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The following is a sworn affidavit from Edward Foster Elsberry dated 18 Sep 1918 in McLennen County, Texas.
THE ELSBERRY'S OF GEORGIA
Lindsey was born in 1788 in Wilkes County, Georgia which was primeval wilderness, much as it had been for thousands of years. Fertile soil, ample game, and easy access to the Savannah River for exporting their cotton and other cash crops bode well for him and his pioneer family.
He was born into a century that had seen many wars, political revolution and violent upheaval to a newly widowed Nancy Elsberry. Nancy was a daughter to Benjamin Elsberry and the former Miss Francena Luckie, whose family shared the same migration into Georgia from the Carolinas.
We know her husband, a man by the surname of Lindsey, disappeared while Lindsay was only an infant, leaving him without siblings. Undoubtedly, his disappearance was related to the fierce resistance these pioneers on the outer fringe of white settlement faced from Cherokees.
Lindsay took his father’s surname for his first name and assumed his mother’s family name which created the line of descent which we will deal with predominantly in this story. He lived until 1868 and fathered 12 children by the former Miss Sarah Caldwell, who we know was born in South Carolina. His bachelor uncle Benjamin, himself a Revolutionary veteran, lived with them. He may have been a help to Lindsay acquiring his education at Franklin College, which would later become the University of Georgia.
The family came to Georgia in 1785 by the way of North Carolina and Maryland, having settled in North Carolina in 1765. The males of the family did get a preview of Georgia by the way of military service during the Revolution because the fall of Savannah and Augusta with relatively light resistance to the British necessitated bringing in militia units from the more populous sates of North Carolina and Virginia. North Carolina, as it did years later in the Civil War, furnished a substantial portion of the soldiers because it was relatively populous.
Both the fledgling nation’s struggle toward representative government away from monarchy and the local hardship brought on by the Indians required courage and sacrifice in the from of militia service on the part of several men in the family, including Lindsey. The Indians resisted the constant encroachment of the settlers and their ever growing families until about 1830.
The family would pay heavily with sacrifice of life in the process of moving out of North Carolina at the end of the Revolution and establishing homes in Georgia. Lindsey’s uncles Benjamin, Jr. and Michael fought with other Surry County, North Carolina militiamen in the Revolution both at the Battle of King’s Mountain and at Charleston in 1780 under the command of Colonel Isaac Shelby.
The world’s chief imperialist powers, Britain, France, and Spain, fought for their interests in North America among themselves, against the colonials, and with or without the Indians help at various times. During this period. Then Indian’s support to some degree depended on the constantly shifting alliances their leadership made from the beginning of the Revolution until 1830 when the remaining Lands of Georgia were opened to settlers. The Cherokees were eventually sent to Oklahoma in 1835 on the infamous “Trail of Tears”, enforced by the administration of Andrew Jackson.
The following manuscript was discovered in the Alabama Department of Archives and History in Montgomery: “Having been for many years interested in the history of my Elsberry forebears in America, I have acquired proofs from public and private records, and through my relatives; establishing the fact that I am a descendant of the Benjamin Elsberry Senior and his wife Francena, who, with their family, came from the state of Maryland to North Carolina, where he appears of record shortly before the War of the Revolution, and whose last will and testament, dated in the year 1789, is recorded in the probate records at Washington, Wilkes County, Georgia, to which county he had removed from North Carolina; my line of descent being through his son Michael, the father of my aforesaid father, Abner Foster Elsberry.
I had some correspondence with the late Benjamin F. Elsberry of Georgia, a great grandson of my ancestor, the above mentioned Benjamin Elsberry Senior, and grandson of my grandfather Michael Elsberry’s great aunt, Nancy Elsberry, daughter of the said first Benjamin Elsberry, Senior. The said Benjamin F. Elsberry died in 1914, in Georgia, aged ninety years or more. He, the said Benjamin F. Elsberry, informed me that he had learned direct from his grandmother, the said Nancy, and from her brother, his great uncle Benjamin, Jr., {a bachelor, of Oglethorpe and Paulding Counties, Georgia, who lived to be very old}, both of whom he, the said Benjamin F. Elsberry, knew personally, 1] that is was this Benjamin Junior who served in the War of the Revolution; and 2] that my ancestor Michael Elsberry [brother of said Revolutionary soldier, Benjamin, Junior] was killed in the battle with the Indians at Jack’s Creek, September 10, 1787. It was this Benjamin Elsberry Junior who was captured and imprisoned at Charleston, South Carolina, by the British and rather badly treated by his guards, so that he hated the British for the balance of his life. We have always had in our family traditions: 1] that my ancestor, the said Michael Elsberry, brother of the last named Benjamin, Jr., was the sergeant of a company of soldiers in the Surrey County, North Carolina militia at the Battle of King’s Mountain North Carolina and 2] that he commanded a fort at Rocky Creek, Oglethorpe County, Georgia, in the campaign against the Indians and 3] that he was killed by them. I have an official certificate to, signed by the Secretary of State of North Carolina, certifying that the Revolutionary War record of that state establishing the fact that my said ancestor, Michael Elsberry, held the rank of Lieutenant while on active service with the troops of North Carolina in the War of the Revolution. I will state that the records that I have acquired show that my ancestor the first aforementioned Benjamin Elsberry Senior, wife Francena {Luckie}, and family, moved from the neighborhood of the then adjoining counties of Surrey and Rowan North Carolina, in 1784, and settled in that part of Wilkes County, Georgia, which in 1793 was cut off to from the new county of Oglethorpe. I also found in the land records relating to old Surrey and Rowan Counties, North Carolina, various official records of John and Isaac Elsberry who, there seems to be no chance to doubt , were close relatives of my said ancestors, Benjamin and Francena Elsberry, Senior and Michael Elsberry; but I, being a descendent of Benjamin, Senior, did not pursue the descendants of John and Isaac. We have always had a tradition in our family that the Elsberry's originated in America in the province of Maryland. We have thought that the family originated therein with one Thomas Elsberry who settled, before 1725, on land on the Choptank River, in that province, the grant of which is recorded in the Land Office at Annapolis, Maryland.”
Signed: Edward Foster Elsberry:
Sworn and Submitted to me by the subscribed Edward Foster Elsberry, this 16th day of September, 1918, before me. Signed: J.M. Deveny, Notary Public, Melennen County, Texas.
