♀Hannah Rachel Neal

Hannah Rachel Neal (30 March 1732 – 5 May 1816) was the wife of the Baptist minister John Silas Dillahunty, with whom she lived in Maryland, North Carolina and Davidson County, Tennessee, and whom she outlived by about three months. She appears to have been the fourth great-grandmother of Floyd Amatus Delahorne (1922–2014), through her son John Dillahunty (1750–1797).

Family and marriage

Compiled genealogies give her birth as 30 March 1732 in Talbot County, Maryland, though a 1969 lineage application says Baltimore. Her parents were most likely Francis Wingfield Neal and Ann, members of the Quaker meeting at Third Haven. Two wills of the family, made in 1740 and 1745, both name a daughter Hannah among their children.

On 2 June 1747 John, written “Delahauntee”, married Hannah Neal, according to a printed index of Maryland marriages; a family history gives 4 June. If her birth date is right, she was fifteen when she married, which is young even for the time. A 1930 history of North Carolina Baptists says that John had been “bred a Catholic” and had married Hannah Neal, “a Quakeress”, for which both were excommunicated by their churches. Philip Mulkey, a preacher of the Separate Baptists^W, later baptized them both.

In 1761 the women Friends of Third Haven Monthly Meeting^W produced to the meeting “a testimony against Hannah Neal”, which the meeting approved and signed. A testimony against a member was how a Quaker meeting disowned^W one. The minute does not give the offense, and it is not known whether the Hannah Neal it names was her. By then she had been married for fourteen years, and a family history says she was living in North Carolina.

North Carolina and Tennessee

A family history says that the couple lived four years in Maryland and then settled on the Neuse River, about thirty miles from New Bern, North Carolina.

The family later moved to Davidson County, Tennessee. In his will of 31 May 1810 John left Hannah the use of the whole estate for her life, a life estate^W, with the residue to pass to their daughter Hannah Quilling. The will also wished that an enslaved woman, Dender, be set free “at the death of her Mistress”, presumably Hannah.

Death and burial

John died in February 1816. On 7 February he had signed a deed of gift to their granddaughter Rachael Dillahunty, who had nursed them both, reserving the use of the property to the two of them for their lives. Hannah outlived him by about three months and probably died at Belle Meade, in Davidson County. In the estate account, their son Thomas, the executor, entered a “Coffin for Father” and, in May 1816, a “Coffin for Mother”.

Sources place her grave at Belle Meade, near Nashville. In January 1942 a visitor found two graves on a rounded knoll among ancient trees, surrounded by the graves of other members of the family. An 1880 history of Davidson County says instead that she and her husband “were buried in the same grave”. An undated newspaper photograph shows their tombstones at Mid-State Baptist Hospital in Nashville, where a chapel has been named after John.

Lines of descent

Her line runs to Floyd through her son John Dillahunty (1750–1797) and then through his son John Dillahunty (1780–1830) of Avoyelles Parish, Louisiana. The step from the Davidson County John to the Louisiana John is probable but not proved.

Notes

Birth and parentage

Compiled genealogies give the birth as 30 March 1732 in Talbot County. The 1969 lineage application, made for the Sons of the American Revolution, gives “Baltimore, Md.” for the same date. Its own printed note says that its author was still researching the family, and its references for these generations are to grave markers, church records and a census page, cited without reproduction. It is a lead for the dates, not proof of them.

The parents are named in an abstract of Eastern Shore wills by Christou and Wright, Colonial Families of the Eastern Shore of Maryland, volume 4, pages 180 and 181. The abstract of the 1740 will of Francis Neal names “the other nine of his children: Francis, Anne, Sarah, Susanna, Samuel, Solomon, Fortune, Hannah, Rachel and Johnathan”. It also gives the will of his widow Ann, dated 27 April 1745 and proved 10 May 1745, which names “children Samuel, Solomon, Forten, Hannah, Rachel and Jonathan Neall”. Both wills survive in the Maryland will books, Liber 24. The volume gives Francis’s will as undated and proved 10 May 1745; the will book dates it 13 July 1740. The Hannah of the wills is taken to be the Hannah who married John, on the name, the Talbot family and the dates. The Third Haven registers give no birth for her. The Quaker burial register of Talbot County names a Francis Neall and his wife Ann.

A family history calls her the daughter of “Francis and Ann Ferrell Neal, who were Quakers”. No record confirms the surname Ferrell. No record of her uses the name Rachel.

The marriage

A printed index, Maryland Marriages, 1634–1777, reads “Delahauntee, John, 2 JUNE 1747, Hannah Neal” and points to page 65 of a Talbot County register. The family history gives “June 4, 1747” and says that John “married Hannah Neal of Talbot Co., Maryland, daughter of Francis and Ann Ferrell Neal, who were Quakers”. The 1969 application gives 1747 and no county. The 1930 history of North Carolina Baptists, page 316, names “John Dillahunty and wife” among the members of a church constituted in October 1762. No county is given for the marriage here, because the place recorded for it, Baltimore in Talbot County, cannot be right.

That history, page 305, says that the sketch of John it prints is “clearly based upon autobiographical notes”. Its page 306 says that Hannah and John were baptized by Philip Mulkey.

The minute of 1761

The minute of Third Haven Monthly Meeting reads: “Our Women friends produced to this Meeting A TESTIMONY AGAINST HANNAH NEAL which was approved and Signed in this Meeting”. A testimony of that kind was the minute by which a meeting put a member out. It gives the surname Neal, though by 1761 she had been married for fourteen years, and it does not state the offense. The text of the testimony, which would name the offense, is not known. The same meeting record shows a Francis Neal, an active member in 1761, appointed to oversee another member. He was probably a younger man of the name, since the Francis Neal of the 1740 will had died in 1745.

The will of 1810

The will of 31 May 1810 names nine children: the sons John, Samuel, Daniel, Thomas and William, and the daughters Rachel, Mary Ann, Ann and Hannah. William and Ann had died by then. Rachel had married Joseph Johnson, Mary Ann was the wife of a man named West, and Hannah was the wife of a man named Quilling. The Dender clause is quoted from the original will, which reads “wish to Set free from Slavery at the death of her Mistress”. The will calls her Hannah Dillahunty and lends her the property for her natural life.

Dates of John’s death

Sources differ on John’s death. A date of 4 February 1816 has no source and does not fit the deed he signed on 7 February. The Dillahuntys, page 89, gives “8 Feb. 1816”, and the 1969 application gives 9 February. An 1880 history of Davidson County gives 1812 or 1813, which an estate inventory taken in February 1816 rules out. Each of the three February dates leaves Hannah about three months after him.

Her death and burial

Hannah’s death on 5 May 1816 is given by a Find a Grave index, the 1969 application and The Dillahuntys, page 89. The estate account’s “Coffin for Mother” in May 1816 agrees with it. Belle Meade, in Davidson County, as her place of death rests on a Find a Grave index and Sons of the American Revolution membership applications, both compiled. That same index names the burial place as the Bryan-Dillahunty Cemetery, not Belle Meade, so it does not settle the place. The estate account agrees with the date but does not name a place of death, so the place is probable and not proved.

Burroughs, The Spiritual Conquest of the Second Frontier (1942), describes a visit made on Sunday, 18 January 1942, under the guidance of a historian and genealogist. He writes: “In a cluster of ancient trees on a rounded knoll are the two graves surrounded by the graves of other members of the family”. The 1880 history of Davidson County says: “He and his wife were buried in the same grave, he being ninety-six years old.” A 1991 family history places them in the “Old Dillahunty Graveyard in the ‘Highlands of Belle Meade’ Cemetery”. The Dillahuntys, page 89, says: “Both were buried near the little church. Their tombstones are now under glass in a Baptist building in Nashville, believed to be in Dillahunty Chapel at Baptist Hospital.” A Find a Grave index names the burial place as the Bryan-Dillahunty Cemetery.

The newspaper photograph is undated. Its caption calls John “founder of the first church west of Nashville” and says “The chapel in the new addition at the Baptist hospital has been named after Dillahunty.” A caption is a journalist’s summary, and it is not used for the dates.