The first Reese of our line to migrate to North Carolina.
The Story of Samuel Joseph Reese-by Dallas R. Reese Jr. September 2024
Samuel Joseph Reese was born about 1827 in Augusta County, Virginia, near Waynesboro, VA. His father, Emmanuel Reese, was a carpenter and the son of Revolutionary War Hessian soldier Johannes Ries (John Reese), who had come to America in 1776, landed on Long Island, New York, and fought for the British against the Americans in the American Revolution. John Reese was captured at Trenton, New Jersey, in December 1776 (yes, the famous crossing of the Delaware River by George Washington and the Patriots). John was taken to a prison barracks in Carlisle, PA, where he remained for several years. In 1779, he was placed on a prisoner ship to be exchanged and sent back overseas. (The Molly and the Triton were the ships that carried this group of German Hessian soldiers who fought for the British against the Americans) The ships were tossed about in a hurricane, the prisoners dispersed, some were captured, some escaped, and others were placed into indentured service in Pennsylvania or furloughed on their recognizance. John was captured and held until the peace treaty of 1783. After the war, beginning in about 1784, John Reese served as an indentured servant for a Pennsylvania Quaker Family in Strausburg, PA, for seven years. He purchased land over several years in Augusta County, Virginia, where he moved sometime in the 1790s.
John and Catherine Kuhn Reese’s first child, Samuel Reese, was born in 1794. He died sometime before 1830. This is important because this name would eventually be bestowed on Samuel Joseph Reese at his birth in 1827. John and Catherine went on to have nine children over the next decade and a half, and in 1801, their 10th child, Emmanuel Reese, was born in Augusta County, Virginia. In 1823, Emmanuel married Sarah Arisman, a descendant of a Pennsylvania Dutch family. Their first child, Elizabeth, was born in early 1825 in Augusta County. Samuel Joseph Reese was the first son and second child of Emmanuel and Sarah Reese. He was named after Emmanuel’s older brother, Samuel. Samuel Joesph had a younger brother, Edward Peter Reese, born on January 4, 1830. Peter ironically married Hannah Jane Depriest (the younger sister of Samuel’s future wife, Julia Anne Depriest). The youngest child of Emmanuel and Sarah Arisman Reese was Sarah Catherine Reese, born February 18, 1834. It has taken me many years to pinpoint the exact date of Samuel Reese’s birth. Still, after assessing as many records as possible, I have concluded that he was probably born between January and June 1827 in Augusta County, Virginia.
By early 1850, Samuel had begun working as an apprentice to a wagon maker named Benjamin Coffman in the two-and-one-half district of Augusta County. While learning the trade, Samuel lived with Coffman, his wife Elizabeth, and six children. Another apprentice Wagonmaker, William Bailey, also lived with them. As fate would have it, next door to the Coffman family lived the family of shoemaker Robert Depriest and his wife, Jemima Ramsay Depriest. Their oldest child, a daughter slightly older than Samuel (about a year), was Julia Anne Depriest. Julia was a descendant of the French Huguenot family of Depriests who had immigrated to Virginia from France in the late 1600s when persecution threatened every one of that religion. In America, the family found the freedom to worship as they pleased. On January 26, 1852, Samuel and Julia were married in her parents' home in Augusta County. Their first son, William, was born in 1853.
Robert Walter Reese-Highlands NC
My Great-Grandfather Robert Walter Reese was the second son of Samuel and Julia Anne Depriest Reese. He was born on February 15, 1855, in Augusta County, Virginia. He alone is the reason the family ended up in North Carolina. He convinced his father to move the family from Virginia to South Carolina and eventually North Carolina. A third son, Charles Edward Reese, was born in 1857. Daughters Jane Anne and Lucie were born in the next several years. This was the origin of the family that would eventually move to South Carolina and, finally, Macon County, North Carolina. They had another son, Jeremiah, but he died very young, still in infancy.
By 1860, Samuel and Julia Reese had five children, four boys and one girl. William, Robert Walter, Charles, and Jane Anne. Daughter Lucie & was born in April 1860. When the Civil War broke out in 1861, Samuel and his family lived in Augusta County, Virginia. On July 24, 1861, Samuel enlisted as a soldier in the Confederate Army. He was mustered into Company E of the 1st Virginia Calvary as a private. As a wagonmaker, Samuel was probably good with horses, which would explain why he was put into the Calvary. From his war record, Samuel Joseph Reese was described as five foot eight inches tall, with brown hair, blue eyes, and a fair complexion. Samuel was listed in war roles as present and in service until December 31, 1863. He saw action the first several years but was then put on assignment because of his skill set with wagons. On January 15, 1864, Samuel was listed as a deserter, meaning he could have left to sign the oath of allegiance to the United States or to attend to his family. At that point, his wife was burdened with caring for the children alone. Samuel’s wife, Julia Anne Depriest Reese, had several more daughters during the war. On March 8, 1862, Jemima Anne Reese was born. Then, one year and nine months later, Betty Alice Reese was born on January 10, 1864. Samuel would have been home or with his wife from March to April 1863. For much of 1863, Samuel was sent on detachment to Parkersburg, West Virginia (the newly formed state taken out of Virginia), to make wagons and wagon wheels for the Confederate war effort.
I conjecture at some point in 1863, probably spring or summer, Samuel sowed the seeds of his plan to leave the army and the failing fight against the North to separate the union of states. July of 1863 saw the Confederate defeat at Gettysburg, and seven months earlier, President Abraham Lincoln had signed the Emancipation Proclamation, which had been the economic reason the South had begun the fight. Because, in the end, it was all about the money. And slavery was big business in the South. It supported and sustained the agricultural economy and powered the international trade of rice, indigo, and cotton out of the Port of Charleston, Savannah, and Norfolk. Samuel probably realized the South was fighting a losing cause. His family had never owned slaves at any time since they had been in America. And so Samuel walked away from the Army, and with good reason, he probably feared for the safety of his large family. The Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, where Samuel’s family lived, was torn and ravaged by the war, and no one was safe at any time. Many battles were fought in Virginia, which was not a safe place to be, especially for a family with small children.
After the war ended, Julia had another son, Jeremiah. This child died while still in infancy. Samuel and his family remained in Augusta County, Virginia, for at least several years. Around 1868, Samuel’s son Robert Walter Reese left to work for the Virginia/Cumberland Gap Rail Line in Tennessee. Robert Walter was a teenager and drove a dump cart for the railroad line. He then secured work about a year later with the Blue Ridge Rail Line to build a railroad through the North Carolina mountains from Seneca, South Carolina. Robert Walter sent word to his father to bring the family to South Carolina so that he could obtain work with the railroad line. South Carolina had thousands of miles of rail, including the Blue Ridge Railroad, in the upstate. First chartered in 1852, the Blue Ridge Railroad was a joint project between South Carolina, North Carolina, and Georgia. The initial plans for the road were to run through upstate South Carolina, through the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina, and into Louisville, Kentucky. It was supposed to connect on either side of the mountain range. The section of the line in South Carolina runs straight through the upstate, stopping in Greenville. Its more notable stops are in Anderson, Seneca, and Walhalla. These communities took up the responsibilities that only Charleston or Columbia could afford. The Blue Ridge Railroad brought grand economic change to these once-small commercial towns in this timeframe.
So, sometime around 1868-69, Samuel Reese decided to pick up and start fresh. He moved his family from Virginia to present-day Walhalla in Oconee County, South Carolina. A friend of Samuel’s, George Downs, brought his wife Sarah and four children along. Upon their arrival in Oconee County, George Downs and their family lived next door to Samuel, Julia, and the Reese children; unfortunately for Samuel Reese and his friend George Downs, the Blue Ridge Railroad folded in October 1874. The company's assets were broken up, and the completed portion of the track was eventually incorporated into the Norfolk Southern Railway System. At this point, Samuel and George Downs, who had also moved his family from Virginia, had no employment and no prospects. Sometime before 1880, Samuel and Julia suffered through the death of two of their children. Jane Anne, who was 12 years old when they moved from Virginia, died between 1871 and 1880. Another child, Lucie, who was a couple of years younger than Jane, died in this same time frame. After the death of these children, the family made a move to Macon County, North Carolina. I don't know their reasons, but it was a move that would greatly impact the family's future.
Samuel began life as a farmer in Macon County, where he, Julia Anne Depriest Reese, and their friends George and Sarah Downs would remain for the rest of their lives. Samuel, Julia, and their friends George and Sarah Downs are all buried at Clark’s Chapel Church in Franklin, North Carolina.
Julia Anne Depriest Reese-wife of Samuel Joseph Reese-|Born 1828 in Augusta County, Virginia
After the family moved to Macon County, North Carolina, several houses over from where they lived were the Womack family. This family originated in England, and the immigrant ancestors had migrated to Virginia in the mid-1700s and then to Rutherford County, North Carolina, in the early 1800s. Jonas James Womack and his wife, Sarah Melton Womack, also came to Franklin, North Carolina, sometime in the 1870s. They had a daughter, Merinda Octavia Womack, several years younger than Robert Walter Reese. On February 11, 1880, Robert Walter Reese and Merinda Octavia Womack were married by minister C. D. Smith at her parents' home, Jonas and Sarah Womack. Robert Walter Reese’s sister Jemima Anne Reese, family friend 16-year-old Sallie Downs (daughter of George and Sarah Downs), and J.R. Siler were witnesses to the wedding.
Robert Walter Reese and wife Merinda Octavia Reese-Franklin, North Carolina
After the wedding, Robert Walter and Octavia moved into a log cabin in downtown Franklin, formerly the Baptist Church (which had just completed a new building to house its congregation). Within three months of the wedding, Octavia was pregnant for the first time. Unbeknownst to Octavia and Robert Walter, less than a mile away in Franklin, a five-year-old girl, Arie Tallent, was about to begin Kindergarten. Little did Arie know at the time, in the future, she would become a midwife and assist in the birth of some Reese kids, and then go on to making some herself, becoming an essential and significant part of this family’s future story and the reason this writer is here to write these words.
The first child of Robert Walter and Octavia Reese was born on January 5, 1881. They named him Joseph Walter Reese. His name was formed from the middle name of his paternal grandfather, Samuel Joseph Reese, and the middle name of his father, Robert Walter Reese. Joseph Walter would eventually play a big part in the history, formation, and life of Highlands, North Carolina. His future diary and record of his life in the town would play a big part in telling the story of the city, its history, and its people.
Joseph Walter Reese at three years old in 1884 with his Grandfather Samuel Joseph Reese in Franklin, North Carolina
This is the first column in a short series on my family's origins and how
we ended up being one of the early families in Highlands, North Carolina, right after its formation in the late 1800s.
Thanks so much for reading.
Dallas Reese
336-509-8009
Hilton Head, South Carolina
The writer-Dallas Reese
Hwy 64 at Whiteside Mountain Overlook at the Macon/Jackson
County lines
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