William Wiseman (abt. 1740 - bef. 1823)

Born about 1740 in England [uncertain]

Husband of Mary (Davenport) Wiseman — married 1761 (to Jun 1796) in Culpepper Co., VA

Descendants

Died before Mar 1823 before about age 83 in Ingalls, Burke County, North Carolina, United States

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Biography

William Wiseman performed Patriotic Service in North Carolina in the American Revolution.

It is believed that William Wiseman, sometimes referred to as William Edward Wiseman, was born about 1740 in England. He died in Burke County (now Avery County), North Carolina in the winter of 1822/1823.

He was a patriot for North Carolina during the American Revolutionary War. ^[1][Need to confirm that this is the correct William Wiseman. See RESEARCH below.]

Immigration

Family lore says that he stowed away in 1751 with three friends, became an indentured servant, and invented a claw foot table with moveable feet that he sold to buy his freedom.

NEWPAPER ARTICLE by MRS. ROMULUS DUNCAN – Forest City, North Carolina, Thursday, May 28, 1931 ^[2]

Away back in 1745, nearly 200 years ago, there lived a family on St. James street, in London, England, by the name of Wiseman. The father was dead, and the daughters all married. The youngest child 12-year-old lad was left with his aged mother, who was none too indulgent with the boy. He resented the seeming injustices heaped upon him from day-to-day; and dreamed of the country across the big river and of the wonderful things he could accomplish there. So, when he had barely reached his 13th birthday, he and two pals of about the same age hid themselves away on a vessel bound for America.

The three youngsters were William Wiseman, William Pendley and William Davis. They had taken a generous lunch, thinking that in two or three days they would reach their destination. However, three days passed, —four days— five days passed— the lunch was gone, and no land in sight. And a 13-year-old boy can get hungrier, perhaps, than any other human being in the world, and so they had to come out from their hiding places. The ship's crew took them in charge and put them to work for their board.

Upon landing somewhere on the shores of the New England states, the three boys were sold for their passage over, and William Wiseman fell into the hands of a blacksmith who was also a cabinet maker, for the price of two pounds sterling, or about $8.00. The lad had finished his apprenticeship as a woodworker before leaving England and so proved a valuable asset to the old blacksmith. After serving for some time in this capacity, he became an expert cabinet maker, and through a wager upon who could make the finest cabinet, he gained his freedom.

Revolutionary War

[Need to confirm that this is the correct William Wiseman. See RESEARCH below.]

In 1780 he sold corn to troops in Rowan County, North Carolina. “State of N. Carolina, Rowan County No 348 This may certify that as Commissioner of the County aforesaid I have purchased from William Wiseman twenty five Bushels of Corn at the prices ascertained in Spanish milled Dollars by a Resolution of Congress dated the 25th day of February 1780 amounting in the whole to nineteen & a half Spanish milled Dollars, which Sum is to bear Interest at 6 percent until paid, agreeable to any act of the General Assembly in such case made By me the 16th day of October in the Year 1780 Alexander Song C.P.”^[3]

Family and Census Records

William married his first wife Mary Davenport about 1763. They may have had as many as ten or eleven children before she died about 1796.

NEWPAPER ARTICLE by MRS. ROMULUS DUNCAN:

Before he had reached his twentieth birthday, he made his way to North Carolina, married Miss Mary Davenport and settled on John's River, near what is now Collettsville, N. C. To this union were born 11 children, namely, Thomas, Dorothy, William, Mary, Davenport, Martin, James, John, Celestial, Susannah and Robert. The mother died in 1796, the children grew up and settled in different localities throughout the United States.

In the 1790 Census, William was reported in Burke County, North Carolina. His household consisted of 13 person and included himself and three other white males 16 and over, five females (one of which may have been his wife Mary), and four males under 16.^[4] He remained in Burke County for the rest of his life.

William married his second with Lydia Bedford in 1798. They had seven known children.

NEWPAPER ARTICLE by MRS. ROMULUS DUNCAN:

William Wiseman was married the second time to Miss Lydia Bedford. He purchased a large boundary of land on North Toe River and established his home on the present site of Sunnybrook Farm, now owned by Robert Wiseman in Avery county. Being a man of strong character, he soon made a place for himself, being magistrate and leader in that section of the country.

Seven children came to bless the second marriage, and it is the descendants of these children who make, up a large part of the population of Avery, Mitchell and adjoining counties. The first son, born in 1799, was named Bedford for his mother. The second was Alexander, being the forefather of the Avery county and the Rutherford county Wisemans. Jennie Mae, the third child, born in 1802, married Daniel English, becoming grandmother of the well-known Englishes and Rowes of this section. Josiah Wiseman, grandfather of the late Sheriff Ade Wiseman, was born in 1806. Elizabeth, another daughter, married an Ollis, becoming the mother and grandmother of the Ollis generation in Avery county. Lydia was the sixth child, and Anthony Senter the seventh, the latter being the grandfather of John Wiseman of Linville Falls.

Property

William Wiseman acquired two Land Grants in Burke County, North Carolina.^[5]

Grant No. 1353: Issued 22 Aug 1795, 100 acres, On waters of Clear Creek.

Grant No. 2339: Issued 21 Dec 1798, 60 acres, On Towe river joining his own survey on the side of a hill in his old line.

Death

He died in the winter of 1823. It is believed that he and both of his wives were buried at their home on "Sunny Brook Farm" (located about five miles north of Spruce Pine, Mitchell County, North Carolina) in a graveyard established at the southern end of the garden on the property. The graves were covered over when U.S. 19-E was widened. A memorial monument was placed for William in the 1940s on the east side of the highway, about 36 feet from his actual grave.^[6]. The gravestone lists date of death as 1830. ^[7] This is the death date provided by Robert Wiseman (see RESEARCH below).

Note: Mitchell County was formed from part of Burke County in 1861. The town of Spruce Pine was founded in 1907. In 1911, Avery County was formed out of portions of Mitchell and other counties. The location of William's home in Burke County in the early 1800s is now within Avery County, North Carolina.

The estate papers of William Wiseman Sr. were filed for probate in Morganton, Burke County, North Carolina, in the month of March 1823, by his wife Lydia Wiseman.^[8]. Although these papers were burned in a courthouse fire, the information recorded in the court minutes survived. This information provides an approximate date of death for William Wiseman.

The will of William Wiseman Sr. was presented for probate in 1823. [Note that the appearance of Wiseman with a "y" is not a typing error. There are several records where Wiseman was spelled Wyseman - it sounds the same with an "i" or a "y". However in the case of the recorder for the information that will follow, he or she was inconsistent, for Wyseman appears twice and Wiseman is written once. Lydia didn't do as well, she was recorded as Lidia each time.] From the probate abstracts of Turner and Philbeck, appears the following:

Document No. 567 "William Wyseman Sr. presented for probate March 1823 by Lidia Wiseman. Proved by Thomas Baker, witness. Lidia Wyseman, widow, qualified as executor."

And second surviving source for this record, reported as follows:^[9]

"Lida Wiseman presents the last will and Testament of William Wiseman Sr. dec's which was presented in Court by the oath of Thomas Baker with ext. trustee order to be recorded and that letters establishing issue unto Lida Wiseman widow of Tester and executor there in recorded and who qualified as testify in open Court" .

Witness Thomas Baker, a senator from North Carolina, was one of William Wiseman's sons-in-law; he married Susanna Wiseman. William Wiseman died in the winter of 1822/23. But, he most likely died during the final months of 1822 given that most of the wills and estate papers in this era were filed several months after the death. Thus, he was eighty-six years old at that time; if one uses 1736 as the date of birth.

Research

Family stories and available records indicated that William "Edward" Wiseman was born in England and was not the son of Isaac Wiseman and Mary Marshall (who were living in Pennsylvania in the 1740s). There is no evidence to support the assertion that William Wiseman of Burke County was the son of Isaac and Mary Wiseman.

Whilst the American records consistently have a first name of William, there is a christening record in England relating to the date 2 Feb 1741 is for an Edward s of Thomas and Elizabeth Wiseman(clearly visible in a digital image available on ancestry.co.uk)^[10] There is no middle name. These records are unlikely to belong to the same person and therefore William Wiseman in America is almost certainly not the same person as Edward Wiseman christened 2 Feb 1741 in St Andrew by the Wardrobe, City of London, London, England England.Hardman-1532 12:14, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

There are a number of men with the name William Wiseman in North Carolina in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and it is not clear which of them are on each census entry listed below. The list has been made with no sources attached, so it has not been possible in a short space of time to determine which is meant by each “fact”. With the mixing of records between Rowan and Burke counties, it is not at all clear that the same man is being shown throughout. A detailed research study is required.

• Fact: Christening (18 May 1725) Clerkenwell, London, England [whose is this record?]
• Fact: BAPTISM (4 Apr 1742) St Andrew by the Wardrobe, London, England [see research notes below, this christening does not belong to William Wiseman]
• Fact: Residence (1790) Burke, North Carolina, United States
• Fact: Residence (1800) Burke, North Carolina, United States
• Fact: Residence (1810) Morganton, Burke, North Carolina, United States
• Fact: Residence (1820) Burke, North Carolina, United States
• Fact: Burial Ingalls, Avery, North Carolina, United States
• Fact: http://familysearch.org/v1/LifeSketch Thomas Chapman, A Wiseman's Family.

How did Robert Wiseman arrive at 1830 as the year William Wiseman died? A few years ago I wrote and asked Myron Houston if he could "shed some light" on this. The following was his reply:

Sept. 1, 1986 "There is no way that we can be positive as to William Wiseman's death. Uncle Robert always said that John Vance, buried on Buck Ridge, and William Wiseman died the same year of 1830. The death date was not recorded, only the year. According to Uncle Robert he was eighty nine years old when he died." My assumption is that the grave of John Vance had been marked, and Robert Wiseman was able to get the year of his death from that source. The age eighty-nine may have come from an old ballad that has come down through the years. It is believed to have been written about William Wiseman by some musical member of the family. But, keep in mind that old ballads are not required to be historically accurate. The ballad is recorded below:

Great Granddad Great Granddad when the land was young He barred his door with the wagon tongue; The times was tough and the Redskins mocked, He said his prayers with his shotgun cocked.

Great Granddad was a busy man. He cooked his grub in a frying pan He picked his teeth with a huntin' knife, He wore the same suit all his life.

Twenty-one children came to bless The old man's home in the wilderness; Doubt that statement if you can, Great Granddad was a busy man.

Twenty-one boys and not one bad, They never got fresh with Great Granddad, For if they had he'd 'a' been right glad To tan their hides with a hickory gad.

He raised them rough and he raised them strong; When their feet took hold on the road to wrong, He straightened them out with the old ramrod, And filled them with the fear of God

They grew strong in heart and hand, A firm foundation of our land; They made the best citizens we ever had, We need more like Great Granddad.

Great Granddad died at eighty-nine, Twenty-one boys he left behind; Times have changed but you never can tell, You might yet do half as well.

I had hoped sometime to get Scotty Wiseman, one time popular radio singer, to make a tape recording of the Great Granddad ballad. Unfortunately, he died suddenly in 1980. He and his wife were a team known as Lula Belle and Scotty on the National Barn Dance during the 1930' s. They made the Nashville Songwriters Association's Hall of Fame in 1971.

As the years move along more and more research material becomes available to us. Things that have been stored away have been and are being searched which present things that were never available in the past. Among these things are records and partial records from courthouses in the South that were burned when the Northern army moved through the southern states. The courthouse in Morganton, Burke County was one of those that was set in flames. But, in 1983, Grace Turner and Miles S. Philbeck Jr., went through the surviving records and prepared a book which they called: BURKE COUNTY NORTH CAROLINA, SURVIVING WILL AND PROBATE ABSTRACTS, 1770-1910. Grace Turner had the book printed (her address: 600 Lynnwood Ave., Wilson, N.C. 27893).

Census

• 1800 US Census: Name: William Wiseman; Event Place: Burke, North Carolina, United States

Free white males Under 10 1

Free white males 26-45 1

Free white females under 10 1

Free white females 16-25 1

Free white females 26-45 1^[11]

• 1810 US Census: Name: William Wiseman; Event Place (Original): Burke, North Carolina

Free white males Under 10 2

Free white males 10-15 1

Free white males 45+ 1 William Wiseman (abt.1740-1823)

Free white females under 10 2

Free white females 45+ 1

• 1820 US Census: William Wiseman; Burke, North Carolina, United States

White males under 10 1 Anthony Senter Wiseman (1814-1880)

White males 10-15 1

White males 16-18 1

White males 16-25 1

White males 45+ 1 William Wiseman (abt.1740-1823)

White females under 10 1

White females 10-15 1

White females 16-25 1

White females 45+ 1 Lydia (Bedford) Wiseman (abt.1773-abt.1821)

Sources

1. ↑ Daughters of the American Revolution, DAR Genealogical Research Databases, database online, (http://www.dar.org/ : accessed June 21, 2021), "Record of WISEMAN, WILLIAM", Ancestor # A126840.
2. ↑ http://newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn91068175/1931-05-28/ed-1/seq-6/ocr.txt, Newspaper article by Mrs. Romulus Duncan,
3. ↑ "North Carolina Revolutionary Pay Vouchers, 1779-1782," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:Q2WT-GFBF : accessed 14 February 2021), William Wiseman, 16 Oct 1780; citing Rowan, North Carolina, United States, State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh.
4. ↑ 1790 United States Federal Census. Year: 1790; Census Place: Burke, North Carolina; Series: M637; Roll: 7; Page: 101; Image: 68. First Census of the United States, 1790 (NARA microfilm publication M637, 12 rolls). Records of the Bureau of the Census, Record Group 29. National Archives, Washington, D.C.
5. ↑ North Carolina, Land Grant Files, 1693-1960. https://www.nclandgrants.com
6. ↑ Find a Grave, database and images (accessed 29 December 2021), memorial page for William “The Immigrant” Wiseman Sr. (1741–1823), Find A Grave: Memorial #234017973, citing Old Sunnybrook Farm, Spruce Pine, Mitchell County, North Carolina, USA ; Maintained by Marcia Lynne vonGunden (contributor 47059326) .
7. ↑ Entered by Homer Hopper, Jan 1, 2013
8. ↑ Grace Turner and Miles S. Philbeck Jr., 1983. BURKE COUNTY NORTH CAROLINA, SURVIVING WILL AND PROBATE ABSTRACTS, 1770-1910
9. ↑ Burke County, Mins, County Court, Years 1818-1829.Pages 1-148, Page 405 March Term 1823
10. ↑ London Metropolitan Archives; London, England; Reference Number: P69/AND1/A/001/MS04502/001
11. ↑ "United States Census, 1800," database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XHR8-2TL : accessed 14 February 2021), William Wiseman, Burke, North Carolina, United States; citing p. 803, NARA microfilm publication M32, (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.), roll 29; FHL microfilm 337,905.

• "United States Census, 1810," database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XH26-63S : accessed 14 February 2021), William Wiseman, Burke, North Carolina, United States; citing p. 322, NARA microfilm publication M252 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.), roll 39; FHL microfilm 337,912.
• "United States Census, 1820," database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XHLX-785 : accessed 13 February 2021), William Wiseman, Burke, North Carolina, United States; citing p. 61, NARA microfilm publication M33, (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.), roll 83; FHL microfilm 162,799.