Absolom Elkins and His Ancestors

I know the Elkins aren't Skaggs but we can't ignore that one of the great remaining unproven Skaggs legends is that a Ruth Elkins firstly married John Scaggs and secondly John Bishop.  The Elkins and Scaggs lived nearby in Halifax County, Virginia in the 1760s and later in the 1770s on Little River in Montgomery County.  Absolom Elkins eventually inherited that property on Little River so let's hear what Elkins researchers have to say about him.
Vanessa Stafford Allen is an Elkins researcher who has written quite a bit about Elkins, Scaggs and Bishop families.  Here is what she has to say about Absolom Elkins and his ancestors:

My great-grandmother Loventia was born on her great-grandfather Absalom Elkins' 80th birthday. Loventia and Absalom lived near each other in Logan County, West Virginia. Absalom died when Loventia was 19 years old.
Abstract of Absalom Elkins' Will:
Absolum Elkins, 2-9-1876, residence Logan County, W. Va.Devisees: 
Thomas, Harvey G., Wm. C., Uriah W., Isiah, Richard, Chas. R., sons; 
Frances Mitchell, Margaret Mason, and Mahala Trent, daughters.
Note: Mahala was willed a tract of 500 acres which was willed to Absalom Elkins in 1791 by Archibald Elkins.

[Absalom was willed 500 acres of his father's land on Little River, which he in turn later willed to his oldest daughter Mahala Elkins Trent, my ancestor.]

In his later years, Absalom lived on the Guyandotte River in Christian, WV.

Absalom Elkins' mother was Margaret Bishop, daughter of John Bishop and Margaretha Overmeyer. About the time that Archibald Elkins and Margaret Bishop were married (or possibly a few years before that time), Margaret's mother Margaretha drowned in Little River as she tried to cross it "when it was flush". Margaret's father John Bishop later married Ruth, widow of Scaggs, who many believe was an Elkins, a sister of Archibald's father.

Absalom Elkins' mother's name WASN'T Margaret Gillespie. The Gillespie name came from Henry Clay Ragland's History of Logan County, when he said that Archibald Elkins married a Miss Gillespie from Tazewell. But Ragland wasn't speaking of the Archibald Elkins who was Absalom's father; he was speaking of a younger Archibald who was the son of Richard and Nancy Leslie McGuire Elkins. This younger Archibald Elkins and Absalom Elkins were second cousins. [Actually, the Gillespie name was a mistake even for the younger Archibald.]

Absalom Elkins' father Archibald Elkins was born about 1756 in Halifax (now Henry) County, Virginia. Archibald's parents were Ralph Elkins Jr. and Mary. Ralph Elkins Jr. (b. 1728 in King George Co, VA) was the son of Ralph Elkins (b. 1700) and Frances Brown.

In the mid-1740's, Ralph and Frances Brown Elkins moved their family from King George Co, Virginia to southern Virginia, Lunenburg County. That area soon became Halifax, then Pittsylvania, then Henry County as new counties were formed. This Ralph Elkins was the son of Richard Elkins and Elizabeth Bryant, and the grandson of the immigrant Ralph Elkins. The Ralph Elkins who married Frances Brown had a brother Richard Elkins (b. 1699) who married Mary Gallop. This brother Richard Elkins lived and died in King George County, Virginia. It was the family of Ralph Elkins and Frances Brown who moved to southern Virginia, and some of their children later moved to southwest Virginia.The Elkins families who ended up in Logan County, West Virginia were descended from two of the sons of Ralph Elkins and Frances Brown. These two sons, Richard (b. 1730) and Ralph Jr. (b. 1728), moved from Henry County to the New River area of what would soon become Montgomery County in about 1770. Richard Elkins was an assistant pastor of the Dan River Baptist Church, and he was sent west to help the New River fellowship. (The two brothers Richard and Ralph Jr. had been charter members of the Dan River Baptist Church in Pittsylvania County in 1760.)

Ralph Elkins Jr. settled in Montgomery County on Little River (in the same place that his son Archibald Elkins lived). And, of course, Archibald's son Absalom later settled in Logan County.

By 1782, Richard Elkins the Baptist minister had moved still further west, to the Cedar Bluff area, in what became Tazewell County. Richard's sons Richard Jr., Zachariah, and William later moved to Logan County.

There are some interesting things in here for Skaggs researchers:

 

1. Margaret's father John Bishop later married Ruth, widow of Scaggs, who many believe was an Elkins, a sister of Archibald's father.
2. The dates on the emigration of Elkins from Pittsylvania to Montgomery counties c. 1770.  Remember that deeds for the properties of William Scaggs (husband of Esther, father of Joseph of Montgomery County) and John Scaggs (father of Zachariah, husband of Ruth) showed settlement in the early 1770s.  Possibly the Scaggs and Elkins migrated together.
3. Richard Elkins was an assistant pastor of the Dan River Baptist Church, so Elkins marriages likely were not recorded or considered legal by the Church of England.
4. That 500 acres on the Little River goes back to Ralph Elkins, Jr.  It would be interesting to see when the land was settled and deeded.