Ancestors
William Harper
1746-1813 · Ireland
Born 1746, Ireland
Died 1813
Children include William
William Harper was born in Ireland in 1746, in County Antrim by his descendants' account. In December 1767 he landed at Charleston on the Earl of Donegal, a ship bringing Ulster Protestants to the South Carolina backcountry under the province's bounty for poor Protestant settlers. A compiler who read the passenger list in the 1960s found him on it single. A Knox family came over on the same voyage.
He took up land in what became the Lancaster District, near the North Carolina line, and married Anne Young, a year older than he was and also born in Ireland. Their son William was born in 1774, and there were at least two more children, Robert and Sarah. In May 1768 he was granted 100 acres on Wild Cat Creek under the bounty. In the Revolution he served in the cavalry under Gen. Francis Marion, the partisan leader the British called the Swamp Fox, for thirty five days in August and September 1781, the weeks of the battle of Eutaw Springs, the last large battle of the war in the Carolinas. That May he had sold butter to the Continental hospital at Camden.
He died on 19 September 1813 at sixty seven and was buried in the Shiloh churchyard near Lancaster. Anne outlived him by twenty eight years. His grandson Robert, writing in 1894, could not say what year his grandfather had come from Ireland, only that it was before the war.
Children
William Alexander Harper (1774-1831)
Sources
Find a Grave memorial 46718725, Shiloh ARP Church Cemetery, Lancaster County, South Carolina, photograph of 2015.
His gravestone, Shiloh ARP Church Cemetery, Lancaster County (Find a Grave memorial 46718725, photograph of 2015). DAR patriot A051113, William Harper. Huey Family History (1963), page 55, with V. Floyd's note on the passenger list. Viola Caston Floyd, Floyd-Ervin Family of Lancaster County (1963), page 22, and Descendants of William Harper, Irish Immigrant to Lancaster County, South Carolina (1965). The Harper stones at Lancaster.
South Carolina Department of Archives and History, Accounts Audited of Claims Growing Out of the American Revolution, file no. 3346, William Harper; indent no. 55, book N. Transcribed by Will Graves, Southern Campaigns American Revolution Pension Statements, SC3611 (revwarapps.org/sc3611.pdf).
South Carolina Department of Archives and History: Colonial Land Grants (Copy Series) vol. 17 p. 183 (S213019001700183000) and p. 242 (S213019001700242000); Memorial Books (Copy Series) vol. 8 pp. 200-201 (S111001000800200003, S111001000800201003); Colonial Plat Books vol. 15 p. 306.
His gravestone, Shiloh ARP Church Cemetery, Lancaster County (Find a Grave memorial 46718725, photograph of 2015). DAR patriot A051113, William Harper. Huey Family History (1963), page 55, with V. Floyd's note on the passenger list. Viola Caston Floyd, Floyd-Ervin Family of Lancaster County (1963), page 22, and Descendants of William Harper, Irish Immigrant to Lancaster County, South Carolina (1965). The Harper stones at Lancaster. South Carolina Department of Archives and History, colonial land grants vol. 17 pp. 183 and 242, colonial plat books vol. 15 p. 306, memorial books vol. 8 pp. 200-201; accounts audited no. 3346, transcribed by Will Graves, Southern Campaigns pension statements, SC3611.
If William Harper is in your family, start your own tree.
Cite: Heirology, "William Harper (1746-1813)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/william-harper-1746-1813-037073.