I recently received an email from a descendant of Dennis Wiggins who had seen that on FamilySearch, some trees claim that Dennis Wiggins of Craven County was the son of Jesse Wiggins. This individual had seen in my East Carolina Roots tree that I had Dennis Wiggins listed as the son of Samuel Wiggins and Mary “Polly” Butler. For a few years, I was pretty sure that was the correct relationship, but since I don’t descend from Dennis Wiggins, I hadn’t given enough time to actually solving the issue.
Thanks to the email I received, that gave me an opportunity to put all my data together in one place to show that Dennis Wiggins is the son of Samuel Wiggins and Mary Butler. And Alexander, Joseph, and Frederick are also sons of the couple.
They may have had other children, but those are the ones I know about.
There were a few deeds that were written just before the Civil War that revealed the relationships of these men.
The deed images are below, but here is a summary of what’s in them:
Estate Settlement Summary: The Wiggins Brothers (1861)
Date of Transactions: July 24, 1861, and August 3, 1861
Location: North side of Neuse River, South side of Swift Creek, Craven County, NC
Parties Involved: Joseph, Alex (Alexander), Dennis, and Fred (Frederick) Wiggins
Nature of Deeds: Mutual transfers and “buying out” of inherited family land.
The Context: A Multi-Generational Inheritance
These deeds represent the formal division of the Samuel Wiggins and Arthur Butler family estates. By 1861, the four brothers (Joseph, Alex, Dennis, and Fred) were formalizing their ownership of three specific tracts of land:
- 30-Acre Tract: Part of an 1833 patent granted to Samuel Wiggins.
- 10-Acre Tract: Part of an 1837 patent granted to Samuel Wiggins.
- 100-Acre Tract: An 1805 patent originally granted to their maternal grandfather, Arthur Butler.
Summary for Dennis Wiggins
- Acquisition (July 1861): Dennis purchased a 10-acre tract (the 1837 Samuel Wiggins patent) from his brothers Joseph, Alex, and Fred for $10.
- Acquisition (August 1861): Dennis purchased a 100-acre tract (the 1805 Arthur Butler patent) from his brother Fred for $100.
- Significance: These transactions consolidated the largest portion of the ancestral Butler/Wiggins land under Dennis’s name just before the Civil War.
Summary for Fred (Frederick) Wiggins
- Acquisition (July 1861): Fred purchased a 30-acre tract (the 1833 Samuel Wiggins patent) from his brothers Joseph, Alex, and Dennis for $30.
- Sale (August 1861): Shortly after, Fred sold the 100-acre Arthur Butler tract to his brother Dennis.
- Significance: Fred acted as both a buyer and seller in the family settlement, ensuring the Samuel Wiggins patent land was legally distributed.
Summary for Joseph and Alex Wiggins
- Role: Grantors (Sellers).
- Action: Both men appear as co-sellers in the July 1861 deeds, relinquishing their inherited interests in the 30-acre and 10-acre Samuel Wiggins tracts to their brothers Fred and Dennis.
- Significance: Their participation proves their status as legal heirs of Samuel Wiggins and Polly Butler. Both signed with their “mark” (X), indicating they were likely not literate.
Note on Delayed Recording
While the “Indenture” (the agreement) was made in 1861, the deeds were not officially recorded at the Craven County Courthouse until May 1873 and December 1885. This delay was likely due to the disruption of the Civil War (New Bern was occupied by Union forces in 1862) and a later family effort to clear the land titles for the next generation or potential sale to Watkins Warren.
Here are some other items I know about this family. As I said, I’m not personally a descendant of Dennis Wiggins or Samuel Wiggins (that I know of), so if you have more information on this family, please leave a comment below. Thank you!
- I do have that these are the approximate birthdates for the men who were children of Samuel:
- Alexander Wiggins (b. Abt 1805)
- Joseph Wiggins (b. Abt 1813)
- Dennis Wiggins (b. Abt 1815)
- Frederick Wiggins (b. Abt 1824)
- There may have been others, but these are the children of Samuel and Polly that I know about for sure.
- Incidentally, Alexander and Frederick were names of brothers of Mary Butler, so their names might have been in tribute to them.
- Samuel Wiggins, who would’ve been just over 50 at the time, entered a land grant 1830 (issued 1833) in Swift Creek area. His sons Alexander Wiggins and Joseph Wiggins were the chain bearers.
- When Mary Butler Wiggins dies in 1848, Frederick, Joseph, Eleck (Alex) Wiggins, and George Jarrell buy from her estate. George Jarrell was (according to descendants in Florida) the son of Alexander Wiggins and Lavinia Jarrell, who had him out of wedlock (bastardy bond) but wound up getting married. He used the name George Jarrell when he moved to Florida with his wife Margaret Morris’s family (Margaret was the daughter of John Morris, oldest son of Laban Morris). A descendant in Florida told me the move south was related to some legal troubles by someone in this extended family network relating to a slave and the Civil War.
