Henry Overstreet, debtors prisoner, settler, traitor?, SC Patriot in Rev War

My grandmother Johnnie "Louise" Higdon's line traces on upwards into the Overstreets. Her grandfather James Jackson Higdon was the son of John Higdon, b 1809 (and a Georgia legislator) and Matilda "Tillie" Overstreet b 1811.

Tillie's parents were Daniel Overstreet and Martha Alberson. Daniel's parents were Daniel (b1765) and "Nellie" Overstreet. Daniel(b1765)'s parents were Henry (b1735) and Jane (Braswell) Overstreet. Henry's parents were Henry (b1710, England) and Ann (?) Overstreet.

Henry, born 1710, came to America. What an experience! He was a settler in a fort amongst Indians. He was granted 150 acres of land. He was possibly the same Henry Overstreet accused of being a traitor to the colonies, yet he was a SC Patriot gunner in the Revolutionary War.

Original Settler at a Fort in Augusta!. From a document published in London, in 1743, the township of Augusta—outside of the garrison—seems to have embraced only a small colony of Indian traders. The following purports to be a complete list of settlers at the fort: Kennedy O’Brien, Thomas Smith, Messrs. McKenzie and Frazier, John Miller, Thomas Goodale, Samuel Brown, Sanders Brown, Sanders Ross, A Sadler, A. Taylor, William Clark, Henry Overstreet, Laclan McBean, William Gray and William Calahern.

S C Patriot! Henry Overstreet enlisted in the Fourth Regiment on 1 Dec 1776 as a gunner. N.A. 853. From the “Roster of South Carolina Patriots in the American Revolution” page 745.

Debtors Prisoner - a Way to Get to America?! 1732 England was undergoing financial pressures, specifically the working clases and a very small middle class (artisans and merchants) Joining the army or militia might help, but not if you didn't get paid! If debts rose, one might be sentenced to debtor's prison, and his family along with him.

James Ogelthorpe thought these factors presented an opportunity to expand the Georgia Colony in the New World: debtors prisoners could become colonists in the struggling Georgia Colony where the French, Spanish and English were virtually competing over land. Ogelthorpe transported these individuals AND their families (at least two boatloads) in 1732-4. By providing farmer-soldiers to defend the Carolinas from the French and Spanish, he simultaneously emptied the debtors prisons (which were definitely a no-win situation).

These new immigrants landed at the mouth of the Savannah River on Tybee Island in what is now South Carolina. Not all were debtors' prisoners. Some came on their own, hoping for something better than home in England. Sort of yesteryear's grand Time Share opportunity?!

Some Georgia settlers were Scottish immigrants who founded the Darien Colony, and Austrian refugees fleeing Salzberg's religious persecutions. Ogelthorpe united the Scots, Austrians and British colonists along with the present Indian tribes.

The original Georgia Colony stretched from the Ogechee Swamp to the Savannah River. There were fewer than 5000 European colonists. My ancestor lived in an Indian trading post enclosed in a primitive fortress located on a high bluff above the Savannah River.

But the promised pardise instead had mosquitoes, heat and humidity.I can only imagine the dismay my ancestors realized as they adjusted to the climate. I was born in Orlando, Florida. Grew up there. I lived in England for three years. I would have been heartbroken living in humid Georgia.

Many settlers died from diseases living in the swamps along the Savannah. Making a living was difficult. The Spanish and hostile Indians were a constant. Farmers carried muskets with them in the fields, always on the ready. Rum was outlawed. Ownership of land was limited to fifty acres and slavery was outlawed. The "tail mail" statute prohibited colonists from passing their property on to anyone except their firstborn sons. Widows, daughters, and younger sons could not inherit any of their father's property. Colonists were reluctant to establish plantations or improve their properties.

South Carolina and Georgia Colonies lines were indistinct in pre-colonial times. Many Georgiams crossed over into South Carolina especially since South Carolina's property ownership inheritance rights were more liberal, and, rum was legal there!!

The British treated the American colonists in Georgia harshly. Whole families who had offered no resistance to the British presence were sometimes executed. Those loyal to the British found their properties confiscated and destroyed and often imprisoned even after claiming allegiance to the Crown. Once again, colonists retreated to the Carolinas.

Little know fact: Two thirds of Georgia's settlements and farms were destroyed during the Revolutionary War. When the Revolution was over, Georgia, in order to rebuild her settlements, offered large tracts of land at cheap prices to any Revolutionary War veterans Who would move to Georgia. Once again a settlement boom brought families from Virginia, North and Spouth Carolina. http://www.geocities.comlHeartland/Hills/2355/ogacolony.htm


The Colonial Records of Georgia, Vol XXII, page 245, quote from a letter of General James Oglethorpe to accountant in which he mentions “a loan in cattle to one Overstreet, an industrious man with a wife and six children in Augusta.” This was in 1739.

In 1743, a document in London set forth that the township of Augusta outside of the garrison embraced only a few white people, traders with Indians. Among the list of sixteen names of setters at the fort was Henry Overstreet.

In 1762 at a meeting of Council in Savannah, on May 4, was read a petition of Henry Overstreet, lately come into the province of Georgia with his wife and six children in order to settle. He was granted 150 acres of land about three miles above the mouth of Briar Creek, famous in history as the stream believed by Georgia’s early historian, Jones, to be that which De Soto and his men swam in their march through Georgia.

Sources:

Augusta, Georgia: http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h2735.html

http://www.geocities.comlHeartland/Hills/2355/ogacolony.htm
History of Tift County, by Ida Belle Williams, pages 433-5
The James W Overstreet, Sr., and Allied Families by J.V. Chapman. (ending p 436)
Georgia’s Landmarks, Memorials and Legends, p 882
History of the United States: British Colonies in North America by George Bancroft
A True and Historical Narrative of Gerogia by Patrick Tailfer, High Anderson, and David Douglas United States 1790, 1800, 1810
http://www.geocities.comlHeartland/Hills/235 5/ogacolony.htm