Rider Family Line: Our Ancestors in America, 1752-1997

In my 1985 interview with Granny Kiser, I asked her about the Rider family origins. You can listen to (and read) her response below. Her knowledge was limited to what she was told by her parents/grandparents.

She talked about a trip she made to Wytheville around 1946…expressing the desire to return and trace the family further back. That never happened; however, we, as her progeny, are fortunate to have access today to information that fills in the gaps and extends our genealogical knowledge.

  • Mike: Now, where did the Rider family come from.

    Laura: Virginia. Wytheville, Virginia. That is where my dad’s people was from.

    Mike: Do you know any further back than that?

    Laura: No, I have heard grandpa talk about his people. I’d love to sometime go down into there and go to the courthouse and see if I could find some names. See where my great grandpa and grandma would be buried. Grandpa had two sisters, Aunt Susie and Teresa, and I don’t know about the brothers, if they came to WV when grandpa did. But he had two sisters buried down there somewhere, and also his father and mother. So, it is something to think about. When Bruce was a baby, we took a ride down through there (Wendall, Betty, Bruce and Dad and I). We went in the hotel and were eating out dinner--it has been a long time ago too. When the waitress came along to wait on us, Daddy said to her “May I ask you a question?” and she said, “Yes, sir.” He said, “Do you know any Rider’s that live around here?” Well, she looked up and around and said, “There goes one now.” So that is about as far as we got back then. But I have often thought I would like to go down there and see if I could trace back the Rider’s. But I don’t know if it would be possible.

George Rider, 1752-1817: Born in Berks County, PA

Our branch of the Rider family line came to Pennsylvania, British Colonial America, in the early 1700’s. George Rider, born 12/21/1752 in Berks County, PA, is the oldest ancestor that I have been able to document thus far. George’s son, William, journeyed to Wytheville, VA, sometime before 1784. It is most likely that he made the 400-mile trip from Berks County to Wytheville using the “Great Valley Road”, which basically coincides with current day I-81. Additional information about this migration trail is provided below.

Berks County, PA

Wythe County, VA

The Great Valley Road went from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to Roanoke, Virginia. There it split with one fork going to Knoxville, Tennessee, and the other to Augusta, Georgia.

George Rider Descendant Chart:

The following descendant chart shows the Rider line from George down to Laura.

 

William, Issac O., and George Henry all lived in Wytheville. George Henry Rider, born 10/18/1845, left the familiar confines of Wytheville for the relatively untamed West Virginia wilderness. Accounts of GHR and Lafayette Rider are provided in this Kiser/Rider History menu tab.

 

It would be great if we could trace the Rider line back beyond George…we’ll see if time permits and the information is available.

Great Valley Road:

The Great Valley Road, also called in various parts the "Great Wagon Road," "Great Warriors' Path," "Valley Pike," "Carolina Road," or "Trading Path," was the most important Colonial American route for settlers of the mountainous back country of the southern British colonies. It went from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania over to the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia forking into the Tennessee Valley and Knoxville. The other fork went more south into the Piedmont Region of North Carolina, and then to its terminus on the Savannah River at Augusta, Georgia. From Philadelphia to Augusta was 735 miles (1183 km). Several other important early pathways merged with, or split off from the Great Valley Road.[1]

CONTENTS:

  1. Historical Background

  2. Route

  3. Settlers and Records

  4. Sources

  1. Historical Background

    The American Indians developed a network of eastern trade and warrior trails stretching from the Great Lakes to the Gulf Coast. One of these trails, the Great Warrior Path from New York to the Carolinas, also served as the western boundary of British settlement until 1744. In that year a new treaty gave control of the east side of the trail to European colonists in Virginia. This opened the way for the trail to evolve into one of the most important roads for settlers in Colonial America.[2] By 1765 the road was cleared for use by horse drawn wagons.[3]

    After 1744, the Great Valley Road was most heavily used by Ulster-Irish immigrants called Scots-Irish in America to spread through most of Appalachia bringing their Presbyterian religion.[3] Pennsylvania Germans also used the trail to spread into the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. The Moravians of Pennsylvania followed the road to settle the Wachovia region of North Carolina starting in 1753. The first settlements of Virginians in Tennessee were associated with the end of the trail in that region in the 1760s. 

    In 1746 the Pioneer Road first crossed the Blue Ridge Mountains from Alexandria to Winchester, Virginia, where it fed into the Great Valley Road.[4] The Wilderness Road opened in 1775 into central Kentucky, and branched off the Great Valley Road in southwest Virginia at Bristol (Sapling Grove).[5] Starting in the late 1770s explorers and pioneers at Staunton, Virginia started using the Kanawha Trail which followed the New River/Kanawha River into West Virginia.[6] From the terminus of the Great Valley Road at Knoxville, Avery's Trace to Nashville opened in 1788, and the Georgia Road to Athens opened in 1805. 

2. Route

(Northeast to Southwest)[7]

·       Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (often called the Philadelphia Wagon Road through Pennsylvania)

·       Lancaster, Lancaster, Pennsylvania

·       Gettysburg, Adams, Pennsylvania

·       Hagerstown, Washington, Maryland (crosses Cumberland Road)

·       Winchester, Frederick, Virginia (Pioneer Road from Alexandria joined here)

·       Staunton, Augusta, Virginia (start of Kanawha Trail to West Virginia)

·       Roanoke, Roanoke, Virginia (trail forks toward Knoxville and Augusta)

Western fork

·       Bristol, Washinton, Virginia (start of Wilderness Road to Boonesborough)

·       Jonesboro, Washington, Tennessee

·       Knoxville, Knox, Tennessee (connects with Avery's Trace to Nashville, and the Georgia Road to Athens)

Southern fork

·       Martinsville, Henry, Virginia (on south fork of the Great Valley Road)

·       Salem, Forsyth, North Carolina

·       Salisbury, Rowan, North Carolina

·       Charlotte, Mecklenburg, North Carolina

·       Camden, Kershaw, South Carolina (where it merged with the Fall Line Road)

·       Augusta, Richmond, Georgia

3. Settlers and Records

For partial list of settlers who used the Great Valley Road, see:

in North Carolina

·       The Wachovia Settlement in North Carolina

·       Early Settlers in the Wachovia Community

·       Moravian Archives

·       The Wachovia Tract (North Carolina History Project)

·       Levin T. Reichel, Moravians in North Carolina: an authentic history (1857 reprint:Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing for Clearfield, 2002) [FS Library 6015050]. Indexed in Elvert Ivey Memorial Library, Index to Moravians in North Carolina, an authentic history (Hickory, N. Car.: Elbert Ivey Memorial Library, [199?]) [FS Library 975.6 F2mr index].

in Tennessee

·       East Tennessee Historical Society, First families of Tennessee : a register of early settlers and their present-day descendants (Knoxville, Tenn.: East Tennessee Historical Society, c2000) [FS Library 976.8 H2ff].

Journals

Owen kept a journal of his trip from Virginia to Alabama in 1818. He followed the Great Valley Road as he traveled through Southwest Virginia into Tennessee. His journal is available online at Internet Archive - free.[8]

Wikipedia has more about this subject: Great Wagon Road

4. Sources

Internet Sites

·       Brenda E. McPherson Compton, "The Scots-Irish From Ulster and The Great Philadelphia Wagon Road" in ElectricScotland.com at http://www.electricscotland.com/history/america/wagon_road.htm (accessed 31 July 2010).

·       "The Old Wagon Road" at http://www.delmars.com/family/wagonrd.htm (accessed 31 July 2010).

·       Joe A. Morley, ed., The Way We Lived in North Carolina chapter excerpts "The Great Wagon Road" at http://waywelivednc.com/before-1770/wagon-road.htm (accessed 1 August 2010).

Other Wiki Pages

·       Many of the US Migration Trails and Roads

Other Sources

1.     William Dollarhide, Map Guide to American Migration Routes 1735-1815 (Bountiful, Utah: Heritage Quest, 1997)[FS Library 973 E3d], 7 and 13.

2.     Dollarhide, 5.

3.     Brenda E. McPherson Compton, "The Scots-Irish From Ulster and The Great Philadelphia Wagon Road" in ElectricScotland.com at http://www.electricscotland.com/history/america/wagon_road.htm (accessed 31 July 2010).

4.     Dollarhide, 6

5.     Dollarhide, 12-13.

6.     Wikipedia contributors, "Kanawha River" in Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanawha_River (accessed 1 August 2010).

7.     Dollarhide, 7, 12, and 13.

8.     "John Owen's Journal of His Removal from Virginia to Alabama in 1818," Publications of the Southern History Association, Vol. 1, No. 2 (Apr. 1897):89-97. Digitized by Internet Archive.