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Peter Harllee of Virginia


Table of Contents

Sellers History of Marion County, SC

Gregg's History of the old Cheraws

Harllee Kinfolk





The following information on the branch of the Harley family who changed the spelling of their surname to Harllee is taken from the book:


Kinfolks: A Genealogical and Biographical Record, Vol #1
Prepared and Published by William Curry Harllee
Printed & Sold by Searcy & Pfaff, Ltd.
93 Lafayette Street, New Orleans, LA
1934

Where references to other authors are made, the information will be included as to where this data came from.

I was able to obtain a copy of this book through the lending library program of my local branch library after obtaining information on the book through the New England Historic Genealogical Society's online circulating library catalogue.

I will occasionally add my own comments, which will be included within brackets[...]. Please understand that this information is not from a primary source, and to document its accuracy it is necessary to go to those sources for authentication. However, I have found these family histories to be very useful in pointing the way...





Sellers "History of Marion County, SC"

The sketch of the Harllee family in Sellers (pp. 342-355) as stated therein was furnished by Captain A. T. Harllee. Mr. Sellers was born in 1818, nine years before the death of Thomas Harllee [son of the immigrant ancestor who changed the name, Peter Harley/Harllee]. He knew personally and was contemporaneous with Thomas Harllee's sons and daughters learning first-hand from them their family history. The name, Harllee, is a change in the orthography, retaining nearly the same pronunciation as the original name, Harley, which the ancestor of the Harllees bore.

These descended from a younger branch of the house, which was represented by Sir Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford, during the reign of Queen Anne.

The younger brother, Peter Harley, the ancestor of the present Harllees, espoused the cause of the exiled house of Stuart, and was among those active in attempting to restore the "Pretender" to the throne of England.

A price was put on his head as a penalty of this prominence in the Stuart cause, and he was compelled to remain concealed until his kinsmen obtained for him a pardon from the government; but probably at the suggestion of the Earl of Oxford himself, who was anxious to sever all connection with this affair, the condition of the pardon was that Peter Harley should change his name. He agreed to alter the spelling of the name, but to retain the sound as nearly as possible...so thenceforth he became Peter Harllee1.

Through the patronage of his then powerful kinsmen he obtained an appointment in the British navy for his only son, Peter, who was subsequently promoted to the captaincy of a British man-of-war. [Oxford had no documented brother named Peter. Extensive research to authenticate this was made in the 1920's, without success. It is possible that he also changed his first name in an attempt to further conceal his true identity, which would account for the difficulty in tracing Peter back to the Harley's of England].

It is probable that Peter Harllee escaped to France where the Pretender's supporters were harbored and did not wait to risk a pardon or parley over the terms of it. In a note sent by Miss Netta Peacock, an English Genealogist, to Mrs. White it states:

"M. De Harle in 1740 sought passage from France to Virginia; aboard the Trevor MSS: M. De Harle to Robert Trevor2, 25 March 1740, Maestricht [Holland]"; and further included that he entered a Dutch regiment, but had been obliged by ill health to return to his native air...while conversing with his countrymen [in Holland] he told them he had read an account of the Virginia Colony. He had accepted the commission to go out and examine the land there to see whether it was suitable for settlement. He desired to be naturalized and to have some commission as a King's Officer; and, requested passage on a "man-of-war". He also stated there are already 7-8,000 Frenchmen established on the James River at a place called "Monacan" [Manakintown], who were transported thither by King William. Peter remained in this position until his sixtieth year, when, owing to his failing health and on account of a wound, he resigned his commission, retired on his pension and settled in Virginia, then a British colony, about the year 1758.


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Gregg's History of the Old Cheraws

Bishop Gregg in The History of the Old Cheraws (p. 443) states:

"William Harllee, the first of the name who came to Carolina, was in early life, a captain in the British navy. He took an active part in the rebellion of the Stuarts in 1745, and was forced to emigrate to America. He settled in Richmond County, North Carolina, near the state line. His son Thomas came to Marion about the close of the century, and was the father of the late Colonel David S. Harllee, of Cheraw, and other members of the family, who have been prominent citizens of Marion."

[The inaccuracies here mentioned are not to depreciate from the value of Gregg's work, but rather to prevent confusion, and where Gregg's data is in harmony with that of Sellers, it tends to lend credence to that aspect of the family history].

Bishop Gregg's information of the first Harllee in this country being reputed to have served in the British Navy, and having become involved with the deposed Stuarts, and his family having moved to Richmond County, NC, was gathered prior to 1867 and corroborates information later reported by other sources.

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Harllee Kinfolk

Information that Peter Harllee, under the surname of Harley, served in the British Navy was stated by his widow and by their son, Thomas Harllee, and reliably recorded, as the two previous sources indicate. This information was also passed by Peter Harllee's daughters, Ellen Harllee Adams and Jane Harllee Cottingham to their descendants.

The fact that Peter Harllee did serve in the British Navy seems well established. Diligent efforts have been made to find some official record of it; however, no record of any Peter Harley or Harllee in the British Navy has been found.

The year following Peter Harllee's entrance into the colonies he met and married Jane [aka Anne] Leake, of Goochland County, Virginia. Children born to them were:

  1. Ellen: who married Elias Adams, for whom Adamsville, Marlborough County, Virginia was named
  2. Jane: who married Thomas Cottingham
  3. John: who died young
  4. Thomas: born on 6 January 1767

Anne Harllee McNeill related the following story about her grandmother, Jane Leake Harllee: "She was an old maid and in those days it was quite customary on May 1st to look down the well with a mirror and you would see your future husband. When Jane saw Peter Harllee she said, 'That is the man I saw in the well and I know I shall marry him,' and she did!"

Peter was an educated man, who taught school during the Revolutionary War. It was reported that he died suddenly in his classroom, shortly after the close of the Revolutionary War, leaving his family in impoverished circumstances. In an attempt to improve their situation Thomas petitioned the British Government for his father's pension, which had been discontinued upon Peter's death. This claim was refused on the plea that Peter had been a rebel, thereby forfeiting all claims on the British Government.

After Peter's death, [Peter was alive on 5 October 1784, so it was after this date...p. 176] Thomas moved with his mother and two sisters to South Carolina. He had been taught the rudiments of knowledge by his father, and by continuing to study on his own by fire and candlelight after a full day's work, he mastered reading, writing and mathematics.

Thomas was sixteen years old at the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown in 1781. His father had a contract with the Commissary of General Washington's Army to supply beef, and sent his son along with a few slaves and the herd, to Yorktown. They reached there on the eve of Cornwallis' surrender, which was witnessed by young Thomas.3 Thomas purchased a plantation, which he paid for in silver coin. He engaged in merchandising, and in surveying, as had his father before him. The fact that Peter and then, Thomas were surveyors who owned surveying equipment, lends creedence to the assumption that Peter was 1st a navigator, and then by force of subsequence circumstances became a surveyor. (p. 177)

Thomas told his children that he always attributed the "signal manner in which Providence had blessed his undertakings to his respect and devotion to his mother." She continued to reside with him until her death, at the age of 96 years, in 1810.

Thomas married while young. His bride was Elizabeth Stuart, daughter of David Stuart, who had emigrated before her birth from Scotland to the area in Carolina between Little Pee Dee River and central NC in Richmond County. She had two older brothers, who, with her father, fought through the Revolutionary War.

Before Elizabeth's marriage to Thomas, she was engaged to a young soldier named Haythorne. Haythorne had obtained a short leave of absence to visit his betrothed. While seated at her side, and with the apparent happiness and security of being in the family home, her mother's house was surrounded by a band of Toreys, and young Haythorne was shot dead at her side. The band proceeded to rob the home of what was portable, and to destroy the remaining furniture, then set fire to the house. Mrs. Stuart and Elizabeth escaped from it with their lives.

Young Haythorne's father vowed that he would not sleep under a roof until he had avenged his son's murder. He steadily pursued them, killing them one by one, until the last that remained fled in terror. But, the old man followed, overtaking the last man at a public house in Virginia, and promptly hung him from a gallows.

From the marriage of Elizabeth Stuart and Thomas Harllee were borne ten children:

  1. John: born in February, 1790. John was handsome, bright, and had a sense of humor. He was commissioned in the Army as a Lieutenant in the War of 1812, serving with General Jackson. He then served in Florida with the Seminole Indian uprisings, and was promoted to Captain. He never married.

  2. Anne: married a Mr. McNeill and moved to Alabama.

  3. Elizabeth:

  4. David:

  5. Thomas:

  6. Peter:

  7. Robert: died on 20 November 1872

  8. Harriet:

  9. Lucretia: died in childhood

  10. William W.: A General; died 29 April 1897






1 Those suspected and detected of conniving with the Stuart "Pretender" were not handled softly after 1714, when the House of Hanover came to the English throne. Stuart supporters were hung without benefit of clergy and if they were not of the nobility were then "drawn and quartered".

The House of Hanover, of German origin, descended from George Louis, elector of Hanover, who succeeded to the British crown, as George I, in 1714. The dynasty provided 6 monarchs: George I (reigned 1714-27), George II, (reigned 1727-60), George III, (reigned 1760-1820), George IV, (reigned 1820-1830), William IV, (reigned 1830-37), and Victoria, (reigned 1837-1901). It was succeeded by the house of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, which was renamed in 1917 the house of Windsor.

After the English Revolution of 1688-89, the Act of Settlement of 1701 secured the English Crown to Protestants. It made Anne of the house of Stuart the heir presumptive; and, if she lacked issue, the crown was to go to Sophia, electress of Hanover (and granddaughter of James I), and her descendants. The Electress predeceased Anne by two months, and the crown went to Sophia's son, George I. The 1st two Georges were considered foreigners, especially by many Scots, and in 1715 and 1745 the Stuart claimants...James Edward, the Old Pretender, and Charles Edward, the Young Pretender...vainly attempted to regain the throne.

p. 184 states that Robert Harley was sent by his father to serve under the Prince of Orange.

p. 198 states that Sir Robert Harley's son, Thomas, had a son, Thomas, who was the English Envoy at Hanover in 1714, when his cousin, Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford, was at the height of power in Queen Anne's reign. This Thomas got into difficulty over the Stuart claim to the English Throne.

2 Robert Trevor was the son of the 1st Baron Trevor, and was Envoy Extraordinaire at the Hague in 1740. It is interesting to note that during my researches into the ancestors of my ggg-grandfather, Jacob Harley, of Sandusky, Ohio, it was found that Brilliana Conway, 3rd wife of Sir Robert Harley, was born and raised in the Brill, Netherlands,where her father was Secretary of State, and that the Harleys are said to be descended from William, Prince of Orange.

3 Taken from HARLLEE SKETCH in Sellars' History of Marion County, SC; pp. 342-355.

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Web Author: Dianne Elizabeth, © 1999
Address: P.O. Box 1323; Marysville, Washington 98270-1323 USA
To reach me by E-mail: deharley@yahoo.com

Web Site: Dianne Elizabeth's Family History, Created July 17th, 1999
Page Title: Peter Harllee of Virginia
Page Created: May 27th, 2000
Revised: September 2nd, 2000
URL: http://www.dianneelizabeth.com/Surname/Harley/harllee.html