Life Story: Jane Spurgin (1736-1803)

Jane Welborn Spurgin was born in Maryland in 1736. She was one of eight children born to William Welborn and Ann Crabtree. William was a blacksmith, and Ann cared for their home and family. Under her mother’s tutelage, Jane learned all the skills necessary to run a colonial home. In the early 1750s William and Ann moved their family to the western reaches of the Maryland colony. 

Soon after this move, Jane married William Spurgin. After their wedding, Jane and William settled in Virginia. In 1755 Jane gave birth to their first child, a son they named John. 

Like many colonists in the 1750s, Jane and William were eager to find a place where there was enough land to set up a thriving farm. In 1757 they moved to Rowan County in the North Carolina colony. William sold the 200 acres he owned in Virginia for £100 and purchased 310 acres of waterfront property in Rowan County for only £56. Jane was probably pleased with this new location. Many of her family had already moved or were planning to move to Rowan County. They were all part of a migration of colonists to North Carolina in the 1750s. The population of North Carolina increased by thousands of people by the end of the decade.

Jane was either pregnant or had just given birth to her first daughter Rebekah when she and William moved to Rowan County. They settled in a remote rural area called Abbott’s Creek. William’s farm produced and sold wheat. Like many women married to farmers, Jane probably helped William bring in the fall harvest. She also did all the work of caring for their home and children. 

Jane and William thrived in Abbot’s Creek. In 1764 he was appointed one of Rowan County’s justices of the peace, which indicates that he was a well-respected member of his community. This appointment made William one of the most important men in the county. While William’s career was advancing, Jane managed their household and gave birth to nine more children. Life was not always easy for Jane and William. Some of William’s colleagues in government were corrupt. Between 1765 and 1771 such corruption led to a series of uprisings that historians now call the Regulator Movement. 

This unrest was part of the larger protests sweeping the colonies in the years leading up to the American Revolution. When war broke out in 1775, all the other local officials in Rowan County took oaths swearing loyalty to the Patriot cause. But William refused. In January 1776 he answered the Royal Governor’s call to raise troops to fight for the King. By February he was leading a militia of about 800 men. He continued to serve with the British Army throughout the Revolutionary War and achieved the rank of colonel. 

While William was off fighting for the British, Jane was left to protect their home and family. Unlike William, Jane was friendly to the Patriot cause. In 1781 she allowed Continental Army General Nathanael Greene to rest in her home while William was camped with British soldiers nearby.  Regardless of her personal feelings, William’s allegiance to the British made Jane a target of the local Patriot leaders. She had to pay harsh financial penalties, which left her without the money to care for her children. She also reported being harassed by Patriot soldiers. 

When the war ended, William did not return to his family. He began a relationship with another woman, eventually having four children with her. Even with William gone, Jane had to fight to keep her family’s home out of the hands of Patriots who wanted to seize the property of any known Loyalist. Her situation was made worse when creditors tried to seize William’s property to pay off his debts. Between 1785 and 1791 Jane submitted three petitions to the North Carolina state legislature to ask for help. Most women’s petitions highlighted how poor, frail, and weak they were. Jane’s were different. Jane mentioned that she was a widowed single mother, but she was not asking for pity. She claimed to have political rights that justified her claims. In her first petition, she stated that her husband was politically dead, so she had a widow’s right to one third of his property. She explained about the lawsuits against the property and appealed to the humanity of the general assembly. Her petition was rejected.

Jane submitted her second petition in 1788. She once again laid out all of the hardships that she and her children faced because of William’s politics. But she was also critical of the state government. Jane demanded that the officials act honorably and noted that other women had not been treated the way she was. She questioned whether the laws of the new nation were intended to make women and children suffer as she had. Many significant men of the county signed onto her petition in support. The committee who received her petition even recommended the state help Jane. But none of it mattered. The state took no action. Meanwhile, Jane’s neighbor was successful in her bid to have her property returned. To Jane, this was proof that the law was not being fairly applied, particularly to women.

In her third and final petition in 1791 Jane expressed strong disapproval of the government’s actions. She talked about the difficulty of being “deprived of the common rights of other citizens.” She situated herself as a separate political entity from her husband, one who had never opposed the American government. She said that this meant she had rights to her property as a citizen. This was a bold statement for a woman to make in the early years of the US. Women had not been mentioned in the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution, and most states had chosen to continue to categorize women as legally and economically subordinate to men. 

The North Carolina legislature never formally responded to Jane’s petition, but her pursuit to keep her home was successful. Jane remained living on the property even after Charles Bruce purchased it at auction in the 1780s. On May 10, 1792 Charles attempted to sue for Jane’s eviction, but the state intervened and verified her title to 400 acres in Abbott’s Creek, including the site of her home. Charles kept the remainder of the property directly adjacent to Jane’s. In the end, Jane got more than the third that she petitioned for. While the demands of Jane’s petitions were ultimately met, her case did not lead to any legislative action or change that could benefit other women similar situations.

Jane lived in Abbott’s Creek until she died on August 3, 1803.

You can read Jane’s petitions in their entirety here.

• backcountry: Sparsely inhabited rural area.
• grist mill: A mill for grinding grain.
• Justice of the Peace: A judge appointed to hear minor cases, perform marriages, grant licenses, etc., in a town, county, or other local district.
• Loyalist: A person who supported the British during the American Revolution.
• Patriot: A person who supported the American rebellion during the American Revolution.
• petition: A formal written request sent to an authority figure.
• smith: Someone who works metal.

• To learn more about how Patriots retaliated against known Loyalists during the American Revolution, see A Loyalist Wife.
• Jane Spurgin was not the only woman married to a man on the opposite side of the American Revolution. For another example, see Life Story: Margaret “Peggy” Shippen Arnold.
• Ask students to read this life story, Life Story: Molly Brant and Dunmore’s Proclamation and then write an essay explaining some of the reasons women chose to be Loyalists during the American Revolution.

POWER AND POLITICS; DOMESTICITY AND FAMILY