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When you go back nine generations in a family line, you have 256 sixth great-grandparents. So far, I know of only 22 of mine. One is Joseph Isaac Gleaton, Sr. and he is number 396 on my direct line of ancestors. But before I go any further let me tell you how I got to Joseph. The closest that my direct Gleaton roots come down to me are through Sarah Ann "Sallie" Gleaton who was my fourth great-grandmother. She was born on January 19, 1823 in Orangeburg County, South Carolina. In 1841 when she was 18 she married her first cousin Edward "Squire" Argoe. Sarah Ann died on November 08, 1897. She was the daughter of Thomas S. Gleaton, Sr. and Kessiah Bolin. By the way, they weren't related. Thomas S. Gleaton, Sr. was born around 1774 in Lenoir County, North Carolina. He served as a private in the War of 1812 in the Julian Battalion, South Carolina Militia. He married Kessiah around 1802 in Neeses. Thomas died around 1855 in Orangeburg County. He was the son of Joseph Isaac Gleaton, Sr. and Mary Argoe. Does that name Argoe ring a bell? Joseph Isaac Gleaton, Sr. was born around 1740 in London, England. I have obtained some information about him through a few generous sources. Here is a little bit of what I know of him. One Sunday morning when Joseph Isaac was seven years old, his mother dressed the children and sent them to Sunday school. Joseph Isaac stopped to play and failed to attend services. Later, his mother started to church and found him playing alongside the road. She took him to church and punished him when they returned home. Hurt and angry, Joseph Isaac went to the boat docks, a favorite haunt. He told his tale of woe to an old sea captain, who invited him on a voyage the captain was then preparing to take. Joseph Isaac accepted and was gone some three or four years. Upon his return, he was told his mother had died, grieved and worried because of his disappearance. Joseph Isaac remained at home for some time then finally answer the call of the sea. He served in the British Navy and sailed aboard ships until he was 27 years of age, when he was shipwrecked of the coast of Charleston, South Carolina, near Port Royal. He went up the coast into Dobbs County (now Lenoir), North Carolina, where he met and married Mary Argoe, who was said to be a Sunday school teacher. They migrated to South Carolina after the birth of their first son, and bought a homestead near the Ninety-Six Road and Neeses. During the American Revolution, a man asked that Joseph Isaac be conscripted in the place of the man's son, offering an officer one thousand dollars for the substitution. Joseph Isaac refused on the grounds he was married and not a citizen, and also that he would not fight against his mother country or against his adopted one. He did, however, fight with the officers until wounded. He then fled; leaving a trail of blood that was followed to his home. They tortured his wife Mary to make her reveal his hiding place. When she refused, they dragged her into the yard for further torture and abuse. Their superior came long and ordered them to stop. When they were leaving, they passed the hollowed-out log where Joseph Isaac was hiding and remarked that Mary was the bravest woman they had ever seen. Joseph Isaac died around 1800 and is buried two miles beyond Neeses, South Carolina.
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