Chatham makes my 33rd county I have visited to have tracked family either to or from. Why I waited so long, I am not certain, as several families from the Stanly/Montgomery/Anson County area, where my ancestors all landed, resided in Chatham for awhile before migrating westward here. 

My Marks and Murray lines most definately and my Ramsey and Lambert lines possibly. 

So far, I have had the priviledge of visiting the courthouses, museums, libraries and history centers of Stanly, Montgomery, Anson, Cabarrus, Union, Mecklenburg, Rowan, Iredell, Burke, Davidson, Randolph, Davie, Guilford, Forsyth, Wake, Moore, Hoke, Cumberland, Brunswick Counties of North Carolina and Marlboro, Chesterfield, Chester, Lancaster and York Counties of South Carolina; Mecklenburg, Brunswick and Luneburg Counties in Virigina; Lauderdale, Limestone and Lawrence in Alabama; and White and Lumpkin Counties in Georgia. 

How I missed Chatham in all of that, I do not know. 

Chatham is a beautiful place with rolling hills and wide streams. It's difficult not to wonder why ancestors left there and came here. We live in a beautiful area, too, but in Chatham, you get the feeling of "Why leave"?

The Marks brothers lived here and it was also home to ancestors Isham and Esther (Hester) Gunter, whose daughters Mary and Catherine "Caty" Gunter married the Marks, John and James. 

The most prominent Marks was William, who we know married Margaret Salter from Bladen County. We know that there must be a link between John, James and William. They were most likely brothers, but we've not found proof of that yet. We also found a George Marks, and from a land division, we know he married into the Kennon family, but he made a brief appearance, in the 1800 census and in the land division, and then he disappears. Where did he go? It might be of interest to research his wifes family to see if he followed them west. It's a constant search for dna matches to see if we can tie all of these folks together. 

But perhaps the most astonishing find my cousin and I made was found in a deed.  My cousin and I had been functioning on the presumption that John Marks had married Caty Gunter, as both of them show up in Stanly/Montgomery County, in ledgers, petitions and Caty is in the 1830 census. John was in Montgomery/Stanly as late as 1837. James never does. And Mary Gunter Marks lived a long life in Chatham. 

But this deed broke that theory in two, clearly showing that John was married to Mary, not James. It also explains why Caty is alone in 1830 and why John shows up in Chatham up until 1840.

When I line up the 1800, 1810 and 1820 census records with the suspected children of each couple, it also makes more sense that the couples were John and Mary and James and Caty. 

Chatham County was formed in 1771 from Orange County. It was named in honor of  William Pitt, the First Earl of Chatham. The county seat, Pittsboro, was also named for the Pitt family. 

Some of the earliest settlers in the area were Quakers. A large Quaker settlement established itself in the area of Siler City about 1751, two decades before the county was established. Early Settlers arrived to Chatham from the north, following a Catawba Indian trading route south through the Cape Fear Valley.

Chatham was a virtual Eden of Waterways. It contained not one or two, but 5 major waterways.  First, there was the Haw River running from the north central part of the county to the beginning of the Cape Fear River. Then there was Deep River, coming in from the South and West through Randolph and Moore Counties to join the Haw River and become the Cape Fear. Then of course, the Cape Fear in its Southeastern corner. Then there was the Rocky River, whose many contributaries, including Bear Creek, that fanned out over the western half of the county and became a contributary of the Deep River and on the eastern side of the Haw River was New Hope Creek and all of its contributary branches, reaching the Haw just before it's union with the Deep and creating a water coverage for the county's Eastern border. 

New Hope became Jordan Lake and covers nearly 14,000 acres. But in the early days, the abundance of water and waterways made Chatham an attractive destination. 

It was a hotbed of activity during the Revolution and that may have been why many families left and relocated in along the Yadkin/Pee Dee instead. 

One bit of information I picked up in Chatham was the influx and influence of the Argyll Colony, a group of Scots who arrived in Brunwick and Wilmington and made their way to the Cape Fear Valley to Cross Creek (which later became Fayetteville) in present day Cumberland County. A generation later, they would make their way up the Cape Fear, to its origin in Chatham. This interests me in particular, because several of my family lines that originated in Chatham, or may have originated in Chatham, like the Murrays, Ramsey's and Lamberts, have Scottish origins. 

Among the other treasures I discovered in Chatham was the 1815 tax list. Why would someone get excited over a tax list, you might ask? Well, it was who was found on it. And there were many. 

In the early pages, I kept seeing the name of a person with adjoining propert as "A. Carloss". I gasped. "Archelaus Carloss", I muttered, just wondering, and I few pages later my wondering ceased. I was right. It was indeed Archelaus Carloss, the younger. He had landed in Chatham County and made a comfortable home for himself. 

I became acquainted with the Carloss family in my research of my Southside Virginia families of Davis, Winfield, Freeman and Floyd. 

Two sons of Edward Winfield and wife Mary Harris , Peter and Joshua, had married two sisters, Charlotte and Jemimia Freeman, daughters of Arthur Freeman and wife, Agnes Stokes.  Peter and his wife Charlotte would migrate to the Rocky River area of Anson/Montgomery/Stanly County along with many friends, relatives and neighbors, including Stokes, Freemans, Laniers and Marshalls. Joshua remained in Virginia. When his first wife, Jemima Freeman Winfield died, Joshua remarried to Rebecca Thrower Carloss, daughter of Hezekiah Thrower and widow of one Edward Carloss. She came as the mother of two young sons, Robertson (or Robinson) and Archelaus. 

When the large group of Virginians set forth to Anson County, NC, it included Joel Winfield, son of Joshua and Jemima Winfield, John Thrower Winfield, his half-brother, son of Joshua and second wife Rebecca and Robertson Carloss, Joshua's stepson and stepbrother to Joel and half-brother to John Thrower Winfield. Three daughters of Joshua also migrated, Dorothy, who married a Walker, Mary, who married Drury Robertson Jr and Martha, who married James Robertson, sons of Drurry Robertson, Sr. 

After about 10 or 12 years, the younger generation crossed the state line into Marlboro County, SC. Joel Winfield would make his mark in politics, operate an Ordinary and establish his own little town of "Winfieldville" which would morph into Bennettsville. When he died, John T. Winfield took over his duties for awhile as Postmaster and such, but would eventually migrate on to Charleston. The Robertson brothers with their Winfield wives would become sucessful planters and businessmen while their wives would be the hostesses of Marlboro society. Robertson Carloss would not create as many waves as his stepsiblings, but became a land owner. But I often wondered what became of Archelaus. Now I know. 

Carloss is not a native Virginian name. The Carloss legend supposedly came from a Juan or John Carloss (someone at some point inserted the name "Don"), who, according to tale, was exciled from Spain or Portugal, as a "royal persona non grata" and arrived to the America's via Cuba. John first shows up in New Kent, Virginia in 1722. Born about 1695, John was the father of :

 Archaelus I (b 1734 in New Kent, Va. Died in Caswell County, NC

John Jr. b 1729 in New Kent, Va. , found in Dinwiddie and Brunswick Counties of Virginia and later, Edgecomb and Franklin Counties in North Carolina. 

Edward (b about 1840, lived in Brunswick County, Virginia. Married Rebecca Thrower, daughter of Hezekiah Thrower, father of Robertson Carloss and Archaelus II. 

The 1815 Tax List of Chatham lists Archelaus as being taxed for 1 white poll and 3 black polls. He owned 1275 adjoining Joseph Buchanon, a town lot in Haywood adjoining  Joseph Lane, two uninproved (vacant) town lots in Haywood adjoining Theopas Hunter, and as Guardian of Hannah Stokes, another unimproved town lot in Haywood. 

The story of Hannah Stokes is an interesting one and made the history books.  It also brings into play my Stokes relatives.

Sylvanus Stokes was born about 1660 in Charles City, Virginia and died February 6, 1748 in Sussex County, Virginia. He married Agnes Hamblin and among his many children was a son name Hamblin Stokes, born in 1683. Hamblin Stokes married Cecilia Walker and named one of his daughters Agnes, born in 1720, after his mother. Agnes Stokes married Arthur Freeman and they were the parents of Charlotte Freeman Winfield and Jemima Freeman Winfield and many of their children and grandchildren would migrate to North Carolina. 

Sylvanus Stokes was my 8th Great Grandfather. He would spur off many younger Sylvanus Stokes, a son, multiple Grandsons and Great Grandsons. Some of these descendants ended up in Chatham County. 

According to this book,