Walter THORNBURGH Jr.

   Another name for Walter was Walter THORNBURY.

  Noted events in his life were:

• Tax List, 1729, Chester County, PA. ¹
The first record, and one of the very few traces that Walter left, was where his name appeared on the 1729 Chester County Tax list. He was listed as an unmarried Freeman living in Bradford Township. Spelling was Thornbury.

Thomas Thornbury
Walter Thornbury X XXXXX

• Tax List: Tobacco Payments, 1744, Frederick County, VA. BEESON, John----------------------------------150
BEESON, William-------------------------------150
THORNBAUGH, Walter----------------------------196

ftp://ftp.rootsweb.com/pub/usgenweb/va/frederick/taxes/1744cler.txt

• Land: 368 acres, 1752, Frederick County, VA.
Walter and many other Quakers moved just over the line into northern Virginia in what is today Loudon County, but was all part of Frederick County at that time. On November 18, 1752, Walter obtained a patent to 368 acres on the North Run of Middle Creek according to the Frederick County, Virginia Deed Book H of Northern Neck Grants. Thomas Thornborough was granted an adjacent plat of 862 acres on the same day.

• Note: possible match in Tax List, 1759, Rowan County, NC. Robt. TATE......Edward TURNER.....George TUREY....Joseph TATE.....Isaac THOMAS.....Jacob TEATER.....Thos. THORNBOUROUGH.....Walter THORNBOUROUGH .....Robt. THOMPSON.....Thos. TURNER.....Joseph THORNBOROUGH.....Joseph THORNBOROUGH.....Wm. THORNBOROUGH.....Sam THORNTON.....Jno TODD, Constable & Nathan TODD.....Thomas TODD.....Roger TURNER, Jr......John TIDWELL...... Edward THORNBROUGH.....
[http://files.usgwarchives.org/nc/rowan/taxlists/tax1759.txt]

• Alt. Death, 18 Feb 1783, Guilford County, NC. Family Data Collection about Walter Thornburg

• Biography: From Deborah Thornsbury. Quaker Migrations:
A second migratory wave occurred between 1714 and 1740, evidently chiefly for economic reasons. The opening up of the interior of Pennsylvania about 1714 contributed, leading to the establishment of more land companies and organized planting of interior settlements. Our ancest Edward Thornbrough was part of this
migration, coming to the Lancaster County area just east of Chester in 1715 on a
certificate from Armaugh, Ireland. The Thornbroughs were a long established and well documented family in England and it is clear that Ireland was merely a stopping place on their escape from persecution in England.
The almost inescapable wealth and prosperity which the Quakers experience in Pennsylvania created problems within their faith. Many left the faith to enjoy their rising prosperity and there is little doubt that the conflict between wealth
and the preferred simple style of living of the Quakers contributed to the pressure
to migrate away from Pennsylvania.
After 1700 huge numbers of Ulster Scots, Welshmen, Huguenots, and Germans streamed
across the Atlantic escaping, wars, famines, persecutions and other intolerable conditions in their home countries. By 1723 they were pushing into Lancaster County. By 1750 most of the land was taken up, as Peter Eichenberg (one of whose
descendants would marry a great granddaughter of Abraham Woodward 120 years later
in Illinois) could obtain land that was only a 100 acre parcel and was "poor, mittling, and stony" according to tax records. He was of the Dunker faith and paid
heavy tax fines because of his refusal to participate in the militia. No doubt this
was also the Quaker experience.
Quakers were established at Monocacy in Frederick County, Maryland, before 1725. An
excellent web site excerpts Pioneers of Old Monocacy by Grace Tracey and John Dern
and tells of the beginning of the migration into Maryland. The Beals were part of
this early migration.
As early as 1730 land pressure and the reaction to rising prosperity that was interfering with religious beliefs pushed settlers further into the Shenandoah Valley, a natural corridor extending through Virginia nearly all the way to North
Carolina. While many settlers braved interior Pennsylvania, especially after the
Revolutionary War, the earliest trend was south. The mountains and the Indians to
the west formed a natural barrier. And well established colonies on the Virginia
coast tolerated the settlers as a buffer against the Indians. Hopewell (or Opeckan)
Monthly Meeting in Frederick County, Virginia, was established about 1735 but settlers may have been there as early as 1730 and would have been holding their meetings for worship. Hinshaw's description of Hopewell Monthly Meeting tells of
the life of the settlers there "the terrain was wild and uncultivated...some seventy families settled themselves in that lovely valley, and that in their thriftiness they had soon created a large community, built houses of logs, set up
sawmills and grist mills and brought about a condition of orderly living..." The
Thornbrough, Mills and Beals families were among these first settlers.
Generally, it was the policy of the Quakers to make sure that land was properly purchased from native inhabitants before settlement occurred but this was not always the case. In 1740 Thomas and Sarah Thornbrugh obtained a certificate from Sadbury Monthly Meeting in Pennsylvania and proceeded to move to the Opechan River area in Frederick County, Virginia. They received grants of land there along with Thomas's nephew Walter Thornbrough. Late in 1756 as the French and Indian War was heating up Thomas and Sarah were forced to leave Virginia and return to Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Walter and son Henry Thornbrough chose to move further south into North Carolina. Thomas died in 1758 and in his will directed "My executors pay unto the Friends of the Meeting of Sufferings in Philadelphia Ten Pounds to be applied by said friends in purchase of the land of the Indians at Pecken." Thomas as a good Quaker tried to
do the right thing.
There were enough families for a monthly meeting to be set up at Cane Creek, North Carolina, in the central part of a large area which comprised Orange County (including present counties of Caswell, Person, Almanace, Chatham and Orange and parts of Rockingham, Guilford, Randolph, Lee, Wake, and Durham). It was authorized under Perquimans Quarterly Meeting on the coast of Carolina in 1751. The request for the meeting indicated there were upwards of thirty families settled in the area. Many of our family names are found there: Summers, Mills, Mendenhall, Thornbrough, Hunt. New Garden Monthly Meeting in Rowan County followed in 1754 as many in that area considered it a hardship to attend Cane Creek meeting; at that time there were upwards of forty families in the Rowan County (including future Guilford and Randolph Counties) area. Again, our family names are prominent: Beals, Beeson, Cook, Hunt, Mendenhall, Mills, Thornbrough, Dicks, Edwards. Hinshaw quotes from Southern Quakers and Slavery: "Of the settlers who formed the New Garden meetings the first to arrive were doubtless the immigrants from Pennsylvania by way of Maryland. They brought the name with them from Pennsylvania. It has always been a characteristic of Quakers to reproduce the names of the sections with which they have been associated in former years..." First settlement was about 1750 and a meeting for worship was allowed by Cane Creek in 1751. It was to this meeting that Abraham Woodward brought his hard won certificate from Pennsylvania in 1765. Settlers from Nantucket Island, Massachusetts, began to join the New Garden settlers about 1771. Migration from the northward stopped abruptly with the outbreak of the Revolution.
After the Revolution the Quakers began to move into the part of North Carolina that would become the future state of Tennessee. Partly it was an effort to escape the evils of slavery, but mostly, since they were still under North Carolina law, it was simply the need to acquire land and the fear that all the good land would be taken up by those who had Revolutionary War land warrants.
When the Northwest Territory (future Ohio, Indiana, Illinois) opened up with the
end of the Indian Wars in about 1814 the Quakers had their first real opportunity to move to a land that was destined to be a free state.
Over the years many of the Pennsylvania families had taken the route to Western Pennsylvania as land opened up there, then on into Ohio and Indiana in the same time frame as those coming up from the south. It isn't clear that some of these families even realized they were related since they were two or three generations removed from their common Pennsylvania ancestors. Woodwards, Newlins and Mendenhalls, among others recombined in the West.
William Wade Hinshaw, in Volume IV of his Encyclopedia of American Quaker Genealogy has an excellent foreward concerning Friends in Ohio, including much history before the main migration began (as early as 1773). He too points out the importance of Quaker ministers in settling new areas.

• See also. http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~rice/master-p/p83.htm#i4918

http://www.billputman.com/Thornburgh.pdf

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~deboyer39/jeans/walter_thornburgh/pafg01.htm

Walter married Margaret BEESON, daughter of Richard BEESON Sr. and Charity GRUBB, about 1737 in Chester or Lancaster County. (Margaret BEESON was born about 1713 in Frederick County, VA and died on 29 Mar 1775 in Guilford County, NC.)

  Noted events in their marriage were:

• Alt. Marriage, 18 Nov 1752.

  Marriage Notes:

http://home.att.net/~rgartee/thornsb/wdthorn.htm

He was married to Margaret on 18 Nov 1752. Walter Thoborough Jr and Margaret had the following children: