John Blankenbaker's Germanna History Notes
Note 1226
Finding where Uriah Rector hung on the Rector tree was not easy. (Maybe that statement did not come out the way it should have.) The question is, "Who was Uriah Rector’s father?" For more than 200 hundred years he was assigned to Harmon, son of the John Jacob Rector, but there were problems in this assignment. The will of Harmon was ambiguous and only named one of his sons. In an effort to solve this problem, Tommie Brittain collected data on Uriah and Maximillian Rector to see if she could find a clue.
Uriah Rector was born about 1756, according to his pension application, and Maximillian was born a couple of years later, according to his pension application. Uriah joined the company of Capt. John Ashby, in the regiment of Col. Thomas Marshall, in the line of the State of Virginia, in 1776. He suffered by getting his knee out of place, and was discharged at the end of two years. Maximillian joined the same company, and served at Brandywine, Germantown, and Monmouth. Later he was taken prisoner at the siege of Charleston, which was his fate until the war was over.
Uriah was married to Elizabeth, perhaps a Hill, in 1777. They sold land not long after they were married in Fauquier County, Virginia. Maximillian has no land records in the county. In 1779, Uriah made the county records again, when he was indicted for gambling. From 1781 to 1787, Uriah appears on the tax lists of Botetourt Co. In 1786, Maximillian appears in this latter county as a witness to the marriage of John Rector and Chloe McPherson.
The story gets a bit hazy for a few years, but eventually, both men appear in Tennessee. From 1792 on, Uriah appears in a variety of records, in Tennessee, of every type imaginable. In 1803, Uriah is in Washington Co., Tennessee. A mystery occurs in 1805, when Uriah married Winifred, in South Carolina. Uriah and Winifred moved to Roane Co., TN. In one record, a John Kaebler is mentioned. In 1823, Uriah Rector, age about 67 years, made a pension application from Roane Co. TN. The pension was approved, and Uriah died in 1833, and is buried at Rockwood.
Winifred moved with some of the children to Illinois, from where she made a pension application in 1854. Winifred's daughter, Nancy Rector, married a Harris. Winifred's son, William Rector, also lived in Illinois. Tentatively, there were three children of Uriah by Elizabeth, and four by Winifred.
Maximillian had a history similar to Uriah the same company in the Revolution, ties to South Carolina, in Botetourt County, and in Tennessee. He was in the Greene County tax list in Tennessee in 1804. The similarity of experiences suggests that Uriah and Maximillian were brothers. There is a lot more information that could be used to show other similarities, but this will establish that these two Rectors were in Tennessee (to go with some earlier Rectors).
(03 Aug 01)