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Descendants of Jesse and Thomas Burnett

Generation No. 2

2. JESSE² BURNETT (?¹) was born Abt. 1733 in Virginia, and died Aft. October 07, 1820 in Buncombe Co, NC. He married JUDITH PRINCE Bef. September 20, 1772 in Brunswick Co., VA.

Notes for JESSE BURNETT:
See Notes for Thomas Burnett. Jesse, unlike Thomas, could read, and thus is assumed the elder.

Jesse had 9 children by Judith Prince, and a daughter from each of the other women he married making 11 children in all.

The following land transactions in Rutherford County show Jesse's presence in 1800 and 1823, where he settled on the Second Broad River northeast of Rutherfordston, and call into question his purported death date.
Burnett, Jesse / Burnett, Frederick / Deed/12-14/4/1800
Burnet, Jesse / Logan, Moses / Deed/34/156/1823

Frank and Ruby Miller (frmill@artelco.com) and Sherri Pierce (http://www.familytreemaker.com/users/p/i/e/Sheridan-M-Pierce/GENE3-0002.h tml)
are among many descendants who are researching this line.
However, June Baldwin Bork's BURNETTS AND THEIR CONNECTIONS, Vol II, is the most reliable and well-documented source for the first three generations (http://www.junebaldwinbork.com).

Notes for JUDITH PRINCE:

Ricky. Long <lucyhome@usit.net> reports that in 1790, Joseph Prince of Rutherford Co, NC names in his will "his sons" Peter and Joseph Burnett, who were eldest sons of Jesse and Judith. June Bork v. II suggests that these were Jesse's grandsons, that Prince and his wife were living with Jesse, but stops short of the undocumented conclusion that Judith was a daughter of Joseph Prince.

Children of JESSE BURNETT and JUDITH PRINCE are:

	i.	MARY³ BURNETT.
	ii.	PETER BURNETT, b. Bef. 1768.
4.	iii.	JOSEPH BURNETT, b. Bef. 1768.
5.	iv.	CLAIBORN BURNETT, b. Bef. 1769; d. Bef. 1850.
6.	v.	FREDERICK T. BURNETT, SR., b. May 11, 1770, Merherrin Parish, Brunswick Co., VA; d. July 09, 1854, Macon Co., NC.
7.	vi.	LEWIS BURNETT, b. May 10, 1771, Brunswick Co., VA; d. 1818, Adams Co., OH.
8.	vii.	ELDRIDGE BURNETT, b. Abt. 1772, Tryon Co., NC; d. 1870, Union Co., GA.
9.	viii.	SARAH BURNETT, b. 1775, VA; d. Aft. 1850, Madison Co., AL.
	ix.	RUTH BURNETT, b. Bet. 1790 - 1800.
	x.	ELIZABETH BURNETT, b. Bet. 1794 - 1800.
	xi.	DAVID BURNETT, b. 1801.

3. THOMAS² BURNETT (?¹) was born Abt. 1735 in Virginia, and died October 07, 1780 in Rutherford Co., N. C.. He married ELIZABETH LITTLEBERRY.

Notes for THOMAS BURNETT:
Research by Frances Gass and more extensive efforts by June Bork point to Meherrin Parish, Brunswick Co., VA and, before that, possibly Northumberland Co., VA as the immediate origins of Thomas and Jesse. Thomas obtained a land grant in Brunswick in 1762 on the south side of the Meherrin River half-way between present-day Lawrenceville and Emporia, and quite a few land transactions involving Thomas and Elizabeth Burnett and Jesse and Judith Burnett are found subsequently relating to this grant, up to about 1776.

The main clue to the origins previous to Brunswick Co. is the peculiar given name, Swan Pritchard, given to Thomas Burnett's second son (as well as some descendents of Jesse). A Swan Pritchard (named after a Swanson family) also bought land in the 1760s in Brunswick Co., as discovered by Bork. He came from Northumberland Co., VA, a scion of a prominent landed family married to a daughter of Charles Coppedge (another old family), which families had estates on Bales (Bayles) Neck, Great Wiccocomoco Parish on the river of the same name.

By 1779, these families had taken up land on the Second Broad River north of Catheys Creek just east of Rutherfordston, NC., at a time of intense conflict between the Whigs and the Tories or Loyalists. According to Joseph Jefferson Burnett (ggrandson), writing in 1886: "The Tories arrested my grandfather on their way to Kings Mountain: tied him to a tree and shot him, on the day my uncle Joseph was killed in battle. My Uncle Jesse, from the best I can learn, never took an active part, on either side, but simply dodged the conflict. But even this made against him, in the estimation of the Whigs." No other evidence confirming this family story has ever been found, although Thomas undoubtedly disappeared about this time.

However, a letter in 1880 from William L. Twitty to Lyman Draper, in the Draper Manuscripts (University of Wisconsin; microfilm reference 7DD93 p. 13), lists the local (Ruthersford) participants in the Battle of Kings Mountain, including some Loyalists (Tories). After listing some prominent Loyalists, he says: "The other Loyalist were Jesse Burnett, Thomas Burnett (brothers), Thomas Coples, Moses Moore, Aaron Biggerstaff (wounded) .." Twitty, the grandson of a participant in the battle, served as Draper's main investigator in Ruthersford; his sources were the recollections and records of elderly local residents.

According to the diary of a British officer present (appendix in Draper's King's Mountain and its Heroes), some 500 locals joined the Loyalist forces during the stopover at Gilberts Town (near Ruthersfordton) on their way southeast to where the battle took place. Twitty, significantly, names only a dozen or so -- perhaps, like Thomas and Jesse, families long gone from Rutherford County.

MAJOR SOURCE FOR THE DESCENDANTS OF THOMAS BURNETT IS FRANCES GASS, A BURNETT FAMILY OF THE SOUTH (WASHINGTON, D.C.: NATIONAL PUBLISHING COMPANY, 1964); out of print.

Notes for ELIZABETH LITTLEBERRY:
Elizabeth was married to Thomas before he arrived in Rutherford Co., as her given name appears on land transactions in Brunswick Co., VA.

Children of THOMAS BURNETT and ELIZABETH LITTLEBERRY are:

10.	i.		LITTLEBERRY³ BURNETT, b. February 23, 1777, Meherrin Parish, Brunswick Co., VA ?; d. February 28, 1843, McDowell Co, NC.
11.	ii.		SWAN PRITCHETT BURNETT, b. October 24, 1779, Rutherford Co., NC?; d. December 02, 1837, Del Rio, TN.

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