HADLEY

Hugh and Margaret McCreary were my 5th great-grandparents. The maiden name of Margaret has long been a mystery. Before their appearance in southwest Pennsylvania, solid documentation has been largely absent. My McCreary kinsman, with Hugh & Margaret as Most Recent Common Ancestors with me, has a number of autosomal DNA matches with Hadley people. As do I. Joshua Hadley Sr. (b. 1703, Westmeath Ireland) had a number of kids by 2 wives, & descendants of about half of those kids have atDNA matches with me. Plus a sister of Joshua.

Augusta County Virginia & vicinity was once a place where Hadley ancestors of people who are my atDNA kin were near McCreary people whose descendants are also my atDNA kin. The lands of Joshua Hadley Sr. were near the James River, vicinity of Eagle Rock & Bessemer, current Botetourt County Virginia. From c. 1746 for about a decade. I have autosomal DNA matches from descendants of Joshua’s sister Ruth Hadley Lindley & from descendants of Joshua’s kids Thomas Jefferson Hadley, Simon Hadley, Mary Hadley, Joshua Hadley Jr., Hannah Hadley, & Catherine Hadley Holliday. Too many to be chance, & not apparently connected to me by any other route.

These Hadley lands in current Botetourt County Virginia were upstream on the James River, close to the Looney’s Creek lands of James John Jr. McCreary Jr. (brother of John Andrew McCreary & Agnes Crawford), who was an ancestor of more of my atDNA matches. The few miles separating Hadley & McCreary land in the early 1750s is the closest place & time that I can place these 2 families, both of whom have multiple atDNA matches with me.

Our Hadley males of interest reportedly had yDNA Haplogroup R1b, whose phylogenetic sequence of SNP (Single Nucleotide Polymorphism) markers included a marker for Alpine Celt, & a Terminal SNP (most recently obtained so far in the phylogenetic chain) = BY31340. There are other yDNA kinds of Hadleys who are not even remote kin. See https://www.familytreedna.com/public/hadley/default.aspx?section=yresults

Most of our Hadley people were Quakers. The French & Indian War (from 1755) put the people of Augusta County Virginia vicinity in harm’s way. In 1756, the family of our Joshua Hadley Sr. left this area for a Quaker community at Cane Creek, at Snow Camp in current Alamance County NC. If my 5th great grandma Margaret was Joshua’s daughter, I think that perhaps she did not go to N.C., but was already acquainted with husband Hugh McCreary, who was not a Quaker, & was atDNA kin to several McCreary people in the vicinity of Hadley land in Virginia. I expect that the Quakers expelled her. Hugh & Margaret McCreary likely wed near the end of the war. It is hard to imagine them heading north into danger during the war.

Current Botetourt County Virginia was the site of Captain Audley Paul’s Fort, built in 1757. This may have been the closest refuge for the nearby McCreary kin at Looney’s Creek, & just downstream near the James River. A highway marker is en route to Natural Bridge. Audley Paul was with the Braddock expedition in 1755. Also on this expedition was George Wilson, then husband of Elizabeth "Betsy" Crawford McCreary (yep, ancestor of one of my atDNA matches); daughter of John Andrew McCreary & Nancy Agnes Crawford. After the war, Lt. Col. George Wilson & family settled in southwest Pennsylvania, not far from the future home of my ancestors Hugh & Margaret McCreary in Fayette County Pennsylvania. At one point during the French & Indian War, George Wilson was on a southwest Pennsylvania expedition with an aim of retrieving prisoners of the Indians. It is not clear whether this was in regard to the 2 McCreary boys (John & William; brothers of his wife Betsey McCreary) who had been captured by Wyandot (Huron) & taken to Detroit, as these guys escaped from Detroit in the company of Christopher Gist, in 1759, & made their way to Fort Niagara.

Some Rachel McCreary appears in Quaker records, & may have been a daughter of John Andrew McCreary & Nancy Agnes Crawford. She reportedly married William Jameson, possibly associated with Rockbridge County Virginia, adjacent to Botetourt. The documentation needs verification.

The French & Indian War had a considerable impact upon North Carolina, due to an influx of people escaping the war, & the violence of Cherokee incursions into central North Carolina. This war slowed the development of this colony, & left Britain with a large war debt. Heavy subsequent taxation upon the colonists was a factor leading to the Revolutionary War. Most of the NC Hadley men credited with service in this war were from the line of our Joshua Hadley Sr., but were in largely supportive roles rather than actual soldiers. However, Thomas Jefferson Hadley (1728-1781), son of Joshua Hadley Sr., was a militia captain & Member of the NC Provincial Congress in 1776. Quaker records show him to have been expelled. Thomas was a trader near current Fayetteville NC. His large River Plantation house is long gone. When Tories killed him in 1781, his son Benjamin narrowly escaped. A descendant of Benjamin has an atDNA match with me.