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Compiled by Kevin Young, 2001
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Our first known Young ancestor is Thomas Young.
Thomas Young was born in the 1740’s. He married Naomi Hyatt,
and sometime before 1778 they moved to Burke County, NC. Documents show
that during the Revolutionary War, Thomas Young was a Tory (Loyalist) and
remained loyal to the British. In March 1782 a courts-martial heard charges
that Col. Charles McDowell, the commander of Burke County troops fighting
for American independence, had abused his authority: among the examples
cited was McDowell’s lenient treatment of “the known Tories” Shadrach Inman,
Seth Hyatt, and Thomas Young. (Seth Hyatt was possibly Thomas Young’s father-in-law.)
In October 1782 Thomas Young was included on a list of 131 Loyalists in
Burke County who were indicted by the State of North Carolina. However,
in 1781, 1783, and 1786 the state reimbursed Thomas Young for quantities
of pork and corn that had been requisitioned and used to feed American
troops.
In 1778 Thomas Young began acquiring land in Burke County.
By the early 1800’s he owned a few thousand acres. The property was on
Shadrach’s Creek, Muddy Creek, Paddy’s Creek, Honeycutt’s Branch, and North
Cove. This land is located in present-day McDowell County. Sometime after
1787 he began acquiring slaves.
Thomas Young died in 1829 and his wife Naomi probably died
in the 1830's. Thomas and Naomi are probably buried in unmarked graves
at the old churchyard at North Cove, across the North Fork of the Catawba
River from the McCall House.
Naomi Hyatt was born about 1750 and probably married Thomas
Young in the late 1760’s.
Naomi Hyatt was possibly the daughter of Seth and Priscilla
Hyatt. Seth Hyatt moved from Maryland to North Carolina, and was named
as a Tory in the court-martial of Col. McDowell. Seth Hyatt, Hezekiah Hyatt,
and Edward Hyatt are listed among the Loyalists in Burke County indicted
by the state (see above). Hezekiah Hyatt (born about 1740) was the son
of Seth Hyatt.
| THOMAS YOUNG and NAOMI HYATT
had several children, including:
1. Joshua Young (August 4, 1769- after 1840) m. Mary Pritchett
Other children of Thomas and Naomi Young perhaps included Moses Young, who settled in what is now Mitchell County, and Joseph Young. |
Strawbridge Young, the son of Thomas Young and Naomi Hyatt, was the
first Young to settle in what would become Yancey County. He was born March
4, 1772, and was probably named for Methodist minister Robert Strawbridge.
About 1792 he married Martha 'Pattie'
Wilson, and sometime in the early 1800's Strawbridge and his family
moved to what would become Yancey County, where they lived near the present-day
Newdale Volunteer Fire Department firehouse. Strawbridge, his wife, and
several sons are buried on the ridge behind this firehouse. This graveyard
is now known as Strawbridge Young Cemetery.
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1. Thomas Young (b. 1792)
m. Sarah Horton
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George Young, the son of early Yancey pioneer Strawbridge
Young, was born December 16, 1800 in what was then Burke County. On May
9, 1822 he married Elizabeth White Lloyd, the daughter of Thomas and Nancy
Ledford Lloyd. (See article on THOMAS LLOYD).
The couple lived between the North and South Toe Rivers, and George Young
apparently operated a mill on the river near Boonford.
This section of country was sparsely populated, and one of George’s nearest
neighbors was the Silver family, who lived at Kona; when Frankie Silver
killed and disposed of her husband’s body, she claimed that he had disappeared
while on the way to buy whiskey from George Young.
In the summer of 1844 typhoid fever broke out in George Young’s
family. Members of the family were originally doctored by George’s father-in-law
Thomas Lloyd, but his treatment soon proved ineffective and Dr. Abraham
Jobe was sent for. Dr. Jobe described
the incident in a diary, including an arduous journey to George’s house
in which he had to ford Crabtree several times and the South Toe once.
(“Crabtree” apparently refers to the creek at Windom and not “Big Crabtree”
further east.) Although George’s son John Lloyd Young died from the fever,
Dr. Jobe managed to save all the other members of the family. The medical
bill was $100, but George Young refused to pay. Only after lengthy court
proceedings was the bill finally paid.
George Young is frequently mentioned in Yancey County court
records from the mid-1800's. He often served as a juror in legal proceedings,
and at various times was appointed to committees for road upkeep in the
North Toe- South Toe area and for protecting fish by ensuring the free
flow of area streams. He was also a party in various legal proceedings;
in 1857- 1858 he was involved in two suits in Monroe County, Tennessee
which concerned mineral leases with an Isaac N. Baker from Mississippi.
Soon after his marriage, George Young began acquiring land.
In a series of transactions in 1824, Strawbridge Young sold land between
Big Crabtree and the North and South Toe Rivers to his son George. Over
the next three decades George added to this original tract through a number
of state land grants in which he paid five cents per acre. By the 1850’s
George Young was a quite wealthy farmer and landowner. The 1860 Yancey
census lists George Young with real estate valued at $8700 and personal
property (i.e. slaves) worth over $5600. The agricultural schedule of the
same census enumerates his property as the following: a farm valued at
$2000 and consisting of 1150 acres of improved land and 685 unimproved
acres; farm equipment worth $255; livestock valued at $877, including 5
horses, 7 cows, 2 sheep, and 45 swine; a variety of crops, including 65
bushels of wheat, 45 bushels of rye, 500 bushels of Indian corn, and 50
bushels of oats.
Then the Civil War came and the family’s fortunes changed.
While serving in the Confederate army, son George Washington Young died
at Shelbyville, TN on Feb. 12, 1863; another son- Samuel Fleming Young-
was wounded and captured at Mufreesboro. In 1863 Elizabeth Lloyd Young’s
mother died, and George Young’s mother died three years later. After the
war, the family began having financial troubles; in 1868 M.P. Penland sued
George Young and won judgment for $250, and in November of that year the
court forced payment by placing a lien on 1200 acres between North and
South Toe. In order to pay his debts, George began selling off parcels
of his estate. Throughout the late 1860’s and early 1870’s he sold small
tracts of land to various individuals. The marked contrast in the family’s
situation is shown by the 1870 census, in which George’s personal property
is now valued at $50.
In their later years, George and Elizabeth Lloyd Young lived
with their youngest son Samuel Fleming and his family. Elizabeth died on
January 19, 1882 and was buried in Strawbridge Young cemetery; George died
on February 18, 1887 and was buried beside his wife. The family’s original
two-story house, located on Highway 80 North about 1/2 mile from the South
Toe River, was torn down in the 1940’s and a new house was built on the
site.
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1. NANCY LOUISA YOUNG (b. Feb. 14, 1823) m. Jackson Gardner on Nov.
5, 1840. The
According to family tradition, George Young also had an illegitimate daughter, FANNY CAROLINE YOUNG (1842-1922) (See below) |
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GEORGE YOUNG’S SLAVES
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BOTTOM: George Young's listing on the 1860 schedule. |
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Like other members of the Young family, George Young owned
slaves. One of the tasks for which he used slave labor was the production
of bricks. Legend has it that he once promised freedom to a slave if the
man could jump over a large corncrib. The slave practiced, eventually performed
the feat, and was set free. (Considering the price of a slave, this legend
is probably not true).
On March 22, 1834 John Griffith sold a woman named Charlotte
'and her issues' to George Young in exchange for 10 acres of land on 'Ailer's
Creek'- a tributary of the Toe River, including a mill known as William
Angel's old mill, 2 stills, and other things.
A Yancey County deed from May 30, 1835 shows that George
Young bought a young boy named Isaac from Adam and Katherine Hoppis for
$450. George’s brothers and father-in-law served as witnesses to the deed.
On the 1840 Yancey census, George Young is listed with (a)
two male slaves under age 10 (b) two male slaves age 10-24 (c)
one female slave age 10-24. (Charlotte and Isaac are perhaps included
among these individuals.) Ten years later at least three of these five
individuals are no longer with George Young, and their fate is unknown.
Apparently at least one slave was sold in the 1840’s in order to pay the
legal bills connected with the dispute
with Dr. Abraham Jobe. Perhaps one or more individuals died in the
1840's.
On the slave schedules of the 1850 and 1860 Yancey censuses,
George Young is listed as the owner of three slaves. These are: (1)
A man, born about 1838-9, listed as “mulatto” (i.e. of mixed ancestry).
(2) A man, born about 1840, listed as “black” in 1850 but as “mulatto”
in 1860. (3) A woman, born about 1842, listed as “mulatto”. The
identity of these three individuals seems to be as follows:
(1) Robert Young,
who married Sarah Garland. He and his family are shown on the 1870 census
living with George Young’s son Joseph Tarpley Young. (2) James
Young, who is shown on the 1870 census living with George Young’s son
Samuel Fleming Young. (3) Fanny
Caroline Young (1842- 1922), whom George is said to have acknowledged
as his illegitimate daughter. (The description of the other two slaves
as “mulatto” raises the question of their parentage.)
(See AFRICAN-AMERICAN YOUNGS)
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Sources: Census records; Yancey County deeds, marriage records,
and death certificates; interviews with several of George Young’s descendents,
especially his great-granddaughter Tish Buchanan; Perry Deane Young’s genealogy;
Dr. Abraham Jobe’s diary (copy in the possession of Paul Kardulis); Toe
River Valley Heritage, volumes 1 and 2.
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JOSEPH TARPLEY YOUNG (1840- 1921) and HARRIETT ELIZABETH BUTNER (1841- 1907)
Joseph Tarpley Young (known as “Joe Tarp” or simply “Tarp”)
was the son of George Young and Elizabeth White (Lloyd) Young. He was born
in Newdale, Yancey County, on May 5, 1840. In the summer of 1844 he survived
an outbreak of typhoid fever which killed an older brother, John Lloyd
Young.
By 1860 Tarp had met Harriett Elizabeth Butner, the daughter
of Samuel Herman Butner and Martha (Hauser) Butner. (See BUTNER
FAMILY). The Butner family were recent arrivals in the Toe River Valley;
in the late 1850's they had moved here from the Moravian Church community
in Forsyth County, and their native language was German. On the 1860 census
Samuel Butner's family is shown living next to George Young, and in December
1860 Harriett Butner gave birth to a son whose father was apparently Joe
Tarp.
Tarp’s father was a slaveholder, and the family undoubtedly
took an interest in the 1860 presidential election. Perhaps foreseeing
the coming war, Joe Tarp Young and Harriett Butner were married on April
6, 1861 by a local Justice of the Peace named J. W. Gibbs (Gibbs later
performed the marriages for both Samuel Fleming Young and Caroline Young)
.
The Civil War was difficult for George Young and all his
children: Tarp’s brother George Washington Young died at Shelbyville, TN
while serving in the army, and another brother- Samuel Fleming Young- was
wounded at Mufreesboro. According to pension records, Tarp enlisted
in the same regiment as his brothers- 29th
N.C. Regiment, Co. I,- in the late spring of 1862. While in service,
he contracted “catarrah” of the head, throat, and lungs, a condition which
apparently affected him quite severely. However, the only source of information
about his war record are the pension applications he filed many years later.
Portion of Tarp Young's Civil War Pension Application.
The original is on file at the N.C. State Archives.
After the Civil War, Joe Tarp lived as a farmer in Newdale,
where he owned a few hundred acres of land which had been part of his father’s
vast real estate holdings. A former Young family slave named Robert Young-
along with his wife and children- are shown on the 1870 census living with
Joe Tarp. The section of Newdale where Tarp lived eventually became known
as “Arbuckle” (named for a name-brand of coffee). Many years later his
grandson Gus Young sold the original house, which was dismantled and removed,
and then constructed a new home on the site where it had stood. (Tarp'
s house appears in the background of a
photo of some of his grandsons).
On February 18, 1907 Tarp’s wife Harriett Elizabeth Butner
died. She was much loved by her children, and seems to have been a gentle,
somewhat
timid woman. She had grown up speaking German, and thus had trouble pronouncing
some English words. It is said that she once heard a peddler mutter something
in German and surprised him by replying in that language. She also displayed
great patience by accepting Tarp’s relationships with other women. Tarp’s
illegitimate daughter Etta was taken in by the family, and Tarp is said
to have had at least one other illegitimate child.
Physically Joe Tarp was a rather small man- slim and
not very tall. As he grew older he walked with a limp and used a cane,
and mounted his horse with the aid of a cable attached to a tree branch
in his yard. He enjoyed the company and conversation of other adults, but
had little patience for children. “Children should be seen and not heard”
was a favorite saying of his. He was steely-eyed and iron- willed, and
had unexpected outbursts of anger that disappeared as quickly as they came.
Unlike other family members, Tarp was not a churchgoer and he frequently
used profanity; he consequently developed a reputation for impiety. At
the same time he was also very social, and he often had other people living
with him; his grandson 'Shack' lived with him for several years. After
his wife’s death, Tarp lived in one downstairs bedroom of his house while
lodgers occupied the rest; those that lived with him did his laundry, cooked
his meals, cared for his horse, and performed other chores.
Three of Tarp’s children died in childhood and were
originally buried in the Strawbridge Young Cemetery. Some time later Tarp
had all three caskets exhumed and reburied near his house: this became
the site of the family cemetery in which other members of the family, including
Tarp’s mentally- handicapped brother Thomas Phelps Young, were eventually
buried.
Joseph Tarpley Young died on April 4, 1921 and was buried beside
his wife.
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1. GREENBERRY ELLIS YOUNG (December
29, 1860- June 18, 1942)
Ellis Young married 2nd) Eva “Evey”
Young (1871- 1945), his first cousin.
2. JULIUS DECATUR YOUNG (June
22, 1864- June 15, 1906)
3. JULIA ADLAIDE “ADDIE” YOUNG
(July 3, 1866- May 26, 1907)
4. MARY LOUTICIA “LOU TISH” YOUNG
(1868- 1939)
5. ROMULUS YOUNG (May 3, 1870- October 31, 1876) 6. HENRY M. YOUNG (September 9, 1872- October 10, 1882)
7. NEWTON “NEWT” YOUNG (May 1, 1875- Sept.
10, 1945)
8. ALPHONZO “FONZ” YOUNG (May 22, 1878- June
2, 1934)
9. TEMPEANN YOUNG (September 7, 1880- October 30, 1882)
10. ETTA YOUNG (May 22, 1883- March 10, 1964)
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