Who was William Harrison Edwards (Apr. 9, 1720 - Apr. 30, 1808)?

If you're a colonial Edwards researcher, you've likely seen his name all over the internet. The information usually runs something like this:

William Harrison Edwards, b. Apr. 9, 1720 in Wales d. Apr. 30, 1808 in Claiborne Co., TN (other sources might say KY). Married to Polly Creamer/Cramer b. Aug. 5, 1721 (or 1731), d.1794. Married second to Sarah Evart Cantrell (1733-1807). 

Some sources will even give an earlier wife as Jane Taylor. Virtually every source gives his parents as Thomas Edwards and Isabelle Downing.

Information about William is usually sparse, but may involve claims that he had lived in Orange or Chowan County, North Carolina; had owned an iron furnace near Mount Sterling, Kentucky; moved to Gallatin County, Kentucky "to live with his son, John" and co-founded Big Barren Baptist Church in what was then Hawkins County, Tennessee.

William is said by some accounts to be the father of a very large family: Drucilla, Peter, Isaac, Alexander, David, William, Richard, Benjamin, James, John, Mary, Robert, Thomas, Emily and Spencer Edwards. Some sources throw in Simeon Edwards as well. The children are said to have been born between 1748 and 1780 or so.

As with the other sons of the fictitious Thomas Nathaniel Edwards, claimants don't usually rely on records for their information; almost all of their relationship claims come from twenty-year-old gedcom files. Some years back someone created a Findagrave memorial claiming William Harrison Edwards died in Claiborne County, Tennessee and that his descendants today are buried there in Edwards Cemetery. This seems to be based on a 1935 reburial record from the Tennessee Valley Authority that shows a William Edwards who had died in 1808 was exhumed from Big Barren Primitive Baptist Church cemetery and reburied in Edwards Cemetery. Among the other reburials were a Spencer Edwards (d.1848), two of his wives, and several of his children.

I decided over the past week to sort through this mess and trace the origin of this man's identity among genealogists, and do a deep dive on the Claiborne County, Tennessee Edwards family and see if any of these claims could possibly be true.

William Edwards seems to have been first identified in the pages of the Edwards Heirs newsletter back in 1925. Since I've already done an analysis of his supposed parents, Thomas Nathaniel Edwards and Isabelle Downing, I won't go too much into the background of his relationship with the Edwards fortune scam that went on for over a century. You can read the whole thing by clicking here. He does appear in print the same time as his parents. See below in the right column where it says "William Edwards, born in 1720, died 1808.":

In this brief first appearance, William is said to have had a son named David Edwards, whose sons were pioneers of Randolph County, Illinois. A look at the 1882 local history book mentioned in the article does name Jonathan and William Edwards and some others as having arrived in 1818, but gives no family genealogical information and makes no mention of this early William Edwards who died in 1808.

Another edition of the newsletter features a supposed affidavit by Minnie M. Egan. This is the first time the middle name "Nathaniel" is added to "Sir Thomas Edwards." This time William has been given a whole birth date of April 9, 1720:

And finally, a third account from 1925 adds the name of William's wife as "Polly Creamer."

It's clear that the information on "William Harrison Edwards" came from the Edwards Fortune scammers almost a century ago and in light of the fact that no one in the last century has found supporting evidence, all of this should have remained buried in moldy newsletters forever. 

Unfortunately one intrepid soul brought it to the internet in September 2002. Posting the William Edwards family data on the old Genealogy.com forum in response to a query, she claimed the information came from "old original family records that my grandmother Cornelia Edwards Norman had." Then in a subsequent post, claimed "I am very sure of the information. I have actual letters from the Edwards Heirs Assn."

She wasn't the only one; in fact, a large portion of the earliest Genealogy.com posts on the Edwards surname board back in the 1990s were Edwards descendants seeking information on their fictional inheritance in New York. The scam finally died in court in the early 2000s. But despite a lack of supporting evidence, this genealogy has not only refused to die, its thrived, with more researchers adding to the myth. The middle name "Harrison" was evidently added around 2006, but originally referred to a different William Edwards.

Never once have I seen a single record cited that shows a person named "William Harrison Edwards" or his claimed wife or children. No will. No deeds. No parish register. No family bible. No court records, chancery petitions, nothing. Yet every colonial-era relationship is claimed with absolute certainty.

So let's take it back to the Findagrave memorial. No one in the pages of Edwards Heirs seemed to have connected William Edwards to Claiborne County, Tennessee. So who did?

The answer is a 1955 book called Old Speedwell Families by Lawrence Edwards, a member of the Claiborne County Edwards family. There is a section on William Edwards that seems influenced by Edwards Heirs:

Note the reference to William marrying "an Evart." Also, the mega-list of children appears here, though the author admits it came from a genealogy at the Lawson-McGhee library rather than his own family tradition. I asked the librarian at the McClung room for titles of anything that could be an Edwards genealogy they have. Nothing they sent me is even remotely old enough to pre-date this 1955 reference. Interestingly, the author claims there is a letter from William Edwards to Spencer Edwards that was owned by his father's cousin, John Edwards (1871-1939).

In 2001, another genealogist claimed to have located this supposed letter and published the text in a book called A Joseph Hunter Genealogy and His Jager Connection, 1650-2000:

Notice a few oddities here. The paragraph starts with "the following is a true copy of an old letter..." A "true copy?" Why the legalistic language? Who cares, unless its being used to, I don't know... support an inheritance scam? It reminds me of the way Edwards heirs used to write "affidavits" about documents and family bibles they supposedly saw to make their bunk genealogies sound reputable. Note also that in the letter William casually drops that he was an organizer of Big Barren Baptist church which is sort of a weird flex to throw into an otherwise warm letter to his son that makes it sound like it was written by a genealogist. Also note the way he says "when I was there in 1803" instead of saying "when I was there two years ago." Smells like Edwards Millions to me, but you be the judge.

I want to be clear that I don't think these genealogists were scammers themselves. They were likely earnestly quoting information they wanted to believe was true. Remember, that the Edwards Estate scam goes all the way back to 1870. So people whose parents and grandparents were born in the 19th century had been given bogus genealogical data that was fed to them by unscrupulous lawyers over a century ago. A fake letter between a fictional ancestor and a real one is just the little genealogical bridge needed to get ordinary folk to pay into the scam.

It's important to remember that real people, long deceased, have been swept up in this mess. So we owe them the due diligence to dig into this information and parse out fact from fiction and tell their stories as accurately as we possibly can.

* * * * *

This brings us back once again to William Edwards of Claiborne County. We know he died there in 1808 and was buried in Big Barren Cemetery. So who was he? 

The trail of clues begins with his reburial contract. Click for full image.

Our first clue is that his 1935 reburial was authorized by his "nearest relative," who states he is the "Gr. Gd. Son" of William Edwards, Spencer Edwards of Goin, TN. We know from other records that this is Spencer Edwards (1877-1948), son of McKendry Edwards (c.1846-aft.1910), who was in turn son of Spencer Edwards (1794-Nov. 3, 1848). This earlier Spencer Edwards, a War of 1812 veteran, was along with his two wives likewise part of the TVA reburials in 1935. All of these relationships are verified by census documents.

So we know that William Edwards (d.1808) was a close relative of Spencer Edwards, the pioneer of Claiborne County, Tennessee. Spencer Edwards II even claimed specifically that he was the great grandson of William back in 1935. So was Spencer Edwards the pioneer one of William Edwards and Polly Creamer's sixteen children, as even his grandson seemed to think?

As it turns out, probably not.

Our biggest clue to his family members comes from a deed of November 1, 1819, acknowledged in Claiborne County court on February 14, 1820. The acknowledgement comes from the Claiborne County, TN Court of Please & Quarter Sessions, 1819-21, pg. 43:

The original deed referred to the above named as heirs and legatees of Laban Edwards, deceased. The deed was to convey Spencer Edwards three eights of a 200-acre tract in the amount of 75 acres, 25 having been allocated for each of Laban's heirs. The deed notes there are eight parts to the property (probably indicating eight total heirs), and that by purchasing this 75-acre tract from the other heirs, he will evenly split the 200 acres with his brother, Hiram Edwards.

This land was originally conveyed from Joab Hill to "the heirs of Labon Edwards, deceased" on March 1, 1802 in Claiborne County court. (The original books are in horrible shape, so they were typed and microfilmed in the 1950s):

On February 16, 1821, Spencer Edwards sold his 100 acres of the Joab Hill property conveyed "to the heirs of Laban Edwards" to Francis Patterson (Claiborne County, TN deeds, Book F, pg. 85):

Upon further analysis of these heirs, they do fit nicely in a single family group. The evidence strongly suggests they are all children of Laban Edwards.

1. Mary Edwards Riggle (May 1792 - Nov. 3, 1869) m. George Riggle
2. Spencer Edwards (1794 - Nov. 3, 1848) m. Kate Riddle, Artimacy O'Dell
3. Elizabeth Edwards Hopper (Apr. 2, 1797 - June 26, 1864) m. Jesse Hopper
4. Hiram Edwards (c.1800 - aft.1880) m. Martha, Tabitha White
5. Rhoda Edwards Hopper (c.1802 - aft.1870) m. Thomas Hopper

All vital data confirmed by census records, court documents and gravestones. Spencer Edwards claimed to have been born in the 1790s in the 1830 and 1840 US census, and his widow gave his age at death as 54 in her War of 1812 widow's pension application; all of his other siblings who made it to the 1850 census gave their ages and birthplace as Tennessee. The fact that Mary Edwards Riggle named two of her own children Rhoda and Spencer and Rhoda Edwards Hopper named her son Hiram further confirms that this is all one family of siblings.

Note that Mary Riggle, Rhoda Hopper, Hiram Edwards and Laban Edwards are missing from Old Speedwell Families and do not appear in any of the above sources referencing William Edwards and Polly Creamer and their massive list of children. So it looks like Lawrence Edwards and Spencer Edwards II were not working from family knowledge or original research with respect to William Edwards, but were influenced by Edwards Heirs genealogies they found elsewhere. Never underestimate the reach of the Edwards Heirs--even official TVA reburial contracts from the 1930s aren't safe from their influence.

So who was Laban Edwards (c.1765-1802)? He was a son of James and Lucy Edwards of Henry County, Virginia. He appears in the will of James Edwards as "my son, Laban Edwards." (Henry Co., Va. Will Book 1, Vol. 1, pg. 223, will dated Jan. 9, 1792):

In his father's will, his siblings are named Lainey Cox, Elizabeth, James, Mary, Judith, Nancy and Rhoda Edwards. That name Rhoda of course appears again in the aforementioned deed involving his own children.

James Edwards, likewise is not related to "William Harrison Edwards" or "Thomas Nathaniel Edwards"-- he was evidently son of Thomas Edwards of Lunenburg County, Virginia, who died testate in 1751, and appears in his will.

Given his likely relation to Spencer Edwards, and Spencer's definite relation to Laban Edwards, William Edwards was likely a son of Laban Edwards who died young. He died a bit too early to have been a son of Spencer, and the will of James Edwards makes no mention of any sons named William, so he doesn't seem likely to be a brother of Laban. William also doesn't appear in any tax census, deed or court record in Claiborne County. So unfortunately, death may have clipped his wings very early in life.

Finally, the supposed wives of William Harrison Edwards, Mary Elizabeth "Polly" Cramer (1731-1794) and Sarah Evart (1733-1807) do not appear in the TVA reburial records with William and Spencer Edwards. I have found no evidence in the will, deed or order books nor in burial records that they existed, or that the William Edwards who died in 1808 was ever married. Edwards Cemetery, where William and Spencer now lie buried, wasn't founded until 1883 so they could not have been buried there outright.

The rest of the information about "William Harrison Edwards" either belongs to other people with the same name, or is an outright myth. Keep an eye on this blog for further analysis of supposed descendants of Thomas Nathaniel Edwards as I work toward my goal of unlinking every real person from his fictitious family.