The Whiskey, the Gun,
...and the bastard's claim, or...
"Dear Hannah's Hooch"
(Author's note: Sometimes the study of genealogy and family history is just plain hilarious. We humans are can be so silly. We often resemble caricatures of our real selves. You be the judge.)
As always, unabashedly unedited.
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All right. I admit, I got a chuckle out of this. For starters, when you see something like this highlighted image below, you gotta smile. Right away, you know you're in for a wild tale. So in the interest of brevity, here we go:
Below: A cropped portion of the Last Will and Testament of Phillip Sherrill
Below: Objection to the will:
I mean, where else can you get so many great cookies in only one generation? Whiskey? Guns? Bastards coming forth to contest a will? lol. Sign me up!
Allow me to digress:
I'd gone back to look in Greenville. Greenville, South Carolina, that is. I've begun a foray into seeing if I can find any relationship or "cross-over events" between Paige Dunham and her husband, Kevin O'Neal. (Sidebar: I am so close I can feel it)
This was when I first saw it - Hannah and her Dad Phillip, and Phillip's Will.
Here's a quick descendants chart so we don't get lost along the way:
At the same time, I wanted to take an extra look at Kevin O'Neal's paternal line, which I knew would also take me there to Greenville. (Kevin's paternal O'Neal lines are nicely demonstrated here.) His ancestry is easily proven back to Zachariah O'Neal and to Zachariah's father, Brittain O'Neal. Heck, both father and son are buried with their wives in the same cemetery. And while I'd hoped to push the O'Neal line back farther to Brittain's alleged father, Archibald Berry O'Neal, and or find a geographic connection in time to Paige ...
... I was stopped short by Brittain O'Neal's wife, Hannah (Sherrill) O'Neal. You know, the lady who got the guns and the whiskey. lol.
Yep, stopped short by Hannah...and her mom, Martha.
Kevin's fourth and fifth great-great-great-great-grandmothers.
Now Hannah looks to have been one tough customer. And at first, I wasn't all that interested in dear Hannah, but rather interested in her father, Phillip Sherrill, 1740-1802. I was interested in Phillip because he's an acknowledged DAR patriot, with a proven line through his daughter, well, you guessed it, through dear "Hannah."
Below is the DAR index showing the line:
For me, this DAR record was like a bonus feature in that it is an ancestral line that's one quick shot to and from Kevin. This means Kevin can no doubt easily join the Sons of the American Revolution off of this line should he ever want to do so.
This was or is all good and great, but it's really Phillip's daughter Hannah that has the last word (for me) in this take, or, at the very least, Hannah's mother "Martha X," (who is sometimes called "Martha Morris" - with no proof seen of her maiden name yet) and certainly the last word by the bastard claimant at the end of it all.
Who doesn't love a bastard stepping out of the darkness to claim the throne?
Seems like bastards always have the last word, right? I mean, who hasn't watched Game of Thrones? Lol.
You see, in documenting the Revolutionary War patriot line from Phillip Sherrill to Kevin, I happened to stumble upon Phillip Sherrill's Last Will and Testament. What a hoot!
I'd found Hannah's gun, her whiskey, and Phillip's alleged bastard.
I will put the full pages of Phillips' will here:
I apologize that the transcription isn't clearer in these images. The full transcript is available on Ancestry.com if you are interested in how Phillip sought to divvy up the rest of his property and to whom. I am still trying to locate an original copy of this will, as I want to find where his alleged "the bastard" Sarah French is mentioned in the original transcript. But for now, the transcript will do:
That the objection we're looking at is for the "right will" for the right Phillip is pretty well augmented first of all by the date of the will, with the date and content of the objection to the will, and mention of Brittain O'Neal and Roseanna Holley in both documents.
Yeah, that's you, Phillip!!! You "randy" dude.
Making your widow fight off legatee claimants to your guns and whiskey! (Not to mention "the negros" you seem to have left nearly everyone (except poor Hannah who got into your hooch) you generous (?) dude...right.)
Anyway, at least Hannah got your gun and your whiskey, and your O'Neal grandson got some land.
Poor Grandma Sherrill!!!
Yeah, I wanna know more about this trollop, Rachel Collins, and this pretender to the throne, Sarah French. Could it be they wanted to take dear Hanna's hooch?
Ah! The ralings and tales of all of our lives are bound for obscurity.
Anyway, I thought it was fun.
PEACE!
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