Thomas Spratt Jr (1731 - 1807)

Born 1731 in Atlantic Ocean

Ancestors

Descendants

Died 1807 at about age 76 in York, South Carolina, United States

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Thomas Spratt Jr was one of the Scots-Irish Immigrants to America 1718 onwards.

Thomas Spratt Jr is an NSSAR Patriot Ancestor.
NSSAR Ancestor #: 295403
Rank: Lieutenant

Thomas Spratt Jr is a DAR Patriot Ancestor, A107712.

Lieutenant Thomas Spratt Jr served with South Carolina Militia during the American Revolution.

Biography

Thomas was born in 1731. He was the son of Thomas Spratt and Mary Clark. He passed away in 1807.

THOMAS "KANAWAH" SPRATT By: Louise Pettus

Thomas Sprot of Anson County, North Carolina wrote his will on January 15, 1751, "weak in body," and left property to his five daughters and "to my only son Thomas, plantation on Twelve Mile Creek." Twelve Mile Creek begins Mecklenburg County, North Carolina and flowed into the Catawba River, forming the southern boundary of the Catawba Indian Land in what is now Lancaster County, South Carolina.

To his daughter Martha, he left a "plantation on Sugar Creek...." It has been speculated that, somehow, Thomas Sprot (or Spratt), Junior (1731-1807) must have exchanged his inherited acreage for that of his sister Martha. Other writers say that Thomas "Kanawha" Spratt was on his way to settle in either Abbeville or Fairforest (near present-day Spartanburg) when the Catawba Indians persuaded him to settle among them.

There is not a great deal of agreement among the various legends related to Kanawha Spratt's arrival in Fort Mill district (the date of arrival varies from 1755 to 1765) Some say that the Indians offered him all of the land he wanted but Kanawha's grandson, Thomas Dryden Spratt, wrote that the first survey of the land showed 4700 acres in 1787. But, T. D. Spratt added, Kanawha had given away or disposed of some land prior that to that--some for "no more than a song." Spratt's Catawba Indian lease, dated December 15, 1787, was for 4,535 acres and there was a second lease in the name of his daughter, Mary Spratt, for 640 acres..

The nickname "Kanawha" was given to Spratt by the Catawbas. Spratt fought with the Indians on several occasions and it is said that on an expedition in the area of present-day West Virginia Spratt displayed such courage that the Indians named him for the nearby river. In the same way the Catawba chief earned the name of New River.

The Catawbas were greatly attached to Spratt. Thomas D. Spratt gave evidence of that in a tale about Spratt participating in the signing of the famed Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence on Mary 20, 1775. Spratt was to be a signer but "instead of dipping into an ink well, he dipped into a gallon jug." Spratt was placed in the county jail and when some Catawba Indian friends heard of it, they "got on their horses, rode up to the jail, ripped off two or three planks and took Kanawha out, put him on his horse, then they raced their steeds around and around the court house several times--yelling and whooping, after which the Catawbas and Kanawah headed their horses back down Nation Ford Road for their homes in what is now Fort Mill."

Thomas D. Spratt also tells of a dispute that Kanawha had with old Samuel Knox, the first leaseholder of Catawba land, over "the prior right to the tract of land called the Mulberry fields on Catawba River below Neely's Ferry now owned by Stanhope Harris, the controversy terminated in a fight between the two. I have heard that they rolled over one another downhill from a spring on the premises some 50 or more yards. Some of Knox's descendants tell me that he got the better of the fight, but my memory serves me to the effect that it was a drawn battle."

Thomas Spratt was one of the first agents for the Catawba Indians. He witnessed their leases and protected them against the unscrupulous. The legends have it that he adopted several Indian children. Maurice Moore says that the Catawba queen, Sally New River, grew up in his household but that is surely wrong. She was married by the time Spratt arrived. But Spratt did adopt Peter Harris, an Indian whose parents died in a smallpox epidemic. Peter Harris is buried in the Spratt Graveyard on Brickyard Road in Fort Mill not farm from Spratt's grave.

Spratt came to the Catawba Indian Land with his wife Elizabeth Bigger. Their children were: Mary Spratt; Martha Spratt, married Isaac Garrison; Elizabeth, married Hugh White; Jane, married Thomas McNeal; Anne; James, married Margaret McRee; Susannah, married Joseph McCorkle; and Rachel, married Arthur Erwin.

While some Spratt descendants went west with other immigrants seeking better cotton lands in the pre-Civil war period, a large number of descendents (including John M. Spratt, U. S. Congressman) still live in York County.

Biography of Thomas Dryden Spratt, Recollections of my Family

My grandfather, Thomas Spratt, was born on the ocean during the voyage to America. His age on his tombstone is set down at seventy- six and he died July 21, 1807. From these dates I infer that the time of emigration was in 1731, the year before the birth of General Washington. He was the only son and the eighth and last of the children.^[1]

I come now to my grandfather, Thomas (Kanawha) the 8th and last of his children and his only son. He married Elizabeth Bigger and settled on the portion of his father's plantation east of Charlotte now owned by the heirs of Maj. Ben Morrow. The date of his marriage is not on record that I know and can only be approximately ascertained from the ages of his eldest children and other circumstances. The number of children, the issue of this marriage was nine, which I will name in order of their birth: Mary, Martha, Elizabeth, Jane, Anne, Thomas, James, Susan, and Rachel.^[2]

I will now go back and take up my grandfather, Thomas Spratt, who settled here, at Fort Mill, in York District, South Carolina, about the year 1765, as nearly as I can come to the date. In fact, Thomas "Kanawha" Spratt, was one of the very first settlers, perhaps the first settler, of York District. Sometime prior to his settling here, he had married an immigrant girl, Elizabeth Bigger in Charlotte, North Carolina, as I have before said, and settled on that portion of his father's plantation, a mile or so from the court house square in Charlotte. His father, Thomas Spratt, the pioneer, died in 1757. My grandfather, having been nursed on the paps of adventure, made plans to emigrate to the West, to the land of promise, to a new settlement then recently opened on Long Cane Creek in Abbeville District, South Carolina In order to make this move, he sold his heritage near a place called Charlotte, a small village of frame shacks and log houses, located along a mud road in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, to old Col. Tom Polk - it is said - for a mere mess of potage...^[3]

My grandfather was one of Gen. William R. Davie's men as I have before said, at the time of his action at Wahab's Lane Sept. 21, 1780 and elsewhere in those parts. He was shot at Wahab's Lane. Two buckshots passed through the fleshy part of his right thigh; one of them grazing the bone. After my grandfather was wounded, he was held on his horse by Thomas Barnett and old Mr. Farris. On August 6, 1780, he was at the battle of Hanging Rock, near Kershaw, in Kershaw District, South Carolina. He was at other battles of which I have no distinct record. Uncle Art Erwin told me that "old Kanawha", was at the battle of Williamson's in York District, where Col. Houck, the British Tory, was killed, July 12, 1780; - but if he were, his name was left out of the list of whig participators in the affair which was commemorated with much eclat in 1850, I believe it was. ^[4]

Sources

1. ↑ Thomas Dryden Spratt's Recollections of his family, p 3
2. ↑ Thomas Dryden Spratt's Recollections of his family, p 16
3. ↑ Thomas Dryden Spratt's Recollections of his family, p 44
4. ↑ Thomas Dryden Spratt's Recollections of his family, p 58-59

• Find A Grave: Memorial #11648432

• Spratt, Thomas Dryden. Recollections of his family. 1875. https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/296512?availability=Family%20History%20Library

• Cockrell, A. W. (Augustus William). Descendants of Thomas "Kanawha" Spratt. 1908. https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/296503?availability=Family%20History%20Library

• Perry, Max. Descendants of the Garrison families of Mecklenburg Co., N.C. and York Co., S.C. 2001. https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/1013422?availability=Family%20History%20Library

• Saunders, William L. The colonial records of North Carolina. p 942, 945. https://archive.org/details/colonialrecordso10nort/page/944/mode/2up?q=spratt

• Snowden, Yates. History of South Carolina, Volume 5. (1920) pp 20-21. https://books.google.com/books?id=eTgVAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA18-IA1&dq=thomas+spratt&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjQ-pLUjPP6AhWLM1kFHaQMB9gQ6AF6BAgJEAI#v=onepage&q=thomas%20spratt&f=false

• https://findingaids.charlotte.edu/repositories/4/resources/358

• https://digitalcommons.winthrop.edu/manuscriptcollection_findingaids/913/

• Records of Estates; Author: South Carolina. Probate Court (York County); Probate Place: York, South Carolina. Notes: Records of Estates, File No 2764-2869. Case 62 File 2855. Thomas Spratt dec'd, 1807. https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/9080/images/0229670-00647?pId=1132692

• https://charlottetrailofhistory.org/portfolio/thomas-spratt-king-haigler/

• https://youtu.be/VAOD45_gibA

• https://www.wbtv.com/story/27562284/trail-of-statues-honors-friendship-from-1700s-that-helped-shape-charlotte/

• http://www.nationalregister.sc.gov/york/S10817746049/pages/S1081774604903.htm

• https://www.heraldonline.com/news/local/article12183335.html

• https://npgallery.nps.gov/GetAsset/4634ac25-67c1-4929-9908-17e0466d61e2

• https://newsouthassoc.com/?page_id=1631

• https://www.riverhillsassoc.com/history-of-river-hills-plantation

• https://www.scgenweb.org/york/Pettus.htm

• https://carolinabronze.com/thomas-spratt-and-king-hagler-sculpture/

• https://chasfagan.com/artwork/thomas-spratt-and-king-hagler/