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January 27, 2023

Settling the Yadkin – Luke Lee in 1762

On October 14, 1805, at his home in Anderson County, TN, Luke Lee recounted what he knew about the early settlement of the Yadkin River in Wilkes County. On this day he was giving his deposition in the case of the disputed Moravian land that covered 8,773 acres that became Wilkesboro and the surrounding area. The Moravians held documents that clearly showed the land was granted to them in 1752, but they never settled upon it. Meanwhile, ever since 1778, the State of North Carolina had been granting parts of this same land to settlers as if the Moravians had given up or lost the land. The court cases spanned nearly 30 years and provide a treasure trove of information about the growth of the community beginning in the 1760s before there was a local government to document such things.

Dozens of people were questioned, and often they shared information that helps us get to know who these early settlers were. I’ll write more about these other characters in the future, but it only makes sense that we should start by getting to know the man who was first on the scene, Luke Lee.

Luke Lee said that about the year 1762 he first settled the land on the north side of the Yadkin River, opposite the mouth of Moravian Creek. It was vacant land with no other settlers around at the time. However, it wasn’t officially his property. That is, there was no local or state land office from which to purchase vacant land. He simply settled there and claimed it as his own, a common practice at the time.

Location of Luke Lee’s plantation within the bounds of the Lower Moravian Tract.

In the map above, the boundaries of the two Moravian tracts are shown in black. The lower tract, at right, encompasses 4,933 acres surrounding downtown Wilkesboro. Luke Lee’s plantation was at the northern edge of this tract on the north side of a bend in the Yadkin River. This is where Hwy 421 crosses the Yadkin River. Cagney’s Kitchen restaurant is on this land.

From 1761 until 1778, new settlements were made using “ax entries”. This term was used by many of the deponents who were questioned in the court case when they were asked to describe the standard method of claiming land during this period. It likely derived from the use of an axe to cut down trees, build improvements, and cultivate land. The axe might have also been used to chop marks in corner trees to denote the boundaries of the claim.

Part of the deposition of Luke Lee in 1805.

As shown above, Luke Lee was asked how people held their lands back then since there wasn’t a land office, and he answered that they held by an “ax entry and improvement”. He was also asked about the common opinion in the area about the legitimacy of the Moravian claim. He answered that most believed the Moravians had no right to it. This was perhaps wishful thinking by many who already lived on the land and who had the most to lose if the Moravian rights were upheld.

Luke Lee said that about the time he settled on the Yadkin River, a man named William Barton settled on the north side of the river just above Lewis Fork. A year later, William Wilson settled on the south side of the Yadkin River about a half mile below him. All three of them were living on the Moravians’ claim, but they didn’t know it until they heard rumors concerning it in about the year 1764.

Determined to learn more about the situation, he and William Wilson’s son Joseph traveled to Wachovia to meet with the Moravians. He spoke to Mr. Lash and Mr. Dixon who said they had chosen not to claim the land, and that he shouldn’t be uneasy about it. But three years later, he was again at the Moravian town when he was told that they had changed their mind, and that they intended to keep it. But again, they told him not to worry because if they decided to sell, they would offer it to him at a cheap price.

Several times, he offered to buy the land he was living on from them, but they couldn’t arrange a deal. At one time, the Moravian leader who was responsible for the deed was away on business in Europe. A separate complication was that the Moravians insisted that anyone wishing to buy a part of the land was required to purchase a tract that extended from the Yadkin River all the way to the boundary line. Most of the settlers were only interested in buying the more valuable bottom land along the river.

As the years went by, talk of the Moravian’s ownership of the land intensified. When one settler sold his “ax entry” to another, it was often done at a very low price with the stipulation that the land might not actually be theirs to sell. The risk of one day losing their property made many settlers wary of buying. When William Allison gave his deposition in 1806, he said a valuable improvement be bought for a good hound dog!

The risk of one day being evicted from his property and the inevitable law suits convinced Luke Lee to sell his home to James Shepherd in 1778. That’s the year the North Carolina Land Office opened, and James Shepherd was one of the first to enter his claim, doing so in June of that year.

James Shepherd had his property surveyed in 1778, and a grant was issued to him in 1779 for 110 acres.

This was formerly the home of Luke Lee on Saw Mill Creek.

Luke Lee, Pioneer

This is just one of the many stories documented in the court case that provide a “behind the scenes” look at who was living along the Yadkin River in the years before the Revolutionary War. Before finding this, I thought James Shepherd was the first to live at this spot on the Yadkin River, but now it’s exciting to discover that Luke Lee had been there for 16 years prior to that. Not only that, but perhaps Luke Lee was the first long-term settler in Wilkesboro.

Of course, there was Christopher Gist, a scout and surveyor from Maryland, who is said to have lived at this very location in about 1750. He lived on the west side of Saw Mill Creek which is shown by the thin black line running through the Shepherd property in the survey above. Today this is Tucker Hole Branch. But Gist didn’t stay very long, perhaps staying only a few months or perhaps a year. It’s not known exactly when he arrived, but when he returned from an expedition in 1751, his family had fled to Virginia after being scared away by the Indians. If Christopher Gist’s cabin was still standing eleven years later, it’s possible that Luke Lee made that his home when he arrived on the Yadkin River!

I looked online to see if I could learn more about Luke Lee, also sometimes spelled Luke Lea. He might be the man who was born in 1739 in Spotsylvania County, Virginia. One reason to think this is him is that he married Elizabeth Wilson in 1759 in Orange County, NC. Perhaps Luke and Elizabeth moved west to the Yadkin River soon after they were married, and the following year, Elizabeth’s brother or father William Wilson came as well. Luke was a Baptist minister, and he died in 1813 in Louisiana at the age of 74. He was buried nearby in Mississippi.

The tombstone for Luke Lea (1739-1813) marks his grave in Missisippi.

Of all the people I’ve learned about from these court documents, Luke Lee seems to be one of the most practical and level-headed among them based on how he answered questions in his deposition. When others mentioned him in their own depositions, they never had anything bad to say about him. This is in contrast to the characterizations of many others who were involved in the procedings. In future articles, we’ll be introduced to others who were not always on their best behavior, often described as being hot-tempered, deceitful, or greedy.

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