Joseph Erwin, Sr.
by Donald D. Erwin
Joseph Erwin was born February 4, 1769, in Salisbury, Rowan County, North Carolina, and married Catherine Nancy Cowan there on May 17, 1792. She was born October 14, 1774, in Salisbury, Rowan County, North Carolina, the oldest child of Captain Thomas Cowan and Mary Barkley.
It is probable that around 1812, Joseph Erwin – the fifth-born child of Joseph and Agnes Erwin, and my ancestor – moved his wife and children to the south-central frontier of the new state of Tennessee. They may have stayed for a time in Maury County before moving on down into Giles County. The 1820 Giles County census shows Joseph Erwin, Sr., living in Giles County, Tennessee with his wife and ten children. Joseph Erwin, Jr. is shown living next door with his wife and two small children. Since the census, at that time, listed the names of head-of-households only we cannot identify which of the family members were still in the household, but presumably the four eldest had left the nest.
From other sources, however, it is known that Joseph and Catherine had the following named children:
- Thomas Barkley Erwin, b. September 16, 1792
- Joseph Erwin, Jr., b. February 3, 1794
- James Polk Erwin, b. March 7, 1796
- Agnes W. (Nancy) Erwin, b. January 25, 1798
- Eli G. Erwin, b. November 4, 1799
- John Johnston Erwin, b. September 11, 1801
- Squire Cowan Erwin, b. February 8, 1803
- Katherine L. Erwin, b. April 17, 1805
- Mary B. Erwin, b. January 3, 1807
- William Barkley Erwin, b. January 25, 1809
- Hezekiah Franklin Erwin, b. February 12, 1811
- Margaret Clementine Erwin, b. August 8, 1813
- Abel Alexander Erwin, b. October 10, 1815
- Michael Lincoln Erwin, b. May 21, 1819
The first eleven children were probably born in or near Salisbury in Rowan County, North Carolina. Margaret, Abel Alexander and Michael Lincoln Erwin were, most likely, born in or near Giles County, Tennessee.
Henry County, Tennessee – Tennessee became the sixteenth state on June 1, 1796, but continued to be troubled by conflicting land claims by Native Americans and settlers. In 1818, Andrew Jackson and former Kentucky governor Isaac Shelby were appointed to oversee negotiations for an agreement with the Chickasaws. Previously, in 1783, the tribe had established a boundary at the watershed between the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers, but in the intervening years they had dropped claims to territory in Middle Tennessee that conflicted with Cherokee cessions. Their claim to land west of the Tennessee River was unopposed, however, and the state government had a flood of North Carolina land warrants to honor.
On October 19, 1818, under heavy pressure from Andrew Jackson, the Chickasaw Indians accepted three hundred thousand dollars for all of their Kentucky and Tennessee lands. The states of Kentucky and Tennessee, neither of which had previously extended beyond the Tennessee River, were enlarged by approximately two thousand and six thousand square miles respectively. The Kentucky addition became known as the Jackson Purchase, the larger Tennessee portion as West Tennessee.
This opened up a vast, fertile area for settlement, and settlers poured in. The Tennessee General Assembly created the County of Henry on November 7, 1821, and was named in honor of Revolutionary War patriot and statesman, Patrick Henry. The town of Paris was named for the French capital in honor of Lafayette, and was established as the county seat on September 23, 1823. Henry County quickly became the gateway for the settlement of West Tennessee and beyond. In rapid order many more Tennessee counties were established, fourteen having been constituted by the end of 1824. The population of the state rose to 423,000 by 1820, and to 682,000 by 1830, and more continued to come.
By 1835, the only Indian lands remaining in Tennessee were those of the Cherokee in the southeastern corner of the state, the majority of which was between the Tennessee and Mississippi Rivers. Jackson, president of the United States by then, wanted all Indians moved west of the Mississippi River. A minority of the sixteen thousand Cherokee in southeastern Tennessee and the adjacent North Carolina and Georgia areas agreed to sell their land for five million dollars, plus seven million acres of land in Oklahoma. The Cherokee majority protested, but after three years they were forced to move to Oklahoma. The formal cession of land occurred on May 23, 1836.
The above described actions set the stage for the next move of the Erwin family. At some point between the time of the 1820 census and the 1830 census, probably about 1827, after large tracts of the former Chickasaw Hunting Grounds were opened up to settlement, Joseph Erwin, Sr. moved his family again, this time to Henry County, Tennessee. The Joseph Erwin, Sr. family, as well as the Joseph Erwin, Jr. family, are listed on the 1830 Henry County, Tennessee census. It is believed that both families initially settled on farms a few miles southeast of Paris.
Caroline Nancy Cowan Erwin died July 6, 1839, in Henry County, Tennessee. She is buried in the Palestine Church Cemetery just outside of Paris in Henry County, Tennessee. After Catherine died Joseph must have left Henry County almost immediately, because although sons Joseph Erwin, Jr. and John Johnston Erwin are listed on the 1840 Henry County census, he is not. It seems likely that Joseph Erwin, Sr., with Abel and Michael, his two youngest children, moved to West Point, Troup County, Georgia. Michael Lincoln Erwin, the youngest child of Joseph and Catherine, died there February 8, 1840. Abel Alexander Erwin, the next youngest married Elizabeth F. Ashford in Troup County in 1850, and died there in 1898.
Old letters indicate that in the middle 1840s, Joseph Erwin, Sr. was living with, or near, sons James Polk Erwin and Squire Cowan Erwin in the vicinity of Starkville, Oktibbeha County, Mississippi. Family tradition has it that Joseph Erwin died about 1848, in Mayhew, Lowndes County, Mississippi, the county just to the east, and adjoining, Oktibbeha County. Over the years relatives in Calloway County, Kentucky have tried, but have not been able to locate his gravesite.