TWO JESSE CASEYS: FATHER & SON?

Courthouse at Kingston, Tennessee (Roane County Heritage Commission).

By Nancy Gilbride Casey

In cases where no direct evidence exists to prove a familial relationship between two persons, it is possible to build a case for the relationship using indirect evidence. My current quest has been to discover the father of Jesse E. Casey (1797-1863), also known as Jesse Casey, Junr. Many online trees, compiled family lineages, and county histories offer a range of possible candidates. I've been diving deep into the late 18th- and early 19th-century documents created in Georgia and Tennessee to evaluate one possible father for Jesse E. Casey.

The most promising man for the father is a Jesse Casey who lived in Franklin, Georgia, and moved to Roane County, Tennessee between 1806-1808. The younger Jesse E. Casey was enumerated in two censuses as having a Georgia birthplace and Roane County, Tennessee was one of his acknowledged residences; he is known to have lived there from at least 1817 at the time of his marriage, to the mid-late 1830s, when he subsequently settled in north-central Arkansas.¹

It is important to acknowledge here a caution about the suffix "Junr." ascribed to the younger Jesse. The term "Junior" does not necessarily mean that his father's name was Jesse Casey, Sr. or even Jesse Casey at all. These suffixes were used most often during this time to distinguish between two men of the same name in a given locality. The men may not even be related. It merely indicated that one man was older, one younger.²

The marriage bond of Jesse Casey is the only document yet discovered which notes this suffix "Junr." This may have led previous researchers to assume that this man's father was also named Jesse Casey; some go so far as to affix the "Sr." suffix to his name in online trees. Nowhere in the documents I have examined to date does this "Sr." appear for the older man in this location.

However, the fact remains that there were definitely two men named Jesse Casey in Roane County, Tennessee (and later Morgan County, created in 1817 from part of Roane), from about 1808-early 1830s. Did they share a relationship? Was Jesse Casey of Georgia and Tennessee the father of Jesse E. Casey, of Roane, Tennessee?

I have focused on collating and transcribing numerous court documents, land entries and surveys, tax lists, etc., for both men, some of which I viewed in person at the Roane County Historical Museum & Archives in Kingston, Tennessee, on a recent trip. The archives are located in the historic Courthouse at Kingston— the very building where these lawsuits played out in the 1800s!

Historic Roane County Courthouse in Kingston, Tennessee.^a

I have created extensive timelines containing all the known facts about the Jesse Casey of Georgia/Tennessee and those of Jesse Casey of Roane/Morgan, Tennessee, and am analyzing them for conflicts.

In my next few posts, I will share some of what I've learned so far about these two men.

Scouting a Tennessee Home?

In the early 1800s, a man named Jesse Casey (or Kasey), traveled from and to Georgia through Cherokee and Creek lands, then on the frontier. To do so, he needed a passport.

Passports were issued initially to persons entering the territory to trade, collect debts or recover stolen horses or slaves; following the opening of more lands, passports were often issued to those wishing to view the area with the thought of settling there. In obtaining the document, travelers swore to conduct themselves in a peaceful manner among the Native American tribes in the area.⁴

On 24 November 1801, this Jesse Casey obtained a passport from the state of Georgia: "ORDERED...that a pass port be prepared for Jacob Lindley and Jesse Casey to pass to and return from Cherokee and creek nations which were presented and signed."⁵

Then, in April 1803, this document was issued:

Jesse Kasey's passport to and from Jackson, Georgia.⁶

Transcription:

Jesse Kasey is hereby permitted

to pass thro that part of the Cherokee

nation on his way to Jackson county

in the State of Georgia, he conducting

himself in a peacible manner and in

conformity to the Law regulating

intercourse with the Indian Tribes &

to preserve peace on the frontiers--

S.W. point Return J. Meigs

30th April 1803. A War

 

Between 1801-1807, travelers through Indian lands were required to obtain a passport at Fort Southwest Point, located within the bounds of Cherokee land. Colonel Return Jonathan Meigs then served dual roles as Cherokee and military agent at the fort, located near Kingston, where the Clinch River meets the Tennessee.⁷

It was fascinating to visit Fort Southwest Point on our recent trip. Currently under reconstruction, we were able to tour the various buildings, and especially view the grounds, to understand the fort's strategic importance above the rivers.

Fort Southwest Point, reconstructed on its original site above the Tennessee and Clinch Rivers near Kingston.⁸

A strategic view of the river from Fort Southwest Point.⁹

These passports show that the elder man Jesse Casey traveled from both Franklin and adjacent Jackson Counties in Georgia, through Creek and Cherokee Territory, and at least once to Tennessee, passing through Southwest Point. The map below provides a terrific visual of the proximity of Franklin, Georgia to Indian lands and Tennessee beyond, to show his possible migration path.

Franklin and Jackson Counties (lower right), bounded Cherokee land, with Tennessee (upper right) beyond in this 1822 map of the area.¹⁰

Just beyond the Tennessee River lay Roane County, the ultimate home of both men, the elder Jesse Casey and the younger Jesse E. Casey.

Next up, more on the passport holder who settled in Roane.

Until next time...

 

NOTES

¹ For Georgia birthplace: 1850 U.S. Census, Newton, Arkansas, population schedule, p. 88 (penned), Jackson Township, dwelling 263, household of Jessee E. Casey; image Ancestry (https://ancstry.me/2U1uUu5 : accessed 11 March 2020); citing NARA Microfilm Publication M432, Washington, D.C.; Also: 1860 U.S. Census, Newton, Arkansas, population schedule, p. 45 (penned), Jefferson Township, dwelling 285, household of Jesse Casey; image Ancestry (https://ancstry.me/3aWlFBU : accessed 13 March 2020); citing NARA Microfilm Publication M432, Washington, D.C. For marriage: Roane County, Tennessee, Loose Marriage Bonds & Licenses, unnumbered page, bond of Jesse Casey, Junr and Patsey Coe, 4 April 1817; database with images, "Tennessee, Marriage Records, 1780-2002," Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/1169/images/VRMUSATN1780_074680-00116 : accessed 15 May 2022), image 117; citing Tennessee State Library and Archives, Roane County Project Roll A, Nashville. For Arkansas residence: J. S. Rogers, History of Arkansas Baptists (Little Rock, Arkansas: Arkansas Baptist State Convention, 1948), p. 313, J.E. Casey represents Buffalo Association at Baptist Convention, 23 October 1840; digital images, HathiTrust (https://bit.ly/2XLlt5u : accessed 17 April 2020).

² Robert W. Baird, “Senior, Junior & Name Suffixes in General,” Bob’s Genealogy Filing Cabinet (https://genfiles.com/articles/senior-junior/ : accessed 15 May 2022). “But in colonial times those suffixes were not generally a part of a person’s name but rather a more or less temporary designation to differentiate two people with the same name. The designations might change as persons died, moved elsewhere, or for other reasons.

³ Roane County Courthouse, Kingston, Tennessee, photograph by Nancy Gilbride Casey, 8 April 2022, private collection of author.

⁴ Dorothy Williams Potter, Passports of Southeastern Pioneers 1770-1823 (Baltimore, Gateway Press: 1982), p.170.

⁵ Ibid, p. 177, Jesse Casey passport, 24 November 1801.

⁶ Cherokee Indian Agency, Kingston, Tennessee, Return J. Meigs, passport for Jesse Kasey to travel through Cherokee Nation to Jackson County, Georgia, 30 April 1803; digital image, "Records of the Cherokee Indian Agency in Tennessee," Microfilm copy 208, roll 13, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CSP1-WQ16-K : accessed 6 March 2020); FHL film 8257260, image 288.

⁷ Tennessee Encyclopedia, "Return Jonathan Meigs," (https://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entries/return-jonathan-meigs/ : accessed 23 May 2022), rev. 1 March 2018.

⁸ Fort Southwest Point, Kingston, Tennessee, photograph by Nancy Gilbride Casey, 11 April 2022, private collection of author.

⁹ Ibid.

¹⁰ Unknown author, Georgia, 1822; digital image, "Georgia Historical Maps," Georgia Genealogy (https://georgiagenealogy.org/georgia-historical-maps#google_vignette : accessed 23 May 2022).