Maj. Joseph Vance and [Unk] Cook

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Husband Maj. Joseph Vance ¹

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            AKA: William Vance 2
           Born: Abt 1750 - near Winchester, Frederick Co, VA 3
     Christened: 
           Died: 6 May 1832 - ? Washington Co, PA 3
         Buried: 

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         Father: Maj. William Vance (1718-1788) 4
         Mother: 

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       Marriage: 

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   Other Spouse: Unknown (      -      ) - near Winchester, Frederick Co, VA

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   Other Spouse: Mary Moore (      -1852) 5

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Wife [Unk] Cook ⁶

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           Born:  - Winchester, Frederick Co, VA
     Christened: 
           Died: 
         Buried: 

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Children

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General Notes: Husband - Maj. Joseph Vance

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He was born near Winchester, Virginia, where he was married, and coming to Washington County, Pennsylvania, about 1773, located three miles southwest of Burgettstown, in Smith township, on a large tract of land. This land was then an unbroken wilderness. As soon as a rude shelter had been erected for the family, Joseph Vance, in company with a few of his widely parted neighbors, began the erection of what was known as "Vance's Fort." This was intended to protect the settlers from the Indians, who were yet numerous in the territory, and bitterly resented the encroachment upon their hunting grounds. The fort was situated a short distance from the cabin of Joseph Vance, and stood for many years. At the gates of Fort Vance, under a white oak tree, on October 14, 1778, the Rev. James Powers preached the first sermon in English known to have been heard west of the Alleghany mountains in Pennsylvania. On this wild tract Joseph Vance and his wife passed their lives, with the exception of occasional visits to his birthplace.

Same source says he was born in Scotland and came to America in early manhood. [CBRWC, 1013 & 1363]

Governor Vance of Ohio was a cousin. [CBRWC, 361] It is not clear which individual in the biography is being refered to by this statement.

Maj. Joseph Vance came from Winchester, Virginia, and located at and erected Vance's Fort, in Cross Creek Township, Washington County, Pennsylvania, in 1773. This fort or "block house," was the city of refuge for the pioneer settlers of the northern townships of the county, in the perilous days of Indian depredations during, and following, the "Lord Dunmore" War. Maj. Vance was a leader among the pioneers of those troubled times, and he, along with many other settlers of the northern townships, accompanied the famous "Williamson Expedition" to the Moravian Settlement in Ohio, in the year 1783, that was the subject of much comment, favorable and otherwise, for over a century. This incident reminds us that all races of the human family possess a "streak of the wild" which may, under intense provocation, hark back to acts of primitive savagery.

He was born in the Highlands of Scotland in the eighteenth century. In early manhood he immigrated to America, and first settled in Winchester, Virginia, coming in 1774 to Pennsylvania. He located in Cross Creek township, Washington County, while the Indians were still very numerous, and soon achieved a wide-spread reputation as an Indian fighter. Few, if any, were more prominently identified with the early settlement of the western portion of Washington County, than was Joseph Vance. He married and passed the remainder of his life in the wilderness where his first log cabin was erected; the uncultivated land becoming a fertile farm. [CBRWC, 1409]

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General Notes: Wife - [Unk] Cook

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She was a native of Winchester, Virginia, and died soon after her marriage to Vance.

1 —, Commemorative Biographical Record of Washington County, Pennsylvania (Chicago, IL: J. H. Beers & Co., 1893), Pg 351, 1176, 1363, 1409.

2 —, Commemorative Biographical Record of Washington County, Pennsylvania (Chicago, IL: J. H. Beers & Co., 1893), Pg 1218.

3 —, Commemorative Biographical Record of Washington County, Pennsylvania (Chicago, IL: J. H. Beers & Co., 1893), Pg 351.

4 —, Commemorative Biographical Record of Washington County, Pennsylvania (Chicago, IL: J. H. Beers & Co., 1893), Pg 351, 1176.

5 —, Commemorative Biographical Record of Washington County, Pennsylvania (Chicago, IL: J. H. Beers & Co., 1893), Pg 351, 1179.

6 —, Commemorative Biographical Record of Washington County, Pennsylvania (Chicago, IL: J. H. Beers & Co., 1893), Pg 361, 1179.