Carolyn: Family oral history has a way of adapting the truth to fit the needs of the story teller. Few families want their family skeletons hanging out in public, and for at least two hundred years having been a Royalist during the American Revolution was thought to be one of the most dreadful skeletons that a long time American family could have. Insofar as the Newberry Davenports being Tories is concerned, South Carolina Backcountry history gives the Little River Davenports (Newberry County did not come into being until 1785) full credit for their Loyalty to the King. When the British occupied the Backcountry after the Surrender of Charleston on 19May1780, British troops were sent to occupy Ninety Six, principal village and seat of government of Ninety Six District, the South Carolina open frontier with the Indians. (Ninety Six referred to the distance in miles from the village, established as an Indian trading post as early as 1730, to the Chief town of the Cherokee Nation to the northwest.) Ninety Six was located on the south side of Saluda River, approximately 20 miles west of the Davenports on Little River of Saluda (north side). On the final leg of their expedition west to invest Ninety Six, the British Column bivouacked overnight at Davenport's Mill on Little River. Thereafter, with the British in control, although Patriot partisans made their life a veritable hell, Tories, Americans loyal to King George III, were gathered into Loyal Militia regiments and put on the British Army payroll. Leaders among the Tories were given King's commissions for various public offices. A Davenport served as the King's Justice of the Peace for Little River during the Occupation. Davenport Mill, a thriving public grist mill, became the headquarters for the Little River Regiment, Ninety Six Brigade, King's Loyal Militia. At least four Davenports were enlisted in Little River regiment (they all got paid by the British Army--which keeps the receipted, signed payrolls to this day). Joseph Davenport, was seconded from the Little River Regiment to serve in Lt. Colonel Patrick Ferguson's Frontier Legion, a force of regulars and militia designed to penetrate the Frontier and take the war home to those Patriot partisans who were sallying out of the mountains to attack the British and Loyalists. The Mountain Men of the Carolinas and Virginia surrounded Ferguson's Legion at the Battle of King's Mountain, then destroyed it in a pitch battle. Martin Davenport, son of Thomas, a Pamunkey, was one of the cited heroes on the victorious Patriot side at King's Mountain. Joseph Davenport, from Little River, was one of those surviving on the defeated British side. British Army payroll records suggest that Joseph was among those captured and imprisoned at Charlottesville, Virginia, for they paid him for six months after the Battle of King's Mountain, on Ferguson's payroll, and Ferguson Legion had been completely destroyed and Ferguson killed at King's Mountain. If I recall correctly, that was the Joseph Davenport who moved to Greenville County, SC, around 1800. After Cornwallis' Surrender at Yorktown, the Patriots gradually drove the British out of the Backcountry, but it took until December 1782, fourteen months after Yorktown, to get them completely out of South Carolina. Shortly after the British fort at Ninety Six was abandoned in late 1781, and with the British in retreat to within fortified lines around Charleston, Patriot partisans in the Little River area burned Davenport's Mill to the ground. There are, however, no historical accounts of a Davenport home having been burned, although there are accounts of burned homes of others, Tory and Patriot, as well as of individual atrocities of one kind or another. Prior to the Revolution, the Little River Davenports, although recently arrived from North Carolina, and their in-laws were among the quality folk of the area, and as such were immediately accorded recognition and favoritism by the Royal Government. (The pre-Revolution South Carolina backcountry was largely peopled by riffraff and the meaner sort of people, according to contemporary accounts--by Anglican ministers.) After the Revolution, it took at least forty years for the Newberry Davenports to regain the prominence that they had enjoyed previously under the Royal Government. Their quality had not diminished, but they were politically stigmatized, and while enjoying full citizenship, were not electable--it was hard to campaign for public office dragging Tory baggage. Davenport's Mill was never rebuilt. The site lay in waste for at least twenty-five years after the Revolution, when it was sold outside of the family and rebuilt under another name. With the passage of four decades, memories dimmed gradually or were lost, intermarriages between Tory and Patriot families had softened old animosities, and the emphasis was on the future and Manifest Destiny. The Newberry Davenports gradually resumed the social status and acceptance that the Little River Davenports had enjoyed. The Davenports were a relatively large, prominent family in Newberry County, yet "The Annals of Newberry," a purported history generally accepted as a reliable source, gives them short shrift, virtually ignores them and their contributions. Chauvinism dies hard. But when you count the number of Davenports from Newberry County that served in the Confederate Army, a third of whom were casualties of one sort or another, all listed in said "Annals of Newberry," the family had proliferated and prospered by 1861-65. There are few students of South Carolina Revolutionary History because it takes both objectivity and a strong stomach to digest what went on there between 1775 and 1782. Poverty was rampant in the backcountry throughout the period, and partisans on both sides simply did not have the money or goods to buy or trade for ammunition. So they forged swords and pikes and hacked and stabbed at each other. The term "turncoat" originated during the period, for no King's Captain would command barefoot, ragged troops. So, in addition to a musket, powder and bullets, each Loyal militiaman was issued a pair of shoes and a red coat. This was wealth to a great many of the impoverished backcountry people, and men flocked to enlist under the King's Standard. But after being equipped and clothed, many promptly deserted, went back to being Patriots, but they then had guns, ammunition, shoes, and coats--which they simply turned inside out (the coats were lined with a gray cloth) and wore in battle against the British. Hence, the term "turncoat" for one who changes loyalties from one side to another. General Cornwallis became so incensed by the way his quartermaster supplies were being swallowed up by this duplicity that he ordered that every man captured wearing a turned coat be hung on the spot. The harsh policy did not stop the duplicity, but it stopped those who were confronting the British constantly from wearing the coats--which were traded back to the rear for hanging-safe jackets or such. It wasn't Yankee ingenuity, but it came close. One of the reasons that Cornwallis had aggravated supply problems was the way that the South Carolinians ate up his stores. One enterprising Patriot, per historical account, turned four coats before he was finally captured and hung from the nearest tree. But I'm wandering. If you want some strong reading and can handle unpleasantness, read the Revolutionary history of the South Carolina backcountry. You'll find a number of Davenport mentions--and if you're a Newberry, they're all yours. John Scott Davenport Holmdel, NJ