For many years, I have wanted to visit the grave of a 4th great grandfather, Henry Moores near Fayetteville Tennessee:
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/27708284/henry-moores
In recent years, FindAGrave has proven tremendously valuable in tracing ancestry. Since they have added links to spouses and children. For instance, the above entry for Henry includes links to his children. One of which is Charles, my ancestor. That link takes one to Charles' FindAGrave entry. There, links to Charles' children can be found. Etc.
I recently ALMOST succeeded. I found the very good condition home still in possession of the descendants of Henry's brother-in-law, Isaac Conger. The cemetery is about 1000 yards within that Conger property though I found no one to ask for access. The home was first built in the period 1800-1810.
More background than you wanted to know: In 1911, a Mrs Wright published a genealogy book on a number of associated Southern families. Included were Moores (my mother's name), Harrison, Conger, Whitaker, Rochelle, <add more>. I've come to realize that Mrs Wright solicited articles and information from widely scattered cousins. My great grandmother, married to Charles Moores, responded and I was able to read the articles in a copy of the book that an aunt had. A migration from Fairfield District South Carolina was recounted. This was after Independence, in 1839. Included in the first party were my great great great grandfather, Charles Harrison Moores and his son, Eli Harrison Moores. Eli being father-in-law to Mrs Wright's corespondent, Mary Tamar Hargrove Moores. On the first and subsequent trips, the party stopped in to visit cousins near Fayetteville TN. Charles Harrison Moores' father, Henry had died there in 1811.
Link to contents of the above mentioned book;
https://ia600504.us.archive.org/8/items/recordofdescenda00wrig/recordofdescenda00wrig_bw.pdf
Putting pieces together: Henry received bounty land for his Revolution service, apparently from the state of North Carolina about 1800. Most soldiers accepted the offered bounty land and then sold. Henry apparently took possession and lived on his bounty land. Apparently several of Henry's cousins, including Isaac Conger, also moved from North Carolina with Henry. I do not yet know whether Henry's was the only bounty land in the family or if other family members had their own bounties. Perhaps additional bounty land was bought from other Veterans.
The first trip to NE Texas, made to reconnoiter the possibilities, resulted in a favorable impression for an area that is just west of present Texarkana. Eli decided to stay while his father Charles returned to Fairfield District to recruit other friends and relatives to come to Texas. The second, larger party, came in 1841. Other trips were likely made after 1841.
The first trip included some unknown number of slaves; Eli kept those slaves in Texas to begin crop land preparation. For a long while, it puzzled me why the group of people were willing to sell/abandon established plantations in order to come to Texas. Many in the group were successful cotton growers. It finally dawned on me that much of their wealth was in slave ownership and that the land was of relatively low value. In addition, the Carolina land was almost certainly "cottoned out". That is, it was of low value because lack of crop rotation had made it less productive for cotton. Land in Texas was worth only around $1/acres while slaves might be worth $500-$1000 each. And a slave could tend to 1-10 acres of cotton.
1/14/2013
https://tslablog.blogspot.com/2019/04/from-circuit-riders-home-to-tennessee.html?m=1
