Notes |
- Noteable Southern Families
ROBERT ARMSTRONG. THE THIRD
Robert Armstrong, the Third, son of Robert Armstrong the Second and Margaret Cimningham Armstrong, was born in Abbeyville District South Carolina, December 13, I 774.
When he was ten years old he accompanied his father and mother on their trip to the then unsettled territory which is now Tennessee. This adventure was undertaken in 1784. Their first location in Tennessee was only temporary and three years later they moved to a place near Knoxville, upon which members of the family still reside.
Robert Armstrong the Third, as the family Bible says of his father and grandfather was of * 'patriotic spirit." When he was eighteen years of age, in 1792 he served a term of three months under Captain Hugh Beard and was stationed near Nashville. He was one of the "gallant diirty-eight** who in September 1793 defended Knoxville against fifteen hundred^ Indians, being then a lad of not quite nineteen. He was also one of the detachment of eight or ten who by order of Colonel White and under Captain Gillespie, after lying in the pass to defend Knoxville, went over to Bimcombe County, North Carolina,
scouting for Indians, after the burning of Carter's Station. He also served in the United States Regular Army in a Cavalry Company under Captain Nathanial Evans in the winter of 1 793. And not content with service while he was still a young man, Robert Armstrong was a member of Captain Davis' Company of local militia in 1828 when he reached the age of forty-nine.
October 19, 1798, Robert Armstrong, Third, married Elizabeth
Wear, born 1 780, died 1 820, daughter of the distinguished Tennessee pionees» Colonel Samuel Wear. Robert and Elizabeth Wear Armstrong established themselves on a plantation one mile north of his father's home on the West bank of the Holston River. Their old homestead is now in existence on this old plantation.
Robert Armstrong was an expert surveyor and was surveyor for
Knox County for forty years. In 1819 his cousin, John C. Calhoun, then Secretary of War, appointed him United States Surveyor in the famous Cherokee Treaty of 1819. Robert Armstrong Houston (his first cousin) was at the same thne appointed United States Commissioner for the same Treaty by John C. Calhoim.
Elizabeth Wear Armstrong, died February 13, 1820. After the
death of his first wife, Robert Armstrong married Charlotte Perry by whom he had no children.
Robert and Elizabeth Wear Armstrong had twelve children, five sons and seven daughters namely:
Drury Paine Armstrong.
' Addison Wear Armstrong.
Robert Horace Armstrong.
James Houston Armstrong.
Samuel Thompson Armstrong.
Maria Armstrong.
Rutelia Armstrong.
Charlotte Armstrong.
Dialthea Perry Armstrong.
Malinda Armstrong.
Margaret Cunningham Armstrong.
Betsey Armstrong.
It is said that Robert Armstrong returned from a journey in connection with his appointment as United States Surveyor October 19, 1819, to find his wife dangerously ill and three of his children dead.
They were: Robert Horace Armstrong, Samuel Thompson Armstrong, and a new born child, Betsey. The death of his wife Elizabeth Wear followed this tragic event in a few months, April 5, 1820.
Robert Armstrong the Third, died February 13, 1849.
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