John R. McCoy Sr.
John McCoy was born in South Carolina about 1786. His estate records call him John McCoy and nothing more. The Moriah Baptist church book calls him John R. McCoy Sr., and the tract book has a John McCoy Senr. The R. may belong to his son, John R. McCoy, who administered the estate.
His children were born in South Carolina until about 1829, and his son Robert's children were born in Alabama from 1830, so the family probably came west about then. They settled in Butler County, in the country around Greenville.
The census of 1850 found him at sixty four. Living with him were Mary 45, James 30, Sarah 25, William 22 and Nancy 21, all born in South Carolina, and Frances 13 and Robert 12, born in Alabama. Frances and Robert were children of his dead son Joseph, and in 1858 a Mrs Mary McCoy was their guardian. The Mary in the house was most likely Joseph's widow rather than John's wife. No widow took a share of his estate, so his wife had died before him. Her name is not recorded.
He died between that census and 21 March 1856, when the probate court granted letters of administration to his son John R. McCoy. Letters of administration gave a man authority to settle the estate of someone who left no will, or whose will named no executor. The bond was $5,000, with Stephen F. Gafford and William H. Richards as sureties. Francis Sheppard, John M. Cherson and James Norman were named to appraise what he left.
On 1 December 1856 the administrator sold his land at Greenville, after notice in the South Alabamian. Several tracts in Sections 23 and 24 of Township 11, Range 15 went to Davis F. Gaffney at $7.50 an acre, $2,661.10 in all. The same sale disposed of a person the estate held as property: "Negro boy Neil belonging to the estate of John McCoy," sold to W. J. Geissett.
The final settlement came on 24 May 1858. The administrator was chargeable with $4,134.16, and another $343 that John McCoy had given his children during his life was counted back in. There was also "a land warrant for Eighty acres of land issued to said deceased in his life time which remains in said Administrator's hands undisposed of." Federal acts of 1850 and 1855 gave warrants like that to men who had served in the War of 1812 and the Indian wars, so he was probably a veteran of one of them. His service record has not been found.
He "left surviving him ten children of his own," and two sons, Robert and Joseph, who had died before him, each leaving seven children. The estate went in twelve shares of $328.51. Appearing for their shares were W. J. R. W. McCoy, Miss Tamer McCoy, Mrs Nancy Moseley, Robert Moseley and his wife Elizabeth, James E. Pattillo in right of his wife Jane, Miss Mary C. McCoy, Wiley McCoy and his wife Caroline, Sarah McCoy, Hugh McCoy, and the administrator John R. McCoy. Robert's children appeared, with Patience McCoy as guardian of the three youngest. Joseph's appeared through Mrs Mary McCoy as guardian of Frances, Robert, Thomas, Benjamin and Elisha, and through others living out of state.
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Cite: Heirology, "John R. McCoy Sr. (b. 1786)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/john-r-mccoy-sr-1786-e695f9.