MCGEHEE.
James McGehee obtained a patent for four hundred acres
of land on Little Mechunk in 1747. In 1768 William McGehee
patented nearly two hundred acres on Henderson's
Branch, and near the Secretary's Road, a description, which
indicates that the place was not far from Colle, especially as
in 1774 it came into Mr. Jefferson's hands. William was
probably a son of James, and it was he who gave name to the
ford at Milton, that passage of the river being known in early
times as McGehee's Ford. The family seems subsequently
to have been settled near the present Woodridge, as the forks
of the roads at that place went for a long period by the name
of McGehee's Old Field. William died in 1815. He and
his wife Elizabeth had eight children, William, Elizabeth,
Joseph, Nancy, the wife of William Adcock, Sarah, the wife
of William Campbell, Mary, the wife of James Martin, Lively
and Charles. After the death of the father, most of the family
removed, some to Franklin County, Virginia, and some to
Kentucky.
Whether Francis McGee was related to this family, is not
known. He appears early in the century as having married
Martha, daughter of Peter Marks. He purchased the interests
of some of the Marks heirs in Lots Seventeen and Eighteen
in Charlottesville, on which the old Stone House stood, and
exchanged them with James Lewis for the place on Moore's
Creek, which has long been the home of the Teels. In 1817
he bought from Dabney and Thomas Shelton the farm between
Ivy and Mechum's Depot, which is still owned by his descendants.
For some years he conducted the old Hardin Tavern
on the Staunton Road. He died in 1846. His children were
Ann, Peter, Mary, the wife of James Lobban, Martha, the
wife of John J. Woods, Lewis and Joanna. Lewis died in
1858. Peter in his youth was a merchant at Hillsboro, and
subsequently County Surveyor. He died on his farm south
of Ivy Depot in 1888.
