Our ADAMS Family

ADAMS
According to the history of Halifax County, Virginia, the first of this family in America was John (or Gabriel) Adams who came from Wales early in the eighteenth century. He settled in Maryland and later in Virginia. His wife's name is not known, but their three sons were Sylvester, Phillip, and John.

The son, John Adams, was living in Brunswick County (now Halifax) where, in about 1755, he married Susannah Wood, the daughter of Richard and and his wife, Mary, the daughter of John and Rachel White of Isle of Wight County. Mary had been the widow of John Humphries before she married Richard Wood.

Their sons married sisters: William (1756-1839), married Elizabeth Boyd; Sylvester (c. 1760-1830), married Rebekah Boyd (?-1839); and Richard (c. 1762-?) married Hannah Boyd. Thirteen children were born to Sylvester and Rebecca, 7 in Virginia and 6 in Tennessee.

A daughter of Sylvester and Rebekah, Susannah Adams, was about 12 years old in 1804 when her family settled on the headwaters of White Oak Creek in Dickson (now Humphrey) County, Tennessee where her father had claimed 100 acres for his military service in the Revolution. Born in 1792 or 1793, she must have been much younger than her husband, Horatio Gates Humphreys also of Halifax County, Virginia. Horatio and her father Sylvester had both been Revolutionary soldiers and were cousins - both being grandsons of Mary Humphries Wood.

We do not have any other records of Susannah's life or the names of her children. There was at least one son and a daughter, Catherine, who married Clarles Box.