The Mystery of Ameriah Reeves

 The mystery of Ameriah Reeves begins with Burlington County, New Jersey records of the family of Walter Reeve. Jonathan Reeve and his wife, the previously widowed Mrs. Hannah Wilson Budd, had a son Ameriah Reeve, born 27 July 1738. Other recorded connections between these Reeve(s) and Budd families create some confusion due to the presence of an Azeriah Reeves in that family; however it is doubtful that he was the same individual since he had a son, John, born before 1750 indicating he must have been substantially older than Amariah born 1738.

Salem County New Jersey records list the marriage of Ameriah Reeves to Susanna Hays, on 4 October 1762.

1783 Revolutionary War Voucher

After his disappearance from New Jersey records, an Ameriah Reeves first appears in the records of Orange County, North Carolina in 1774.  (Note - his name is listed variously as Ameriah or Amariah.) He is named among individuals recorded in a poll taken at an "Election for Delegates to represent the County of Orange" agreeable to a Resolve of Congress dated 28th of Nov 1776.  Over the next twenty years, he is recorded in various court transactions until his disappearance from the county after August of 1791.

1779 Tax
Orange County

In 1776, he is listed on the roster of officers and private soldiers detached from the first or Southern Battalion of Militia of Orange County, North Carolina under the command of Col. Ambrose Ramsey to march against hostile indians during the American Revolution. On 20 August 1783, Amariah submitted a Revolutionary War claim and was paid £12.  

Ameriah Reeves is recorded as an Orange County taxpayer in 1779 where he was taxed on 400 acres although the record of a deed to that 400 acre tract has not been located to date.  Orange County records from 1781 record that Ameriah lived on Stagg's Creek at that time.  In August of 1783 Amariah Reeves was granted a license to keep an ordinary at his dwelling house.

On the 19th of August 1791 Henry Jacobs was accused of making an assault upon Susannah, wife of Amariah Reeves. He pled not guilty. John Lynch was accused of assaulting Amariah on the same day. [[C.R. 073.326.1]. An extensive search of the court records of Orange County has thus far failed to produce more details in regard to this altercation.

In Claims of British Merchants after the Revolutionary War arranged by Counties, abstracted by Ransom McBride (from: British Records Collection appearing in the NC Genealogical Society Journal February 1985 31, Volume XI, No 1), William Cummings of Hillsboro made a statement concerning Amariah that he removed to Tennessee, 16 or 17 years prior, and is now dead. while he lived in Orange he had some property, was an honest man industrious and lived well.

Amariah is known to have migrated from North Carolina to Tennessee. The appearance of an Ameriah Reeves on the 1796 tax lists of Grayson County, Virginia may suggest that he paused his migration westward by spending a brief time in the New River area. However, there is nothing to document a connection between the Amariah Reaves of Orange County in the 1770s and Amariah Reeves found in Grayson County in 1796 beyond his removal from Orange County and later residence in Tennessee.

Currently the only record located for him in Tennessee is an advertisement dated 15 October 1807 in “The Impartial Review and Cumberland Repository”. In that, J. Dorris of Robertson Co., TN, advertised that he had lost a note on Amariah Reaves that had been given to Elijah Ferguson and assigned to Dorris by Benjamin Ferguson.

At the risk of repeating myself, once again, I'm thinking how wonderful it would be if a descendant of Ameriah Reeves of Orange County, North Carolina came forward to participate in Y-DNA testing and solve this riddle.