♂John Dillahunty Sr

John Dillahunty, called John Silas Dillahunty in later family trees (8 December 1728 – 8 February 1816) was a Baptist minister in North Carolina who in old age moved with his family to Davidson County, Tennessee, and died in Nashville. He is thought to have been the fourth great-grandfather of Floyd Amatus Delahorne (1922–2014), through his son John Dillahunty (1750–1797).

Origins and marriage

Compiled family histories and a lineage application of 1969 give his birth as 8 December 1728, or in one account 1729, in Maryland, either in Kent County or near Havre de Grace. A history of North Carolina Baptists published in 1930 says only that he was born in Maryland about 1730, while an 1880 history of Davidson County says he “was converted in Virginia, his old home”. No record of his birth is known. The lineage application identifies him as the son John named in the will of Daniel De La Haunte of Kent County, proved in 1748.

The license for the marriage of John “Delahauntee” and Hannah Neal is dated 2 June 1747 in a printed list of Maryland marriages, drawn from a Talbot County register; the ceremony itself is not recorded. A compiled family history gives the date as 4 June 1747. The 1930 history of North Carolina Baptists, whose author believed its sketch of John was based on his own autobiographical notes, says that he had been “bred a Catholic” and that he married Hannah Neal, “a Quakeress”, “in consequence of which both were excommunicated by their churches”. The same history says that both were later baptized by Philip Mulkey, a preacher of the Separate Baptists^W. According to a family history, the couple lived four more years in Maryland and then settled on the Neuse River, about thirty miles from New Bern, North Carolina.

North Carolina

On 18 November 1762 he held a patent for 160 acres on Strawberry Branch near the South West Creek in Craven County; a neighbor’s petition for a resurvey of the land was granted by the Governor’s Council at New Bern. In January 1764 a New Bern newspaper printed a notice by the collector of taxes that he had appointed “Mr. John Dillahunty, one of his Deputies”, to collect the arrears for 1761 to 1763 on a circuit along the Neuse and Trent rivers. The notice gives only the name; it is taken to be his on the place and the date.

The Baptist history says that after his baptism he became a deacon and was licensed to preach, that “John Dillahunty and wife” were among the members who formed the church on Southwest in October 1762, and that he belonged to the church of Trent River from its founding in 1761 and was “its pastor from 1781 until his removal to Tennessee in 1796”. It says he took an active part in the Revolution while still preaching, and that when the Anglican rector, who sided with Britain, fled to England, the vestry gave the parish church and its property to him and his church. The 1969 lineage application describes his service in North Carolina as that of “soldier, chaplain and patriot”.

Published abstracts of Jones County records show a John Dillahunty, Sr., of Jones County buying 350 acres on Vine Swamp at Indigo Branch on 26 March 1788, and selling 475 acres on Vine Swamp on 5 December 1795, in two deeds made the same day. The style “Senior” and the date of the sales, a few months before the move to Tennessee, make him most likely this man. The 1790 federal census lists a “John Delahunta Senior” in Jones County, with two enslaved people in his household; he is taken to be the same man, for the reasons given in the Notes.

Tennessee

A Tennessee historical journal of 1904 says that the members of a church he formed early in 1797 had come with him from North Carolina in March 1796. The 1880 history of Davidson County says that he organized “the first church of any denomination west of Nashville” on the bank of Richland Creek, called it Richland Creek Church, and had the care of it until his death. It quotes a later minister, Jesse Cox, who heard him preach once a month for about eight years: he was “a man of small stature”, “being old, quite feeble”, “not an orator, but sound in the faith, of unblemished character, and commanded large congregations”. The same history’s dates for him, an arrival about 1794 and a death in 1812 or 1813 at the age of ninety-six, do not fit the records.

In his last years his son Thomas looked after his affairs. Thomas’s account against the estate shows that he paid his father’s taxes in nearly every year from 1801 to 1816, bought tea, coffee and sugar for him, and paid ten dollars in postage on his letters up to 1810.

On 31 May 1810 he made his will, signing it in his own hand, and left it for safe keeping with James and Jenny Whitsett. The will John made in 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, and the other two surviving daughters were then Mary Ann West and Hannah Quilling. John, Samuel and Daniel had already been given lands in North Carolina, which the will confirmed to them “as their full share”; Thomas had been given 260 acres there and a further 228 acres obtained through the land office at Nashville. By the will, Hannah was to have the use of the whole estate for her natural life, a life estate^W, with the residue then going to their daughter Hannah Quilling.

The will also disposed of five enslaved people. The boy Stephen went to Thomas’s son John B. Dillahunty; the boy York went to a young son of the dead William, and was to be hired out until that grandson came of age; the woman Venice went to Rachel and her husband; and the child Anny went to Mary Ann West. Of a woman named Dender he wrote that “from her good Conduct in my family I wish to Set free from Slavery at the death of her Mistress”, and he directed that she then live with Rachel and her husband and work for them for her keep.

Death

On 7 February 1816 John signed a deed of gift to their granddaughter Rachael Dillahunty, for her care and tenderness to him and his wife in their sickness, reserving the use of the property to the two of them for their lives. The date of 4 February 1816 given for his death does not fit that deed. A history of the Baptists published in 1848 and a later family history give 8 February 1816, and a 1933 transcription of Tennessee gravestones and the 1969 lineage application give 9 February.

Thomas, as executor, took the inventory of the estate of “John Dillahunty Sr” in February 1816. It lists six enslaved people: Dinda, “very old”; Venus, aged 33; York, 13; Stephen, 10 or 11; and Amy and Lee, “both small children”. The rest was livestock and household goods, among them two cows, a small bay mare, two old plows and “8 or 10 books of divinity”. The will was proved at the April 1816 sessions of the Davidson County court and recorded on 16 May 1816. At the sale of his goods, returned in January 1817, the buyers included Thomas, Silas and Rachael Dillahunty, and Thomas bought “1 Bible & Testament”; no enslaved person was sold.

Hannah outlived her husband by about three months: in his account as executor, their son Thomas entered payments for a “Coffin for Father” and, in May 1816, a “Coffin for Mother”. An 1880 history of Davidson County says that he and his wife “were buried in the same grave”. A family history says both were buried near the little church, and compiled accounts place their graves at Belle Meade. An undated newspaper photograph shows the gravestones of “the Rev. John Dillahunty, founder of the first church west of Nashville, and his wife Hannah” at a Baptist hospital in Nashville, whose new chapel had been named after him.

Notes

No record of his lifetime calls him Silas: his will, the deeds and his estate papers name him John Dillahunty, and from 1788 John Dillahunty, Sr. Silas was the name of one of his grandsons. The line to Floyd Amatus Delahorne runs through his son John Dillahunty (1750–1797) and then through John Dillahunty (1780–1830) of Avoyelles Parish, Louisiana, whose descent from this family is probable but not proved. The will of 1810 names a son John among the sons it treats as living, without saying that he had died, although John Dillahunty (1750–1797) had died thirteen years earlier; the records do not explain this.

The 1790 census entry

The 1790 census names “John Delahunta Senior” in Jones County with two free white men aged sixteen or over, two free white females and two enslaved people in the household. It gives no age and no relationship, only the name and “Senior”. The identification with him rests on fit: the household has no boy under sixteen, which suits an older man, and his sons Samuel and Thomas head their own households on the same Jones County list. The only other John, in Dobbs County, has two sons under sixteen and is the younger man.