Our Golden Family Lines between 1755-1761

Table of Contents

A Probable History of the Golden Family
of Newberry, South Carolina Since 1761
Updated 2023.08.12

 

The individuals below may appear in your DNA matches.  

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INTRODUCTION

The critical years of determining our Golden family’s origin depends in large part on establishing where we existed in the years 1730-1760. We know that we were in Newberry, South Carolina in 1760-1761, but where before that. We know that settlement of the Dutch Fork from Newberry eastward has fairly substantial documentation and there are no Goldens among those foreign settlers in the years 1730-1760. The primary alternative is that we came from other colonies. DNA indicates a heavy influence of Virginia families across our Golden family lines that branched in the 1780s and 1790s.

TIMELINE 

1700 and before:  

~~~ I have tracked every findable Gold- or Gould- en -in -ing -man that appears in documentation as living or arriving in what would become the 13 original English North American colonies. View my Index of Coming to America before 1700 … Needs more effort: I have not done more than minimum effort researching arrivals in Canada and the Caribbean.

1730: 

~~~ Organized foreign immigrant settlement began in the The Dutch Fork region (German People, aka ‘Deutsches Volk’). This is where our family story starts in 1760.

The ‘fork’ also refers to the area between modern Columbia SC and what is eastern Newberry SC, bounded by the Broad and Saluda Rivers. Before 1748, settlement was not further west than the Fairfield area of the Dutch Fork. For whatever reason, Indians, first Americans or native Americans, did not live in this region and settlements were generally secure. Immigrants were primarily Germanic with some Irish and French protestant Christians settling in the Dutch Fork beginning in 1730.

!!!! We know who the names of these immigrants, even the names of family members, because they are very, very well documented. We know the ship names, the day they left Europe, when they arrived, family member names. Some 483 families were imported. No Goldens or any similar name are among the 483 families. However, there was a Swiss immigrant Jakob Gallman, whose descendants later adopted the surnames of Golemon, Golden and Goldman by the mid-1800s — we do have atDNA matches with some Gallman descendants. There are no known yDNA tests of Gallman male descendants. Gallmans are fairly well documented and I have no reason to believe that our Golden male line may descend from the Swiss Gallman family.

 

1740:

~~~ 1744-49 / First known Newberry Dutch Fork settlers. No Goldens … Settlement in The Dutch Fork area reaches the Newberry area. Records are not bountiful, but land records and many colonial government council records exist.

“In attempting to sketch the population of the district in groups before and after the revolution, much must depend upon tradition, … Newberry was settled very much by three classes of people, Germans, Irish, and emigrants from our sister States North Carolina, Virginia, and Pennsylvania.” ^[1]Page 21, The Annals of Newberry in Two Parts, Complete in One Volume, Part First by John Belton O’Neall, LL.D., and Part Second by John A. Chapman, A. M., published at Newberry, SC by Aull … Continue reading The names of the German families are given. The closest to Golden is ‘Gallman’ — we know a lot about the Gallman family and we are not from that line.

as earlier settlement was sparse but land records provide an outline of settlement, when and where. All indications are that we were not immigrants from outside the existing English colonies. Immigrants were well-documented as they were owed two years of colonial government support for reestablishment of their communities. Immigrants were often recruited in groups from communities abroad and replanted in new communities in South Carolina set aside for them.

During 1749, the first settlement of Newberry area was by six individuals: Thomas Baccurst, Benjamin Gregory, Andrew Holman, Johannes Kuntz, Barnard Lavingston, and John Reddy. We have no known kinship with any of these first settlers.

1750: 

~~~ 1758-1808 … Were our Goldens Quakers? No. … Quakers organized very early in Newberry South Carolina … leaving written notes from 1758 and 1759. Quaker congregational ‘meeting minutes’ were like census reports AND the social news of the day. Newberry actually became a regional Quaker hub of life and activity in 1770 when the Bush River Monthly Meeting, in Newberry County was established …  Summary of why important: No Goldens mentioned as Quakers from 1758-1808 … but some of our kinfolk that we intermarried with were. Thomas Golden was also known to interact with land lease to Quaker members in the Milhous family. Religious congregation membership by Quakers are the only known church records that exist prior to 1800 for Newberry. ^[2]Encyclopedia of American Quaker Genealogy, by William Wade Hinshaw, Volume I, about 1936 There was a Baptist church founded at Enoree, Newberry, SC in 1768 but no records survive before early 1830s. There are however two Goldens buried at the Enoree Baptist Church: … William Golden (nee Golding), 29 Jun 1818 – 9 Jun 1861 and Mary R. Golden (nee Hogg), 11 Mar 1818 – 25 Nov 1883, a married couple. ^[3]Enoree Baptist Church Cemetery Memorials; this William Golden/Golding is from the line of Robert Golding, 1778–1828; Robert Golding, 1740–1828; John “William” Golding, 1704–1782.

~~~ 1758-1759: Our Goldens possibly arrived 1758-1759 at the earliest, and 1760 at the latest depending upon perspective. Thomas Golden is first documented at Newberry in late 1761. To establish a farm sufficient to feed his own family with surplus enough to sell to locals he probably needed at least a full year to prepare a homestead, prepare fields, sow and reap. In Newberry Council records, Thomas did not appear in 1760 but did in 1761 when he sold corn to help feed the militia.

 

1760:

~~~ 1760-1761: Assuming Thomas Golden was a competent farmer and followed generally accepted practices of the era for growing corn, he would have planted about March 1761 in order to have fresh corn by June 1761, and dried or milled corn by late summer 1761 — corn in abundance required for him to be documented as selling corn to support the militia in the Indian War during 1761. He is not documented by the Newberry Council as selling it anything during 1760. Why Council documentation matters: payment was essentially by IOU notes with final payment made by the colonial government. Most trade in the region was by barter or money received from export.

Thomas Golden was probably clearing land and preparing for the winter survival of his family on their new homestead during 1760, preparing for 1761’s planting season. We do not know how he came by his land for farming during 1760-1761. He had no land of his own, not unless assigned some temporary land for cultivating. It would not be until 1762 that he requested a land grant as a qualified settler. ^[4]Cultivating Corn during the American Colonial Period, Revolutionary War Journal, November 25, 2013, Life & Times, Harry Schenawolf, https://www.revolutionarywarjournal.com/indian-corn and Corn, … Continue reading Corn was such a staple in the colonial era that it was eaten at every meal. Small individual farmers without slaves or servants barely grew enough for their own consumption. The price received for selling corn varied greatly and was not always a moneymaker. Corn sold for as little as two shillings per bushel in 1751. Newberry was in the backcountry of South Carolina where everyone was essentially a farmer and there was no real market for selling farm produce … although the distraction of the 1759-1761 Indian Wars no doubt took farmers from their fields and created some incentive for growing a bit extra.

~~~ 1762: ‘… the great body of settlers … commenced’ settling Newberry SC in 1762 per O’Neall and Chapman ^[5]Page 28, The Annals of Newberry in Two Parts, Complete in One Volume, Part First by John Belton O’Neall, LL.D., and Part Second by John A. Chapman, A. M., published at Newberry, SC by Aull … Continue reading We already know that our Goldens were in Newberry by 1761, if not 1760. Many of the 1762 arrivals were our documented neighbors in land records of 1763 and onward. Some even intermarried or have unexplained later relationships with our family. Names of these families are provided within O’Neall and Chapman’s book.

1770:

1780:

1790: … Although not written until the 1850s, and not completed until 1902, there is really only one history of the Newberry area from 1790 onward: The Annals of Newberry in Two Parts, Complete in One Volume, Part First by John Belton O’Neall, LL.D., and Part Second by John A. Chapman, A. M., published at Newberry, SC by Aull & Houseal, 1902. ^[6]This book can still be found on Amazon.com and bought, or you can search Archives.org and download a copy for free.

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©2023 William Golden, Norfolk1956@gmail.com // Material may be shared without requesting permission and with appropriate attribution: A Probable History of the Golden Family of Newberry, South Carolina Since 1761, compiled by William Golden