Joseph Whitsett of Harrison County, Kentucky, Son of Ralph Whitsett of Lancaster and Cumberland County Pennsylvania

Whiteside and Whitsett Pioneers and The Whitsett Family of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania

Joseph Whitsett, Son of Ralph Whitsett of Pennsylvania

Joseph Whitsett’s family has been researched and documented on Hugh F. Clifford’s web site, “Clifford Web site, Generation Four, Clifford’s New Jersey to Pennsylvania and Beyond,” http://www3.telus.net/cliffordweb/content/generation4d.html; Mr. Clifford does not identify Joseph’s parents, but does give a list of his children. Mr. Clifford’s interest in Joseph was mainly because of his wife Mary Clifford. Our goal here is not to document every detail of Joseph Whitsett and his family; our goal is to show his connection to the Lancaster County Whitsett/Whiteside family. For the purpose of this essay I am relying on Mr. Clifford’s description of the make up of this family. As always should be the case, those of you with a specific interest in Joseph and his family should verify Hugh Clifford’s documentation with research of your own.

We first find mention of Joseph in the Pennsylvania records with his application for a warrant. It was granted on April 1, 1773 for 200 acres in York County, Newberry Township (today’s Fairfield Township). His tract adjoined that of Peter Tittle on the south side and Samuel Whitsitt on the east. Joseph wasted no time in patenting his land. It was surveyed on April 7th and patented ten days later on April 17th. The survey shows that a part of the northwest boundary lay on the Yellow Breeches Creek (or, Yellow Britches). Several small tributaries of the creek ran through the middle of his tract. Although the precise location is uncertain, his land and that of his brother Samuel lay across the Yellow Breeches Creek opposite Lisburn and the grist mill owned by their father Ralph Whitsett.

Ten years later we find Joseph in Westmoreland County. He first appears there on the 1783 tax list of Fairfield Township in Westmoreland. Fairfield Township lay in the northeastern corner of Westmoreland County. That same year Joseph Whiteside is listed in the Transcript of Property in Westmoreland County. This inventory of property owners in Westmoreland County apparently had something to do with the formation of Fayette County taken from the southern section of Westmoreland in September 1783. Although the transcript does not give an exact location, it does state that he owned 100 acres and his household consisted of five inhabitants. Three of those household members would probably be Joseph, his wife Mary and the oldest daughter Sarah. According to the Clifford genealogy, Joseph and Mary were married about 1774 (probably in York or Cumberland County). Their first daughter, Sarah, was born about 1775. Their daughter Nancy was born in Westmoreland County in about 1784. Nine years between the birth of the oldest daughter and the next oldest is a considerable gap. It would easily accommodate two unnamed children making up the five members of the home in 1784.

By 1785, both Joseph and his brother Samuel had apparently moved out of Westmoreland south to Fayette County. The tax list that year lists both men in Tyrone Township, which was located just south of the boundary with Westmoreland. In June the previous year an arrest warrant was issued for Joseph Whitesitt of Tyrone Township, Yeoman tenant for failure to make a lease payment to Christopher Beeler. Obviously, Joseph moved to Fayette late in 1783 or early 1784. In 1786 Joseph is again taxed in Tyrone Township. On August 23, 1786 Joseph Whitesitt received a warrant for 160 acres in Tyrone Township of Fayette County (the warrant register, which was not compiled until early in the twentieth century, incorrectly lists the tract as being in Franklin Township). In November the following year the land was surveyed, documenting a plot of 144 acres with allowances for roads located on the waters of Jacob’s Creek. John Cannon patented this same land in April 1798 several years after Joseph and his family removed to Kentucky. The 1787 survey shows adjoining tracts belonging to Christopher Beeler, Thomas Forsythe, Peter Studebacker and Jacob Lowry. Franklin Ellis, in his HISTORY OF FAYETTE COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA says, “Joseph Whitsett took up a warrant for 144 acres in the section (near Oliver Porter and John Bryan, once owned by Peter Reed).”

Joseph appears on the tax list for Fayette County in 1789. In February 1790, Joseph witnessed the will of his brother-in-law Robert Clifford in Bourbon County, Kentucky. He appears on the tax list for Bourbon County, Kentucky in 1791. Strangely, he reappears on the tax list for Tyrone Township in Fayette County, Pennsylvania in 1796. However, it seems clear that he and his family removed to Kentucky about 1790.

The Clifford Genealogy gives Joseph’s birthday as 1750 and incorrectly states that it was in Northern Ireland. If the date is correct, he was probably born in Lebanon Township of Lancaster County. According to Hugh Clifford, Joseph died about May 1814 in Harrison County, Kentucky. His wife Mary was born about 1762 in New Jersey and died in Harrison County about 1801. According to the Clifford web site their children were: Sarah, born 1775 in Pennsylvania; Nancy, born 1784 in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania; Charles, born in 1786 in Fayette County, Pennsylvania; Rebecca, born the same year in 1786; Jane, born 1791 in Miller’s station, Bourbon County, Kentucky; Margaret, Mary and Matilda, born between 1794-96 in Bourbon County; Emily, born in 1801 in Harrison County, Kentucky. My friend Kathy Whitsett, who for many years was an ardent Whitsett researcher, also listed a son, Ralph (birth date and place unknown). Kathy and I corresponded for years until a few years ago when she retired from the Whitsett research business and moved on to other projects. When I last wrote to her in fall of 2007 she was unable to give me a source for the name.

Ronald N. Wall

Modified: 19 June 2018