Jeffrey Horney, Eighth Great-Grandfather

October 4, 2013 — 4 Comments

Quaker

Jeffrey Horney was a Quaker born in Maryland. His father was a planter who left his estate to his children in 1738.  Jeffrey inherited “Cottingham”:

Horney, Jeffery, planter,Talbot Co.,11th Jan., 1737;
27th Mch., 1738.
To son William and hrs., “Dixon’s Gift,” Queen Anne’s Co.; and personalty.
To son Jeffery and hrs., “Cottingham,” sd. son dying without issue sd. tract to son Philip and hrs.; and personalty.
To sons Philip, James and daus. Jane and Prissillia, personalty, some of which des. as bou. of John Carslake. Residue of personal estate to 4 sons and 4 daus. divided equally.
Son Jeffery, ex., to have care of sons Philip and James until they come to age of 18.
Test: Robert Harwood, John Regester, Edward Perkins. 21. 861. MARYLAND CALENDAR OF WILLS: Volume 7

Since I have ancestors born in Maryland named Nichols, I was very interested to learn about the Nicholite movement, also known as New Quakers.   The Nichols in my tree marry into the family about 100 years later in Pennsylvania.

Jeffrey Horney (1723 – 1779)
is my 8th great grandfather
Mary Horney (1741 – 1775)
daughter of Jeffrey Horney
Esther Harris (1764 – 1838)
daughter of Mary Horney
John H Wright (1803 – 1850)
son of Esther Harris
Mary Wright (1816 – 1873)
daughter of John H Wright
Emiline P Nicholls (1837 – )
daughter of Mary Wright
Harriet Peterson (1856 – 1933)
daughter of Emiline P Nicholls
Sarah Helena Byrne (1878 – 1962)
daughter of Harriet Peterson
Olga Fern Scott (1897 – 1968)
daughter of Sarah Helena Byrne
Richard Arden Morse (1920 – 2004)
son of Olga Fern Scott
Pamela Morse
I am the daughter of Richard Arden Morse

Jeffrey Horney [III] was born before 1720 in Talbot County, Maryland. He married Deborah Baynard outside of the Quaker faith without the consent of the Friends. Their marriage license was dated October 6, 1739 in Talbot County, Maryland. Eight years later in 1747, Jeffrey and Deborah Horney would sell their land in Talbot County and move to Dorchester [now Caroline] County. On the 27th of October 1747, Jeoffery and Deborah Horney sold fifty acres of Cottingham in Talbot County to William Thomas, Gentleman. Less than one month later, on the 12th of November 1747, Jeffrey Horney of Talbot County purchased Piersons Chance [Pearsons Chance] from John Pierson of Dorchester County, formerly laid out for Thomas Pierson. The property was in two parts; one part contained 100 acres and the other part contained 50 acres. The land was located on Watts Creek, off of the Choptank riverjust south of Denton in what is now Caroline County, Maryland. As the crow flies, Piersons Chance was less than 15 miles northeast of Cottingham and was about 5 miles from the Delaware line of Kent County, Delaware.

Nov 12, 1747 John Pierson of Dor Co, planter, to Jeofrey Horney of Talb co, planter: two parts of a tract formerly laid out for Thomas Pierson called “Piersons Chance,” conveyed by said Thomas to said John by separate deeds, on Watts Creek, one part containing 100 a. and the other part containing 50 a. more or less. Wit: T. Waite, Jno. Caile, Hall Caile. Ackn by John Pierson and Elizabeth his wife before Thos. Foster abd Benj Keene, Justices. (See receipt, Dorchester County Land Records 14 Old 169).

For the first seven years of their marriage, Jeffrey and Deborah Horney lived at Cottingham, and any of their children born within the first seven years between 1740 and 1747 were born at Cottingham in Talbot County. After November 1747 when Jeffrey and Deborah purchasedPiersons Chance in Dorchester County, any subsequent children they may have had were born in Dorchester County, Maryland. This land now lies in Caroline County Maryland which was not established until 1773 from parts of Dorchester and Queen Anne’s Counties. This explains why Jeffrey and Deborah Horney and their children are subsequently found in Caroline County records. The land on which they were living from November 1747 onward,Pierson’s Chance, was once in Dorchester County in an area that became Caroline County in 1773. At least three of their children, John, Philip and William Horney, left Maryland between the 1780s and 1790’s when they may have followed the Nicholite movement into the Deep River section of Guilford County, North Carolina. Some lines would remain in North Carolina while others would move onto Ohio, Illinois and beyond.

There is a local legend surrounding the area on Watts Creek where Jeffrey and Deborah settled. It was believed that in the 1600s and early 1700s notorious pirates and privateers, such as Captain William Kidd and Edward Teach [Thatch, Thach, Thache], otherwise known asBlackbeard, may have hid or buried treasure along the shores of Watts Creek. A local legend began to circulate (or re-circulate) in 1916 when Swepson Earle wrote Manor houses on the Eastern Shore. He claimed that “Tradition says [Watts Creek, south of Denton] once provided refuge for Captain Kidd, whose ‘buried treasure’ has been sought on its banks.” Later, in the 1940s when Hulbert Footner wrote his book, Rivers of the Eastern Shore, he related that“There is such a hole near the mouth of Watts Creek that is ninety feet deep. It is called Jake’s Hole. Its exact depth is known because it’s been sounded often enough, and I’ll tell you why. There was aplenty pirates round here in the old time. The one that mostly cruised in these waters was Blackbeard; Edward Teach was his right name. Well, Blackbeard picked Jake’s Hole for one of his caches, and dropped an oaken chest bound round with copper bands in there. It’s still there. God knows what’s inside it!”However, according to Donald Shomette who more recently wrote Pirates of the Chesapeake, neither Blackbeard or Captain Kidd ever sailed into the Bay, but their legends did.

Whether or not the legends of Watts Creek spun by the old-timers were fact or fiction, there were pirates and privateers who sailed in and around the Chesapeake Bay. Among them, Roger Makeele, was found in Maryland records in 1685 when he and his band of pirates lured the crews of tobacco sloops to their camp on Watts Island. They would seize the crew and confiscate their sloops before leaving the men in the Marshes of Dorchester County. Makeele sailed the Choptank river which separated Dorchester County from Talbot County where the early Horney’s lived. Incidentally, that same year Jeffrey Honey [Horney] was testator to the will of Emanuel Jenkinson of Talbot County Maryland. It is likely the early Horney men, as well as other settlers in the area, heard of these pirates and were in peril of loosing their tobacco crops and their sloops to the pirates of the Chesapeake.

During this time, local Indians lived in the area. Their ancestors arrived in the area long before the European settlers. When John Burnyeat appointed a general meetingfor all of the Friends in the province of Maryland. George Fox wrote about that meeting in his journal, (Two Years in America 1671-1673 Chapter XVIII) It was upon me from the Lord to send to the Indian emperor and his kings to come to that meeting. The emperor came and was at the meeting. His kings, lying further off, could not reach the place in time. Besides the Horneys who married into Quaker families, other religions would later play a part in their lives. Among the early churches and societies, early Horney families were or became Puritans, Anglicans and Episcopalians. In 1760, when Joseph Nichols of Kent County, Maryland and Delaware founded the Nicholites [New Quakers], at least one branch of Horney’s were found in Nicholite Petitions. [Most likely Jeffrey and Deborah Horney and/or their descendants.] The early Horney’s also became Methodist and Methodist-Episcopal. On June 17, 1703 John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, was born in Epworth, Lincolnshire, England. By 1771, John Wesley’s teachings reached the Eastern Shore of Maryland. When Francis Asbury came to Maryland to spread Wesley’s word, the Methodist religion took a strong hold in Maryland. More than a few Horney families converted to Methodism. However, Wesley’s Tory beliefs may not have sat well with the Horney’s who served [on the American side] in the Revolutionary War.

The rivers on Maryland’s Eastern Shore defined the early transportation routes of religion. During their lifetime, the settlers of the area, did much of their traveling on the rivers, tributaries, creeks and branches which crossed the Eastern Shore of Maryland, east of the Chesapeake Bay. They lived near and traveled many of these waterways including the Choptank, Wye, St. Michaels, (now Miles),Tred Avon (Third Haven), and Tuckahoe Rivers. The Tred Avon was and still is the location of Third Haven Meeting House near what is now Easton, Talbot County, Maryland. The St. Michaels, (now Miles) River was the location ofBetty’s Cove Meeting House.

To see photos of the Choptank and Tuckahoe river areas in Talbot and Caroline counties where the Horney families lived and traveled, select the pdf file from the Upper Choptank and Tuckahoe River Cultural Resources Inventory. Another helpful tool is the Choptank and Tuckahoe Rivers Sections Map.   Take a two day canoe trip on the Choptank River Sojourn, a journey of Maryland’s Eastern Shore through areas where the earliest Horneys settled and the route that Jeffrey Horney III and his wife Deborah Baynard traveled and settled after 1747. Areas mentioned throughout this river journey are Choptank, Denton, Dover Bridge, Greensboro, Hillsboro, Tuckahoe and Watts Creek. All of these locations were found in 1600 – 1700 HORNEY records in Caroline, Talbot, and Dorchester Counties, Maryland. The journey described was a likely route traveled by Jeffrey Horney III and his wife, Deborah Baynard and their children as they left Talbot County, Maryland and settled in Dorchester [now Caroline] County, Maryland.