William Polk & Priscilla Roberts

(pg. 725)Among the most active and patriotic participants in the American Revolution

Was Captain William Polk, of Accomac County, Virginia, whose residence was on the seashore, where he carried on the business of making salt from sea Water. Close by he had a fine residence built of bricks said to have been brought in a ship from England. Here he was living when the colonies threw off the yoke of England and war came on.

William Polk raised a company of troops of which he was made Captain, and with them he did good service. When the British ravaged the Virginia cost, under the traitor Benedict Arnold, They burned his residence and slat works. His wife barely escaping capture.

(pg. 209) Between the years 1735 and 1740, the family of William and Priscilla Polk moved to North Carolina and settled on the banks of the Catawba River in the county of Mechlenburg. Here Abndr

ew Jackson and his mother found protection with them when they fled from their home at the Waxhaw settlement as it was invaded by the British soldiery under Cornwallis. “Early in the Spring of 1775, the people of Mechlenburg county, heard of the atrocities the British soldiers were commiting in and around Boston. Public meetings were at once called to discuss these invasions of the public peace. By one of these meetings, Col. Thomas Polk was authorized to call a convention of the representatives of the people, to see what should be done about the troubles in Boston. He called the convention for the 19^th of May, 1775, at Charlotte, the county-seat.

At this meeting the announcement of the battles of Lexington and concord was made and occasioned great excitement. The spirit of resistance and independence was awakened. Reso-

Lutions were adopted and then read by Col. Polk from the court house steps that we, the citizens of Mechlenburg county, do hereby dissolve ourselves from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that we do hereby declare ourselves a free and independent people. They were all staunch patriots in the time of the Revolution.

From the spirit of this declaration - freedom and independence, William Polk never swerved, and at once entered the service of the Colonies and served as a captain seven years. His son William was a chaplain in the War of 1812, a regularly ordained minister of the Free Will Baptist church and was agent for the Bible Society to distribute the Word of God to the soldiers, Later Capt. William’s descendants, Capt. William Polk Hobson, George H. Hobson and George H. Current were active in the Union army of the Civil War.

The descendants of Ezekiel and Thomas lived in Tennessee and other Southern States and during the war were prominent in the Confederate.