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Support Our Troops - Not the War! |
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Support Our Troops - Not the War! |
| First, we do not
know when he came to America;
it could have been before, during, or after the War (1776-1782). Second, if he
arrived before or during the
conflict, we do not know where he
lived at that time. This writer has not yet found him listed as a soldier from
either Virginia or Georgia.
We do not know when he arrived in Georgia or if he lived in other
parts of that state before settling in present Long County. There is reason
to
suspect that his second wife
may have been from the Wrightsborough
area of Georgia, above Augusta.
All we do know for certain is that in 1850, his sons David S. (born 1792) and Archibald J. (born 1796) reported to the census enumerator that they had been born in Georgia. In the 1880 census, several children of son William (born 1794, died before 1850 census) reported that their father had been born in Georgia. The accuracy of that information is confirmed by the 26 Sep 1791 date on which Archibald was a chain carrier in Effingham Co, Georgia for a land survey for Hannah Baggs. |
| In 1923, a lawyer in Washington, DC, Benjamin Grady, husband of Clara Helen Baggs, daughter of Milton Jasper Baggs, son of William Andrew Baggs, Sr, son of David S Baggs, son of Archibald Baggs, the immigrant), apparently decided that he could expand his client base if Clara joined the Daughters of the American Revolution. Husbands of her fellow members would be potential customers, and as the husbands died off, he had an opportunity to oversee probate of their estates. |
| Grady began his letter of 3 December 1923 to Enoch Van Buren Baggs (son of James Wright Baggs, son of William Baggs, son of Archibald the immigrant) of Ludowici, GA with . . . |
| . . A very good friend of mine from Savannah has found among the papers at Hinesville proof of Archibald Baggs service in the Revolution as an American spy. She has not sent me a copy yet but [I] expect it soon . . . |
| He continued, almost rudely, by pressing Enoch V. Baggs to locate Archibald's grave. |
| . . . Do you know whether there is a grave (near the Monument that was put up on the Baggs place in McIntosh Co.) that looks old enough to be there since 1800. . . Get Mr. Joe Parker to help you in this matter. If there is no sign of Archibald Baggs grave dig and see if there are any bones there. . . |
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The
Webmaster is uncertain what "monument" Grady was writing about. Likely he was confused about the grave markers
for Archibald and Esther that Cousin Enoch was instrumental in having put up. Their installation ended
any guess as to where Archibald was buried.
Joe Parker was Joseph Hampton Parker (1856-1931), son of Katharine (Baggs) Parker, grandson of William Baggs, and great-grandson of Archibald Baggs. It was Cousin Joe's daughter, Mary, who gave this writer a typewritten copy of Grady's letter. |
| Really!!!!! In his enthusiasm to get his wife into DAR, Mr. Grady failed to show any respect for the dead and he ignored, either innocently or deliberately, the fact that the date of the record his friend had found was 1796, some fourteen years after the Revolution had ended. A few years ago, another friend of the family, this time a friend of this compiler, acquired a copy of Cousin Clara's DAR membership application, and, indeed, it is the 1796 record that was cited as proof! Here is a copy of that record as printed in Annals1, pg 102: |
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| If the viewer thinks the year 1796 should read 1776, he or she may not be aware that during the Revolution, Savannah was the state capital, but in the 1790s, Louisville became the capital. That is why Archibald went there to be paid. |
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After decades of refusing to admit that numerous mistaken lines and mis-identified
service records had been used by many ladies to apply for membership, especially
in the 1920s and 1930s, the Daughters of the American Revolution now requires
Revolutionary service to be newly proven once for each veteran.
Verification of sources has always been left up to the membership of local chapters because neither the state nor the national DAR has the staff to do it. It would be unkind for this writer to express his opinion of the qualifications of local ladies to verify the applications of their peers. Before the new requirements were in place, several other descendants of Archibald Baggs joined DAR by making reference to Mrs. Grady's application, thereby eliminating the need to establish his service record. It is not known if any recent applicant has been able to prove Archibald was a Revolutionary Spy, but it is doubtful that they can. |
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