
Malachi Reeves
Pages 16-17, ID #91Lineage is incorrect as established by DNA, i.e. (James, William, William, Timothy, Richard, John, Robert).
The family of Malachi Reeves, the son of James Reeves of Granville and later Guilford Counties in North Carolina contains numerous errors.
First, Fortune the wife of Malachi Reeves has been incorrectly identified as the daughter of Richard Burton of Guilford County based upon legacies left to three Reeves' grandchildren in his will. Those were, in fact, the children of Malachi and Fortune Reeves' son Thomas Reeves. When Thomas Reeves died, his widow Elizabeth Reeves was granted the administration of his estate in Guilford County, February Court 1795. On 26 Apr 1796, his widow Elizabeth Reeves married Elias Simons in Guilford County. Elizabeth Simons was named by Richard Burton as his daughter in his 1799 will and the Reeves grandchildren, Richard, Thomas and Martha Reeves, are the children of Elizabeth Burton and Thomas Reeves.
Additionally, Richard Burton DOES NOT name a daughter, Fortune, in his will. He names Elizabeth Simons, Mary Mileham and Dorcas Bourton (Burton).
There is a deed in Rockingham County, NC Deed Book B, pg 10 dated 28 May 1788, wherein Thomas Reeves, Jesse Reeves, and James Reeves, heirs of Malachiah Reeves, decd., deed to Nathaniel Tatum for 176 pds, 352 acres on both sides the Haw River adjoining John Rhodes, Peter Perkins, Esq. and Wm. Connors; Witnesses were Jas Mulloy, John Rhodes and Wm. Howlett. This previously unidentified son of Malachi, James Reeves, was undoubtably the grandson James named in the 1781 will of James Reeves, Sr.
It is doubtful that the son William Reeves, ID 212.iv, with wife Hannah Smith, listed as a child of Malachiah and Fortune Reeves existed. Based upon research of the probate, deeds and other records of Guilford County, there is no record that Malachi and Fortune Reeves had a son William. Among all the deeds by Fortune Reeves conveying property to their sons after Malachi's death, there are NO deeds to a son, William. This William also supposedly died in Wilkes County, GA in 1816. The William Reeves who died in Wilkes County, Georgia in 1816 is undoubtably William Reeves, the son of James Reeves who was the only William Reeves living in Guilford County circa 1780 to 1800. Deed records of Guilford County also establish that William's wife was Hannah. As to a marriage of a William Reeves to Hannah Smith, the only such record is in Mecklenberg County in 1820, four years after the William Reeves of Wilkes County died.
Son Thomas Reeves, ID #213.v, listed as having married Barthenia Stinson, was actually married to Elizabeth Burton as detailed above and died in 1795. Thomas Reeves who married Barthenia Stinson in Wilkes County, Georgia on 25 Oct 1808 was the son of Bennett Reeves formerly of Charles County, Maryland who migrated to Wilkes County, Georgia circa 1795.
Thomas Reeves, Martha and Richard Reeves the legatees in Richard Burton's will were the children of Thomas Reeves and Elizabeth Burton, and not children of Malachi and Fortune Reeves.
Thomas Reeves who married Barthenia Stinson in Wilkes County, Georgia is documented as having been born in Maryland in the 1880 census for three of his children who lived until that census, Hickerson Reeves, Thomas Reeves and Caroline Reeves Yeager, each gave information that their father was born in Maryland.
Thomas Reeves the son of Malachi and Fortune Reeves' son Thomas was not the individual who married Bethania Stinson for an 1816 Guilford County deed by Thomas Reeves to Leven Covey, indicates that as late as 1816, he was still living in the same area on Mairs Fork in Guilford County, not Wilkes County, Georgia. This was probably the tract of land willed to him by his grandfather Richard Burton in his 1799 will.