James Hulse (c1758 – 1829)

James Hulse was the third son mentioned in the 1770 will of his father, which provided that “my son[s] Joseph Hulse & James Hulse be put out to Trade.”1 Several months later, on 8 May 1781, the Frederick County court ordered the parish Churchwardens to bind out James “Hults” to Jeremiah Dungen [sic] “who is to learn him to Read Write & Cypher and the trade of a Mason.”2

Since a child aged fourteen or more had the right to apprentice himself to the master and trade of his choice, this record suggests that James was not yet old enough to do so and thus was born after May 1757.  Later records suggest a birth in late 1757 or 1758.  He evidently did not serve Dungan until he reached twenty-one, as he enlisted in the army in January 1777.

It isn’t clear where James lived during his teenage years while presumably learning to be a stonemason.  Jeremiah Dungan owned town lots in Mecklenburg, which fell into Berkeley County when it was carved out of Frederick County in 1772.  But the 1782 will of Jeremiah Dungan’s father-in-law George Hendry speaks of 100 acres in Frederick County “whereon Jeremiah Dunkin now lives at the well” and specified that Dunkin was to have the rent-free use of the land for four years.3  .

Revolutionary War Service

On 28 January 1777 James Hulse enlisted at Shepherdstown in Company H of the 12th Virginia Regiment.  More than sixty pay rolls and muster rolls exist to trace his service from January 1777 through November 1779.4  He was in Valley Forge in the late winter and spring of 1778, and in several locations in eastern Pennsylvania, northern New Jersey and New York during his service, seeing action at the battles of Brandywine, Germantown and Monmouth,  He was not wounded but muster rolls show him sick at Valley Forge in February 1778, and sick at the newly constructed Yellow Springs hospital outside Philadelphia in the summer of 1778. His date of discharge is not shown in these records, but he enlisted and served for three years, so he evidently left the regiment, which had been reconstituted as the 8th Virginia, about January 1779.  That was fortunate, as much of the regiment was captured at Charlestown a few months later.

His name was mainly spelled “Hulse” in these records but occasionally as Hulce, Hults, Huls, and once as Hulsy.  When he signed his name it was with a “x” mark, which was consistent with later records and suggests that Jeremiah Dungan failed his promise to teach James Hulse to read and write.

On 2 August 1783 he was approved for a Bounty Land Warrant, which was issued on 12 September as Warrant #1754 for 100 acres “the proportion of land allowed a Private of the Continental Line for three years service.”5  On 16 June 1784 he received the balance of his Army pay, amounting to £56:6:8.6 (I note that this record is erroneously filed among the papers of a different James Hulse who did not serve long enough to have earned that amount.)

The Move to Botetourt County & Marriage to Margaret Henry

At some point after his service, he had moved a few miles south into Botetourt County where, on 5 March 1781, he married Peggy Henry. The marriage bond describes them as “both of this parish.”7

James Hulse subsequently appears on each annual Botetourt County tax list from 1783 through 1795 near his father-in-law Andrew Henry.  In 1784 the tax list included descriptions of houses, and James Hulse was listed as having a “cabin to dwell in”.   The 1785 state census listed him with four whites but no dwellings — but his father-in-law was listed nearby with two dwellings.8

On 15 November 1792 his wife’s parents, Andrew and Elizabeth Henry, deeded James Hulse 105 acres for just £5.9. This was essentially a gift, as James and Margaret Hulse sold the parcel less than three years later for £16010

Land Claim in Ohio

After selling the land in Botetourt County, James Hulse disappeared from its records. The following year, on 19 December 1796, he used his bounty land warrant to claim 100 acres in southern Ohio.11  Interestingly, It was surely his brother William Hulse who made a consecutive entry for 150 acres recorded in the same book and page. (Incidentally, that entry by William Hulse later appears on the 1810 tax list of Ross County as the original entry for a parcel on Pee Pee Creek then owned by a man named William Irwin.)

A Brief Sojourn in Kentucky

He was apparently living in Franklin County, Kentucky on 8 July 1799 when he gave consent for the marriage of his daughter Mary Hulse to John Munday.12 Unfortunately tax lists for that county are missing for the years 1798, 1799, and 1800, as is the 1800 census, and no Hulse was taxed there in 1796 or in 1801..

NOTE: Some descendants claim that he was the same James Hulse enumerated in the 1810 census of Montgomery County, Kentucky but a little research shows that was a different James Hulse, a son of Paul Hulse.  That James Hulse had moved from Clark County in 1804 when he bought the first of several tracts in Montgomery County that he accumulated over a twenty-year period and part of which he gifted to his son David Hulse in 1829 and 1830. That is, he was living in Montgomery County for decades when “our” James Hulse was residing in Ohio.

The Move to Ohio

In 1801 James Hulse was taxed on his 100 acre bounty land claim in Ohio.13. Other than being on the waters of Eagle Creek, it isn’t clear which county the land lay in, although most of the Eagle Creek (later called the Elk River) area lay in Adams County.

Owing to missing records and missing censuses, it isn’t clear where he was living in the early 1800s, but he must have been in Ross County, Ohio in 1815 when a marriage was recorded between his daughter Margaret and James Boyd (see below.). His daughter Nancy married in Ross County the next year to her cousin John Hulse.

In 1819 he was living in Ross County when he applied for a pension for his Revolutionary service.

The Pension Application

In 1818 Congress passed an act to provide pensions for Continental Line veterans who were “in reduced circumstances” and “in need of assistance from [their] country for support”.  James Hulse “in his sixty third year of age” applied for his $8/month pension on 13 September 1819 while living somewhere near Chillicothe, Ross County, Ohio.  He recited his service record fairly accurately, although he misremembered his enlistment date.

In 1820, to reduce fraudulent applications, Congress amended the pension act to require that pensioners provide proof of poverty.  On 26 June 1821  James Hulse, “aged sixty-six years”  and a resident of Jackson County Ohio, provided a list of. his assets, stating that he was a “farmer and of an age incapable of performing much labor, have a wife nearly as old as myself and infirm and two daughters living with me the oldest nearly eighteen and the younger about fourteen…

See the detailed pension file on this page.

By the 1820 census, he was living in Lick Township of adjacent Jackson County with one female over 45 and three younger females in his household. (Apparently one of the females must have married between the census and his 1821 statement.)

Estate Records Identify His Twelve Children

On 25 June 1825 he was granted 164 acres in Lick Township, near the center of Jackson County, Ohio.14 He was taxed on that land in 1826 through 1829, then on 9 March 1829 he sold 80 acres of the tract to Hugh Martin and James Martin.15

He died intestate just four months later. On 16 July 1829 his son-in-law James Boyd was appointed administrator of the estate of James Hulse.16. An inventory was taken and in 1831 James Boyd presented a settlement of the estate, but neither was preserved.17

On 27 March 1832 James Boyd and “Margaret his wife late Margaret Hulse” petitioned the court to partition the 84 acres James Hulse had owned. The petition stated that he died intestate, leaving twelve named children.18 The court agreed but the appointed commissioners reported that the land could not be divided and valued it at $130.  Andrew Hulse, who had moved from Pike County to occupy his father’s farm in the meantime, elected to purchase the land for $130 and, after deducting court costs, the remaining $111.12 was divided among the twelve heirs.19. Andrew Hulse sold the land on 21 January 1837 for $350.20

The Twelve Heirs

The petition to partition the land listed the children in this order:

  1. Margaret Hulse (1798 – 7 October 1851)  She was the wife of James Boyd according to the petition, their marriage was recorded on 7 September 1815 in Ross County.21.  Her birthplace was given as Kentucky in the 1850 census, which gives her age as 52.  She is buried in the Glassburn Cemetery in Jackson County, Ohio.
  2. Elizabeth Hulse (? – ?)  The petition calls her the wife of Jackson Taylor “who reside in Illinois.”  There are no Jackson Taylors in the 1830 or 1840 censuses of Illinois but there are two Andrew Taylors — if his middle name was Jackson then he may have been one of .the “and ere” Jacksons in Illinois.  I note that no marriage record exists in either Ross or Jackson County, suggesting a marriage prior to 1815.
  3. Mary Hulse ( c1782 – 22 September 1833)  The partition petition identified her as the wife of John Munday “who reside[s] in the county of Champaign in Ohio”. John Munday and Mary Hulse married in Franklin County, Kentucky by bond dated 8 July 1799, for which her father gave permission.22  By about 1801 they were living in Chillicothe, Ohio but had settled in Dayton, Montgomery County by 1818.  Both died two weeks apart in a cholera epidemic in 1833.
    For more detail, see the paper on John Munday.
  4. Susannah Hulse (1793 – 8 January 1876)  The petition called her the wife of Samuel Beckley “who reside in the county of Delaware in Ohio”.  Samuel Beckley’s will in Delaware County was dated 4 September 1828 and proved on 18 March 1829.23  The will named Susannah and eight children named Hiram, Henry, John, Matilda, Polly, Peggy, Jane and Elizabeth.  She did not remarry.  Susannah and several of her children are buried in the Oller Cemetery.
  5. Jane Hulse (1 February 1805 – 6 March 1884) The petition called her the wife of John Beckley “who reside(s) in the same county” (meaning Delaware). John Beckley left a will in Delaware County dated 3 November 1845 and proved just 22 days later.24 The will did not identify his wife, who was devised “in lieu of dower all my real estate and personal property” during her widowhood, but it listed six minor children named Jacob, Ruana, Jane, Magdalla, Ann “Suffia”, and Sarah Ann. The widow Jane, age 45, was head of a household in 1850 that consisted of those children.  In 1860 through 1880 Jane was living with her son Jacob Beckley’s family in Henry County, Iowa.  She is buried in the Hillsboro Cemetery there.
    Interestingly, she was the only child to live long enough to state the birthplace of her parents in the 1880 census, in which both parents were listed as born in Pennsylvania. She gave her own birthplace as Ohio.
  6. Nancy Hulse (?-?) The petition called her the wife of John Hulse “who reside(s) at St. Clarksville [sic] in this state.”  John Hulse was her first cousin, the son of Richard Hulse’s older brother William Hulse. Their marriage was recorded in Ross County on 15 June 1816.25
  7. William Hulse (c1783 – c1855 )  He is assumed to be the same William Hulse who was enumerated in 1820 in Ross County just eleven names from Richard Hulse.  William Hulse began acquiring a tract in adjacent Pike County in 1816 in the first of four transactions spanning several years.26  He was enumerated in Pike County in 1830 adjacent to Andrew Hulse, and in 1840. In 1850 he was listed in Huntington Township of Ross County, age 66, with Elizabeth (ne Pancake), 62, and a daughter Jemima, 20.27. He was still alive and called a resident of Pike County on 5 April 1853 when his son William Hulse Jr. sold his father a 100-acre tract on the Scioto River in Pee Pee township almost on the border of Ross County. William was dead by 27 March 1858 when William Hulse Jr. began acquiring the rights of his siblings in that land; he failed to obtain all the shares and on 27 January 1865 petitioned for partition of the land.28.  According to these records, he left nine children (or their children) as heirs: William, John, Jane (wife of John C. Wilson), Louisa (wife of John Emmitt), Martha Ann (wife of John Gregg), Margaret (deceased wife of John Southward), Milton, and two others who I did not identify but whose children were evidently legatees.29. Censuses suggest other children but they evidently had died without issue.
  8. Richard Hulse (c1789 – c1856?)  He was enumerated in Ross County in 1820 eleven names away from William Hulse. He was still in Ross County in 1830, but does not appear in deed records.  He evidently followed his brother Andrew and cousin John Hults into Marion County, Illinois where he bought 40 acres not far from his brother Andrew.30 In 1850 Richard was enumerated there, age 60, his wife Mary age 58.  He was dead by February 1857 when his estate was settled with payments to the widow Mary and (presumably) four children named William, Samuel, James and Margaret (Rains)
  9. Andrew Hulse (c1799 – 7 November 1878) He was in adjacent Pike County when he married Sarah Mount in 1821 and was still living there in 1830 but by 1832 he was taxed in adjacent Jackson County, apparently living on his father’s land.  He bought that land from the other heirs that same year.31 At some point his wife apparently died and in 1836 he remained to Rebecca Burk in Pike County.32  He and Rebecca sold his land in January 183733 and two months later bought a farm in adjacent Pike County.34  Two years later Andrew and Rebecca sold that farm in March 183935 and moved to Marion County, Illinois (apparently in company with his cousin John Hults) where he bought land that same year.36 He was enumerated there in the 1840 through 1860 censuses.37  In 1870 he was enumerated in Vermilion County, Illinois where he is buried in the Mt. Pisgah Cemetery in Georgetown, Vermilion County. His children are uncertain.  His will, dated 31 July 1871, mentions only his wife Rebecca, three daughters of his deceased daughter Ellen Hammers,  and two daughters named Elizabeth Jane Burk and Margaret Nichols.38 In 1860 Martha was age 64 with the same three daughters in her household.
  10. (Martha) Patsy Hulse (c1795 – 1860s?)  The petition calls her “wife of Hugh Martin who reside[s] in Jackson County.”  Hugh Martin had bought 80 acres of James Hulse’s 1825 grant, so was literally the next-door neighbor.  He was enumerated in Jackson County in 1830 through 1850. In 1850 he was 71 and his wife Martha was 47, her age surely understated39  and presumed daughters named Martha, Nancy, and Matilda in the household. Oddly, despite Martha surviving him, Hugh Martin wrote a brief will on 16 February 1850, proved on 9 February 1853, leaving his entire estate to his daughter Nancy Jane Martin.40
  11. Ruth Hulse (c1805 – 1830s) The petition calls her the wife of Tandy Meeker “who also reside[s] in Jackson County”.  Tandy Meeker (1796-1870) and Ruth Hulse married on 7 November 1824 in Jackson County.41  (The secondary record gives her name as “Ruthy Hubel” a misreading of “Hulse”.)  Tandy Meeker acquired a farm adjacent to James Hulse as Hulse’s assignee several months later.42. The 1830 census lists him with a wife aged 20-29 living in Lick Township.  Ruth was apparently deceased by 1840 when Tandy Meeker’s household listed no females older than 15.  He does not appear to have remarried. Tandy Meeker left a will in 1870, and witnessed by James Boyd, providing for tombstones for his two deceased sons William and James and leaving his estate to his daughter Evaline Wilkie.43
  12. Druscila Hulse (c1807 – ?). She was apparently the daughter who was fourteen in mid-1821 (according to James Hulse’s statement of 26 June 1821). The partition petition calls her the wife of John Halterman “who reside(s) in the same place”, meaning Jackson County.  This is mysterious, since the only John Halterman in the county in 1830 and 1840 had married Sarah Crabtree in 1829 and his wife was still named Sarah when he sold land in 1836 and in 1838.44  He died in the late 1840s and Sarah, age 37, was heading the household in 1850.  A John J. Halterman was married to an Isabel in 1839.45. Druscila’s identity is therefore a mystery. She may have been the wife of a John Halterman who was in the 1830 census of adjacent Pike County with a female aged 20-29.
  1. Frederick County, Virginia, Will Book 4, p44-45. []
  2. Frederick County Order Book 15, 1770-1772, p190. []
  3. Frederick County Will Book 4, p635. []
  4. Pay and Muster Rolls, NARA records accessed at forld3.com. See fold3.com/images/23140527 through fold3.com/images/23140591 for 65 images. []
  5. Image 179 of 343, FHL Film #008570989. []
  6. NARA records at www.fold3.com. []
  7. Botetourt County Loose Marriage Bonds, FHL Film #1906398. []
  8. Charles T. Burton, Botetourt County, Virginia, 1785 Enumeration, p9. []
  9. Botetourt County Deed Book 4, p431-2. []
  10. Botetourt County Deed Book 5, p241. []
  11. Entry #2864 on Warrant #1754 , recorded in Virginia Military District (Ohio) Book A2, p181. []
  12. Franklin County Loose Marriage Bonds. []
  13. “Entries of the lands of non-residents situated between the Scioto and Little Miami rivers commonly known by the name of the Virginia Army Lands”, Image 59 of 158, FHL Film #4849182. []
  14. Cert. No. 3848, Vol. 64, p173. []
  15. Jackson County Deed Book A, p537 and p548. A sale and a mortgage. []
  16. Jackson County Clerk of Courts Journal Vol. C  (1826-1833), p104. []
  17. Jackson County Clerk of Courts Journal Vol. C  (1826-1833), p187. []
  18. Jackson County Clerk of Courts Journal Vol. C  (1826-1833), p238. and more fully rendered in Jackson Count Clerks of Courts Record Book C (1830-1839), p157-8. []
  19. Jackson Count Clerks of Courts Record Book C (1830-1839), pp156-158. []
  20. Jackson County Deed Book C, p67. []
  21. Ross County Marriage Register Vol A-B, p258. []
  22. Loose Marriage Bonds of Franklin County, FHC microfilm #266194, image 323.  Also published in The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society, Vol. 7, page 123. []
  23. Delaware County Will Book 1, p102. []
  24. Delaware County Will Book 2, p316. []
  25. Ross County Marriage register A-B, p269. []
  26. Pike County Deed Book A, pages 144 and 329 and Deed Book B, pages 120 and 545. []
  27. He was listed as William “Hulch”, incorrectly indexed as “Hutch”, with $10,000 in real estate. []
  28. See Pike County Deed Book 17, p45 for the shares of three siblings and Deed Book 18, p530 for a deed by the Sheriff executing the partition and referring to the petition. Two other siblings had sold shares in Deed Book 17, p144 and p274. []
  29. The unidentified (by me) legatees were Elizabeth Hults and William H., James N., Benjamin R. and Anth—- “Wilda”; and Newton Morse. []
  30. Marion County Deed Book C, p365 and p370. []
  31. Jackson Count Clerks of Courts Record Book C, pp156-158. []
  32. Pike County Marriage register Vol. 1, p265, dated 15 October 1836. []
  33. Jackson County Deed Book C, p67. []
  34. Pike County Deed Book 5, page 332. []
  35. Pike County Deed Book 6, page 99. []
  36. Marion County Deed Book B, p300. []
  37. His age was consistently given as 50. 60, and 70 and his birthplace as Kentucky. []
  38. Vermilion County Will Book E, p522. []
  39. She had been 30-39 in 1830 and 40-49 in 1840. []
  40. Jackson County Will Book A, p147. []
  41. Ancestry.com database: U.S., Marriages Extracted from the Old Northwest Genealogical Quarterly, 1789-1898. []
  42. See Ohio Grant #4061. []
  43. Jackson County Will Book A, p578. []
  44. Jackson County Deed Book C, p210 and p398. []
  45. Jackson County Deed Book D, p294 and Book E, p40. []