Thomas DALE

                   He is my 4th great, grand-uncle......
1c5r
see below for information on his ancestry and burial place...
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US/CAN 976.8532 H2W (SALT LAKE FAM.HISTORY LIBRARY--DEKALB COUNTY BY THOMAS
G. WEBB P.11 "The land for sale in DeKalb County was not attractive to people who were really poor.  ADAM DALE, for example, came from a family of some property. His grandfather, JOHN DALE, of Worcester County, Maryland, owned eight slaves and a plantation, as well as a silver watch and a copper still, all of which he left to ADAM DALE'S father, THOMAS.  When THOMAS DALE died in 1812 near Liberty, Tennessee, his estate included not only land and slaves, but books, maps, pictures, a cut and engraved decanter, and a curtain bedstead.
   
DEKALB COUNTY  BY THOMAS G. WEBB P. 18 "Participants in Early Wars---There was no DeKalb County when the American Revolution was fought, but several veterans of that war settled in DeKalb COunty.  Infact, the first settler, ADAM DALE, was a lieutenant in that war."  ....."ADAM DALE, having served in
the Revolution when he was very young, was able also to serve in the War of 1812;  he organized a company of mounted gunmen in December of 1813 with himself as captain.  Among the 57 men was his 14 year old son, THOMAS."

First settler into what is now DeKalb Co.,Tennessee....

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ID: I175 
Name: Adam DALE 
Sex: M 
Birth: 14 JUL 1768 in Worcester County, MD 
Death: 14 OCT 1851 in Hazel Green, Madison County, AL

Father: Thomas DALE b: 05 MAR 1743/1744 in Worcester County, MD 
Mother: Elizabeth EVANS b: 12 APR 1746 in Sussex County, DE

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Goodspeeds History of DeKalb County, Tennessee
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Go into DeKalb County
The settlement of Dekalb County dates back to the year 1779, at which time Adam Dale settled on Smith Fork, in the immediate neighborhood of the present town of Liberty. Dale was a Marylander in search of a home, and was attracted to Tennessee by the abundance of cheap land, and to the above locality by the fertile land and healthy climate. Being satisfied with the outlook he at once sent word back to*** *his friends in the East, and two years later a colony of forty families, composed of his relatives, friends and acquaintances, left Maryland to join the pioneer in his frontier home. The colony came down the Ohio River, up the Cumberland to Nashville, and from that point made their way overland to the Dale settlement in wagons. There were no roads in those days and the journey from Nashville required several weeks' time, passages for the teams having to be cut as they went along, the forests and canebrakes being impenetrable. Reaching Smith Fork they settled in and around what is now Liberty, and being of a hardy, industrious nature, were in an incredibly short time comfortably housed and domiciled. Among those who composed the colony were William and John Dale,
***** Thomas West, William and George Givens, Thomas Whaley, Josiah Duncan, James and William Bratton,
*** Henry Burton, The Walks, Fruits and others.
   Between 1800 and 1820 many new comers settled in various parts of the county, among whom were Jesse Allen, Allan Johnson, Martin Phillips, Britton Johnson, James Lockhart, John Martin, James Davis, Giles Driver, I. H. Hayes, Tobe Martin, John Robinson, George, Samuel H. and John Allen, John C. Kennedy, Milton Ward, John Wooldridge, John Frazier, David Taylor, Nicholas Smith, D. League, John Maynor, Henry Cameron, P. G. Magness, Zachariah Lafever, Jacob and Abraham Overall, Robin Forester, Ruben Evans, Matthew Selleers, James Powell, James Tubb, Jack Reynolds, Reddick Driver, Thomas Given, William Boyd, Thomas Duncan, Thomas Durham, Davidand William Adcock, William Floyd, Hezekiah Bowers, James Powell, John Vantrees, Jonathan and Stewart Dorse, E. Turner, James Goodner, Wm. Grandstaff, Thomas Simpson, William Wright, Benjamin Garrison, Anderson Pickett, Isaac Jones, James Jones and Edmund Turner, Sr.


Adam Dale erected the first mill, which was a log, water-power corn-mill, on Smith Fork, near Liberty, built in 1800. The patronage of the mill came from the immediate Dale settlement, for the benefit of which it was established. Other early mills of the county were those of Leonard Fite, at Big Springs, on Smith Fork; Jesse Allen, on Eagle Creek; Thomas Durham and Abraham Farrington, on Pine Creek; James Lick, on Cane Creek, and Nicholas Smith, on Smith Fork. In connection with Allen's mill was a cotton-gin and distillery, probably the first established in the county. The same gentleman also established and operated for a number of years an iron forge on Pine Creek, the ore being secured in the neighboring mountains. Between 1805 and 1815 the settlers would make frequent trips to New Orleans in keelboats, taking to market furs, produce, etc., and returning with salt, which would be sold in the settlements at as high a price as $10 per bushel. The voyagers were embarked on Caney Fork, floating into the Cumberland River, then the Ohio and into the Mississippi. From four to five months were required to make the trip to New Orleans and return. The principal mills of the county at present are as follows: Brown Bros. & Donnell's steam flour mill, at Alexandria; J. H. Overall's steam flour, meal and saw-mill, and Hale Bros.' water-power grist-mill, at Liberty; Allen T. wright's steam woolen-mill, at Dowelltown, and W. T. Robinson's steam grist-mill, at Dowelltown, and T. H. W. Richardson's, Wash. Reynolds', James Oakley's, W. G. Crowley's, John Bone's and James Kelton's grist-mills in various parts of the county.
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http://www.tngenweb.org/dekalb/chapter-3.htm
CHAPTER III. 
The Oldest Village. 

On his arrival at the site of Liberty from Maryland in 1797, Adam Dale, who came by way of East Tennessee and over Cumberland Mountains, Mr. Riley Dale says, must have been impressed with the country, for he sent back in some way a report to his friends which induced the coming of a colony consisting of William and John Dale, Thomas West, William and George Givan, Thomas Whaley, Josiah and T. W. Duncan, James and William Bratten, Henry Burton, the Fites, Truits, Bethels, and many others, some of whom were young married couples. 

It is not certainly known that he had a companion during the something like three years before the arrival of the immigrants. If he was alone, life must have been lonely at times. The descendants of all the pioneers who have talked on the subject, repeating the stories handed down, join in saying there was no wagon road through from Nashville after the first few miles. One, perhaps W. G. Bratten, told the agent for Goodspeed's history of the State that the colony "came down the Ohio River, up the Cumberland to Nashville, and from that point made their way overland to the Dale settlement in wagons." Another, perhaps a descendant of Rev. John Fite, stated to Rev. J. H. Grime, author of "A History of Middle Tennessee Baptists": "When he [Fite] landed here in the very beginning of the nineteenth century, he found 

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this country still a wilderness. . . . He helped to cut away the cane and underbrush to construct the first road to Liberty, the work consuming a period of nineteen days for a number of hands." We may assume that there were roads a short distance eastward from Nashville, but it may be taken as true that a part of the fifty-six miles to Liberty was almost primeval forest. Doubtless game and fish abounded, and these occupied Dale's mind by day; but the snarl of the bobcat or other noises of the night, together with the solemnity of the great woods, were necessarily spirit-depressing, even if he had no fears of Indians. 


We are told that he passed his first months in a rude shack built on the bluff overlooking the creek on the north side of town, about where the Whaley lime kiln was for a number of years. After his friends came he erected a small dwelling on the west side of the turnpike beyond the bridge going north. This writer saw the building carried off by the flood near the beginning of the War between the States, at which time the small mill Dale erected, but at the time belonging to Daniel Smith or the Lambersons, was wrecked. 

Mrs. Jean Robertson Anderson, wife of Gen. Kellar Anderson, of Memphis, is a great-granddaughter of Adam Dale. Her mother was Mrs. James ( Anne Lewis Dale) Robertson, the third daughter of Edward W. Dale, who was the oldest son of Adam Dale and the only one to leave issue. From a letter of Mrs. Anderson dated November 4, 1914, these facts are gleaned: Adam Dale was born in Worcester 

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County, Md., July 14, 1768. He was a boy volunteer of the Revolution. In 1781 this company of boys from fourteen to sixteen years was raised in Snow Hill, Md., to oppose the progress of Cornwallis through Virginia. Receiving land grants with his father, Thomas Dale, for service, he settled in Liberty, Tenn., in 1797, after having married Mary Hall February 24, 1790. He raised, equipped, and commanded a company of volunteers from Smith (DeKalb) County and fought under Jackson at Horseshoe Bend and other battles of the War of 1812. Removing to Columbia, Tenn., in 1829, he died at Hazel Green, Ala., October 14, 1851, and was buried there. His wife died in 1859 in Columbia. To this couple were born ten children. 


Mrs. Anderson says further: 

When the surviving children of Adam Dale had his body removed from Alabama to Columbia after his wife's death, his body was found to be absolutely perfect - petrified. The picture is from an old daguerreotype made shortly before his death. I have several letters from him to his grandchildren. One minutely describes the battle of Horseshoe Bend. Another tells of his English ancestry and their coming to America. I also have the newspaper clipping of the eulogy on his career as soldier, patriot, citizen, and friend published at the time of his death. Among his descendants are Mrs. W. D. Bethell, Denver, Colo.; Mrs. John M. Gray, Nashville, Tenn.; Mrs. Thomas Day, Memphis, Tenn.; Mrs. E. M. Apperson, Memphis, Tenn.; Mrs. J. S. Van Slyke, Dallas, Tex.; Mrs. Joseph Houston, Denver, Colo.; and Mrs. W. R. Holliday, Memphis, Tenn. 

Adam and William Dale were probably sons of Thomas Dale, who came to Liberty with the Mary- 

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Facing page 24, photo captioned:
Adam Dale
DeKalb County's First Known Settler