AVANT Family*

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An application for land in Brunswick County, VA dated 3 May 1739 gives a good hint as to when at least one Avant Progenitor first came to America. In the record four citizens petitioned for fifty acres for settling in colony of Virginia:

Marmaduke Johnson, from Ireland about 20 years ago; John Keith came about 30 years ago;Thomas Avent came about 38 years ago; John Scott from Great Britain about 3 years ago.

The Thomas Avent above was probably Col. Thomas Avent born 1671 in Devonshire England, and died October 31, 1768? in Albemarle Parish, Sussex County Virginia. He married either a Margaret or Elizabeth with children being: William b.1706, Thomas b. 1711, Sarah b.1713, Mary b. 1715, and Peter b. 1720 (all children born in Virginia). Of importance to note is that the surname spelling of this line (for some) appears to have gradually changed to AVANT or AVEN with a good number of second and third generation descendants settling in Chatham County, North Carolina.

It is interesting that all four surnames in the above petition (Johnson, Keith, Avant, Scott) were represented as early settlers along the Pee Dee river in South Carolina. It is indeed possible that a few of the Avants in South Carolina are descendants of this Virginia group; however, the earliest Avant family along the Pee Dee river appears to have been a different set, who were of French Huguenot descent. The Huguenots settled first in the 1690s and early 1700s just north of Charleston. They had fled from France because of persecutions for reforming to the Protestant faith. Some of these French settlers gradually moved further north by the 1750s and intermarried with the English and Irish settlers along the Santee and Pee Dee rivers.

A Caleb Avant is thought to be the Progenitor for many Avants in South Carolina. Caleb Avant was born possibly in the Prince Frederick Parish in abt 1700, and may have lived in Berkeley County before moving further north along the Pee Dee. Family lore says Caleb Avant came from a group of ship builders in New England, and worked with raising live stock most of his life in SC. I have not confirmed this story, but what has been documented is that Caleb Avant was found on the Black River around the Pee Dee. It is there most of his family settled and owned extensive lands. In 1732, Caleb Avant filed a plat, certified on October 5, 1732, to which he had been granted five hundred ten acres in Craven County on the east side of the Great Pee Dee River (See Deeds link above). Caleb Avant was married twice and had at least six children.

A Francis Avant (1670-1724), and a Benjamin Avant (?-1743) both supposedly born in France and also settled along Black River in SC, were most possibly related to Caleb Avant. An unconfirmed reference I have states that Francis Avant first recorded a land grant in South Carolina in 1709. This date is important because it places Francis Avant in area before a Huguenot settlement which came with Rev. Philippe de Richebourg. Owing to a church quarrel, Rev Richebourg and some Huguenot Church members moved from Manikintown, Virginia to South Carolina settling on the Santee River in 1712.


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