Today, I found a Leonard Weldon Adcock obituary on Google. Leonard's obituary says:
He was born on Nov 17, 1924 in Brownwood TX. A decorated WWII veteran, enlisting in the USMC at age 18, he was among the first wave to land on Iwo Jima. He received his Purple Heart after being wounded on the tenth day of battle and was honorably discharged in 1945.
The full obituary is HERE
My father, Gilbert Willis Powell, was sitting on a Navy troop carier the day his cousin went ashore on Iwo. Daddy went ashore about 2 weeks after the first wave, when the air strip was secured.
In looking for our relationship to Leonard, I find his Adcocks go back to a Johnson Adcock born 1818 in North Carolina. Johnson Adcock was a son of Stephen Adcock and Sarah Johnson from Granville County, North Carolina.
So, who is Stephen Adcock?
Article #583 STEPHEN AND JONATHAN ADCOCK from the book " THE HERITAGE OF DICKSON COUNTY, TENNESSEE1803-2006" compiled by the Dickson County Heritage Book Committee
Two Adcock brothers, Stephen and Jonathan, and their nephew, Jesse, moved from Granville and Orange Counties, NC between 1825-1830 to Dickson County, TN. "Good land at good prices" was the drawing card for so many from Granville and surrounding North Carolina counties to middle Tennessee during the late 1700s to mid 1800s, Stephen had married Sarah Johnson in 1809, daughter of James Johnson, in Granville Co. Stephen's brother, William Adcock, father of Jesse, married her sister, Elizabeth Johnson, in 1803 (died prior to 1816, William remarried Lethea Harris 1818) and Sarah Johnson Adcock had died by the 1830 Dickson County, TN census. Jonathan Adcock married Martha "Patsy" Johnson, cousin of Sarah and Elizabeth, in Orange County, NC in 1812 and Martha died prior to the 1850 TN Census.
Jesse married in Hickman Co. prior to 1830 and had three daughters, Arlanda E., Jerusha A., and Elizabeth, His wife died and he married the widow of his cousin, Henderson Adcock, Dolly Myatt Adcock, in Dickson County, November 18, 1844. Arlanda married a McGhee who was born in Ireland. Dolly had four daughters by Henderson Adcock, Angelina (Jasper Bowers), Sarah J., Mary A., and Cynthia. Jesse and Dolly had Jesse Henderson (Lucinda Adcock) and Arzilla Caldonia (Walter Sesler). A letter which Jesse wrote to his stepmother who raised him, Lethea in 1848, provides a written photograph of "Dickson County life" in the 1800's. This letter refers to a letter she had written Jesse in 1846 when his father, William, had died in Granville County, NC. Jesse's grandmother, Tabitha, had died in 1841 and the land and estate that his grandfather, Edward Connoway Adcock, had owned was being settled. Edward died in 1799 but left the small farm to his wife, Tabitha White Adcock, until her death. William, Jesse's father and the oldest son, lived with his mother., Tabitha, until she died, Jesse's letter:
To: Mrs. Lethea Adcock
From: Virnon, Tennessee July 19, 1848
Dear Mother, Brothers and Sisters
I again take my pen in hand to inform you that me and family is enjoying tolerable health at this time and all the conditions hoping when these lines reach you they may find you enjoying the same blessing. I have nothing of information to write you. I want you to excuse me not writing this letter to you before now. I thought that I had sent this letter to you a long time ago, but looking over my papers and books I found this letter begun. I then rewrote it forthwith. Don't think that I did not care for you for I have been looking for a letter from you a long time. Your letter come to hand April 12, 1846. The way it happened I wanted to get Uncle John Adcock (Note - this is Jonathan Adcock) to sign a receipt on the sum and I have kept a praying _______ he would come to my house and sign receipt and write same to Mr. James Wiggins (Clerk in Granville Court), but he would never come after it. He wants him to pay over the money to you and told me if he did not for me to sign his name to a receipt to Mr. Wiggins. I wrote a letter to Burgis (Note: Burgess is brother) not long after that and it made me think that I had sent this to you and I have had no return from him since. I am thinking of him ___________. I can inform you that we have peas and plenty here. Times is tolerable good here. Corn is worth $10 per barrell. Pork is $3.50 per hundred. Wheat is 62 1/2 cents per bushel. I would advise you to leave that country and come here if you can make out to get here. Work brings a good price here. I earn 75 cents every day I work. I made in Hickman Co. some over 12 months ago and I was going right smart, but I am out of debt so now that I can see through I keep some few dollars by me to pay for letters and buy shotgun (shells) and coffee with I can inform you that me and Dolley has a fine son named Jesse Henderson born March 4, 1846. I heard from Benton again about 12 months ago. They was well and doing well then. They live in Gibson County, Tennessee. I look for a letter very much from them. Brother John, I want you to come and see me as soon as you can. I was attending a mill on Gosmers Creek near the mouth 5 miles from Virnon--Up Piney River. Tell John Calvin and Elizabeth (Jesse's sister who married John Calvin Adcock) to move to this country. I know they do better here than there. Tell him that I want him to change his name and come up to the Old Standard Baptist. Put away free will. Feareth the scriptures and see if you can find free will or free agents thus if not come to the Standard. I can inform that I cut my ankle very bad this morning so that I cannot work on it, I fear in some weeks. I cut off a piece of the ankle bone - A very cold time of religion here. I must come to a close. I remember my love and respect to you all. I want you and Nancy Wooten and Sarey Jones (sisters) to write me all your conditions. I want all to write to me. The money I pay for a letter goes as free as the water that runs. If I can't see you all I want to hear from you as often as possible. I would be glad to know the cause Brother Burgis has not wrote to me no oftener. nothing more of importance I remain your loving son until death. Mother, pray for me and family and all the church that Zion travel once more in our time that you enjoy the fruit thereof. So farewell
Jesse Adcock and Dolley M. Adcock.
To: Lethea Adcock and family and Connection
Letter: Received August 9, 1850 of M. B. Littlejohn, Clerk, Master of Granville Court of Equity $6.34 in full of the shares of Jonathan and Stepen Adcock in the lands of Tabitha Adcock dec. wit. J. M. Wiggins. N. C. Granville Co.
The area in Dickson where Jonathan, Stephen and Jesse lived was in southern Dickson County. Their father and grandfather, Edward Connoway Adcock, had been in the militia and received money for 640 acres of land granted to him for 7 years of service in the Rev. War. Edward married Tabitha White, daughter of William White and granddaughter of Jonathan White, in Granville County on July 4, 1780, and was the son of John Adcock who died in Granville Co. in February 1780. John was the son of Henry Adcock who died in Essex County, VA in 1738, Henry the son of Edward Adcock who died in Essex Co, early 1700s, Edward the son or grandson of John who was on Queen's Creek in York, VA in 1640 and died there in the late 1600s. Edward inherited the estate of "John of York." John of York was likely the same Lt. John Adcock who had come from England to the colony of Providence Island in the western Caribbean on the ship "Expectation," in 1637 and the inhabitants of that small colony had petitioned the Governor of Virginia for land on "Queen's Creek as James City is full and no more souls allowed." The Spanish captured Providence Island by 1641.
Jonathan Adcock left a will in Dickson Co. when he died November 26, 1866 and named all of his children but Edward H. who had married Elizabeth Petty in 1833 and died prior to 1850. Jonathan listed his ten children as: David W, (Martha Crowe); Martha A, (Reuben Goodwin); Nancy (Allen G. Crowe); Mary (Thomas Tate); Sarah (Moses Rhodes); Jonathan, Jr. (Sarah C. Lankford); James E. (Sarah Williford); and his three deceased sons' heirs, George Washington (Kesiah Petty)- George's children were Jonathan - Jerusha (Dennis McCarty), Mary (Burkett Murrell), Caroline (F. M. Crowe), Cynthia (Joseph Smith), Martin Van Buren, Joshua Gabriel, and minors, John, George and James J.; Littleton's son James "who lives in Rutherford Co.;" and the "unknown heirs of my deceased son Richard Adcock."
A will for Stephen has not been found, but a "Dickson County angel," C. Petty, has done much reearch and the known and likely children of Stephen Adcock were Henderson (Dolly Myatt); Parthenia (Eldridge Newton); Rebecca (Thomas Petty); Stephen (Melinda -Melinda remarried a Wells as Stephen died prior to 1850, but she still lived with Stephen's father Stephen); Edward James (Sarah); William (Sarah Thedford); Abner (Jane Petty); and Elizabeth (Dunnegan).
There is one trait of the Adcock Clan in N. C. which I have also found in the many Dickson County, TN natives or who have roots there, many who have contributed to the Adcock research. That trait is "kindness."
Submitted by: Betty Adcock Blalock, Rougemont, NC
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