Qualla: Thomas Gillespie

Thomas Gillespie: Introduction

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit G. Moore, CC BY-SA 4.0. The 1790 federal census records, for Rowan County, North Carolina, a household headed by Thomas Gillespie, Sr. and seven enslaved people. The census did not record their names. Gillespie's will, six years later, mentions six of them. We do not know what they looked like, what they hoped for, or where they were born, only that their labor sustained a 1,000-acre plantation on Sills Creek and a much larger family fortune that would one day produce an American president. Any history of Thomas Gillespie that starts with his accomplishments and stops there has missed the people who made those accomplishments possible.

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Image: G. Moore | CC BY-SA 4.0

Thomas Gillespie: From Virginia to the Yadkin

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit G. Moore, CC BY-SA 4.0. Gillespie's paper trail begins on December 1, 1740, when 'Thomas Glassbey' purchased 400 acres in northern Augusta County, Virginia, in a draft of the Shenandoah called Long Glade. The forty-shilling deed is the first document that places him anywhere. Sometime before 1750, Thoma...

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Image: G. Moore | CC BY-SA 4.0

Thomas Gillespie: Built by Enslaved Labor

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit G. Moore, CC BY-SA 4.0. By his death in 1796, Gillespie owned around 2,570 acres in Rowan County alone. His plantation house had more than five rooms. He owned a cotton gin, raised flax and wheat, kept horses and cattle. None of that infrastructure would have existed without the work of the people he en...

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Image: G. Moore | CC BY-SA 4.0

Thomas Gillespie: Thyatira and the Salisbury Brigade

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Daniel Smith (1748–1818), Public domain. Gillespie was an early elder at Thyatira Presbyterian Church, founded by 1750 on Cathy's Creek and the oldest Presbyterian church in this part of western North Carolina. Religious life and political life ran together in the Scots-Irish settlements. When the Revolution came, Gille...

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Image: Daniel Smith (1748–1818) | Public domain

Thomas Gillespie: The Polk Connection

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit G. Moore, CC BY-SA 4.0. Gillespie's daughter Lydia married Captain James Knox. Their daughter Jane Gracey Knox married Samuel Polk. Their son was James Knox Polk, eleventh President of the United States, who annexed Texas, fought a war with Mexico, and added the territory that became California, Arizona...

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Image: G. Moore | CC BY-SA 4.0

Thomas Gillespie: A Shared Grave at Thyatira

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit G. Moore, CC BY-SA 4.0. Thomas and Naomi Gillespie died on the same day: December 13, 1796. Thomas was 78, Naomi 69. According to their memorial at Thyatira Presbyterian Church, they had been married 51 years. Six of their sons carried them to their place of interment, where they were laid in the same c...

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Image: G. Moore | CC BY-SA 4.0