The profile for Joseph Vann seems to combine information on more than one man. There is no evidence that Joseph Vann, husband of War-li, was ever called “John”; many web sites seem to conflate him with the older “Trader” John (likely an uncle or cousin) and younger John (son of “Trader” John). Believed to have been born about 1730-1735, North Carolina, the son of Edward Vann and wife Mary Barnes. Almost nothing is known of him. He was an interpreter at Sycamore Shoals in 1775. [Brown’s “Old Frontiers”; from Jerry Clark: In 1770 Alexander Cameron, deputy Royal agent to the Cherokees, wrote to his boss, John Stuart, that John Vann had been hired as the new "Linquister," i.e. Interpreter, to replace the recently deceased John Watts, Sr.... In 1777 another Interpreter, Joseph Vann was at the notorious Sycamore Shoals land sale by the Cherokees known as the Henderson Purchase; another attendee was the famous Daniel Boone.] A letter written by another trader, Robert Due/Dews n 1779 to Indian Agent Alexander Cameron makes it clear that John and Joseph Vann were two different men. Quoting Jerry Clark: “During the Revolutionary War in 1779 there were a number of white men residing among the Chickamauga Band of Cherokees, who were reported by Indian trader Robert Due to Alexander Cameron to have joined war parties about to attack the American frontier. One was John Vann and another was Joseph Vann [transcribed by Jerry Clark, copy of original letter at National Archives]. There is no mention of Joseph Vann after the 1779 letter. By 1800 Wah-li was married to Clement Vann, believed to be Joseph’s younger brother. In 1810 Wah-li and daughter Nancy Vann told the Moravians that James Vann’s father’s name was Joseph.
Joseph probably came into the Cherokee Nation at the end of the Cherokee War; Georgia colonial records place a Joseph Vann on the Savannah River by 1766, with a wife and three children, and there are other lands records in the area but no proof/evidence that this Joseph was the man in the Cherokee Nation. It’s possible that this IS the same Joseph with a white wife and family since many white traders had both white and Cherokee families. Researcher John Strange claims that Joseph had another Cherokee wife who was the mother of children named Joseph Vann, Jr., Avery, and Mary Vann, and that Joseph Jr. married Wah-li’s half-sister Sallie Hughes but there is no evidence to support this claim (Sallie would have been more than 10 years older than her husband/nephew so this seems very unlikely, and her son George Waters referred to James Vann as his cousin, not his brother). Joseph and Wah-li’s son James was reported to be 43 years old at his death in 1809, placing his birth about 1766. According to Moravian accounts, James Vann was born in Georgia about twenty-five miles away from the site of his future plantation (in what is now Murray County, GA) and he showed the missionaries his birthplace in 1801. It was not near the Savannah River. The missionaries met an enslaved black man there who said that he had been brought to the Cherokee Nation some 30 years previous and had lived there with James Vann’s father.
Died 7 Jan 1781. Indian Territory. There was no “Indian Territory” in 1781, and there is no documentation to support this death date although it could be correct.
Alternative death: Feb. 21, 1809 Cherokee Nation, SC. – This is the death date of James Vann, his son
Father: Edward Vann (1720 - 1810).[citation needed]
Mother: Mary Barnes (1718 - 1748).[citation needed]
The following children were claimed by a previous version of this profile:[citation needed]
1. Joseph David Vann (b. 1763). Unclear who this person is meant to be. No record of a son “Joseph” or “David”
2. Alsey Vann Pruitt Rogers (b. 1765). An account in the Moravian Diaries strongly suggests that Alsey’s maiden name was Fawling
3. James Clement Vann II (1770 - 1809). Duplicate of son James Vann
4. Avery Vann (b. 1780). Unclear who this is meant to be; a white man named Avery Vann is thought to be the younger brother of Joseph. This Avery had a Cherokee son named Avery born 1768; the younger Avery married Peggy McSwain.
5. Mary B. Vann Blackburn (1787 - 1850). Polly Blackburn was the wife of “Rich Joe” Vann, the son of James Vann
Anyone out there with more information or who would like to help? Joseph seems to have duplicates - Vann-111 and Vann-313.
