Fergusons in Robertson County, TN

There were other persons named Ferguson living in and around Robertson County, Tennessee.  Whether any of them were related in any way to Jonathan Ferguson is unknown.

Henry Ferguson

A Henry Ferguson was on the 1812 tax list of Robertson County.   Apparently the same Henry Ferguson died there about 1816.   An estate sale by John Strother, his administrator, was dated 1 June 1816.1  The estate sale consisted of household goods and stock totaling $289.76.  No Fergusons were among the buyers.  The first 60 pages of Will Book 2 are lost;  there may have been additional references in the missing pages.  Henry Ferguson does not appear in any other records that I found. Whether he is related in any way to the other Fergusons of Robertson County is unknown.

The administrator of his estate, John Strother, had moved from Culpepper County, Virginia to Robertson County sometime before 1812. Henry Ferguson had appeared on the 1812 tax list of Strother’s company.  Whether they were related to one another is unknown.

Moses Ferguson

A Moses Ferguson, probably a different person than Moses K. Ferguson, was administrator of the estate of John Burgan in Montgomery County on 12 Jan 1807.2  Both John Burgan and Moses Ferguson had signed a petition in 1803 calling for the establishment of a new county, their names separated by one intervening signature.3  The signers of the petition were residents of Montgomery and Robertson counties, but presumably those who lived “…from thirty to upwards to fifty miles to their court house having to cross Cumberland river and a very uneven road… ”  Dickson and Stewart counties were both formed in 1803 as a result. Ferguson does not appear in the 1820 census of any surrounding county.   Among other reasons, the gap of over twenty years between these references and the first appearance of Moses K. Ferguson leads me to believe they were two different people.

John Ferguson

It is possible there was a second John Ferguson in or near Robertson County. We seem to have a John Ferguson residing simultaneously in both Montgomery and Robertson counties, suggesting there may have been two people of that name. Two consecutively numbered grants were made on 20 April 1815 to John Ferguson, one in Robertson County and one in Montgomery County near Port Royal.4  Three consecutively numbered grants were issued on 3 February 1816 to John Ferguson, all in eastern Montgomery County just a few miles from the Robertson county line.5  John Ferguson sold both of the 1815 grants in almost immediately, as a resident of Montgomery County.6  He was still a resident of Montgomery County when he sold one of the latter grants on 18 October 1819.7  But by the time he sold the last two grants in 1820, he was a resident of Robertson County.8

Whether John Ferguson and Jonathon Ferguson were the same person or not is unclear.   But he was clearly not the same person as Jonathan Ferguson’s son John W. Ferguson.  Our John W. Ferguson was a resident of Robertson County on 2 September 1817 when he and Isaac Beard bought land there9, and on 11 November 1817 when he bought a town lot in Springfield.10  In addition, he was called “John W. Ferguson” in these and later conveyances. Further, since his father was a resident of Springfield as early as 1808 and was dead by 1814 with minor children, it seems reasonable to think that John W. Ferguson was living in Robertson County during the period 1815-1819 and not in Montgomery County.

That appears to indicate that there were two people named John Ferguson. Whoever the second one was, there is no further record of him. Unfortunately, the 1820 census for Robertson County consists only of the immediate area around Springfield, and there is no John Ferguson in it. [John W. Ferguson is evidently in the household of his widowed mother.] Nor is there any further record in the deed books.

William Ferguson

A William “Forgason” appeared in the 1820 census of Robertson County (aged over 45). He is not mentioned in any other records and was not there in 1830.

Other Fergusons in the 1850 Census

The 1850 census of Robertson County, TN listed a Susanna Ferguson (age 50 born VA) and an apparent son, James Ferguson aged 18 (born Tenn), an “apprentice”, in the household of a Springfield druggist, T. A. Eccles.

A George A. Ferguson, age 26 born VA and a farmer, also appeared in 1850 with an apparent wife named Martha (age 25 born TN) and daughter Mary (age 1 born TN).

None of these people appear to be related to my Ferguson family of Robertson County.

  1. Robertson County Bonds, Inventories, Wills Book 2, p351. []
  2. Montgomery County Will Book A, p446. See also estate records at p178, p924, p944, p954. []
  3. “Petitions to General Assembly of Tennessee”, Ansearchin’ News, Summer 1994, pp73. []
  4. Tennessee Grants No. 6859 and 6860. Montgomery County Deed Book I, p367-8. []
  5. Tennessee Grants No. 8627, 8628, and 8629. Montgomery County Deed Book M, p95-96 and Book I, p1061. Robertson County Deed Book L, p329. []
  6. Montgomery County Deed Book I, p780 Robertson County Deed Book L, p292 (12 January 1816 and 16 February 1815, respectively). []
  7. Montgomery County Deed Book I, p1062. []
  8. Montgomery County Deed Book K, p89. []
  9. Robertson County Deed Book N, p200. []
  10. Robertson County Deed Book N, p215. []