The Fulkerson Family Pages
Abraham Fulkerson, Patriot
A New Jersey Son
Abraham was born in Somerset Co., New Jersey in 1739, the tenth child and seventh son of Volkert Derickson Fulkerson and Dianah Aeltje Fulkerson.
On the Fulkerson side of the family, Abraham's grandparents were Dirck Volkertszen and Maria de Witt; his great grandparents were Volkert Dirckse Volkertszen and Annetje Phillipse Langelaan; and his great, great parents were Dirck de Noorman and Christina Guleyne Vigne.
Abraham Fulkerson was baptized at the Readington Dutch Reformed Church in Readington, NJ, on 18 May 1740.
Abraham's father and mother, Volkert and Dinah, had moved their family from New York to Somerset County, New Jersey, where his grandfather Dirck and two great uncles were operating a mill. A January 1741 notice in the American Weekly Mercury places them in Hunterdon County.
Abraham Fulkerson was baptized in the Readington Dutch Reformed Church in Readington, New Jersey, in 1740.
By 1748, Abraham's brothers had begun exploring lands along the Virginia-North Carolina border. On 18 March 1748, Abraham's brother Frederick, twenty years older than he, had 600 acres surveyed on both sides of Marrowbone Creek in Halifax Co., VA, just south of Martinsville (now Henry Co.).
On 18 May 1754, brother Volkert, fourteen years Abraham's senior, entered a claim for 400 acres in Pittsylvania County. Records of the Moravian colony at Wachovia, North Carolina, report that on 30 Jun 1755, "Mr. Volkerson brought us a letter from Bethlehem." (Bethlehem, PA was about 40 miles west of Somerset Co., NJ, and on the road from that region to North Carolina.)
It was about 1755 that Volkert, Abraham's father, and his mother Dianah (a.k.a. Dinah), moved their household south to North Carolina. Abraham would have been about 16 years old at the time of the move. Tragically, his father Volkert died before they reached their destination in Rowan County, and his oldest brother Dirck was killed shortly after they arrived.
Aged 27, Abraham married Sarah Gibson in Rowan Co., North Carolina, on 2 July 1766.
Four years later Abraham and older brother James both moved their families to the "Overmountain" region of southwest Virginia. Abraham fought in the Revolutionary War (Battle of King's Mountain, 7 Oct 1780).
The 1782 property tax rolls for Washington County show that Abraham owned 16 horses, 27 head of cattle and no slaves (although an 1818 Scott County property list shows him with 3 slaves and 4 horses). The Washington County records also show he had land surveyed in 1782:
Page 26 - Abraham Fulkerson...44 ac...on both sides of a small branch of the waters of the north fork of Holston River...Beginning in a gap of the river knobs...on the south side of the Poor Valley knobs...October 23, 1782
Page 27 - Abraham Fulkerson...540 ac...Preemption Warrant...in the Poor Valley and on the waters of the north fork of Holstein River...Beginning in a gap of the Poor Valley knobs on the west side of the Big Lick Branch...up the branch through the gap in the above valley...along the foot of the knobs...cross the valley at the foot of Clynch Mountain...on the side of the Mountain above Tally's Lick...leaving the mountain and across the valley on the north side of the Poor Valley Knobs...October 22, 1782
Abraham's house, which he built around 1783, still stands. Its continued preservation was aided by placement on the National Register of Historic Places in 2002. Photographs have been donated to this site, courtesy of Shirley O'Toole and Stan Hickam, depicting both the interior and exterior.
In 1786 Abraham was commissioned as an agent for a property sale, apparently involving one or more difficulties among the parties involved:
THE COMMONWEALTH of Virginia
To James Saunders and Abraham Fulkerson, Esquires,
Gentlemen
Greeting whereas John Tarply and Agga his wife of the County of Brunswick by their certain Indenture of Bargain and Sale bearing date the twenty ninth Day of December 1786 have sold and conveyed unto William Hammonds the fee simple estate of one hundred and eighty six acres of land . . . being in the said County of Brunswick and whereas the said Agga cannot conveniently travel to our Court . . . to make her acknowledgment of the said conveyance therefore we do give unto you or any two or more of you power to receive the acknowledgment which the said Agga shall be willing to make before you . . . and we do therefore command you that you do personally go to the said Agga [in Caswell Co., NC] and receive her acknowldgement of the same and examine privily and apart from the said John Tarply . . . the fourteenth Day of October 1786.
A number of documents from the succeeding decades appear with Abraham's name, most of them indicating he had good standing and an active role in his community:
From the Calendar of Virginia State Papers, 14 April 1794:
The memorial and petition of the Subscribers, Inhabitants in the Western part of Washington County, and the eastern settlement of Lee, near Mockison Gap--
Humbly sheweth, That altho, we have been considered as an interior settlement, yet from various unfortunate occurances it must appear that we are equally exposed with the most distant Frontier settlements.
[This is followed with a list of massacres performed by the Cherokee Indians]
From the above facts, your Excellency and the Council will be a judge of the justice of our claim, that such protection be afforded us as the State may be able to afford and our necessities require.
All we submit with deference, and your petitioners will ever pray.
A. BLEDSOE
GEORGE WILCOX
ABRAHAM FULKERSON
JOHN V. COOK, with JAMES FULKERSON
Engraving depicting the death of Patrick Ferguson at The Battle of King's Mountain, from a painting by Alonzo Chappel
Commentary authored by Bob Fulkerson, from his site Fulkerson.org, with edits and added info and links in 2016.
