Robert Looney
Robert Looney was one of the first settlers on the upper James River in Virginia. Family tradition says he was born on the Isle of Man in the late 1600s. DAR lineage forms repeat it. No record confirms it. One clue comes from his son Peter, who told the London Chronicle in 1757 that he was born in Philadelphia about 1734. That suggests Robert was in Pennsylvania in the 1730s, before he came south.
On 30 July 1742 he patented 250 acres on the James at Looney's Mill Creek, near Natural Bridge. The land lay in Augusta County, which then took in all of Virginia west of the Blue Ridge. Looney family accounts say he ran a ferry at the mouth of the creek, known as Looney's Ferry.
His sons settled around him. In 1753 or 1754 he sent for his son Absalom to come in from the Blue Stone, far to the west, with his family. To make room, he asked his son Daniel to give up his land "in the Draft" in exchange for "the land over the Creek." Daniel agreed, Absalom settled on the Draft, and Daniel later made Absalom a title to it. A draft, in Virginia usage, was a small valley with a stream in it. When Absalom went off to Carolina and ordered his land sold, Robert bought it himself and added it to his own.
On 13 November 1762 Robert and his wife Elizabeth deeded 850 acres "on James River patented to Robert, 30th July, 1742" to John Bowyer. The sale set off a run of family lawsuits in the Augusta County court. Daniel had died, and in September 1763 a bill was filed for his only child, Margaret, an infant. Peter and David Looney sued Robert and Bowyer. The depositions of neighbors in these suits are the records that name Robert's sons. In 1765 Bowyer made conveyances back to the family, and they call Peter, David and Daniel each "son of Robert."
By then Elizabeth was old. The Augusta order book records "Elizabeth, wife of Rob. Looney, aged and infirm," with a commission to take her testimony. A commission let justices hear a witness at home when she could not come to court.
In 1770 the southern part of Augusta became Botetourt County, and the Looney lands fell inside it. Robert made his will on 14 September 1769. He named his wife Elizabeth and his son Joseph executors. He left one shilling to his grandson John Luney. Everything else went to Elizabeth for her life and then to Joseph, "the rest of my children having already got all that I allow to them of my estate." He signed with his mark, "RL." He died between the October court and 13 November 1770, when Joseph proved the will, with Abraham McClelland and John Looney as his securities.
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Cite: Heirology, "Robert Looney", https://heirology.com/ancestors/robert-looney-6fa1d8.