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Dillard: One American Family
To their credit, not a more fervent group of family researchers exists than those with a Dillard link. We have the work of a handful of devotees, stymied only by lost records, to thank for a pretty firm and mostly unbroken history in America spanning more than 350 years. With sufficient certainty, we can now piece together a documented trail from Bartow (formerly Cass) County GA, back to Laurens District / Newberry, SC, back to Virginia, and finally to England, or at least to a ship setting sail from there that delivered the first Dillard to America.
It will take a doggedly determined group to sort though such a mess. A lot of confusion centers around formally published misinformation about the Laurens, South Carolina Dillards, our branch among them. Researchers of that region have long struggled to bring order to a family with generation after generation of too many men named James and John. Since the Laurens area lacked a stone cutter prior to 1832, chizeled toomstones older than that didn't exist for cemetery researchers to document.
Major confusion raged over an early Dillard spouse, whose last name was Major, and another early Dillard, who achieved the rank of major in the Continental Army. The Major family name was passed down to Dillard offspring for several generations and in one incident given to a male child as his first name. Researchers mistook it for the military rank. Curiously, our grandmother, Martha Lofton Dalrymple, played a central role in the mix-up, and when we discovered that Martha married two men named Dillard (that's right, Martha Lofton Dalrymple Dillard Dillard), the snarled knot began to untangle.
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Sources:
Dillard Family Association & Dillard Annual
History of Bartow Formerly Cass County Georgia, 1939
Newberry County, SC Equity Records 1818-1844, Will Book M&N with Annual Returns Will Book 1 Misc Annual Returns
The Free Press, Cartersville, GA, Dec 27, 1883
The Courant-American, Cartersville, GA, Thursday, Jan 8, 1891
The Tribune News, Cartersville, GA, Dec 21, 1922
Richard Nix, Etowah Valley Historical Association
Howard V. Jones
Bill Dillard
William Major
Valerlie Wigington
Linda Cornutt
Pat Carey
E-mail List: DILLARD-L@rootsweb.com
Dr. Lee Adair
General William T. Sherman's 1864 map of Cass (later Bartow) County GA (from the Etowah Valley Historical Society collection).
The Scrapbook : A Complication of Historical Facts About Places and Events of Laurens County South Carolina, Published by Laurens County Historical Society and Laurens County Arts Council, 1982
A Laurens County (South Carolina) Sketchbook by Julian Stevenson Bolick with A Brief Sketch of the Development of Laurens County by Edna Riddle Foy, ©1973 Mrs. Julian S. Bolick (not formally published)
Roster of South Carolina Patriots in the American Revolution by Bobby Gilmer Moss, Limestone College, Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc. Baltimore, 1983
1919 Bartow County GA Widow's Pension Application for Samuel L. Pittard
1850 Cass (later Bartow) County GA Census
1850 Cass (later Bartow) County GA Slave Census
1860 Cass (later Bartow) County GA Census
http://genforum.genealogy.com/dillard/
http://www.sciway.net/hist/amrev/engagements.html
http://www.historichampshire.org/fairfax.htm
Bartow (formerly Cass) County Georgia GenWeb http://www.gabartow.org
Lemuel Dillard's Family Bible
Louise Powell Dobbs
"Mamie Rhett" Copeland; handwritten manuscript, "Record Book of Mrs. J. Rhett Copeland (Mamie Hunter Copeland", unpublished; Laurens, S.C. Public Library Genealogy Room, courtesy of Mary Adair Watts
Estate Records for John Dillard (1765 - 1833) and wife, Ruth Wilson Dillard, Laurens District South Carolina, courtesy of Mary Adair Watts
Mary Ann Johnson
"Old Cassville Cemetery" - Informally published list of burials and death years compiled by Cassville Heritage Association
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