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Alexander Autrey was born in 1743 in Edgecombe County, North Carolina. He was a son of Cornelius Autrey, Sr. and Elizabeth Paige Culbreth.[1][2]
Alexander and three of his brothers (Absalom, Jacob, and John) headed "West" and ended up in Georgia.[1] Most of them married while still in North Carolina and settled in Wilkes County, Georgia, prior to 1773, when the first land sales went into effect.[3] Some, if not all, of them enlisted in the Georgia militia.[1] The records indicate that Alexander was given 300 acres on Fishing Creek on 15 Oct 1773.[3]
Alexander settled in Clarke County, Georgia. We do not know his wife's name, but they had at least one son:[1]
Alexander served as a Refugee Captain in the Revolutionary War, enlisted in the Wilkes County, Georgia militia, and served under General Elijah Clarke. He fought in the Battle of Kettle Creek, which took place on or near his own property along Kettle Creek.[4][5] For his service, he was granted 500 acres of land, as a bounty, on 25 Mar 1784.[3] Alexander's name was recorded as "Awtry" in his military records and land records. (The spelling and name pronunciation surely must have caused his French grandfather to turn in his grave.)
Also active in the military was Alexander's brother, John, who in 1788 was killed and scalped by Creek Indians near Scull Shoals on the Oconee River. [6][3]
A plat for 400 acres of Alexander Awtry's land in Wilkes County was drawn on 8 Aug 1786.[7] Finding no further records for him, we will assume he died "after 1786."
An 1809 Georgia Property Tax Digest[8] lists Alexander Autrey with 150 acres of land, granted to Jones, Jackson County, Georgia. This is probably not a record for the Alexander in this profile, but rather his son (or the son of his brother, John, who also named a child Alexander).
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