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.
Author: Paul Anthony Zeiss
Thomas Young was born on January 17, 1764, in Laurens County, South Carolina. He and his family attended the Duncan Creek Presbyterian Meeting House (church) which still exists just east of Clinton, South Carolina. Thomas had nine brothers and sisters and they grew up on a small farm in Laurens County. Thomas’s older brother, John was killed by Bloody Bill Cunningham, a notorious Tory, who raided a camp of the Little River Regiment of mounted militia in June of 1780. Swearing revenge, sixteen-year-old Thomas took his brother’s place in the regiment which was co-commanded by his uncle, Colonel Thomas Brandon. Thomas’s father was also serving as an officer of the regiment.
Thomas fought at Stallions Plantation on July 12, 1780, at Musgrove’s Mill in August, Kings Mountain in early October and at the Battle of Blackstocks in November and he fought with William Washington’s Cavalry at the Battle of Cowpens on his seventeenth birthday, January 17, 1781. He was severely wounded with six sabre cuts and captured by Bannister Tarleton’s troops. He was interrogated by Tarleton, but fortunately slipped away during a rainstorm that evening. Thomas survived his wounds and married Lettie Hughes around 1787 and they had two daughters, Mary and Catherine. It is believed Lettie died, possibly in child birth and Thomas remarried in 1794 to Sarah Cunningham, probably a partisan-leaning relative of Bloody Bill. Thomas and Sarah had nine more children, one who was named for his brother John.
Thomas and Sarah lived on a plantation a few miles south of Union, South Carolina and attended the Union Presbyterian Church for which the town was named. Thomas’ pension record from the 1830’s quoted Thomas as saying he waited until his war wounds prevented him from farming before he filed for a pension.
He died on November 7, 1848.
He wrote his memoirs and they can be found on the internet. I wrote an historical novel about Thomas titled Backcounty Fury by Parkway Publishers in 2010. He was an extraordinary patriot.
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