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Ruth Willcockson, 320 acres, beginning at the corner of land owned by James Noland. Records are missing to prove where Ruth and her children were living for the next ten years but she appeared in the Census records of Rowan Co. in 1787 with one male under 21 and 5 females and was taxed in Fayette Co., Ky., 24 July, 1789. In 1790, as a resident of Rowan Co., she gave Power of Attorney to William Willcockson of Wilkes Co., N. C. By 6 Aug., 1795, Ruth had moved to Woodford Co., Ky. from which area, she and her son, Joseph, gave Power of Attorney to John Clifford of Rowan Co. to sell her land there. John Clifford sold for them "200 acres on the waters of Dutchman's Creek to John McMahan, 7 Oct., 1797."
Ruth Willcockson and her son Joseph are entered in Court Records with the spelling "Wilcox" from 1799. Their relationship is proven by a deed in Shelby Co., Ky., 13 Nov., 1799, between Isaac Larue and Bethiah, his wife, of Hardin Co., and "Joseph Wilcox and his mother Ruth Wilcox," of the Co. of Shelby, for 200 acres on Buck Run, witnessed by Jonathan and Josiah Boone and John Wilcox. CHILDREN:
7. ELIZABETH WILLCOCKSON (John2, ) b. prob. in Penn.; d. in Tenn.; m. in Rowan Co., N. C., Benjamin Cutbirth (Cutbeard), d. in Tenn. The first information of record is his name on a very early tax list of Rowan Co., N. C: in 1761, living near John Willcockson. His name appears in many books because of the fame of the "Long Riders" or "Long Hunters" and the axemen who cut Wilderness Road with Daniel Boone. Important records and references concerning him have been found and are given below, without comment, as they are self-explanatory.
Elijah Calloway's letter to Lyman C. Draper, June 10, 1845, Walnut Grove, Ashe County, N. C. (Draper Mss 12 DD 20) "Benjamin Cutbirth, the great hunter and explorer of the West, was born in Augusta County, Virginia, about the year 1740. The reader will take notice that it's the object of the author to write history of the most enterprising and adventurous pioneers of the 1st settlers which came in the scope of his knowledge such as Daniel Boone; Benjamin Cleveland, Isaac Shelby. All who obtained their 1st. honor by their exploits like Nimrod the great, the first Monarch that ever was on the face of the earth, obtained his first honors by his firearms exploits. "Benjamin Cutbirth, the object of this history, as his father died when he was young and his widowed mother married when he was grown to manhood and his being an interprising nature he early left his stepfather's house and emigrated to Roan County, N. C. When he immediately became acquainted with Daniel Boone, the great hunter. As the woods was Cuthbirth's great delight and as he was a hunter himself he set out to hunt with Boone. They ranged the forest far and wide and were frequently among the Indians who very often expressed dissatisfaction with them for killing their game and in one of their hunting tours and when they had killed and caught a great deal of fur on Roan Creek, a branch of the Watauga river. The Indians came upon them and took everything they had. The author has been many a time where the robbery was committed as Cutbirth long afterwards became the author's father-in-law, and as he and Cutbirth was frequently together they frequently[End Page 18]