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Hi Gail:
This might help:
A4.1.1 Robert Elgin# was born in Charles County, Maryland in the 1750's, and is another that has been hard to trace.
It is known that he was married three times. Robert is assigned to James based on two very good records, one being the record of Robert and James selling beef to the county of Pr. William, Virginia in 1782 and a lawsuit in Charles Co. Maryland claiming debt and naming Robert and his cousin, William, as defendants. William died and Robert had moved out of the state, leaving William's widow, Alethea, to shoulder the debt to a man named, Robertson.
They lost their property over this debt, William Alexander Elgin being forced to sell his portion of "Batchelor's Agreement".
Robert's father had run out on one of his debts too, leaving a firm in Glasgow, Scotland holding the sack.
Around 1784 5, Robert, as a recent widower, his sisters, Ann and Grace, now married, and his brothers, Alexander and William, all came to the "Old 96th. District" near Abbeville, South Carolina and either bought land or was given bounty land by the Continental Congress. They were also instrumental in establishing the Turkey Creek Baptist Church. Robert and Alexander and his wife, Catherine, being charter members.
Their father, James Jr., is known to have move there too but it appears it was a couple of years later and appears to be gone by 1800.
Robert was a widower with two sons and one daughter when he purchased his farm of 300 acres on Hogskin Creek in 1785 near his brother, Alexander, and a neighbor named William Putman.
William Putman was a man about Robert's age who appears to have been a widower too.
In 1800, William Putman had a young son, named James, a daughter named Nancy and two daughters just over 16, one named Mary, the other named Millie. This family was to be a major factor in Robert's life many years later.
Robert soon returned to Charles County, Md. where he wooed and wed an older widow, Arcajah Louisa Latimer, who was the widow of Benj. Latimer and was the daughter of William McConshie Jr, son of William, the pastor of the Durham Parish Church from 1711 until his death in 1742. She was always called "Cagy". They were married in Durham Church in Charles County, on Aug. 9, 1787 and continued to live there until 1796, when Ann, his brother, William's widow, died in Abbeville. S.C. and the children named Robert as the administrator for her estate. They promptly moved to Abbeville.
With them were Robert's two sons and a daughter plus the three sons and three daughters of Benjamin Latimer.
The names of the Latimer children that came to Abbeville with Robert were: Grace, James, Clement, Catherine, Stephen, and Mary. Clement T. was born in Charles Co. Md. on Oct. 10, 1781 and died April 1, 1855 in Abbeville Co., S.C.
The Latimer children became quite prominent and wealthy, most never moving from South Carolina. The children of Robert and Elizabeth, his first wife are: James, Charles and Elender.
Also with the family were several slaves that had been left to the Latimer children by their father, Benjamin, but with life use to Arcajah. As the husband of Cagy, Robert had control of the slaves.
Robert was a person that trouble seemed to follow for he was sued several times in Virginia but was also sued in Abbeville. He was a member of the Turkey Creek Baptist Church, which he had rejoined in 1803 and was a member for approximately 5 years until booted out in 1808 for taking a young woman down to Greenville in his chaise without Cagy's consent. His excuse was that he had lost all of his affection for his wife.
It appears from records that in 1807, he had taken, Mary, the daughter of William Putman to Greenville, and had gotten her pregnant. William Putman decided to move back to Rutherford County, North Carolina where he had many kinfolks. Robert, meantime, had been called on the carpet by the Church and after three meeting was booted out of membership in early 1808. He said that Cagy was old and infirm.
Robert decided to go with the Putmans, abandoning Cagy, and tried taking the slaves, Phebe and Nell with him.
The Latimer boys thereupon had him arrested in July and he was in jail until August 1808# when he was released on bond but not to leave the state until his hearing in July Court, 1809.
After the hearing, his bond was dismissed then and he won his case by making another bond to return the slaves upon the death of Cagy. His sureties were his brother, Alex and James Shay or James Kay, his brother-in-law.
NOTE JGE: James Kay was his brother-in-law and many researchers state that James Kay signed his bond but to me that signature looks like Shay, but bad handwriting could account for the discrepancy, I suppose.
Again, in the meanwhile, William Putman had died in Rutherford Co. N.C. in 1808 and Mary had delivered a daughter. Robert left for Rutherford County in 1809 after posting the bond. There he lived with the Putmans for many years, fathering several more children with Mary. It appears Cagy died sometime in 1814, as Robert returned the slaves and settled his bond. Robert's son, James and his family, and his daughter, Elender, left for the state of Indiana at this time apparently forever severing their ties to their father. His son, Charles doesn't appear in the 1810 census and is lost to history.
By 1808, Millie had married to Abednego Adams Jr. #This Adams is most probably of the
Charles County Adams family and a kin to Robert. Abednego Adams Sr had lived in Rutherford county from before 1800.
On Nov. 13th, 1816, the heirs of William Putman, including his son, James, his daughter, Nancy, his son-in-law, Abednego and his wife, Millie Adams, the daughter, "Son-in-law" Robert Elgin, and Mary Elgin sold the property# in Rutherford County to John Patterson and promptly moved out of state to Jefferson County, Tennessee as it is known that they were in Jefferson Co. prior to July 1817. There he became associated with James Galbreath, Frederick and Polly Pulse# and Joseph Copeland. The Galbreaths later moved with the Elgin family to Alabama.
Mary and Robert were not really married and the two oldest daughters of this relationship were using the Putman name during this time but the three youngest children were using the Elgin surname.
Robert got involved is several more lawsuits in Jefferson County from 1817 well up into 1825.
Robert appeared in court as next friend, in a divorce suit by Polly Pulse from Frederick Pulse but the suit was evidently dropped and Polly and Frederick sued Robert. The records I have do not give the information on the exact content of the suit or the problem but would be interesting to know.
Some of the children of Robert and Mary were becoming of age so Robert and Mary decided to marry which they did on Sept. 14, 1821.
They continued living in Jefferson County until 1836 when I think Robert died, but have no record at all.
His daughter, Louisa had married about that year and the family had afterwards moved to Red Hill, in Marshall County, Alabama where Mary was living in 1840 but is untraced since. The many children of this couple began showing up in the records and will be given later in this history.
Jim Elgin Park City KS
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