Jonathan Lindley (1756 - 1828)

Born 15 Jun 1756 in Orange, North Carolina

Ancestors

Husband of Deborah (Dicks) Lindley — married 5 Jan 1775 in Cane Creek, Orange, North Carolina

Husband of Martha (Sanders) Lindley — married 29 Aug 1812 in Fairfield, Ohio, United States

Descendants

Died 5 Apr 1828 at age 71 in Orange, Indiana, United States

Problems/Questions Profile managers: Barry Lindley [send private message] and Billie Walsh [send private message]

Biography

Jonathan was a Friend (Quaker)

Jonathan Lindley was born 15 June 1756 at Cane Creek, Orange County, North Carolina^[1]. He was the son of Thomas and Ruth Lindley. He was born in his father's recently established grist mill on Cane Creek, just off the Haw River. The mill is still there today and is still owned by the family. It was important enough to be marked on maps of the day.

Location of Lindley's Mill on Cane Creek (1781)

On 5 January 1775 Jonathan, 18, married Deborah Dicks, 23, at the Cane Creek Meeting^[2]. They went on to have thirteen children together.

The first of these, Zacharias, was born three weeks after the Declaration of Independence on 26 July 1776. Hannah and Ruth followed in 1777 and 1780.

Jonathan was clearly a man of some business acumen. He appears on the early tax list for Orange County in 1779, though he was only 24^[3]. He was a merchant and built the first store in what became Alamance County and he owned much of the land around what became the Spring Meeting House^[4].

The War came late to this part of North Carolina, but when it came it was with a vengeance. General Cornwallis marched inland in North Carolina to suppress the rebels and won a hard fought victory against the Americans at Guilford Court House in March 1781. On the way back to the coast after this Pyrrhic victory he camped at the Cane Creek Meeting House. Much of this part of North Carolina was split between rebels and loyalists and there was support for the British as well as fierce opposition. One of those opponents was Jonathan Lindley; as a Quaker he would not fight but he is recorded as supplying the rebel forces with copious supplies^[5]. Perhaps equally reflective of this acute man was that he made sure he was recompensed when the conflict was over.

One of the last episodes of the war and the end of the war in North Carolina was the battle fought at Lindley's Mill in September 1781 just weeks before Cornwallis' surrender at Yorktown. This vicious fight between irregular forces of loyalists and rebels took place around the mill where Jonathan had been born and there his father, Thomas, still lived. Some 55 men were killed in the battle, one of them Thomas Lindley, who died of a heart attack, aged 75.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Jonathan and Deborah named their next child Thomas, born seven months after the battle. Eleanor, Esther, William and Deborah all followed before 1790.

In 1790, Jonathan is listed in the first US Federal Census^[6] in Orange County, North Carolina.

Five more children were born up to 1800: Mary, the twins: Catherine and Queen Esther, Sarah and Jonathan Jr.

In 1800, Jonathan and his numerous family are recorded in Orange County^[7].

In 1810, by now a prosperous merchant, Jonathan and his family are still in Orange County^[8].

In 1811, aged 55, he sells up his business and leaves North Carolina to be one of the first Quakers to make the migration across the Appalachians to Indiana. He takes the entire family with him and they leave the slave states for the free ones further north. The journey was about 600 miles across Kentucky and a mountain range and was made in buggies and covered wagons. His entire family accompanied him on the journey including those children who had already married.

Quakers crossing the Appalachians

They settled along Lick Creek in what became Orange County, Indiana, the first settler in the area. It was not until two years later that the Lick Creek Meeting was formally established, before that they met at Jonathan's house.

The journey proved to much for Deborah and she died in Lick Creek a few weeks after their arrival on 10 August, 1811. She was buried in what was to become the Lick Creek Friends Cemetery^[9].

The following year, Jonathan traveled to Fairfield, Ohio, 140 miles to the west and remarried to Martha Sanders, the widow of Levi Woody^[10]. She was aged 43 and he 56. They probably did not expect to have children and yet the following year Gulielma was born. She was the last child for both of them.

In 1820, Jonathan is recorded as living with Martha and some of their children in Paoli Township, as the Lick Creek area became known^[11].

Jonathan passed away on 5 April 1828, aged 71 and was buried in the Friends cemetery in Lick Creek^[9]. His daughter, Deborah, had died the year before, but all of his other thirteen children outlived him, a rarity for that time.

Sources

1. ↑ U.S., Encyclopedia of American Quaker Genealogy, Vol I–VI, 1607-1943. Vol. I; page 359 Cane Creek Meeting https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015002304221&view=1up&seq=389
2. ↑ U.S., Encyclopedia of American Quaker Genealogy, Vol I–VI, 1607-1943. Vol. I; page 358 Cane Creek Meeting https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015002304221&view=1up&seq=388
3. ↑ North Carolina, Compiled Census and Census Substitutes Index; Early Tax List: 1779
4. ↑ Stockard, Sallie Walker; The History of Alamance; Raleigh N.C.; Capital Print. Co., 1900. Part II, Chap IX https://archive.org/details/historyofalamance00stoc/page/130
5. ↑ Roster of Soldiers and Patriots of the American Revolution Buried in Indiana, compiled and edited by Mrs. Roscoe C. O'Byrne, Indiana Daughters of the American Revolution, 1938, page 236 https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=inu.30000007433372&view=1up&seq=246
6. ↑ Year: 1790; Census Place: Orange, North Carolina; Series: M637; Roll: 7; Page: 93
7. ↑ United States Census, 1800 https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XHRD-FW9
8. ↑ United States Census, 1810 https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XH2J-GVK
9. ↑ ^{9.0 9.1} Find a Grave, database and images (accessed 24 August 2021), memorial page for Jonathan Lindley (15 Jun 1756–5 Apr 1828), Find A Grave: Memorial #6732854, citing Lick Creek Friends Cemetery, Chambersburg, Orange County, Indiana, USA ; Maintained by Kris 'Peterborough K' Peterson (contributor 46537737) .
10. ↑ https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015042027386&view=1up&seq=173
11. ↑ United States Census, 1820 https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XHG4-8F5

This person was created through the import of Weaver.ged on 03 January 2011.