The Ancestors of George Frank Graddy

My second great grandparents, Laura Jane Estes and George Frank Graddy

84.6% confirmed English or likely to be English

8.2% Scottish

7% Irish

0.2% Dutch

0.003% Italian

George Frank Graddy is the grandfather of my own grandpa Graddy, and to find any immigrants in his ancestry, you have to go extremely far back. In fact, in some cases you can go back about 350 years to the end of a traceable line, and you’re still on this side of the Atlantic. That includes George Jordan II, the fourth great grandfather of George Frank Graddy’s maternal grandmother, Nancy Jordan.

George Jordan II was born in 1678 in Surry County, Virginia, just across the James River from Jamestown. Though no one seems to be 100% sure where he came from, there are a couple of possibilities. One is a man named Samuel Jordan who migrated in 1610 from England to Jamestown, where he and his wife had some kids and quite a few grandkids. I would say there’s a small chance that Nancy Jordan is his descendant.

Surry County, Virginia

The man we probably need to be looking at is Colonel George Jordan, who sailed to Surry County, Virginia from England in 1635. He had one daughter and no sons, but his brothers had several sons in Surry County. So in all likelihood, our George Jordan II is the great nephew of Colonel George Jordan, meaning George Frank Graddy’s Jordan ancestors probably arrived in America in 1635. George II’s great grandson Thomas Jordan was born 75 miles southwest in Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina. As an adult, he, wife Mary Letts, and their children spent some time in Kentucky. Then by the time they reached Illinois between 1800 and 1804, it was still considered a part of the Indiana Territory, and some of their sons were grown men. That includes Nancy Jordan’s grandfather William Joshua Jordan.

A sketch of the Jordan fort built in 1804

In 1804, the Jordans and three other families built a fort that was the first white settlement in what is now Franklin County, Illinois. The other three family names were Estes, Browning, and Barbrey. All of these families are truly Illinois pioneers as the white population in Illinois was only about 2,500 in 1800 and 12,500 in 1810. The settlement they built was apparently 2.5 miles southeast of Thompsonville, near Liberty Church today. And according to the Mormon genealogy website, the Jordans went on to build forts in places in southern Illinois now called Equality, Eldorado, Raleigh, Galatia, and West Frankfort. In fact, West Frankfort gets its name from William Jordan’s brother Francis, who also went by “Frank”. The town name is derived from the fact that Nancy’s great uncle Frank built a fort directly west of the original Jordan fort in Thompsonville.

My understanding is that the Estes, Browning, and Barbrey men living in the original Jordan fort were all married to Thomas Jordan’s daughters. One of those men, William Barbrey, was scalped by Indians near the fort in 1812. There is also a story that says William’s wife (who must have been a Jordan girl) later avenged her husband’s death by shooting and killing the man who scalped her husband. I have no idea how true or untrue the revenge story is, but the original scalping story seems to be very real.

Both of these people are the siblings of George Frank Graddy’s second great grandfather William Joshua Jordan. On the left is Nancy Jordan Wilkie and on the right Thomas Jordan, Jr. He died in Jo Daviess County, Illinois, where Galena is located. Not too far downstream, Whiteside County, Illinois is named after his wife’s first cousin Samuel Whiteside.

Nancy’s great grandfather Thomas, who later on would also play some role in the Battle of New Orleans at an advanced age, helped build one of the state’s first major roads, connecting two of the oldest towns in the state, Shawneetown and Kaskaskia. The former sits along the Ohio River, and the latter was Illinois’ first capital. Since a major flood in 1881 changed the course of the Mississippi River, Kaskaskia has actually sat on the western bank of the Mississippi. At the time when Thomas Jordan was working on the Kaskaskia-Shawneetown Trail, it was of course on the east side with the rest of the state, and the towns at both ends of the road were in Illinois’ two most populated sections.

Thomas Jordan’s great granddaughter, Nancy Helen Jordan, was born in 1832 in Jefferson County, Illinois. At age 31, she married William Green Williams, who was born in Carmi, Illinois in 1818. According to their daughter Sophronia Williams Graddy and their grandson George Frank Graddy, William was the first white child born in Carmi. His parents’ names were Charley Williams and Mary “Polly” Green. Those last names are certainly from the British Isles, but their ancestors’ names are unknown.

All I can tell you about them for sure is that Charley was born in Georgia, Polly in South Carolina, and that they were married in Carmi in 1818. George Frank Graddy wrote that this couple came from Indiana to White County (where Carmi is) in the early months of 1800. I wonder if he meant to write 1818 because their marriage certificate is definitely from that year. It would be more than a little strange if they were migrating together eighteen years before they were married, and even stranger if it took that long for Carmi to see its first birth.

The old bank in Shawneetown was finished in 1841 - after the death of Thomas Jordan, who helped build the Kaskaskia-Shawneetown Trail, but well before George Frank Graddy’s grandfather William Green Williams stopped driving goods and livestock to Shawneetown.

Charley, Polly and William Williams moved to the little town of Thackeray in eastern Hamilton County around the year 1820. As a grown man, William regularly drove goods and livestock east to Shawneetown to be shipped south to New Orleans. According to his grandson, William would sometimes make the trip to New Orleans himself. Unsurprisingly, this practice ended with the outbreak of the Civil War. But a few years prior, in 1855, Nancy Jordan and William Williams had their first child, Sophronia Caroline Williams. She is George Frank Graddy’s mother.

George Frank Graddy’s grandmother on his dad’s side was Elizabeth Marian Taylor. The Taylors came to Virginia from England during the 1600’s, but Taylor is such a common English last name that it’s hard to say for sure whose Taylors are whose.

The oldest record I could find that solidly connects us back to the Virginia Taylors is from a family bible found in Kentucky, which says Elizabeth’s grandfather, Revolutionary War veteran William Tarlton Taylor, was born in 1759 in Loudoun County - right outside the future spot of Washington, D.C. In all likelihood, those Taylors were in Virginia well before 1759 - and might even be related to presidents Zachary Taylor and James Madison, who also had Taylor ancestors in Virginia. But again, the Taylor name was so common in Virginia, it’s hard to say for sure.

Left: President James Madison

Right: President Zachary Taylor

About a decade after Madison’s presidency, it was William’s son, Ignatius Taylor, who migrated from Virginia to Harmony Township in Posey County, Indiana, where his daughter Elizabeth was born in 1828 and the Taylors crossed paths with the Graddys.

County Donegal, Ireland

The last name Graddy comes from the County Donegal, which is actually a part of the Republic of Ireland as opposed to Northern Ireland, despite being one of the northernmost counties on the island. According to the Mormon genealogy website, when the Graddy family arrived in America in the last few years of the 1600’s, they spent a short time in New Kent, Virginia, near Williamsburg. That may or may not be true. But even if it is, it wasn’t long before the Graddys were living in Bertie and Duplin counties in North Carolina.

The name was actually spelled “Grady” back then (sometimes even O’Grady). In fact, there are still quite a few people (and a school) in Duplin County who spell their name “Grady” but say it like “Graddy”. I don’t have a great explanation for why this is the case, but it might have something to do with the Irish language. Apparently most people back in County Donegal speak Irish as opposed to English. But unfortunately, I don’t know enough about Irish linguistics to say for sure if that’s the reason for the discrepancy.

Jeff and Pam Graddy Faulkenberg at B.F. Grady Elementary School in Duplin County, North Carolina. The school’s name is pronounced like “Graddy”.

William Anthony O’Grady was born in County Donegal in 1680, and his grandson Frederick Grady was born in 1753 in Duplin County, North Carolina - a spot not too far from the coast. In North Carolina, most people inland were Loyalists during the Revolution, and most people near the coast were Patriots, including the Gradys. Not only did Frederick Grady fight on the side of the Revolution, but his older brother John was the first North Carolinian to die in the war. He is buried on the Moores Creek Battlefield, where he died.

Pam Graddy Faulkenberg in front of John Grady’s grave at Moores Creek Battlefield in North Carolina

Frederick, the surviving brother, went on to have a son named John (presumably named for Frederick’s brother and/or father), who moved from Duplin County all the way up to Posey County, Indiana around 1815. Specifically, old censuses indicate that John Grady and his second wife Margaret lived in Harmony Township, the part of the county where the New Harmony utopian societies were located.

The first utopian society was centered around Christianity and the second more so around education and industry. The original Harmonist society lasted from 1814 until 1824, and the second one just from 1825 to 1827. The Graddys stayed in Harmony Township well past then, but since they arrived around 1815, I wondered if they might have been drawn to the area by the first New Harmony society. After further digging though, I found a book with the names of all of the original Harmonist families. There were no Taylors or Graddys. In fact, pretty much all of the Harmonist families were German, including their leader George Rapp.

So, George Frank Graddy’s Taylor and Graddy ancestors must have lived just down the road from the original New Harmony utopia - maybe a mile, maybe as far away as five miles. I will add, though, that not only is it a given that the Taylors and Graddys must have interacted at least a little bit with the original Harmonists, but it even appears that one of George Frank Graddy’s cousins married the descendant of some Harmonists. I say that because a cousin of his who stayed in Posey County, Indiana named his son Frederick Rapp Graddy - probably named for John Grady’s father Frederick and the leader of the Harmonists, George Rapp.

Top: John Grady (George Frank’s great grandfather) on the 1820 Posey County, Indiana census. Notice it lists him as living in Harmony Township. 

Bottom: John died in 1825, so his wife Margaret Graddy (George Frank’s great grandmother) is listed as the head of household on the 1830 Posey County, Indiana census. This is also listed in the “Township of Harmony” section of the census book in 1830. Notice “Graddy” has taken on a second “d” by this point. Perhaps the census taker was a part of the “boatload of knowledge” from the second New Harmony utopia and took it upon himself to decide “Grady” needed a second “d” since it was pronounced with a short “a” sound.

But the question still remains - why did the Taylors and Graddys move from Virginia and North Carolina all the way to Harmony Township, Indiana at the beginning of its first utopian society if they weren’t there to be active participants? I don’t have a definitive answer, but here are some factors to consider: Land on the Indiana frontier would have been much cheaper than land back east, and Revolutionary veterans were often given land for free. John Grady’s father served in the war (as did Ignatius Taylor’s father), and his uncle is a celebrated war hero to this day, so maybe that deal was extended to him. Also, the town of New Harmony is right on the banks of the Wabash River, and not too far from the Ohio. So migrating by boat, Harmony Township was far from the hardest place to get to. And for what it’s worth, white people settling on the Indiana frontier at this time had to worry about attacks from Native Americans, and I think my ancestors probably felt like their utopian neighbors gave them some strength in numbers.

Regardless of why they came to Indiana, John and Margaret Graddy’s youngest son, Richard C. Graddy, was born in 1822 in Harmony Township, which is where he married Elizabeth Marian Taylor before moving the family just across the Wabash River to Carmi, Illinois in about 1855. Their oldest was a boy named Elisha Lawrence Graddy, who was about eleven years old at the time of the move. In 1880, Elisha married Sophronia Caroline Williams, and the two of them lived in northern Hamilton County, where they are buried today at Garrison Cemetery. Two years after the wedding, Sophronia gave birth to George Frank Graddy.

Ignatius Taylor (George Frank Graddy’s great grandfather and James Madison’s second cousin) on the 1830 Posey County, Indiana census. This is also found in the “Township of Harmony” section.

The 1850 census of Harmony Township, Posey County, Indiana… Richard Graddy (George Frank’s grandfather) is listed as a farmer… “Elisha L, (age) 5, M” is George Frank Graddy’s father.

Beatrice Graddy is the daughter of George Frank Graddy. Here she is on her wedding day with husband Willis “Pete” Bramlet.