Joseph Maddock was born about 1720 in the Brandywine Valley on the Pennsylvania/Delaware border. In the 1750's, Joseph led a colony of Quakers to settle on the Eno River in Orange County, North Carolina. After problems with the local British officials, the colony relocated in the 1760's to Wrightsborough, Richmond (now McDuffie) County, Georgia.
Joseph's ancestors came from the city of Chester, England. There is no problem in finding Maddocks in Chester. The problem is sorting them all out. As early as the 16th century, seven Maddocks were admitted to the City of Chester as Freemen (they were craftsmen who were permitted to do business within the Walls of the city) and Maddocks are listed in the first parish registers of St. John the Baptist Church. By the time of the Hearth Tax of 1664-1665 in Chester, there were at least fourteen Maddock families in the city.
The Maddocks of Chester are believed to have come from the area of Nantwich and Crewe, about 15 miles east of Chester. Here have been found even earlier records of even more Maddocks. Madoc (active in 1330), son of David de Crue, is said to be the progenitor of this group. The name however, may go back to Wales for we find Madog ap Maredudd (1132-1160) and Madog ap Llewelyn of Merionydd (active in 1294) among the princes of Wales. Today, there are many Maddock families throughout Cheshire.
Family stories have traced the ancestry of Joseph Maddock back to Thomas Maddock and Elizabeth Simcock who were married in 1641 in Chester. Although birth records for the children of Thomas and Elizabeth have not been uncovered, they show up as adults in the early Quaker records of Chester, and from there we can trace subsequent generations.
During the 17th century in England, a couple could be married in their local parish without any kind of licence after publishing banns for three Sundays in a row. The banns were "published" by reading aloud in church the intention of the couple to marry. Since the church service was a public gathering, the intent to marry was then public knowledge. Underage couples could not marry without the consent of their parents and any previous marriages or betrothals would probably be revealed.
If a couple wanted to marry secretly or in a hurry, they could apply to the Bishop for a licence. The applicants filled out a form called a Marriage Licence Bond and paid a fee or bond that protected the Bishop, or his representative, from any legal action that might arise from unknowingly approving an illegal marriage. An abstract of the bond was entered into a Marriage Licence Act Book. The couple then took the original bond document and presented it to any clergyman who could perform the marriage.
There were certain periods in the church year when banns could not be read nor marriages performed. The couple might have legitimate reasons for keeping the marriage a secret. In the case of Thomas Maddock and Elizabeth Simcock, it appears that Thomas' church, St. John the Baptist, in Chester was going through a period of turmoil, possibly relating to the impending Civil War. Only a few marriages were recorded at St. John between 1640 and 1653, and records of marriages remain scanty until the 1660's when the Commonwealth government ended and the Monarchy was restored.
It seems from the entry in the Licence Act Book that Thomas Maddock and Elizabeth Simcock were actually married at St. John the Baptist Church. It is not clear if the date, June 24, 1641, is the date the licence was issued or the date that the marriage took place. If the former is true, then the marriage most likely occurred within a few days.
Thomas Maddock was a baker by trade. He inherited the business upon his fathers death in 1690. The bakery was located near St. John the Baptist Church and was burned to the ground during the English Civil war to keep the building from being used as a hideout.
Nathan Maddock, son of Thomas and Elizabeth, was a respected member of the Frandley Monthly Meeting and served often as their representative to the Chester Quarterly Meeting. At the local level, he was responsible for the help the Monthly Meeting gave to widows. Nathan paid their rent and on one occasion he disbursed money for a coffin, presumably when one of the widows died. Nathan died in 1680 at the age of 38.
In 1682, trouble in the Maddock house was bad enough to come to the attention of the Frandley Monthly Meeting. It appears that Nathan (eldest son of Nathan) and his brother-in-law, Peter, did not get along with each other. After several months of investigation, the Monthly Meeting decreed that Peter Dicks (the brother-in-law) should leave the house, but he refused. By 1684, Nathan too, was married and his wife and her sister were living in the house. According to a family story, Esther Maddock and Peter Dicks left for Pennsylvania in 1684.
About 1701, Nathen Maddock (son of Abell Maddock , brother to Nathan, and Alice) arrived in America with his parents. They settled on Brandywine Creek which winds through old Chester County, Pennsylvania and down through Newcastle County, Delaware. They must have settled in the Delaware portion since they attended the Newark Monthly Meeting. It was here that Joseph Maddock was born about 1722. He was the first in our line to be born in America. Nathan was a tailor by trade, but Joseph did not follow in his fathers footsteps. Joseph became a man of many trades, including that of a miller, farmer, contractor, an orchardist, but he never exhibited any interest in becoming a tailor. Joseph was an intelligent, outspoken, and of an independent turn of mind as later events unfolded.
About 1740, Joseph Maddock married Rachel Dennis, daughter of Samuel and Ruth Dennis. It appears that the couple settled in Chester County, Pennsylvania and records show that for a time Joseph was a magistrate in that county. On May 3, 1746 Rachel was received as a member of the Newark Monthly Meeting. By this time, many of the Pennsylvania Quakers were hungry for new lands, and were losing their influence in the seacoast areas due to the large influx of people of other religious convictions, had begun to move south and west down the mountain valleys into the Carolinas. Between 1750 - 1770 Quaker settlements were established in numerous areas in both North and South Carolina.
The way was hazardous and hard. There were few roads and towns. No maps to show the way. And since the horses and wagons were loaded with all their worldly goods, the settlers and their families walked every step of the way. The Indians were a constant menace and hundreds of the settlers lost their lives, but the lure of new lands for the taking was irresistible and soon thousands of families were trekking southward and westward.
An examination of an early map makes it easy to determine by what route they traveled. From the earliest colonial days a road of sorts extended southward from Wilmington, Delaware through Baltimore, Maryland; Alexandria, Fredricksburg, Richmond, and Petersburg, Virginia. Then through Warrenton, North Carolina to Hillsboro in Orange County. Part of this route was over the Occaneechi Path, long used by the Indians to trade at the Indian village of Occaneechi. That village on the Roanoke River was long gone by the time these travelers came down the road. Present day Interstate Route 95 follows the course of this old road almost exactly all through Maryland and Virginia.
The records of Cane Creek Monthly Meeting, which is located 14 miles south of the present-day town of Graham in Orange County (now Alamance County), show that Joseph and Rachel Maddock were received into membership on November 2, 1754 by a certificate of transfer from Newark Monthly Meeting in Pennsylvania. The family settled about ten to fifteen miles northeast of Cane Creek on the Eno River (near the present town of Hillsboro) and there Joseph built a grist mill.
A mill was a valuable addition to a settlement, since it meant that the settlers could readily have their grain ground into meal and flour. There is little doubt that this mill soon prospered. Joseph also apparently became a contractor, because Orange County records show that he was hired to build the county jail in Hillsborough in 1755 and he ground pinned it in 1757 to make it more secure. He was also soon appointed road commissioner. Joseph and Rachel and their family settled down to life in North Carolina. The family prospered and life was good. The family was well respected and Joseph became a well known citizen of the community.
The French and Indian War also began in 1754. The fact that the English were pushing into the Ohio River area alarmed the French. They claimed the whole area west of the Appalachian Mountains. The French induced the Indians all along the northern frontier, to attack the English settlements. There must have been great apprehension all along the frontier, even though most of the fighting took place in Western Pennsylvania and the Great Lakes region. On July 3, 1754, a young Virginia Militia officer, named George Washington, and his troops were defeated by the French and their Indian allies, at Fort Necessity in southern Pennsylvania. The following year General George Braddock was defeated by the French in the same area. The North Carolina frontier apparently was not greatly affected by the war, although the Cherokee tribe was a constant threat to the settlements in west-central North Carolina. Records do not show that the Cane Creek area suffered from Indian raids, although the settlements further west suffered considerably. In 1760, North Carolina troops led by Hugh Waddell defeated the Cherokee at Fort Dobbs, about 100 miles west of Cane Creek, and this ended the Indian threat to central North Carolina.
On November 16, 1757 Jospeh's daughter Deborah was married to Thomas Stubbs. In February, 1763, their oldest son, Nathan married a girl who was not a Quaker and he was disowned by the Cane Creek Meeting for doing so. It was many years before he rejoined the Quaker church. Joseph Maddock, Jr. married Rebecca Hinshaw about March, 1784 probably by a priest, since Rebecca was dismissed, but for some reason Joseph Jr. was not.
During these years, Joseph became close friends with two other influential men of the community. Hermon Husband and Jonathan Sell. All three were active Quakers. Hermon Husband was also a man of considerable property, has been described "as a man of superior mind, grave in deportment, somewhat taciturn, wary in conversation, but when excited, forcible and fluent in argument". He served as a member of the North Carolina Assembly in 1769 and 1770. About 1763, trouble started in Cane Creek which would considerably change the lives of these three friends.
In 1762 Rachel Wright, a member of Cane Creek Monthly Meeting, committed some forbidden act and was disowned. As was customary at that time, she submitted a paper confessing and condemning her act and requested reinstatement. This was apparently accepted, but in 1763 she asked for a certificate of transfer to Fredricksburg, South Carolina she was accused of insincerity in her confession, and the certificate was refused. This caused a considerable squabbling among the membership of the meeting. Hermon Husband loudly and publicly condemned the actions of the Meeting that on January 7, 1764 he was disowned by Cane Creek Meeting and he was never again to become a Quaker.
A group of Husband's supporters, led by Joseph Maddock and Jonathan Sell, presented a paper to the Meeting expressing dissatisfaction with the disowning of Hermon Husband, whereupon the whole matter was referred to the next higher authoritative body, the Western Quarterly Meeting. In February, 1764 the Quarterly Meeting decreed the suspension from membership, Joseph Maddock, Jonathan Sell and the other dissidents. The group then appealed to the highest authority available to them, the Yearly Meeting. Here it was decided that the Western Quarterly Meeting has been in error. Rachel Wright received her certificate and Joseph Maddock and his fellow dissidents were restored to membership. However, Hermon Husband apparently had made too many enemies and he was not restored to membership. Officially, the matter was closed however, the wounds were not healed and there continued to be dissention. This, no doubt, contributed to the eventual exodus of Joseph Maddock, Jonathan Sell, and others.
When the people of North Carolina began to rebel against the British taxes, a group called the "regulators" called an historic meeting at Maddock's Mill in 1766. They advertised their rallies to be at Maddock's Mill because there was no liquor there. This must have been too much for Joseph and his peace-loving Quakers. On September 1, 1767 Joseph Stubbs presented to the Georgia governor, a petition of "sundry families at present residents in Orange County in the Provence of North Carolina but lately from Pennsylvania, setting forth that they were desirous to remove into and become settlers in this province, and praying that a reserve of land for that purpose might be made for a certain time". As a result of that petition, 12,000 acres were reserved for them On February 18, 1768 another 12,000 acres were reserved. Under the system of granting land then in force, the head of a family was authorized 200 acres and 50 acres for his wife, and 50 acres for each child. In late 1767 or early 1768, Jospeh and about 70 Quaker families and neighbors moved further along the Occaneechi Path to Georgia to get away from the political intrigue in North Carolina. On July 25, 1768 Joseph petitioned for 200 acres to build a gristmill on the north fork of Briar Creek called Sweetwater. The petition was approved, but not granted until April 2, 1771. Joseph was a founder of Wrightsborough, Georgia, located about 35 miles from Augusta on the border of what became known as the Ceded Lands. He served as a commissioner for the sale of the Ceded Lands tracts to perspective settlers.
