James Muse Jr. (1734 - 1780)

Born 2 Jan 1734 in Prince William, Virginia

Ancestors

Descendants

Died 1780 at about age 45 in Cumberland, North Carolina, United States

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Biography

Captain James Muse Jr. was a Loyalist in the American Revolution.

Captain James Muse Jr. served with Civil Service, North Carolina during the American Revolution.

James Muse Jr. is a DAR Patriot Ancestor, A134596.

James was born on 2 January 1734 in Prince William County, Virginia. James Muse ... He passed away in 1780. ^[1]

James served as Captain of the cavalry in General Donald MacDonald's Tory Army in early 1776 in the struggle for control of North Carolinq as the colonies devolved into chaos. He was captured at the Battle of Widow Moores Creek Bridge in February 1776 and imprisoned at the colonial capital of Halifax. On the way to Philadlphia, his son helped Muse escape and they returned to Cumberland County. A few years later, he switched his support to the Patriots and hired a substitute to serve in his place in the North Carolina Militia. He died in 1780.

James Muse Jr. lived in the Deep River area, Cumberland County, North Carolina. He married CHARITY Braswell May 27, 1755 in North Carolina. She was born Apr 5, 1739 in Deep River, Cumberland County, North Carolina, and died Aft. 1790 in Moore County, North Carolina. Notes for JAMES MUSE, JR: James was a Captain in General Donald MacDonald's Tory Army Notes for CHARITY : The maiden name Braswell has been spelled in so many ways, that we can only guess how most people in their area of NC and in earlier Isle of Wight area might have pronouced it. It might have been "Brazille," since this name was carried on in the Tennessee branch of the family as a given name. More About JAMES MUSE and CHARITY Braswell: Marriage: May 27, 1755, North Carolina

Children of JAMES MUSE and CHARITY are:

1. DANIEL BRAZIL5 MUSE, b. Abt. 1756, Cumberland County, North Carolina; d. Aft. 1821, Mecklenburg, North Carolinia.
2. JAMES DUNN MUSE III, b. November 27, 1757, Cumberland County, North Carolina; d. January 20, 1843, Bedford County, Tennessee.
3. JESSE FRANKLIN MUSE, SR, b. April 26, 1759, Cumberland County, North Carolina; d. October 18, 1820, Moore County, North Carolina.
4. FERRIBA MUSE, b. August 27, 1762, Cumberland County, North Carolina; d. December 26, 1834, Franklin County, Tennessee; m. ANTHONY SEALE IV; b. Abt. 1771, Cumberland County, North Carolina; d. 1818, Franklin County, Tennessee. More About FERRIBA MUSE: Date born 2: August 27, 1762
5. MARTHA MUSE, b. Aft. 1764, Cumberland County, North Carolina; d. Aft. 1780.
6. MARY MUSE, b. Abt. 1768, Cumberland County, North Carolina; d. Aft. 1780; m. ? SOWELL; b. Abt. 1765; d. Unknown.
7. THOMAS POPE MUSE, SR, b. Abt. 1768, Cumberland County, North Carolina; d. Aft. October 28, 1850, McNairy County, Tennessee.
8. CHARITY MUSE, b. Abt. 1770, Cumberland County, North Carolina; d. Aft. 1780; m. James Burkhead c1820. Also an earlier husband? Mc D.....
9. LYDIA MUSE, b. September 30, 1772, Cumberland County, North Carolina; d. Aft. May 1811.
10. ELIZABETH MUSE, b. 1775, Cumberland County, North Carolina; d. 1850, McNairy County, Tennessee.
11. KINDRED MUSE, b. Bet. 1776 - 1780, Cumberland County, North Carolina; d. December 2, 1815.

From: "Billy Bob Bert Brazell" <bbrazell@cableone.net> Subject: [BRASWELL] Charity Brazille Muse-Capt. James Muse, Jr Date: Mon, 20 Nov 2006 22:12:57 -0600

Charity Brazille b. bet 1732 & 1740 wife of Capt. James Muse Jr. of NC was my 4th Great Grandmother in my Muse lineage. I am still looking for documentation of her parentage.

Information on James Muse, Jr was found on GenCircles at: http://www.gencircles.com/users/treadaway/1/data/3269

James Muse, Jr. was a Loyalist during the Revolution. In the early winter of 1776, leaders of the Loyalist/Tory element met at the home of James, Jr's neighbor, Dr. Alexander Morrison in Cumberland Co. and planned to rendezvous with British Gen. Henry Clinton, who was to arrive off Cape Fear with an expeditionary force, and place themselves under Clinton's command. Clinton had been told to expect a large force of Loyalist to join him. Over 500 Torys were mustered and on Feb. 12, 1776, they marched for Cross Creek on the Cape Fear River. James Muse, Jr. was Captain of Light Horse in McDonald's Tory army. When McDonald's Tories reached Moore's Creek Bridge, they were met by the Militia. A battle ensued and the Tories were defeated. James Muse, Jr. was taken prisoner, but escaped his guard while being taken to Philadelphia and made his way back home to Cumberland Co. On Apr. 20, 1776, in a "Report to the committee appointed to enquire into the conduct of the Insurgents and Suspected person," it was reported that "[MEWS did actually take up Arms and lead forth to war, as Captain of a company of Light Horse, 54 men; that he is a freeholder and lives in Cumberland Co. (NC) And on Nov. 26, 1776, Congress recommended "That a company of Light Horse be raised to take and apprehend]" Muse and all of their confederates. James was again apprehended, but still refused to take the Oath. Some of his property was confiscated because of his Loyalist activities, but he sat out the rest of the War and died in Cumberland Co. in 1781. In 1782 some property was restored to his widow, Charity, and her children. Ironically, 3 of James, Jr's sons were Patriots

The Children of James and Charity Muse are proven by will. Will of James Muse, 10 June 1780, proved 19 Jan 1782, Cumberland Co, NC. (He died in 1782).

They were: Daniel Brazil Muse James Dunn Muse III Jesse Franklin Muse, Sr Ferriba Muse Martha Muse Thomas Pope Muse, Sr Mary Muse Charity Muse Lydia Muse Elizabeth Muse Kindred Muse

James Brazille Muse was a grandson of Captian James Muse, Jr. and wife Charity Brazille Muse, and son of Jesse Franklin Muse, Sr.

Best Regards Billy Bob Bert Brazell 5th Great Grandson of James Brazell, b. 1787

From a fifth-great granddaughter of this James Muse born 1733, Marianne Muse writes:

Readers of this genealogy might be interested to know that the famous Flora McDonald of Scotland was the wife of Capt Allan McDonald, whose brother, General Donald McDonald, though sick and in his convalescent bed at the time, was the official commander of the Loyalist (Tory) forces in exactly this battle , at Moore's Creek Bridge, mentioned above.

Flora became famous after the Battle of Culloden in Scotland, 1746. The origins of the Battle of Culloden were, roughly speaking, the energy of the still smouldering Reformation, in Britain, acting in either the will to restore the Stuart dynasty under James II of England's grandson (the "Young Pretender", also called "Bonnie Prince Charlie," allied with Roman Catholic interests in both Europe and Ireland) or, once and for all, to defeat those forces with pro-establishment Church of England forces and with other Protestant allies in Europe and in greater Britain. One of the allies of the English in the Battle of Culloden was the Presbyterian community (Scots Calvinists) dominant mainly in the lower half of Scotland and around the Glasgow and Edinburgh area. But other areas of Scotland, even though Presbyterian, were mainly on the Jacobite side of the conflict. The areas of Scotland such as the northerly Highlands, and the far-western islands--even Presbyterians in much of these areas, and another minority of Roman Catholics throughout Scotland-- were pitted against the better-armed majority in Scotland, in 1746, at Culloden. Flora McDonald was herself a Presbyterian Jacobite in the Outer Hebrides area of Scotland where her family members, deceased father and step-father, were powerful in the McDonald clan.

After the terrible defeat of the Jacobite (pro-Stuart "Pretender") forces including Donald McDonald, the heroic Flora (She was still a maiden of 24 at this point, later to be married to Allan McDonald.) conducted the escape of the Young Pretender who was in hiding with assistance of Scots loyal to him; without help in escaping, he would certainly have been killed or taken prisoner by the victorious allies. Flora was asked to help by a Capt O'Neill who was part of the secret company assisting the Prince; he knew Flora, and knew that her step-father on the Isle of Skye was the authority on the Isle to give permission for a boat-crossing, with small crew. The story is that she disguised the Stuart Pretender as a personal servant-woman in clothes borrowed from a larger woman/friend of Flora's, and, with Flora accompanying, the Stuart Prince, Flora and crew on board, fled to a port in the Outer Hebrides (One port along the way fired on them, refusing to accept their crossing.) from which the Pretender could be carried to Skye. Once this passage was completed, Flora found that, under surveillance, she had to produce quite an act of normal cheerful manners to explain her sudden appearance in Skye in her "visit" to her step-father and her mother; then she returned to her own home. The Prince was able to go from Skye to safety in France, finally, after several months of eluding capture, as he slipped, with aid from Jacobite sympathizers, from one safe hiding to another. The savage slaughter, by the victorious English commander, of the wounded and helpless Scots who were left on the field of Culloden that day, was so shocking, as word of it flew from village to village, that sympathizers had arisen even among those Scots who had been allies of the victors.

The escape was successful, but Flora was soon arrested and imprisoned in the Tower of London for a while, then tried in court, and put under guard for a while; the story was a sensation among the reading public in London, and during the course of a year, she had captured the imagination of the English public. She claimed, in her testimony, that her act of helping the Pretender was an act of human compassion that she would have shown to the commander of the other side of the battle, had he been in similar desperate circumstances. Samuel Johnson and his friend and biographer, James Boswell, were to meet Flora much later in Scotland, by the way, on their trip through the Hebrides, in 1773, just a few months before the McDonalds were to become emigrants from Scotland, sailing to America. Johnson was favorably impressed by Flora who he found to be gentle, well-mannered, and intelligent . (See Boswell's account of the trip to the Hebrides, often published with his Life of Samuel Johnson.)

With the settlement of other political matters after the Battle of Culloden, and the English establishment's plans underway for the breaking up of clan holdings in Scotland, Flora was released, and became a part of legend and of history.

The McDonald family, including Flora, her husband Allan and children, were later to become immigrants to America in the 1774-1775 period; they settled first in Anson County, NC. It is doubtful that Allan McDonald, a seasoned military commander from Scotland , would necessarily have chosen the Loyalist cause in the American Revolution. After all, this cause was assisting the out-reaching Colonial arm of the established English government. But he and many other emigrating Officer/Scotsmen after the Battle of Culloden, had been recipients of land grants, and promises of freedom from taxes extended, for years, on their land; and they had received military commissions from the British; doubtless, not only was the commission a way of having a living in the new country, but McDonald took his spoken loyalties seriously. Thus, Capt. Allan McDonald found himself on the Loyalist side in the Revolution as it was carried out in this part of NC, with Captain Muse of the Light Horse near him-- both under the command of Allan's older brother General Donald McDonald. After this battle, Flora herself, with family, would be in flight in North Carolina, just out ahead of the raiding Patriot forces. She got away and was able, months later, to salvage some of the McDonald's property; her husband Allan, who, for a while, had been in captivity under the Patriots, finally found another place of command in the Revolution, as he led Scots militia for the British in Nova Scotia for a while. I have read that, for a while, after the Revolution, Flora and Allan McDonald family lived near Barbecue Presbyterian Church, NC; Barbecue settlement was on the upper Cape Fear River, NC. Flora and Allan McDonald would finally go back, late in life, to their home, Scotland.

McDonald would have been a speaker of Scots Gaelic, as were many others living in this part of NC at the time. The first Presbyterian sermons ever published, in print, in Scots Gaelic, were published in Fayetteville, NC, c1790! Another of the well-known speakers of Scots Gaelic was a man named John McRae who lived on McClendon's Creek in close proximity at this same creek to James Muse of the Light Horse; McRae also had been a Loyalist during the Revolution, and in the battle of Moore's Creek, McRae's son Murdock was fatally wounded, while Muse was taken prisoner.

John McRae, famous as a Scots-Gaelic poet before coming to America, was famous in this adopted new world of NC. And some of his songs are still sung in Scotland and in Nova Scotia. Some historians believe that the British, after the Moore's Creek battle, hanged McRae for his rousing Loyalist songs; others think that he, like Allan McDonald, spent a few years in Nova Scotia or other English territory.

It is interesting to hear the story, too, that when new Scottish settlers came to the shores of North Carolina, in the 1770's, onward to early 1800's, they sometimes heard the African members of North Carolina Scots' households, speaking Scots Gaelic; and this cultural transfer of language that had begun as early as 1730's onward, lasted for many years after, astonishing new immigrants at North Carolina's ports.

This profile is a collaborative work-in-progress. Can you contribute information or sources?

Sources

Various Wikipedia articles and articles about Presbyterians in Scotland that featured Flora McDonald, the battle of Culloden, and the great events of the Protestant Reformation that were background for the conscious and the unconscious political formation of early Colonial America. Carolina Scots, Cape Fear Scots articles, Internet Archives of NC

1. ↑ First-hand information as remembered by LindaGayle Heuckendorf, Saturday, February 1, 2014. Replace this citation if there is another source.

See also:

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A Southern Legacy Descendants of John Muse of Virginia. Chambers, Murphy & Muse. 1994, 2012 reprint with corrections. Pages 45-50. ISBN 9781478351566.