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Wilkes

April 27, 2022

Thomas Thurmond Property

I found this newspaper clipping in The North Carolina Journal dated January 26, 1795. It lists 420 acres for sale on the south side of the Yadkin River by Thomas Thurmond. It was 12 miles below the Wilkesboro courthouse, and this puts it between Roaring River and Ronda on the south side of Hwy 268 in Wilkes County. In fact, this property bordered the west side of the Roundabout Plantation. The clipping uses the "long S" which looks like a lower case letter "f", and that can make it tricky to read.

The North Carolina Journal dated January 26, 1795

The property was described as having soil ideal for planting tobacco, corn, or small grain. The plantation is large enough to work 10 or 12 hands. It included a dwelling house 38' x 18' with good stone chimneys, the hull of a well-framed house 24' x 16', a kitchen, garden, peach and apple orchards with 300 young bearing apple trees! (For reference, the larger house is 684 sf, and the smaller one is 384 sf.)

The land was originally bought from the state by John Payne in 1780. It was known as "Hayes Bottom", and according to the original grant, John Hays had built an improvement on the property. There doesn't seem to be a record of John Hays having officially owned the property, so perhaps he had lived there in the absence of anyone else claiming it.

The highlighted area is the 420 acres sold by Thomas Thurmond to Andrew Bryan in 1800

Thomas Thurmond had bought the northern tract from John Payne, and an additional 200 additional acres on the south side as a state grant. Thomas was living there at the time of the newspaper listing. He soon found a buyer. In 1800 he sold 420 acres to Andrew Bryan (DB D, p664).

The shaded area is the 420-acre tract on the south side of the Yadkin River

Today this land is still fertile farmland as viewed on Google Earth. Thomas Thurmond (born 1743 VA) had a son Meredith Thurmond who married Sally Gwyn in 1807. The two practically lived next door to each other growing up. Sally was the sister of Richard Gwyn (born 1796) who later moved to Jonesville and Elkin where he started the cotton mill on the Big Elkin Creek.

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