Thomas Darley was born January 2, 1760[1]. He was christened on March 9, 1760, the son of Richard Darley and Grace Bond[2]. Richard Darley was associated with the long-established Darley shipping business at Plymouth and Southhampton, England. Following family tradition, Thomas was educated at St. John's College, Oxford.
He became Captain of a family owned freighter sailing between England and the American colonies. In 1780, his ship was headed out of the harbor at the mouth of the Port Royal Sound carrying a load of rice and indigo when he was boarded by the crew of a British blockade ship. Thomas was held as a prisoner of war until verification of his credentials arrived from England. He was then released on parole as a dragoon officer in the British Legion and was impressed into active service under Tarleton following heavy officer losses against Thomas Sumter at the Battle of Blackstock. He was wounded and captured in his only active service at the Battle of Cowpens on 17 January 1781. Thomas made the Free Mason sign of distress which was recognized by an American Patriot who spared Thomas' life. He was released and allowed to return to the British line for treatment. After the Revolutionary War, Thomas became a traveling Methodist Minister and spread the new Methodist religion all over GA and SC, even traveling into Creek land west of the Flint River in GA.
After the end of the Revolutionary War, he remained in South Carolina where he settled on 'Orangeburg-Savannah Road where the Big and Little Salkehatchie Rivers merge to form the Combahee' in South Carolina. He, along with John Green, a neighbor, operated a 2,000-acre plantation on which they raised rice, indigo, and thoroughbred horses in Charleston Dist., St. Bartholome's Parish, South Carolina (now Collenton Co.)
He first married Sarah Snelling about 1784 and they had thirteen children including my GGGG Grandfather THOMAS C. DARLEY (1794-1863). The names of the other children were Sarah, MYLES, NANCY, JAMES, MARY, ELEANOR, ELIZABETH, MARGARET, CHRISTANA, JOHN WESLEY, HENRY WILSON, and TARLETON.
In 1801 he was admitted as a traveling minister by the South Carolina Conference of the Methodist Church & assigned to the Orangeburg Dist. which included Colleton Co. He was appointed the first ordained pastor of the Mulberry Street Methodist Church, the Mother Church of Georgia Methodism][3].
In 1804 he purchased 585 acres of land on The Three Runs into the Savannah River, near the village of Snelling in Barnwell Co., SC and moved his family near his wife's people. After the death of his first wife, he remarried in 1815 to SARAH COKER, with whom he had seven children. ( HANNAH, TRYPHENA, SIDNEY CHARLES, SARAH CASEY, SELINA RUTH, WILLIAM JACKSON, and CHARLES SIDNEY)
About 1816 he purchased land between the Ogeechee River and Rocky Comfort Creek near Louisville, Jefferson Co., GA and moved the family there.
1820 Jefferson Co., Ga, p 302 Thomas Darley 2 males under 10 1 male 10-15 1 male over 45 2 females under 10 1 female 16-25 1 female 26-44 SLAVES 1 male under 14 1 male 26-45 (?) 1 male over 45 (?) Next to Alexander Turner & Samuel McNabb(?)
In 1822 Thomas, who was a 33rd Degree Mason, helped to organize the Grand Royal Arch Chapter in Georgia. WILLIAM SCHELEY (who was later Governor of Georgia) became Grand High Priest and Thomas Darley became Grand Chaplin, and held that office until his death in 1832. In 1826 he organized the Macon Methodist Church (now the Mulberry St. United Methodist Church & recognized as "The Mother Church of Georgia Methodism).
About 1827 he purchased a plantation in Harris Co., Georgia and moved his family there.
He died 18 April 1832 and is buried at Waverly Hall Cemetery, Harris County, Georgia[1].
This Darley line has been traced back to SIR EDMOND DeERLE who came to England from Normandy with WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR in 1066. He was a follower of GILBERT de NEVIL, who induced him to join the invasion of England. He was rewarded for his services ( furnishing and supervising the care and handling horses used by the armored warriors) with a manor at Darley in Derbyshire, England. Edmond and his horses again marched with William, the newly crowned King of England as he lead his army to put down a rebellion in the north of England in 1067. For this Edmond received a new grant, consisting of a vast manorial estate at the village of Wistow, fourteen miles south of the city of York. By 1085 Sir Edmond and his oldest son, John had both dropped the French de from their surname while the second son Richard and his descendants continued to use the surname deDarley. "GEORGE VINCENT DARLEY born ca 1510 at Wistow, probably at the request of his father, SIR RICHARD, went to work as a carpenter under a skilled shipwright at the Ipswich shipyard in Suffolk County. He married DOROTHY THURGARLAND ca 1533. They could not have dreamed that they would become founders of a long line of seafaring Darleys, or that they would spend their declining years in a granite mansion atop the Bodmin Moor in Cornwall county. Their son, JOHN, born ca 1536, married ANN, the only child of ROGER PILKINGTON, owner of the Ipswich shipyard and soon became owner thereof." The Darley owned Ipswich Shipyard built and registered the MAYFLOWER and a sister ship the SEAFLOWER, in 1608. Some of the other Darley built ships which conveyed emigrants to the West Indies and the North America colonies were the ABIGAIL, the ANN, the BONAVENTURE, the ELIZABETH, the HOPEWELL, the JAMES, the SEAVENTURE, and the WARWICK. Also of interest to me personally as a breeder of Arabian horses is the following.... It is said that George Vincent Darley sailed into the Mediterranean Sea in 1560 where he solicited trade agreements and established a base of operation at Aleppo, Syria. Darley family members conducted trade here until 1710 when two Darley brothers THOMAS and RICHARD were murdered. Prior to his death this same Thomas Darley acquired the now famous DARLEY ARABIAN and had him shipped home to England in 1703. All thoroughbreds in the world trace their line back to three shires, The Byerly Turk, the Darley Arabian and the Godophin Arabian. The Darley family as far back as Edmond deEarle in 1066 through our Thomas Darley the immigrant are known to have been horse fanciers. In response to the attitude of the people at Aldby Park, England, where a life-size painting of the Darley Arabian now hangs in the manor house, Lon Darley quoted a friend of his as saying ..."I don't think they give a tinkers' cuss about the rest of the Darley history." (This above information is abstracted from the Ladson Papers and Lon J.Darley's book, Your Darley Ancestors) ______
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Thomas is 24 degrees from Herbert Adair, 23 degrees from Richard Adams, 21 degrees from Mel Blanc, 28 degrees from Dick Bruna, 21 degrees from Bunny DeBarge, 32 degrees from Peter Dinklage, 20 degrees from Sam Edwards, 19 degrees from Ginnifer Goodwin, 21 degrees from Marty Krofft, 17 degrees from Junius Matthews, 17 degrees from Rachel Mellon and 23 degrees from Harold Warstler on our single family tree. Login to find your connection.
Categories: Waverly Hall Cemetery, Waverly Hall, Georgia