52 Ancestors #10: Revolutionary War Capt. Micajah Bullock (1745-1828)

I'm writing about my ancestors for the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge.  Please join me in taking a moment to appreciate some of the people who helped me be here today!

The flag pictured above was purported by the Bullock family to have been brought home by Captain Micajah Bullock of Granville County, NC from the 1781 Battle of Guilford Courthouse during the American Revolution.  The Guilford Courthouse Flag, as it is known today, now belongs to the North Carolina Museum of History, an affiliate of the Smithsonian, and is not without controversy.  While a Smithsonian textile expert, Grace Rogers Cooper, concluded in the 1970s it was more likely to predate the War of 1812 rather than the Revolution, one of the museum's curators, Al Hoilman, has provided his own argument supporting the Bullock family tradition.  It is certainly known to have belonged to the Bullocks, as it was donated by Capt. Bullock's son Edward to a Freemasons' lodge, who in turn gave it to the museum in 1914.

Micajah Bullock was born in 1745 in Hanover, Virginia, son of Edward Bullock of New Kent County, Virginia.  By 1769 he was in Granville County, North Carolina, where he married Frances Pryor on the 21st of June of that year.  He held various posts in the county including entry taker, sheriff, surveyor, and bondsman. He is listed among North Carolina captains during the Revolution and was also a veteran of the Battle of Moore's Creek Bridge in February 1776.  Later that year, he wrote a letter to the company's colonel, Ebenezer Folsome, regarding disputes over company pay and requesting the colonel's assistance in settling the matter. After the war, he went back home to resume his life among his family as one of the prominent landowners of the county.  He died in either 1827 or 1828, and is memorialized by a marker in the burial ground of Bullock United Methodist Church in Creedmoor, North Carolina.  His name lives on in a Raleigh-based DAR chapter and in the church his family founded in 1832 on a tract of land originally granted to Micajah.

Micajah's daughter, Nancy Ann Bullock, was my 4x great grandmother.  She married Knight Dalby of Granville County and with her sons went on to found the town of Dalby Springs in Bowie County, Texas.

Guilford Courthouse flag photo courtesy Artifacts Collections of the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources