William Patterson "Black Bill" McGrew

Notes:

William "Black Bill" McGrew along with his cousin William "Red Bill" McGrew, in their early twenties, had killed two teenage boys in Sumter County, Alabama in 1835. In May, Alabama Governor John Gayle put out an $800 bounty for their apprehension. From the Commercial Register of Mobile:

"Wanted - A Proclamation - On or about the first day of April of the present year [1835], William McGrew and William P. McGrew, in the county of Sumter [Alabama] murdered a couple of boys in the foulest manner, and under the most shocking and aggravated circumstances. The oldest of the lads was 16 or 17 years of age, and his little brother about 11 or 12. Their name was Kemp. They were peaceably at work, earning a subsistence for the indigent family to which they belonged, having given no offence or provocation whatsoever, when they were cruelly shot down at the same time, in a very wantonness of deliberate and cold blooded murder."

Notices of the reward appeared in Mobile, New Orleans, and even in Texas. Soon another reward of three thousand dollars was raised by the citizens of Sumter and Marengo. Published in Mobile, New Orleans and in the Brazoria, Texas Republican 24 October 1835 was this descriptions of culprits:

"William P. McGrew ("Black Bill") is about twenty four years of age, hair a little dark, fair skin and blue eyes; mild, and retiring look when sober; six feet high. William McGrew, ("Red Bill") the cousin of the other, is about 21 years old, red hair, fair skin, eyes between gray and blue, six feet high, down look and forbidding countenance. Both addicted to intemperance."

"Black Bill" McGrew fled to Texas, to a place "about 125 miles from Nacogdoches" where bounty hunters from Alabama " handed a letter, perhaps from some authority in Texas, to a man there by the name of Bowie with the expectation of getting his assistance in the taking of McGrew; but he being the friend of McGrew showed him the letter. The party in pursuit of McGrew immediately became alarmed and fled," according to the Voice of Sumter paper, Nov. 6, 1837. Eventually McGrew was betrayed by a man posing as a friend and turned over to the three bounty hunters. He was returned to Alabama where he escaped from the Mobile jail and was subsequently recaptured by the sheriff in Little Rock, Arkansas. As he was being returned to Alabama, he created such a commotion on board the steamboat trying to escape that the Captain was obliged to put him and the sheriff off at Vicksburg. He was then shackled and the sheriff and a contingent of men delivered him for trial in Sumter County. Tried for murder, he received a $500 fine and one year for manslaughter since evidence proved the Kemp boys had readied guns in an ambush position. In addition, the Kemp boys' mother, who was the only eyewitness, told at least three different stories to different people, and did not fare well under cross-examination. Yet within the year, "Black Bill" died from his prison experience.

http://www.legendsofamerica.com/WE-WilliamMcGrew2.html

Notes:

Wynema McGrew writes that during the Creek Indian War "William, son of John, Sr., was elected lieutenant-colonel in the reorganization of the Militia after the Battle of Burnt Corn. He led an expedition towards Pensacola to meet the Indians and was killed in the skirmish at Bashi Creek in 1813." (pp. 8-9).

William married Nancy Hainsworth. Nancy was born before 1789; and died. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Wynema McGrew writes (p. 10) that Nancy eventually married a Phillips and later took up Thos. M'Gee (sic), who was the murderer of Raleigh Hightower.

http://www.legendsofamerica.com/WE-WilliamMcGrew2.html

"Bill" was only two years old when his father was ambushed, and his mother Nancy Hainsworth McGrew Phillips did not maintain such an honorable family reputation. In the "Voice of Sumter," August 9, 1836, she was denounced by Regulators, as a "Jezebel" for harboring mixed Indians and borderers among her clan, and for aiding and abetting the Kemp-McGrew feud. The article by Louis C. Gaines called for her to be driven from the country, but she said she would "die on the grit." Evidently, she did choose to return to Texas. She had been listed in the failed Wavell's colony in Texas in 1830, causing her to remain in Alabama, but 1850 she was in Leon County, Texas, whether by choice or force is unknown.

Notes:

Wynema McGrew writes (p. 7) that it appears that John McGrew may have been a royalist and left the Carolinas in the mid to late 1770s, moving to the area that became the Mississippi Territory. He received a 1500 acre land grant from the Indians in 1782 and a Spanish land grant in 1787 between the Alabama and Tombigbee Rivers in what is now Alabama.

According to Feldman's ANGLO-AMERICANS IN SPANISH ARCHIVES he was a resident of Tombecbe in 1781 (pg 34) and an American resident of Mobile on January 1, 1786 (pg 27).

In the Rev. Ball's book titled "A Glance into the Great South-East, or, Clarke County, Alabama, and Its Surroundings, From 1540 to 1877" it was noted that "among the laws of 1807 was also an act for laying out a town in Washington county near Fort St. Stephens, (the streets to be not less than one hundred feet wide,) on the lands of Edwin Lewis; John Baker, James Morgan, and John F. McGrew, being appointed commissioners to lay out the town. In the same year the town of Natchez was incorporated----[settlers] came in wagons, through the Choctaw Indian Nation, finding rough roads, and being on the way twenty-five days. They brought with them a drove of three hundred hogs and a flock of about seventy-five sheep. They found cattle already, in Clarke, in abundance, McGrew alone having one thousand head. The nothern part of the county was then covered with cane which afforded excellent pasturage. Deer, and bears, and wolves, elsewhere mentioned, and also catamounts, called panthers, found hiding places in the tall cane. One of the panthers killed by this family measured nine feet from the tip of the nose to the end of the tail. The bears and the yellow and black wolves were destructive to their hogs. Small parties of Choctaws could talk broken English. The Indians, and also the American settlers cut the bee-trees in the woods and obtained wild honey."

The Rev. Ball's book was originally published in Grove Hill, Alabama in 1882. It was reprinted by Photolithography by Willo Publishing Company, Tuscaloosa, Alabama in 1962, and a digital image of this reprint can be found on Ancestry. com at

http://content.ancestry.com/Browse/BookList.aspx?dbid=22977

In his biographical sketch of the McGrew family (pages 347-349), the Rev. Ball wrote that "Two brothers, British royalists, William McGrew and John McGrew, were early settlers on the Tombigbee. They were probably refugees from the Atlantic coast settlement. The two brother have left the reputation of having been fine men and of having become good Americans. The active part taken by Colonel William McGrew in the Indian troubles and his death at the hands of the Indians on Bashi Creek will not be forgotten. It has been difficult to obtain clear and certain trace of the descendants of these brothers. Each seems to have left some sons. Major John McGrew, either one of these brothers or a son, in after years lived near Nanafalia. He was wealthy. His wife was a Miss Caller. It is said of her that she would often swim the Tombigbee on her horse Pomp if the flat boat was not of that side of the river where she wished to cross. Major McGrew of Nanafalia is said to have been an estimable man, spending however considerable money to keep his son out of trouble. The names are preserved of three sons, John, William, and Flood, and two younger sons are mentioned and some daughters. William McGrew and his cousin William McGrew have left an unenviable reputation for recklessness, and for an overbearing, tyrannical, and even cruel disposition. They were known in their day as Red-headed Bill and Black-headed Bill, and many are the reckless and insolent deeds attributed to them in the traditions of this region. Sometimes they met with just punishment. (The scene of the following incident has been placed up the river and on a flat-boat. Where it took place is therefore uncertain. The main facts are quite sure.) One of them, it is said, was one cold morning near the landing at Coffeeville, and a stranger coming to the river, McGrew ordered him to take a bath in the water. The stranger glanced at him for a moment and requested, as the water was quite cold, that he might return to his saddle bags and take a drink of whiskey first. To this McGrew assented, when the stranger, taking out of the saddle bags a pistol instead of a bottle, and again advancing remarked to McGrew that he might now enjoy the luxury of that cold bath. The steadily aimed pistol was a very convincing argument, and quite speedily but very unexpectedly McGrew was in the river while the stranger, pistol in hand, stood on the bank and enjoyed the change of situation and circumstances...

Their bad behaviour was not always so lighthearted. Rev. Ball later writes that "After killing some boys they [the cousins McGrew] disappeared from the community. Their mad pranks and ruthless and bloody deeds to not obscure the virtues of the older and other members of this family, and ever with honor in the history of the Indian War of 1813 the name will live of Colonel William McGrew "

According to THE SOUTHERN McGREWS GREW Red Headed Bill and Black Headed Bill were eventually captured, found guilty, and imprisoned around 1836 in Sumter County, Alabama. "Black Haired Bill" was the son of William McGrew and Nancy Hainesworth. Nancy married James Phillips after her husbands death. "Red Bill" was the son of Major John McGrew, Jr and Caroline A. Caller. John and Caroline became guardians of William and Nancy (Hainesworth) McGrew's son, "Black Haired Bill", when William died. They lived in Washington, Clarke, Marengo and Sumter counties, Alabama in the 1830's.

John married Elizabeth Clark. Elizabeth was born about 1751; died about 1808 in Mississippi Territory. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Wynema McGrew, in her book titled THE JAMES MCGREW FAMILY, 1744-1797(Second Edition, 1999, Hattiesburg, MS), writes that she had made the following TENTATIVE conclusions about Alexander and Margaret McGrew and their offspring, using data collected from a variety of sources (some of which may be considered factual and some speculative).

Alexander and Margaret McGrew may have married in Ireland, and appear to have been the parents of six children, places of birth unknown. They were probably from in or near Omagh City, County Tyrone, Ireland, the McGrew family having come to Omagh City from Scotland before the mid-fifteenth centery. The name McGrew probably originated form the sept of MacGrewar or MacGruer of the Clan Gregor.

Esther McGrew Hardin instead suggested that the family descended from Quaker families originally from Pennsylvania. Many McGrew's can be found in Orange County, North Carolina records. Additionally, in the corner of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Delaware, many members of the Blackburn, Means and McGrew families were all kin.

James Mims, on his online "Digging the Roots of the Mims Family Tree" has a third theory, showing him as Alexander MacGRUER, born 7 Oct 1706 in Iverness, Scotland, and married to Margaret TATE, also of Inverness. Both were shown as dying in South Carolina.

Wynema lists the probable children of Alexander and Margaret are:

1) Mary McGrew b. ca 1737 d. bef. 1776, married Grove YOUNG. [Note: Janice McAlpine (mcalpage@cox.net) emailed that Mary's husband was actually named Legros Young, and that he died on 5 Mar 1878 in Cambden District, South Carolina].
2) John McGrew b. ca 1739 d. ca 1818, married Elizabeth CLARK
3) James McGrew b. ca 1744 d. ca 1797, married Constantia (Constance) TILLET
4) Peter Alexander McGrew b. ca 1745 d. ca 1792, married Margaret McCLAIN
5) Margaret McGrew b. bet 1746-1749 d. ca 1805
6) William McGrew b. 23 Apr 1752 D. 1815, appears to have wed Mary GOODWYN

She noted that on 4 July 1755, Alexander McGrew petitioned for 550 acres of land in South Carolina, and had 11 persons in his household. On 5 August of that same year, a plat for 350 acres of middle ground between Broad and Wateree Rivers was found with a certificate dated 10 Oct 1755.

In his Will, dated 11 Oct 1776, he names five children--four by relationship, James, Peter, William and Margaret, one by implication of relationship, John--and also his own wife Margaret. His will was probated 7 Feb 1977 in Craven District, SC. Alexander does not name Mary as a child. Wynema cites Caroline T. Moore, comp "Abstracts of the Wills of the State of South Carolina 1760-1784" Privately Published, 1969), pg. 292, as her source for this information.

(pp. 2-7)

Alexander married Margaret ???. Margaret was born after 1715; and died. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]