John Teague

John Teague was born 4 January 1750 at Fredrick County, Virginia.  He died 15 September 1823 at Stokes County (present-day Davidson County), North Carolina and is said to be buried at the Abbott’s Creek Primitive Baptist Church Cemetery.  No headstone for him has been found in this cemetery.  Abbott’s Creek Primitive Baptist Church Cemetery, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, was established in 1756 when the region was part of Rowan County, North Carolina.

John Teague’s ancestral lines reaches back to early colonial America.  While Teague family members have said, “...we cannot claim relationship to royalty...” there is documentation to prove that these “ordinary people” were known to be North Carolina Regulators.  In the book, “Breaking Loose Together: The Regulator Rebellion in Pre-Revolutionary North Carolina,” by Marjoleine Kars, it is documented John Teague’s father, Abraham Teague, and Abraham’s brothers, Moses, Joshua, Elijah, Isaac, William and Edward are said to be “...free rural people...” who were a part of the rebellion of farming families who wanted economic independence and political and religious freedom.  In her book, Kars says the Regulators intended to “regulate” and reform government abuse and she makes comparison to the farmers of the Piedmont counties in the Carolinas to the more elite Sons of Liberty.

Abraham (Abram) Teague had one known son, John Teague, the subject of this patriot portrait.  In the Rowan County Court Minutes dated 4 February 1772, John Teague is given letters of administration on the estate of Abram Teague and is granted “...648 acres lying and being in the County of Stokes on Carters and the west forks of Abbotts Creek…The above Tract of Land was granted by the State to William Buis A.D. 1753 and by virtue and sale of the aforesaid land with Abram Teague.  He did convey it to the said Abram Teague, to which John Teague being the only proper heir and Administrator appointed by the County of Rowan to the Estate of Abram Teague…”

Like his father and uncles, John Teague, was a farmer.  He married Martha Ledford, of Rowan County, and whose father, William Ledford, was also a patriot of the American Revolution.  John and Martha were married about 1772.  John’s Last Will and Testament, dated 5 August 1823, of record at Stokes County, North Carolina, names the following children: William T. Teague; Elizabeth, wife of David Bodenhamer; Anna, wife of James Evans; Phebe, wife of John Bodenhamer; Lydia, wife of John Welborn; Abigail, wife of James Horney; Polly (also known as Martha), wife of Elisha Charles; Esther Bodenhamer; Rebecca, wife of John Robertson; Hulda, wife of John Charles; Peggy (also known as Margaret), wife of Paris Horney.  His gaughters, Rebecca and Hulda, were both deceased prior to 1823 and in his Will, John Teague states that he raised his granddaughter, Rebecca Robertson, in his home.  Rebecca Robertson’s father, John Robertson, remarried shortly after her mother’s death and he left the infant Rebecca with John Teague and Martha.  John Robertson and his second wife, Sarah Woolen Robertson, and his other five children by Rebecca Teague, moved to Indiana and eventually settled and died at Buchanan County, Missouri.

John Teague’s provided Civil Service during the American Revolutionary War as a Juror at Surry County, North Carolina, November 1782 and Patriotic Service by paying for services at Salisbury District.