Joseph Burkett (b. ca 1755) who died in Miami Co., OH on 14 July 1833 and is buried in Sugar Grove Cemetery in Newton Twp is not the same individual who served as a private in the 1st Continental Regiment from South Carolina under officers Pinckney and Hext. There is no evidence that he ever lived in SC or served in a military unit. In addition his name does not appear in “The Official Roster of the Soldiers of the American Revolution Buried in the State of Ohio,” published in 1929 in Columbus, OH, under authority of the Ohio General Assembly.

Professor Dwayne Wrightsman has firmly established that Burkett was a member of the passivist Church of the Brethren in NC. “Migration of the New River Brethren,” Mennonite Family History, Vol. 30, No. 2 (2011), 121-136. During the Revolutionary War, Burkett lived in the Brethren community of the Uwharrie River area of Guilford and Randolph Counties, NC. Census data reveal that Burkett’s four oldest children, Anna, Jacob, John and Margaret, were all born in NC between 1777 and 1787. Burkett was among 25 Brethren families who formed the New River Brethren Settlement in Ashe Co., NC from 1787-90. In about 1806 Burkett moved to Miami Co., OH, where he remained until his death. There is not a single known document that links him to SC.

The name “Joseph Burket” appears in a property tax inventory taken in Charleston, SC in 1772. Records of the Court of Ordinary, Inventory of Estates, Charleston District, SC, 1772, p. 144-5. Burket’s property was valued at 17 £ 14 s. 3 p. cannot be the aforementioned Joseph Burkett of NC because he was only about 17 years of age in 1772. The Joseph Burket of Charleston was head of a household and possibly the father of the three who signed their names immediately below his on the 1780 petition during the Siege of Charleston. Year Book 1897 City of Charleston, SC, p. 404, “Jos Burket.” signature is followed by the signatures of “John Burket,” “Lam. Burket,” and “Epram Burket.” The names Lamuel and Ephraim appear nowhere in the immediate or extended Burkett family of NC. See Wrightsman, op. cit., for the family lineage. the name “John Burket” of Charleston appears in a slave bill of sale dated 1808. South Carolina Estate Inventories and Bills of Sale, 1732-1872, Vol. 4A (1808-10), p. 7. These documents establish that Joseph, John, Lamuel and Ephraim Burket, soldiers in the 1780 Siege, were likely a slave holding family from Charleston, probably of British origin, and had no relationship whatsoever to the Burkett family of the Brethren Church in NC, who were of Swiss origin.

The “tradition” of attributing this SC service to the Burkett family of NC is believed to have originated about 100 years ago when an applicant applied for membership in the DAR erroneously claiming descent from this Patriot. Due to lax genealogical standards of the time, the DAR approved her application despite the absence of any documentation of her family back to the area where the service was performed. Unfortunately the DAR continues to approve applications for descendants of Joseph Burkett of NC for service he never performed. It is hoped that future research will reveal more about the life and descendants of Joseph Burket of Charleston, SC, the person who actually served in the 1st SC Continental Regiment.