Descendants of William , SR. Barnhill

Notes


6. William (Billy) Barnwell

William (Billy) Barnhill
William Barnhill is listed as a member of Company A - Buncombe County Volunteers which participated in the Cherokee Indian Removal under General Winfield Scott starting April 7, 1838. Apparently it was upon his return from this service that he married Melisa A. Clark and made his home on the top of Barnhill Mountain, which is also known as Young’s Gap. This is in the Hooper’s Creek area. In all, they had nine Children, four girls and five boys. According to the 1860 census, they were James (1842), Nancy (1845), Mary (1845), John (1850), Nimrod (1852), William Riley (1853), Sara A. (1855), Clingman (1857), and Eliza (1860). According to other records, however, these birth dates are quite far off. It is almost as if the 1860 census taker was guessing. For example, William shown as thirty-two in 1850 and forty-four in 1860. John E. is shown as four in 1850 and ten in 1860. In a later census (1870), John is shown with a birthday in 1845. Clearly, all of this data is pretty rough.

Our ancestor is the fourth child, John Erwin Barnwell. By the time John Erwin was ready to leave home, all of the Barnhills (Enos, William, James, John and David) were going by the name of Barnwell.


12. Joshua David Barnwell

Joshua David Barnwell owned over 300 acres on Terry's Gap in Henderson County. He and his wife lived in a two story log house and had three children. Joshua enlisted in the Confederate Army 15 July, 1861 at the age of 32 in Company H of the Twenty-Fifth North Carolina Infantry. Shortly after he joined, the 25th marched from Asheville to Morganton and then took a train to Raleigh. From Raleigh they traveled by train to Wilmington where they were issued arms, and then on the Charleston South Carolina. Finally they arrived at Coosawhatchie on the South Carolina Coast where the 25th was charged with guarding the coast from Union encroachment. He was mustered in as a corporal, but reduced to a private on 30 April 1862. He was present or accounted for until discharged on or about 27 May 1862 after providing a substitute Private Christopher Columbus Williams. Providing a substitute allowed Joshua to return home to care for his children after the death of his wife.
Joshua was five feet ten inches tall, dark complexion, with black eyes and hair. He was a farmer and is buried in Hoopers Creek Baptist Church Cementary


Susannah Saphronia Clark

Susannah lived in a two stroy log house with her three children and two slaves while her husband was away serving in the Civil War. It was here she was murdered while her children slept nearby in a trundle bed. Their two faithful slaves told of awaking the next morning and as they went into the yard they said "I bet Miss Mossy has fried chicken for us this morning for breakfast as there is blood on the axe over there on the stump and she has done gone and killed a chicken". When the three children came out of the house to play they asked where Miss Mossy was and the childeren said they could not awaken their mother. The two slaves then went into the house and found her dead in the bed. At the inquest they told the last time they saw her was the night before as she sat on her porch with a hymnal in her lap singing hymns. This explanis why in 1862 Joshua David paid for a substitute to replace him in the Confederate Army so he could return home and care for his childeren.