“A family of artisans potentially making handsome furniture for the Bethesda and Fishing Creek communities….”
City Directories and History: Mr. Allen Knight, son of Moses and Charity Carter Knight, was born 17 November 1770 in Edgecombe County, N. C. The first record of him is found in his father’s will, dated 14 June 1781, no probate date, Edgecombe County. Allen was left 100 acres of land lying on Wolfpit Branch, furniture, 2 negroes at legal age of 21. He was about eleven years old at the time. Allen Knight came to York County, S. C. in 1798 with his future father-in-law, Samuel Foreman. He and Eli Benton Whitaker witnessed an indenture 27 August 1798 between Samuel Foreman and Jethro Parker of Edgecombe County when Samuel sold Parker a tract of land of 350 acres in Halifax County, N. C.
R&R HISTORY LINK: the Early Landowners and Grants on Fishing Creek and Stoney Fork
By December 1798 they were in York County, S. C. where Allen Knight witnessed a deed when Samuel Foreman bought 82 acres of land from James Stallings (Sterling). In a little book called Reminiscences of York. Dr. Maurice Moore tells how a group of people headed by a man named Ward came to York and settled in a community they called “Halifax.” Ward bought a “very fine body of land, lying on Fishing Creek, about four or five miles south of Yorkville. Not long after, a number of families emigrated from the same vicinity in Virginia, and Mr. Ward sold off them small tracts of land, settling them there on little farms thickly around him.” He named the families as being the Wrights, Paces, Foreman, Knights, Edwards, Bensons, Cooks and others. This land lay southwest of Samuel Foreman’s land. Probably all these families were related as it is believed that Samuel’s first wife was a Ward. They did not come directly from Virginia, but had been in Edgecombe County and Halifax County, North Carolina for many years.
The next record of Allen Knight is his marriage to Mary Elizabeth Foreman, daughter of Samuel Foreman, given in the family bible as 9 Sept 1799 which probably took place in York Co., S. C. Deed records show that Allen sold his land in Edgecombe County in 1799 to John Carter Knight and James Benton, his half-brother. On the 10 March 1800 Allen Knight and his brother-in-law Strutton Edwards, leased land from Hugh Neely of York County, S. C. ” . . . some part of tract granted Matthew Neely by the Catawba Nation, left to Hugh Neely, 178 acres on Taylor’s Creek for the consideration of four silver Dollars for 99 years.” Witnesses were John Beard, McMurry and Hugh Neely. Mary, wife of Hugh Neely, signed the release 5 Dec 1800. In deed records of Edgecombe Co., N. C. 22 August 1803, a quit claim to a negro woman in the possession of Adelie Morris was given by Allen Knight, Kindred Knight, Timothy M. Nicholson, James Benton and Charity Benton. Another in 1806 places Allen Knight in Chester County, SC thus identifying him as being of that family. Adley Morris and wife, Mary Morris, gave a quitclaim for a negro in possession of Charity Benton. (There was another Allen Knight, son of Jesse Knight.) In the 1810 Chester County, S. C. Federal Census, Allen Knight was living close to a David Owen, David Owen, Jr., John Owen and two Foremans, Benjamin and William, brothers of Mary Elizabeth. (Was the older David Owen the father of Samuel Tine Owen who married Sarah Ward Knight?)
In the will of Samuel Foreman, dated 16 September 1806 York District, S. C., Mary Knight was listed as daughter and heir. Allen Knight and his wife, Mary Knight, were named in the estate settlement as acknowledging that they received their full amount of willed property—$103.98. Charity Carter Knight Benton, Allen’s mother, mentioned him in her will dated 5 April 1818, but his half-brother, James Benton, received one-third of the whole estate because he had “attended to me and my business.” Allen Knight had left Chester by late 1817 as deed records show that he sold land he bought in November 1801, 400 acres from James Ramsey to James Rainey, December 1817. The first land record for him in Alabama is dated 28 July 1824 in Montgomery County. But he filed a suit with others heirs of Kindred Carter in 1820 against the estate settled made by the administrator, Wilson W. Whitaker. There were still slaves in the possession of Charity Benton that had been willed to her by her father, Kindred Carter, and were to go to her heirs. Since the new administrator had not allotted the shares, the complaint was filed with subsequent sale of slaves and division given. The importance of this bill and answer is that it names the descendants of Sally Pace and other children of Allen’s siblings not heretofore known. (ALLEN KNIGHT By Mary Lee Barnes – Information courtesy of and from: YCGHS – The Quarterly Magazine)
R&R Notes: The S.C. Artisans database lists: Samuel, William, Elijah and James Foreman as local furniture makers in the late 18th and first half of the 19th centuries. It is unclear as to what furniture they produced but there seems to be a link between the Foreman family and several of the families in the region including the Kirkpatrick, Rowell, Sadler and Jones families who owned nearly identical and very handsome walnut trunks dating to the same period and local. Mr. Foreman was a neighbor of the Kirkpatrick family whose descendants have one of these trunks in their home (2017). AFFLLC nor R&R.com can offer definitive proof that the Foreman Family made any of these pieces. Further note that all of these pieces and families lived in or around the upper Fishing Creek – Bethesda Community!
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