A discussion of the relationship between Robert Cree Sr of Cumberland Township, Greene County, PA, and William Cree Sr of Jefferson Township, Greene County, PA.

This article by Robert H Cree of Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, was first published in CREE NEWS 11 in October 1995, and revised by him for this web site in 2006.

There has been a considerable amount of speculation and controversy over the past few years among Cree researchers as to whether William Cree, who settled in Jefferson Township, Greene County, Pa. was a son of Robert Cree, Sr. who had settled about the same time a few miles away in Cumberland Township, Greene County, Pa.

We do know that Robert, Sr. had a son William, as he is mentioned in Robert's Will. We further know that the William who we are discussing here was of the proper age to have been Robert, Sr's son. We also know that Robert, Sr. and William both came to Washington (now Greene) County from Cumberland (now Perry) County, Pa. sometime between 1782 and 1785.

From this knowledge, it would seem likely that Robert, Sr. could indeed have been the father of William Cree of Jefferson Township. Consequently, numerous persons who have conducted a limited amount of research on the Crees of Greene County, Pennsylvania have assumed this to be so and have included this assumption in their various written, printed and electronic listings.

However, as a result of many years of research into the background of the Cree families who first lived in Cumberland County, Pa. and later in Washington County, Pa. (including Robert, Sr. and William Cree) I have reached the conclusion that, although there might have been some relationship between these two, they very definitely were not father and son. Accordingly, I am listing herewith some of the recorded data, known facts and personal assumptions that have prompted me to reach this conclusion.

First, and perhaps foremost, is the documented fact that there were two different William Crees of approximately the same age living at the same time in different but adjacent townships of Cumberland County, Pa. In Series 3, Volume 20, page 97 of the Pennsylvania Archives, William Cree and Robert Cree are listed in the Rye Township, Cumberland County tax assessment lists for the year 1778 as 'Freemen'. Also, in Series 3, Volume 20, page 102, a William Cree and a Robert Cree are listed in the Tyrone Township, Cumberland County tax assessment lists for the same year of 1778 as 'Freemen'. The term 'Freeman' was used in these tax assessment lists to indicate an unmarried male over 21 years of age who owned no real property. So according to this data, recorded in the official archives of the State of Pennsylvania, there were two William Crees and two Robert Crees of approximately the same age and unmarried, living in different townships of the same county appoximately 10-15 miles apart in the same year of 1778.

It is also a matter of record that Robert Cree, Sr. owned land and lived in Rye Township, Cumberland County, prior to his moving on to Cumberland Township, Washington (now Greene) County, Pa. So we must therefor assume that the William and Robert who were shown in the Rye Twp. assessment lists for 1778 were the sons of Robert Cree, Sr. as we know from his Will and from other sources that he had sons with these names.

So then who was the Robert Cree and the William Cree who were shown in the Tyrone Twp., assessment lists for 1778? Obviously, Robert was the one who married Mary Roddy and who remained in Cumberland (now Perry) County and who died there in Tyrone Township in 1832. And it seems logical to me that William could only have been the one who married Jane Marshall in 1780 and moved shortly thereafter to what is now Jefferson Township, Greene County, Pa.

Both Robert Cree who spent the remainder of his life in Tyrone Township, Perry County and William Cree who moved on to Greene County, were married by the Reverand John Linn, Pastor of the Centre Presbyterian Church in what was then Tyrone Township, Cumberland County. This would indicate that William was affiliated with the Presbyterian Church while living in Cumberland County. And it is a known fact that after moving to Jefferson Twp.,Washington (now Greene) County, Pa., William and all or most of his children were Presbyterians. John Cree, oldest son of William was buried in the Glades Presbyterian Cemetery near Carmichaels, Greene County, where William himself attended church. His daughter, Mary Kincaid and his daughter, Jane Holder, are both buried in the Presbyterian Church Cemetery at Jefferson, Greene County and most of the children of his son, William Jr. and many of his grandchildren are buried in the Muddy Creek Presbyterian Cemetery near his old homestead at Khedive, Greene County.

But Robert Cree, Sr. was a Methodist and apparently all, or at least most of his known children were Methodists. Robert and his wife Janet were members of the Shepherds Methodist Church near their home in Cumberland Township and all evidence indicates that they, as well as at least two of their children and a number of their grand children, are buried in the cemetery there.

We know that James Cree, son of Robert, Sr., settled in Monroe County, Ohio and was instrumental in establishing a Methodist Church in that county at an early date. Two of his sons, John and Hamilton, were later quite active in the Methodist Church in Saylor County, Iowa, where they both lived. Elizebeth Cree, widow of Robert Cree, Jr., was a member of the Methodist church at Freeport, Harrison County, Ohio and she and one of her grandsons are buried in the Methodist Cemetery at that place. Also one of her daughters, Mary Cree Morton, is buried in the Methodist Cemetery at Jefferson, Greene County, Pa. Finally, Hamilton Cree, Jr., son of Hamilton Cree and grandson of Robert Cree, Sr. was a Methodist minister in Brooke County, West Virginia.

So from all of this information, it seems evident that Robert Cree, Sr. and all or most of his children were Methodists, while William Cree and all or most of his children were Presbyterians. One would surmise that if William of Jefferson Township had been a son of Robert, Sr., he too would most likely have been a Methodist and would have been a member of the same church as that attended by his parents and his brothers and sisters. However, there is conclusive evidence that he chose to attend the Glades Presbyterian Church in the nearby town of Carmichaels.

In the 'History Of Greene County' by the Reverend William Hannah, (1882), pages 310-311, we find the following excerpt - 'James Vance came from Ireland previous to the War of the Revolution in company with a friend whom he called Billy Cree. Vance was drafted into the army soon after his arrival and parted with his friend Cree in Philadelphia. After the close of the war, Vance settled near Morristown, New Jersey and in 1796 he emigrated from there to Greene County, Pa. James Vance was a Presbyterian and attended the Glades Presbyterian Church. To this neighborhood his friend Billy Cree had also emigrated some time previous. At the church services, the two men, having sat down side by side at the Communion Table, recognized each other as they arose, and after the service was over, they had a good time renewing their old friendship'.

The significance of this excerpt from Reverend Hannah's book is that Billy Cree, who was obviously the William Cree of Jefferson Township, was evidently living in or near Philadelphia at the beginning of the Revolutionary War while it is a documented fact that Robert Cree, Sr. and his family was living in Rye Township, Cumberland County, Pa. as early as 1773. This also confirms the fact that William Cree attended Glades Presbyterian Church, as previously noted.

Another important point of discussion concerning the relationship (or lack of relationship) between Robert Cree, Sr. and William Cree is that a common method of confirming a connecting relationship between individuals or families is by the comparison of given names, as certain given names tend to run or repeat in certain family lines. For instance, among the known descendants of Robert Cree, Sr., the given name Robert appears in nearly every family for a number of generations. The same is true of the given name Hamilton which also appears in a number of families through at least several generations, either as a first or a middle name. This name was derived from the maiden name of Robert Cree, Sr's wife, Janet Hamilton. However, among the descendants of William and Jane Marshall Cree, the name Robert or the name Hamilton does not appear one single time through at least five generations of descendants.

So, if from all of the material presented here, we assume that William Cree of Jefferson Township was not the son of Robert Cree of Cumberland Township, then what did become of this William Cree who we know was the son of Robert, Sr. as noted in his Will and elsewhere. After being shown as a beneficiary in his father's Will which was written some time after 1795, Willam seems to have disappeared from all further records. It is quite possible (but not proven) that he was the father of the William Cree who is shown in the 1810 Federal Census lists for Floyd County, Kentucky. This William is shown in the census records as having been born between 1765 and 1784 which would have placed him in the proper age group to have been William's son. It is also a known fact that numerous individuals and families from the Greene County area of Pennsylvania migrated into Kentucky during the period from 1790 to 1800. It is a family tradition among the descendants of the William Cree of Floyd County that he came to Kentucky from Pennsylvania. William Cree of Floyd County, Kentucky died in 1814 leaving a widow and two children.

Finally, family tradition tends to strengthen the 'two William Cree' theory. Sometime around 1965, I made at least three visits to Miss Eva Cree at her home in Khedive, Greene County, Pa. She was about 80 years old at that time and lived in a small house along the main highway within sight of the old stone house that William Cree built about 1796. Eva (1884-1978) was the daughter of Charles H. Cree (1862-1926) and was a great, great granddaughter of William Cree, Sr. through his son John. At the time of these visits, she was the oldest living descendant of William Cree still living in this area. Eva had an extremely sharp mind for a person of her age and everyone in the area referred her to me as the local authority on the Crees. She was very positive in her contention that her Cree line (she referred to it as the ' Muddy Creek' Crees) was in no way related to the Robert Cree, Sr. line which she referred to as the 'Carmichael' Crees. She said that her father had often told her that it was common knowledge in his family that they were two entirely different branches of the Cree family. Eva said that as a child (sometime around the turn of the century) they had held a Cree reunion at the family farm at Khedive and that Cree 'cousins' came from as far away as Iowa and Illinois. However, she said that none of the 'Carmichael' Crees were invited or had attended this reunion. Eva also told me that her father often mentioned the trip that he, as a young man, along with some of his relatives had made to Perry County, Pa. to visit some of their 'cousins' living there. The only Crees living in Perry County at that time were descendants of the Robert Cree of Tyrone Township who was shown, along with William, in the 1779 tax assessment lists. He is the one that from all available evidence was the brother of William Cree, Sr.

One final bit of evidence should definitely prove that there were two different William Crees living in relative proximity to each other in the Greene County area of Pennsylvania in the late 1700s or the early 1800s. In Robert Cree, Sr's Will, which was written sometime between 1795 and 1813, we find the following entry - 'I give and bequeath unto my son William Cree the sum of twenty five pounds'. This proves that Robert Cree did indeed have a son William and that he was one of the beneficiaries of his Will. This said Will was witnessed by three persons, one of whom was a William Cree. However, according to the existing laws of the State of Pennsylvania, any person who was a beneficiary to a Will could not be a witness to this same Will. It was a legal requirement that Wills must be witnessed by 'disinterested parties'. Since this Will could not legally have been witnessed by Robert Cree's son William, then it obviously was witnessed by the only other William Cree living in the area and that was the William of Jefferson Township.

Since we conclude from the above that this William was not the son of Robert, Sr., if there was any relationship at all between the two, then there is some possibility that since William was approximately 19 years younger than Robert, he might have been his nephew.

Robert H. Cree (2006)