Joseph Martin (abt. 1740 - 1808)

Born about 18 Sep 1740 in Goochland County, Colony of Virginia

Ancestors

Husband of Sarah (Lucas) Martin — married 1762 in Orange Co., Virginia

Husband of Susannah (Graves) Martin — married 24 Feb 1784 in Henry County, Virginia

Descendants

Died 18 Dec 1808 at about age 68 in Martinsville, Henry County, Virginia, United States

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Joseph Martin resided in the Southern Colonies in North America before 1776. Join: US Southern Colonies Project Discuss: southern_colonies

Biography

Joseph was a Virginia colonist.

Joseph Martin is Notable.

Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Martin served with Washington County Militia, Virginia Militia during the American Revolution.

Joseph Martin is a DAR Patriot Ancestor, A074375.

Joseph Martin was born on September 18, 1740, near present day Charlottesville in Albemarle County, Virginia (which were founded and formed in 1762 and 1744 respectively). At the time, this was Goochland County. No credible record of middle name Lynch has been found.

He was one of eleven children of Joseph Martin, Sr., ^[1] and his first wife Susannah Chiles Martin. His father, Joseph Martin Sr., was born in England, a son of William Martin. Joseph Sr. came to Virginia, and settled in Caroline County, where he met and married Susanna Chiles. Joseph and Susanna moved to Albermarle County, Virginia.

Marriages and Children

Martin was married twice, and also fathered children by at least two Cherokee women, Betsy Ward and Mary Emory. He is known to have at least nineteen children. He married his first wife, Sarah Lucas, in 1762 in Orange County, Virginia. Sarah died in 1782 at "Scuffle Hill", their estate on the Smith River in Henry County, Virginia, the site of present day Martinsville, Virginia. In 1784, Joseph married Susannah Graves, the daughter of William Graves. ^[2] Alexander Martin is listed as one of the children.^[3]

Joseph's children may have included:^[4]

1. John Martin (1762)
2. Susannah Martin Burris (1763, married Jacob Burris) ^[5]
3. William L. Martin (1765, married Frances Farris)
4. Elizabeth Martin Waller (1768, married Carr Waller)
5. Martha Martin Cleveland (1768, married Willian Cleveland)
6. Brice Martin (1770, married Matilda Perkins)
7. Mary Martin (1773, married Daniel Hammock)

1. James Martin (1776)
2. Nancy Martin (1778 m. Michael Hildebrand)
3. Samuel Martin

1. Joseph Martin (1785, married Sally Hughes)
2. Alexandra Martin (1786, married George Smith)
3. Jesse Martin, (1786, married Cecelia Ried and Annie Armstead)
4. Thomas W. Martin (1787, married Nancy Carr)
5. Lewis Graves Martin (1790, married Belinda Rucker)
6. Patrick Henry Martin (1791)
7. Sallie Martin (1794, married Samuel Armstead) ^[6]
8. Susannah Martin (1795, George King)
9. Alexander Martin, (1799, married Elizabeth Carr)^[7][8]
10. John Calvin Martin, (1803, married Sofiah Rucker)
11. George Wythe Martin, (1805, married Elizabeth A. Starling and Caroline R. Watkins)

While serving as Indian Agent to the Cherokees, General Martin fathered two children with Elizabeth "Betsy" Ward, the daughter of the famous Cherokee woman Nan ye hi (Nancy) Ward; they were the parents of a daughter named Nancy Martin and a son named James Martin.^[9] The Moravian missionaries recorded the following: "A half-Indian, Martin, son of the General Martin with home brother Schneider stayed arrived today. We asked him if he remembered the visit of Br. Schneider sixteen years ago. He said no, that he was born in Chittiko but was only nineteen years old now, and was therefore very young at the time. He told us that his father was now in Henry County, Virginia, and that his mother was living in Wahjowee on the Hiwassee River …^[10] He was probably the father of a son named Samuel Martin by Mary Emory, the Cherokee granddaughter of trader Ludovic Grant.^[11]

Martins' descendants include his eldest son Col. William Martin, Tennessee pioneer, and member of the South Carolina and Georgia legislatures.

Overview

Gen. Joseph Martin was a colorful, self-willed man with a fine sense of honor. He joined the Virginia militia when he was sixteen years old; was a long hunter; gambler; Indian fighter; Colonial and Revolutionary War officer; and a great diplomat. He was the Brigadier General for both the Washington District of North Carolina and the Virginia Militia. He spent a short time in Georgia on duty for North Carolina and was elected to the Georgia legislature. He was also a Representative for Sullivan County in the North Carolina legislature during the turbulent State of Franklin years, and was undoubtedly the most influential person of his time to defeat the State of Franklin from becoming a permanent State.

William Martin recorded the following story about his father and the Cherokee:^[12]

"Things were so bad in the Overhill settlement [of the Cherokee Nation] that in the fall of 1782 Joseph Martin took Nancy Ward and Oconostota back to Long Island [of Holston] to spend the winter. Scarcity of food and respect for Nancy, as well as friendship for the Old Chief who was now almost blind, were sufficient reasons. William stated, "I am of the opinion that Oconostota was one of the noblest and best of humankind. He had a powerful frame, and in his prime must have weighed more than two hundred pounds, with a head of enormous size. He was, when I saw him, very lean, stooped, and emaciated.'"
"These two Cherokee greats, Nancy Ward and Oconostota, spent the winter of 1782-1783 in Joseph Martin's Long Island [of Holston] home, where Nancy's daughter, Betsy, was able to care for their needs. With the coming of spring, Oconostota asked Martin to take him home. The Old Chief must have felt that his end was near, and he wanted to spend his last days at Chota. Martin realized that the ailing Chief would be unable to make the trip on horseback, so he arranged to take the party down river by boat. Sometime later, when the veteran Chief breathed his last breath, Martin buried the Old Chief with Christian rites, using a dugout canoe for a coffin."

In 1789, he sold his lands in Powell Valley (Ewing, Virginia), and at Long Island (Kingsport, Tennessee), returning to his plantation located on Leatherwood Creek, near present day Martinsville, Virginia (Henry County). Having spent thirteen years living in the Cherokee Wilderness lands as the peacemaker, Indian Agent, and Revolutionary War General, the wilderness lost their most colorful resident, a man of remarkable abilities and great courage. In the summer of 1808, Gen. Martin made his last journey. The sixty-eight year old soldier made the long trek to the old frontier, passing through Long Island (Kingsport, Tennessee), to the Indian towns, armed with a safe-conduct pass from the Secretary of War. In the autumn of 1808, worn out and feeble, he returned to Virginia. He "took to his bed, never to rise again, and quietly died on December 18th after a life rich in every detail." He was sorely missed, not only by the white settlers, but by the Indians, all whom he had so faithfully served.

Martin served in the legislatures of several Southern states, and was a longhunter, pioneer, Indian trader, and real estate speculator who attempted one of the earliest settlements of what became the state of Tennessee.

Military

Joseph Martin (1740–1808) was a brigadier general in the Virginia militia during the American Revolutionary War, in which Martin's frontier diplomacy with the Cherokee people is credited with not only averting Indian attacks on the Scotch-Irish American and English American settlers who helped win the battles of Kings Mountain and Cowpens, but with also helping to keep the Indians' position neutral and from siding with the British troops during those crucial battles. Historians agree that the settlers' success at these two battles signaled the turning of the tide of the Revolutionary War—in favor of the Americans.

It has been said that Joseph was reared in a violent area, during violent times, he grew up "overgrown, rude, and ungovernable". His roving disposition caused him to run away from the carpenter to whom he had been apprenticed by his father to learn a trade. He and his friend Thomas Sumter, sometime in 1756-1757 (Joseph was 16-17 years old) and toward the close of the French and Indian War, made their way through the wilderness to Fort Pitt, where Pittsburg now stands, and there enlisted in the Colonial English Army. At the end of the war, he spent several years in trapping and the trading of furs and poultry, in what is now southwestern Virginia and Tennessee. On the outbreak of the Shawnee War in 1774, Lord Dunmore commissioned Joseph Martin a Captain in the Pittsylvania militia, and he saw service as a commander of scouts in Culbertson's Bottom on New River.

On November 3, 1777, he was commissioned agent of Virginia among the Cherokees, and took up his residence on the Long Island of Holston, North Carolina. The now Colonel Martin was a member of the first convention of the so-called State of Franklin but was opposed to secession from North Carolina, and in December, 1887, he was made Brigadier General of the North Carolina Militia in the western district. General Joseph Martin was appointed Indian Agent for the United States in June, 1788.

For many years afterwards, General Martin remained an obscure figure, until Lyman Draper began collecting reminiscences about him, including those of Major John Redd, a prominent Henry County planter who served under Martin, and who also wrote about his early recollections of General Nathaniel Greene, George Rogers Clark, Daniel Boone, Col. Benjamin Cleveland, Dr. John Walker, and other early prominent Virginia figures.

Death and Burial

General Joseph Martin died at his Leatherwood plantation in 1808, and was buried in the family cemetery there. Buried alongside him at the graveyard at Belmont are three other Joseph Martins: Colonel Joseph Martin, son of the general, and his son Joseph and grandson Joseph, who lived at Greenwood plantation. A monument was erected in 2008 on the old Henry Courthouse square in Martinsville, Virginia. It is not Gen. Joseph Martins' tombstone, which is located at the Martin Cemetery, Leatherwood, Henry County, Virginia.

Legacy

The city of Martinsville, Virginia (an independent city) was named in General Martin's honor during his lifetime.^[13]

Joseph Martin, the peace maker, is best remembered by the creek which starts at the spring that supplied his Upper Station, and which bears his name. Perhaps it is fitting, as it is a favorite of trout fishermen, who pursue their peaceful passtime in its cool waters.^[14]

Research Notes

Starr's "History of the Cherokee Indians" incorrectly lists Joseph Martin as the father of children by sisters Mary and Susannah Emory; those are actually the children of his brother John.

Who the William Martin that owned land on Indian Creek and died in Lee County in 1821 was is not known. The William Martin that was killed by a Creek Indian likely was not one of his children, as the white William was a well known attorney in Henry County, and lived to write a biography of his father. Neither is it known if the Brice Martin that owned land among Joseph’s holdings between Rose Hill and Ewing was his brother or his son.^[14] Maintenance Categories

• Needs Location Research: The locations for the attached profiles (siblings/children) are all over the place, which is probably not correct. Noland-165 18:58, 13 November 2020 (UTC); updated by Spratlin-29 22:42, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
• Needs Relationship Review: The Note above says a resource "incorrectly lists Joseph Martin as the father of children by sisters Mary and Susannah Emory; those are actually the children of his brother John." Considering that locations are inconsistent, the attached profiles should be reviewed to ensure they are all his siblings or children. Noland-165 18:58, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

• Birth location: text says he was born near Charlottesville, so profile was updated assuming that defines the location. Previously listed Albemarle County, which was created in 1744, and was formed from Goochland County. Spratlin-29 22:42, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

Disputed Child

A prior version of this profile, and some online trees, have identified Lindsley D. Martin (1796) as an additional child, but this claim is disputed. In the absence of any reliable source cited for the claim, that child has been detached from this profile.

Sources

1. ↑ Joseph Martin will, Albemarle County Will Book 2 Page 112. Dated December 3, 1760, probated January 14, 1762
2. ↑ Bentley, Elizabeth Petty, indexer. Virginia Marriage Records: From the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, the William and Mary College Quarterly, and Tyler's Quarterly. Baltimore, MD: Genealogy Publishing Co., Inc., 1984.
3. ↑ https://familypedia.fandom.com/wiki/Susannah_Graves_(1763-1837)
4. ↑ American Family History: Joseph Martin (Unsourced profile; better source sought.)
5. ↑ "Virginia Marriages, 1785-1940", database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XRHL-F2S : 29 January 2020), Joseph Martin in entry for Jacob Burruss, 1781.
6. ↑ "Virginia Marriages, 1785-1940", database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XRHL-XQY : 29 January 2020), Jos. Martin in entry for Samuel Armistead, 1807.
7. ↑ https://lincoln.mogenweb.org/bible/bb-martin-carr.htm
8. ↑ https://familypedia.fandom.com/wiki/Susannah_Graves_(1763-1837)
9. ↑ Hampton, David K. Cherokee Mixed-Bloods. Arc Press of Cane Hill, Lincoln, Arkansas. 2005. p. 107.
10. ↑ Crews & Starbuck, eds. Records of the Moravians Among the Cherokees. Cherokee Heritage Press, Tahlequah, OK. , Vol. 1, p. 121.
11. ↑ Starr, Emmet. History of the Cherokee Indians. Oklahoma Yesterday Publications edition, Tulsa, OK. 1979. p. 305. Digitized edition at Starr.
12. ↑ Brown, John. P. “Old Frontiers.” Southern Publishers, Kingsport, TN. 1938, p. 203.
13. ↑ See Wikipedia Article.
14. ↑ ^{14.0 14.1} Daniel Boone Trail: History and Perspective.

See also:

• A Biographical Sketch of General Joseph Martin. The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 8, No. 4 (Apr., 1901), pp. 347-359, Published by: Virginia Historical Society, Stable URL: (https://www.jstor.org/stable/4242374).
• William Allen Pusey, "General Joseph Martin, of Virginia: An Unsung Hero of the Virginia Frontier," The Filson Club History Quarterly, 10 (1936): 57-81; images available here.
• "The last of the Ghigua," Burlington News by Mary Sutherland.
• Cherokee Heritage Site for Nancy Ward by SmithDray.
• Wikipedia: Joseph Martin (general).
• This WikiTree profile is referenced from Wikidata: Item Q6285350, en:Wikipedia .
• Find A Grave: Memorial #33522358 for BG Joseph Lynch Martin Jr.

Additional Reading:

• Addington, Robert M. – HIstory of Scott County, Virginia.
• Summers, Lewis P. – History of Southwest Virginia and Washington County.
• Hamilton, Emory – “Historical Sketches of Southwest Virginia” publication #4.
• Stray Leaves, the Official Genealogy for the Family of Frank & Jessse James.
• Martin Family Reference Document.