KIT NUMBER: 62423
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Descendants of Robert Gordon
ROBERT GORDON (1773-1854)
Robert Gordon was born about 1773, probably in North Carolina. He migrated through the Cumberland Gap to Madison County, Kentucky, married there, and moved on to Warren County, Tennessee when he was in his early 30s. He was very probably related to the John and James Gordon who also are known to have moved to Warren County from Madison County. Their lands in Warren County bordered each other, as shown by early plat records. There were two Robert Gordons who lived in Madison County. The other one, a son of Samuel Gordon and who married Mary Kennedy in 1790, is known through DNA testing to be unrelated.
Robert Gordon's birthplace is shown as North Carolina in the 1850 Tennessee Census. However, his oldest son William listed his father's birthplace as South Carolina in the 1880 Census. Robert's younger sons James and Davidson listed his birthplace as Kentucky in the 1880 Census, but his daughter Sally listed it as North Carolina. This conflicting information suggests that Robert Gordon was likely born in the Carolinas and lived in Kentucky before he moved to Tennessee. In the late 18th Century, there were several Gordons living in North Carolina that probably included ancestors of Robert, James, and John Gordon. The locations in North Carolina include Rowan and Iredell counties. The 1790 census for Cumberland County, North Carolina, contains a Robert and a William Gordon.
Some of the North Carolina Gordons who migrated to Kentucky may have also lived in Virginia. Under the primogeniture laws of Virginia, older sons inherited their fathers' estates and younger sons were forced to seek their fortunes elsewhere. As a result, Kentucky became almost as popular as North Carolina in providing a place for these younger sons to migrate. Many settlers bought land cheaply from Revolutionary War veterans who had been awarded western plots in lieu of monetary pay. "The European lifestyle and methods of farming resulted in an economy and population that depended on acquiring new, fertile land to sustain growth. Without rotation of crops or artificial fertilizers, new land had to be cleared for cultivation every seven years." (Clark, 61)
The great migration to the West brought many types of people over the mountains. First came the adventurous explorers, trappers, and hunters. They were followed by surveyors who opened the country to settlement. Later, land squatters began the task of taming the wilderness. They were soon supplanted by speculators who sent agents into the new settlements to buy the small farms and develop large plantations. The squatters were forced to move to new lands and leave the ever-expanding Kentucky settlements to another set of newcomers. For Robert Gordon, the path led southwest from Kentucky, up the Cumberland Valley into new lands that were opening up for settlement in Tennessee.
Robert Gordon lived in Warren County, Tennessee, for most of his adult life, from perhaps 1809 through 1854. His name appears on the Warren County tax lists of 1812, 1836, 1838, and 1854. The county, established in 1807, lies in Middle Tennessee along the western foothills of the Cumberland Mountains. McMinnville, the county seat, is 72 miles southeast of Nashville. The first white settler arrived in the area, then part of the Great Cherokee Nation, in 1800. Within ten years, the fertile county had a population of 5,725. Over the next ten years the population doubled, and by 1830, there were over 15,000 inhabitants. But as people began to move further west, the population receded a bit and then stabilized for the next several decades.
"When the pioneers came to what is now the territory of Warren County, they found the valleys and coves covered with an almost impenetrable growth of tall cane and the mountains and hills with heavy timber. Game was plentiful and many are the stories of exciting bear and deer hunts handed down and now told with keen relish by the sons of the hardy pioneers. The Indians had all been removed prior to that time, yet ample evidence of their presence here at one day remains; the ruins of an Indian village on Woodley Creek in the Seventh District, near John Woodleys old mill site, and an Indian mound of large dimensions on Collins River, in the Sixth District, and numerous other mounds and old burying grounds remaining at present. Among those who secured grants from North Carolina calling for lands in Warren County were ... Joseph Colville, ... Sarah Elam, ... Robert Gordon, ... Edward Hopkins, ... Wm. C. Smartt, ... So far as known, the first man to settle in the county was Elisha Pepper, who came to what is now the neighborhood of McMinnville from Virginia in about 1800." (From Goodspeed's History of Tennessee - Warren County.)
An 1809 land record shows Robert Gordon in Warren County, Tennessee, in a court-filed assignment with a Samuel McPheters. Warren Co. Deed Book A (pg. 385/86), State of Tennessee No. 3277 states in part that "there is granted by the State of Tennessee to Robert Gordon assignee of Samuel McPheters 200 acres in 3rd District (it later became the 9th District) of Warren County on the Collins River. Signed at Knoxville 21 Apr 1812 by Willie Blount, Governor. Reg. 20 Aug 1813." In 1842, Robert also purchased from James and William Elam a farm of 390 acres in the 11th District (it later became the 13th District) located on Barren Fork on the Collins River near the old stagecoach trace that ran from McMinnville to Nashville. Robert then lived on this plot the rest of his life; his wife Sarah (Sally) and two youngest sons, Davidson and James, farmed the original 200 acres.
Robert's age in the 1850 Census is given as 66, which would correspond to a birth year of 1783. The 1840 census shows his age as 50-60, while the 1830 census index also lists him as between 50-60. The 1820 Census shows his age as "45 or over." Thus, the earlier censuses (1820 and 1830) support a birth year between 1770-1775 while the 1840 and 1850 censuses support a birth year about 10 years later. The most authoritative source is a Warren County court record dated September 23, 1843, wherein Robert Gordon states that he is "now old, near or about seventy years of age and somewhat infirm ..." Thus, Robert was most probably born about 1773.
Robert Gordon married Sarah/Sally Robertson (who had a previous marriage to a James McNeely) in Madison County, Kentucky, in 1805. He arrived there several years earlier as part of the great flood of western migration. "The number of Kentuckians nearly tripled between 1790 and 1800. Population grew from 61,133 residents to 179,873." (Purvis, 261) In 1805, Robert would have been 32 years old, so Sally Robertson was not necessarily his first wife; however, his first known child (William) was born in 1810 and his last (James) in 1828. All of his known children were of his union with Sally Robertson. Robert married again sometime after 1843, apparently in 1848.
Robert Gordon lived near McMinnville, Warren County, Tennessee, continuously from the early 1800s until his death in 1854. His name, variously spelled, appears in the following Warren County records:
1812 Tax List (Robert Gorden)
1820 Census (Robert Gordon)
1830 Census (Robert Gooden/Gorden/Gordon)
1836 Tax List (Robert Gordon, 208 acres, 1 slave. William Gordon also listed.) Civil District 9.
1838 Tax List (Robert Gordon, 200 acres, 1 slave. William Gordon is not listed.) Civil District 9. This tract, which was known for many years as the "Gordon Tract," was near Charles Creek.
1840 Census (Robert Gorden/Gordon)
1850 Census (Robert Gordon)
1854 Tax List (Robert Gordin?) Newbys, Civil District 13. This 390-acre tract, on the headwaters of the Barren Fork River would be in western Warren county, west or northwest of Trousdale (once named Jacksboro). Out that way, the two prongs of the Barren Fork (North and South) join.
Robert Gordon is known positively to have had at least two wives. In the 1820 Census (where he is listed as being over 45 years old), the eldest female in the household is between the ages of 26-45. There are seven children, two boys and five girls, with the eldest child being a male 10-14 years old. (William, the eldest, was born June 10, 1810.) In the 1830 Census there are nine children, five boys and four girls. The eldest female is between the ages of 40-50. If the age brackets for this woman (presumably Robert's wife Sarah/Sally) are correct in both censuses, her birth date would be between 1781-1794. Given the 1810 birth date of her son William, it is unlikely that she was born after 1794. In the 1840 Census, only two children, both boys, remain in the family. The eldest female in that census is between the ages of 50-60, consistent with the previous two censuses. The youngest child (James) is 11, which means that his mother Sally was between the age of 39-49 when he was born. If Sally was 40 when he was born (near the end of normal child-bearing age), then she herself would have been born in about 1788, which fits the census records.
In the 1850 Census, there is a marked change. Robert Gordon's wife is only 50 years old. (Her name, like the first, was Sarah. The wife from the previous census, were she living with Robert in 1850, would have been between the ages of 60-70. Furthermore, Robert and the new Sarah have a child, Benjamin, who is 12 years old. (Benjamin is said to have later gone out West, where he was killed by Indians.) This Sarah would have been young enough to have given birth to Benjamin in the year 1847-1848, when she would have been 38, but Robert's wife of the previous census would have been far past child-bearing age by then. Finally, Benjamin Gordon probably was not be the natural child of Robert Gordon because he was already two years old when the 1840 Census was taken, and he was not listed in Robert's family in that census. Thus, it appears from the censuses that Robert Gordon's first wife Sarah, who had borne him at least nine children, died between 1840-1850. Robert then married the second Sarah, who already had a child, Benjamin, who took the surname Gordon. All Warren County marriage records prior to 1852 have been lost, but there is a record in adjacent Cannon County of a Robert Gordon marrying Sarah Hays on January 20, 1848.
One family source of information on Robert Gordon was Gordon Q. Hall of Pueblo, Colorado. Hall was one of Robert Gordon's great grandsons who assembled some family information in the late 1930s, some of it from Robert's grandson Charles Henry Gordon (1847-1940). Hall's grandfather was James Madison Gordon, the youngest natural son of Robert Gordon. G. Q. Hall learned that Robert Gordon had lived in Warren County, Tennessee, but did not know his date of birth, date of death, or the name of his wife. In 1937 he did, however, compile a list of Robert's children, to wit:
(1) Sally Gordon. Married Mr. Smith. Lived in St Louis Missouri (sic).
(2) Jane Gordon. Married Mr. Cusham. Lived in Cape Girardeau County, Missouri.
(3) Patsy Gordon. Married James Walling. Lived in Grapeland, Houston County, Texas, and had several children. David Walling was one of them and his son is Otto Walling, now [in 1937] living in Grapeland, Texas.
(4) Isaac Gordon. Lived in Cape Girardeau County, Missouri; Gordonville, Missouri, being named after him. He had two children.
(5) David Gordon. Came to Missouri with my grandfather [James M. Gordon] and settled later in Houston County, Texas. Married a widow, Mrs. Mobley, who had children by her former husband and none from David. He died some 25 years ago [i.e., about 1911].
(6) William Gordon. Born 1810 in Tennessee. Married in 1835 and moved to Clark County, Missouri. Later, after the war, moved to Paris, Texas, where he died in about 1896. Married Sarah [sic; Susan] Walding [sic; Walling] and had several children [which Hall then listed].
(7) James Madison Gordon. Born Middle Tennessee in 1828. Married in Tennessee in 1852 to Jane Byars of McMinnville, Tennessee. Moved shortly after to Memphis, Scotland County, Missouri, where they raised a large family. He died in 1892; she in 1901.
G. Q. Hall did not list the above names in any apparent order. He also listed two other names, but acknowledged that he was not sure that they were sons of Robert. These two were John Gordon and George Gordon, a soldier in the Civil War who died of smallpox in Georgia. One major item of information that Hall obtained from Charles Henry Gordon was that Robert Gordon's father was named William. C. H. Gordon said that his own father, William G. Gordon, was named after him.
The following information, taken from the 1820-1860 censuses, attempts to correlate the census data with that supplied by G. Q. Hall and other sources. It confirms the identities of many of his children and his two wives.
1820 WARREN COUNTY, TN
Robert GORDON 110001-32010-0200-01
1 male 45 or over (i.e., b. before 1776) Robert (born c. 1783)
1 female at least 26 but less than 45 (i.e., b. 1776-1794) Sarah R. (born c. 1788)
1 male at least 10 but less than 16 (i.e., b. 1805-1810) William G. (born 1810)
1 male under 10 (i.e., b. 1811-1820) Isaac (b. c. 1815)
1 female at least 10 but less than 16 (i.e., b. 1805-1810) Unknown
1 female at least 10 but less than 16 (i.e., b. 1805-1810) Unknown
1 female less than 10 (i.e., b. 1811-1820) Martha (Patsy) (b. c. 1813)
1 female less than 10 (i.e., b. 1811-1820) Sally (b. c. 1816)
1 female less than 10 (i.e., b. 1811-1820) Jane (b. 1817-1819)
1 male slave at least 14 but less than 26 (b. 1805-1820)
1830 WARREN COUNTY, TN
Robert GOODEN (or Robt. GORDEN/GORDON) 20111001-0121001
1 male at least 50 but under 60 (i.e., b. 1771-1780) Robert (b. c. 1783)
1 female at least 40 but under 50 (i.e., b. 1781-1790) Sarah R. (b. c. 1788)
1 male at least 20 but under 30 (i.e., b. 1801-1810) William G. (b. 1810)
1 male at least 15 but under 20 (i.e., b. 1811-1815) Isaac (b. c. 1815)
1 male at least 10 but under 15 (i.e., b. 1816-1820) Unknown
1 male under 5 (i.e., b. 1826-1830) David (b. 1827)
1 male under 5 (i.e., b. 1826-1830) James M. (b. 1828)
1 female at least 15 but under 20 (i.e., b. 1811-1815) Martha (Patsy) (b. c. 1813)
1 female at least 10 but under 15 (i.e., b. 1816-1820) Sarah (Sally) (b. c. 1816)
1 female at least 10 but under 15 (i.e., b. 1816-1820) Jane (b. 1817-1819)
1 female at least 5 but under 10 (i.e., b. 1821-1825) Unknown
3 slaves:
2 females at least 10 but under 24
1 female under 10
1840 WARREN COUNTY, TN
Robert GARDEN (or GORDEN) 00200001-00000001 7-Slaves
1 male at least 50 but under 60 (i.e., b. 1781-1790) Robert (b. c. 1783)
1 female at least 50 but under 60 (i.e., b. 1781-1790) Sarah R. (b. c. 1788)
1 male at least 10 but under 15 (i.e., b. 1826-1830) David (b. 1825-1826)
1 male at least 10 but under 15 (i.e., b. 1826-1830) James M. (b. 1828)
7 slaves:
1 male under 10
1 female at least 24 but under 30
1 female at least 10 but under 24
4 females under 10
1850 WARREN COUNTY, TN 13th Civil District
Robert GORDON 66 (sic) Male Farmer NC (b. c. 1783)
Sarah Gordon 50 Female NC Illiterate (b. 1799-1800)
Benjamin F. Gordon 12 Male Tenn (b. 1837-1838)
1850 SLAVE SCHEDULE, WARREN COUNTY, TN
Robert GORDON - 6 slaves
1 male, 30, Black
1 female, 29, Black
1 male, 12, Mulatto
1 female, 12, Black
1 female, 5, Mulatto
1 male, 2, Black
1850 WARREN COUNTY, TN 9th Civil District
Davidson GORDON 24 Male Farmer Tenn $2000 land (b. 1825-1826)
James GORDON 21 Male Farmer Tenn (b. 1828-1829)
(The two sons may be living on the 200 acres in 9th Civil District for which their father was taxed in 1836 and 1838.)
1860 WARREN COUNTY, TN
Sarah GORDAN 60 Female Housekeeper $1000/$3000 (b. 1799-1800)
The 1850 Census for Clark County, Missouri, shows that Robert's son, William Gordon, 40, and William's two oldest children (ages 12 and 15) were from Tennessee. The rest of William's children (ages 2-10) were born in Missouri. Thus, William and his family must have moved from Tennessee about 1838-1839. After the Civil War, they moved to Texas, where they appear on the 1870 Lamar County Census. The James Gordon family moved to Missouri, where they appear on the 1860 and 1880 Scotland County Censuses. Robert's other children probably moved to Missouri much as reported by Gordon Q. Hall, with some of them later moving on to Texas.
In 1843, at the age of 70 years, being old and infirm and unable to attend to his ordinary affairs, Robert drew up an agreement with a John Hopkins wherein Hopkins would "attend to the personal care and comfort of Robert Gordon during the balance of his natural life." It further stated that his wife Sarah was occupying 200 acres of his land and living separately from him. Robert also listed the following slaves: Harriet, 36; Rose, 18; Jack, 11; Luci, 7; Mariah, 4; and Margaret, 2. However, this agreement never came to fruition. Perhaps it was challenged by his wife or his sons. Or perhaps it became moot by the death of his wife and his remarriage. When his wife Sarah/Sally (Robertson) died in about 1844-1848, Robert married the second Sarah (Hays?), and she and her young son lived with him and cared for him until he died in 1854.
Robert Gordon wrote a will in January 1852, and the will was proven in December 1854, shortly after his death in the late fall of that year. He bequeathed to his new wife Sarah all his property and annual profits to be used for the support and maintenance of herself and family during her widowhood. "At her death or third marriage, I wish my property to be divided equally among all my children except such portion of my estate as the law would entitle my widow to, which in the event of her next marriage she is intitled. I authorize my wife to make advances to my children during her widowhood as she deems reasonable, and any such advancements to be taken into account on the final distribution of my estate." The inventory of Robert's goods and credits included 390 acres of land, 3 slaves: Harriet 51, Juliet 9, Sam 18; 4 horses, 1 buggy, 10 cattle, 11 hogs, 1 ox wagon, 2 plows and gear, 1 bed and furniture, 1 bureaus, 1 cupboard, 1 table and chairs. Kitchen furniture and pots, pans, oven and pot-rack. Notes totaling several hundred dollars owed by several named individuals. Two Railroad Certificates for $26.00 each, $1,000.00 in money in my hands. Respectfully submitted December 19th, 1854."
Modern DNA testing has conclusively linked some of Robert Gordon's 5th generation descendents through his sons William George Gordon (1810-1896) and James Madison Gordon (1828-1892). Additionally, a William G. Gordon born in 1880 in Oran, Missouri, has been shown by DNA to be very closely related to Robert (with one possibility being through Robert's son Isaac Gordon, 1815-1859.)
