David Tucker



This information is contributed by Don Matthews






David Tucker
Pvt. Infantry and Cavalry
$68.33 annual allowance.
$204.99 amount received December 10, 1832.
Pension started at age 80.
(1835 Tennessee Pension Roll)
 
David Tuckers pension application states his place of birth as Halifax County, N.C. 
His Revolutionary War military service began as a militiaman from either
Bute County or Halifax County, N.C. when he was one of the North Carolinians who 
helped push the British out of Norfolk, Va. circa 1775. He continued his Revolutionary War 
military service as a Duplin County militiaman after he arrived in Duplin County circa 1778.
 
David Tucker may have been a stepson or a son-in-law of either Jacob Mathews or William 
"Mathis" (believed to be brothers)who were each credited with "entry" of adjoining tracts in 
Duplin County in 1779. David Tucker appears to have come to Duplin County from
either Bute County or Halifax County, N.C. at approximately the same time that Arthur 
Mathews(from Bute County)did; ie., about 1778. Arthur was clearly William's son, almost 
certainly sent down to Duplin County from Bute to take up the 250 acres that his
father was later credited with "entry" of in 1779. David Tucker's relationship to the Mat(t)hews-
Mat(t)his family is completely speculative, but he may have fulfilled the same role for Jacob 
Mathews 200 acre 1779 "entry" that Arthur certainly fulfilled for William's 250 acres; ie., to 
take up the land and use it to support the rest of the family while this N.C.
Continental soldier was away at war. (Jacob Mathews' only known two "blood" children, ie.,
Jacob, Jr. and William, were too young for this duty. They were not born until about 1775.)
 
Pvt. David Tucker was seriously wounded in the war. He was shot through the thigh while 
serving as a Duplin light horseman. The wounded man was escorted back to
his Duplin home from the battle by his fellow lighthorsemen (and kinsmen?)Pvt. Arthur 
Matthews of Duplin County, and Pvt. James Mathis of nearby Sampson County. 
(In later years this same James Mathis would be known as Maj. James Mathis when he 
represented Sampson County for some time in the North Carolina legislature.)
 
David Tucker survived his war wounds and the war itself and  became a Duplin county 
landowner in his own right after the war. Arthur Mathews even sold him half of the 250 acres 
in Duplin County that Arthur had inheirited from his father William Mathews.
 
After residing in Duplin County for about 25 years, David Tucker emigrated to Rutherford 
County, Tn., probably in  1804 at the same time William Mathews did. (This particular 
William Mathews was the elder Jacob Mathews youngest son, born circa 1775.) The cause
of this move to Tennessee is unknown today.
 
Although all of David Tucker's military service was performed as a North Carolina militiaman 
he applied for his Revolutionary War pension in Tennessee where he resided when the 
pension law was enacted. He died there sometime before his wife Sylvania did. She was
still alive, and was still collecting a pension as his widow well into the 1840"s. Her last known 
address was in Bedford County, Tn.
 
David and Sylvania Tucker are believed to have had the following children: Elijah; Nancy; 
Matthew;Jacob; Elizabeth; William; David, Jr.; Daniel; Susannnah; and Lewis. 
Some of these children may have remained in Duplin County long after their parents emigrated 
to Tennessee. (A David Tucker, b. Aug. 1, 1832, who may or may not have been a namesake 
grandson of the Tennessee pensioner, and whose tombstone proudly proclaims that his own 
military service was in the Civil War as a Sailor in  the Confederate States Navy,
died on October 11, 1918. His grave is in the Pinecrest  Cemetery in Duplin County, N.C.)
 
Some Tucker family researchers have claimed that Revolutionary War pensioner David Tucker's 
wife Sylvania was a Perkins before her marriage. I've never been able to confirm that but I 
don't dispute it either. Otherwise, I'd have bet a lot of money that she was a Mathews.



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