Michael,

 

What a great study - my compliments go out to you.  I wish I could tell you that I've stumbled across a gold mine of new Cooley info while processing the loose records of the Stewart County Archives, but I haven't yet.  We are a long ways from finishing the processing of those records, though.  I can tell you that the Cooleys were 'regulars' in the courthouse at Dover, based on the sheer volume of court cases involving them through the 1820s-1840s.  Some of those Cooley cases have many pages to them, so there's a chance that there is new information in them.  But when we process the loose records to make them available for research, we don't comb through every page to glean the info - we read enough of the case to determine the reason for the case, and when the case concluded in court.  If we happen to see a lot of genealogical information in the case file, we will put 'genealogy info' in the online description of the case file.

 

I may be able to add a few more items to your timeline, however, that get William into Stewart County a little earlier perhaps:

 

Minutes of the Stewart County Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions (County Court): 

 

11 June 1805, Hezekiah Boyce vs. Isaac Brunson - "This day comes into court, by their consent their suit is taken out of court, and let to the award of William Cooley, Thomas French, William Haggard and Aaron Fletcher as arbitrators, to settle and adjust all the accounts and disputes between the said Boyce and Brunson now depending in said court. And the said arbitrators come into court and are sworn as such proceeds."

 

10 March 1806 - "William Cooley records his ear mark, a crop and a hole in each ear."

 

William didn't buy his first Stewart Co. land until November 1806, so he must have been living on Gray land until then.  Since he purchased that first land from his father-in-law Joseph Gray, one might assume he was living on that land until he could afford to buy it out-right.

 

 

Jim

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Cooley [mailto:michael@newsummer.com]
Sent: Wednesday, August 29, 2012 12:16 AM
To: scaevolatn@comcast.net
Subject: Cooleys in early Stewart county

 

Hi Jim,

 

I've gleaned a number of things about Cooleys from the Stewart county Genweb page over the last several years. Thank you.

 

In 2006, I guessed that William M Cooley of Stewart county might be the William Matthews Cooley of the 1780s in Stokes county NC. I slowly found records that tracked him from NC to Lincoln and Washington counties KY, and finally to Stewart county in about 1805/6. Last year, a descendant of William's tested his YDNA, which was found to be a match to several descendants of John Cooley of Stokes county NC. We now believe that William was John's eldest son.

 

Here's my timeline for William, as well a lot more data, much of it taken from your pages:

 

http://ancestraldata.com/ahnentafel/256/StewartCoTN.html

 

William's father-in-law was Col Joseph Gray, also of Washington Co KY and Stewart county. He recorded his will in 1812. We've lost track of the Gray descendants.

 

Cornelius Cooley also lived in Stewart county. He died at New Orleans in 1815. It had long been assumed that he was a son of John's, but I now believe it's just as likely that he was a son of William's. It's probable that that question will remain open for a very long time.

 

The John Cooley genealogy had been seriously mucked up for decades. DNA and a fresh look at the genealogical record has straightened a lot of it out. Although the middle part of John's life are well documented in North Carolina, we still do not know the most basic information genealogists

want: his parents, his wife, his place and date of birth and death, although it seems very likely that he died in Casey county KY in 1811.

 

We have recently found one clue regarding John's wife. A book written about the Matthews family states that William Matthews Cooley was a son of a Sarah Matthews. It's more than reasonable considering William's middle name, that the name Mathias and Mathis is found among his descendants and that of his brother James, and that there was a Matthews family in Surry and Stokes counties NC. Furthermore, Cornelius had a daughter named Burnetta Mathews Cooley. But the author of the Matthews book has no idea where she found that information. She thought it came from a book called Maury County (TN) Cousins, but I have looked at it and found no mention of this. So, I guess my request is that you keep an open for a mention of it.

:)

 

In regards to William, we believe that he was the William Cooley who served with Captain James Downing's Company of militia in Lincoln County, Kentucky in 1782. We have found no corroborating information, however.

 

Regards,

Michael Cooley

 

--

Second VP, the Cooley Family Association of America President, the Genealogy Club of Humboldt State University Administrator, the Eldridge Family DNA Project Administrator, the Ashenhurst Family DNA Project (in the works) Administrator, the alt-McDowell DNA Project Co-Administrator, the Cooley Family DNA Project Instructor (upcoming this fall), "Genealogy and Family History" at

  the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) through HSU