Jerry and Linda Butler

From information furnished by Charles Brashear, San Diego:

ISAAC BRASHEARS, THE PATRIARCH

Isaac Brashears was born in Orange, later Guilford Co., North Carolina, on 23 Oct 1760. His father, Robert Samuel Brashears, and several others of the family, had removed from Maryland to N.C. about 1753 and founded a Brashear colony on the banks of Reedy Fork of the Haw River and Buffalo Creek in present-day Guilford County.

Sometime in the 1770's, however , Robert Samuel Brashears and some of his sons had moved west into this forbidden territory, in what is now Sullivan Co. Tennessee, and built a large house near Timberlake branch of Reedy Creek, north of the Holston River and not far from present-day Kingsport, TN. This house stood on the shoulder of a hill, some 200 yards above the Wilderness Road to Kentucky. Travelers certainly stopped often to visit with the Brashears clan. Isaac and his brother, Samuel, apparently stayed on this land with their families, while RSB, their brother, Philip, and the younger children went to the Pendleton District of South Carolina.

About 1793, Robert Samuel Brashears, his sons Philip and Isaac Brashears, and some of his sons-in-law had moved to the banks of the Clinch River in present-day Roane County Tennessee. They were on the west bank of the river, where Cherokee Indian title was not "extinguished" until 1808.

In 1801, Issac signed a petition to create Roane County from a portion of Knox Co.

The would-be county was organized into 7 militia companies for military and tax purposes. In 1802, Isaac was in Capt. Gray Simms's Militia Co. (see Wells, History of Roane County. )

On 23 Jan 1806, Isaac bought two negroes, Joanna and Ratliff, from David Haley of Grainger Co. for $450. Basil and John Brashears were witnesses. (Roane Co. Deeds, Book B, p.127. Isaac's brother, Basil, was 25 that year; his son, John, was 20; these witnesses may have been cousins.)

On 26 Aug 1813, Robert Samuel Brashears deeded 247 1/4 Acres on the North side of the Clinch River to Isaac "in consideration of the natural love and affection that I have for my son , Isaac Brashears, & for divers other considerations." Witnesses were Wm. Brown, Walter Brashears (Isaac's son, b. c1790), Sampson Brashears (Isaac's brother Samuel's son, b. 21 Dec 1788). (Roane Co. Deeds, Book D, p.241. The next page is an identical transaction to son, Samuel Brashears of Sullivan Co.)

On 14 Nov 1813, just three months later, Isaac and Samuel deeded these same two tracts amounting to 494 1/2 acres back to Robert S. Brashears, "return gift deeds to their beloved father, Robert Samuel Brashears," as described in Deeds D:241 & D :242. Witnesses were John Brown and Zaza Brashears. (Roane Co. Deeds D:391. Zaz a was a nephew to Robert Samuel Brashears.)

Isaac was summoned to Jury duty in Roane County in 1802, 1805, 1810, 1816, and 1817. He is listed in the Aug, 1815 List of Voters, and on a petition with his father in 1815 for the construction of a road. He is not listed in the 1821 militia roll.

On 4 Mar 1823, he is referred to as "Isaac Brashears of Perry County"; he was selling 100 acres to his grandson-in-law, Jesse Galloway, for $900.

MIGRATION TO WEST TENNESSEE
About 1820, at the time of the "extinction" of Chickasaw Indian title to West Tennessee, Isaac and five of his sons moved to the west side of the Tennessee River, in what was then Perry County and is today Decatur Co, and started taking up land. Another son, Robert, had moved earlier to Lawrence Co, on the southern boundary of Tennessee and two counties east of the river. Three or four of Isaac's cousins, sons of his uncle Zaza Brashears, moved about the same time to Perry County and settled on the east side of the river, near the Brashears clan.