GENTRY.
The different Gentry families in Albemarle seem to have
sprung from the same head. Nicholas Gentry died in 1779,
leaving eleven children, Moses, David, Nicholas, Mary Hinson,
Robert, Benajah, Nathan, Martin, Elizabeth Haggard,
Jane Timberlake, and Ann Jenkins. Moses bought land in
1778 from Samuel Gay on the old Lynchburg Road north of
Garland's Store. He was a ruling elder in the Cove Church.
He died in 1810. His children were Claiborne and Nicholas,
who married sisters, Jane and Mary, daughters of Bezaleel
Maxwell, Frances, the wife of Thomas Fitzpatrick, and
Joanna, the wife of Joseph Walters. Addison, a son of
Nicholas, married Lucy, a sister of Shelton F. Leake.
Prior to 1778 David and Martin were owners of land on
Doyle's River, which they afterwards sold to Benajah Brown.
A son of one of these brothers probably was Richard Gentry,
who in 1784 married Jane, daughter of James Harris, and
removed to Kentucky, and whose descendants held a reunion
at Crab Orchard in August 1898. And from one of them in
all likelihood came George Gentry, who died in 1818, whose
home was not far from Free Union, whose wife's name was
Elizabeth, and whose children were James, George, William,
Frances, the wife of Nathaniel Tate, Austin, Aaron, Christopher,
Martha, the wife of John Walton, Elizabeth, the wife
of Edward Ballard, and Nancy, the wife of Edward Walton.
The children of Christopher and his wife Sarah, were Martha,
the wife of Joel Maupin, Mary, the wife of Henry Via, Frances,
the wife of Thomas Gibson, Elizabeth, the wife of James
Dunn, Paschal, Henry, and Dicey, the wife of Garrett White.
Benajah lived on Biscuit Run, where he commenced to purchase
land in 1764. In 1817 he transferred his property to
his son Robert, although his death did not occur till 1830.
Martha, the wife of Elijah Dawson, son of Rev. Martin, who
removed to Callaway County, Missouri, and Elizabeth, the
wife of William Goodman, were daughters of Benajah. Robert
married Mary, daughter of Francis Wingfield, and was the
father of Albert.
Robert Gentry, believed to be the son of Nicholas, bought
in 1766 from Martha, widow of Samuel Arnold, a place on
the head waters of Ivy Creek, which he and his wife Judith
sold in 1776 to John Woodson. Philip Joyner, whose
daughter was the wife of a Robert Gentry, and who once
owned the land the University stands on, devised the land
to his two grandsons, Charles and Jesse Gentry. They sold,
the one in 1775, and the other in 1783, and appear to have
emigrated to North Carolina. Whether the Robert just mentioned
was the same with the son of Nicholas, is unknown.
