Harry, Benjamin F. Cloud b. 1777 (son of Capt. William Cloud) first married Mary (Polly) Chadwell. Mary (Polly) was a widow of about one year when they married. See "Early Settlers of Lee County, VA" Benjamin lived in Lee County, VA. prior to living in Claiborne County, TN. I made copies of the property plat they owned in Lee Co., VA. It is one of the earliest plats in the Jonesville, Lee County, court house. I believe you will find that Benjamin Cloud also sat on the commission that hired Daniel Boone and associates to cut the road through the Cumberland Gap. Mary Chadwell's father David Chadwell owned most of that area when Rose Hill, Lee County, VA was called "Martin's Station". Later, David Chadwell moved to Clairborne County,TN and lived there in his later years but some of his children remained in the Rose Hill area inheriting some of his land. After the death of Mary "Polly" Chadwell, it seems that Benjamin F. Cloud b. 1777 also moved to Claiborne, TN. His son Benjamin Cloud b. 1802 was the county clerk there in Claiborne. When you study the records in Claiborne Co. it seems that Benjamin Cloud b. 1777 remarried to Sussana Bondurant and had several more children. Benjamin Cloud's [b. 1777] brother George W. Cloud b. 1810 married the daughter of David Chadwell Jr. the brother of Mary Polly Chadwell i.e. Elizabeth Chadwell and stayed in the Rose Hill or Martin's Station area. They probably lived on land that was inherited from David Chadwell Sr. who was a Captain in the Revolutionary War and it is said owned some 27,000 acres in that area. I base the above on excerpts of the book "Early Settlers of Lee County, VA" and the rightings of David Chadwell's youngest son born very late in life named Jackson Chadwell. That in itself is very interesting reading. David Chadwell Sr. lived to age 100 but late in life lived with a much younger woman and had a son by her named Jackson Chadwell. The older children by his first marriage were upset by this action and he decided to give them all land before his death and after that ignored their feelings about his young mistress. Note long before David Chadwell Sr. died he made his own casket. Jackson tells how he would lay in the newly made casket and read the Bible. ? :) He was known to have lots of money and after he died people would come to where he lived and dig around hoping to find where he put the money. However, there doesn't seem to be any record of anyone finding any buried treasure. A study of the Cloud family in Lee County, VA shows that most are descendents of David Chadwell Sr. more than one way. Like other early rural families the married cousins. By the way there was another Benjamin F. Cloud, a doctor, that lived in Claiborne County, TN but was born later and was a nephew. The was also another much younger Greenbury Cloud who was a sheriff in Claiborne County, VA. When I was last in Claiborne County, TN there were still members of the Cloud family living west of town. Benjamin and Greenbury were very popular names in the Cloud family. As I see it the only way to get a handle on who is who is to do as I did. Put together a spread sheet and trace the branches down by birth dates and other information including the census dates from 1850 onward. Ron Wilson

Ron - thanks for the detailed response to my question about Benjamin F. Cloud and Susannah Bondurant. I didn't mean to make you work so hard. Before I offer some follow-up comments, maybe I should try to give a little explanation for the benefit of other subscribers. What we're dealing with in this series of posts is one of the major concentrations of the Cloud family in the post-Revolution South - in Claiborne Co., TN, which was formed in 1801. Many of them had previously been located in Hawkins Co., NC (later TN) from which Claiborne was created. Two branches of the family, both settled in North Carolina and/or Virginia since the mid-18th Century, contributed pioneers to Claiborne. One branch was identified with Peter's Creek, a Dan River tributary that flows across the VA/NC border in Stokes Co., NC (orig. part of Surry Co.) and Patrick Co., VA (orig. part of Henry Co.). The other came from the Quaker community of Cane Creek in Orange Co., NC. Since, as was so often the case with the early Clouds, many had similar names, family historians have had a fine old time trying to make sense out of the tangle in Claiborne, with its spillover into neighboring Lee County, in Virginia. Since later generations of these families sent quite a few of their sons and daughters westward, the attempts to nail down the Claiborne/Hawkins/Sullivan Clouds could be of wider interest than to just those Clouds still living in the northeastern section of Tennessee and nearby Virginia and Kentucky. Of all the confusions connected to the Claiborne Clouds, I nominate for top honors those that are centered on the names "Benjamin" and "Benjamin Franklin." These Benjamins were apparently all members of the Peter's Creek branch, but since the patriarch of that branch - Joseph Cloud, Sr. (ca. 1710 - 1779) - sired possibly as many as seven sons and since at least four of those had sons named "Benjamin" or "Benjamin F.," there's a lot of room for error and frustration. The theory that two of those confusing "Benjamin Fs" - the one married to Mary (Chadwell) Middleton in 1801 and the one identified as the husband of Susannah Bondurant - are in fact one and the same is interesting but raises a number of questions. As I understand it, you speculate that Susannah was the second wife of Benjamin Franklin Cloud b. 1777. But, as you point out, his will of 1845 refers to his wife "Mary," and the record shows that she (Mary, his widow) did not die until 1856. And if we take another tack and say that Susannah was his mistress rather than wife, it's seems still unlikely to me that he would have excluded his children by her from his will altogether. According to a Cloud Family Association member, at least one of those children - her ancestor William R. Cloud - was still alive in 1845, when the will was written. An alternative view concerning these two families holds that we are dealing with two different Benjamin Franklin Clouds, one - as you say - the son of Capt. William Cloud, Rev. S., of Stokes Co., NC, and Henry/Patrick Cos. VA, by his second wife Elizabeth Morgan, and the other the son of William's brother, Capt. Joseph Cloud Jr. (sometimes referred to as "Major" Cloud), of Stokes Co., NC. It was this Joseph Cloud who is credited with being involved in the establishment of Rogersville in Hawkins Co., TN, during his temporary residence in that area after the Revolution. If there were indeed two Benjamin Franklin Clouds of the same generation who ended up in Claiborne, which one was married to Mary Chadwell and which to Susannah Bondurant? That CFA member who descends from William R. Cloud, son of Susannah Bondurant Cloud, believes that it was Susannah's husband who was the son of Capt. William. I don't know how much solid evidence there is for that assumption, but the parallel that Mary Chadwell's Benj. F. was the son of Capt. Joseph fits with the account given by his grandson Alexander Moore Cloud (son of Benj. F. Cloud Jr., b. in 1802) in his sketch of his family history (published as part of "Old Time Tazewell" series, reprinted in "Reflections," quarterly newsletter of the Claiborne Co. Hist. Society, v. 5, no. 2, spring 1987). He specifically identifies his grandfather Benjamin Cloud as the son of a Joseph Cloud who had come "over the mountains" from Stokes County, North Carolina, and "entered a large tract that included what is now Bean Station." Bean Station was and still is in Hawkins Co, not far from the Cloud's Creek area and from Rogersville. If the above interpretation is true, we are still faced with a number of puzzling questions. One concerns the George W. Cloud (b. in 1810, according to your data) who witnessed the 1845 will of Benjamin F. Cloud in Lee Co., VA. In your post of July 14, you identify him as Benjamin's brother (rather than son), and therefore, according to that interpretation, another son of Capt. William. You also say that he married Elizabeth Chadwell, Mary's niece and stayed in the Rose Hill area of Lee. This contradicts what I have seen elsewhere (can't give you the source - my apologies) that Capt. William's son George W. (the first one, of course) was married in April 1828 to a Lucinda Walker (for what it's worth, I also have a death date for him: August 28, 1858, in Carroll Co., VA). In any case, the George W. Cloud who witnessed the will must have been a relative, but it doesn't seem out of the question that he was a cousin rather than a brother. At any rate, these exchanges help focus the mind, and here's hoping that in time we will be able to sort these folks out and arrive at a consensus. Again, thanks for your careful responses to my question and to the query that initiated these posts. Harry ----- Original Message ----- From: <MRJGA@aol.com> To: <CLOUD-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Friday, July 14, 2006 9:25 PM Subject: Re: [CLOUD] Re: Cloud/Shoemaker > Harry, > > Benjamin F. Cloud b. 1777 (son of Capt. William Cloud) first married Mary > (Polly) Chadwell. Mary (Polly) was a widow of about one year when they > married. > See "Early Settlers of Lee County, VA" Benjamin lived in Lee County, VA. > prior to living in Claiborne County, TN. I made copies of the property > plat > they owned in Lee Co., VA. It is one of the earliest plats in the > Jonesville, > Lee County, court house. I believe you will find that Benjamin Cloud also > sat > on the commission that hired Daniel Boone and associates to cut the road > through the Cumberland Gap. > > Mary Chadwell's father David Chadwell owned most of that area when Rose > Hill, > Lee County, VA was called "Martin's Station". Later, David Chadwell moved > to > Clairborne County,TN and lived there in his later years but some of his > children remained in the Rose Hill area inheriting some of his land. > > After the death of Mary "Polly" Chadwell, it seems that Benjamin F. Cloud > b. > 1777 also moved to Claiborne, TN. His son Benjamin Cloud b. 1802 was the > county clerk there in Claiborne. When you study the records in Claiborne > Co. it > seems that Benjamin Cloud b. 1777 remarried to Sussana Bondurant and had > several more children. > > Benjamin Cloud's [b. 1777] brother George W. Cloud b. 1810 married the > daughter of David Chadwell Jr. the brother of Mary Polly Chadwell i.e. > Elizabeth > Chadwell and stayed in the Rose Hill or Martin's Station area. They > probably > lived on land that was inherited from David Chadwell Sr. who was a Captain > in > the Revolutionary War and it is said owned some 27,000 acres in that area. > > I base the above on excerpts of the book "Early Settlers of Lee County, > VA" > and the rightings of David Chadwell's youngest son born very late in life > named > Jackson Chadwell. That in itself is very interesting reading. > > David Chadwell Sr. lived to age 100 but late in life lived with a much > younger woman and had a son by her named Jackson Chadwell. The older > children by > his first marriage were upset by this action and he decided to give them > all > land before his death and after that ignored their feelings about his > young > mistress. > > Note long before David Chadwell Sr. died he made his own casket. Jackson > tells how he would lay in the newly made casket and read the Bible. ? :) > He > was known to have lots of money and after he died people would come to > where he > lived and dig around hoping to find where he put the money. However, > there > doesn't seem to be any record of anyone finding any buried treasure. > > A study of the Cloud family in Lee County, VA shows that most are > descendents > of David Chadwell Sr. more than one way. Like other early rural families > the > married cousins. > > By the way there was another Benjamin F. Cloud, a doctor, that lived in > Claiborne County, TN but was born later and was a nephew. The was also > another > much younger Greenbury Cloud who was a sheriff in Claiborne County, VA. > When I > was last in Claiborne County, TN there were still members of the Cloud > family > living west of town. > > Benjamin and Greenbury were very popular names in the Cloud family. As I > see > it the only way to get a handle on who is who is to do as I did. Put > together a spread sheet and trace the branches down by birth dates and > other > information including the census dates from 1850 onward. > > Ron Wilson > > > ==== CLOUD Mailing List ==== > .................................................................. > Volunteer for Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness at > http://raogk.rootsweb.com/index.html >