Stirring Up a Hornet's Nest: - UGA Laboratory of Archaeology ...

As were many of their neighbors along Kettle Creek, the Hammetts were slave owners. Enslaved African-
Americans belonging to William Hammett were offered for purchase at a Sheriff’s Sale in Wilkes County
in August, 1794 (Genealogybank.com 2008; Southern Centinel 1794:4). The advertisement in the Augusta,
Georgia, newspaper offered for sale, “the following Negroes, to wit, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses; taken under
sundry executions as the property of William Hammett, Esq.” This notice provides the given names for
three African-Americans who may have lived in the general vicinity of the Kettle Creek battlefield in the
mid-1790s.
Some of the Hammetts moved westward as the Georgia frontier expanded. William Hammett and family
followed this pattern. An August 15, 1810 advertisement for a Sheriff’s Sale in Randolph County, Georgia
listed 20,000 lbs of deer skins “levied on as the property of William Hammet, to satisfy an execution in
favor of James Dick, & Co. and pointed out by the defendant” (Georgia Journal 1810:4) (Figure 21).
Figure 21. Advertisement for Sale of William Hammet's
Property (Georgia Journal 1810:4).
The McNabbs
Robert McNabb settled on Kettle Creek where he
established a blockhouse by 1778. McNabb served in
Captain Robert Carr’s company of Wilkes County militia
from September 15 to October 15, 1778 (Hammett
2008:91). McNabb’s Fort was attacked by hostile Indians as
many as four times in its history. Davis stated that in
November, 1778 McNabb’s blockhouse was attacked by
hostile Indians and destroyed. McNabb and his family
survived that attack. Robert McNabb was killed in January, 1782, as Robert Davis noted:
From a careful reading of volumes one and two of the ‘Indian Depredations’ transcripts it appears that Robert McNabb’s
home/fort on Kettle Creek was destroyed by Indians in 1778 while his family and neighbors were ‘forted up’ at Carr’s fort on
Beaverdam Creek. Robert Carr’s fort was attacked by an Indian party of eleven warriors in 1779. Carr was killed but his
family escaped into the night, leaving their property to be destroyed by the Indians. The community seems to have forted up
at McNabb’s in 1781 (maybe because Carr’s fort was not rebuilt?) when it was again destroyed by Indians. On January 3,
1782, while most of the community was again forted up at McNabb’s fort (Robert Davis personal communication February
27, 2008).
Robert McNabb’s widow was issued certificates for bounty land in Franklin and Wilkes counties by
Colonel Elijah Clarke on February 2, 1784. On February 20, 1784 Mary McNabb, was appointed
Administratrix of Robert McNabb’s estate in Wilkes County. In 1785 Mary McNabb was a resident of
Captain Hagan's militia district in Wilkes County, where she owned 350 acres of land. Her property in 1785
was bounded by property of William Seals Muse and his wife Judith Seals Muse (the Muse’s 200 acres was
conveyed to Laurence Bankston on November 2, 1785). A December 5, 1791 deed identified “McNabb
orphans” as a neighboring landowner on Kettle Creek. A December 28, 1795 deed, however, conveyed 200
acres, “agreeable to the original grant on Kettle Creek, adj. N. by McNabb, NW by Nicholas Subtrine, W.
by Mrs. Riddle, SE by McNabb.”
The 1795 deed from Mary McNabb, widow, and Henry McNabb, her son, to George Darden indicates that
Henry McNabb was Mary McNabb’s son. The date of Mary McNabb’s death is not recorded, although by
deed records indicate she was living as late as May 15, 1800.
Henry McNabb, the son of Robert McNabb, conveyed 64 acres of land, “adj. John Chaney, the creek” to
John Chaney on April 23, 1798. On September 24, 1804, Mathew Lyle, Henry McNabb and Betsey
McNabb conveyed 150 acres on Kettle Creek, “granted to the heirs of Robert McNabb, 25 June 1784” to
Nicholas Stephens [Shubtrine]. Henry McNabb continued to reside in Wilkes County from 1801 through
1809 but by 1817, he had moved to Morgan County, Georgia (Ancestry.com 2008).
115