Abel Peak
Abel Peak (1757-1852) was a Revolutionary War veteran who is believed to have moved to present-day Scott County after the war had ended.
See Also: Revolutionary War Veterans
Biography
Born in 1757 in Buckingham County, Va., Peak may have been the son of Jonathan Peak and Patsy Hamby. He married Lydia Jones (1776-1854), the daughter of Thomas and Mary Jones, in 1794. He had a brother, Jacob Peak, who married Lydia’s sister, Mary “Polly” Jones. He may have been married to a woman named Millie before his marriage to Lydia, and he may have fathered children with Millie.
Revolutionary War
Peak was at the Battle of Kings Mountain in 1780, when Patriots from East Tennessee, Virginia and North Carolina — known as the “Overmountain Men” and led by Col. John Sevier — scored a decisive victory over the Tories under British Maj. Patrick Ferguson as they attempted to retreat to the protection of Lord Charles Cornwallis’s main army.
The battle was considered a turning point in the war, as the British had written off the northern colonies and were focusing their efforts on the South, and appeared to be on the verge of winning the war there. It was rumored that a deal was in the works that would see the southern colonies ceded to the British and the war ended.
Ferguson had written to the Overmountain Men who lived west of the Blue Ridge Mountains, telling them that if they did not “desist from their opposition to the British army, and take protection under his standard, he would march his army over the mountains, hang their leaders, and lay their country (to) waste with fire and sword.”
That threat inspired Sevier and Col. Isaac Shelby to raise their militias and attack Ferguson’s army, which consisted mostly of American colonists who remained loyal to the crown. The Patriots — including Peak — marched all night to reach Kings Mountain, taking Ferguson and his troops completely by surprise. What resulted was the largest American-on-American fight of the war. In less than one hour, Ferguson had been killed and every single one of his men either killed or taken captive. Thomas Jefferson called it the turning point of the war.
Twelve months later, Peak was at Yorktown when Cornwallis surrendered, effectively ending the war. Though there’s no evidence that the two men knew one another, Pvt. Joseph Griffith was also at Yorktown as one of Gen. George Washington’s personal bodyguards. After the war, both men moved their families to what would become Scott County, and Peak’s son married Griffith’s granddaughter.
Peak was one of at least three Revolutionary War veterans — the others being Abraham Goad and Randolph Lawson — not listed on the plaque outside the Scott County Courthouse in Huntsville. A fourth, Randolph Lawson’s brother, Robert Lawson, may have also been omitted.
After the War
The Peak family is believed to have moved to modern-day Glenmary sometime prior to the War of 1812. It’s not clear how many children he had, though Lydia stated in an 1853 application for a widow’s pension that she had 17 children.
Jacob Peak and his wife, Polly, along with Polly and Lydia’s parents, moved to Oak Ridge, settling in the area known as Gamble Valley. Abel and Lydia may have initially moved to that area, as well. In her 1853 pension application, Lydia stated that they lived in Anderson County for six years before moving to Morgan County. However, in his 1832 pension application, Abel stated that they lived in Anderson County for six years before being “cut off” into Morgan County. Morgan County was created in 1817 from part of Anderson County.
Abel Peak appeared in the 1830 and 1840 censuses in Morgan County. He did not appear anywhere in the 1850 census, nor did his wife or any of his children.
Peak died in 1852 and is believed to be buried on private land off Campground Road between Glenmary and Mill Creek. His son, Lewis, and his daughter-in-law, Matilda (Joseph Griffith‘s granddaughter) are also believed to be buried there, as is Abel’s wife, Lydia. None of them have identifiable headstones. Only Lewis (mistakenly identified as Luke) and Matilda were listed at the cemetery by the historian Robert Bailey in his 1994 book, Cemeteries of Scott County, Tennessee, which can be purchased from the Scott County Historical Society.
The most compelling evidence that Abel and Lydia Jones Peak lived in Scott County is Lydia’s 1853 application for a widow’s pension, which was filed in Scott County. In it, she said that she had lived at her current location since they moved from Anderson County after six years of residing in Tennessee.
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