Our man James, part one

There’s not a lot out there about James Roddye, especially prior to his appearance in what was to become Tennessee. The earliest mention we know for sure is our man James is from 1778, when we find him settling on the south side of the Watauga River in Washington County, back when Washington County was in North Carolina.

So where’d he come from? There’s some indication he may have come from North Carolina, which is entirely possible – most mentions of his first wife, Catherine Jane Chase (or possibly Jane Catherine), say she came from North Carolina, and we know a lot of East Tennessee’s first white residents came over the mountains. But it’s fairly certain he wasn’t born there.

Some sources say Roddye was born in England, and others say Ireland. I say Ireland is a better bet than England, but I don’t think he was born there either. I think our man’s family was from Ireland, but by the time he was born – in 1742 – the Roddyes were living in Pennsylvania.

The most likely candidate for our Roddye’s father seems to be James Joseph Roddye Jr. He was born in Ireland, as was his father, JJR Sr, and the family ended up in Pennsylvania. I don’t know why they left Ireland, but I’m going to guess it was religious/political conflicts with England, which is what drove a lot of Irish folks over this way. All of that came to a head with outright rebellion in the late 18th century, but earlier those who couldn’t cope with England and the Church of England (and the Anglican Church of Ireland) – and that included dissenting Protestants as well as Catholics – were gettin’ out while the gettin’ was good.

James Sr died in Pennsylvania in 1734, so unless Junior came over after his father died, our man was born in what would become the Keystone State.

But we just don’t know for sure. Our James appears to have had a brother named William who also came to Tennessee along with him, and James Jr did indeed have two sons – James and William – along with a daughter named Sidney – which gels with our James’ daughter of an awfully similar name (most likely it was the same but spellings in those days were … inconsistent).

Brother William comes to the Watauga with James and disappears. It seems as though he was around when James came to our area – there’s a William Roddye mentioned in the Bent Creek Church minutes early on. But then he’s just … gone. There are other Roddyes/Roddys who pop up around Nashborough/Nashville in this general time frame, but again, we just don’t know.

James’ first wife didn’t come with him to Bent Creek. Catherine, or Jane, died in 1779, and James married Lydia Russell the following year, and the entire family headed west to Bent Creek, settling there in about 1782, or maybe 1783. That included Catherine’s children, Elizabeth, Jesse, and Rachel. And possibly William, because son William is as elusive as brother William. He could have been born as early as 1771, or as late as 1801. Say it with me: We just don’t know.

James left the future Hayslope to William and and another son, Thomas, in his 1822 will, but it’s Thomas who used it as collateral for money he owed Patrick Nenney’s heirs in 1824. William may or may not have signed the final disposition of that in 1829, but as a witness and not a party – and it could easily have been another William Roddy, even Thomas’ uncle, for all we know.

James’s will, though, tells us a lot about his family, as it names all his children and his second wife, Lydia, who we know to be the daughter of George Russell, another Watauga man.

As best as we can tell, George Russell appears to have been the original owner of Roddye’s property, having gotten it from the state of North Carolina for Kings Mountain. Roddye got property that way too, but his was in what’s now Whitesburg on Bent Creek, while Russell’s was on Fall Creek. Russell seems to be the fella who was trying to get away from it all. He moved into what is now Russellville, then off to the other side of the Holston River when Russellville, which was sometimes called Russelltown in those days, started getting crowded. And then he died while out hunting. James Roddye was the executor of his will. George is buried at Bent Creek. Fun fact: His grandson, also named George, is the George Russell portrayed by Buddy Ebsen in the Disney TV series “Davy Crockett.”

Back to our man’s will. He left 600 acres somewhere on the Tennessee River to Jesse, who’d already moved to Rhea County. John and Isaac got some land on Powell’s River in “Clayburn” County and a salt lick on Lick and Bent Creeks with William and Thomas, the two sons who got the future Hayslope. James got a slave named Thomas “which must suffice him in lieu of land.”

As for the Roddye women, James left instructions to sell all his personal goods – except the household furniture, which he left to his wife Lydia – and divide it equally between his daughters – Rachel Majors, Elizabeth Lea, Anne Lea (they married brothers), Polly Leuty, Lydia Wright, and Sydnay Hale – and his wife. Lydia Roddye also had use of the Roddye home as long as she lived, but she didn’t care to stay in Russellville and soon left for Rhea County, where Jesse lived and where she died in 1825. Elizabeth, Sydnah, and wife Lydia each received a “negroe girl” slave, Thomas and William each got a horse, and James declared that his “horned cattle” should remain for the use of William, Thomas, and Lydia.

And finally, he decreed that “my negroe Harry” should be freed upon his death, and William and Thomas were to support him.

So yes, our man “owned” human beings, five at the time he wrote his will – two men and three women. He didn’t call them slaves, of course, in his will – “negroe” for the men and “negroe girl” for the women. When I was younger, there were a series of cabins along the Kentucky Road, beside the 1890s house, that some folks always thought were slave cabins. While that’s possible, I no longer think they were. More likely they were built at about the same time as the 1890s house – we do know the Rogans added cabins for the resort at that time. So for now, we don’t know where the people Roddye enslaved lived on the property, something we do hope to find out.

Although he owned quite a bit of land, it doesn’t appear he was farmer – more of a land speculator and a businessman. We know at one point he had a license to operate a ferry across Powell’s River, and the salt lick seems to have been a business as well. And of course, he operated the tavern at his home.

Now, there is one little thing about the will. Well, two. One is that James gave all his daughter’s married names except Sednah’s (you may notice I’m spelling her name all the many ways I’ve seen it spelled). Interesting but not too weird. She married Patrick Hale in 1819 (and married Ephraim Moore much later when Patrick died). But daughter Rachel, now this one’s less clear. Rachel died in 1812 and was living in Rhea County at the time, and yet there she is in the will 10 years later. So maybe James wrote his will well before he died and never changed it, although he used Polly’s married name, and she married in 1813.

So that’s the family side of James Roddye. Next time we’ll do his soldiery side and his politiciany side, and I’ll tell you how we know he wasn’t a colonel in the Revolutionary War. He was, just not in that war.