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: Major / Patriotic Service
photo used with permission of Compatriot Mitchell Anderson, 229001, KYSSAR
Directions to Cemetery / Gravesite:
Buried beside Jesse Franklin near Joseph Winston statue
Photo: 1 of 1
Author: SN Bennett Lee Setser
Joseph Winston was born on 17 June 1746 in Louisa County, Virginia, to Samuel and Elizabeth (Lanier) Winston. Joseph's family was prolific among American Patriots. His aunt was Sarah Winston Henry, mother of Patrick Henry, and his uncle, Judge Anthony Winston, who took in and tutored him. She was the benefactor of the Revolutionary soldier, the Virginia Giant, Peter Francisco. Joseph Winston's brothers were Patriot John Winston and Lieutenant Anthony Winston.
As a teenager in 1763, during the waning years of the French and Indian War, Joseph Winston was shot twice in an ambush. Winston carried those two balls in his body for the remainder of his life.
Joseph married Elizabeth Hicks Lanier early in 1766 in Louisa County, Virginia. Among their children were:
Martha was born on 5 January 1768 and married William McDaniel.
Sarah was born about 1774 and married Charles Dalton.
Thomas was born about 1778
Robert was born on 12 May 1782 and married Frances Davis.
Samuel was born on 24 November 1784 and married Ann Whitlock Hoggatt.
Joseph was born on 16 January 1788 and married his cousin Letitia Winston.
In October 1771, Joseph and Elizebeth moved to Town Fork of the Dan River in Surry County, today Stokes County, North Carolina. And later bought the land that became Germantown, North Carolina, just northeast of Winston-Salem.
Joseph was elected a delegate to the Second North Carolina Provincial Congress in May 1775. He and the Provincial Congress approved the Continental Association of 1774, an economic boycott of Great Britain by the First Continental Congress. Sometime after the 1775 North Carolina Provincial Congress, Joseph was commissioned second major, then the first major of the Surry County North Carolina Militia. On 27 February 1776, Major Winston led a group of Surry militia volunteers at the Battle of Moore's Creek Bridge near Wilmington, North Carolina. On 1 September, he and his Militia marched with General Griffith Rutherford under Colonel Martin Armstrong with a force of approximately 1,700 men into the Cherokee Nations lands near the headwaters of the Catawba River. The Cherokee people, who had a treaty with the British, were angry because of European encroachment into their lands and were raiding settlements. General Rutherford's force first fell on the middle settlements and then on the valley towns, suppressing the Cherokee people, and Joseph participated in the negotiations that led to the signing of the Treaty of Long Island on the Holston River on 20 July 1777. There, the Cherokee Nation was forced to relinquish claims to the land occupied by Europeans in east Tennessee and western North Carolina.
On 30 September 1780, Colonel Benjamin Cleveland and Major Joseph Winston, with about 350 North Carolina Militia from Wilkes and Surry Counties, arrived at Quaker Meadows near present-day Morganton, North Carolina, the home of Colonel Charles McDowell. There, they joined the Overmountain Men and marched to King's Mountain to search for British Major Patrick Furguson. At King's Mountain on 7 October 1780, Major Winston commanded a portion of the right wing of the patriot army. In February 1781, the North Carolina Legislature awarded him and all Senior Officers who fought at King's Mountain "an elegant, mounted sword" for defeating Major Ferguson.
Major Joseph Winston and his Surry County Militiamen contributed to the significant American defense at the Battle of the Guilford Courthouse on 15 March 1781 by commanding the southern flank of the second line of the Patriot defenses.
Joseph twice served in the North Carolina House of Representatives, five times in the North Carolina Senate, and served as a member of Congress from 1803 to 1807. From 1807 to 1813, he was a trustee of the University of North Carolina. The town of Winston, North Carolina, which later joined with Salem, North Carolina, to become Winston-Salem, is named for him.
The Patriot died on 21 April 1815 at 68 years of age in Germantown, North Carolina, and was buried at the Winston Family Cemetery there. His remains were moved to Guilford Courthouse National Military Park in 1909.
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