Ancestors

John Canon

1730-1794
Born 1730
Died 1794
Children include Job

John Canon was born about 1730. His gravestone at Hopewell Presbyterian Church says he died on 19 January 1794 "aged 64 years." Where he was born is not known.

Family letters used in a genealogy of 1959 say his son Job was born in Chester County, Pennsylvania, in 1766. The county's tax lists do not show the family there. The only John Cannon in the lists of 1765 and 1768 is a single man, entered among the "freemen" of East Nottingham township. Pennsylvania taxed freemen, unmarried men with no land, by the head. John Canon was a married man with children by then.

By 9 December 1769 he was settled in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. That day he bought land on Long Creek from John Mitchell, a merchant of Salisbury, for £18 in proclamation money. The tract began at Joseph Cannon's corner and ran along Bradley's line and "Irwin's line." The same day Mitchell sold the neighboring tract to Edward Erwin. Who Joseph Cannon was is not recorded.

He lived the rest of his life near the Hopewell meeting house north of Charlotte, in the Salisbury District. Hopewell was a Presbyterian congregation dating from about 1762. During the Revolution he supplied the American forces. The Daughters of the American Revolution list him as a patriot who "rendered material aid," citing the North Carolina Revolutionary Army accounts.

His wife was Martha. Her stone at Hopewell reads "Martha A. Cannon." They had at least ten children, five sons and five daughters, whom he named in his will.

He made that will on 13 October 1786, more than seven years before he died. In April 1790 he witnessed the will of his neighbor Edward Erwin, whose daughter Margaret married his son Job. He was buried at Hopewell, near his kinsman James Canon, who had died in 1784, and his son Joseph, who died in 1803 aged thirty-four.

Sources

Mecklenburg County will book, pp. 204-205; North Carolina, Wills and Deeds, FamilySearch film 7639804, frame 110, ark 3:1:3QS7-L9GW-BLYF.
C. W. Sommerville, The History of Hopewell Presbyterian Church for 175 Years (Charlotte, 1939), Appendix D, p. 294; archive.org historyofhopewel01somm.
Photograph, Find a Grave memorial 38550244 (contributor Mgreen2, 2009).
Mecklenburg County will book, pp. 94-95, FamilySearch 3:1:3QS7-L9GW-BLKQ.
Mecklenburg County deed book, p. 622, FamilySearch 3:1:3QS7-89D6-F3BF.
Mecklenburg County deed book 1765-1768, p. 584, FamilySearch 3:1:3QS7-99D6-F9Q2-Z.
Will, North Carolina Wills and Deeds, FamilySearch 3:1:3QS7-L9GW-BLYF (film 7639804, frame 110) and 3:1:33SQ-LGHG-33L; C. W. Sommerville, The History of Hopewell Presbyterian Church (1939), Appendix D, p. 294; DAR ancestor A018887; Find a Grave 38550244; Carr P. Collins Jr., The Collins Genealogy (1959), Canon page. Deed from John Mitchell, 1769, Mecklenburg deed book 1765-1768, p. 584, FamilySearch 3:1:3QS7-99D6-F9Q2-Z; will of Edward Erwin, 3:1:3QS7-L9GW-BLKQ; state grant 1794, 3:1:3QS7-9983-ZSPY; Proprietary Tax Lists of the County of Chester (Pennsylvania Archives, 3rd series, vol. 11), pp. 77 and 430.

If John Canon is in your family, start your own tree.

Cite: Heirology, "John Canon (1730-1794)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/john-canon-1730-1794-a2ea8d.