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This article is from the Dictionary of North Carolina Biography, 6 volumes, edited by William S. Powell. Copyright ©1979-1996 by the University of North Carolina Press. Used by permission of the publisher. For personal use and not for further distribution. Please submit permission requests for other use directly to the publisher.

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Weldon, Daniel

by Claiborne T. Smith, Jr., 1996

ca. 1720–ca. 1763

Daniel Weldon was born in Henrico County, Va., the son of Samuel Weldon and the grandson of the Samuel Weldon who settled in Virginia in 1675 as factor of a London merchant. His mother was Elizabeth Allen Cobbs Weldon, the widow of Robert Cobbs. By her first husband Mrs. Weldon was the mother of Sarah Cobbs, first wife of Robert Jones, attorney general of North Carolina. The will of Samuel Weldon in Henrico in 1748 mentioned among others his wife's grandchildren, Allen, Willie, and Martha Jones. Samuel Weldon, the youngest son of Samuel, later moved to North Carolina and was prominent in the Revolution. Priscilla Weldon, sister of Daniel and Samuel, married Lewis Williamson of Northampton County, N.C., and was the grandmother of Weldon Nathaniel Edwards.

About 1745 Daniel Weldon moved to Granville County, N.C., where he was clerk of court from 1748 to 1763. In October 1749 he and William Churton on behalf of North Carolina and Joshus Fry and Peter Jefferson on behalf of Virginia were the commissioners to run the line between the two colonies from Peter's Creek, where the Byrd survey had stopped, to the Holston River, a distance of ninety miles. In 1756 Weldon was appointed one of the commissioners to lay off a town on the land of James Leslie on the banks of the Roanoke River in Halifax County. This was the town of Halifax, of which Weldon was appointed a trustee and director by the General Assembly in 1759. On 11 Jan. 1753 Marmaduke Kimbrough sold him 1,273 acres of land on the south side of the Roanoke River on both sides of Chockoyotte Creek. This plantation, which became the residence of Weldon and his descendants, is the site of the present town of Weldon.

On 17 Jan. 1753 Weldon married Elizabeth Eaton, the daughter of Colonel William Eaton, a prominent settler in Granville County. Daniel and Elizabeth had only one child, a son William. No record of Weldon's estate has been found. His widow married William Park of Warren County and died in 1804. By her second husband she had Robert Park and Eliza, who married as her third husband and she his third wife, Governor James Turner of North Carolina. They had two daughters who married and left issue.

References:

J. B. Boddie, "The Weldon Family," in Southside Virginia Families (1955).

Walter Clark, ed., State Records of North Carolina, vols. 2425 (1905–6).

Deeds and Wills of Halifax and Granville Counties (North Carolina State Archives, Raleigh).

William L. Saunders, ed., Colonial Records of North Carolina, vols. 45 (1886–87).

Additional Resources:

Churton, William, Daniel Weldon, Joshua Fry, and Peter Jefferson. 1749. The line between Virginia and North Carolina, from Peters Creek to Steep Rock Creek being 90 miles and 280 poles, was survey'd in 1749. https://www.worldcat.org/title/line-between-virginia-and-north-carolina-from-peters-creek-to-steep-rock-creek-being-90-miles-and-280-poles-was-surveyd-in-1749/oclc/828091229 (accessed June 16, 2014).

North Carolina, and J. Bryan Grimes. 1910. Abstract of North Carolina wills. Raleigh, E. M. Uzzel & co., state printers. https://archive.org/details/abstractofnorthc01nort (accessed June 16, 2014).