William Gillespie Research Study (Cowpasture)

Date: [unknown] [unknown]
Location: Virginia, South Carolina

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• Father James Gillespie paid for his family to enter into the colonies through Pennsylvania down the Great Wagon Trail and buy 3 sizable plantations, that each one his 3 sons acquired when he died. He paid for this from his own money. There are several reasons to believe the Gillespies were Loyalists and the land James acquired was through an alliance with the British who had a strong investment in the area west of the Allegheny Mountains. This is important since the Gillespies settled in Cowpasture in 1740, and were part of the French and Indian War.^[1] Their children give some clues.

• Oldest daughter Mary (Gillespie) Bowen: Profile provides not only a mention of Mary and her husband Robert Bowen's legacy, but a historical description of the development of the area west of the Allegheny Mountains. This describes breaking into the states and counties we recognize today. Of interest is at the time James settled his family in Cowpasture 1740, it was all one territory.^[2][3]

• Nancy Gillespie The families would not have been arbitrary. Nancy was well placed in York which at the time of her birth and marriage made more sense than would at first appear when we see a clear divide between states that did not exist at that time. Additionally, marriages would have been between families that were financially on par.

• Robert Gillespie: Robert owned a mill on his plantation on the James (?) River. He died during the| Revolution. We put the story that is supposed to be a recounting of Archibald's grizzly death during the French & Indian War into his profile. It brings up more questions than it answers if we consider Mary who married William a daughter or widow. According to the story, all of Archibald's family was massacred during this event, except his wife who is not named. If the story was then about Mary and that she married a younger man with a lot of life experience.

• Also in this profile: I am creating a William Gillespie Study^[4] to prevent information based on dubious sources used to verify unsourced trees and create chaos in William Gillespie profiles Archibald's will which apparently mentions William and Robert, but does not mention Mary. If we look at Wills of this time, women are often not mentioned, but only their husbands who apparently take care of their part.

Frequently, males of Gillespie Families were named William, James, Robert and John.

One of our biggest challenges as genealogists is that the name Gillespie is common in both Scotland and Ireland. The Gillespies of this family, though, were completely separate from Irish interests. They were Scots from Falkirk (think Wallace; think Braveheart) who probably acquired 200 acres of land west of the Allegheny Mountains through a Headrights Grant from the Virginia Company. (See Also Helen Ford's Comment which I copied from G2G on 8 Apr 2021)