John Carrigan, immigrant from Ireland and Revolutionary War soldier, born March 20, 1756 in Londonderry Ireland, died April 26, 1826. During the Revolution, John served as Commissary and as a member of the regulators for the North Carolina Continental Army (Note: North Carolina "Index to Revolutionary Accounts, Misc" - Vol. 1, Accounts of the U.S., with N. C. War of the Revolution, Book, C, pg. 94, John's younger brother, James, served as a Captain and brother Edward served as a private.)

John Carrigan came to America with his parents, William and Elizabeth Mebane Carrigan and two or possibly three brothers, Edward, James, and some accounts say William 11. John was the second son. They came with interrelated families -- Mabanes, Samples, Davidsons. In 1766 they departed from Newry, near Londonderry, North Ireland, arriving at the port of Philadelphia. They remained a short time in Pennsylvania before migrating to Orange County, North Carolina, prior to 1769. The Carrigans were Scotch-Irish Presbyterians.

John was educated to be a Presbyterian minister, but also was a surveyor, and he taught school. He was closely related to those men who took part in the North Carolina Regulator movement and those who drafted the Mecklenburg Declaration. John married Kathrine (Catey) Sample on Aug. 16, 1783 and this marriage resulted in eleven children.

Children:
William Edward b. July 30, 1785
James Brown b. Feb. 17, 1787
Mary (Polly) Mabin b.1789
Elizabeth b. Nov. 9, 1791
Robert Fosett b. Aug. 15, 1794
John Sample b. July 30, 1797 (my great great grand-father)
Robert Mabin b. Dec. 9, 1800
Sinthy Ewing b. Oct. 29, 1804
Susan Woods b. Jan. 12, 1807
James Madison b. June 21, 1809
Julia Ann b. Dec. 14, 1811

John took his family to South Carolina prior to 1808 and then to Jackson County, near Jefferson City, Georgia, where he taught school for several years. In 1817, with his family and several negros, he migrated to unsettled land in Washington County (now Clinton County) in the Illinois territory before Illinois was a state and settled along Crooked Creek. He was named Justice of the Peace for Washingon County in June 1818. He served trustee for school lands and held other county offices in the new state of Illinois in 1818 and until his death in 1826. He was buried in McKever Cemetery [now known as Wadsworth] in Clinton County, where a monument was erected in his honor as one of the first veterans of the Revolutionary War to be buried in Illinois (Note:-- H J Walker, "Revolutionary Soldiers buried in Illinois," A Bicentennial project of the Illinois State Genealogical Society, Springfield, IL 1976.)

Submitted by: JoAnn Gray

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