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Family: IMMIGRANT James2 Milligan / Eleanor Allen (F8110)  [1

m. 14 Feb 1775


Family Information    |    PDF

  • Father | Male
    IMMIGRANT James2 Milligan

    Born  Est 1730  Londonderry, N. Ireland Find all individuals with events at this location
    Died  Aft 1780   
    Buried     
    Married  14 Feb 1775  Rowan Co, NC  Find all individuals with events at this location
    Other Spouse  Mary Sloan | F7366 
    Married     
    Other Spouse  Ruth Templeton | F7359 
    Married  1794  Iredell Co., North Carolina Find all individuals with events at this location
    Father  James1 Milligan | F7360 Group Sheet 
    Mother  Elizabeth Joyner | F7360 Group Sheet 

    Mother | Female
    Eleanor Allen

    Born  Est 1755   
    Died  Yes, date unknown   
    Buried     
    Father   
    Mother   

    Child 1 | Female
    + Elizabeth 'Bettie' Milligan

    Born  Est 1780   
    Died  Yes, date unknown   
    Buried     
    Spouse  Thomas McCauley Reynolds | F7358 
    Married     

    Child 2 | Female
    Jane KLGN-6SD Milligan/Milliken

    Born  1776  Virginia Colony Find all individuals with events at this location
    Died  1839  Shelbyville, Bedford, Tennessee Find all individuals with events at this location
    Buried     

  • Sources 
    1. [S107] Family Histories, https://richardgwynallenblog.wordpress.com/2015/10/26/the-millegan-clan-in-america/.
      The Millegan Clan in America
      Posted by richardgwynallen2013 in Fourth Creek Families, Ireland, Millegan Family, Scotland
      By Richard Gwynallen

      James Millegan
      (circa 1733 ? 1828)

      In The Sloan Journey to America, we met Mary Sloan and read about the interesting fact that she was Fawn?s 6th and 7th great grandmother. Here, we see the same as James Millegan married Mary Sloan in Ulster, probably County Antrim, Ireland around 1762.

      We are descended from two daughters of Mary and James, Hannah and Mary Margaret. Hannah married Moses Boyd in North Carolina about 1790. They were the grandparents of Nancy Angeline Boyd, who married John Murdock in 1867. John was introduced in the story, ?John Franklin Murdock ? Another mid-19th Century North Carolina Life?. In that line, James Millegan is Fawn?s 6th great grandfather.

      Mary Margaret married William Witherspoon about 1785 in North Carolina. They were the grandparents of John Murdock who married Nancy Angeline Boyd in 1867. In that line, James Millegan is Fawn?s 7th great grandfather.

      The Milligan Journey to America

      James Millegan was born in Ulster in 1732 or1733, but the family must have just relocated to Ulster because his parents, Andrew Milligan and Janet McHaffie, were married on 20 April 1732 in Penninghame, Wigtown, Scotland.

      James, considered the progenitor of the Milligan clan in the American colonies, probably arrived in Pennsylvania, then moved to present Iredell County about 1765, settling on the South Yadkin River. The basis for this date is that in a newspaper article in the Statesville Landmark (North Carolina) in 1880, McCammie Milligan stated that an apple tree was still living on the old home place after 115 years and it was planted by his great-grandfather, Andrew Milligan. As I said in The Sloan Journey to America, with such firm proof, how could one doubt the date? However, there is some difference of opinion as an index of an immigration record has a James Millegan arriving in Pennsylvania in 1773. Those who maintain the Millegan-Sloan arrival as 1765, maintain that this 1773 arrival could have been a different James Millegan.

      In any case, his property appears on the William Sharpe map of 1773. James Milligan then had a North Carolina land grant for 600 acres in 1778 on the South Yadkin River near present Stony Point. They seem to have become yeoman farmers as we have seen with other branches of our family that settled in the North Carolina Piedmont. I briefly describe the life of yeoman farmers in the story about the Allen-Thompson family in From the Farm to the City.

      Before that 600 acre land grant, James fought in the Revolutionary War. We do not know when he enlisted, but James appears in a register of officers of the North Carolina Troops in the Continental Line as a Lieutenant in the First Regiment on 29 August 1777.

      James? parents emigrated with James and his family. His mother, Janet McHaffie, is thought to have died aboard ship enroute, but his father, Andrew, arrived in the American colonies and continued to live with James and his family.

      After Mary Sloan?s death in 1774, James married Eleanor Allen, and after her death, Ruth Templeton. James and Ruth left Iredell County, North Carolina with their family and moved to Wilson County, Tennessee sometime between 1803 and 1810. James died in 1828, in Wilson County, Tennessee. We know that Ruth was still alive at the time because she appears as a purchaser in the records of the sale of his property following his death.

      No one seems to know where Mary Sloan or Andrew Milligan were buried, but there is speculation that it could have been in the old Morrison Cemetery.

      A posting in the Statesville, Iredell Co., NC, history room describes the cemetery: ?The Morrison graveyard is situated on an elevated plateau, between two branches about one-half mile northwest from the old mill, and a mile or so southwest from Loray. It is walled in with stone and about sixty yards square in area. In 1820, there was some rivalry between it and Concord graveyard, that resulted in both being enclosed with stone.? The cemetery is on New Sterling Church Road near Buffalo Shoals Creek in Iredell County, North Carolina.

      Iredell County was home to many Scots and Ulster Scots families, and there was at least one Sloan-Morrison marriage, so the graveyard is a reasonable candidate for the burial of Mary Sloan and possibly Andrew Millegan.

      Origins of the name Milligan

      Milligan is an anglicized form of the pre-10th century Irish Gaelic Ó Maolagáin, although also widely recorded in Scotland. The name translates as the ?descendant of Maolagán ?, a personal name from a double diminutive of ?mael? and meaning ?bald?. As such it is probably an affectionate nickname for a monk or disciple, somebody who shaved their head as a sign of devotion.

      In the process of Anglicization, we find the name written as O?Milligan, Miligan, Milliken, Milikin, Mulligan, Mullikin, Millican and possibly other forms. Some consider it to be a variant of Mollohan

      In the 20th century the surname is found mainly in Ulster, and to some extent in County Sligo