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while the earliest direct ancestor is disputed (Peter or James), the fact that two James Fugates lived on the Old Rappahannock at a similar point in time, is probably not a coincidence (although there were other “Fugates” – See “Alternative Origins). Exactly which Fugate (Fugett) ended up in Abingdon, or whether both did at different times (there were multiple waves of immigration), there can be no doubt that, before their removal to Kentucky, the Abingdon area was the “end of the line.”

The first Fugate Ancestor For Certain was Josias Fugate (b. 1700, d. 1757) who lived between the Rappahannock and the Potomac rivers, and married Mary Martin who, by definition, was a member of the ancient Martin family of Virginia.

Josias was apparently a better sire than a soldier. He left three things to the world: a will, five sons – one of whom, John From The North Down To Kentucky

(b. 1730, d. 1833), was reported “a deserter from His Majestie’s service.” (along with five others, he was ordered to report to the

“Lieutenant”) in the year his father died – and a daughter, Ann Swillavant (Sullivan). It is possible that John left the area because he deserted and fled to Russell County, Virginia, where he married Sarah Henley, then settled in Moccasin Valley along the Clinch River, and died there in 1833, age 103 – which, of course, is a long time to be on the run. By the time John’s son Benjamin moved over to Troublesome Creek, KY, in 1802, “Old Ben” was 72 (he was Washington’s contemporary, although the General, unlike Except in the earliest days of settlement (when travel was faster by boat) The Great Wagon Road and The Wilderness Road John, never saw the beginning of the 19th century).

allowed the pioneers access to the Trans-Appalachians; it was only the Indians and the English that prevented earlier settlement One of the last of the families “from the north” to join their genes for the voyage into Kentucky was the Neace family. Theirs (Warfare and the Revolution took care of both impediments).

was a story of rapid assimilation, although the details are rather obscure. In the Philadelphia area as late as 1740, Michaele Neihs’

So we have Thomas Noble settling in Maryland, traveling back to Scotland, resettling in Frederick Co., Virginia where his grandson, Heinrich (Henry) Neace, was born on the edge of English civilization in Castlewood, VA, in 1760, and, by the age of son George was born. George’s son George is born in Fairfax, County, Virginia, apparently near where his grandmother Alexander 19, he had married Ann Bush, the daughter of James and Mary Polly Plunkett – Plunkett being the “Cherokee.” This grandson of was from, and this George. dies in Loudon, County – one county away from where he was born - but HIS son Nathan (the fore-German immigrants who would travel with his daughter Virginia Jane (Neace) Noble – of course, also part Cherokee - into the father of the Kentucky Nobles) was born in Culpepper, VA., at the northern end of The Great Wagon Road, and made the journey hills of Kentucky.

South down the Shenandoah and across the Pound Gap to settle and eventually die in Clay County, Kentucky.

It’s always possible that some of the facts presented here are wrong: a place certain where an ancestor was born and a place certain where you eventually died does not rule out settling or visiting other places in between – nor does the passage of generations restrict a descendant to the same town in which he or she was born. However, in so many of these family histories there are problems of record: cousins can be confused with direct ancestors of the same name; brothers and sisters give their children similar names, etc.; and so, often, mistakes are made by the recording genealogist.

Just two years before Nathan Noble was born in Culpepper (1781), Edmund Fox Collinsworth was married in Culpepper

(1779) – the year after he served with Washington at Valley Forge, PA. Edmund apparently remained in Culpepper until at least 1793, when his son William was born. Shortly thereafter Edmund Fox removed himself and his family to Tennessee (again, there was no better route than The Great Wagon Road) and thence to Kentucky.

Fifty years earlier, the Alexanders and the Neaces were in residence in Culpeper as well. At that time the population of all of Virginia was 230,000, and the population of Fairfax County was 5,500. As late as 1852, the population of Culpeper County was only 2,000 – half of whom were slaves.

Most of the white population of Culpeper in 1750 must have been relatives.

As Culpeper County is so important to our family’s history, I will include this entry from Wikipedia:

After forming , in 1748, the Virginia House of Burgesses voted to establish the Town of Fairfax on February 22, 1759. The name honored , who was proprietor of the , a vast domain north of the ; his territory was then defined as stretching from to what is now , .

The original plan of the town called for ten blocks, which form the core of Culpeper’s downtown area today. The original town was surveyed by a young . In 1795, the town received a post office under the name Culpeper Court House, although most maps continued to show the Fairfax name. The confusion resulting from the difference in official and postal names, coupled with the existence of Fairfax Court House and Fairfax Station post offices in Fairfax County, was finally resolved when the Virginia Assembly formally renamed the town Culpeper in 1869 (Acts, 1869–1870, chapter 118, page 154).