Reaching Back: Lyles Dolesbury

A Genealogy Series: (3) Catherine Cook and her Grandfather Lyles

Lyles Dolesbury

  Catherine Dolesbury

    Ursula Reed

      Catherine Cook

        Richard Cook

          Lizzie Cook

My father’s mother was Lizzie Cook.  She was one of the most amazing people I have ever known.  Although this isn’t about her, you should know that she was a strong woman who devoted herself completely, every day, to the wellbeing of her family.  She was born and raised among the hills and hollows of the Appalachian Mountains and foothills in Eastern Kentucky.  That was her place, where her people were, her home that she loved, where she raised her family. That was where she was perfectly content to spend her whole life.  She was born in 1904 and lived until 1992.  I knew her well.

Granny Liz sometimes told stories, and they were usually about her family – her sons, her sisters, sometimes cousins or other relatives, and once in a while, her parents or grandparents.

My father used to tell stories too, and when he talked about his grandfather Richard Cook, Granny Liz would add detail to those stories about her father.  Sometimes she would add bits about her grandmother, Richard’s mother Catherine Cook.  I am sorry to say that I remember few of the details now, because I didn’t write them down and I didn’t realize then how valuable they would be to me in time. 

Some of what I do remember about my grandmother’s grandmother is that she was a strong woman, an independent woman who refused to accommodate other people’s expectations.  Catherine Cook kept her own counsel, always did what she believed to be right in spite of hardship, and never took the easy way out.

One peculiar thing I noticed about my great-grandfather Richard Cook was that he had his mother’s surname.  I learned that was because his father was then, and remains to this day, unknown.  It’s not that Catherine Cook was a naïve adolescent who got in trouble.  In fact, Catherine was married at age 13, but didn’t give birth to her son Richard until she was in her early thirties.  Catherine had her baby, raised him well, and never ever told anyone who the father was. 

There was speculation, of course, none of it ever proven.  She had an affair with a married man.  She had been assaulted, but refused to acknowledge it for fear of the effect that might have on the child that she loved anyway.  The father was Native American, which would have been strongly disapproved at the time even though Catherine (whether she knew it or not) may have been part Native herself.  In the end, Catherine was a real-life Hester Prynn who did right, as she saw it, for her son.

In a remarkable example of irony (or perhaps just of family influence), Catherine’s father Havilah Cook was himself the son of an unknown father. 

Catherine Cook shared the given name of her maternal grandmother, Catherine Dolesbury, who was born in the hills of southwestern Virginia in the early 1790s.  Catherine Dolesbury married first a man named Hyden, and then William Reed, who may have been the father or stepfather of her daughter Ursula Reed.  In her late 50’s, Catherine, then widowed, moved from Tazewell County, Virginia to Magoffin County, Kentucky, with  daughter Ursula, son-in-law Havilah, and granddaughter ten-year-old Catherine Cook.

We are not certain whether Catherine Dolesbury’s father came along with them.  We do know that Lyles Dolesbury died in August 1850, the same year the family made the move from Virginia to Kentucky, and that his will was probabated in Tazwell County, Virginia.  So it is likely that his death provided the occasion for the family to pull up stakes and move from the wide, pleasant valleys of Tazewell County, Virginia, across to the deep hollows and steep mountainsides of Magoffin County, Kentucky.  Of course, he might have made the trip with them and died soon afterward... but that is unlikely because he was about 90 years old at the time.

We do know a surprising amount about Lyles Dolesbury.  He was born in 1760 in the Mohawk River Valley of New York.  We do not know his parents’ names.  Lyles was reported by his grandson to have been Native American. 

At some time in his youth, Lyles moved to Tazwell County, Virginia.  In 1774 he fought with the Virginia Militia, who moved into the Ohio Country to drive out the Shawnee, at the Battle of Point Pleasant.

Lyles married Ursula Davis in 1776, at the young age of 16.  We know very little about her.  We can surmise that she was the inspiration for the naming of her granddaughter, Ursula Reed, and because of that, she must have been well-loved. 

Lyles Dolesbury was a Patriot veteran of the American War for Independence.  He fought at the Battle of King’s Mountain in western South Carolina in 1780, and the Battle of Guilford Courthouse in North Carolina in 1781.  In 1835 he received a pension for his service.

Yet, as much as we know, it seems every fact about Lyles Dolesbury raises new questions. 

One difficult question I’ve tried to investigate is that of his ethnicity.  Was Lyles Dolesbury really Native American?  And if so, of what tribe? 

By all accounts, Lyles lived a lifestyle more typical of a white pioneer than of a Native American two centuries ago.  That is in no way conclusive though, since some tribes (including both Iroquoian and Choctaw, the tribes with which he may have been affiliated) often adopted many of the ways of white settlers.

There is the issue of his name, which is obviously not of Native American origin.  The practice of adopting an English name to conform with broader society was common later, but would have been very unusual in the late 1700s.  Even if we assume that he did adopt a European name, we have to ask why he would have chosen such uncommon names as “Lyles” or “Dolesbury,” neither of which was common in eighteenth century America.  This seems to indicate that Lyles Dolesbury was born with his European name.  

Lyles’ grandson William Taylor Hyden (by Catherine’s first marriage) legally asserted that his grandfather was a full-blooded Choctaw.  Yet we know that Lyles was born in the Mohawk River Valley.  If Lyles was Native American, his birth in the Mohawk River Valley certainly would seem to indicate that he was from one of the tribes of the Iroquois Confederation.  The Choctaw lived much farther south, in an area centered in today’s states of Mississippi and Alabama.  The contradiction between his stated birthplace and his alleged tribal affiliation has raised a doubt in my mind about his Native American heritage. 

Despite the incongruity of his birthplace in the Mohawk River Valley, Lyles still might have been of the Choctaw tribe.  He did move south early in his life.  He fought for American Independence.  [The Iroquoian tribes tended to support the British during the War for American Independence, but the Choctaw tended to support the American Patriots.]  And some reports indicate that his grandson William Hyden had been living among the Choctaw for some time before legally asserting his Choctaw heritage.

Some have suggested, on the other hand, that it was quite convenient for W.T. Hyden that his grandfather happened to be full-blooded Choctaw, and that he legally established this fact and became enrolled in the tribe in the mid-1890s, just when the Dawes Act was making land available to registered members of the tribe with as little as one quarter Choctaw ancestry.

I decline to be so cynical, but I do have some doubts as to Lyles’ Native American heritage.  He did live very comfortably among the white community and his ethnicity seems never to have been an issue during his lifetime, which I would find quite surprising if he were indeed full-blooded Native American. He also was quite willing to fight with white settlers and against Native Americans (albeit of a different tribe) at the Battle of Point Pleasant when he was only 14 years old. 

And yet... Even though I have doubts as to whether he was full-blooded, I do find it likely that Lyles Dolesbury had some Native American ancestry.  After all, his grandson apparently did live among the Choctaw for a time, and did make a legal affirmation of his Native American roots.  I find supporting evidence, however circumstantial, in Lyles’ life and values: the ease with which he functioned in the wilderness, including his ability to survive wilderness battles; his apparent close ties to the land in his Wards Cove, Virginia home (a cultural trait which admittedly is shared by Scots-Irish settlers); certain familial traits that are consistent with a Native American background. 

I will not attempt to conclude whether my great-grandfather Lyles had a heritage among the Iroquois or the Choctaw, and I accept the possibility that I may be wrong about his ethnic background altogether.  The truth, whatever it may prove to be, will not be harmed by my enlightenment or error.

So... What do I take from all this?

I take pride in the proven courage of my great-grandfather Lyles, and his honorable service in the American Revolution. 

I take pride in this Native American connection, legally established, questionable in some of the details, but in the end at least somewhat credible.  This is one of several such connections in my family that are alleged and supported by some evidence, but ultimately unable to be fully verified.  Regardless of whether Lyles Dolesbury actually was or was not of Native American descent, I take pride in his integrity, his demonstrated ability to function in wilderness, his ability to make a life on the land, the way he created a good home for his family and remained close to them until the very end of his life.

I respect Lyles Dolesbury for his tenacity.  Given what I know of his early life, his experiences in war, and all the changes he lived through in his 90 years, I think I can say with certainty that he was a determined man, a man of ability and resolve.  I also think it highly likely that he was a wise man.  I wish some of his words had come down to us.

I admire the strength, fortitude, and leadership of three generations of matriarchs, my great-grandmothers Catherine Dolesbury, Ursula Reed, and Catherine Cook.  These qualities remained very much evident in my own grandmother, Liz.

Finally, I find a sense of connectedness that reaches directly across two centuries.  Lyles (b.1760) and his great-granddaughter Catherine (b.1839) knew each other, lived in the same household, and had affection for each other until his death when she was ten years of age.  We know this because Lyles Dolesbury remembered Catherine Cook in his will.  The fact that he called her granddaughter rather than great-granddaughter confused things for a while, but their connection across three generations is undeniable. 

My own grandmother, in turn, knew her grandmother Catherine Cook, knew Catherine’s personality, knew stories about her and her part of the family.  I have heard some of those stories.  That means that I have found a personal connection between myself and my five-times-great grandfather Lyles Dolesbury through as few as two persons - Granny Liz and her grandmother Catherine Cook. 

The courageous, honorable, and interesting people who came before remind me that the past was very real.  And they help me realize that the past is not as far removed from us as we might think.  I like that.