Abraham Brown[1, 2]
1701 - -
Name Abraham Brown Born 1701 Scotland/Ireland 
[1] Gender Male Died Orange county, Virginia, USA [1] Buried Virginia, USA Notes - This first Brown ancestor immigrant, his wife, and his son, Abraham 2nd, all landed at Philadelphia in 1735, according to old family Bible records and notes. After a short while, they then migrated with another large group of the Scots Covenanters down the "Indian Road" on the west side of the Applachian Mountains to the Borden's Grant, which is today most of Rockbridge County, Virginia. Researchers are hopeful that further investigation into the records of Borden's Grant will shed some light on him. He settled on the southern border of this grant, next to the Kirkham's land. In this location from about 1735 or 1736, it was not until 1754 before he obtained the deed, some 17 or 18 years later, for 482 acres and apparently in the name of his son, Abraham (2nd) and son's wife, Margaret Kirkham. Margaret was a daughter of Henry Kirkham, the adjacent landowner, whose deed in the Borden's Grant was for some 198 acres, issued in Orange County in 1742. When Abraham died is unknown. He probably died near present day Lexington, Virginia in the Wood's Creek Area of Borden's Grant when it was part of Orange County and was know as "the Forks of the James River." Abraham may be buried near Hall's Meeting House on Whistle Creek, two miles west of Lexington. Margaret, whose parentage is unknown, probably died in that area when it was part of Augusta County. That is as close as we can get. We just do not know when they died. It is apparent that their lands were located in the center of as well as the eastern side of Lexington, Virginia, and they were there almost 40 years before the community of Lexington was even formed. There are few existing records from this period, especially of those in these Scottish dissident settler groups, known as "Covenenters", their strict religious viewpoints being forbidden by the Crown, and few marriage records of these peoples exist, and since the Indians were continuously harassing the new occupants, these people could not even use gravestones, least the Indians would destroy the burials ... they had to be done in secret. Paper was extremely scarce, and only the Virginia Colony and Anglican Church records were formally made, in these earliest settlement days. Consequently we have to rely on later day records, and family stories that were documented later. It was a very hard life they led, all from virgin wilderness with almost no resources to utilize. In a 1714 book "A Cloud of Witnesses" are mentioned three Martyrs of the Scottish peasant classes, who taught the Christian gospel in the fields of the Lowlands, and who had on their persons a copy of a paper known as the Queensferry in draft form, a preliminary "thinking paper". They were all executed and the Scottish government used the paper as a basis for a test put to suspected Covenenters. The test led to indictments." Soldiers were ordered to take quarters (around) the country, to examine men by tortures, to compel women and children to discover (spy on) their husbands and fathers, by threatening death, wounding, striping, torturing by fire matches. They were crowded into prisons so thick, that they could scarce stand together, in cold, hunger, and nakedness." "Dragoons (soldiers) were sent to find and pursue people who attended field-preachings". Some 10,000 to 11,000 highlanders were sent into the western shires where the shires were depopulated by the savage hosts who rendered some of the countryside desolate. They were crowded into prisons and sent to foreign plantations to be sold as slaves. Obviously, a great many rowed to nearby Ireland. In the very earliest days in Scotland we are informed that the Browns were a part of at least three other Clans, known as Septs. Of which part, we do not know. The first Clan is MacMillan. The origin of this Clan is obscure but is generally taken that its roots lie in the early Celtic church, where celibacy was not practiced among the clergy, since the name Ghille Mhaoil means "Son of the Tonsured One". There were MacMillans in the 11th and 12th centuries who lived by Loch Arkaig and whose descendants are still to be found in the district. Some of these were moved by King Malcomb IV to populate Crown Lands by Loch Tay. Of these latter, some again moved away to Knapdale in Argyll and as far away south as Galloway, where they made an extensive colony in the Glenkens district of the Stewartry. It was by a fortunate marriage with the Mac Neills that the Knapdale MacMillans got most of their estates. (In 1994 they are centered at Finlaystone Manor]. [George T. Brown, Jr., Dayton, Ohio.].
Person ID I149961 mykindred Last Modified Aug 18, 2008
Family Margaret (__), b. 1700, Scotland/Ireland , d. Augusta county, Virginia, USA Married Scotland/Ireland [1] Children 1. Abraham Brown, b. 1731, Scotland , d. 1785, Belspring, Virginia, USA (Age 54 years)2. Cornelius Brown, b. 1731, ? Virginia, USA , d. circa 1793, Congaree, Abbeville District, South Carolina, USA (Age 62 years)Family ID F49257 Group Sheet | Family Chart
- This first Brown ancestor immigrant, his wife, and his son, Abraham 2nd, all landed at Philadelphia in 1735, according to old family Bible records and notes. After a short while, they then migrated with another large group of the Scots Covenanters down the "Indian Road" on the west side of the Applachian Mountains to the Borden's Grant, which is today most of Rockbridge County, Virginia. Researchers are hopeful that further investigation into the records of Borden's Grant will shed some light on him. He settled on the southern border of this grant, next to the Kirkham's land. In this location from about 1735 or 1736, it was not until 1754 before he obtained the deed, some 17 or 18 years later, for 482 acres and apparently in the name of his son, Abraham (2nd) and son's wife, Margaret Kirkham. Margaret was a daughter of Henry Kirkham, the adjacent landowner, whose deed in the Borden's Grant was for some 198 acres, issued in Orange County in 1742. When Abraham died is unknown. He probably died near present day Lexington, Virginia in the Wood's Creek Area of Borden's Grant when it was part of Orange County and was know as "the Forks of the James River." Abraham may be buried near Hall's Meeting House on Whistle Creek, two miles west of Lexington. Margaret, whose parentage is unknown, probably died in that area when it was part of Augusta County. That is as close as we can get. We just do not know when they died. It is apparent that their lands were located in the center of as well as the eastern side of Lexington, Virginia, and they were there almost 40 years before the community of Lexington was even formed. There are few existing records from this period, especially of those in these Scottish dissident settler groups, known as "Covenenters", their strict religious viewpoints being forbidden by the Crown, and few marriage records of these peoples exist, and since the Indians were continuously harassing the new occupants, these people could not even use gravestones, least the Indians would destroy the burials ... they had to be done in secret. Paper was extremely scarce, and only the Virginia Colony and Anglican Church records were formally made, in these earliest settlement days. Consequently we have to rely on later day records, and family stories that were documented later. It was a very hard life they led, all from virgin wilderness with almost no resources to utilize. In a 1714 book "A Cloud of Witnesses" are mentioned three Martyrs of the Scottish peasant classes, who taught the Christian gospel in the fields of the Lowlands, and who had on their persons a copy of a paper known as the Queensferry in draft form, a preliminary "thinking paper". They were all executed and the Scottish government used the paper as a basis for a test put to suspected Covenenters. The test led to indictments." Soldiers were ordered to take quarters (around) the country, to examine men by tortures, to compel women and children to discover (spy on) their husbands and fathers, by threatening death, wounding, striping, torturing by fire matches. They were crowded into prisons so thick, that they could scarce stand together, in cold, hunger, and nakedness." "Dragoons (soldiers) were sent to find and pursue people who attended field-preachings". Some 10,000 to 11,000 highlanders were sent into the western shires where the shires were depopulated by the savage hosts who rendered some of the countryside desolate. They were crowded into prisons and sent to foreign plantations to be sold as slaves. Obviously, a great many rowed to nearby Ireland. In the very earliest days in Scotland we are informed that the Browns were a part of at least three other Clans, known as Septs. Of which part, we do not know. The first Clan is MacMillan. The origin of this Clan is obscure but is generally taken that its roots lie in the early Celtic church, where celibacy was not practiced among the clergy, since the name Ghille Mhaoil means "Son of the Tonsured One". There were MacMillans in the 11th and 12th centuries who lived by Loch Arkaig and whose descendants are still to be found in the district. Some of these were moved by King Malcomb IV to populate Crown Lands by Loch Tay. Of these latter, some again moved away to Knapdale in Argyll and as far away south as Galloway, where they made an extensive colony in the Glenkens district of the Stewartry. It was by a fortunate marriage with the Mac Neills that the Knapdale MacMillans got most of their estates. (In 1994 they are centered at Finlaystone Manor]. [George T. Brown, Jr., Dayton, Ohio.].
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