| Notes |
- Children are listed in the order that their names appear in the will--JET
Wives: In addition to Ann Brown and Margaret (Knighton?) there may have been a Mary--Bill Jobe Letter to JET
Myra Compton Allnutt Records
"The name McKay is Scotch, and in those days was pronounced as if Spelled McCoy, the 'a' being given the broad 'a' sound as in all Scotch names. Today, the name is pronounced with the long 'a' sound, McKay.
Bill Jobe letter to JET
"...1727 Quaker records: New Garden Minutes:
'Reported that Robert McKay was overtaken with liquor about the middle of last their month. He (John Mendenhall) hath drawn up a paper condemning it is is [sic] ordered to be present at the reading of it at the house of Stephen Hollingsworth where the offense s [sic] committed.'
"...1739 Secured with partners, a tract of 7009 acres on Linville Creed (present Rockingham Co.) 1744 Lived on or near the South (main) fork of the Shenandoah River several miles above Riverton. This placed him in Augusta County, when the line between Frederick and Augusta was surveyed and his will is on record in Augusta.
"1746, June 1200 acres of above land transferred to Robert McKay, Sr
"...The lower Shenandoah Valley was colonized by Joist Hite, German Baron, who came in 1731 from the neighborhood of York, Pa to the valley with 16 families. With him was Robert McKay. They were the earliest pioneers in the settlement and development [sic] of the valley by October 31, 1731. The patent was granted by the Colonial Governor and Council to Robert McKay and Joist Hite on condition they settle thereon 100 families in four years. The condition of the grant was subsequently performed, and this large body of land was parceled and sold to many settlers. It was a co-mingling of the German and the Scotch-Irish in the lower valley.
"Later, 828 acres were deeded to Robert McKay individually. This tract was originally in Frederick County (now Warren County, created in 1836). It lay upon Crooked Run, a stream less than ten miles in length, which has its source near the hamlet of Ninevah, originally called McKay's, and flows into the Shenandoah River near Riverton. The McKays were the first settlers in this particular neighborhood, which has ever since been identified with them....White Post on the old road to McKays. which has now become the modern State Highway from Winchester to Front Royal.... The original grant and subsequent minor grants were involved in the celebrated law suit instituted by Hite and McKay against Lord Fairfax, proprietor of the Northern Neck, and was pending [sic] for 50 years (1736-1786) and was finally decided in favor of the complainants long after the death of all the original parties to the litigation.
"Fairfax Land Suit, page 1650 [of what?]
"'that your commissioners Francis Peyton, Samuel Clayton, and James Pendleton proceeded to direct a survey upon a tract of land containing seven thousand acres commonly called the South River tract, lying on the south branch of the Shenandoah, formerly surveyed for Robert McKay, Joist Hite, William Duff, and Robert Green, by James Wood; December 18th 1736, as appears by a plot produced by the complainants as a part of a grant of one hundred thousand acres made them by the governor and council by which survey your commissioners discover that James McNeil, William Whitson, Sr, Barnaby Hagen, Taylor Daniel Stover, Abraham Keller, William Overall, Joshua Job, George Hollingsworth, Jeremiah Odell, George Robinson, Zachariah McKay, Isaac McKay, Henry Nelson, Jacob Bruner and Joseph Strickler, as executors of John Bumgardner on behalf of the orphans of the said Bumgardner, David Job, Isaac Job, Peter Miller, Ebenezer Leith, Jonas Keith, Walter Cunningham, Adam Cunningham, Joseph Abel, Charles Regan, Samuel Odell, and Robert Half Penny are in possession of the said tract as will fully appear survey....'
"...Baron Hans Yost Hite married Ana Marie DuBois in Strasburg, Germany, in 1716. Later came to Pennsylvania, then to Shenandoah in 1731 or 1732. Their daughter, Mary married George Bowman. Daughter Elizabeth wed 1731 to Captain Paul Froman and in spring of that year moved from York Pa to become the first settlers of the above grant.
"Joist Hite and associates took over the 40,000 acre Van Meter grant in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia in 1731 with the premise that 40 families would be settled thereon in 2 years. In 1732, he, Robert McKay, William Green, and Robert Duff took over another grant of 100,000 acres on which 100 families were to be settled in 2 years, which time was extended until 1735
From "The Shenandoah Valley" Jobe's Journal, p. 63--67
"The Indians near York, PA, maddened by white encroachment, too revenge by making raids and destroying property. The Pennsylvania Governor ignored the settler's complaints, which caused Jost Hite (Hans Yost Hite, a so-called German Baron) to look for another place to settle.
"On 31 October 1731, Hite and Robert McKay journeyed to Williamsburg, where the Virginia Colonial Government granted them a patent for 100,000 acres in the Lower Shenandoah (discovered by the white man in 1716). There was a condition that Hite and McKay would settle 100 families in the valley within four years. After a survey, the aggressive new land company saw that each grant was well defined in clear geographic terms. The Indians, who welcomed the idea of a Quaker settlement, were offered compensation by Robert McKay, but no particular tribe had any prior claim to the valley, a common hunting ground for all.
"Straightaway sixteen families left York, PA, crossed the Potomac and entered the uninhabited lower Valley, a vast fertile prairie filled with abundant forests, buffalo, elk, deer, bear, panther, wild-cat, fox wolf, beaver, otter, and all kinds of fowl.
"In addition to the families of MacKay and Hite, there was son John Hite; three Hite sons-in-law, George Boman, Jacob Chrisman, and Paul Froman; and the families of Michael Brock, Ulrich Burger, William Duff, Andrew Falkenberg, Henry Falkenberg, Jacob Falkenberg, John Funk, David Gerlach, Robert Green, and Peter Stephans. Hite vividly described how they were 'oblidged to live in their wagons til they built some small huts to shelter themselves from the inclemency of the weather; and so far distant from any settlement but especially from any such as could supply them with provisions or necessaries, they could scarce procure any one thing nearer than Pennsylvania or Fredericksburg,'
"They called their first settlement New Mechlenburg. It has been said ' In the association of MacKay with Hite, we see the reason for the co-mingling of the Germans and the Scotch-Irish in the Lower Valley.'
"Much later Hinshaw in his, The Encyclopedia of American Quaker Genealogy, wrote 'The Quakers have always been at the front in the settling and civilizing of almost every wilderness and plain, in bringing law and order to newly acquired territories, in building schools and meeting houses, in cultivating farms, and founding villages and towns. Their honesty and integrity and their peaceful ways made them quiet and forceful leaders in the building up of peaceful civilizations.' ...
"1700 or thereabouts, Robert McKay possibly sailed to America Arriving in Freehold, Monmouth County, New Jersey. The first Scotts settlers built a small town called New Aberdeen; the name was later changed to Matawan.
"1710 The Scotch-Irish who settled in Monmouth County were Baptist, Presbyterian, and Episcopal. Later some became Quakers and settled in nearby Shrewsbury and Middletown. Other family names in the area were Job..., White, Shinn Stewart, Morgan, Brown Logan, Bowman, Allen, Gordon, Green and Carr. Some were Scot nobility and many (especially the Quakers) migrated onward to Pennsylvania and Delaware. In 1714 there was a John McKay in the area land later, Daniel McKay, James Mckay, and William McKay. Daniel McKay died in 1732; his will named wife Mary; son James; daughters, Jean and Catherine. Some researchers believe Robert McKay arrived in Jersey circa 1710, and that some of his children were born in Scotland.
"1722 Robert Mckay and family became members of the Nottingham Monthly Meeting. They lived just east of the Blue Ball Tavern (built by Andrew Job. Jr. in 1710); the deed of the McKay property was executed 18 July 1723.
"1727 Quaker records: New Garden minutes reported, 'Robert Mckay was overtaken with liquor about the middle of last third month. He (John Mendenhall) hath drawn up a paper condemning it and is ordered to be present at the reading of it at the house of Stephen Hollingsworth where the offense was committed.'
"1731 31 October, date of the Hite/McKay patent. The venture later added William Duff and McKay's nephew, Robert Green, as partners. Duff and Green were from Ireland. The parents to Duff were William and Eleanor Duff, they arrived in Virginia in 1712. McKay was deeded 828 acres in Augusta County (later Frederick County and since 1836, Warren County). The land was on Crooked Run, a ten mile stream flowing into the Shenandoah; the source was near the village of Mckays, (now called Nineveh).
"1732 or before, Robert McKay built a house which still stands above present day Riverton. [It] began as a one-room structure and then enlarged by additions. The original log portion is now covered with weatherboarding; a stone section was added later. [There is an historical marker standing off route 340 in present day Warren County, VA]
"1734 The Hopewell Meeting for Worship was established; The forest on the road to Opequon was surveyed; and Orange County was organized. On June 12, Patents were issued to Hite and others for the Van Meter lands. Robert Burke was ordered to survey 10,000 acres for William Russell, above the fork of the Shenandoah River and NE of Robert McKay.
"1736 1 First Month, another fifty-four families had been settled on 100,000 acres of land
"1739 Robert McKay and partners secured a tract of 7009 acres on Linville Creek (present day, Rockingham Co.)
"1746 June, 1200 acres of the above land was transferred to Robert McKay, Jr.
"1747 24 August, date of writ of Robert McKay, Jost Hite and Robert Green, being executor of William Duff, deceased; versus William Linwell, Thomas Linwell, and Morgan Bryan.
"1749 Hite signed a bill of complaint against Lord Thomas Fairfax, who claimed Charles II had given the land to his ancestor, Sir John Culpepper. 22, August, Robert McKay served as a surety for daughter Leah Taylor's bond as administrator of the estate of William Taylor.
"1752 Robert McKay died in Eighth Month; his will had been drawn in 1746 by Valley Lawyer, Gabriel Jones; it was probated on 19 Eighth Month. His valuable tract was willed to his children in the following order, Margaret, Hanna, Leah, Mary, Elizabeth, Robert, Jr., James, Zachariah, and Moses. The executors were his sons.
"1756 A Meeting House was built on Robert McKay property.
"Robert McKay attached this signature to his will.[illustration in source] The sharp points in his first name indicate a sharp and analytical mind. His flourished capitals show his showmanship and a bit of vanity. He ended his name with a curlicue stroke showing that he had a flair and was somewhat fanciful."
Jobe's Journal, pp 67-68 --- THE FAIRFAX LAND SUIT --
"In 1660, when Charles II was returned to the throne of Britain, he gave many honors to those who had been loyal to him while in exile. The Northern Neck of Virginia was given to Sir John Culpepper, which in time was passed down to Lord Thomas Fairfax.
"In 1735, the effete Fairfax arrived in Virginia to claim his five million acres in the Northern Neck. Fairfax hired a survey team which included fledgling surveyor sixteen-year-old George Washington, his cousin, George William Fairfax, and Peter Jefferson, the father of Thomas Jefferson.
"Fairfax had great affection for young Washington, however their family's paths had crossed during the English Civil War. A Fairfax ancestor, General Fairfax, was the commanding [officer] of the forces opposing the king. A cousin to Washington's great-grandfather, Colonel Henry Washington, was the royalist commander at Worcester; he refused to surrender the city without authority from the king.
"After the survey, Lord Fairfax issued a warning to the squatters that the property was his. He thought them to be ignorant Germans, and, they, in turn, declared Fairfax to be a monster. They had brought the property out of the wilderness by their own enterprise, risk, labor, and sweat. They accused Fairfax of exercising an insatiable disposition for the monopoly of wealth. On 10 tenth month 1749, Hite brought suit against his would-be odious and oppressive landlord. The celebrated litigation was titled, 'Hite et al versus Fairfax.'
"After a few years, Fairfax returned to England to present his grievances at court. He loved the scenery in America, he decided it was no place for a gentleman [sic].
....
"The suit against Fairfax was settled on 13 October 1769. Fairfax lost. He died in 1781...."
"Robert McKay, Sr with Hite and others sut the road from York, Pa. to Winchester, Frederick Co., Va" -- The Mackeys and Allied Families, p. 151
"It was after 1737 when McKay and Hite took into partnership Wm. Duff, a Quaker residing in King George Co, Va. Sometime before his death in 1752, Robert McKay, Sr. withdrew from the firm which soon became involved in lawsuits with Lord Fairfax...
"...In June 1746 1200 a/ of this land [on Linville Creek] was transferred to Robert McKay, Sr. This valuable tract after his death descended to his sons, Robert, Jr., Zachariah, Moses and James McKay who possessed the greater part of it until 1768 when they sold 300 acres to Tunis Vanpelt and 600 acres to John Lincoln. Portions of both these tracts were acquired by Capt Abraham Lincoln, grandfather of of President Lincoln and were sold by him in 1780 when he was preparing to move to Ky.
Hopewell Friends History
Chronology pp. 542--5
Oct 21, 1731 Robert McKay and Joist Hite get grant for 100,000 acres on the Shenando [sic] River. These were suspended June 17, 1737 because of the claims of Lord Fairfax. In 1739, McKay, Hite and others got a grant for 7,009 acres on Linville Creek. The dispute with Fairfax continued as Fairfax first promised to sustain the titles and then reneging. On October 7, 1746, Robert McKay, Sr. made his will. Bill Jobe gives date of birth ca 1670-1680 with place of Belfast, Ireland or possibly Scotland
On October 10, 1749, Mckay, Hite, and others entered suit against Fairfax.
1759 The Baptists organized in the McKay [Quaker?] meeting house on Linville Creek on Robert McKay's property. That same year a stone meeting house was built at Hopewell and the Hopewell records burned.
pp. 98-99
From 1755 to 1759, during the French and Indian Wars, "inroads of the Hostile French and Indians into the Hopewell region were frequent and destructive. George Washington built Fort Loudoun at Winchester.
pp. 185-6
Robert McKay, Sr came from Virginia from Cecil County Md. "to which place he had come some years before from near Freehold Monmouth Co. N.J." In McKay and Hite's suit against Fairfax, it is stated that both Hite and McKay were residents of Pennsylvania at the time of their 100,000 acre grant. Terms of this grant specified that H, and McK. were to settle 100 families on their land in 2 years and the order was extended to 1737. They eventually were found to have sufficient settlers in residence to comply with the terms of the original grant. Sometime before his death in 1752, Robt McKay, Sr withdrew from a partnership with Hite and William Duff. In June 1746, 1200 acres of the Linville Creek Grant were transferred to Robert McKay Sr. After his death they passed to his sons, Robt., Jr. Zachariah, Moses and James. In 1768, they sold 300 acres to Tunis Vanpelt and 600 acres to John Lincoln. Portions of both of these tracts were acquired by Captain Abraham Lincoln and were sold by him in 1780 when he moved to Ky....
pp. 186-7
Robt McKay lived near the south fork of the Shenandoah River several miles above Riverton. This placed him in Augusta Co. after 1744 and this is where his will is on record. It was probated August 19, 1752. His sons were names executors. James qualified by making an oath; Zachariah declined to serve; Moses and Robert Jr., who were Friends, as the record shows, qualified by affirmation
Dee Ann (Shipp) Buck
"Robert McKay Sr. came from Freehild, Monmouth Co New Jersey into Cecil Co. Md early 1700's. There are no original documents, which I am aware of, which show that he was born 'in foreign parts' or that he was a Quaker from Northern Ireland seeking religious freedom in one of William Penn's communities. The more that I study the problem of Robert McKay's early life, I am becoming more convinced that it was his grandparents or his parents who came from Scotland. In a book entitled Scotts Banished to the American Plantations listed as arriving to Boston, Mass. in 1652 in the ship "John & Sarah" [were] Alexander, Duncan, Hugh, and John McKay, all men were banished for their fighting for the Royalist cause during the Battle of Worcester. We need to find out what happened to these men. For in 1733 in Burlington Co. N.J. lived a pedlar named Hugh McKay who traveled over the area of Burlington Co., N.J. to Lancaster Co. Pa to New Castle Co. Delaware. I would guess that this Hugh was about the same age group as our Robert McKay, but I would still like to know if there was a connection between Hugh McKay of 1652 and Hugh McKay of 1733. There was also a Daniel McKay of Monmouth Co. N.J. who in his will of 1732 named his wife Mary, son James, Daughters Jean & Katherine. Same time period, same place lived a John McKay, we need to know if he had a family. The fact that the Quaker faith isn't stated as being the religion of the above men, further makes me think that Robert McKay Sr. of Virginia was a convert to the Quaker faith. For this period of Robert McKay Sr. life we need to research in Freehold, New Jersey and in Cecil Co. Maryland.
"The spelling of the name which is now generally spelled "McKay" has been spelled McCoy, McKoy, MacKay, Robert Mckay himself as shown by court records signatures which my great-uncle Hunter Branson McKay, had examined, spelled it as MacKay and it was pronounced McKoy.
"The earliest record pertaining to Robert McKay, that I have in my possession is the deed to land he purchased in Cecil Co. Md in 1723 called "Mount Pleasant." The deed states that he came from Freehold Township Monmouth Co. East New Jersey. He sold the land 150 acres to a James Maccoy on March 7, 1731. We have a copy of the deed and bill of sale on file.
"Robert Mckay Sr. was married three times that we know of, and where the marriages took place is still a mystery. The "family historians" did not know of Anne Brown's existence until about 1965. Since we did not know of this marriage, there are earlier tabulated genealogy wrongly showing his wife, Margaret, as the mother of his children. The Nottingham Quaker records are our source for the first two marriages. First Ann Brown '1.11.1730 Margaret McKay, Dtr of Robert & Anne of Milford Hd. Cecil Co. Md. & Joshua Job son of Andrew and Elizabeth. Second wife a Mary . . . .? was Robert's wife listed on the marriage certificate of Mary McKay and George Robinson dated 1725. Under the name of Robert Mckay, father of the bride, the names are written: Robert Mackay, Mary Mackay. Mary Mckay was dead before 1731, because Robert's third wife, Margaret McKay signed the marriage record of Margaret McKay and Joshua Job in 1731. We have copies of these three marriages certificate of Robert's children: Mary McKay 1726; Margaret McKay 1731; and Robert McKay Jr. of 1735 on file.
"Joist Hite, Robert Green William Duff and Peter Stephens, were Robert McKay partners, and we have no information how they met. On Oct. 21, 1731 letter patents were granted by the Colonial Governor and Council to the above men for 100,000 acres in Shenandoah Valley between Winchester and front Royal on the condition they settle thereon 100 families in four years. By 1736 Hite & McKay had only 54 families on this grant. The Governor & Council in a subsequent order extended the period and 1737 it was found that sufficient settlers were actually in residence to comply with the terms of the original order. In 1736 started the conflict between Lord Fairfax involving the boundaries of his proprietary of the Northern Neck of Virginia, and the quarry [sic] of whether his lordship or the Colony of Va had the legal right to the lands settled by McKay Hite and company. Hite & McKay contending that their land was not included in his proprietary and therefore subject to grants by the Crown through the Va. Colonial Government. The litigation arising from this jurisdictional conflict extended intermittently through the Va. courts until around 1830's. However, unfortunate this extended legal conflict may have been economically, it was very fortunate from a historical and genealogical point of view, as it preserved many records that otherwise would never have been recorded and preserved.
"In Virginia Robert had two principle homes, which today no longer exist. His first house was called "Old home Place" on South River Shenandoah, which was willed to his son James. His last house that he had built, there is an account of its construction of "Hay Bottom" in the Fairfax Land Suit. He willed this home to his youngest son Moses.
"We have a copy of his will on file, dated 10/7/1746 probated 8/19/1752, and the original is on file at Staunton in the County of Augusta. Ane since his will is part of the Fairfax Land Suit a copy is in London at the British Museum. The will of course gives the names of his children who survived to adulthood and what each received. His daughter Elizabeth in 1739 had married "out of unity." Seven years later father had not forgotten nor forgiven. She got very little. Her marriage not even recognized by her father. The will named his last wife as Margaret McKay.
"His burial place is unknown, but believed to be the old McKay-Painter Graveyard...."
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Taylor Family Genealogy
Abt 1680 - 1752 (~ 72 years)
[2, 3]