John DILLARD

                   POSSIBLE SON OF EDWARD DILLARD,EARLY IN HALIFAX,PITTSYLVANIA COS. NO DEATH REC. FOUND.OWNED LAND ON STRAITSTONE CRK.,PATENT LAND ADJ. THOMAS DILLARD.
14 JUNE 1773,BEDFORD CO.,VA.,DB IV,508,JAMES DILLARD TO THOMAS DILLARD SR. WITS..JOHN DILLARD,THOMAS DILLARD,WM.BETTERTON...1774    WILL OF THOMAS DILLARD SR. JOHN DILLARD AS WITTNESS ALSO ELIZABETH DILLARD, COULD THIS BE WIFE OF EDWARD AND MOTHER TO JOHN?......JOHN WAS WITT.TO WILL OF THOMAS DILLARD SR.,PITTS.CO. WB V,409 ON 4 MAY 1774.....1 FEB 1776,VOL. IN MINUTE MAN SERV. MILITARY SERV.DESC.IN PENSION APP.....24 JUNE 1780 DB V1,64,JOHN TO THOMAS.
22 SEP.1781,DEED MENTIONS JOHN DILLARD PROP.....LAST DEED IND. JOHN DILLARD STILL HAD LAND IN PITTS.CO. DEED NOT FOUND.
FEB.1783,WASHINGTON CO.TENN.THOMAS AND JOHN DILLARD,WM.GREG0RY ON A JURY.
LATE 1780'S MOVED TO MORGAN DIST.,BURKE CO.N.C.
1790..JOHN D.;1M,16+,3M,16-,5 F.BURKE CO.
1800.BUNCOMBE CO.  1M45+.3M,16/26,1M10-,1F26/45,2,1O/16,1.0/10 1810,BUNCOMBE CO. 1820,ALSO BUNCOMBE CO.
1830/1840,BABUN CO.GA.1M70/80,1F70/80
1823,MOVED WITH YOUNGER CHILDREN AND WIFE TO RABUN CO. GA.
PENSION CLAIMED BY SON JAMES AND MARY DICKERSON DAU. NO MENTION OF OTHER .CHILDREN,BUT 7 SHOWN IN 1790/1800 CENSUS,  According to Phyllis Fuqua Scott ,George Dillard b. 1624 England,son Edward b. 1668, son Thomas Sr. b. 1695 in King & Queen Co. Va.D. Jul y 1774, Pittsylvania Va. M. Winnifred Nall,son;Thomas Jr. b. 1730 Essex Co. Va.d. in 1784 in Erwin Tenn.M. Maqrtha Webb. son John 1755.

John Dillard was 68 when he came into rabun Co. before 1823,His son,Jamnes took title in his name alone to lots totalling 1,ooo acres. in the present town of Dillard..   John had to give up his rural home of 34 yrs in the flat Creek section of Buncombe Co. ten miles north of the present Asheville,N.C.  He had 460 acres of farm land at Flat Creek in add. to other properties near the present town of Barnardsville.  John obtained a state land grant to the first property in Buncombe Co. in 1789 when it was then a part of Burke Co., was Buncombe Co. ranger and was present on the first day of court at the organization of that county in 1791.  He was a commissioner appointed by the N.C, general assembly for the laying out of Asheville as the co. seat of Buncombe Co. in 1792 in a heated dispute which arose between two factions each of which wanted the Co. seat located on opposite sides of the Swannanoa River.  In addition to son James there were Thomas,John Jr. and William all of whom unquestionably owned land adjoining their father'shomeplace at Flat Creek in Buncomb Co. in the early 1800's and took off to other parts of the country before the trree younger children,James,Mary and Elizabeth came into Rabun Co. before 1823.  Possibly there was another wife who died prior to Johns marriage to Ruth.  Others speculate there was a family fued and others say it was just bad communications.  Nevertheless The older boys sold out and moved on   and later John and James went to Rabun Co. Ga.
Following his birth in Culpepper Co. Va. to his believed parents Edward and Elizabeth Dillard, John's family with his affluent and prominent uncle,Colonel Thomas Dillard Sr., migrated after 1758 to Halifax Co.,va. ,an area No. of Present danville,Virginia. Left behind in Culpepper Co. was an uncle,George and his progeny.  That part of Halifax later became part of Pittsylvania Co. Va.  It was while a resident of Pittsylvania Co. that John was sworn into the va. Militia in 1776 at 21 yrs of age and served in the Revolutionary war.  Most of his military service was uder thomas Dillard,Jr., his first cousin,who was Cap. over the co. Militia,to whom he had been bound out as an orphan following what is believed to have been the death of his father,Edward .
John Dillard was in the battle of Gynns Is. in 1776 on Chesapeake Bay where bombardment from the british fleet took place over half a day.  John with other backwoods men(as described in the Rabun co. affidavit  before th Tabun co. Inferior Ct. on his pension application ) became sick and were taken back home to Pittsyl. Co. in baggage wagons  In 1778 he again served under Cap. thomas  Dillard Jr. and marched to Boone's fort on the Kentucky River and late to the Ohio River where he buklt a stiockade and two log cabins on an island in the river and where he was again sent back home with a group of sick men, including his captain.  In 1780 he was a part of the pittsylvania co.  Militia which joined Gen. Greene on the Dan River in Halifax Co. against British Lord cornwallis where he served as Lieut. under Col. Issac Clemmons and col. Perkins and where he was dismissed without written discharge in 1780.
After the close of the Rev. in 1782  John along with his one time guardian, Thomas Dillard,Jr. and William Gregory,(Later alleged to be a Methodist Minister who had been "bound out" to Thomas Dillard Jr.  left Pittsylvania,Va. and migrated to greasy Cove in washington co., N.C. near what is now Erwin,Tenn.  This territory was at that time the "Wild West" or frontier of the eastern American colonies.  In 1787,John was sworn in as an Ensign in the co. Militia of Washington Co. N.C. during the internal political upheaval and Indian fighting in which that co. was a part of the State of Franklin which had seceded from the State of N.C. under its Gov. John sevier, in defiance to the sovereignty of N.C.  That territory is now a part of tenn. just across the line from a then much larger Buncombe Co. N.C.
Both John and Jmes Dillard were already hardy "backwoods" pioneers who had done extensive moving in unchartered lands berore they ever reached Rabun Co.  Once they bought out the lottery holders of the 1,000 acres of land in  Rabun Co., there is an unsubstantiated family story that they had to buy it again from the Cherokee Indians who gave up the land on a trade for a muzzle loading rifle, a jug of apple brandy, a coon skinned cap and three dollars.  James Dillard was late a justice of the Peace and State Legislator from Rabun Co. in which he died in 1861.
James Dillard's three soons,John Barnett and Willeam F.(who was killed in the Civil War) and Albert G. along with several daughters raise succeeding generations in Rabun Co. Ga.  A large number of their desc. are still there.