The Griers: American Pioneers
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The Grier family were Scots-Irish who came to Pennsylvania
from Ireland before the middle of the 18th century. Tradition
says the family were blood covenanters in Scotland, among those
who wrote their names in blood to a covenant to oppose bishops
in the church. The progenitors of these democratic folk were
two brothers, Robert and Thomas, whose father is not known.
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From Thomas Grier who stayed in Pennsylvania descended U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thomas Grier. From Robert Grier who came South descended Alexander Stephens, Vice President of the Con- federacy, Robert Grier of “Grier’s Almanac”, a farming almanac of the Old South and the Reverend Isaac Grier, a pioneer Presbyterian minister.
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Robert Grier, the brother who came South, was living in
York County, Pennsylvania in 1755. The Historical Society of
that county includes the diary of the Rev. John Cuthbertson
which shows that he baptized the following children of Robert
and Elizabeth Grier: Elizabeth, Moses and Robert, Jr ....On
March 1, 1769, Jean on October 13, 1765 and Thomas baptized in
November 1763.
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Sometime after 1763 Robert Grier moved his family to North
Carolina. His wife, Elizabeth Grier, died in North Carolina on
October 17, 1776, the year of the Declaration of Independence.
On November 28, 1776 he was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in
the 8th Continental Regiment, North Carolina Establishment, the
“Continental Line.” He was promoted to 1st Lieutenant April 24,
1777. He retired from the regiment June 1, 1778. His name was
used in the Colonial Records of North Carolina.
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The State Records of North Carolina (Volume 12, 1777-8,
page 491, Walter Clark: Winston, 1895) include a service diary
kept by one of the members of that regiment. It shows these men
were a genuine frontier lot. The keeper of the diary himself
was semiliterate. One of the better stories in the diary,
thankfully to come down to us, is that Lt. Grier got drunk and
was supposed to be court martialed for it. The other officers
appealed to the commanding officer for him. The court martial
was dropped, and Lt. Grier was reinstated. He must have had a
good reason to be drinking or a certain Gaelic charm.
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At any rate two years of army life and an almost court mar-
tial were enough for him. He followed his son, Robert Grier, Jr., to the frontier area of Georgia sometime during the early part of the Revolution. Young Robert had married in North Carolina in 1775 and, after a few years in Mecklenberg County, the
young couple decided to pioneer in Georgia.
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Young Robert was in Georgia by 1778. There is a State of
Georgia Certificate in the Archives that Robert Grier (II) was
commissioned to serve as a Lieutenant in the Battalion of Georgia Minute Men on March 1, 1778. The commission states that
the said Robert, at the time of his being commissioned, was not
an inhabitant of the state of Georgia, nor had he resided in any
part for months preceeding his commission. Robert, Junior’s
militia lieutenancy in the Battalion of Minute Men did not have
nearly the status his father’s commission in the North Carolina
Continental Line had, but they were both lieutenants.
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After the removal of Robert Grier, the father, to Georgia, where he remarried,, it becomes difficult to tell which Robert Grier, father or son or cousin, they have in mind. All were active. Later on Robert Grier, Junior would represent Greene
County, later Jasper County to which he moved, in the Georgia
legislature.
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A letter at “Liberty Hall,” the museum home of Alexander
Stephens in Crawfordville, Georgia, states Robert Grier, Jr. was an intelligent man frequently in the legislature from Greene
and Jasper Co. He moved to Jasper County about 1810, his sons
Robert (III) and Aaron with him. He lived there about ten years
and then with Robert, his son, moved to Alabama.” The letter
from Alfred Livingston, a cousin, was dated April 1, 1887.
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Robert Grier, Jr. had married Margaret Livingston on November 9, 1775 in Mecklenberg Co., North Carolina. She was of
Scots-Irish descent. Tradition has it that her mother too was
scalped by Indians and placed in Robert Grier, Junior’s family
burial plot.
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Robert Grier, III, was born June 4, 1786. He married Mary
Heard of Washington, Georgia in a tempestuous affair. Possibly
at her suggestion, the Grier family, always on the move, decided
to pioneer in the Alabama Territory. It was a family move in
which the children and many friends were involved. It was on
the way to the Alabama Territory that Jane Grier was murdered by
Indians. This is how Aunt Jane was scalped.
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“When Grandpa Grier decided to move to the Alabama Territory, he took all his big family, loaded the covered wagons with
black pots and bedsteads stained with berry juice, and took the
trail to the territory. This was in '18.
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Alabama was not a state then, only a territory where folks
lived in the shadow of the tomahawk. Chief Red Eagle and the
Creeks had massacred decent folks at Fort Mimms near Tensaw.
Your grandpa knew families there, and they were found scalped
and skewered and babies’ brains were beat out on rocks.
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Andy Jackson, a great hero and a brave man, had defeated the Creek Indians in the battle of Horseshoe Bend. That was in ‘14. The Indians were whipped in the main but splinter groups of Indian war parties still roamed a wide country. The pioneers who
came, hearing of the hero of Horseshoe Bend, thought the country
was safer than it was. That the Indians had been taken care of.
They were much mistaken.
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Wagons moved slow; maybe eight miles an hour, and it took
months to cover much territory. There were mule drawn wagons
and children and dogs. The women had to stop every night to
make camp, get up and get breakfast in the morning. The Grier's
had left Wilkes County, Georgia, and were heading for Dallas
County, Alabama, and it was slow moving. But inch by inch you
can cover a far piece.
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When they stopped on the trail at night, they always tried
to make camp near a clear water spring. The men always went
down to the creek with the women at night, only in the morning,
the women, not wanting to have a man in the way, grew careless
and started going to the spring by themselves.
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Jane got up earliest. The spring was safe enough the night
before, so she didn’t bother to raise a man. She threw on a
shawl, took a bucket and disappeared silently down the path in a
dark February morning. All was still. It was quiet like this
at Fort Mimms before the massacre when Red Eagle lay waiting in
the woods.
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We think when Jane knelt at the spring to fill her bucket,
she saw a glint in the water. She looked up to see an Indian
standing over her with a knife. The knife had caught the moon
in the water. So she pushed him down, then ran up the trail
towards the camp, screaming, “Injuns, Ma, red injuns,” running
and screaming, running and screaming up the path. They could
see her in the clearing when it hit her in the back. She was
still screaming “injuns,” when the tomahawk fell.
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The fight did not last long. Grandpa Grier and his boys
were excellent shots. The Indians vanished when the sun came
out. After the fight was over, Robert Grier found his sister’s
body beside the path. Jane lay near a pine tree face up and
the top of her head was missing.
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They dug a shallow grave near the tree, put a Bible in
Jane’s hand, wrapped her in a sheet and buried her there.
Grandpa put a natural rock at her head to mark it.. They took
time for a Bible reading and a prayer. They were hurrying down
the trail to a settlement in case the Indians came back with a
larger war party. So they had to bury Jane in an unmarked grave
by the side of the trail, and the wagon wheels turned quickly.”
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Robert Grier, Jr. recorded in the family Bible, “Jane Grier,
my sister, was murdered on the night of the 12th of February 1819,
being on Wednesday.”
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The settlement in the Alabama Territory was a catastrophe.
It was the lowland fever. The Grier's settled near the Alabama
River to traffic produce up and down, and there were mosquitoes.
The fever was either malaria or yellow. In thirteen months
Robert Grier, the baby, Robert Grier, the father, and Robert
Grier, the grandfather, would be dead.
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The mainstay of the settlement was the elder Robert Grier,
the legislator from Georgia, aided by his son and daughter-in-law, Robert and Mary Heard Grier. The other surviving son,
Isaac, a Presbyterian minister, was out preaching up and down the
frontier.
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Eliza, the two year old daughter of Robert and Mary, came down with the fever first. She died July 26, 1822. Eleven days later Robert Grier, the legislator, died and was buried where Eliza was. The baby, Robert, died the next month in November, and Robert, the young husband, died the next November. This left Mary Grier, a widow seven months pregnant, with seven children.
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Mary Grier, a Heard from Georgia, was more competent than
many men. She took over the Grier property, named the baby
Robert Alexander, and did well. Finances were not the problem.
The Grier's were well-to-do for the frontier. But she died in
1827, leaving eight children. A month after her death, her boy,
Aaron, aged six, died without his mother. There were now seven
surviving orphans. The oldest was a boy 16; the youngest child
was four. One of the seven, a 13 year old girl, was Melvina
Grier, the future wife of Neill McAulay.
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The children’s uncle, the Reverend Isaac Grier, had left
the frontier and was preaching at Sardis Presbyterian Church in
Mecklenberg County, North Carolina. He left his pulpit and his
family, took a covered wagon and drove to the Alabama Territory
to get the orphans.
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Melvina always remembered the drive back to North Carolina
from Alabama, in a covered wagon. She had to hold the baby,
Robert Alexander, part of the way.
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The children liked Uncle Isaac who had a sense of family,
but, arriving in North Carolina, they found his wife another
matter. No doubt frustrated by the imposition of seven children,
Mrs. Isaac was not too cordial. She made the orphans eat in the
kitchen with the servants and sleep in the loft where it was
cold. Melvina was not happy. Five years later, at age 18, she
married Neill McAulay.
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Neill and Melvina left for Coddle Creek where Melvina was
to have her own big house and even house slaves. Neill said
that he would always be happy to see her family. Later on he
sent Robert Alexander, the child Melvina had nursed in the covered wagon, to medical school in Philadelphia. Melvina no
doubt bade her inhospitable aunt a fond farewell.
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Of the Grier's, one thing is certain: the early Grier's were
the essence of the American pioneer spirit. They moved from
Pennsylvania to North Carolina to Georgia to Alabama in a covered wagon in a period less than one hundred years. All these
moves were made to a newer frontier. At the J. Thompson farm
near White Plains, Georgia, stands a tremendous rock with H.
Grier written on it. This farm supposedly belonged to Robert
Grier (II) who, in the tradition of pioneers, came, left his
mark and moved on.
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The Grier's were Indian fighters by necessity, and it was
true of them that they were rather down on Indians; like Andrew
Jackson who was their hero, the hero of Horseshoe Bend, who went
to the White House.
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Like the early American cliché, the Grier's really came
with a Bible and a gun to the frontier. The Grier's were devout
“Old Light” Presbyterians. Their group stressed keeping the
Sabbath, singing only psalms in services, and church excommunication of sinners. The minister was expected to go around
and catechize the members of the church, that is making sure
they knew the Westminster Catechism of the Presbyterian Church.
They also insisted on an educated ministry, valuing formal education highly, and the Presbyterian minister was usually the most educated man in the settlement, when they were lucky enough to get one.
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The Grier's in many ways typified the sterotype of the early American pioneers. Or the sterotype a romanticized history would prefer to have. Tough, hardy, good whisky drinkers and devout Presbyterians, natively intelligent and with great respect for formal education, they travelled far in covered wagons. Laconic, spartan in habits and moral thought, they were
in a way tough, shrewd and yet sympathetic in a way few moderns
can understand.
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The Bible of Robert Grier, the legislator and Minute Man
of Georgia, may be found in the Georgia Archives in Atlanta,
Family Bible Records, Series II, pp. 340-646, Volume II, pages
581-585, collected by D.A.R. Committee, Mrs. Eli A. Thomas,
Chairman, Georgia D.A.R., 1938.
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The most amusing entry in the Bible is that of Melvina
Grier McAulay--- “one serene day,” after the marriage of her
sister, Judith.
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In 1840 Judith Grier, Melvina’s favorite sister, was 34 and
unmarried. That was an old maid in those days. The Grier's,
particularly Melvina, were deeply disturbed. Judith had turned
down too many men. The family felt she was too fastidious. She
was 34 now, and it looked as if she wasn’t going to get anybody.
She was getting on.
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Melvina had her come to Coddle Creek for the April wedding
of Adaline Grier, Melvina’ s younger sister of 22, to Hugh
McAulay, Neill’s brother. Coddle Creek had a reputation for
domestic virtue. A visit to it seemed to encourage marriages,
particularly to Melvina's well run, light hearted house with
serious young Neil at the head of it. It worked. Judith and
Sam Black, a cousin of Neill’s through his mother’s met at the
wedding and fell in love.
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Judith and Sam were married on a nice summer’s day in the
pleasant white frame Presbyterian Church at Coddle Creek. There
was a party afterwards at Melvina and Neill’s. It was all very
pleasing. And at the end of the day, when Neill had gone up to
bed, Melvina sat in the parlor alone to write up the marriage in
her family Bible. The mere fact of the marriage did not seem
enough. The weather had been pretty. Judith was married. Sam
was a good man. Neill and she had sat together at the wedding,
and it seemed as if it had been theirs all over again. She was
so happy. It had been one serene day. So that was what she
wrote in the Bible. “Judith E. Grier was married to Samuel N.
Black the 3rd day of June 1840--one serene day.”
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Then she blew out the parlor candles and went to bed. She had no time for sentiment. She had to get some sleep. With all these wedding guests in the house, in the morning she had to get up and go.
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N.B.
1. The Centennial History of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church, 1803 -1903. Walker, Evans, Cogswell Co.,
1905 under Isaac Crier, ARP minister, discusses his dedescent.
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2. James MacLeod represents Lt. Robert Grier of the 8th
regiment, Continental Line in the North Carolina Society
of the Cincinnati.
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3. There is an interesting article on Robert Grier of the
Almanac in the Atlanta Journal and Constitution Sunday,
October 7, 1962, page 4B.
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4. There is a letter on the early Grier's written by Alexander Stephens from Crawfordville to Linton Stephens at
Sparta on Dec. 28, 1860; it is in the Library of Manhattanville College, Purchase, N.Y.
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