The following information was assembled from numerous sources and cannot be used directly as proof of Qualifying Service or Lineage.
It is considered a research aid and is intended to assist in locating sources that can be used as proof.
State of Service: NC
Qualifying Service: Captain / Civil Service / Patriotic Service
Burial Unknown: Specifically: Buried in Green Co., KY
Sourced biographical information
Parents, Siblings, Wives and 6 Children
Directions to Cemetery / Gravesite:
Author: Gregory David Ballman
Benjamin Greer was born to John Greer Jr. and Sarah Ann Elliott on 09 Feb 1746 in Augusta, Albemarle, Virginia. In 1767 at the age of twenty, he married Nancy Wilcoxson, daughter of John Wilcoxon Sr. and Sarah Boone, in North Carolina. When he was 45, he married Sarah Atkinson Jones on 26 Apr 1791 in Wilkes County, North Carolina. He died on 23 Oct 1816 in ,Green River, Kentucky where his will is recorded. His grave location remains unknown.
During the revolution Benjamin apparently saw various services in the Wilkes County Militia, although documentary record of this is scarce. One account of his most famous exploit, the rescue of Col. Benjamin Cleveland from the Tories in April 1781 near Meat Camp Creek, is related in A HISTORY OF WATAUGA COUNTY (Appendix B [in book]. The source of this account, in its earliest published version, is apparently Lyman C. Draper's KING'S MOUNTAIN AND ITS HEROES, 1881; Photostats from which that relate to the rescue are also attached (as Appendix F [in book] as well as a few pages of supplementary material from John Preston Arthur's WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA: A HISTORY, 1730 - 1913 (which is Appendix E [in book]. This adds the tradition, preserved in the Greer family, that is was Ben Greer who fired the shot that killed Col. Ferguson at King's Mountain. Lyman Draper unfortunately does not cite his sources for his account which, although probably factual, was likely based on hearsay evidence and also, perhaps, papers of Col. Cleveland. Wilkes County Militia rosters do not survive, not are any original pay vouchers issued to Benjamin Greer extant. However proof that he did receive payment for militia service is contained in the books of the North Carolina Treasurer and Comptroller, Revolutionary Army Accounts. In Book A of this series (Vol. 40, page 221) is recorded a payment in 1782 (?) Morgan District, which included Wilkes County, as follows: "0879. To Benjamin Greer for Service pr ditto -.16-." The ditto refers to the statement "for Service pr Pay Roll" a few lines above.
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Additional Information:
Rev War Pension Application for Amos Church # S8191 indicates this was the Wilkes County, NC Militia Regiment; this unit appears to have been at the Battle of Kings Mountain 07 Oct 1780