The Descendants of Samuel Gaulding

The family of Samuel Gaulding and Elizabeth Turner emerges from the records of colonial Virginia as a tightly connected frontier household whose movements, marriages, and military service reflect the broader patterns of migration and settlement in the eighteenth century. Their story begins in Goochland County, where both Samuel and Elizabeth appear in parish and court records, and where the Turner and Gaulding families lived among the same clusters of neighbors who would later accompany them westward.

Samuel’s Revolutionary War service is well documented, and his sons William and Archibald Gaulding followed him into the conflict. Archibald served in the 5th Virginia Regiment, appearing in muster rolls and pay rolls throughout 1777 and early 1778. His records show that he was wounded during the Philadelphia Campaign and later listed as “sick, absent,” yet he returned to duty in time to be present with the regiment during the Valley Forge encampment. His February 1778 discharge, including travel time home, aligns precisely with the regiment’s departure from Valley Forge, confirming his presence during one of the most defining winters of the war.

The Gaulding daughters—Anne, Martha “Patty,” Kesiah, Elizabeth, and Lucy—appear in a combination of parish records, marriage bonds, and later county documents. Anne, born in 1764, married John Stewart in Campbell County and lived a long life documented through census, death, and burial records. Patty, born in 1765, married Benoni Carter Talley and migrated west into Tennessee, where she died in Cocke County in 1850. Kesiah, born in 1766, married Thomas McCown in 1786 with her mother Elizabeth’s consent recorded—an important detail confirming Elizabeth Turner’s identity. Lucy, born in 1768, married George Webb and moved into Tennessee as well. The daughter Elizabeth, born the same day as Kesiah according to the Douglas Register, appears to have died young; she is absent from Samuel’s 1785 will and no record supports the claim that she married Robert Smith. Her existence has often been confused with Anne, but the records make clear they were two distinct daughters.

The Encyclopedia of American Quaker Genealogy preserves several Campbell County entries for the Gaulding family, particularly for Anne and her husband John Stewart. These listings do not indicate that the Gauldings were Quakers themselves, but they confirm the family’s presence in Campbell County and provide valuable dates for marriages and migrations. They also demonstrate the interconnectedness of the Gauldings with other families who moved along the same Goochland‑to‑Campbell corridor.

The 1785 will of Samuel Gaulding is the most important document tying the family together. It names his children—William Turner, Archibald, Anne, Martha, Kesiah, and Lucy—and establishes the family’s residence in Campbell County at the end of the Revolutionary era. The will also confirms that Samuel and Elizabeth’s migration followed a familiar Virginia pattern: beginning in Goochland County, moving through Amelia and Bedford, and finally settling in Campbell County, where their children married, established households, and continued the westward movement into Tennessee.

Taken together, these records form a coherent portrait of the Gaulding family: rooted in Goochland, shaped by the Revolution, documented through wills, parish registers, and Quaker genealogies, and carried forward by children whose lives stretched into Tennessee and beyond. The narrative of Samuel and Elizabeth’s family is one of frontier resilience, migration, and the gradual expansion of Virginia families into the early American South and West.

Read more about the Descendants of Samuel Gaulding on Gaulding Origins

Archibald Gaulding was at Valley Forge

Anne, the daughter of Samuel and Elizabeth

Martha "Patty" Gaulding, the daughter of Samuel and Elizabeth

Gaulding in Campbell County, Virginia listings in the Encyclopedia of Quaker Genealogy

Was there an Elizabeth who was the daughter of Samuel Gaulding and Elizabeth Turner?

The Will of Samuel Gaulding of Campbell County

The migration pattern of the family of Samuel Gaulding and Elizabeth Turner