John Kitts (Götz)
c. 1730-1802
A History of John Kitts, a German Frontiersman in Colonial Virginia and Tennessee
JOHN KITTS and NICHOLAS WYRICK were the common ancestors of most of the Kitts families in southwest Virginia and east Tennessee. We pick up their story in Augusta County, Virginia in 1769. That was a time when there was no United States of America. Virginia was one of the prospering British colonies along the eastern seaboard. Thousands of European immigrants had flooded into American ports causing overcrowding and a need for westward expansion. The mountainous land to the west was the home of the Indians, who were not leaving willingly. The British solution was to offer the Indian lands to the immigrants, who would come in and push the Indians further west. Wars ensued. In 1769 John Kitts and Nicholas Wyrick were among the settlers whose lives consisted of feeding their families, clearing their lands, building their homes, and fighting the Indians.
We know that Nicholas was born in Reichweiler, Germany in 1723 and sailed with his family aboard the ship "Samuel" in 1737 to the American colonies. However, we don't know if John was born in the Americas or in the Old Country. Nicholas was living in the Bethel Township of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania as of 1748 and it is likely John Kitts was in a Pennsylvania German settlement just prior to their migration to Augusta County in the New River Valley area of Virginia. There the Germans would co-exist with a large settlement of Scotch-Irish immigrants. Together they went about building a community under the rule of British law, which was based on a legal system accessible to all citizens.
In 1769, John and Nicholas were in Augusta County with the county seat in Staunton. Both their names appeared on the tithables (tax list) that was taken that year. It was determined that the population had grown to the point that Augusta could be divided into two counties, Augusta and Botetourte. Once the boundaries had been redrawn John and Nicholas were in Botetourte County with the county seat in Fincastle.
From 1772-1776, there was an actual county of Fincastle that was formed from Botetourte. In August 1774 Virginia 's Governor Dunmore used county militias to wage a war to finally subdue the Indians. Some militiamen went with Dunmore to Pointe Pleasant while others stayed behind to guard the forts. John Kitts was among those serving under Captain Robert Doak from the Fincastle militia. He was paid for three days' service, most likely to guard the home fort.
We have never found the bill of sale or deed to property owned by John Kitts. However, there are references to 150 acres he owned on Doaks Mill Creek, a branch of Reed Creek, adjoining a survey made under the Loyal Company, settled 1767. Sometime between 1771 and 1779 John assigned this property to Lawrence Kettering. By 1780 John Kitts was in Nashborough, Tennessee. What happened between 1774 and 1779 to cause John Kitts to leave Virginia, cross the Cumberland Gap, and travel down the Cumberland River to French Lick (Fort Nashborough), Tennessee?
Perhaps a look at what happened to Nicholas Wyrick will give us a clue. Montgomery County was formed from Fincastle in 1776 with the county seat at Christiansburg. Montgomery County records show that in 1779 Nicholas Wyrick, was convicted of treason by being loyal to the King of England. Several other neighbors of John Kitts and Nicholas Wyrick were found guilty of being Loyalists.
1779 seems to have been a bad year all around. This was midway through the War for Independence (Revolutionary War) that had begun in 1776. Those who did not take up arms against the King of England and fight for the new Commonwealth of Virginia were considered traitors. Bad weather had reduced the hemp, tobacco & farm crops to a profit of almost nothing. In addition to the war and political upheaval, the settlers had no money to pay any fines levied against them by the newly formed government of Virginia.
Add to this the fact that the whole land ownership system in Virginia was in shambles and all land had to be re-certified and registered again. This just all proved to be too much for some settlers, so they assigned their rights to any land to others and moved on. Moving on was made easier by the fact that Daniel Boone had just successfully marked the Wilderness Road through the Cumberland Gap. My theory is that all these things came together in 1779, and John Kitts just decided to cut his losses and move on to new territory.
Nicholas Wyrick was eventually acquitted of the treason. He remained in Virginia and died in 1792. His will was recorded in Wythe County, which had been formed from Montgomery County in 1789. The county seat was Wytheville. Nicholas Wyrick was probably on the same land from 1769-1792, but due to boundary changes, his records can be found in Augusta, Botetourte, (Fincastle), Montgomery and Wythe.
John Kitts & his daughter Mary moved on to Tennessee and they became a part of the Nashborough settlement shortly after June 1780. In that day, the quickest route would have been to travel from Wythe County, through the Cumberland Gap, and via a flatboat, float down the Cumberland River to French Lick (Fort Nashborough).
Once at Nashborough, it appears that John spent part of his time raising hogs. These animals roamed freely and were a nuisance to John's neighbor, Humphrey Hogan. Evidently, Mr. Hogan got tired of his neighbor John Kitts and his infernal hogs. Besides threatening to kill the animals and to assault John, Humphrey decided to make Kitts’ life more difficult by taking John’s daughter Mary to court in order to let the community know that she had an illegitimate child. Davidson County, Tennessee Court Records show us that on April 5, 1784 Mary Kitts was charged with having an illegitimate child; John Kitts and Humphrey Hogan served as witnesses in this trial. It also appears John Kitts was sworn in as a juror on that same day.
The next day (April 6, 1784), John Kitts was back in court as a plaintiff. John was pursuing a lawsuit against Humphrey Hogan. John enlisted the help of Mr. Barrow who testified that Hogan had indeed threatened the lives of John’s hogs and vowed to assault John himself. Ultimately, John dropped the case. Why? No one knows for certain. It could be that John felt he had embarrassed Hogan enough and nothing else could really come from the case.
Most importantly though, the record of this “hog trial” documents that John Kitts was actually living on future Tennessee state soil and thus entitled the Kitts family to the distinction of being a part of the “First Families of Tennessee.”
As for Mary’s situation, she was acquitted of the charges on July 5, 1784. Her case was dismissed because the statute of limitations had expired.
Just as it was in Virginia, no deed has been found to the property that John Kitts owned in Tennessee. Yet we find references to it in other deeds. It appears that Kitts’ land lay on the north side of the Cumberland River, one and one half miles north of Nashville. We know from North Carolina documents that John Kitts had preemption rights to 640 acres and it is possible he had other property besides the Nashville land. When John Kitts' will was recorded in Robertson Co., TN in 1801, he left his land to his wife Nancy and grandson John Kitts.