THOMAS URIE 1718-1804 & SARAH REED 1728- Written by Georgia Parker: When my search for this the life history of this ancestor, Thomas Urie, started, I knew only his name and that he was Scottish and once lived in the Cumberland Valley, Pa. And had something to do with the Revolutionary War. From that meager start, the following is what I now know. The name Urie has many spellings throughout Scotland. You will find Ure, Uri, Urry, Urre, etc. in addition to our Urie. In the Ragman’s Roll, the list of territorial gentry in Scotland who swore fealty to Edward of England, are the names of Harve Urie, Ayshire; Hugh Urie, Dumfrieshire; and John Vicar of Urres, Dumfrieshire. On an old monument near Seith, Scotland, commemorating one of the massacres of Covenanters by the men of Graham of Claverhouse, are the names of 2 men by the name of Urie. John Urie is one of the names on a monument erected to the memory of 3 brave covenant martyrs shot at Pomadie (near Glasgow) on May 11, 1685. On the list of deportations of covenanters from Scotland to Port Royal, S.C. on June 17, 1684, are the names of John Buchanan & Robert Urie. A cruel Capt. Gibson commanded this vessel. It does not seem possible to connect our Thomas directly with this Robert, but there may be earlier family connections we know nothing of at this time. I have also found the following Uries deported as Covenanters (in book Scots Banished to American Plantations 1650-1775” written by David Dobson); 1. Patrick Urie, prisoner at Dunnottar and Leith, transported from Leith to East New Jersey by George Scott of Pitlochie on the Henry & Francis, Master Richard Hutton 5 Sept. 1685. 2. John Urie, Prisoner in Canongate Tolbooth, transported on the same boat as above and on the same date!! 3. John Urie of Blairgorts covenanter, prisoner in Canongate Tolbooth, transported Leith to America on the St. Michael of Scarborough with Master Edward Johnston 12 Dec/ 1678. 4.Robert Urie of Little Goven, weaver, Prisoner in Glasgow Tolbooth, banished at Glasgow June 1684 transported from Clyde to America on The Pelican by Walter Gibson, Merchant in Glasgow, June 1684. 5. William Urie, of Cathcart, covenanter, prisoner in Edinburgh Tolbooth, banished to plantations in the Indies on St. Michael of Scarborough with Master Edward Johnston on 13 June 1678. What connection any of these men have with our Urie family is unknown at this time. We also find the name of Urie in several locations. The Urie River runs through the town of Invervire, Scotland. The word invervire translates to the Town of Urie, bisected by the Urie River. Urie Lake & Urie Island are also found in Scotland, In US we find Urie Resort in Wildwood , N.J. Urie, Wy. And Urie Creek in the mountains southeast of Cedar City Utah Our Thomas Urie seems to have been born in 1718 in Probably Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire, Scotland. This record was found in a family Bible and I learned this from correspondence with a lady in Oregon who is also a descendant of Thomas Urie. A member of her family had the Bible. Thomas was the second son of 12 children. His father is listed only Sir Urie and no mother’s name is noted. At this point we do not know when Thomas came to America or if he lived in Ulster, Northern Ireland, before coming. In one history , I found him listed as a native of Ireland but have never really found any strong evidence to bear this out. However Dr. Raymond Bell, Historian of Washington Co. states that Thomas was born in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, but migrated to Ulster, Ireland before coming to America. We do know for sure that he must have arrived as a young man and we know that at least one brother Robert Urie (born about 1722) and one sister Nancy Urie (born about 1720-1727) came also. They all settled in the Cumberland Valley of Pa. near where Carlisle is today. This was wild frontier at that time and life was very precarious. This Cumberland Valley was settled almost completely by Scots-Irish who were staunch Presbyterian followers of John Knox. The big waves of Scots- Irish immigration started about 1715 or so and continued, with 5 major waves, until just before the Revolutionary War. If our Thomas, Robert, and Nancy Urie came together, they had to be here before 1740 as Nancy married a John Boyd between 1738 and 1741. One of their children, David Boyd was born 1743. We know that Nancy was scalped and killed by Indians on 10 February 1756 and a baby boy was also killed. David and a brother and sister (or maybe 2 sisters) were carried off by the Indians. David went with one group and the other children went with a different group. At first David was treated harshly and forced to carry his dead mother’s scalp and was beaten regularly. After putting up a good fight one day during his beating and knocking a young Indian down, his lot with the Indians suddenly changed. He was adopted by and old Indian who had lost a son and he was initiated into the tribe as a full fledged Indian brave. He lived with this tribe of Iroquois for 7 years. In 1763, the old Indian, knowing his days were numbered, decided to try to find the white family of David and return him. This was done. In one book I found him being returned to his Uncle Thomas Urie; in another, he went back to his father who was still living near Carlisle where the tragedy had occurred. David now resumed his life as a white and eventually became a well known man in his area, married and had at least 9 known children, lived into his 80’s and left many descendants in the Pa. area and spread throughout the whole country now. The first records I could find of our Thomas Urie were in the Cumberland County Pa. archives where he is listed on a tax record of 1751 from Lurgan Twp. Both he and Robert were on the list. He is also listed on a grand jury of 1750. In 1785 Lurgan Twp. became a part of today’s Franklin Co. Pa. In 1755 I found a Thomas Urie Of Guilford Twp. accused of keeping a tippling house. I assume this is our Thomas. I think a tippling house was a saloon at that time and I am not sure exactly what this record means. I do know that whiskey was the standard beverage of the Scots-Irish so it cannot be that someone was opposed to whiskey. Maybe Thomas was selling it which the objected too. At any rate there is no further record of the incident. His name is among others signed to a letter from Cumberland County residents to Robert Hunter Morris Esq., Lt. Gov. of the Province of Pa. and read in council August 21, 1756. Robert and his family remained in Cumberland Co. but Thomas and his family left the area and pushed further on into the frontier. By 1766 we find record of Thomas having moved to what is today Bedford County, Pa. Originally the town of Bedford was a fort called the Fort at Raystown, built about 1758. The fort was obviously for protection from Indians as this is the terrible time of the French & Indian Wars with so many horrible massacres. This was the most prominent frontier fort in central Pa. The first ones in the settlement were probably Indian traders but , after the fort was built , Scots-Irish from the Cumberland Valley area to the east of here started to filter in. The name of the fort was changed in 1759 to Bedford for the Duke of Bedford of England. Thomas Urie is recorded as having 250 acres of land on the north side of the Raystown Branch of the Juniata River, his near neighbors being William Henry, Bernard Dougherty, William Mcllvaine and David Thomas. His land was in Coleraine Township which is still Bedford Co. today. As near as I can tell, his land must have been about 6 miles east of today’s town of Bedford, near where Everett is now. This is probably Snake Spring Twp. today which was formed out of Coleraine in 1857. He is also listed as one of the original lot owners in 1766 when the old town of Bedford was laid out. He had lot 139 on Penn Street and a house at least 20 ft x 20 ft with a brick or stone chimney had to be built within 3 years. By this time Thomas Urie was becoming a leading citizen of Bedford County. From Dec 13, 1776 to Jan. 10, 1777, he was in rank & file of Capt. Wm. Parker’s and Capt. Gaven Clugage’s companies of 1st Battalion of Bedford County under the command of Col. John Piper. I have a copy from the National Archives of this record. He was a man of 60 by this time during the Revolutionary War so maybe this is why he was a soldier such a short time. In June of 1777, he was appointed Sheriff of Bedford Co. On Sept. 12, 1777, he became a sub-lt. of Bedford County Militia. On October 30 of that year he was elected a councilor from Bedford Co. He served on the Supreme Executive Council in Philadelphia as a representative of Bedford County from 14 November, 1777, until he resigned on 1 May, 1780. The Supreme Executive Council was the branch of the state government, established under the 1776 Constitution. Its members were to serve 3 years. There are letters on record to and from him during the Revolutionary War to be found in the Pa. Archives. One of the letters to him is in Pa. Archives First Series, Vol 7, P. 535 from Bedford Co. written July 4, 1779, telling him of the terrible conditions now in the county. I know Thomas attended sessions at Lancaster from 14 November 1777 to 31 March 1778 and was paid 221 pounds, 18 shillings and 4 pence(140 days at 30 shillings; 2x143 miles at 10d). He attended at Philadelphia from 17 August 1778 to 2 December 1778 (18 days at 35s, 90 days at 45s, 2 x 209 miles at 10d) and from 7 June to 7 September 1779 at Philadelphia and was paid 310 pounds, 7 shillings, 0 pence (93 days at 3 pounds, and 2 x 209 miles at 1s-6p per mile). It looks like inflation had set in during this time. We know little about Thomas Urie’s married life. There is even some question yet as to who actually was the mother of his 11 children. There seem to have been 2 wives; a Jane Craig and a Sarah Reed. One descending family thought Jane Craig was wife #1, but a research historian, Dr. Raymond Bell of Washington, Pa. Believes Sarah Reed (born about 1728) was wife #1 and the mother of his children , the marriage occurring about 1749. I think I tend to agree, due to the naming of his children. The traditional naming pattern of the Scots was to name the first son after the paternal grandfather, the second son for the maternal grandfather , and the third son for the father (provided the name had not already been used). The first daughter would be named for the maternal grandmother, the second daughter for the paternal grandmother and the third daughter for the mother (if the name had not already been used). The rest of the children were usually named after other relatives with no exact order. Nowhere in the list of children of Thomas Urie is a daughter Jane!! The first son (named Samuel) was born 1750 and the first daughter (named Sarah) in 1751. Both must have died young and child #5 becomes a second Samuel and child #8 becomes the second Sarah. If this naming pattern was used, the name of Sarah Reed’s parents should have been John and Sarah Reed and the “sir” Urie should be Samuel Urie with a wife named Mary. But we cannot be sure and can find no evidence to prove this yet. There were several male Reeds on the tax lists but without finding a will mentioning a daughter it is almost impossible to trace females in the 1700’s. Lots of Reed research needs to be done yet! We have no date of death for Sarah Reed and I haven’t found her in any cemetery with a marker. The same is true for Jane Craig and there were many Craigs in Washington County Pa. with later connections to the Uries. Thomas is listed with what seems to be a wife on the 1790 Washington Co. PA census. On a David Craig deed record of 1801, Thomas Urie is listed as is his wife Jane (who can write as she signed her name). So it seems second wife Jane Craig is still alive in 1801. What relationship can she be to David Craig (who is the second husband of the widow of Thomas Urie’s dead son Thomas)? Could she have been David’s Mother?? It seems sometime around 1779 the Uries again pushed on farther west into what today is Washington Co.,Pa. At least by 1785, Thomas Urie is listed on the tax rolls of Washington Co. Hopewell Twp. The area Thomas Urie and family migrated to sometime before 1785 was called the District of West Augusta or Yohogania. This area was just to the east of the Ohio River, south of the Alleghehy and cut through by the Monongahela River. Pittsburgh is today where all 3 rivers come together. During the 1750’s Fort DuQuesne was located there, the last French outpost on the frontier. When it fell to the British after years of fighting the French & Indian Wars. The French name was changed to Fort Pitt. Even after the Revolutionary War this area was still mostly uninhabited and the land was claimed by both Pa. & Va. Until 1780. In 1781 Washington Co. was formed out of what had been Westmoreland Co. This new county included then most of the southwestern part of today’s Pa. There is evidence that the Uries were in the Washington Co. area as early as 1779. I find on June 21st 1779 the names of both a Thomas and a Samuel Urie among the 202 men who signed a Call to the Rev. Joseph Smith of York, Pa. requesting him to become minister to their new congretations and pledging each a sum to help pay for his livelihood. A star after the name of Thomas indicates he is one of the elders of the congregations of Cross Creek & Upper Buffalo, both Presbyterian of course. Thomas Sr. did not resign from the Supreme Executive Council in Philadelphia until May 1, 1780, so maybe he was not technically living in the area yet and only there occasionally. Thomas Urie applied on 24 January, 1780 for a VA certificate for 400 acres of land he bought from James Kerr (who had been in Letterkenny 1751-1763). It had been measured by estimation but when it was surveyed in 1787 it was found to contain only 320 acres. The land was patented in 1788. It was located on the water of Buffalo Creek adjoining land of David Williamson, John Chapman, Authur McConnell, James Martin and Arthur Vance. Three of his children were to become intermarried with the Williamson and McConnell families. Thomas Urie gave the name The Constitution to his tract of land which was patented on March 12, 1788. He lived the rest of his life on this land. In 1789 Thomas Sr. of Hopewell Twp is listed as a tax assessor and he was an overseer of the poor in 1791. According to the DAR, Thomas Urie died on 15 July 1804 at the age of 86 and is buried in the Upper Buffalo Church Graveyard. Hopewell Twp Washington Co. Pa. There is no longer a grave marker there to indicate the exact spot of the grave.