John McGrew

Abt 1739 - Abt 1818  (~ 79 years)

• Name	John McGrew  [1, 2]
  Birth	Abt 1739  [2]
  Gender	Male
  Death	Abt 1818	Alabama   [2]
  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.
  Person ID	I2505	Strong Family Tree
  Last Modified	17 Aug 2014

  
  

  Father	Alexander McGrew,   b. Bef 1715   d. Aft 11 Oct 1776, South Carolina (Age ~ 61 years)
  Mother	Margaret ???,   b. Aft 1715   d. Yes, date unknown
  Family ID	F1378	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

  Family	Elizabeth Clark,   b. Abt 1751   d. Abt 1808, Mississippi Territory (Age ~ 57 years)
  Marriage	Y  [2]
  Children	1. William McGrew,   b. Bef 1788, Mississippi Territory d. 1813, Clarke County, Alabama (Age ~ 25 years)   2. John McGrew, Jr.,   b. Bef 1788, Mississippi Territory d. Abt 1842, Republic Of Texas (Age ~ 54 years)
  Family ID	F1591	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
  Last Modified	17 Jul 2014

  
  

• Event Map		Death - Abt 1818 - Alabama  = Link to Google Earth
  Pin Legend	: Address       : Location       : City/Town       : County/Shire       : State/Province       : Country       : Not Set

  
  

• Sources

  [S89] Feldman, Lawrence ANGLO-AMERICANS IN SPANISH ARCHIVES (Genealogy Publishing Company, Baltimore, MD, 1991). [S202] McGrew, Wynema THE JAMES McGREW FAMILY (1744-1797) Second Edition, 1999, p. 7 (Reliability: 3).