Hugh Henry, Senior 1715 - 1791

SAR John Hancock Chapter President – Henry Stobbs

SAR Patriot # P-179838

Hugh Henry, Senior, was probably born in Sorn, Scotland, and immigrated to Maryland. He took the Oath of Allegiance in 1777 at Pittsylvania County, Virginia.  In 1740 he married Mary Donelson, a sister of the famed frontiersman and father-in-law of President Andrew Jackson, Colonel John Donelson.  Henry oversaw Colonel Donelson's iron works on the Pigg River in Franklin County, "The Bloomery," and accompanied him on his famed 1780, thousand-mile journey by flatboat to found what would become Nashville, Tennessee. In 1784, Hugh Henry, Senior, and his sons signed a petition for Kentucky County statehood, which Thomas Jefferson, a family friend, hand-delivered to the Continental Congress.  In 1785, the Henry family settled in what was to become Robertson County, Tennessee.  Hugh Henry, Senior made his will on February 3rd,1790, and died by October of 1791. His grave site is unknown.