In honor of St. Patrick's day, and in light of recent discoveries that shed light on the paternal Sloan of our line, I present here a collection of materials pertaining to John Sloan of Antrim, Ireland and Laurens, South Carolina--including proof of his connection to to the John Sloan who moved to Indiana, and his participation in the American Revolution.
THE HEADSTONE
John Sloan (14 Sep 1716 – 26 Dec 1829)
is buried in the Ora ARP Church Cemetery in Laurens County, South Carolina, where he moved from Newberry after the revolution.
SACRED
To
the memori of John Sloan who departed
this
life the 26 of Dec 1829
aged
113 years 3 months
and
12 days he was a native
of
Ireland a soldier of 76
he
was a sincear believer
in
Jesus Christ
How
lovely is thy dwelling place
o
Lord of Hosts to me
the
tabernacles of thy grace
how
pleasant Lord they be
James P. Sloan II, John's great-great-grandson, claims in one letter, "He [John] made and engraved his own tombstone, except inscribing the date of death." This seems like one of those claims that sounds interesting but probably isn't true--except that if you zoom in on a photo of it, you see that whoever carved that headstone was by no means an expert.
That sure looks like someone ran out of room for the word "departed," got to "depar," said oh shit, and added a tiny "ted" on top of it. So I'm going to call that story a maybe, leaning toward why not?
ARTICLES ON HIS DEATH
“In Laurens district, on the
25th of December last, Mr. John Slone, in the 114th year of his age.
He was a native of Antrin co., Ireland, a Soldier of 76.”
-
The Charleston Observer, 3 Apr 1830
“In the Bethel churchyard
near Pacolet is the tomb of John Sloan, the grandfather of Capt. J.
F. Sloan [who wrote the Four Stalwart Sons account below]. The inscription upon his tombstone says that he was born on
the 14th of September 1715, and died the 26th day of December 1828,
aged one hundred and thirteen years, three months and twelve days. He
was a soldier of the Revolution, and was taken prisoner at Musgrove
mill, on Enoree River. He was a native of Ireland, but for many years
before and during the war was a resident of Newberry District.
S.C.”
- News and Courier, 5 May 1876
THE FAMILY STORY
“Early in 1700, four stalwart
sons of Erin, County Antrim, Scotch Irish, landed in this country,
and settled in Newberry Dist. They were Richard (Dickie), Archibald,
Robert and John. The last was your g. g.father. … These four
brothers served through the War of Independence. Your g.g.father was
wounded near Musgrove Mill in what was then known. as seige of 96'.
He carried the ball with him through his long life. … I just
remark your g.g.f. was an inveterate pipe smoker and took his toddy
every morning.”
-James Fowler Sloan, Sloan Family Bible,
late 1800s
NEAR-DEATH WAR STORY
 |
| - The Annals of Newberry, pgs 168-169, 1858 |
Interesting to think that if the shooter had aimed better, our whole line of Sloans would not exist, eh?
PRIMARY EVIDENCE OF HIS INVOLVEMENT IN THE REVOLUTION
Here is a bit from the book
South Carolinians In The Revolution. You'll see "Slown or Sloan, Jno..." on the end of the third-to-last and start of the second-to-last lines. (Jno. was short for John.)
 |
-South Carolinians In The
Revolution, 1949
|
And here are two stubs of payment to John Sloan, one of which also explicitly ties him to that regiment:
Up until recently, there was only one strong piece of evidence that this John Sloan of Ireland was the father of the John Sloan II (1793-1854) who moved from SC to Indiana. That was the mention in the Four Stalwart Sons letter where James mentions that John II married a cousin in Newberry with the last name of Sloan and moved to Indiana. Our John Sloan II married a woman from Newberry whose maiden name was Sloan. Not exactly a common thing, right? But still--I wanted more. MORE.
So I followed his path in the census. I was able to track him in Newberry in 1790 and 1800, then Laurens in 1810 and 1820. Then he died in 1829. This matches the account above, which said he was a resident of Newberry first, before and after the revolution, then later of Laurens, where he died and is buried. Now here's the cool part.
In tracking him on the census, my big revelation was to not just look for a "John Sloan," but to pay attention to his neighbors. Since the census taker would naturally write people down as he came to them, and progress around the county instead of jumping from one end to the other, you can be reasonably sure that people listed near each other on the census are neighbors. (Except those like the latter Newberry ones, where some well-meaning son of a bitch decided to alphabetize them.)
Looking at his neighbors in 1790, I made this discovery. Here are the names in their exact order:
*Arch'd
Slone [Father of Margaret Sloan, the Newberry cousin John II married]
Alex Blay
Arch'd Boyd
*Robert
Drinand [Robert Drennan is father-in-law of Archibald Sloan]
James McCart
Wm
Tweede
Joseph
Grante
[next
page]
John B
Mitchell
John
Renard
Joseph
Griffith
John
Johnson
John
Stuart
*John
Stone [Our John Sloan I--it often got written "Stone," in Indiana too]
William Beard
John Willson
*James McNeer
*Thomas McNeer
What's so special about those last two? John Sloan's second wife--the mother of John Sloan II, who John married when she was very young--was
Jennet McNeer! So he either met her here because he lived nearby and (probably) went to the same church, or they lived nearby because he was already married to her. (If John and Jennet married when he was 58 and she 13, then that would make it 1774. Their first child was born in 1786.)
And of course Archibald Sloan and Robert Drennon are the father and grandfather of Margaret Sloan, so this finally ties together the two Sloan families that would combine to form our own. In fact, this seems to make it likely that Archibald really is the brother of John I, and therefore the second of the Four Stalwart Sons. (It seems to me that when James says John II married "a cousin," he could mean anything from first cousin to "we're-related-somehow-I-think." But it is worth noting that John II's sister Mary also married a Sloan, and when James mentioned that marriage, he specified "a Sloan, no kin." So that seems to support Margaret being a literal first cousin.)
If you want further evidence that the John Sloan listed in that 1790 census is our John Sloan 1, here is the full listing, with his family members listed in their respective categories:
Name
|
: John Stone |
Home
in 1790 (City, County, State):
|
Newberry, South Carolina |
Free
White Persons - Males - Under 16:
|
2 [Robert, b. 1787, age 3; David, b. 1789, age 1] |
Free
White Persons - Males - 16 and over:
|
1 [John Sloan I, b. 1715, age 75] |
Free
White Persons - Females:
|
3 [Jennet McNeer, b. ~1761, age ~29; Mary Sloan, b. 1786, age 4; Elizabeth Sloan, b. 1790, age ? months] |
Number
of Household Members:
|
6 |
Conclusive? It's good enough for me. Though I always hope to find more.
One last piece of evidence that this John Sloan and this Archibald Sloan are brothers. In the following account written by Rebecca Boyd Sloan Shands (1858-1933), a great-grandchild of John I, she mentions how the brothers used to center around John, keeping close by:
“It
was law in Ireland at that time that every male citizen must take
Oath of Allegiance to the King of England at the age of twenty[-]one,
and if physically able, serve a stated time (seven years, I think) in
the King's army.
Grandfather John Sloan, the oldest son of
the family refused to do either and his twenty-first birthday drew
near, knowing he must obey the law or go to prison, fled the country
and landed at Charleston, South Carolina, making his way to Newberry
County, later to Laurens County. …
I
have never heard anything about Archie's coming, only he was here and
they were spoken of as being young men together, I do not remember
hearing them speak of Richard at all. For several years they all
lived in the same neighborhood, the younger boys making John's home
headquarters as he was married by this time. They finally scattered.
...
I
find that I have left out one thing, told of grandfather john, but
sorry I am going to spoil a pretty story. It was said he married at
100 years of age and when he started to get married, jumped over his
horse. That is not true, the fact is his second wife outlived him by
several years, and she married an old man by the name of Taylor. He
soon died and she was [a] widow again. Aunt Jane told me that some
such incident happened at his second marriage; some of friends guyed
him about being so old and wanted to help him mount. He offered to
bet he could jump on his horse. Someone took him up and he laid his
hand on his horse's neck and vaulted over, but he was not 100. The
record says he was 56, just the prime of life for him. I don't know
if any such incident every happened or not; but it was told so much
that his grandchildren believed it. There can be no doubt that he was
an unusually strong, vigorous man, although he must have been past
age, the tombstone says he was a soldier of the Revolution. His age
is well established as any fact can be. My aunt, born 1821, told me
she remembered him well.”
-Autobiography
of The Sloan Family by Rebecca Boyd Sloan Shands, early
1900sish
JOHN SLOAN II'S ANTI-SLAVERY "PREJUDICE"
One last thing to cement the connection between John Sloan I and John Sloan II. In the Four Stalwart Sons letter, James mentions that John II, "being prejudiced against our institution of slavery, picked himself up and went to Indiana, Lincoln Co." There being no such thing as Lincoln County, Indiana, it seems reasonable to conclude he confused it with "Clinton County," which sounds quite similar. (And since James was a defeated Civil War soldier talking about anti-slavery sentiment, it may well be a Freudian slip.) So it would be convenient if we had evidence that our John Sloan II might have moved to Indiana to get away from slavery, right?
I'M GLAD YOU ASKED. Because if you'll think back to
my transcription of John II's probate file, which you no doubt read in full at least once, you'll recall that there are receipts from his administrator paying off money John owed for his subscriptions to two periodicals: the
United Presbyterian and Evangelical Guardian and the
Pulpit of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church. Both edited by James Prestley, a South Carolina preacher and scholar who seems to have moved to Ohio, then New York, although I still need to do more deliberate research on him. It sure would be nice to be able to read these periodicals in order to get an idea of their contents, and therefore their reader's sensibilities, right?
I'M GLAD YOU ASKED. Because I did just that. You can read volumes
one through four of the Presbyterian & Evangelical Guardian on Google Books. (Side note: the
other periodical, which is a collection of sermons, includes one written by Rev. Joseph Claybaugh, who is the father of Judge Joseph Claybaugh, who wrote the History of Clinton County, Indiana that mentions John Sloan II. It also has a sermon by a preacher from Newberry.) Below is embedded an editorial piece in the first volume of UP&EG about slavery. It starts midway down page 197 (going by the original book page numbers).
It is a curious document--a strange combination of dated attempts to sound moderate and reasonable intermixed with genuine moral outrage. Overall, it is clearly an adamantly anti-slavery publication. In fact, in the cursory research I did on the editor, I turned up this
letter of support he wrote to Abraham Lincoln on behalf of his congregation. There is a whole fascinating history of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church, The United Presbyterian Church, The Covenenters, the Seceders, and the Scotch-Irish in relation to slavery. Apparently it was not rare at all for such people to move to the frontier both for better opportunities for themselves and to get away from the evil of slavery (though, of course, none of us ever did really get away from it). But I have loads more research to do on that topic before I can say anything interesting about it.
Next post, I will explain how I used a combination of genealogy, old maps, map-warping software, and Google Earth to plot the location of John Sloan I's land in South Carolina!
Next time!
