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| Monument For Andrew Dennis |
Long-livers leave lots of records, and Andrew Dennis lived a very long time, especially in consideration of the time frame of his years. Andrew is, or was, my fifth Great Grandfather. He was born sometime between 1835 and 1850 by estimations, and died July 14, 1832, in Montgomery County, North Carolina. His monument is located at the Prospect Baptist Church Cemetery in Montgomery County. I can't tell you how old this church is, but it's at least 183 years old. The resting place of Benjiman Bell, 1761-1843 is also located there.
Prospect Baptist is an still an active church and is located on River Road, in "Troy, North Caroina". That's almost laughable as the location of this church is a long way from Troy. Troy is only the closest municipality with a zip code. The church was actually part of a more ancient, and now very rural, community. It is acknowledged that Andrew Dennis lived on River Road. There is even an adjoining road that bears his family name adjoining it.
Montgomery was a burned county, known for Courthouse fires, so much of the information on Andrew and his family has been lost to time, but still, he left a deep footprint in the soil of old Montgomery.
A comment left on his profile on Find-a-Grave says, "At the age of 94
He served his country in the War of 1812. May he rest in peace." Meaning he lived to be 94, and was a soldier in the War of 1812. That last part is debatable, considering he would have been a septigenarian. I would think that may have been mistaken for a younger Andrew Dennis, perhaps a descendant. We'll look into that more in a minute.
Like Connor Dowd, from my previous post, that you can access here, Andrew Dennis falls on my Maternal Grandmother's branch of the family tree, the Mauldin branch. I descend from his daughter, Martha, called Patsy, who married a Blalock. Their daughter, Mary, called Polly, married Thomas Alexander Mauldin, a great-grandson of Connor Dowd, whose daughter Sarah Jane married a Mauldin.
Patsy was also a long liver. She must have gotten it from her dad. The Dennis's proved to be a sturdy and prolific stock. Her husband, David, did serve in the War of 1812, and boy was he a character. The Blalock and Dennis properties are shown in deeds to have been connecting, so they were neighbors. I believe they lived near the river town of Henderson, which at one time was the County Seat, and founded, more or less, by Henry Delemothe, as he lived near there, too, and was the Postmaster for a term. Henderson was where David Blalock enlisted for military service during the War of 1812.
Andrew's exact year of birth remains unknown. We know he was an adult in 1779, as he signed a petition to separate what would become Montgomery County from Anson County, and he was applying for land grants several years before that. He was in the 1790 census, and in the 1800 census, he was over 45, which means he was born before 1755. 1810 gave the same information, of course, and the 1820 census of Montgomery was destroyed. The most telling was the 1830 census, his last, that portrayed him as a man in his 90's and his wife as in her 70's.
| Name | Anders Denniss |
|---|---|
| Home in 1830 (City, County, State) | East of Pee Dee and Yadkin River, Montgomery, North Carolina |
| Free White Persons - Males - 90 thru 99 | 1 |
| Free White Persons - Females - 70 thru 79 | 1 |
| Total Free White Persons | 2 |
| Total - All Persons (Free White, Slaves, Free Colored) | 2 |
1830 census, showing an elderly couple living alone. In the list, he is shown near Haltoms, Morgans, Tolberts, Bells and McRae's.
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From nclandgrants.com I learned that Andrew Dennis was associated with 4 land grants totalling 400 acres betwenn 1783 and 1803. These were all in Montgomery County and were:
Issued 10-11-1783, Entered 1779- 150 acres on the Northeast side of the Yadkin River.
Issued 10-11-1783. Entered 1779- 150 acres on the east side of the "Uhary" River on Cedar Creek.
Issued 7-15-1795. Entered 1792- 50 acres on the east side of the Pee Dee River and
Issued 8-20-1803 Entered 1800- 50 acres beginning at a pine at Thompson Clements corner. (Was this supposed to be Clement Thompson?
We'll explore these more shortly, but for those who don't know, Uhary was a different, or phoenetic spelling of Uwharrie and the Yadkin and Pee Dee Rivers are basically the same river. At the point where the Uwharrie empties into the the Yadkin, the river becomes the Pee Dee. Andrew Dennis settled very near where this event happened.
This beautiful house, which amazingly is still standing, to my knowledge, was occupied by descendants of Andrew Dennis, and it is believed that at least the foundation is part of the original structure of Andrew's house, built up on one of his 150-acre land grants
Most of what I've learned of Andrew is from the surviving land records accessed in the Stanly County History Room library, or online at Family Search, the records available at ancestry.com and newspapes.com. To discover more about his descendants beyond my direct line, I referenced two books, 'Revised J. A. Morton Descendants', compiled with the assistance of other members of the family by George Luther Wallace, 1983, and 'Blalock and Related Families Pioneers in Virginia, The Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama, and Texas' 1597-1988, by Delton D. Blalock.
My brilliant and tenacious distant cousin and genetic research expert, Cynthia, with whom I share multiple family lines, the Andrew Dennis line being one of them, has provided a wealth of information and knowledge on her blog, Uwharrie Roots. I have greatly benefited from , and resourced her blog post on Andrew, which can be found at the below link.
Uwharrie Roots: Descendants Aplenty
I'm sure there will be some duplication in the presentation of records, but we do arrive at things in a different way. Cynthia has mastered the art of using DNA to follow distant trails. I have dabbled with it, and made a few inroads, but quickly become frustrated with the creation of more brickwalls and mysteries it has seem to create for me. She is a preeminate expert on all things Montgomery County, which I know just a little about, as my roots were more in Stanly County.
Martha, the wife of Andrew, is more of a mystery than he is. I do not know her maiden name. If anyone has any information on that, please contact me.
The most information on Martha I have found is in the 1850 of Stanly County, which was formed from the part of Montgomery County west of the Yadkin-Pee Dee River in 1841. The Dennis's lived on East, the Montgomery side of the river, but my 4th Great Grandparents, David and Martha Dennis Blalock, moved to the west side and brought the widowed Martha Dennis with them. In this record, she is 94 years old and her birthplace is given as Virginia.
Andrew had arrived to the area of Montgomery County while it was still a part of Anson County. Above is shown one of the December grants of 150 acres, the one lying on Cedar Creek neat the mouth, including William Ballards improvement. Improvement meant that the land had been cleared, tilled, and sometimes built upon.
The final and Successul Petition to Divide Montgomery in Anson came 9 years after the 1770 petition and 2 years after the 1777 petition. Many of the names are still prominent in Montgomery and Stanly County today. I see my ancestors Colby Randle, Isaac Calloway and son Job Calloway,and Rev. William McGregor.
Andrew Dennis signed the 1779 petition to divide Montgomery County from Anson County, which was a very huge block of land in the beginning. I have many ancestors in this list, perhaps some that I don't even realize yet, as I discover more connections all the time, mostly as maternal ancestors maiden names are uncovered and fathers of brickwall ancestors are found. His name is listed next to Nathaniel Dennis, and no proof of a specific relattionship has been found between the two. Their land was on the same side of the river, but in no way conjoining, but that does not rule out a familial relationship of some kind. The paragraph above this one was written by me on a genealogy page I manage, with the list of names coming from the actual document, most of it excluded, with just the portion that names Andrew Dennis shown. There's a very long list of names on the petition.
Above is the handwritten version of the parcel on Island Creek.
And the cover of the property on the north side of the Yadkin River.
"N Carolina Mont. County `733 ) To the Surveryor of sd county Greeting you are here by Required to Lay of (sic) & survery according to Law for Andrew Dennis a track or parcel of Land containing 50 acres joining Joseph Bells Lines & John Walkers on the Waters of Cedar Creek Observe the Directions of the accr of assembly made of Provided in such cases given from Under my hand at office this 2 Day of March 1792 Jno Crump "
He also penned the document below from 1794
"To the surveyors of sd (said) County Greeting". This document was prepared for not Andrew Dennis, but Benjamin Bell. "for Benjamin Bell on my own line joining Andrew Dennis's line. So the Bell and Dennis families were close neighbors. I wonder if anyone has looked in the Bell family to see if there were any relations or if Martha could have been a Bell?
The above document was from 1802, and one of the later ones. Thomas Cotton, who owned an enormous plantation along the Yadkin River, was the surveyor. It begin at a line of Thompson Clement's corner, so Thompson was his actual first name. This tract was on the south side of Cedar Creek. It also connected to John Stewarts line then to John Thompson's line, then to Andrew Dennis's corner, so it was a tract that joined property he already owned. From this we can tell he must have been sucessful in his ventures, as he kept expanding his land holding.
In 1812, Grant number 6951, a tract was ordered to be laid off for Jacob Bennett on Island Creek that joined his own property and that of Andrew Dennis. The small tract of 35 acres was ordered on January 9th, 1812 and signed by Will Stone.
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Andrew was also mentioned in the above January 11, 1819 survey for Phillip Edwards and penned by Brittain Chappell. It was for 100 acres on the Uwharrie River and met the corner of Andrew Dennis's 50 acre tract that had been granted to him. Also mentioned is Watery Branch, Hardy Morgan, John Stewart again, and Bunnells corner stake. Hardy Morgan is known to have worked for Henry Delamothe and would later marry his widow.
The above document is a little difficult to read, but I felt it should be included in the most salient documents that we have with a mention of Andrew Dennis. It is shown above in it's entirety and involves the daughters of Dr. Kron.
I am emphazing the two pertinent parts of the court document.
Fall Term of 1858, Adelaide and Elizabeth Kron vs Martine Hinson
| Name | Andrew Dennis |
|---|---|
| Home in 1800 (City, County, State) | Montgomery, North Carolina |
| Free White Persons - Males - Under 10 | 1 James |
| Free White Persons - Males -10 thru 15 | 2 Jesse and Andres Jr. |
| Free White Persons - Males - 45 and over | 1 Andrew Sr. |
| Free White Persons - Females - Under 10 | 1 My Patsy would have been 8. |
| Free White Persons - Females - 10 thru 15 | 1 |
| Free White Persons - Females - 16 thru 25 | 2 |
| Free White Persons - Females - 26 thru 44 | 1 Martha |
| Number of Household Members Under 16 | 5 |
| Number of Household Members Over 25 | 2 |
| Number of Household Members | 9 |
| Name | Andrew Dennis |
|---|---|
| Residence Date | 6 Aug 1810 |
| Residence Place | Hattom, Montgomery, North Carolina, USA |
| Free White Persons - Males - 10 thru 15 | 1 James |
| Free White Persons - Males - 16 thru 25 | 1 Andrew Jr. |
| Free White Persons - Males - 45 and over | 1 Andrew Sr. |
| Free White Persons - Females - 16 thru 25 | 1 Patsy |
| Free White Persons - Females - 45 and over | 1 Martha |
| Number of Household Members Under 16 | 1 |
| Number of Household Members Over 25 | 2 |
| Number of Household Members | 5 |
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| Map Showing Henderson town, from "Old Town" Uwharrie Roots Blog post |
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