PJ's Page

"Cherokee By Blood: Records of Eastern Cherokee Ancestry in the U.S. Court of Claims 1906-1910," Vol. 7, is the following claim of Fred Reid, nephew of our Tommy, and son of Tommy’s sister Elizabeth McGlaughlin. Here is Reid’s statement, numbered 19892. He was trying to enroll in the Cherokee Nation in 1908. Can you send me the info on the Hills and if you know why they chose to take the kids in and keep them from going to Georgia. Were they related, friends of Reid, or was it a charitable cause. I have found two William Hills in Surry, one was a minister's son and the other an attorney. I don't have your email and don't know who to send it privately.

Here is Reid’s statement, numbered 19892:
“My post office is Siloam. I am 64 years of age and was born in Surry County. I claim Indian blood through my mother Elizabeth McLaughlin or McGloughlin. My mother was born in Surry County and lived there all her life. She was about 70 when she died in 1881. My mother’s Indian blood came through her mother Elizabeth (or Betsy) McLaughlin. I never heard what her name was before marriage, but I have heard that she was Indian. I never heard where she was born, I undertand that my mother was born about 1801. I have never been enrolled as an Indian. I have heard my father say that he was employed to help move the Indians to Georgia, but that when he heard that they were going, he got out a license to marry my mother, who was one of the Indians he would have had to remove if he had not done it. Green Reed was my oldest brother. He must have been some 20 years older than I. It was before his birth that this movement took place. My mother never lived with the Indians after her marriage. As far as I know my mother was always called a Cherokee. I have seen many a Cherokee. They would come to my father’s house five or six at a time. They would come from Georgia to see their “old paradise,” as they called it. They would come to my mother’s house and stay a week at a time. They claimed kin with my mother and called her a quadroon, or quarter Indian.
. I have voted and am generally known as a white man except when they throw it up to me that I am Indian. I did not go to school myself, on account of poverty, but my children attend the white schools.” Signed, Fred Reid, Pilot Mountain NC. March 23, 1908.

I don't think my email has changed since we corresponded. Do you still have it?

I am a great-great-great-granddaughter of Thomas McGlaughlin who was adopted with his siblings, born in Surry County NC. The story behind this is that "Tommy's" family was part Cherokee Indian, and apparently lived among them. He was one-quarter Indian, according to the Reid memoirs. Due to the Treaty of 1819, the family was slated to be moved to Georgia. Isaac Reid was employed to help move the Indians to Georgia and when he found out when they were to be moved, he acquired a marriage license and married Elizabeth, sister to Tommy in 1819. Tommy, his brother Ephraim, and sisters Delilah and Violet were sent to live with the family of William Hill. I am looking for his parents. I believe his mother was named Elizabeth. I owould also like to find the Hill who "adopted" them.