Last Will and Testament of Thomas Ussery Of Montgomery Co, NC In the Name of God Amen
I, Thomas Ussery of the County of Montgomery And State of North Carolina. Being of sound mind and perfect memory, do constitute and ordain this my last will and testament
First of all, I commend my soul to God who gave it, and my body to the dust to be buried at the discretion of my friends.
I give & bequeath to my son THOMAS the whole of my land on which I now live and also my negro man Charles, after the death of myself and wife. I give and bequeath unto my son WELCOME the one hundred dollars I let him have to pay for land on Little River
I give and bequeath to my son ROBERT my negro boy York.
I give and bequeath to my son PETER my negro boy Major, also one hundred dollars in money to be paid out of my estate.
I lend unto my son BLACKWELL my negro boy Richard from year to year, during his life at the discretion of my executors and also empower them to make him a deed to the one hundred and thirty acres of land he now lives on in this Co. aforesaid
I lend unto my daughter MARY my negro girl Charity during her life from year to year at discretion of my executors. And then said Charity and her increase to be divided equally among the surviving heirs of her body.
I give and bequeath to my daughter MARTHA my negro girl Judah
I lend to my daughter ELIZABETH, during her life my negro girl Rossie at the discretion of my executors from year to year as they may think proper, and then said Rossie and increase to be equally divided among the heirs of her body and in case the said Elizabeth shall die without issue then the said Rossie and increase shall be equally divided among my surviving heirs.
I give unto my daughter SARAH five shillings
I give unto my beloved wife SARAH my negro girl Fanny with her increase to dispose of, or as many of them as she may see fit to SAMUEL & MARTHA ROGERS, and the rest of my other heirs to be equally divided also, my negro girl _______ and increase likewise give her to possess Charles and old Tempe, Rachel & Aggy and their increase. To be equally divided among my surviving heirs together with all my stock of every kind. PETER gets his one hundred dollars of it.
I do hereby revoke all other Wills and Testaments made by me, and do substitute and appoint my beloved wife Sara, Edward Chambers, Humphrey Garrett, and Welcome Ussery Executors to this my Last Will & Testament.
In witness whereof, I have hereunto set
my hand & seal
This June 10, 1811
Thomas Ussery (seal)
This will was recently found by John Ussery geepajohn@earthlink.net at the NC Archives. He sent me the following email on June 25, 2003:
The Thomas Ussery Will is the origional handwritten Will. I have it scanned and will be happy to send it that way, but the Legal Paper scans are large and may be too big for Yahoo. I can send you copies by mail if you prefer, just let me know.
I also looked for years in the Archives for the Will. I have found that there are a number of private collections that contain origional papers that are not cross cataloged with any of their other records. Thomas's Will is in the private collection of the works of Issac "Ike" London who was owner and editor of the Rockingham Post-Dispatch. Ike also was Richmond County Historian for many years.
Ike died in 1965 and all of his work, which contains many of the "W. I. Everett Sketches" written by W. I. Everett (Ike's grandfather-in-law) on early Richmond County families, was taken and put in storage by a daughter of Ike's. After a number of years of prodding by a comrade of Ike's, the daughter finally donated the works to the State Archives. I know some of the works were dammaged because of storage in a damp garage on a dirt floor. I was told there were 42 boxes taken to the Archives, but I don't know how much survived. It took them several years to get the boxes cataloged. I wrote to the Archives and ask for all of the papers on the Ussery family in Ike's collection. Most was copies of letters that I already had from other family sources and much of the correspondance relies on a family history on the Usserys written by a daughter of William Dorsey Ussery (which has proved to be incorrect). In the information received from the Archives were several letters written by Ike in the 1950's in which he clearly stated that he had possession of the Thomas Ussery Will and also had the origionals of several other Richmond County Wills. I wrote back to the Archives and told them Ike's letter said he had the origional Thomas Ussery Will and ask them to check for me. A couple of weeks later I recieved the copy from them and the indexing number shows it is in a different box than the rest of the Ussery information. I am going to the Archives this summer and will check Ike's works to see what Wills of other Richmond County ancestors he might have in his files. This Will at one time was in the possession of my Great Grandfather Robert Lee Ussery who was a magistrate in Richmond County and a good friend of Ike London's. The last time anyone in my family remembers seeing the Will was at an Ussery reunion about 1950/51. Several of my ancestors worked with Ike on the Ussery lineage and one of them must have given the Will to Ike and that's how he got it in his papers. Correspondance from Ike shows he did not recall how he came in possession of the Will. The copy of the Will I received from the North Carolina State Archives shows it came from "Isaac S. London Collection - 1769 - 1964 - PC 1254.23; wills, deeds, etc, Richmond County".
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