1814 muster roll for the War of 1812 in North
Carolina, and this researcher “decided” it made more sense that Reddick
was 26 years old rather than 16 when he volunteered.
A grave marker for Reddick in Hamilton County, IL, lists the 1790
date, but this must be incorrect.
Indeed, it is even more commendable that a 16 year old, raised no
doubt with his ancestor's stories about the Revolutionary War, would
volunteer to defend his country.
Reddick appears on the
Second Muster in the Second Regiment of the 11th Company,
detached from the Martin County Regiment of the North Carolina Militia.
These men reported at the city of New Bern on Sep. 17, 1814. They
were promised pay of $8 - $12 a month, a $124 enlistment bounty, and 160
acres of land. Though
several regiments were sent out of North Carolina during the war,
Reddick's was not. North
Carolina saw only one major action when British ships raided Ocracoke
and Portsmouth Islands on the Outer Banks to confiscate supplies and
livestock. No record of a
land bounty has been found for Reddick.
Sometime before Sep. 13,
1824, Reddick's younger brother James died, and Reddick inherited a 1/5
share in the land his father James willed to his son James, which
Reddick sold to his brother-in-law Daniel Wynn:
“40 acres part of the land given by James Rawls, Sr. to his son
James Rawls, his son is now dead and I being one of the heirs of my
brother James Rawls deceased.
I own the one fifth of a tract of land sold by John Kennedy to
James Rawls, Sr., containing 300 acres...”.
In turn, Daniel and his wife Fanny Rawls Wynn, sold their now 3/5
share of the land to Alfred Moore on Aug. 12, 1825.
Reddick married
Phinnie Corrinda Williams, born 1804 in North Carolina, daughter of
Nathaniel R. Williams and a mother whose name is unknown.
After the Revolutionary
War and War of 1812, North Carolina issued military service and
“occupation”or settler land bounties and grants for its Washington
County Reserve, which included the whole state of Tennessee.
Even after Tennessee became a state it had to accept these
grants. Mass speculation and
confusion followed, and Tennessee began issuing its own grants, adding
to the ownership battles settlers faced.
The U.S. Land Act of 1820 reduced the minimum number of acres to
be bought to 80 from 160, and lowered the price to $1.25 an acre, making
the area very attractive to settlers.
Reddick Rawls and Daniel Wynn moved their families to Wilson
County, TN, where they appear on the 1830 census.
Neither of them owned slaves.
Perhaps Reddick was among the settlers who lost a property
dispute, because by 1832 he was in Hamilton County, IL, listed as having
voted in an election.
Archibald Kennedy, Nathaniel Williams and
Daniel Wynn also moved their families to Hamilton County.
Reddick and his family
were missed on the 1840 census, but we know they were in Hamilton County
because Reddick's home was used as a precinct voting site in the August,
1842 general election. This election was the first
where seven Germans who had emigrated from Baden were allowed to vote,
since Illinois required only six months' residence.
Among them was a young man named Albert Eiswine.
From June, 1849 to June,
1850, 66 people died in Hamilton County, 5 of them mothers and their
children in childbirth, and
25 of them children under 10 years old.
Cholera, typhoid, pertussis, and “fevers” took the most lives.
In October, 1849, Reddick was stricken with an unknown illness;
one week later
so was Phinnie.
They died within a week of one another in November.
Reddick was 50 and Phinnie was 45.
They were buried in the Rawls Family Cemetery in Belle Prairie
City, Hamilton County, IL.