The Other Ross Family in Fairfield & Kershaw Cos., SC, was Isaac Ross and wife Jean Brown

Page Updated 1 Apr 2007

Although he too was Probably from New Jersey, no kinship between him and Abner Ross was known until a descendant of each had Y-chromosome DNA matching results. We still want to learn their relationship.

Descendants of both intermarried with the Harrison, Rochelle, Whitaker, and Moores Families in Fairfield Dist., SC, and Kershaw Co. area

Tombstones of Isaac Ross Jr. & wife Jean Brown Ross in Rocky River Presbyterian Church (Spears) Ceme., Concord, Cabarrus Co., NC Photos Courtesy of Robert Stuart Transcribed as follows:
"Here lies the body of Mr. Isaac Ross Granfr, Born March 1st, 1708, And departed life, Febuary 13th day 1760, Remember man as you pass by as you are now Once was I and as I am so must you be prepared for Death to follow me Great god I own the sentence just and nature must decay I yield my body to the dust to dwell with fellow clay the greedy worms devour my skin and gnaw my waiting flesh When God shall build my bones again he clothe them all afresh"	"Here lies the body of Mrs. Jean Ross, Born June 30, 1722, Wife of Isaac Ross and departed life the May 20th 1766, Hark from the toms a doleful sound. My ears atten the cry. Ye living men come, view the ground. Where you must shortly lye. Princes this clay must be your bed in spite of all your powers the tall the wise the revered head lie low as ours. Great God if this our certain doom. and are we still secure, Still walking down ___ and yet prepare no more ___ Grant us the powers of your grace. Souls to fly then when ___ Will rise above the sky." (A few words illegible or broken)

Who was the Isaac Ross on the 1781 and 1789 Essex County lax list? Our Abner Ross was born in Essex Co., NJ, but his brothers and uncles are known. When our Abner Ross reached Fairfield Co., SC, after 1796, there was another Ross family already in the vicinity -- that of an Isaac Ross from New Jersey who was born 9 November 1732. Called "Stony Hill" Isaac, he was the son of Isaac Ross, Sr., born December 1709/10 probably in Ireland of Scottish parents.

Many of Isaac Sr's grandchildren intermarried with the same families as ours -- Rochelle, Harrison, and Moores.

Isaac Ross immigrated to America with his parents, whose names we don't know. He and his first wife, Elizabeth Frazer, had two children:

1. A son Isaac "Stony Hill" Ross, born 9 November 1732, called "Stony Hill" to distinguish him from a younger brother Isaac and because he lived in a house named Stony Hill, believed to be in Mecklenberg, North Carolina .

2. A daughter Euphemy Ross, born 15 September 1739.

After the death of his first wife Isaac Ross, Sr., married 2nd, Jean Brown, daughter of Arthur Brown, about 1743 and had seven more children (two sons, five daughters):

3. Elizabeth Ross, born 15 April 1744

4. Arthur Brown Ross, born 9 August 1746, North Carolina

5. Jean Ross, born 26 January 1747

6. Abagail Ross, born 13 November 1748

7. Mary Ross, born 28 January 1751

8. Isabel Ross, born 28 January 1754

9. Isaac Ross (2), born 5 January 1760, Charlotte, Mecklenberg Co., NC.

Isaac Ross, Sr., died in Cabarrus County, North Carolina, 13 February 1760. His sons "Stony Hill" Isaac and Arthur Brown Ross moved to Kershaw and then Fairfield Counties, South Carolina, where Arthur Brown Ross was involved in politics. In January 1790 Arthur Brown was elected to the House of Representatives for the District between the Broad and Catawba Rivers. He was elected representative to the Constitutional Convention of 1790 in Washington, D.C., and took two weeks to make the journey by carriage. Arthur Brown Ross married Hannah Conger and had seven children. They and his younger brother Isaac Ross moved west and died in Jefferson County, Mississippi -- Arthur B. in 1805 and Isaac on 19 January 1836.

The 1790 South Carolina census listed 38 Ross heads-of-families, the majority of them in Camden District. South Carolina was divided into seven judicial districts, so Camden covered severl of today's counties, a large territory. In 1798 the state was divided into 24 districts or counties. Two which came from Camden District were Fairfield and Kershaw. Our Ross and Rochelle families were initially in Kershaw County, whose seat is Camden, and later some were in Fairfield, whose seat is Winnsboro. They are not far from Columbia, the state capitol.

Since the compilers of Isaac Sr's descendants were interested in his second wife, not much was written about descendants of his children by first wife Elizabeth Frazer. "Stony Hill" Isaac had two sons, Isaac (3) and Samuel Ross, born about 1754 and 1755. The 1800 federal census had Abner Ross in Fairfield District and Arthur B., Isaac, Samuel, and Samuel Ross in Kershaw District, Ross heads of families:

The oldest were Arthur B. and "Stony Hill" Isaac Ross, because of the age, 46 and up. Arthur Brown Ross did not have a son Samuel, but "Stony Hill" Isaac did. Abner Ross had a brother Samuel Scudder Ross.

Abner apparently left New Jersey prior to his father's death and returned to New Jersey in time to pay taxes in 1796, for on 20 February 1794, he married Mary Whitaker in North Carolina where, according to descendants in Georgia, he served the last two years of the Revolution. By 1797 he was in South Carolina; there he and Arthur B. Ross served together on Kershaw County Grand Juries.

Descendants of Isaac Ross's family will be found among the Whitaker, Rochelle, and Harrison descendants.

Rebecca Gibson Sims (1797-1860, great-granddaughter of Arthur Brown Ross & Hannah Conger), her husband Jacob Killingsworth Hill, and their daughter Sarah Ann Hill (1821-1902) when adolescent

SOURCE: Anne Mims Wright, A Record of the Descendants of Isaac Ross and Jean Brown and the Allied Families of Alexander, Conger, Harris, Hill, King, Killingsworth, Mackey, Moores, Sims, Wade, etc. Jackson, MS, Consumers Stationery and Printing Company, 1911.

If you know more about the origins of Isaac Ross before he arrived in South Carolina, we would like to know.

So would Robert L. Ross, author of a book about our Abner's family: ROSS FAMILY OF NEW JERSEY: A Record of the Descendants of George and Constance (Little) Ross and Other New Jersey Families. Baltimore, Gateway Press, Inc., 1990.

(begins with George Ross in 1638, Hartford, CT, then to Essex Co., NJ).

To purchase the book, or provide information for the second edition he's working on, Robert can be contacted at: romaross@earthlink.net.

• MOORES-HARRISON Family of SC & Texarkana, TX
• Ancestry of Abner Ross
• Descendants of Abner Ross
• Isaac ROSS is not Doris Johnston's ancestor; SEE My Ross Family
• Rochelle Family & Descendants
• Harrison Family & Descendants
• Kirkland Family & Descendants
• Fairfield Co., SC
• Ancient Ancestry of Mary "Polly" Whitaker, wife of Abner Ross
• Descendants of William Whitaker, D.D., Master of St. John's College, Cambridge Univ.

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