John Jackson Jeffreys, Sr.

The earliest account of John Jeffreys is in the 1790 census of Orange County, Chatam District, North Carolina. Then in the 1800 census he is listed as living in Buncombe County, North Carolina. John must have moved to White County, Tennessee, around 1801 or 1802. He is listed as paying tax on property in the "falling water" area of White County in 1812 through 1815.

John Jeffreys joined in the War of 1812 as a Private in Captain William Russell's Company of Tennessee Volunteers, Mounted Gunmen, Major William Russell's Separate Battalion. He was mustered into service on September 28, 1814, and served until March 27, 1815. His total amount of pay, according to Company Muster Rolls, was $48.53. He was also paid forty cents per day for the use of his horse.

John moved his family to Alabama soon after the War of 1812, being listed in the 1830 census in Morgan County, and in the 1840 census in Walker County. He is believed to have died between 1840 and 1850. His place of burial is not certain, but family legend has it that he is buried in the Hardshell or Jeffreys Cemetery located off Highway 157 in Lawrence County, Alabama.

William Jeffreys

Williams Jeffreys, second son of John Jackson Jeffreys, Sr., and Deannah, was born in 1796 in Buncombe County, North Carolina. He was described as being five feet ten inches tall, having a fair complexion, auburn hair, and weighing between 160 and 170 pounds.

By 1812, the Jeffreys family had moved to White County, Tennessee where William was drafted into Captain Abner A. Pearce's Company at Sparta in September of 1814. This group marched from Sparta to Fort Williams on the Coosa River where they were stationed for the winter and then returned to Huntsville, Alabama where William was honorably discharged in March of 1815.

On April 7, 1820, William married Malinda Borden in Cotaco (now Morgan) County, Alabama. Malinda was born in Kentucky around 1800. In William's wanderings to find land he liked, he passed through Dallas County. By 1830, he and his father, John Jeffreys, had moved to Morgan County. By 1840, they were in Walker County. William received two Bounty Land Warrants in the amount of 80 acres -- one in 1850 and the other in 1855 -- for his service in the War of 1812. This Bounty Land Warrants are believed to be the reason William moved his family to Marion County, Alabama. William finally settled his family in western Marion County near what was then Barnsville. After the Pension Act was passed in the mid-1850's, William applied for a pension based on his War of 1812 service. The Civil War interrupted his pension. In 1871, with the Civil War over, William reapplied for his pension.

William Jeffreys drew his pension for a few years before he died at age 83 on October 11, 1879. In 1881, Malinda Borden Jeffreys filed for a widow's pension. She died in 1893. Both are buried in Cooper Cemetery, Marion County, Alabama.

Adapted from The Heritage of Marion County, Alabama
© 2000 The Marion County Heritage Book Committee
and A Jeffreys Family
© 1984 Allen Ray Jeffreys