Reeves, John Clay

Summary

Father: Elisha Reeves
Mother: Rebecca Mitchell

Birth: May 1842, Pike County, Georgia
Birth Source: Confederate Pension Application

Death: 1911, Polk County, Georgia
Death Source: Tombstone, Reeves Family Cemetery

Spouse: Catherine Johnson

Narrative

Please see page Reeves_John_Clay_78910

Research, Analysis & Discussion

Originally posted by Beverly as a comment on Thu 20 of June, 2013

Dan,

Have you done any research on Elisha Reeves, the son of James Reeves and Elizabeth Betsy Garris of Lancaster SC. Elisha, born about 1810, was named as a legatee in the 1844 will of James Reeves but appeared to have already received his inheritance which, in addition to the fact that he disappeared from Lancaster County, would lead you to believe that he left the area.

I'm not sure that all of the Lancaster records are extant, but it might be worth looking into if you haven't already.

Good luck,
Beverly

Thanks, Beverly. I've been familiar with that Elisha for several years, and he may be mine. The first problem was the traditional identification of my Elisha as William's son; location and similar names made that identification seem reasonable. I'm sure he's not William's son, although he could still be related in some way. Assuming he does not connect to the William/Hannah family in any close way, though, a connection to the Lancaster/Kershaw/Union Reeveses who use the name Elisha seems probable. And you are correct — Elisha, son of James B. Reeves — looks very promising. One researcher in the James B. Reeves line, however, had concluded that that Elisha died between 1844 and 1850, leaving a widow ("E.") and three children (all under age 19) in the 1850 Lancaster census. But in 1850 that "E." and her children are living near a 75-year-old Reeves (Reaves) female and individuals who appear to connect to the Presly Reeves family, making me think that perhaps she has been misidentified and was not Elisha's widow after all. If that is the case, then it may be that my Elisha is James's son — although his removal from SC to GA at age 21, without any extended kin, would seem unusual. If I could find a receipt in James B. Reeves's estate file identifying his son Elisha's place of residence, that would seem to cinch the case, one way or the other! Thanks for your insight and suggestions,
Dan

Dan,

As you are aware, much of the information in the Reeves Review has been proven incorrect. In fact, we have a section in this wiki where we identify errors and document the corrected information. See The Reeves Review. Actually, most of the information regarding William Reeves who died in Wilkes County GA in 1816 is incorrect.

It doesn't appear that any of the Reeves of Lancaster SC have participated in the Reeves DNA Project which could probably help resolve some of the questions about that family. Maybe someday one will.

Good luck and let me know if I can be of any help.

Beverly

Posted 21 June 2013

Hi Beverly,

Thanks for your information. About ten years ago, I compiled a document about 75-100 pages long summarizing the claims made by EBR for the descendants of William Reeves of Granville Co., NC, to about 1850, and then attempting to indicate relationships which could actually be proven, those which could not be documented and were doubtful, and individuals who should have been included but whom EBR left out. I hope to get some of that material posted to TRP where it supplements material already there.

Dan,

I'm going to intersperse my comments throughout your post so I don't forget anything.

As you have probably noticed from my blog posts, I began all this "myth busting" because my own William Reeves of Wake County NC was incorrectly included in the family of James Reeves of Guilford County NC. My mother's 3rd cousin had been an administrator at the House of Representatives in Washington DC for many years and had done extensive research on our ancestor while living there with access to so many historical records. When he retired, they moved to Chapel Hill, North Carolina in the Orange/Wake County area and he continued his research. Based on his research which he shared with my mother, I knew that my William Reeves didn't belong to the family of James Reeves and William Reeves of Granville but soon found that based upon the contents of the Reeves Review, I was definitely in the minority. Long story short, I started collecting documentation to prove various incorrect assertions in that publication.

I was very impressed with your posts on The Reeves Project, and I see that you and I have covered a great deal of the same ground on this particular group of Reeves families. I particularly enjoyed your post on William Reeves and the idea that the "mulatto" Reeves families of NC were part Native American, which is what I have long suspected. There are frequent NC references to these individuals as "mulatto" (various spellings of that term), but all appear without this designation after moving further west and south. William Reeves and Robert Hicks were involved in the Indian trade (the NC Trading Path passed through the area in which the family later settled), and many of William's associates had ties to various Native Groups. The Bass family, in particular, has a documented tie to the Nansemond Indians south of the James River, and generations of Bass descendants peopled the counties in which William's descendants settled and intermarried with allied families, including the Hicks family. I've suspected that William married a woman who was at least half native.

Another TRP researcher and I, Richard Reeves, have believed from some time that it was basically impossible for the William Reeves who died in York SC in 1821 to have been William Reeves, Jr., son of William of Granville. William, Jr. would have been about 110 years old in 1821. So...once Family Search put all the South Carolina probate records online, we went through ALL of the Reeves records of York. I transcribed the probate records and Richard the deeds. We also searched all the records of Granville to find evidence of William. We found that the only William living in Granville from 1755 when he was a tithe of Malachi (another son of William of Granville) until the Reeves' family left for South Carolina and a few for Georgia, was William the son of Malachi and it was he who died in York in 1821. We then began to search Edgecombe, Halifax and the extant records of Old Dobbs for William, Jr. We began to believe that he may have been the William Reaves who appeared in Old Dobbs around 1750. The only extant records of Old Dobbs County are the deed indexes and in those we found William Reaves often associated in land dealings with Andrew Bass as William Reeves, Jr. had been back in Edgecombe. When several descendants of William Reaves of Dobbs, Duplin and Wayne Counties recently participated in the Reeves DNA Project, they were found to match the DNA of descendants of William Reeves of Granville - DNA Group 3.

Your posts about the NC Reeves families, in fact, were what prompted me to join TRP, as I wanted to compare notes with you about some of these families.

My primary personal genealogical interest has been in identifying my Elisha, but I've worked on many different Reeves lines in West Georgia. (I was once hired to retype a Reeves family history of another Reeves family unrelated to my Reeves line in any close way, part of the Wilkes Co., GA - Meriwether Co., GA Reeves group.) The area I where I grew up was full of Reeveses, and I've known people who tie to the various groups. The Callaway family in Troup County made a fortune through the textile industry, and my own family worked for several generations in their textile mills. Fuller E. Callaway, textile magnate, was a son of Rev. Abner Reeves Callaway and a Reeves descendant.

You know, Bennett Reeves' descendants left Wilkes County GA for Meriwether and we've recently discovered that they weren't part of the Granville Reeves' family as indicated in RR, but descend from the Reeves of Charles County, Maryland.

As for DNA: There was a very active researcher of the James B. Reeves family with whom I corresponded several years ago. I e-mailed him recently but have not had a response. He would probably be willing to take a DNA test. I would be very interested in the results. He suspected - c. 2007 - that the E. Reaves of the 1850 Lancaster census might be the widow of James B. Reeves's son Elisha, but upon further research I doubt this. Elisha was a head of household, living alone, in 1830, aged 20-30, living near his brother John Reeves. He was clearly alive in 1844 when James B. Reeves wrote his will. The other James B. Reeves researcher indicated that he along with stepmother filed a suit against the James B. Reeves estate in Lancaster after 1844; I've not seen the documents, but apparently the other researcher found no evidence to suggest where Elisha was living at the time. (I will be near Lancaster in about a month and plan to check on this if possible.) At this point, there's nothing concrete to link my Elisha with the James B. family, but nothing to rule him out, either. In one sense, the pieces fit very well, and each day I'm accumulating more evidence to support a possible connection.

Hopefully you'll be able to find someone from that line who will do the DNA test. I'll be curious to see if they don't match the Reeve family of Prince William and Northumberland Counties, Virginia. Several of the sons of George Reeves - Thomas, John and Moses left that area in the late 1700's. John and Moses left around 1765. And one report regarding Thomas is "After the Revolutionary War a British mercantile company assigned an agent to determine the status of the company's accounts receivable in Virginia; the agent investigating the claim against Thomas Reeves concluded that the man in question had moved to Georgia about 1783." I also have a theory that Daniel Reeves, RW soldier who died in Tennessee and left a pension statement with a lot of information, was from the same Lancaster County Reeves' family.

Unfortunatley, my John Clay Reeves left no known male Reeves descendants, although his daughter Mary married a James W. Reeves. I've never determined his parentage, but he might be her first cousin (shown in 1880 as Willie Reeves). Willie's sister Susie married Mary's brother Joseph E. Reeves, her first cousin. James W. Reeves and Mary did have several offspring, but I've never had any contact with any, and I'm not sure if any of the sons left male issue. If James W. was John Clay's nephew, then the DNA line should work for Elisha Reeves. Also, Elisha's son James W. Reeves has male descendants, but I've not been able to get any of them interested in DNA. DNA would help to establish (1) if James B. Reeves was connected to William (husband of Margaret) and (b.) whether Elisha's descendants match one (or, if the case be, both). I hope we can find people who will participate in the DNA tests from these lines.

For fun, you should check the Pike Co., GA, census reports for Reeves and Reaves families one day between 1850 and 1880! Some of them have no clear indication of districts, so it's difficult to tell where people lived (although land records and tax digests do help). Many of them have the same names, also; for instance, it's difficult to tell whether a record refers to Elisha's son Henry Reeves or to William's son H. H. Reeves, or whether a particular Rhoda Reeves is the daughter of Elisha or the daughter of William or the widowed daughter-in-law of William, or whether a particular Elizabeth is which of several contemporary Elizabeths — and this all for people who came of age AFTER 1850, when records begin to get better! Moreover, at various points, members of Elisha's family lived very close (within one or two households) from members of the William/Paulina Hamil Reeves family, from the Malachi Reeves family, and from the Sidney K. Reeves family. William and Malachi both tie to William/Hannah, but Sidney K. Reeves (I'm convinced) has different origins, which may or may not connect to Elisha. Thus, it seems impossible to draw any meaningful conclusions from the Pike County census returns, except that in 1830 John Reeves SR did have a son old enough to be my Elisha (but I don't think he was John's son).

I know how confusing that area is with all the different Reeves' lineages. When I was trying to sort them out to enter census in the wiki, it was a nightmare and I'm not sure I ever finished. That's one of the great things about several people working together. Carolyn Gray Mahady, another Reeves Project researcher and I who have the blog together have had great success pooling our knowledge. In some counties, Carolyn is extremely familiar with one family, not necessarily because they are part of her family but maybe just because at one time someone believed they were so she had done a lot of research on them and I may have knowledge about another of the Reeves' families so together we can solve most of the puzzles.

In terms of a Lancaster Co., SC - Pike Co., GA connection: I have learned that a few Lancaster families moved to Pike County in the 1830s and 1840s, although they seem to have settled several miles SW of where Elisha lived (closer, in fact, to John Reeves, Sr., putative son of William/Hannah). It does appear that members of the Blackmon family moved to neighboring Monroe Co., GA, and about thirty miles westward to Harris Co., GA. Depending on the various placement in Blackmon genealogies, these could be siblings or cousins of Elizabeth Blackmon Reeves, wife of John Reeves, so of James B. Reeves.

One very interesting circumstance — in terms of whether my Elisha could be the son of James B. Reeves — is that John Reeves (son of James B.) lived in Haralson and Paulding Counties, GA, from the mid-1850s until his death. In the 1880 census, he was living in Paulding County. Susan J. Reeves Bowman, daughter of my Elisha, married in Paulding in 1873 and again in 1883, and Paulding joins Polk County, where my John Clay Reeves settled about 1900. This was definitely an unusual migration path, as Pike County lies in the plantation belt while Polk County is in the mountainous upcountry — more similar, in fact, to the area along the NC/SC border, where the James B. Reeves family lived. So, it may be that after Elisha died (if he did; he altogether disappears after 1866 — no post 1866 documentation, and no oral tradition about what became of him) his nieces and nephews retained a connection with his brother John Reeves and eventually moved closer to the area where John lived.

As I noticed after your first posts here regarding Elisha and I'm sure you're already aware, Elisha's first son was named James and first daughter Elizabeth (if the source I found was correct), which could be another clue pointing to James B. Reeves and his first wife Elizabeth "Betsy" Garris. I always put a lot of stock in those old naming patterns (I think I've read that they're Scotch-Irish in origin.)

But, again, at this point it's all speculation....

I've enjoyed reading your posts about your own Reeves ancestry in NC and KY; I realize you have no personal interest in the GA Reeves family but value your insight based on your experience sorting out the various Reeves families of the southern states.

Best wishes,

Dan

I'm going to shut up now and go back to my packing and moving. It's going to be great to have you around to help with the "myth busting" and to pool all of our knowledge.

Beverly