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Andrew Colley—Farmer, Fighter, Pioneer, Part Three, continued ___
acres on the south fork of the South Tyger River. 7
Earlier in that same year, Levi Casey and his wife
Mary had sold 112 acres on the north side of the
Tyger River to John Stanford Jr., planter, of Greenville
County, S.C. 8
Possibly yet another John Stanford, “planter of
Spartanburgh County,” sold on 29 March 1787 300
acres on Buffalo Creek that had been granted to him
in January 1785. This land was sold to John Bridges
of York County and was bounded by lands of the
said John Bridges, James Bridges, and Green. 9
The review, just finished above, of Andrew Colley’s
possible family connections in North and South
Carolina completes the currently possible picture of
his life in the Carolinas and sets the stage for his life’s
next chapter, the westward push into Kentucky.
Moving to Kentucky
In 1797, lands in Kentucky south of Green River
were opened for settlement to any person possessed
of family and over 21 years of age. Such a person
was entitled to at least 100 acres but no more than
200 acres and must have been an actual settler on
the land for one year before coming into possession
of it. 10 In 1798, the law was changed to make grants
south of Green River available to men aged 18 or
over who satisfied the other requirements stated in
1797. 11 Prior to1797, these lands had been reserved
only for soldiers. 12
Word of the suitability of these newly available
lands must have spread quickly to back country
South Carolina. A number of family names present
in back country counties during the 1790s can
be found in Christian and Caldwell Counties, Ky.,
beginning in 1798/99 and into the early 1800s.
These names include Colley, Stevens, Mitchusson,
Calhoun, Griffith, Wells, Goodwin, Bearden, Cato,
Ford, Prince, Kilgore, Goodaker, Satterfield, Earle,
and many others. 13
The route to south central or southwestern Kentucky
from northwestern Back Country South Carolina
was fairly direct but probably arduous. Migrants
likely moved along the Lower Cherokee Traders
Path, which ran southwesterly through Spartanburg
County to the South Carolina/Georgia border at
present-day Oconee County. From there, travelers
could move northwesterly along the Nashville/Saline
River and Black Fox trails to the area around pres-
ent-day Nashville. From there, migrants to the newly
opened land south of the Green River could take the
Mississippi and Tennessee River trail northwesterly
into lower Christian County, Ky. 14 The approximately
500-mile trek by horseback—at 20 to 30 miles per
day without wagons and family—could likely have
been accomplished in about three weeks.
According to E. Wade Hone in Land & Property
Research in the United States, a multi-step process
was required to obtain a grant of state land such as
the area south of the Green River in Kentucky. This
process included the following steps:
• application, or entry, for land;
• warrant for survey;
• survey; and
• preparation and issuance of the patent, or official
title to the land. 15
Records of the lands granted south of the Green
River indicate that on Oct. 23, 1798, warrants
No. 3909 [sic], 3010, and 3011 were issued for the
surveys of 200 acres each for “Andrew Colly Senr,”
“Jacob Colley,” and “Andrew Colly Junr,” respectively.
16 On Jan. 22, 1799, 200 acres of land on
Wallace’s Creek, the waters of the Muddy Fork of
the Little River, were surveyed for “Andrew Cawley
Senr.,” for “Jacob Cawley,” and also for “Andrew
Cawley Junr.” 17 The requirement of a year’s residence
for receiving a grant of land, as stated in the 1797
law, 18 probably means that the Colley men arrived in
Kentucky sometime during the year 1798.
When the tax list was compiled in Christian
County in 1799, however, the only Colley listed was
Jacob Colley—one male over 21 years of age, two
horses, and no land. 19 (Jacob Colley’s grant of the
200 acres surveyed in January 1799 was not delivered
until November of that year, so he was not yet
a land owner at the time the tax list was compiled. 20 )
This fact seems to imply that Andrew Colley and his
sons Jacob and Andrew Jr. rode on horseback from
Spartanburg County to Christian County in 1798;
selected their land and marked it; applied for surveys;
and then sometime before the tax list was compiled
in 1799 Andrew and his son Andrew Jr. left Jacob in
Kentucky to maintain their claims and returned to
South Carolina to pack up the rest of the family to
bring them all back to Kentucky.
The scenario suggested above is supported by the
2005 Kentucky Ancestors V41-1