CLAYTON FAMILY MOVES SOUTH 1

 

The Clayton Family Moves South

Although no extant records have been found demonstrating the emigration of the Delaware Clayton family to North Carolina, the circumstantial evidence is convincing. In Kent Co., DE in the first half of the 18th century there were two James Claytons, father and son; Both were thought to have left Delaware. The junior of the two was a blacksmith. Soon after the respective departures of these two men, two corresponding James Claytons, father and son, appeared in Hyde County, N.C. The junior of the two was a blacksmith. Attempts to locate additional evidence of these moves is on-going.

Indirect evidence appears in the coindence of names of some of the Hyde County people with those of Delaware. The most notable of these is the name Stuckberry

Several other names also appear in both locations. Of particular interest are Brooks and Morris.

-----------------------------------

There is a record of a James Clayton in Edgecombe Co. N.C. as early as 1735. He appears on a list of people present in Edgecombe County found among miscellaneous papers in early Edgecombe court files (cited in N.C. Hist and Gen. Register V.2 p 465 1901).

The first reliable records of our ancestor occur in 1744 in the Currituck tax list. In 1745 James Clayton received headrights from William Brooks. The same year a portion of Currituck County, namely the Lake Matamuskeet area, became part of Hyde County.

In 1747 James Clayton made his first application for a grant on Lake Matamuskeet and over the next 15 years he received patents of land along the lake totaling some 3000 acres. When he died he left very little in the way of personal effects. Before he died he had sold a good part of the land he had acquired. In various deeds he is described as carpenter, giner, joiner.

In 1759 and 1760 he sold several tracts of land to James Clayton, Jr., blacksmith. The original James Clayton appears often in Hyde County court minutes: recording deeds, serving as juror, and once as commissioner of the roads on the lake.
(See Land dealings of James Clayton of Hyde.)

James Clayton, Sr. died ca 1760. Many other conveyances were made by James Clayton, Jr.
N.C.Hist.Rev. Vol 47 (1970) p 52 footnote gives Hyde County Deed Book B, 571 (1775) in which James Clayton, Craven County, blacksmith, transferred to John Jones, of the same county, 80 acres on the N side of Aromuskeet Lake. For additional land deals of John Jones in Hyde County see pages 607,782,792,800, 804,891. This suggests that the 1774 deed to Blackledge, Jones, Spencer, and Neale was his first venture into Hyde, Jones had at least two deals with Clayton and very likely took his place as a primary owner of the lakeshore. -------------------------------------
In June of 1762 James Clayton moved in court for an order to sell the goods and chattels of James Clayton, decd. In 1762 James Clayton, blacksmith disposed of 200 acres left from the 1756 grants, claiming it as "lawful heir of my father James Clayton, decd." So far as is known, this James Clayton, blacksmith, and his children were the only descendants of the original James Clayton, the carpenter of Hyde County, originally from Kent Co. DE.

Three people who were later closely associated with James, Jr. in Craven County appear in the Hyde County records:

Francis Delamar was an executor of the will of John Martin in 1737, as was also John Carruthers, Martin's brother-in-law. Wm and Elizabeth Carruthers were witnesses. Years later when James Clayton, Jr. moved to Craven County, he acquired one tract of land from Thomas Delamar and two others from John Carruthers. (In the will Martin mentions his "lower plantation at mouth of Broad Creek", which presumably may be very near the area where James Clayton, Jr. settled in Craven (now Pamlico) County.)

(In 1767 John Carruthers , (husband of Patti Carraway), purchased two tracts from John Moore on the Lower Broad and almost immediately sold them to James Clayton for the same price. It thus appears he was acting as agent for one or both. Was this John Moore part of the family of Ann Moore, who had married William Carraway? one tract was on the N side of Lower Broad, and the other on the south side of the head of Lower Broad, said to be John Moore's 1730 patent.)