Boring into History, Part II

To be young was very heaven!
      One of the heirs to Joseph Boring’s liberty-loving patrimony was his son Isaac. Born on March 8, 1762, in Orange County, he was an adolescent when his father died and willed to him the family’s grist mill. On March 7, 1780, Isaac married his step-sister Phebe Browning, daughter of his mother’s second husband John and his first wife Elizabeth Demarest. Phebe was born on September 19, 1762, in Essex County on Virginia’s Middle Peninsula. As their marriage in the springtime bloomed the American cause in South Carolina was grievously endangered when Charleston fell to General Henry Clinton and 5,000 Patriots were taken prisoner. The remnants of the army scattered towards North Carolina and were pursued by Charles Cornwallis, now leading the British campaign in the South. At this parlous hour the Continental Congress dispatched General Horatio Gates to the South to conduct a counterattack.

 The Battle of Camden

      The two armies met at the Battle of Camden on August 16, 1780. Isaac fought in this crucial engagement and the preceding skirmish at Little Lynches Creek, having been drafted in early May in Hillsborough. He served as a private in Captain George Oldham’s company of Colonel John Collier’s North Carolina state militia regiment. The force of which he was part formed the center of General Gates’ line, and when the British soldiers attacked with bayonets the militiamen, poorly trained and without bayonets of their own, broke ranks and fled. This implosion allowed Lord Cornwallis to outflank the Patriot forces and inflict one of the worst defeats in the annals of American warfare. In a report about the incident written by Lieutenant Colonel H. L. Landers of the Army War College and printed by the government in 1929, the author concluded:

The mention of it calls to mind the havoc wrought by untrained troops fleeing from a battle field, pursued by the phantoms of terror; troops that were fully expected by their leaders to fight, constituting two-thirds of the Army, terrifiedly rushing from the battle field without firing a shot, before scarcely any of their number were wounded; deserting the regular forces whom they might have protected and from whom protection would have been received. The cowardice of the militia, induced as it was by mob fear, was followed by no miraculous intervention whereby those who held their ground and bravely fought might be saved. The latter, in turn, were also overcome by the enemy. Their gallantry alone could not win victory from a more numerous foe of equal military merit.

Isaac was discharged from his six-month service in South Carolina in November, purportedly due to injury. He made his way back home, to a section subdivided from Orange in 1777 called Caswell County. Lord Cornwallis and the British army ranged through the area in 1781, winning Pyrrhic victories against the Patriot guerillas yet ultimately playing into the hands of General Gates’ replacement, General Nathaniel Greene, and his war of attrition.

When this tired journalist chanced to stop for the night on his return from Hillsborough, he heard from the residents in the area of North Hyco Creek that their sympathies are neither for nor against the new county, as the journey to Hillsborough is not as difficult for them as for some in northwestern Orange (soon to be Caswell). … Yours truly may, in fact have to discontinue his journalistic wanderings in this area, as he feels strongly called to take up arms to assist the Revolutionary Forces in the colonies which are gathering to help defend our infant nation whose independence from the Mother Country was officially declared less than one year ago.

—Joshua Lea, May 1777

      Isaac was probably a yeoman farmer after the war. Phebe had nine children between 1781 and 1801. On March 9, 1783, John Browning, Isaac’s father-in-law and step-father, sold him 400 acres on Storm Creek for £10. On October 10, 1786, Isaac and Phebe sold 100 acres to Nicholas Browning, a relative, for £50. In 1787 Isaac worked on a road crew and also attested to Nicholas’s will when he died. As a Revolutionary War veteran Isaac was granted land in Wilkes County, Georgia, a sprawling precinct stretching west of the Savannah River, and with a cavalcade of extended family relocated there around 1790. As Wilkes was subdivided into smaller counties the Borings found themselves in Greene, where on January 14, 1797, Isaac purchased 136 acres. Then on February 22, 1800, Isaac bought 287 ½ acres in Jackson County, where he would reside for the remainder of his days.
      Among the party who moved from North Carolina to Georgia were Isaac’s mother Susannah and her second husband John Browning, yet they stayed in Greene County when Isaac moved on. John died there on November 18, 1803, and left to his wife the 187 ½-acre plantation, furniture including a feather bed, a slave named Jack, and a bay mare named Bonny. Susannah died in 1812, having over her 82 years come from the coastline of colonial Virginia to the frontier of an independent nation. She left behind the following instructions:

It being appointed that all the human family shall die and being far advanced in years and considerably affected in body, though sound of mind and memory; and being possessed of small property, do make this my last will and testament, viz:

1st My will that my faithful and trusty servant Jack shall have freedom at my death.

2nd My three horses beasts, to-wit, Polly, Bonny, and Snip, three head cattle, that is one, cow and one three year old steer and young heifer, feather beds, bedsteads, sheets, counterpanes, blankets, bed quilts, pillows, coulster, one woman’s saddle, bridle, large jugs, plates, cups, saucers, pitchers, copper coffee pot, skillets, pots, knives and forks, etc. with all the rest of my property shall be divided between my children, Susanna Hart, Isaac Boring, and David Boring. I also constitute my sons Isaac and David Boring my executors. In testimony whereof I set my hand and affix my seal the 18th day of February 1812.

Settling Down at Last

      Isaac Boring brought his family to Jackson County around the same time as arrived a related branch, the Lyles, and the two families settled along the Mulberry River. In 1801 Isaac served as a justice of the peace and owned one slave according to a tax list. On December 12, 1802, he bought 135 acres from George West. According to an 1809 tax list he owned 287 ½ acres. The 1810 census for Georgia is not extant, but the 1820 record shows Isaac’s household comprising just three people and no slaves. In the intervening decade Isaac had sold 50 acres in 1812, bought 428 acres in 1816, and finally sold 234 ½ acres in 1819.

 Georgia in 1823

      In 1827 Georgia held a land lottery in which territory expropriated from the Creek was raffled to white settlers. As a Revolutionary War veteran Isaac was entitled to two drawings, and he garnered two plots of 202 ½ acres each in Lee County, which he left to his heirs. The 1830 census indicates the expansion of Isaac’s fortunes and household: in addition to he and Phebe there appear two younger white people, perhaps grandchildren; twelve slaves; and a free black man over the age of 55. Isaac’s health was already failing, as he made his will on September 14, 1829. He died on May 18, 1831, at the age of 69. His will was proved on June 7 and leaves extensive instructions, some of which I have excised:

I, Isaac Boring Senior of the County & State aforesaid, being of perfect sound mind & disposing memory, and calling to mind the uncertainty of Life, do hereby make my last will and testament, revoking all wills heretofore made by me

Item 1. I resign my body to the grave and my Soul into the hands a gracious God in hope of a glorious Resurrection and everlasting life.

Item 2. I desire that all my just debts be discharged.

Item 3. I give and bequeath to my beloved wife Phebe Boring, all the land pertains to the tract whereon I now reside, including the Plantation and Appurtenances together with all my stock of horses, hogs, cattle etc. And also the following Negroes to Wit, Moses, Jane, Ester, Lewis, Moriah, Reubin, Willis, Caroline, Clarey, Mary and Tilley, during the term of her natural life, with a discretion in her my said wife Phebe, and my Executor hereafter named to sell any of the personal or real property above, specified or implied, at any time they may think proper & best adapted to the interest of the Legatees.

Item 4. At the decease of my wife Phebe Boring, I give & bequeath to my children hereafter named an equal dividend of all my property specified in the above and third Item, or the proceeeds thereof to Wit John Boring, Elizabeth Lyle, Susanna Tait, Robert Boring, Isaac Boring, Phebe Johnson, Having regards to the property already given and for which receipts are taken.

…

Item 10. All the residue of my Estate real or personal to Wit, Two Tracts land in the County of Lee, Two Tracts in the County of Gwinnett, one in Jackson, whereon David Thomas formerly resided & adjoining Waid Station, I give and bequeath to my children & Grand Children under the same Rule & Proportion by which these Several Legacees are herein before regulated. And that my Executors do proceed to sale & dispose of the said lands, as soon as it may be thought by them to be most expediant and conducive to the interest of the respective Legatees, And that distribution of the proceeds therof may be made.

Item 11. It is to be understood as the true intent & meaning of the foregoing Items making distribution of my property between my children & Grand children that each respective family of Grandchildren, are to be entitled to no more than an individual Childs from whom they desended would be entitled, upon an equal division of the whole property. It is also to be understood that by the word appurtenance named in the third Item is intended to imbrace Household & Kitchen furniture, working tools ,. or whatever may be found upon the premises belonging to me.

La Révolution trahie
      Phebe was the widow of a Revolutionary War veteran at a time when, as their numbers dwindled, eligibility for increasingly generous pensions was expanded by Congress. On May 6, 1844, she came before the Inferior Court of Jackson County to avail herself of new provisions allotting pensions to Revolutionary War widows. Phebe conveyed to the judge information about her husband’s service, much of which has formed the basis of this narrative and now comprises part of the Isaac Boring file at the National Archives. Unfortunately the other part of that file is the government’s denial of this octogenarian wretch’s request for an annuity, a mockery of justice scarcely surpassed in the annals of the Nineteenth Century.
      The miserable bureaucrats said they needed “further proof” in spite of the evidence adduced by Phebe: sworn testimony from friends and family including one avowal that she was “a lady whose character for truth and veracity was entirely above suspicion”; appeals from her nephew, a justice of the peace in Forsyth County; and discharge papers from Capt. Oldham. She even tore from her Bible’s pages the family tree containing dates of birth, marriage, and death, and sent them to the miserly potentates who held within their power her economic fortunes. On February 4, 1852, her daughter Phebe Johnson granted power of attorney to a lawyer in Washington, D.C., but what good this did we cannot know.
      The denial of Phebe’s pension under the spurious claim that “further proof” was needed will strike readers as particularly outrageous in light of a story relayed by her great-grandson Isaac Boring Lester. In a letter dated October 12, 1931, to the Commissioner of Pensions in Washington, D.C., he recounts a tale which was passed down through the generations.

The closing line of the letter is a direct question—“was she pensioned”—that echoes through the centuries. Sadly it is too late to right this wrong, but Phebe’s story does not end in complete defeat. On April 27, 1855, at the age of 92, she came before the court and restated her case, this time regarding land bounties of 160 acres that Congress had recently begun granting to Revolutionary War soldiers and widows. Victory was hers at last, and although it was short-lived Reverend (she died on July 30, 1857) Phebe’s tireless efforts vindicated Isaac’s service in the Revolutionary War and serve as an example to posterity.

Tempted and tried, we’re oft made to wonder

Why it should be thus all the day long;
While there are others living about us,
Never molested, though in the wrong.

Farther along we’ll know more about it,
Farther along we’ll understand why;
Cheer up, my brother, live in the sunshine,
We’ll understand it all by and by.

—Reverend W. A. Fletcher