Revolutionary War Soldier: Daniel Toler

Daniel Toler was born about 1757 in Craven County, North Carolina. In September 1774 he purchased 50 acres of land on the southeast side of Little Swift Creek at the mouth of Spring Branch and on Pine Tree Branch. [Craven County Deed Book 21, page 84]  When the Revolutionary War began just a few years later, Daniel (according to an affidavit in 1818) “entered the Continental line of the state of North Carolina during the Revolutionary War with the first troops raised in that state…as a private in the Company commanded by Captain Crawford in the Second Regiment.”

He continues that his term of service expired while the Regiment was in South Carolina, so he enlisted in the First South Carolina Regiment commanded by Captain Turner. While with the South Carolina Regiment, Daniel was taken prisoner after the Battle of Charleston in May 1780 “and was put by the enemy on board a ship and detained a prisoner and compelled to do duty on board until the peace, when he was put on shore on the River St. Lawrence.”

An affidavit in March 1820 gives a few more details of his Revolutionary War service. According to this affidavit, Daniel enlisted in a North Carolina Regiment in 1775 for six months in a company of Captain Charles Crawford. While in Charleston, his enlistment with North Carolina ended, so he joined the company of Captain George Turner until he was transferred to the company of Captain Simon Theus. He was in the battles of Savannah, Stono, Fort Moultrie, and Charleston; was taken prisoner at Charleston; and “put on shore by the British on the Banks of St. Lawrence River in Canada.”

The Revolutionary War ended in 1783, and Toler presumably returned to Craven County after the War. Current evidence indicates he married his first wife (name unknown) and had a son, James Toler, by about 1786. His first wife presumably died, and Daniel married about 12 August 1818 in Craven County to Elizabeth Nelson. [Craven County Marriage Bonds] By the end of 1819, Daniel moved to Richlands County, South Carolina, as evidenced by an affidavit by D.J. McCord on 1 March 1820 that “he has known Daniel Tolar for about six months. He has seen him about the Town of Columbia and once or twice in the country and that he has always appeared to be in a condition of great poverty, Beggingly so.”  By September 1820, Daniel was back in Craven County, where he made a third affidavit about his Revolutionary service.

Daniel appears to have remained in Craven County for the remainder of his life. On 4 April 1821, he purchased a hand saw, an ax, four “weading hoes”, and a grind stone from the estate of Richard R. Laughinghouse. Based on his “Final Payment Voucher Received from the General Accounting Office”, Daniel’s last pension payment was made during the third quarter of 1830, indicating his death about that time.

The story of Daniel does not end there, though. On 17 March 1856, George Bagby of Richmond, Virginia, wrote to James G. Stanly, the Clerk of Court for Craven County “asking to be informed of the names & post Office address, of the children or their descendants of the following men who were soldiers of the War of the Revolution.” Included in the list of names was Daniel Toler. In preparing an answer for Mr. Bagby, Stanly jotted notes about the families of the men in question. For Daniel, Stanly wrote “James Toler only son.” This James Toler is the progenitor for most of the Toler families in Beaufort and Craven Counties.

So, as we celebrate this Independence Day, let us remember the men who fought to make America a free country.

[Updated July 4, 2018, to correct the name of George Bagby–previously listed as George Bagley. A newspaper advertisement in the January 29, 1858, issue of the Richmond Whig, Bagby advertised he was willing to purchase Bounty Land Warrants and US Land Scrip “at full market value in cash.”]