William is my 4th Great Grandfather. According to records filed for his mother's pension from his father Samuel's service in the Revolutionary War, William is listed as being born August 31, 1796, not 1786, as indicated by his grave stone.

It is said William A Scurlock married Mary Short around 1815 when she was only 15 years old. Mary was the daughter of Burrell Short and Mary Cole of North Carolina. Mary Short Scurlock was born in South Carolina. William and Mary had six children: Mary Scurlock (the daughter); Lucinda Scurlock; Sarah Jane Scurlock; Jonathan Scurlock; America Caroline Scurlock; and James K Scurlock. William was living in White County, Tennessee in 1830 with Mary his wife and their six chldren. According to Census, William's brother Stephen was living next door at the time. Martha Scurlock also lived next door to William and Stephen.

William entered the war against Great Britain or more commonly called the War of 1812, enlisting in Sparta, White County, Tennessee, in 1814. He would have been 18-years old at the time of his enlistment, where his enlistment record shows he was born in Claiborne County, Tennessee. So incredible to be with William as a part of the General Society of the War of 1812. I've known his grave at the Banks Cumberland Presbyterian Church Cemetery, DeKalb County, Tennessee, since childhood, but never dreamed I would eventually be the catalyst to bring him this so great an honor. This is my 2nd contribution to the Society. The other is my Maternal 3rd Great Grandfather, Benjamin Oliger Robinson, a Private with the New Jersey Third Artillery Regiment. He is also buried in a Presbyterian Church Cemetery in in Vincennes, Knox County, Indiana.

William and Mary's children were:

Mary J. Scurlock m Barnabas Isaac Johnson
(my 3rd Great Grandparents)
Lucinda Scurlock
Jonathan "John" A. Scurlock m Talitha Williams
Sarah Jane Scurlock m J .G. Evans
America Caroline Scurlock m James L. Beshearse
James "Jim" M. Scurlock m Sanena Adaline Rich

William's cousins, my first cousins 6 times removed, William and Mail Scurlock, got into the Texas revolution about 1835. Mail fought at the Alamo and died there March 6, 1836. He was assigned to an artillery battery which protected one of the walls. His name is listed on a plaque along with 189 other patriots who lost their lives there. Mail's brother William on the other hand was one of only two men who escaped the massacre of Fannin's men at Goliad. William and Mail Scurlock were apparently among Davy Crockett's "Tennessee Boys" who owned nothing in Texas and owed nothing to it. Theirs was a fight against tyranny wherever it might be. Only a handful were native Texans of Spanish and Mexican descent who suffered under the same injustices as the other colonist. Among the others involved were men like James Bowie. I first visited the Alamo in 1992.

There is an old Scurlock graveyard on the Cannon/DeKalb County, Tennessee county lines, near Woodbury and Gassaway. Very near this graveyard is a Spurlock graveyard. There are few marker stones, but some of William Scurlock's descendants are said to have been buried here.

William's 4th Great Grandfather, which would be my 9th Great Grandfather, Thomas William Scurlock, was born in Wales. The Welsh and Irish surname Scurlock is derived from from a personal name formed with the Welsh term ysgor meaning "fort or camp," and the adjectival suffix -og. The family name is strongly associated from an early date (1184 a.d. and 1250 a.d.) with two fortified manors in South Wales, Scurlage in the Gower Peninsula and Scurla, now known as Trecastell, near Llantrisant, in mid Glamorgan. In Ireland the name is found in counties Loais and Offaly. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Joane Scurlock dated 1631, (Baptised) St. Martins in the Field, London.