One never knows whom he will meet during a simple, holiday outing!
On Friday evening, December 7, 2012, my husband, Doug, and I, accompanied by a few members of my genealogy club, participated in the guided Christmas tour of the Carter Mansion in Elizabethton, Tennessee.
To set the stage for this account, I would like to provide some historical information about this site.
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| An Evening at the Carter Mansion Elizabethton, Carter County, Tennessee |
The Carter Mansion on the Watauga River in Carter County, Tennessee, is the oldest mansion in Tennessee. John Carter of Virginia purchased 640 acres of land in the area, which was known as the “Watauga Old Fields,” where he erected his home between 1775 and 1781. This western frontier was decreed “off-limits” to settlers by King George III in his 1763 Proclamation. However, as we recall, little did the adventuresome pioneers heed this degree. John Carter was a prominent leader in the Watauga Association. This association is recognized as “the first democratic association of free American-born men west of the Appalachians.” After his death of smallpox in 1781, his son, Landon Carter, assumed a leading role in the Watauga Settlement. Carter County was named for Landon Carter, and the town of Elizabethton was named for his wife, Elizabeth MacLin Carter.
The Carter Mansion is part of the Sycamore Shoals State Historical Museum under the Tennessee State Parks. Sycamore Shoals was the site where the Overmountain Men mustered and departed as they marched to Kings Mountain, the site of that epic Revolutionary War battle.
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| Wassail by the Bonfire |
As we were touring the mansion and talking with the re-enactors, to my surprise, my discussion with the docent playing the role of Mrs. John Carter revealed that she and I descend from the same McNeil family of Wilkes County, North Carolina. Immediately, we exchanged our contact information so that we could follow up this brief encounter.
Through our e-mail communications and our Ancestry.com trees, we have determined that we are 6th cousins with our most recent common ancestors (MRCAs) being our 5th great grandparents, Rev. George McNeil and Mary Coats. My newly-found cousin, Linda, descends through George and Mary McNeil’s daughter, Elizabeth who married Robert Bingham, and I descend from George and Mary McNeil’s son, Joseph McNeil and his wife Hanna Wilson.
What a small world! Yet, how exciting!
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Source: "The Carter Mansion, Wilderness Elegance on the Watauga River," Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation, Tennessee State Parks, 2006.
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