Martha (Sanderson) McCormick (1747 - 1803)

Born 1747 in Ireland

Ancestors

Wife of Robert McCormick — married 1770 in Pennsylvania

Descendants

Died 1803 at about age 56 in Augusta, Virginia, United States

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Biography

Martha Sanderson, youngest daughter of George Sanderson and his wife, Catharine Ross, was born in 1747 in the north of Ireland. Her parents were natives of Scotland, who shortly before her birth had removed to the Province of Ulster, Ireland, where they tarried a few years, then emigrating to America, settling in the Cumberland Valley. Her father was an elder of the old Monaghan Meeting House, and prominent in early Provincial affairs. She received the limited advantages of education to be acquired in frontier settlements, but with her natural gifts of speech and manners, she became an accomplished woman. In 1770 she married Robert McCormick, son of Thomas McCormick and his wife, Elizabeth Carruth, both natives of north of Ireland. He was born in Lancaster county, Pa., in 1738, but about the year 1755 settled on a tract of land in the Juniata Valley, adjoining those of his brothers, William and Hugh. To this place, on the far frontiers of Cumberland, he took his bride, and there for a period of eight years the charming wife and devoted mother shone resplendent in her cabin home.

During the early years of the struggle for independence, Mr. McCormick served several tours with the Associators and was in the Jersey campaign of 1776. In 1779, however, he sold his land and in company with several neighbors removed to the Valley of Virginia, where he purchased four hundred and fifty acres near the town of Midway, situated on both sides of the line between the counties of Augusta and Rockbridge. Making comfortable his little family, he entered the Virginia Line, and served in the Southern campaign of 1781, participating in the battle of the Cowpens. During this enforced absence of her husband, Mrs. McCormick took active charge of the plantation, and so directed the cultivation and management that apart from the wants of her family there was a large amount of produce furnished the commissary of purchases of the patriot army. Altogether she was a model wife and mother - a woman in striking contrast with the city dames of the period, who neither sowed, reaped or spun.

At the close of the Southern campaign, Mr. McCormick returned to his home. He was an elder in the Presbyterian church and a man well versed in the Scriptures, and in conversation on religious subjects able and entertaining. His wife was no loss so. She died in Augusta county, Va., prior to 1808, and he the 12th of October, 1818 - both buried in the old Providence Presbyterian burying ground, about two miles from the homestead. Of their children the youngest, Robert McCormick, became celebrated in the annals of invention by the construction of a reaping machine, which gave fame to him and fortune to his family. ^[1]

Sources

• WikiTree profile Sanderson-651 created through the import of Smith Family Tree.ged on Sep 1, 2012 by Pamela Smith-Irowa. See the [http://www.wikitree.com/index.php?title=Special:NetworkFeed&who=Sanderson-651

1. ↑ * Biography: "Pennsylvania, Women in the Revolutionary War, 1775-1783"
   Ancestry Record 1014 #201 (accessed 2 June 2022)
   

• Memorial: Find a Grave (has image).
  Find A Grave: Memorial #54057483 (accessed 2 June 2022)
  Memorial page for Martha Sanderson McCormick (1747-1804), citing Old Providence ARP Church Cemetery, Spottswood, Augusta County, Virginia, USA (plot: Row 10, 2); Maintained by G VanB (contributor 46618035).