Marcus Whitaker (abt. 1726 - aft. 1787)

Born about 1726 in Chester, Pennsylvania

Ancestors

Son of William Whitaker and Elizabeth (Carleton) Whitaker

Husband of Tabatha (Unknown) Whitaker — married before 1755 in North Carolina.

Descendants

Died after 1787 after about age 61 in South Carolina, United States [uncertain]

Problems/Questions Profile managers: Michael Whitaker [send private message], Robin Wood [send private message], James Whitaker [send private message], and John Erickson [send private message]

Mark Whitaker was a Loyalist in the American Revolution.

Biography

Marcus or Mark Whitaker was born about 1726 in Chester County, PA. He was the son of William Whitaker and Elizabeth Carleton. ^[1].

In all of the major publications which discuss the family of William Whitaker and Elizabeth Carleton, it is universally stated that Marcus has two sons, the brothers Mark Whitaker, Whitaker-244 and John Whitaker, Whitaker-245. ^{[1] [2]} However, there is compelling Y-DNA evidence that both Mark Whitaker [Whitaker-244] and John Whitaker [Whitaker-245] are not the sons of this Marcus and Tabitha Whitaker, or the Grandsons of William and Elizabeth (Carleton) Whitaker. See Various DNA Studies on the Families of William Whitaker (abt.1701-abt.1789).

Mark moved from Pennsylvania to North Carolina in about 1752, with his Father and family. It is believed that he was single at the time. For some reason, the initial Request for Removal was denied. In the following year, he was granting the Request for Removal from the Bradford Meeting House. ^[3]

The Family settled among the inhabitants of the New Jersey Baptist Settlement, and presumable converted to that faith at that time. Bill Whitaker believed they meet these immigrants from New Jersey on the trail from Pennsylvania. ^[2]

He married Tabatha (last name unknown), probably sometime before 1755, in North Carolina. She was named as his wife on the deeds that document the selling of their land. It was becoming the practice at the time in some states and counties to include the wife when land is sold. No such requirement seemed to be required when it was first bought. Some researchers have interpreted the later inclusion of a wife's name as a possible second wife. However, there is no other evidence that that a second wife existed or second marriage happened. If she is the first and only wife of Marcus, then they where married before their first born, which we estimate was on or before 1755. This idea comes from a statement in the 1773 deed for land in Georgia that the family had a child who was 16. ^[4] The marrage most likely occured in North Carolina, before the birth of that child. Marcus also bought land in North Carolina from 1755 to 1763.

1. On 29 January 1755, he bought 640 Acres on Abbotts Creek from Earl Grandville.^[5]
2. Two days later, on 31 January 1755, he bought an additional 396 Acres on Abbotts Creek from Earl Grandville.. ^[6]
3. On 1 December 1763, he bought 523 Acres on Tract 9 adjoining Hugh McCrary and others from Henry Eustace McCulloh. ^[7]

He and Tabitha later sold that land in North Carolina from 1768 to 1772. Some of it to his siblings.

1. On 21 June 1768, he and Tabitha sold the 396 Acre Tract from Earl Granville to William Spurgin. ^[8]
2. On 24 May 1771, he and Tabatha sold the 640 Acre Tract to John Hines. ^[9]
3. On 18 May 1772, they sold 200 Acres of 523 Acre Lot on Swearing Creek to his brother Joshua Whitaker. ^[10]

Bill Whitaker, in his book Whitakers, 1086-1990, tells us that while living in North Carolina, he got into hot water with the Regulators during the late 1760's. This may be one of the reasons behind his next move to Georgia. ^[2]

He bought 200 Acres of land in Georgia in 1773 on Chickasaw Creek south of the Broad River. When he did this, he had a wife with 7 children, 4 sons and 3 daughters, all between ages 16 years old and 7 months old. ^[4]

He signed a Dissent of the Proclamation of 1774, which was published in the Georgia Gazette on Oct 12, 1774. The dissent was against a previously published opinion that was supporting the Sons of Liberty in Boston. Many researchers think that his brother, Samuel Whitaker, also signed this opinion. However, if this is true, then this would be the only example of a document found in Pennsylvania, North Carolina or Georgia that has been attached to this Samuel. An alternative possibility is that this Samuel was Mark's oldest son, that 16 year old child in 1772, who had just turned 18 years old at the time the opinion was written. In other words, this Samuel could well have been Samuel Whitaker (bef.1753-abt.1802). ^[11]

In 1779, Mark was charged and convicted with aiding the British. ^[12] We was later released to return to his farm.

In 1783 he we are told by Beverly Whitaker that he was added on a roll of people who were British Loyalist during the Revolutionary War. ^[13] A list of loyalist have been found, but it did not have Mark's name on it yet. The search continues. If he was on such a list, his property may have been confiscated by the state of Georgie in and around 1783,

In 1787, he and Tabatha re-recorded the sale of the remainder of his land in North Carolina. ^[14] This was witnessed my Eldad Reed, his brother-in-law. It is on this document that we learn he was living in South Carolina with Tabatha. We are assuming both are living at the time. Therefore, he and Tabitha must have died sometime after 1787, and probably in South Carolina. Also, William Whitaker (1760-abt.1838), whom we think is his son, later moved to and lived in Lancaster County, South Carolina for a few years sometime between 1791 and 1795. ^[15]

DNA Studies

For a complete discussion of this, see https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:DNA_Study_of_William_Whitaker_(abt.1701-abt.1789)

Research Notes

Most recently, I was looking into the William Whitaker (1760-abt.1838) and John Whitaker (abt.1732-abt.1785) families, two Whitaker families that moved into the Cookeville-Monterey-Dry Valley area of Tennessee in the 1810’s. Specifically, I was looking for facts about these two families to distinguish their descendants in the existing record.

What I have discovered was this:

1) I found a discussion of John Whitaker Jr. on Find-A-Grave that indicated that the descendants of John had Y-DNA pointing to Mark Whitaker (1677-1729) of Baltimore, whose wife was Catherine Teague. I am not sure if this is in fact true. My own work on this subject points to a John Whitaker Jr. descending from a relative of William Whitaker (1701). ^[16]

2) I then found a direct male descendent of John Whitaker Jr that currently has a Y-DNA Terminal Haplogroup of I-FT260635, a child Haplogroup of I-M253. My own Y-DNA Terminal Haplogroup is I-FT238390. This two Haplogroups are children of I-FT258062. See Various DNA Studies on the Families of William Whitaker (abt.1701-abt.1789) for more on this.

3) If 1 and 2 are true, then John Whitaker Jr is not a direct Descendent of William Whitaker (1701), but there is a recent common ancestor to both these men sometime in the previous 200 years prior to their births.

4) We are told that John Whitaker Jr. eventually moved to Alabama, with a two-year stopover in the Southern Tennessee county of Mulberry, where both John J “Pegleg” Whitaker and Mark Whitaker Jr. had settled. Both men were said to be sons of Mark Whitaker (1726), and grandsons of William Whitaker (1701), but they were also said to be related to John Whitaker Jr. This can’t be true for the same reason we rejected that idea in 2 above. ^[16]

5) I have been able to identify a number of descendants of John J Whitaker who took a Y-DNA test. They all tested as I-M253, but with a STR pattern that make is unlikely to impossible to have a common male ancestor to the Haplogroup I-FT238390 in the recent past. When you look at the FTDNA Whitaker Project (https://www.familytreedna.com/public/Whitaker?iframe=yresults), all of these men releated to John J or Mark Whitaker, his brother, where put into Group 4. The men who are members of I-FT238390 are placed in Group 5. Additional, one of these men descended from John J took a Big Y-700, and so has a confirmed Terminal Haplogroup of I-FT259676, a much different branch on the current Y-DNA Haplotree then the branch containing I-FGC21748, which is the common parent haplogroup to all of the confirmed terminal haplogroups in group 5, as seen in this report. (See https://www.familytreedna.com/public/y-dna-haplotree/I;name=I-FT260635 and https://www.familytreedna.com/public/y-dna-haplotree/I;name=I-FGC21748 and the table below. This all adds evidence to the belief that John Whitaker (1755-1837), John “Pegleg” Whitaker (1760-1837) and Mark Whitaker (1750-1842), who married Catherine Boone, are not related to William Whitaker (1701). ^{[17] [18] [19]}

See Various DNA Studies on the Families of William Whitaker (abt.1701-abt.1789) for more on this.

6) A profile of Mark Whitaker Jr in a DAR produced book, Membership Roster and Soldiers : The Tennessee Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution 1960-1970 (1970), seems to be a primary source for vital statistics of his father, Mark Whitaker Sr. However, this information does not intergrade well with the profile of the Marcus Whitaker who moved with his family from Pennsylvania to North Carolina in about 1751/1752, bought a good deal of land, and then sold that land over the years between 1755 and 1787. Mark Whitaker Sr., from this DAR source, died in 1780, and his son Mark was born in North Carolina in 1750. Could it be that there were two different Marks, both born about 1726, and both married to a wife named Tabatha^[20]? That seems unlikely.

Mike Whitaker (Sep 2022/Oct 2023)

Sources

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1} Whitaker, C. Bruce. The Whitaker Family of Buncombe County, North Carolina and the Genealogies of the REED, HARPER and WRIGHT Families. Ashville : Ward Publishing Company, 1989.
2. ↑ ^{2.0 2.1 2.2} Whitaker, Bill. Whitakers 1086-1990. Berea : Kentucky Imprints, 1990.
3. ↑ U.S., Quaker Meeting Records, 1681-1994, Original: Haverford College; Haverford, Pennsylvania; Philadelphia Yearly Meeting Minutes., Ancestry.com, Bradford Monthly Meeting, Chester, Pennsylvania, "Minutes 1743-1755" [ancestry.com lists this as 1737-1742 which is only the first part], p. 58 image 64: 16 d 5 mo 1751 [16 July 1751] Application being made for a certificate for Wm Whitaker and family and likewise for son Mark. Certificate for William Whitaker and family approved and signed but an objection was made against the one for Mark; p. 69 19 day 10 mo 1752 [19 October 1752] The objection concerning Mark Whitaker's certificate being removed, it was approved and signed.
4. ↑ ^{4.0 4.1} Grace Gillam Davidson, Early Records of Georgia Wilkes County (Vidalia, Georgia , Rev. Silas Emmett Lucas, Jr., 1968), Family History Library , 35 N W Temple St, Salt Lake City, UT 84150, Vol 1, The Ceded Lands, Page 11. WHITACRE, MARK—N. C. a wife, 4 sons and 3 daus. from 16 years to 7 months old. 200 acres on branch of Chickasaw creek about 1 1/2 miles below McFaggins Camp, at sapling marked M. W. https://www.familysearch.org/library/books/viewer/129707/?offset=#page=17&viewer=picture&o=download&n=0&q=whita.
5. ↑ Linn, Deed Book 3, Page 152.
6. ↑ Linn, Deed Book 3, Page 106.
7. ↑ Linn, Deed Book 5, page 329.
8. ↑ Linn, Deed Book 7, Page 67.
9. ↑ Linn, Deed Book 8, Page 234.
10. ↑ Linn, Deed Book 8, Page 23.
11. ↑ A Dissent of the Proclamation of 1774 that supported the Son of Liberty in Boston, Mass. Various. No. 575, Pg. 2, Col 1, Savannah, Georgia : James Johnson, Oct 12, 1774, The Georgia Gazette, p. 4. It was written by the Inhabitants of Kyeka and Broad River settlements, in the St. Paul Parish, Georgia.
12. ↑ Davidson, Grace Gillam. Early Records of Georgia Wilkes County. Vidalia : Rev. Silas Emmett Lucas, Jr., 1968. Vol 2, Minutes of First Court, 1779, Page 10. (We, the Grand Jury do Present as a greavance the Running at large ... Mark Whitaker ... --- whom we have cause to believe has acted in conjunction with and has aid abetted & assisted the British Troops & the Avowed Enemies of the United Stated of America.)
13. ↑ Whitaker, Beverly. Bio-sketches U-Z. Roots Web. [Online] Genealogy Tutor, 4318 N. Baltimore, Kansas City, MO 64116, Nov 12, 2008. [Cited: Feb 17, 2022.] (https://web.archive.org/web/20220922190310/https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~gentutor/genealogy/U_Z.html) This page is a set of Bio Sketches for some of Robert Toombs Whitaker's potential ancestral family.
14. ↑ Kluttz, James W. Abstracts of deed books of Rowan County, North Carolina, Vol 1, 1786-1797, deed books 11-14. Landis : J.W. Kluttz, 1996-2004.
15. ↑ Whiteker, William and Graves, Will. S31473 William Whiteker. Southern Campaigns Revolutionary War Pension Statements & Rosters. [Online] [Cited: Aug 9, 2021.] http://revwarapps.org/s31473.pdf.
16. ↑ ^{16.0 16.1} Isbell, Ray. Memorial page for Capt John Whitaker Jr. (1755–1835),. Find-A-Grave. [Online] [Cited: Feb 16, 2022.] Find a Grave Memorial ID 43563367, citing Whitaker Cemetery, Nebo, Madison Co. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/43563367/john-whitaker.
17. ↑ Whitaker, Roy Whitaker. 2202. [Online] WikiTree, 12 Sep 2022. [Cited: Sep 12, 2022.] https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Whitaker-7224.
18. ↑ Administrator. WHITTAKER Surname Project. My FamilyTreeDNA Project Website Title - Y-DNA Classic Chart. [Online] Family Tree DNA, Feb 17, 2022. [Cited: Feb 17, 2022.] https://www.familytreedna.com/public/Whitaker?iframe=yresults.
19. ↑ Couch, Bill. Whitaker Family of Chester Co. PA I1a-Group 2. The Original Arkansas Genealogy Project. Whitaker Family. [Online] 2010. [Cited: Feb 17, 2022.] http://www.couchgenweb.com/family/whitak3.htm (Internet Archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20220208030424/http://www.couchgenweb.com/family/whitak3.htm).
20. ↑ Edythe Johns Rucker Whitley. Membership roster and soldiers, the Tennessee Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution. [ed.] Edythe Rucker Whitley. s.l. : The Tennessee Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution,, 1970. Vol. 2.

DNA

• Paternal relationship is confirmed through Y-chromosome DNA test results on Family Tree DNA. Michael Whitaker, FTDNA kit # 641878, and his 6th cousin 1x removed, Living Whitaker, the Son of Reed Lamar Whitaker, FTDNA kit # 984214, match at a Genetic Distance of 4 on 111 markers, thereby confirming their direct paternal lines back to their most-recent common ancestor who is William Whitaker, the 6x great grandfather of Michael Whitaker and 5x great grandfather of Living Whitaker, the Son of Reed Lamar Whitaker, The confirmation Haplogroup I-FT238390 is also shared. This Terminal SNP Haplogroup shares the named variants FT238390 and FTC2083. The terminal variant have an average of 3 private variants. This data was last seen on Nov 1, 2022.

• Hoetawa-Paul, C. (Admin.). (2022). My FamilyTreeDNA Project Website Title - Y-DNA classic chart. FamilyTreeDNA. Retrieved November 2, 2022, from https://www.familytreedna.com/public/Whitaker?iframe=yresults

Works Cited

• Jo White Linn, Abstracts of the Deeds of Rowan County, North Carolina, 1753-1785, vols. 1-10 (Salisbury, N.C., J.W. Linn, 1983), Family History Library , 35 N W Temple St, Salt Lake City, UT 84150.

Acknowledgments

• Whitaker-1980 was created by John Erickson through the import of Erickson Family Tree.ged on Feb 21, 2015.