James Glasgow (1735 - 1819)

Born 1735 in Maryland

Husband of Phereby (Sheppard) Glasgow — married 1764 in Dobbs, North Carolina, United States

Descendants

Died 17 Nov 1819 at about age 84 in Tennessee [uncertain]

Problems/Questions Profile manager: M Glasgow [send private message]

Biography

James Glasgow is Notable.

Colonel James Glasgow served with Dobbs County Regiment, North Carolina Militia during the American Revolution.

James was born in 1735. He was the son of James Patrick Glasgow. He passed away in 1819.

James Glasgow was born in Snow Hill, Maryland, the son of Reverend James Patrick Glasgow of Scotland who had a parish at All Hallows Parish, Snow Hill Maryland, and Mary Jones the daughter of Thomas and Mary Wilson Jones of Cecil County, Maryland.

He was educated at William and Mary and became a clerk in a shipping house in Suffolk, Virginia. He met Col. Abraham Sheppard of Dobbs County, North Carolina there, and frequently traveled to the home of Col. Sheppard at Contentnea, in Dobbs County, North Carolina. Afterward he married the daughter, Pheriby, of Col. Sheppard."

When James Glasgow came to North Carolina he owned no land and no slaves.

He married Pherebe Sheppard about 1762.

In 1769 he owned 250 acres of land and three slaves in Dobbs County.

By 1780 his taxable lands and slaves were valued at 26,150 pounds- a figure equaled by six others and exceeded by only two.

By 1790 he was the third largest slave owner in Dobbs County and about the sixth largest land owner.

In March 1800 he owned twenty two slaves. His lands still consisted of about 3000 acres on the Nahunta Swamp.

James Glasglow has been recognized as a Patriot by the DAR

North Carolina's Secretary of State from 1777 to 1798

James b c 1740 d 1820 TN m 1) Phereby Maj PS NC

The first Secretary of State of N.C., 1777-98. Glasgow (now Greene) County was named for him. Convicted of land fraud. Lived 2 mi. N.E.^[1]

The naming of a county can provide a lesson in North Carolina history. What is now Greene County was once part of Johnston but in 1758 it became Dobbs County for royal governor Arthur Dobbs. In 1791 that name was “expunged from our map,” as historian Kemp Battle phrased it, and a new county was named for the Secretary of State, James Glasgow. When Glasgow met an ignominious end, in 1799 the name was changed to Greene to honor Nathanael Greene, the hero of Guilford Courthouse.

James Glasgow (ca. 1735-1819), born in Maryland, in 1765 acquired a plantation on Contentnea Creek known as “Fairfield” as a gift from his father-in-law. Glasgow, active in the colonial militia, took part in the Battle of Moores Creek Bridge but soon forsook the military for politics. As assistant secretary of the Provincial Congresses, 1775-1776, and clerk of the Council of State, 1776-1779, Glasgow earned the respect of the state’s Revolutionary patriots. His reward was election by the legislature in 1777 as North Carolina’s first Secretary of State. A principal duty of that position was the oversight of the military land grant program, the issuance of property in what became Tennessee to veterans of the

In 1797, on receipt of a letter from Andrew Jackson setting forth charges of impropriety in the issuance of the grants, Gov. Samuel Ashe and the legislature set in motion events leading to Glasgow’s resignation and eventual conviction on land fraud charges. Notwithstanding the fact that others were involved in the scandal, Glasgow suffered the consequences. The committee of inquiry determined that the Secretary of State should be charged with a misdemeanor, dereliction of duty as a public officer. A tribunal found him guilty on two counts and fined him 1,000 pounds on each. Glasgow left the state and settled near Nashville, Tennessee, where he died in 1819. “Behold the reward of dishonesty and official corruption!” wrote Kemp Battle in 1903.

Research Notes

According to the profile of James Glasgow written by Charles R. Holloman and published in 1986 [1], James had ten children that lived to adulthood:

• Elizabeth (b. ca. 1763)
• Patrick (b. ca. 1765)
• Nancy Ann "Annie" (b. 22 Apr. 1770)
• Phereby Sheppard "Freddy" (b. ca. 1775)
• James (b. ca. 1776)
• John (b. ca. 1791)
• Susan (b. ca. 1793)
• Maria Anderson
• Clarinda Jones
• Mary

Sources

1. ↑ Road Marker

• "Glasgow, James {I054840} (b. 1735, d. 17 NOV 1819), Note: Contact: charles lucas cclmd@@aol.com
• NSDAR Patriot Index, Millennium Edition, 2003, Vol. II page 107
• RootsWeb. Com - Contact: Lisa Wallendorf Scarola at feonadorf@@aol.com"
• http://www.ncdcr.gov/blog/2014/11/18/name-of-james-glasgow-expunged-from-the-map/
• Wikipedia:James_Glasgow
• NCPedia James Glasgow
• Marker Road Marker for James Glasgow
• William S. Powell, ed., Dictionary of North Carolina Biography, II, 303-305 – sketch by Charles R. Holloman
• Russell S. Koonts, “An Angel Has Fallen!: The Glasgow Land Frauds and the Emergence of the North Carolina Supreme Court,” North Carolina Historical Review (July 1995): 301-328
• Kemp P. Battle, “The Trial of James Glasgow,” North Carolina Booklet (May 1903)
• James M. Creech, History of Greene County, North Carolina (1979)
• William S. Powell, North Carolina Gazetteer (1968)
• Price-Strother map (1808)
• Biography of [http://toto.lib.unca.edu/findingaids/mss/speculation_lands/biographies/glasgow.htm James Glasgow
• NCGenweb Link
• Biographical History of North Carolina, Volume VII. Editors: Samuel A. Ashe, Stephen B. Weeks, Charles L. Van Noppen. Published by Charles L. Van Noppen, Greensboro, N.C., 1908. Pages 115-121. [2]
• Death notice for Colonel James Glasgow. Raleigh Register, 25-Feb-1820.
• United States Census, 1790, Pitt, North Carolina [3]
• Glasgow County, North Carolina (abolished)
• Revolutionary War Soldiers for NC and SC, Data provided by the website Carolana. (accessed 12 Dec 2022)