James Skaggs: Who was this guy?

Thanks to the internet, there is a transcription of the minutes of the Big Blaine Baptist Church by Lucy G. White out there for us to study.  The Big Blaine Baptist Church still exists on KY-32 near Martha, Kentucky.  These church minutes are from the 1800s back to 1821.  I found a James Skaggs that I cannot account for in the known genealogies for Lawrence County, Kentucky.  I need your help in solving this mystery.

Charles Skaggs: How the Dix River got its name

Lyman Draper wrote in The Life of Daniel Boone that in the autumn of 1770 the Long Hunters Joseph Drake and Henry Skaggs led a party of hunters from New River and Holston areas into Kentucky.

"Equipped with three pack-horses for each man, rifles, ammunition, traps, dogs, blankets and salt, dressed in hunting shirts, leggings and moccasins, they took their leave of friends and kindred..."

What Ever Happened to Fort Scaggs?

At the outbreak of the Civil War the Confederates threatened Washington, D.C.  The Union Army designed a ring of forts around Washington to defend the city from Confederate attacks initiated from Virginia or Maryland.  Selby Scaggs, a descendant of Richard Scaggs and Sarah Selby, owned land in northeast D.C. that the government used to build a circular earthwork called Fort Scaggs.

Skaggs Y-DNA Testing Update

Since it's a new year I thought I would give an update on where we stand with Skaggs Y-DNA testing. Based on our testing results to date it appears there are two distinct Skaggs families in America:

• Old Peter, the Longhunters, the Safeway Skaggs, James and Susanna, etc. whose descendants test with a Y-haplogroup of some flavor of R-M417.  These Skaggs match the Keig test-takers from the Isle of Man.
• Descendants of the Thomas Skaggs born 1728 in Maryland who migrated to the Greenbrier region of West Virginia.  These Skaggs test with some flavor of R-M269

The 1809 Tazewell County Virginia Personal Property Tax List

A reader recently contacted me with some research based on my earlier post about the 1818 lawsuit between Old Peter Skaggs and Richard Damron.  The researchers used the 1809 Personal Property Tax List for Tazewell County, Virginia to confirm the presence in Tazewell County of many of the witnesses involved in the lawsuit.