Born in the 1730s Scotland as written by his great grandson L. P. Little and many other historians, George and his Scottish wife, Mary had ten children in Union County, South Carolina. She may have died soon after having the tenth child. Her son Jonas is my connection.
He may have been named after the Jonas Little who also served in the American Revolution, perhaps the brother of George. There might have been several brothers in this family who migrated from Scotland, into Union County, South Carolina, as George named many of his sons after them.
The Will of George mentions sons Jonas, John and Joseph so the others may have died young.
Children of Mary and George Little:
William
Thomas - m. Nancy Gold
Joseph - m. Mary Campbell
John - m. Mary Lamb? KY, TN, TX
Mary - m Abner Spray
Jane - m. John Hunt
Nancy - m. Henry Cocburn
Susannah - m John Phillips
Sarah - m Richard Harris
Jonas - m. Betsy Douglass
Children of Jonas and Betsy
Douglass m. Martha Ann Wright
Hiram m. Catherine Wright, and Rebecca Adams, see 1860 Bosque TX
Mary Polly m. John T. Moseley, her son moved to TX
Martha m. Benjamin Humphrey
Sally m. Johnathon Minton, 1850 KY next to Hiram
James Thomas m. Margaret Agnes Miller
Elizabeth m. James Roberts, took in her widowed mother.
Wesley M. m. Mary Miller , he was murdered
William m. Jane Travis - see 1860 Lamar Texas
George m. Betsy Handley Leachman ( maybe her grandmother was a Handley?)
His son Jonas married Betsy Douglass and had several children, including a son named Douglass and one named Hiram Lucius Little. L. P. Little was the son of Douglass and did extensive research on the family, much of it coming from the stories of his elders. L. P. corresponded with other members of the family to gather data and wrote to others with the Little surname to see if they were related. L. P.'s legal name was Lucius Powhatan Little.
L.P.'s daughter, Laura Simmons Little Hawes continued the family study and joined the DAR based upon the ancestors of both of her parents. Laura's daughter, Martha, sent me a package of papers from that collection and told me the name Powhatan had continued through their lineage.
L.P. wrote of an outbreak of tuberculosis that claimed many lives in this family. On the 1860 census his father's home is full of children, nieces and nephews, they have taken in, plus their widowed grandmother Catherine G. Weatherford Wright.
L. P. was born in 1838 Owensboro so he obviously had much knowledge of the family history, became a popular author of the Green River families, and the Circuit Judge of his county. He wrote that when George became widowed, he then married the widowed mother-in-law of his son Jonas; her name was Mary Handley Douglass.
I have scanned many pages within these files to document the family history, including pages from the Histor of Kentucky and some census records to document their journey. They entered Kentucky while the counties were still being formed so this family is found in several areas as the years passed.
My lineage is from Hiram's son John and John's daughter Lattie. John and Lattie told their children they were of Cherokee blood mixed with another tribe, possibly the Powhatan, but refused land allotments.
Hiram and Douglass had married sisters from the Wright family and a John Wright is found on the same census page as Douglass. John Wright had married Catherine G. Weatherford in 1811 Charlotte VA - she was the daughter of Charles Weatherford - possibly the famous Charles Weatherford who later married Sehoy.
Catherine named her daughters Martha Ann, Catherine and Mary. Martha married Douglass, Catherine married Hiram, and Mary married a Waltrip.
The name Georgia begins to show up with the granddaughters so it might be safe to assume that Catherine Weatherford's middle initial G. was for Georgia. Many of the Weatherfords had migrated into the state of Georgia to become wealthy planters before moving on to the Bahamas.
The migration of the Littles into Kentucky came during a time where Daniel Boone was exploring the area as well as the brother of Mary Handley Douglass Little, a Captain John Handley, and there is a Squire Boon found on the census records. Mary's first husband, Alexander Douglass, died during a trip with John Handley to explore the Kentucky Lands.
L.P. also wrote that Mary Handley's parents were George Handley and Martha Mason of Ireland. Martha's parents were Martha Worthington and James Mason of Northern Ireland 1700 A.D. He also wrote that our Mary Handley was born asea during their journey to America. Mary's sister Rachel Handley Thompson named her sons James Finley Thompson, George, and Samuel H. Thompson. Brother, Senator John Handley named his children Samuel, George and Sally. One can only wonder which of the above had a father named Samuel, making the name so special in this lineage.
It is not known if L.P. corresponded with his cousin John Wright Little, but John's sister Susan Crenshaw obviously received letters asking about the family, which were transcribed from the fragile paper into a document I scanned into these files. L. P. asked about his Uncle Hiram and second wife Rebecca who resided in Bosque County, Texas. He also wrote of Betsy Douglass and how one of her sisters married Isiah Hunt and one married a Minton, so Betsy's children might have married cousins of these families or our transcriber made an error.
However, the 1810 census of Ohio County Kentucky has an Isiah Hunt living beside George Little, with Samuel and John Handley on the same census page. On the next page near Jonas Little is found Abner Spray and Ralph Hunt, while John Little and the elder John Handley are on separate pages.
The 1820 census shows Jonas Little surrounded by many of the family names connected to this study,
< Minton, Spray, Humphrey, Waltrip, Handley </a>
L. P. also wrote that the Handleys and Douglass families arrived separately at Philadelphia in the 1700s and that Alexander Douglass was murdered in 1786 and his wife and three daughters moved to a Scottish settlement in South Carolina among other Presbyterians but then he writes that John Wesley was a Methodist preacher - so was John Wesley a member of the Little family.....Perhaps John Wesley was the brother of Jonas who accompanied the family into Kentucky 1802 and then moved to Tennessee and on into Texas and this would explain why our Jonas named a son Wesley.
Of course we would need to find the book Local Preachers that L. P. wrote to learn more.
L. P. and Sue Crenshaw wrote in 1915 about family pictures and one can only wonder who might posess those photos today.
Here are some of my favorite websites:
South Carolina Archives of 1776
