William Colvin (abt. 1740 - bef. 1815)

Born about 1740 in Pennsylvania

Husband of Marah (Unknown) Colvin — married about 1762 in Pennsylvania

Descendants

Died before 1815 before about age 75 in Adams County, Ohio

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Biography

It is estimated that William was born about 1740, probably in eastern Pennsylvania. He is thought to be the son of the immigrant William Colvin who arrived in 1735 and removed by 1752 to Fairfax County, Virginia. The senior William Colvin is said to have acquired land on the east bank of the Monongahela River near the present site Brownsville, Fayette County, in the year 1763.

The Pennsylvania Archives show the younger William Colvin as a resident of that region in 1773 as well as ten years later in 1783 when, with the name spelled Calvin, the records show that he had a family of ten persons. In 1786 William Colven received a warrant for 364 acres of land in Washington County, Pennsylvania, across the Monongahela. However, his name has not been found as either Calvin or Colvin in the 1790 census for any of the western Pennsylvania counties and it seems likely that he left that section shortly after 1786 and went down the Ohio River with his family to Mason County, Kentucky. Here there are numerous records of a William Colvin who could very well have been the same man. Mason County records show that William and Marah Colvin signed a note of consent for the marriage of their daughter Margaret there on November 7, 1789, and later on February 10, 1813, William Colvin signed the bonds on the same day for the marriages of James and Fielding Colvin, who were probably his sons. These names all appear in the Mason County records sometimes as Calvin and others as Colvin, but William Colvin's note of consent to the marriage of his daughter Margaret was signed by him as Colvin.

If this William Colvin of Mason County, Kentucky, was identical with the early settler on the Monongahela, it is clear that not all of the family accompanied him to Kentucky. Pennsylvania records show that a younger William Colvin (possibly a son of the pioneer) resided in Menallen Township of the present Fayette County, Pennsylvania, in 1783 and again in 1790; his family at the latter time consisting only of himself, wife and one daughter. The History of Fayette County above mentioned refers to a grandson also named William Colvin who was a surveyor of some note and who died in 1870. It was the latter's son Samuel Colvin who had the old account books of his ancestor. Other descendants of the first William are said to be still living (1945) near Brownsville, Pennsylvania. However, since the name of this family has clearly become fixed as Colvin, . . . they are quite possibly descendants of the immigrant Frank Calvin of Virginia.

George Colvin also appears in the Pennsylvania records as a resident of Springhill Township of Fayette County, Pennsylvania, in 1773, and was thus a neighbor and probably a near relative of the pioneer William Colvin. In 1783 George was in Menallen Township of Fayette County and the same year received a warrant for 150 acres of land in Washington County, Pennsylvania. He was still in Washington County in 1790 with his wife, two sons under 16 and three daughters, but here is no further record of him in that section. He may have followed his probable relative to Mason County, Kentucky, as the county records there show the marriage of George Colvin and Christina Justice on December 14, 1794. If the same man, this was, of course, a second marriage. What became of his descendants and whether they used the name Calvin or Colvin has not been learned.^[1]

William Colvin passed away some time before 1815 in Adams County. ^[2] Find A Grave records his birth as 1743, possibly in eastern Pennsylvania. He became a private in the Revolutionary War, serving in the York County Militia, 6th Battalion, Colonel Posser's Company. His death is cited as 10 May 1813 in Adams County, Ohio, with burial in Chanceford Presbyterian Cemetery, Airville, York County, Pennsylvania. With his death place and burial that far distant, it is questionable whether reference is made to the same individual. William's parents are cited as William Colvin and Rebecca Pyeburn.^[3]

Sources

• Robert Adams, firsthand knowledge. See the Changes page for the details of edits by Robert and others.

1. ↑ The Calvin Families, Origin and History of the American Calvins, With a Partial genealogy, Claude W. Calvin, Pasadena, California, 1945, https://www.seekingmyroots.com/members/files/G001411.pdf
2. ↑ Entered by Robert Adams, Jul 23, 2011
3. ↑ https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/143421715/william-colvin