Benjamin Ashworth was born 1754 in Johnston Co, NC and died before 1820 in Pendleton District, SC.
Benjamin, an orphan "bound out" to another family to be raised, is thought to have been emancipated when he reached age 21, just in time to fight in the Revolutionary War in Georgia. He subseqeuntly received several grants of land for his minute-man service in Franklin, Wilkes and Elbert Counties, GA. His name, along whith his wife, Sarah, appears several times in the colonial records of Georgia.
It is thought that after the death of his parents, Benjamin was raised by the Lawrence family in or near the Keowee River Indian village in the Pendleton District, SC. At that time, those lands were still in the hands of the Cherokee.
A James Ashworth lived near Benjamin in the Pendelton District. Although the relationship between the two is uncertain, some sort of blood tie is almost assured. James married Kesiah Dial, believed to be part of the Lumbee Indian group.
Stories about the mixed-blood origins of the Ashworths are numerous. The following per Lee Murrah (at his website www.murrah.com):
"The Controversy about the Ashworths' Racial Makeup:
The most interesting question about the Ashworths is their racial makeup. The Ashworths and the related Dial, Perkins, Johnson, Sweat, Bunch, and Drake families are members of an unusual people of unknown origin who originally resided in the Southeastern United States known as "Redbones". The Redbones are similar to the better known Melungeons who lived in western Virginia and eastern Tennessee and the Lumbee Indians of Robeson County, North Carolina. The Redbones are often called "Louisiana Melungeons." The Redbones are probably closely related to the Lumbee, who also inhabited the Pee Dee region from whence the Ashworths and related families came. Keziah Dial, wife of James Ashworth, is thought by some to have been a Lumbee.
Many believe that these groups have African ancestry, and they are referred to by some researchers as "tri-racial isolates". That conclusion is very controversial, however. While others argued their origins, the Ashworths suffered. The Ashworths to this day are caught between those who are prejudiced against people of African ancestry, and thus don't want them to have African blood, and those of a modern liberal persuasion, who want them to have Negro blood because of their prominence in early Texas. In the former category are some family members who violently reject the possibility. There are whispers to this day that the Ashworths have African blood, and they still suffer a certain stigma among some because of it. In the pro-African camp the Beaumont Enteprise newspaper which several years ago cited one of the Ashworths as a notable and prosperous early African-Americans in Southeast Texas who financially supported the Texas Revolution.
Whether the Ashworths had African blood probably will never be known since there is no documentary evidence either way. All we have are the imprecise observations of census takers and other lay observers. The best published eyewitness account of the early Ashworths appeared in a newspaper article written in 1910 by freelance newspaper writer Tom J. Russell about Clark Ashworth of Voth, Texas, born in 1832 in Jefferson, Orange or Hardin Counties, as follows:
The Ashworth family had a peculiar history that to a certain extent mitigated against them. The grandfather of Clark Ashworth was a native of South Carolina, and the family originally came from Portugal and were of the Moorish race. They had a dark complexion, but had hair on their head, instead of wool, like that of African negro; though the complexion was about as dark. The fact often caused them to be taken for negroes. An effort was made to disfrachise [sic] the family at one time during the days of the Republic, and their friends took the matter up in the Congress and had a law passed declaring that the law relating to free Negroes in the Republic of Texas (did) not apply to the Ashworth family. (See Act of Congress, date Dec. 12, 1840 H. D. Art. 2571). The men named are William Ashworth, Abner Ashworth, David Ashworth, Aaron Ashworth and Elisha Ashworth...Among the early settlers these families were recognized socially as white persons, and were so treated to the present time by the same.
The petitions that led to the Ashworth Law clearly show that the citizens of Jefferson County considered the Ashworths be "persons of color," but is it evidence that they were considered part African mulattos? It is hard to say. The petitions refer to a "taint of blood" and their being "people of color under great and embarrassing circumstances." Significantly, one petition states that a "doubt" exists about the application of the Act Concerning Free Persons of Color to the Ashworths. The only way to understand their doubt is to assume that the Act was intended to apply to freed Negro slaves and that "free people of color" was a larger class than just Negroes. That is consistent with research by Jack D. Forbes in his 1993 book Africans and Native Americans -- The Language of Race and the Evolution of Red-Black Peoples (University of Illinois Press), which concluded that Negroes, Indians, and mixes of all types were considered "people of color" and "mulattos." Forbes found that the early U. S. census takers did not bother to distinguish among Negroes, Indians, and other dark peoples and simply divided people into "white" and "colored" or similar designations regardless of actual racial makeup. Forbes research found entire Indian tribes classified as "Negroes".
In other words, the Jefferson County petitioners liked and respected the Ashworths and considered them part of the "white" community. They must not have considered them Africans, but because of their dark skin they feared that the Act would be applied to them anyway and prepared three petitions with long lists of signatures. If the petitioners had considered the Ashworths to be Negroes or mulattos, then the petitions were a remarkable act of racial tolerance in an era and region in which the "one drop" rule prevailed.
The related Perkins family had similar experiences. The Perkins were also considered to be "white" despite their dark skin, but one Perkins brought a slander action in Tennessee against someone who called him a Negro. The extensive contradictory testimony of both sides shows as much confusion now about the Perkins' ancestry as moderns display about that of the Ashworths.
The article and the petitions that led to the Ashworth Law are good early evidence that the Ashworths and their related clans are probably what they have always claimed -- that they are "Portygee", or Portuguese. That appears to be a common theme among the Melungeon-type peoples across the Eastern United States. Clearly, the Ashworths are a lot more than Portuguese, including American Indian, as the discussion of Melungeons and Redbones above shows. It does not rule out African ancestry, but it make it less likely, at least in later years."
He married Sarah (probably Lawrence, daughter of Joab Lawrence).
Their children were:
Jeremiah Ashworth (born about 1780); married Mary "Polly" Davis
Job Ashworth (born 1781); married Tabitha ?
John Ashworth (born 1784)
Elisha Ashworth (born before 1790)
Joab Ashworth (born before 1790); married Nancy Teasley
James Ashworth (born 1789 in Pendleton District, SC)
Margaret Ashworth (born about 1790); married Dempsey Page
Elizabeth Ashworth (born before 1800); married Micajah Jones
Mary Ashworth (born 1797 in GA); married Micajah Jones, widower of her sister Elizabeth
Benjamin Ashworth (born in GA); married Rebecca Casey
Jonathan Ashworth (born 7 September 1799 in GA); married Nancy Casey
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