ELIZABETH "BETSY" THOMPSON ARBUCKLE died about 1766 AND ELIZABETH LAWRENCE ARBUCKLE 1748 - 1809

People didn't used to pay much attention to birthdays or ages.  In a letter written by a Gamble born in the early nineteenth century, he wrote that he knew his age by his cousin's since he was one year younger.  But on a tombstone of James Arbuckle in Clark County, IN his age at death is measured in years, months, and days, and it translates to a birthdate of March 17, 1766.  That was before his dad, Thomas, married Elizabeth Lawrence, and some researchers say that Thomas was first married to Betsy Thompson who died when James was an infant.  Thomas was only 19 in 1766 and the next year he married Elizabeth Lawrence.

The Thompsons, Arbuckles, and Lawrences were Virginians and lived in western VA in a sparsely populated area.  There are plenty of court records for the area but birth, marriage and death records are scarce (unlike  New England).  Betsy's grandfather apparently was a pastor, but church records are hard to come by.  So all we know about her is that probably she and Thomas Arbuckle married young, she had a baby (or more?) and died very young.

The Lawrence family were like the Arbuckles, living "on the frontier" in the eighteenth century.  One of Thomas Arbuckle's brothers married the widow of one of Elizabeth's brothers.  Thomas and Elizabeth were married in 1767 and a few years later, Thomas was appointed by the court to be the surveyor of the land between "Hunley Hill and Kens Creek."

Much has been written about conflicts with the natives in the area.  Apparently the Virginia government made an agreement with the natives that settlers would go no further than a certain point, but people didn't pay any attention to it.  Elizabeth's husband was in the militia a good part of the time:  the French-Indian war, the Revolutionary War, and he was in the militia at other times.  They had at least eight children, and when one of Elizabeth's brothers died, he left his six children in the care of Elizabeth and Thomas.

Several of Elizabeth's brothers were granted land in what would become Kentucky, and her birth family traveled through the Cumberland Gap up into Kentucky.  Elizabeth and Thomas either went with them or shortly thereafter, and bought, or were granted, 400 acres adjacent to Solomon Lawrence.  Elizabeth died in Kentucky in 1809 and Thomas and much of the family moved north, across the Ohio River, into Indiana.  He died there in Jennings County in 1843 when he was 93 years old.


sue<william ervin lynch<ivan lynch<william taylor lynch<sara arbuckle lynch<thomas arbuckle<james arbuckle<elizabeth thompson