Pictured is a partial map of Rockbridge County, Virginia, showing the location of the land owned by Robert and Arthur Glasgow in 1800. Their names can be located at the center bottom and top of the map.
We continue our story this week concerning the Glasgow brothers. After the death of John Glasgow in 1779, his brothers moved to Virginia in the early part of 1780. All three brothers, Joseph, Robert and Arthur continued to reside in Virginia during the years after the end of the Revolutionary War. In 1790, the Ohio Valley was opened to be surveyed. In 1797, Adams County was formed and named after President John Adams. During the 1790s, Robert and Arthur became interested in land newly opened to settlement.
So, in 1796, Robert left his family and made a scouting trip to the Ohio Valley to ascertain if the land was truly as rich and fertile as everyone was making it out to be. Robert was very impressed with the rolling land and upon his return could talk of nothing else. In 1800, Robert and his wife, Rosanna (Rosey) had ten children ranging in age from 24 to one year of age. In 1805, two of their children and families relocated to the Ohio Valley settling near Tranquility. They were Nancy Glasgow who had married Thomas McClelland (a relative of Sam and Deam McClellan families of Adams County) and William Glasgow who had married Rhoda Neely Montgomery. Robert, Rosey and the rest of their children as well as a number of their neighbors came via a wagon train the following fall of 1806. Robert bought 1000 acres on the waters of the West Fork of the Ohio Brush Creek.
Robert had done everything he could to persuade his two brothers, Arthur and Joseph to relocate to the promised land as he called it, but it seems no amount of persuasion would cause them to leave the Shenandoah Valley. However, Arthur’s oldest daughter, Ann “Nancy” Glasgow, had married Joseph Glasgow, the son of Robert Glasgow, her first cousin who made the trip with her husband to settle in Adams County. Joseph and Nancy Glasgow bought land and built a cabin just off Armstrong Road off State Route 247 north of Seaman (today the land is owned by Teresa Armstrong). Rosey died sometime between 1807 and 1812, and Robert died in 1839. They belonged to the West Fork Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church (today’s Tranquility church). Robert lived out his remaining days in the home of his niece and daughter-in-law, Nancy Glasgow Campbell. Note – After Joseph died in 1820, Nancy married Robert Campbell. Robert Campbell and his brothers owned a grist mill located where Buck Run Road meets today’s State Route 247. The Campbell brothers named it Buck Run, in honor of their old home back in Virginia.
Nancy Glasgow Campbell’s father, Arthur Glasgow, never traveled to the Ohio Valley. However, Nancy did make a few trips back to visit relatives in Rockbridge County, Virginia. Her mother, Rebekah died in 1818, her sister, Polly (never married) died in 1819 and her father, Arthur died in 1822. Nancy still had at least five siblings and three half-brothers and sisters living in Rockbridge County, Virginia.
It is these siblings that we want to share their stories with you. They all lived on large plantations and owned many slaves. Nancy and her family in Adams County were abolitionists while her siblings’ beliefs were quite the opposite. They believed the owning and selling of slaves was morally correct, as they considered them to be a race that was unable to
care for themselves and as such must be cared for and controlled for their own good.
Next week we will begin to delve into the lives of Nancy’s siblings who had chosen to stay in Virginia.
