The
tract thus occupied cannot be positively identified, but it lay in
what is now Union County, North Carolina, a few miles from Monroe, the
county seat.
Then came tragedy of a sort in which frontier history abounds. In the
midst of his efforts to hew out a home and a future for those who were
dear to him the father sickened and died, in March, 1767, at the early
age of twenty-nine, less than two years after his arrival at the
settlement. Tradition says that his death was the result of a rupture
suffered in attempting to move a heavy log, and that it was so sudden
that the distracted wife had no opportunity to seek aid from the
distant neighbors. When at last the news got abroad, sympathy and
assistance were lavished in true frontier fashion. Borne in a rude
farm wagon, the remains were taken to the Waxhaw burying ground and
were interred in a spot which tradition, but tradition only, is able
today to point out.
The widow never returned to the desolated homestead. She and her
little ones were taken into the family of one of her married sisters,
where she spent her few remaining years.
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