Thomas Phillips
Thomas Phillips (1768-1841) was one of the first people to settle in present-day Scott County. He moved here in the early 1800s as part of the Abraham Goad caravan.
See Also: The Scott County Lineage Project
Biography
Born in 1768, Thomas Phillips was from Grayson, Va. He was the son of Tobias Phillips (1750-1808) and Margaret “Peggy” Jennings (1753-1830). His siblings included Rhoda Cock (1770-1842), Tobias Phillips Jr. (1770-1862), Margaret “Molly” Quesenberry (1776-1850), Richard Phillips (born 1778), George Phillips (1780-1860), Elizabeth Dalton (1783-1850), Robert Phillips (1783-1850), Joseph Phillips (1787-1881), and Frances Dalton (1788-1877).
Tobias Phillips was a Revolutionary War veteran, and a third-generation Virginian. His great-grandfather, John Phillips, migrated from Wales to America in the 17th century.
Thomas Phillips married Mary Goad (1770-1840), who was also from Virginia. She was the daughter of Abraham Goad (1740-1816) and Ann Ayers (1740-1788).
The children of Thomas and Mary Goad Phillips included Sarah West, Jonathan Phillips, Emanuel Phillips, Elijah Phillips, and John Riley Phillips.
Emanuel Phillips died in Knoxville during the Civil War, while serving in the Union army.
Move to Tennessee
Sometime before 1807, Thomas and his wife joined his father-in-law, Abraham Goad, his wife’s sister, and Thomas’s brother, Joseph, in a move to present-day Scott County. Abraham Goad settled on New River, at what is now known as the Vanderpool Place south of Huntsville.
Shortly after their arrival in Tennessee, Joseph married Elizabeth “Millie” Lawson (1786-1838), the daughter of Randolph Lawson and Susannah Cross. Randolph Lawson was a Revolutionary War veteran who settled “next-door” to Abraham Goad, at the mouth of Paint Rock Creek. He had at least two brothers who made the trip to Tennessee with him.
Joseph and Millie had at least 10 children: William Phillips (1817-1870), Nehemiah Phillips (1819-1892), Lucretia Phillips (1820-1891), Jehu Phillips (1821-1910), Aaron Phillips (1825-1898), Wiley Phillips (1829-1906), Riley Phillips (1829-1918), Harvey Phillips (1832-1880), and Jeremiah Phillips (1837-1918).
Jehu Phillips served as Scott County Trustee in the 1860s, and later wrote a series of articles for the Cumberland Chronicle in 1904 that provided invaluable insight into the early days of Scott County.
Today, most Phillipses in Scott County are descended from either Thomas Phillips or Joseph Phillips.
There was a tie to the Goad family besides Thomas’s marriage to Mary. Thomas’s and Joseph’s maternal grandmother, Hannah Goad (wife of George Phillips), was the daughter of Abraham Goad Jr. (1710-1779) and Joanna Wheatley (1720-1779). He had a brother, John Goad (1700-1771), who was the father of Abraham Goad who moved to Scott County. Abraham Goad and the Phillips brothers were first cousins, twice removed.
Death
Thomas Phillips died in 1841. It is not known where he was buried. His wife, Mary, died in 1840. It’s also unclear where she was buried.