• General Notes

  In the spring of 1831, a caravan composed of something like thirty persons from Kentucky, reached their destination and settled in what is now Hancock Township, Hancock County, Illinois. These people had started the fall before, and spent the winter in Sangamon County, Illinois. In that party was an old patriarch, by the name of John Bloyd, and his faithful wife, Mary. After John and Mary were married in Baltimore, Maryland, John quit the sea, where he had been captain of a sailing vessel. We have no further record of him until 1806, when we find him living in the Northern part of Rockingham County, North Carolina, not far from the Virginia line. During the year mentioned, he in company with his neighbor, James McCubbin, an old Revolutionary soldier, with whom he had been intimately acquainted for a number of years, moved over the mountains into Kentucky, and settled in Green County, that State.
  Twenty-five yeaars after that trip into Kentucky, we find this same John Bloyd and his wife, though well advanced in years, at the end of another long journey, extended far into the wilds of Western Illinois.
  
  Appears on the Rockingham County Federal Census 1790. He was living in the Salisbury District. On the census he is listed as 1 free white male 16 or over (this is John himself), 3 free white males under 16, and four free white females (Mary and 3 daughters). That means John and Mary probably had six children living at home with them.
  The family is enumerated in the same district as James McCubbin and Nichlas McCubbin.
  
  Deed Extracts 1785-1800, Rockingham County, North Carolina list the sale of 100 acres to John Bloyd from John McCubbin in 1792 for 100 pounds.
  Map of Rockingham County, NC lists John Bloyd along with William Bloyd and others as residents.
  
  Entry Book #1, page 150, February 18, 1799, treasury warrant #921, Green County, Ky records the sale of 200 acres of second rate land to John Bloyd "by virtue of his having improved the same..." (Setzer's book, page 300).
  General Index to Real Estate Conveyances, Rockingham, NC: Grantors lists John and Mathew[sic] Bloyd as selling 100 acres to Daniel and Martha Barber in 1805.

Details of The Old Patriarch's family with Mary Riggins