PETER CLINTON

The following bio was taken from page 152 of the book entitled "Rusk County History" compiled and edited and used with permission of the Rusk County Historical Commission.

Transcribed by Shirley Koym

Submitted by Gloria Briley Mayfield, Rusk County TX Coordinator

Our earliest proven Clinton ancestor is Peter Clinton, captain of the militia in South Carolina’s New Acquisition. He married Frances Bradner. Joseph Bradner, early elder of Bethel Presbyterian Church in York County, South Carolina, died in 1776 leaving a will which has disappeared from the records though it is cited in deeds which show that Peter Clinton was one of his heirs, an indication that Frances was Joseph’s daughter.

Peter led his men in the Indian campaigns during the early years of the Revolution and died at home the winter of 1780. His children were Joseph and Margaret, who married Samuel McCully.

Joseph Clinton married Mary Barnett, daughter of Thomas Barnett and Martha Patrick, and lived his ninety-one years in the Bethel Community. They were the parents of ten children, the oldest being Peter Minor Clinton, who married Sarah Martin Adams, daughter of Robert Adams and Jane Barber. Jane Barber was the daughter of Captain John Barber and Sarah Martin of Lincoln County, North Carolina. Robert Adams was the oldest son of William Adams and Margaret Ewart. In 1976 Margaret Ewart Adams was listed as one of South Carolina’s Women of the Revolution for carrying food and medicine to Kings Mountain the morning after the battle. Family stories tell of her shock at finding men playing cards and passing around the jugs – on the Sabbath.

The winter of 1853 Peter Minor Clinton, his wife, and ten of the twelve children born to them in York County, two having died young, said their goodbyes to their parents and friends and joined other friends in a wagon train to Texas. Traditionally, among those from Bethel were Clintons, Wallace’s, Mccarter's, and Patrick’s. They intended to go farther west; but when they camped south of Pine Hill, a Saturday stop for washing and cooking so that Sunday could be properly observed, they found the country reminded them of York County and their journey ended.

The Clintons were charter members of Pine Grove Presbyterian Church, and a grandson, Curtis Clinton, told me Peter Minor Clinton hauled the original foundation stones for the church, with the horses that brought his family from South Carolina. Their children were Robert Alexander Clinton, who married Myra Jane Brown; Joseph Bradner Clinton; Mary Z. Clinton, who married Charles Smith; John Allison Clinton; Jane Eliza Clinton, who married John G. Wilson; William Elias Clinton, who married Sarah Freeman; Joseph A. Clinton; James Ed Clinton, who married Amanda Jane Cooper; Martha Margaret Clinton; Thomas Milton Clinton, who married Sarah Cypher; Frances Clinton, who married Robert Daniel Patrick, and David Clinton, who married Martha Taylor.

Of the surviving sons, all except David, who was too young, fought in the Confederate States Army. James Ed and Thomas Milton returned home. Peter Minor Clinton died in 1888 at age eighty-eight. Sarah Martin Adams lived in Timpson with her daughter, Mary Z. Smith, until her death in 1899, at the age of ninety-three. They ware buried in Pine Grove Cemetery.

Submitted by Mrs. W. E. Langford