As we continue to move toward our nation’s semiquincentennial, I’m still focusing on elements of the Revolutionary War effort of attaining independence and the related contributions and connections of families of the Fork, the Knox County lands between the French Broad and Holston Rivers.
Andrew, James, John, Nathan, Robert, and Samuel Thompson. Were they brothers? Were some of them fathers and sons? Or were they related in some other way? I don’t know, but they knew one another, for sure, because each of them, except for James, rode with James White as part of the mounted infantry of White’s Knox County Regiment. Although James was led by Tedford, all of them served in the Hamilton District militia at some point between 1792 and 1795. They were “ranging” for the protection of the frontiers in the Territory South of the River Ohio, which became the State of Tennessee in 1796.
They were “called into service by His Excellency William Blount” and at different times were individually under leaders named Bogle, Beaird, Tedford, Evans, Singleton, McGaughey, and McClellan. They obviously served in establishing the foundation of our nation, but did any of them serve in the Revolutionary War before it ended in 1783?…