Owen Adkins

  General Notes:

From Carroll 1765 - 1815
The Settlements
by John Percy Alderman
1985 : page 150, Sketch for Owen Adkins
From the will of Old William Adkins in Pittsylvania County (Pittsylvania, D&W 11-136) it appears that Owen Adkins was a brother of Elizabeth Shockley, who is thought to be the wife of Richard Shockley. The will (probated as Atkins) lists both Owen and Elizabeth as children. As with many of the Carroll settlers, there is no consistency in the spelling of the name; while the Pittsylvania will renders it Atkins, other records show it as Atkinson and Adkinson. The only records of Owen Adkins on Little Reed [Creek] are all in 1782, and it therefore is not known when he came or left, although he had settled on the site in 1778 (Kegley, Adventures, II, p. 107).
His home was at the site of the Harbert Edwards farm, where US58 now crosses Little Reed [Creek] west of Hillsville. He obtained the rights to it from an earlier settler, claimed it before the Land Commissioners, and had it surveyed for 160 acres (Kegley, Adventures, II, p. 104; Montgomery Survey B-264). He was taxed in 1782 with three horses and ten cattle. A good estimate would be that he came in the middle 1770's and left before 1787.
He and his wife Agnes (she is thought to be the daughter of John Goad of Pittsylvania County) went to Tennessee and there in 1790 Owen, and his wife and perhaps four children were massacred by the Indians in Hawkins County, with two other children, Milly (Emilia) and Owen Jr., surviving by hiding in a hollow log.


Owen Atkinson is on "A List of Land and Tithes taken by Hugh Innes for Pittyslvania County Anno. Dom. 1767". Also on the list are Sherwood Adkins, William Atkinson, & Henry Atkinson.

Owen married Agnes Goad about 1769. (Agnes Goad died about 1790 in Watauga, Hawkins Co., Tennessee.)