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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. |