[Granville-Hough] 29 Oct 2009 - Samuel Hough and the Creeks

[Trustees for Granville W. Hough]

Date: Thu, 29 Oct 2009 06:41:18 -0800
From: Granville W Hough <gwhough at oakapple.net>
Subject: Samuel Hough and the Creeks - 29 Oct 2009

It warn't no bed of roses in 1805-1815, either.

SAMUEL HOUGH AND THE CREEKS

    Samuel HOUGH was one of only 20,000 residents of the Colony of 
Georgia when the Revolutionary War began.  These people were spread 
thinly along the seacoast and up the Savannah River in a line of 
parishes which became 8 counties.  The Colony was mostly neutral or 
Tory, except for the northernmost county of Wilkes, where the Patriots 
(or Rebels) did all they could to defeat their Tory neighbors and the 
Creek Indians, who sided with the King.  The Battle of Kettle Creek and 
the Siege of Augusta turned the local tide to favor the Patriots.

    Samuel HOUGH had settled without family in 1773 from NC to a land 
grant in Wilkes County on Little River, 4 and 1/2 miles from Kettle 
Creek.  He either went back to NC for his wife Sarah, or he married her 
in GA.  In 1780, while his family was living on Little River, Creek 
Indians raided his farm and took his horses.  He definitely lived in the 
area of partisan conflict, and he served in one or more military units.  
The specific units in which he served are not known, but he did receive 
287 and 1/2 acres of land in the Washington County Military Reserve as 
back pay for his service.  Samuel was listed on one record of "book pay 
roll," certified by Col. Robert MIDDLETON.  He was on another list under 
Col. Elijah CLARK.

    After the War, Samuel moved to the Greene County, GA, buffer zone 
with the Creek Indians.  There he was one of eight Spies (or Scouts) 
from 1792 until 1795, reporting Indian activity on the trails leading 
into Greene County.  His son, Francis, from whom Granville HOUGH 
descends, joined the Dragoons after the Creek Indians stole his two 
ponies in 1793.  About 1805, both Samuel and Francis HOUGH took their 
families west to the Tombigbee River country north of Mobile, but they 
still had trouble with the Creeks.  The War of 1812 was the Creek Indian 
War in that country.  It began with the 1813 Fort Mims Massacre and was 
followed by raids on exposed farms and strongholds from East Georgia to 
East Mississippi.  Samuel HOUGH's daughter, Tabitha (HOUGH) BARNES, was 
captured in one of these raids; but her husband was able to get a 
friendly Indian to go into the Creek Nation and buy her from her 
captors.  Both Samuel and Francis testified they were unable to pay for 
their land as they had grown no crops while fighting Indians.  After the 
Choctaw Cession of Southern MS in 1805 and the end of the Creek Indian 
War in 1814, they left their Tombigbee claims and resettled into Wayne 
Co, MS, where they got new land and a new start.