From the online blog http://fragmentsfromawritingdesk.blogspot.com/2014/11/uncle-tom-bicknell-mortally-wounded-at.html posted by Hershel Parker:
"Thomas Bicknell served in the Revolutionary War, and died of his wounds received in the Battle of Kings Mountain, SC. His widow Rachael Sparks applied for a pension in 1845. See notes under her name.
The 1909 obelisk erected at King Mountain lists Private Thomas Bicknell killed in the battle. Rachael's own testimony listed him as Lieutenant. In 1763 King George proclaimed that the settlers’ water must drain to the Atlantic. His Royal governors had already granted land whose water drained to the Mississippi. Settlers without royal favor or money to buy from those favored few, lived in fear of penalty or loss of their homesteads. In 1778, Thomas and his brother Samuel Bicknell were able to enter their land claims on Swan Creek near Yadkin River. Under colonial rule, their farms had been unrecorded. The Anglican church kept the official records of births, marriages, and deaths in Virginia and the Carolinas. Baptists and Presbyterians were not allowed to have churches, so Thomas and Rachael (Sparks) were married at “the meeting place.” By royal decree they were unmarried and lived in the sin of adultery. Their children were officially bastards with no proof of birth.
On the second day of the new Wilkes County court on 03Mar1778 Thomas Bicknell was appointed constable, a deputy sheriff. In 1779 he was appointed as a tax collector for Captain Herndon’s district. Much of the county’s taxes went to support its militia companies. After a year of tax duty, he resigned to concentrate of military duties. Despite the ongoing need to tend flocks and fields and now his three children, Thomas became a soldier. Colonel Cleveland tried to keep active duty to no more than three months at a time, primarily defending against Tory Loyalists who were disrupting the Patriot organization and even their existence. Rachael and Thomas had two more children by 1780.
Thomas sometimes volunteered, sometimes was drafted. His first militia duty was under Captain Richard Allen. He was a lieutenant under Allen when called to Charleston in 1780 where they helped to prevent the Tories from burning the city. Bicknell was at times called out under William Lenoir, Joseph Herndon, and/or Benjamin Cleveland. In the Kings Mountain expedition, Captain Allen stayed with the foot soldiers at Cowpens while his friend Lt. Bicknell fell in with Col John Sevier’s troops in hot pursuit of Ferguson’s soldiers. On 07Oct1780, a one ounce lead ball to the hip grounded Thomas Bicknell during one of Sevier’s charges up the ridge at Kings Mountain. The colonels assigned two soldiers to each of the wounded. They took Thomas on a horse drawn litter where by 13Oct1780 he was invited into the home of widow Grace (Grizzee) Greenlee Bowman a few miles up the Catawba River from the old Burke County Court House. Dr. Joseph Dobson made the rounds to patriot houses to care for sixteen of the wounded from Kings Mountain. By 16Oct1780, word had reached the Yadkin River and Rachael had left her five children to come to the side of her wounded husband. By 20Oct1780, Dr. Dobson was so pessimistic of Thomas Bicknell’s chances that he asked his patient for his last will and testament. It was witnessed by
-Joseph Dobson,
-hostess Grace Bowman, (whose husband John Bowman was mortally wounded at the battle of Ramsour’s Mill 13Jun1780)
-Pilot Mountain’s William Terrell Lewis Sr, (who had three wounded sons at Mr. Mackey’s [some say at Margaret McDowell’s] home)
-William Ragland of Wilkes County
-Gabriel Loving of Wilkes County, (Rachel Loving Siske had lost her husband Daniel Siske in the battle of Kings Mountain)
-and Samuel Bicknell, the brother of Thomas
On the last day of 1780, Thomas Bicknell died. Rachel went home to her children. On 07May1781, a broken hearted father, William Bicknell died in Amherst County Virginia. On 15May1781 Mary Bicknell, sixth and last child of Thomas and Rachael Bicknell was born on Swan Creek in Wilkes County NC."
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Hershel Parker on the blog http://fragmentsfromawritingdesk.blogspot.com/2014/06/what-my-cousin-rachel-sparks-bicknell.html:
In her declaration for a Revolutionary War widows pension in 1845, Rachel Bicknell stated that she was then living with her daughter, Mary, whose husband was David Roper, "on their charity." In her application, she stated that "she is the widoe of Thomas Biecknell who was a private and Lieutenant in the War of the Revolution, that she was married to the said Thomas Biecknell when in her seventeenth year; and she thinks [it was] when she had three children [that] her said husband entered the service under Capt Richard Allen, who was afterwards, Colonel; that they then resided in Wilkes County, North Carolina, and her said husband there entered the service the first time, and was not much at home until the close of the War; that he was at one time a Volunteer & at others times drafted, and was a considerable portion of the time a Lieutenant; that she is sure he was a Lieutenant under Capt Allen at the siege of Charleston early in 1780, that he marched through North & South Caroline, and served at various times undr Col. Lanore, Col. Cleveland & Col. hearne, but it is impossible for her to state the particulars of his service, at her advanced age. [she was 87 years old by this time]
"That her husband the said Thomas Biecknell was wounded with an ounce ball in his hip in the Battle of King's Mountain, with which wound he died; he was carried to Burke County near Morgantown [Morganton], to the house of Mr. Bowman, whence declarant went and waited upon him with his wound Eleven weeks, at the end of which time he died. She does not know of any documentary evidence, or any evidence of any kind, that she can certainly get to prove his service, but thinks an indent may have been issued to her for his service, as she recollect[s], to have tryed to get something, & thinks, she did get a small sum, but does not know how [much]."
"That she was married to said Thomas Biecknell in Wilkes County NC, by Squire Rigs, as she believes on 22nd October, as she thinks the year 1774, as she had but three children when her husband entered the service, and when his service closed entirely she had five children and four months and fifteen days after his death her sixth child Mary was born; her said Daughter, Mary, married David Roper, and she now lives with her, and on their charity. She has no record of her marriage, nor of the births of her children, they [the banns] were published in Church as the custom was in those days to be married. That her husband, the aforesaid Thomas Becknell, died on the thirty first day of December 1780, and that he has remained a widow ever since that period, as will more fully appear by reference to the proof heerwith forewarded."
The papers in the pension file of Rachel Bicknell are preserved the National Archives. The only document created by the Bureau of Pensions in this file is a form designed to show the receipt and disposition of pension applications; it was only partially completed for Rachel. Fo]Llowing the number assigned to her (Rl2399), it was stamped "REJECTED," without date or explanation. Her file in the federal archived suggests that 21Dec1851 attorney Thomas Lumpkin representing several Pickens area folks in DC brought enough
depositions from North and South Carolina to prove that Rachel was in fact the widow of a revolutionary was soldier and she was awarded a pension.