History of Patriot William Simonton
Fifth (5th) Great Grandfather
b. 1716, Lancaster Co. PA; d. 1811 Iredell Co. VA
Theophilus Simonton
There were three great regions of Scotch–Irish settlement in America: Southeastern Pennsylvania, the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, and the Piedmont country of North and South Carolina.
It is believed that Theophilus Simonton, wife Mary Smith Simonton and children came to America from County Tyrone, Ireland, about 1725 and landed in Lewes Delaware.
Theophilus came to this country with his entire family and very possibly, a sister Jane Ann and a brother John. In Delaware records it appears that Jane Ann Simonton married Robert Frame. John Simonton is shown as a land owner around this period as well. Theophilus Simonton’s children appeared to be between 1 and 20 years old when they arrived in America. The family lived in Lewes where Theophilus apparently worked with Mary’s brother Archibald Smith.
Archibald Smith and Mary Smith Simonton originated from the Glebe of Urney, Tyrone, Ulster Ireland. Proof of this is in the Will of Archibald Smith and records from Ulster on the Archibald Smith family land. It can be assumed that the Simonton Family was living nearby in Tyrone, Ulster and since Theophilus Simonton and Mary his wife had all of their six Children in Ireland, they lived with Mary’s family on or near the Glebe of Urney with the Smith family. A Glebe are the lands owned by the Church and farmed by the families of the area. The Glebe of Urney is within 10 miles or so of Strabane, Tyrone, Ulster, Ireland. Many immigrants left Ulster from the port of Strabane in the first migration wave in 1717-1718 to America.
After this short period where about 3500 persons were allowed to leave Ireland, migration was shut down and then in 1725 there was the beginning of another period where England allowed people to leave Ireland. Another 10,000 or so left and came to America.
Mary Smith Simonton’s brother Archibald had settled in Lewes Delaware before 1713 and was a successful merchant. Archibald Smith died in 1729 and left 200 acres of land to Mary. It appears that the Theophilus Simonton family sold this land and since Scotch-Irish settlers were being welcomed and the possibility of land was available in the territory of Pennsylvania the family moved to the Conestoga Manor, Township, Lancaster Co., PA. In the Court Records of 3 May 1737, Lancaster Co., PA, a 51 years old Theophilus Simonton appears on the Tax List. This would suggest a birthdate of 1686.
The Penn Family established Conestoga Manor and in the Manor of 18,000 acres there was a 3000-acre area set aside as the Proprieties. Theophilus Simonton and his children cleared land in the Properties and established their homes. Conestoga Manor was changed to Manor Township, Lancaster Co. PA in 1759 after the Simonton’s had gone to NC.
Examples of Pennsylvania log cabins in the 1700’s:
Stone house @ 1730 Household goods:
Storage: 
Theophilus was a farmer who worked his own land with his family and very proudly referred to himself as a YEOMAN Farmer which means landowner who works the land himself. The Simonton family, like many others, owned livestock and probably grew a variety of crops such as wheat, flax and rye. Their diet would also have included wild game and native fruits and vegetables, which were plentiful in the area.
It was in Conestoga township that the first court of General Quarter Sessions of the peace was held, at the house of John Postlethwait, for the county of Lancaster, “the 5th day of August in the third year of the reign of our Sovereign Lord, the second, by the grace of God, of Great Britain, France and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith, etc.” (i.e., 1729). The Tavern, was an important public house in the Indian trading region near Conestoga. John Postlethwaite invited the first court to meet here beginning that summer. The first case brought to trial was a thief, who was sentenced to be publicly whipped on his bare back.
From 1751 – 1755, his Excellency Arthur Dobbs, Governor in Chief over his Majesty’s Province of North Carolina was very instrumental in bringing three colonies of Ulstermen to North Carolina. He wrote in 1755 of seventy-five families who had settled on land he owned in North Carolina: “They are a colony from Pennsylvania of what we call Scotch-Irish Presbyterians who with others had settled together in order to have a teacher, i.e., a minister of their own opinion and choice”. Theophilus’ children, except for William (the youngest, born in 1716), married in PA and went to Rowan Co NC around 1750-1754 and settled on land that was available through Granville Land Grants, specifically in the Fourth Creek settlement.
After Theophilus Simonton died in 1754 in Lancaster PA and was buried on his land in PA, Mary and his son William, his youngest son, and the “grandchildren” came to Rowan Co. NC. Also believed that daughter Mary who married Samuel Thornton in Lancaster Co. PA and Patrick Duffey came with them at this time. Patrick Duffey was a person who the Senior Theophilus Simonton brought over from Ireland as he was a close friend of his family Or possibly a brother in Law and so he worked for The Senior Theophilus in PA.
Theophilus Simonton’s will was probated in Rowan Co but he died and he was buried in Lancaster Co PA. He is buried on the land he so loved in a private cemetery. Today there is a very small stand of trees in the middle of a beautifully tilled field just below where he lived.
William Simonton, 5th great grandfather
William Simonton and his mother were the executors of Theophilus Simonton’s will. After Theophilus Simonton died in PA, William and the rest of the family then came to Rowan Co., NC. His brother Robert assisted in securing land for William about that time. Theophilus’ will was probated in Rowan Co., NC in 1747.
The Fourth Creek Presbyterian congregation, of which the Simonton’s were members, consisted of a number of extended families. To the east of the Fourth Creek Meeting House dwelt the Simonton, Allison, Thornton and McKee families, all interrelated. It was to this settlement that our Houston’s moved, to an area southwest of the meeting house on the Catawba River. See the map.
http://dc.lib.unc.edu/cdm/ref/collection/ncmaps/id/118
Like those of a biblical patriarch, the scattered households of the late Theophilus Simonton were close to each other. Near Robert and William resided brother-in-law, Thomas Allison. Originating either in London Britain Township of southeastern Chester County, Pennsylvania, or along the border between Chester and Lancaster County, by 1748 Allison had wed Simonton’s daughter Magdalene. To the east of Thomas lived a second brother-in-law, Andrew Allison of Colerain Township along the Lancaster-Chester County border, who married Ann Simonton prior to 1747. In June 1753, following the creation of Rowan County, N.C., Andrew Allison and Robert Simonton became justices for the new county’s Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions. On the seventeenth of that month, Thomas Allison’s kinsmen used their influence among their fellow magistrates to secure his appointment as constable for the settlement growing up around Third and Fourth Creeks. A third brother-in-law, Samuel Thornton of Chester County’s Bradford Township, established himself to the north of Robert and William Simonton prior to the spring of 1757.
Robert Simonton, William’s older brother, was appointed a Justice of the Peace in the Granville District. In June 1753 Robert, who was both a tavern keeper and surveyor, added the office of road commissioner to his growing list of titles. In 1756, Governor Dobbs appointed Robert Simonton Captain of a Company in the Regiment of the Rowan Command of Colonel Alexander Osborn.
William Simonton also enjoyed a fair amount of local prestige. The owner of two slaves in 1759, William had doubled his slave holdings by 1768. The owner of four taxable blacks, the size of William Simonton’s slave holdings was approached only by his neighbor to the west, William Watt, who also owned four Africans. In terms of slave ownership, both men stood above their neighbors, the majority of whom owned no more than two bondsmen. Ten years later, in 1778, William Simonton stood at the pinnacle of wealth in the region bounded by Third and Fifth Creeks with an estate valued at £5678.
Sometime after 1760 William, then aged forty-three, married Mary McKee, the daughter of his neighbor, the widow Margaret McKee, a “newcomer” from Lancaster County’s Derry Township. William and Mary had twelve (12) children. Their daughter, Sarah “Sally” Simonton married Samuel Houston’s son, Samuel Houston, Jr. (see History of Samuel Houston).
Revolutionary War
A favorite part of the “mythology” of the Scotch-Irish is that “to a man” they favored the break with Britain in 1775 and supported the War of Independence. Apparently, much contemporary evidence supports this thesis. In James Leyburn’s book The Scotch-Irish: A Social History, he presents these examples: an Episcopalian of Philadelphia said “a Presbyterian loyalist was a thing unheard of”; a Hessian captain wrote in 1778, “Call this war by whatever name you may, only call it not an American rebellion; it is nothing more or less that a Scotch Irish Presbyterian rebellion”; King George III characterized the Revolution as “a Presbyterian war”; a New Englander who opposed the rupture with England declared the Scotch-Irish to be “the most God-provoking democrats on this side of Hell”. In reality if political opinion comes from experience, the Scotch-Irish should have been ardent American patriots. England had never been friendly to these people. While such sentiments were not truly unanimous among the Scotch-Irish of the time, it is evident, at least among our ancestors, that their patriotism was strong.
Rowan County, NC was part of the Patriot Hornet’s Nest (piedmont areas of the Carolinas and Virginia – our ancestral homesteads) which stung British General Cornwallis severely. It was in the Carolinas and Virginia, 1780-1781, that Lord Cornwallis attempted to win the war with the colonies.
William Simonton was apparently in sympathy with the Revolution as were Robert and his son Adam, who served in the Militia. William Simonton was 60 when the Revolutionary War began. It lasted from 1776 – 1783. In addition to supplying horses to the Continental Army, his patriotic contribution to the cause was civil service as a processioner (an officer who determines land boundaries) and juror, helping conduct public business under the authority of the new provincial state congress that assumed power from the old colonial government. He served in these capacities through the entire war and beyond, as documented in Abstract of the Minutes of the Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions, 1775 – 1789, Rowan County, NC. Some examples follow:
The Rowan County Court’s Record of Independence Feb. 8, 1776 – see bottom of page.
Example of William’s service as a processioner (sessor) in Capt. David Caldwell’s district
William’s service as a grand juror, 1779
See minutes of Nov.5, 1779 – Sessors paid £50
Interesting evidence of jailing loyalists in the area who wouldn’t make the Oath of Allegiance to the cause of independence and assisted the British:
Jethro Rumple’s History of Rowan County, published in 1881, provides two chapters on Cornwallis’ and Greene’s chase through the Salisbury District of Rowan County NC, the specific area of the Simonton’s and Houston’s. Through congressional records we know that General Nathaniel Greene camped his troops on William Simonton’s plantation, causing damage for which William requested compensation.
After the Revolutionary War
In 1784 William Simonton branched out from plantation owner and civil servant to owner of a public house. Court records show that William Simonton was granted a license for an “ordinary” (public house) in February of that year.
William continued to add to his land holdings:
400 Acre Land Grant on the waters of Fourth Creek 1786:
In 1787, Robert Simonton sold his 575 acres in Statesville, Rowan Co to his brother William. When Iredell Co was formed from then Rowan Co in 1788, the first meeting of the people who formed this county, met in the Robert
Simonton house which was recently vacated by Robert due to his death. The court Records refer to William Simonton’s house, not his home. This would be reasonable since William at this time had a very large
family and such a meeting would have crowded his home very much. William Simonton served as the first Sheriff of Iredell Co. by appointment.
In 1789 William again expanded his land holdings by purchasing Widow McKee’s acreage from Alexander McKee, William’s brother-in-law.At this point, William Simonton’s plantation consisted of over 1200 acres.
And another purchasee – 24 Acres on the waters of Dutchener 1807:
After 1790, William replaced Robert’s log cabin with the Federal Style brick home that exists in NC today. The Federal Style home was a very simple design with a porch in the front and possibly a service porch on the back to add to the service of the kitchen. It was a red brick home. The only part of the original log home is the basement, signified by the hand hewn beams and stone walls. The Simonton Place cellar is believed to have provided the county’s first jail cell.
William Simonton continued to serve the local government to at least 1800. He died eight years later on August 22, 1811. He was 95 years old. He left a detailed will that is available at
Buried in the Old Fourth Creek Cemetery, Iredell Co., NC
His obituary:
His widow, Mary Simonton (McKee) died four years later in 1815.
She is also buried in the Old Fourth Creek Cemetery:
