Author: Gary Grant Howard
According to the “Alden Williamson Genealogy’ by Joseph W. Alley family records say that Alden Williamson was born about 1750 in New Kent County, Virginia. New Kent County is located in the James River Valley, east of Richmond, Virginia. Soldier was the son of Hugh Williamson who came to America from Wales, England in 1720.

Based on the “Annals of Southwest Virginia, 1769-1800” by Lewis Preston Summers, Alden Williamson served as a private in the Fincastle County Battalion in Captain William Campbell’s Company. Soldier is also listed in Robert Doak’s Company of Militia in the Battle of Point Pleasant in 1774.

Family records indicate that Alden first married Isabell Thompson and after the Revolutionary War was over, Alden came to the Clinch River Valley in Western Virginia where Benjamin, John, Hammond, Ann and Richard were born and where Isabel died. After his first wife died the soldier married Mary Elizabeth Jackson born 1772 who was several years younger than himself. From the census records the children by his second wife born in Virginia were Alden Jr., Elizabeth, Hiram, Nancy and Solomon. Solomon the youngest was born in 1801. Those children born after 1801 were born in Kentucky and are William, Elias, Elijah and James. This evidence leads to the conclusion the Alden’s family came to the Big Sandy Valley after 1801. The first court record in the Big Sandy Valley was the marriage of Hammond Williamson and Ruth Ford on October 29, 1803 and recorded in the Floyd County Court Records.

Little Paint Creek is named in family records as the place where Alden and his family first settled. Based on the above this settlement apparently was after 1801 and at that time this location would be in Floyd County. Deeds in Floyd County, Martin County and Lawrence show that the family moved to other locations quickly. His family owned property on Lower Johns Creek, Rockcastle Creek in Lawrence now Martin County. Others owned property that joined the Tug River and some moved to Wayne County, West Virginia.

The last item in family records say that Alden Williamson died in 1816 while going down the Tug River of a raft of logs and is buried on the Bill Little Farm, formerly the Sam Endicott farm. This farm is located on the Kentucky side of the Tug River a short distance below the mouth of Camp Creek which is on the West Virginia side of the Tug.

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