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: VA
Qualifying Service: Patriotic Service
William Pilson was born in 1750 at Augusta County, Virginia, near present-day Fort Defiance, a son of Richard Pilson, II, and Esther Turner. The Pilsons were Scotch-Irish Presbyterian immigrants from Downpatrick, Northern Ireland. They settled at the Shenandoah Valley beginning around 1740. The Pilsons were members of Tinkling Spring Church.
After the French and Indian War, William Pilson and his father are mentioned in Albemarle County records as having purchased land in the Charlottesville area in 1765. By then the Pilsons had moved away from the Shenandoah Valley Frontier.
During the Revolutionary War, William Pilson is mentioned in two documents. He was one of the settlers who signed his name to the November 1, 1776 Albemarle, Amherst Dissenters for Disestablishment and Religious Equality. This document addressed the Virginia's General Assembly, protested the State Anglican Church and all citizens having to be taxed for the Church of England missionaries salaries and establishment of new Episcopal churches as well as the upkeep of old ones.
William Pilson also signed the Albemarle County Declaration of Independence. This document had originally been penned and signed by Thomas Jefferson. It represents one of several local such declarations. In the document it declares "We denounce and refuse all allegiance to George III, King of Great Britain... and bear true allegiance to the Commonwealth of Virginia.”
William Pilson and his family moved to Patrick County after the Revolution. He died in 1813 and was buried at Ohio, as he moved there with one of his sons. Other descendants lived at Patrick County, Virginia, as well as North Carolina and South Carolina.
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