Jacob Huggins and Mary Akers' Wedding Bond--and a brief note on Leroy Akers

Thanks to cousin Rob Riley for pulling the original wedding bond for Jacob Huggins Sr and Mary Akers (Orange, NC--1793).

You can see how the clerk, A B Bruce, made his loop at the start of the letter 'u' a bit too big and the name around Jacob's mark looks like "Haggans."  And that's how it ended up becoming indexed that way.  However, the first line clearly shows his surname to be Huggins. So there is no doubt.

The key thing here is that the marriage year is 1793.  Jacob Jr can be found in both the 1850 and 1860 census--and he seems not to have caught the nasty Ward habit of radically misstating ages.  In both instances, his reported age gives the birth year of 1794.  And, unless someone has a family Bible hidden away somewhere, this is pretty much all the evidence we are likely to ever get.  All in all, it's safe to conclude that Jacob Jr was the son of Jacob Sr and Mary Akers Huggins.

Whether Mary was a widow--or just had Leroy Akers (and likely others, according to the census) as a bastard child--is impossible to say given what we currently know.  But, because we can conclude that Jacob Jr was Mary's son, we can also reasonably say that he was the half-brother of Leroy Akers.

One can also infer that Jacob Sr was really taken with Leroy.  As you saw in a previous post, Jacob sold one of his two tracts to Leroy in 1807.  But even more indicative is the small notation on one of  the issuing deeds of Jacob's two land grants:

This is from Orange Co NC  Bk 12, p. 277 (1798).

Reports vary on Leroy's exact birth year (and I'll get into that another time when dealing with Leroy's 'mistaken' wife), but it ranges from 1783-1786.  So, we can say that Leroy was anywhere from 12-15 years old when this grant/deed was finally formally issued. 

Clerks were required to note who was given the official copy of the grant/deed.  Jacob, himself, collected his first grant--and it clearly reads at the bottom; "Deliv'd Jacob Huggins."
If you click on the one above, you will see written along the bottom left-hand side: "Deliv'd Leroy Akors."
That's a lot of trust to put in a young teenage boy....
                                                                          <Kevin>