MARTIN COUNTY, NORTH CAROLINA The Cooper Family of Martin County, NC and Jones County, GA. |
Introduction: One Family Tradition holds that David George Cooper, Jr., b. about 23 Aug 1818, was an orphan. His father David George Cooper, Sr. was killed in a storm while he was still in the womb. There is nothing to directly confirm this story. However, records of Jones County, GA County at the time are consistent with this story. A second part of the story is that the father of David George Cooper Sr. was Humphrey Cooper. It has been long known that Humphrey Cooper first appeared in the Jones County in the 1818 Tax Digest. All that confirms is that he was b. before 1797 and he lived in Jones County. And there the story stalled into a brick wall for well over 30 years. The Hint: The key hint that ties it all together was the newspaper account of Lorton Cooper (1819-1907), the son of Humphrey Cooper found at: https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/about/GQVL-TWF in the Memories section of the Profile. This 1907 account states that Lorton’s father Humphrey Cooper was a native of Martin County, NC. This is confirmed by a deed record that showed an older Lorton Cooper (b. about 1765) and Humphrey Cooper, in 1813 sold land in Martin County, NC on Cooper’s Cr., just south of the tiny Town of Jamesville, NC. (Martin, NC Deed Book F.130). Better yet, it appears that numerous Cooper family members have lived in the area since as early as 1745! This opens a world of research possibilities. Martin County, NC: Martin County, NC is a rural county that is now quite off the beaten path. It sits on the Roanoke River well east of I-95 and Rocky Mount, NC a few miles west of the mouth of the Roanoke River at the tip of Albemarle Sound and the Atlantic Ocean. Although, it is now off the beaten path, in the booming Colonial times it was likewise a booming area as it set on a major waterway to distribute goods up and down the Atlantic Coast. The East Half of Martin County came from Tyrrell County, an early NC county. It was originally a long skinny county running along the south side of Albemarle Sound and up the south side of the Roanoke River. It encompassed the land in present day Tyrrell County, Washington County and the east half of Martin County. The West Half of Martin County was previously a part of Halifax County and Edgecombe County. Even earlier both the east and west halves were in Bertie County. Today, there are numerous Cooper families still living in the area. What a field day for research loving genealogist. |
Compiled By: David H. Robertson, 159 Hickory St., Roswell, GA 30075 davidhr@hushmail.com |