Hadley updates

HADLEY IN ENGLAND    

Gary’s 8th great grandfather Simon Hadley Sr. (d. 1711) was thought to have lived in the West Midlands of England, quite close to where Anne & Gary lived in the early 1990s. Our Hadley line migrated to Westmeath Ireland, then the Delaware Bay area, then to the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, & then to the Cane Creek Snow Camp Quaker settlement in central North Carolina. My 5th great-grandmother Margaret Hadley McCreary settled in southwest Pennsylvania at a site which I have visited. Her name reportedly appears in a McCreary family Bible. A known McCreary cousin and I have autosomal DNA matches with several people reporting Hadley ancestry. 

The common yDNA ancestor for our Anglo-Irish-Quaker Hadley line (with a R1b yDNA marker for Alpine Celt) and Hadley lines still living in England may stretch back to just after 1400 CE, according to Family Tree DNA and the Hadley Society. Google: “Family Tree DNA” and “yDNA Haplogroup R1b R-BY31340” to view a FTDNA formulation ending in “Terminal SNP” = R-BY31340, mutated c. 1750 CE, i.e. within the lifespan of Joshua Hadley Sr. (1703-1760), whom I consider to have been my 6th great grandfather. 

The SNP (Single Nucleotide Polymorphism) mutating prior (“Upstream”) from this “Terminal SNP” (i.e. most recent known mutation) was reportedly a SNP named “R-F26152”, reportedly mutated c. 1500 CE, or sometime prior to the reported 1614 birth of James Jeremiah Hadley, my possible 9th great grandfather.  Go to the Hadley Society main webpage for evidence of an English West Midlands presence of Hadley prior to the migration to Ireland. Oliver Cromwell landed in Ireland in 1649 to re-conquer that nation for the English Parliament. See historyireland.com/shipped-for-the-barbadoes-cromwell-and-irish-migration-to-the-caribbean/  By 1641, Barbados was in English hands. This is an aside, only indirectly relevant to our Hadleys, who had a presence in Ireland then, but were not among those transported to Barbados.  

FURTHER HADLEY MIGRATION

After Ireland, our Hadley line were to be found in the Quaker-settled Delaware River Valley area. The Quaker sections in “Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America”, by David Hackett Fischer gives us a wealth of understanding about the Quakers and their major contributions to America. See especially the section “North Midlands to the Delaware: The Friends’ Migration, 1675-1725”. 

HADLEY, BROWN AND LINDLEY

Joshua Hadley Sr. (1703-1760) had children by at least 3 women: Mary Rowland, Patience Brown, and Margery Lindley. Joshua Hadley Sr. and Patience Brown appear to have been the Most Recent Common Ancestors for my autosomal DNA kit A693287 at GEDmatch and the kit T368143. The shared segment on Chromosome 6 is 18.3 centiMorgans in size and has true triangulation with other kits. There are no apparent alternative explanations to account for this match, which is taken to be genuine Hadley. So far, we have no documentation as to the parentage of our Margaret Hadley McCreary. Existing formulations show that Patience Brown had a paternal aunt named Margery Brown Piggott, and a paternal great-grandmother named Mary Margery. Was our Margaret Hadley McCreary a daughter of Joshua Hadley Sr. and Patience Brown? 

Joshua Hadley Sr. also had a son by Margery Lindley: Joshua Lindley Hadley Jr. (m. Isabella Martin), who had some descendants known to me. This Joshua Lindley Hadley was likely the guy listed as a Regulator in a binder located at the Alamance NC Battlefield Visitor Center; there were at least 2 other North Carolina contemporaries named Joshua Hadley, all 3 credited with Patriot actions during the American Revolution. The Lindley family of Quakers were prominent in the north, and then again in Central North Carolina. 

Of the several kids of Patience Brown and Joshua Hadley Sr. buried in the Quaker Cemetery at Cane Creek Meeting House, Snow Camp NC, I have atDNA matches with descendants of some.

HADLEY IN THE SHENANDOAH VALLEY VICINITY

This is likely the vicinity in which Hugh McCreary and Margaret Hadley married. McCreary and Hadley homes were a few miles apart there. On the accompanying map, McCrearys were at the red marker. Hadley were at Eagle Rock, at lower left. A visit to these locations is planned. 

HADLEY AT CANE CREEK & SNOW CAMP NC

Several Hadley kin were present in this area, now in Alamance County, by the mid-1700s. These Quakers later found themselves embroiled in the events of the Regulators activities & the Revolutionary War. Several Quaker Hadley men took up arms on the Patriot side, and some of their kin were Loyalists. Quakers expelled those who fought for freedom on their behalf. DAR lists a dozen Hadley Patriots for North Carolina, some with the same given names. E.g. three named Capt. Joshua Hadley. Two Thomas, two Simon. The most prominent of all of these was Capt. Thomas Jefferson Hadley Sr. (Gary’s 5th great granduncle), whose son Capt. Joshua Hadley fought at Guilford Courthouse.  The fictitious Thomas Hadley featured in the outdoor drama “The Sword of Peace” fought at Guilford Courthouse, according to the play script. Prior to this war, “Regulators” protested corrupt and exploitive colonial government practices. The “Regulator” James Pugh is a character in “Sword of Peace”. He was a sharpshooter at the Battle of Alamance, 16 May, 1771.  amrevnc.com/battle-alamance/   He was reportedly hanged, but in the play was killed by British firing squad.  

The Quakers living in the Snow Camp/Cane Creek area during the Revolution were put upon by British forces retiring from the Battle of Guilford Courthouse (Mar. 15, 1781), with their army so reduced that they could no longer hope to prevail in the Carolinas. 

British commander Cornwallis (who in 1776 made his HQ in the Flatbush Long Island NY home of my Dutch kin) now in 1781 used as his temporary HQ the home of Quaker Simon Dixon, whose mother Hannah Hadley was Gary’s 6th great grandaunt. OK, Cornwallis, twice is a bit much to impose upon my kin. Quaker livestock were slaughtered to feed the reduced British/Tory army, and church benches became chopping blocks. Brits who died at Snow Camp were interred in the Cane Creek Meeting House cemetery, where there is currently a metal memorial plaque on a stone. British soldiers wounded at Guilford Courthouse reportedly exceeded 400, so the British withdrawal towards their naval base at Wilmington NC would have been slowed. Nathaniel Greene’s army pursued for a while, & later besieged the Brits at the fort at Ninety Six, with the help of another Capt. Joshua Hadley. The British army retreating to Wilmington contained several units of Guards, Germans, American Loyalists, the Legion of the much-hated Tarleton, Welsh Fusiliers, and Frasier’s Highlanders. 

The Brits at Cane Creek/Snow Camp story is part of the Snow Camp Outdoor Theatre (SCOT) drama “The Sword of Peace”, now returned to production after a lapse of a few years. facebook.com/watch/?v=1121325044576996   

HADLEY AND LINDLEY

Hadley people at Cane Creek Snow Camp were either neutral or Patriot, so far as we know. Some Lindley kin of Hadley were Loyalists. The Loyalist James Lindley (b. 1735) was hanged as a traitor on 17 April 1779; he was reportedly buried (the graveyard does not survive intact) in the Old Jail Cemetery at Ninety Six South Carolina.  His mother was Ruth Hadley Lindley, Gary’s 6th great grandaunt. Ruth’s parents Simon Hadley Jr. (b. 1675) & Ruth Keran, Gary’s 7th great grandparents, were the Most Recent Common Ancestors for Gary & an acquaintance who is also in the DNA Working Group of Old Buncombe County Genealogical Society OBCGS.  

Ruth Hadley’s husband Thomas Lindley died on 14 Sept. 1781 at the Battle of Lindley’s Mill, reportedly of a heart attack or stroke when he witnessed family killing each other. Existing working Lindley’s Mill is fairly near the Spring Meeting House of the Quakers. Katie & I met a Lindley descendant at that mill, as well a probable cousin at the Alamance Battleground visitor center, plus Sandi, an actress in the play, also likely a cousin.  Sandi is the SCOT historian & also volunteers at the Burlington NC LDS family research center. 

HADLEY, LAKEY, SPENCER

Simon Hadley (1737-1803; m. Bridget Foote), Gary’s 5th great granduncle, was an ancestor of Gary’s autosomal DNA match Helen, in the AncestryDNA database, with 14 centiMorgans of shared chromosomal segment. Ann Hadley, daughter of Simon and Bridget, married Thomas Lakey. Lakey/Lackey is a surname in the ancestry of a second cousin of my wife Katie. This cousin already had known that she had Quaker kin at Snow Camp. The Hadley and Lakey connection apparently reached back to the Pennsylvania/Delaware/Maryland area. 

Ann Hadley Lakey’s brother Simon Hadley (1766-1831) married Mary Spencer, another surname in the ancestry of Katie’s cousin. The Spencer family were apparently a line of Quaker that migrated to NC from Pennsylvania. 

Katie’s second-cousin’s maternal-line second great-grandparents were reportedly James Atlas Perry and Sarah “Sally” Murray of Chatham County NC.  This couple appear in other online formulations. In one online tree, Sarah “Sally” Murray’s 2nd great grandparents were John Murray (b.1691) & Mary Gordon (b. 1693). John Murray came from Aberdeenshire Scotland. Mary Gordon was reportedly an Ulster Scot (as were our Todds, a sept of Clan Gordon). Mary’s son Robert Murray (m. Mary Lindley) was reportedly a Quaker merchant & her son John (m. Hannah Lindley) was a Presbyterian preacher. 

QUAKER MEETING HOUSES

North Carolina’ Cane Creek Meeting of the Society of Friends begun c. 1751. Simon Dixon had arrived prior to this. Gary’s 6th great grandfather Joshua Hadley Sr. (b. 1703, Ireland) died at Cane Creek in 1760. Plaques honoring him are in both the Cane Creek and Spring meeting house cemeteries. Several descendants of Joshua Hadley Sr. have autosomal DNA matches with Gary or with cousin Rex. 

The current Friends Spring Meeting House, just west of the village of Eli Whitney in Alamance County, is from 1907. These Friends started meeting “by the spring” c. 1761. The adjacent cemetery has sites from the earliest Quaker settlers, some unmarked graves, and 25 graves of people killed at the 1781 Battle of Lindley’s Mill. Tories had kidnapped the Patriot governor of North Carolina, and Patriots tried unsuccessfully to free him from his imprisonment in the Quaker church here. Hadley/Lindley kin fought on opposing sides at Lindley’s Mill, & Thomas Lindley was much distressed & reportedly died of a heart attack. 

HADLEY AFTER THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR

The 1790 census for North Carolina captures 16 Hadley entries. Chatham and Surry counties would appear to capture our closest kin. Some slave-owning Hadleys were in Edgecombe County. 

The Quakers of Cane Creek Snow Camp were part of an Underground Railroad to help escaping enslaved persons. “Pathway To Freedom”, a play by the Snow Camp Outdoor Theatre (founded in 1973), tells the story of these Quakers helping escaping enslaved persons prior to the US Civil War.