John Whitaker Jr. (c1755-1835), Revolutionary War soldier, NSDAR #A133615.
NO MIDDLE NAME. He was not named John Hancock Whitaker.

Not to be confused with his first cousin John Whitaker (1760-1837) of Mulberry, Lincoln County, Tennessee, NSDAR #A124316.

According to oral tradition, the Keels and Whitakers came together from Pitt County, North Carolina, to what is now Madison County, Alabama, before 1810, before Alabama was a state. The two related families are found together in Colonial records in Pitt Co., N.C. John Whitaker's daughter Priscilla married Jesse Keel, the first of many Keel-Whitaker marriages, and settled on Keel Mountain before 1810. The two related families are among the oldest families in Northeast Alabama and have had large family reunions there for over 100 years.

John Whitaker Jr., son of John and Mary Williams Whitaker, was a soldier along with his father in Pitt Co., North Carolina during the Revolution. D.A.R. applications by descendants give his birth as circa 1755 while some other descendantss give his birth as circa 1761. According to Harold Glenn Whitaker, co-author of the Keel-Whitaker Family, the unpublished revision of the book showed that John Whitaker Jr. was the grandson of William and Elizabeth (Carleton) Whitaker, Thomas and Mary (Howell-sic) Williams. The first edition of this book had published the statement that John Whitaker Sr. was the son of William Whitaker's brother, Robert Whitaker. (And Thomas Williams' wife was Mary Harrell, not Howell.)
The Keel-Whitaker book states that William and Robert Whitaker were sons of Joshua Whitaker and Jane Parker; grandsons of Robert Whitaker and Margaret Lisle. The book includes several references to the Whitakers of Madison County being cousins of the Whitakers of Lincoln Co., TN. The late Ida May Whitaker, Harold Glen Whitaker and others in the family stated the same verbally and in letters, stating this had been stated to them by the older generations.
DNA of John Whitaker's descendants match closely to those of Mark Whitaker (1677-1729) of Baltimore and wife Catherine Teague.

N.C. REVOLUTIONARY ARMY ACCOUNTS, VOL VI, P 33, FOLIO 4, IN DATA; HAUN, Weynette Parks, NC REVOLUTIONARY ARMY ACCOUNTS, VOL VI, BOOK 23, p. 514.

Revolutionary War Pay Vouchers for John Whitaker (Pitt County):
voucher#3, New Bern District for Militia service - Oct. 1782.

John Whitaker Jr. moved first to Overton Co., TN., then to Mulberry, Lincoln County near his uncle Marcus Whitaker's two sons, Mark Whitaker Jr. (1750-1842) and John "Pegleg" Whitaker (1760-1837) (Find A Grave Memorial# 15043953), "living there for two years," then moving again to Alabama 1818-19.
Aside from the references saying he went to Alabama with the Keels before 1810, various censuses indicate he was in Alabama by 1813-1815 when some of his children were born, but different censuses give conflicting ages and birth places of the children, one showing son Nathan born in Alabama in 1813 or 1815 and another saying Sarah was born in Alabama 1815. Evidently John Whitaker and wife Susan were back in Lincoln County in 1820 when another child was born there. They lived in Madison County, Alabama, not far from the Tennessee line, so perhaps they were back and forth for a few years.

Ida May Whitaker's "Whitaker Notebook" (1925) states that Winny Whitaker died in Tennessee and then John Whitaker moved to Madison Co., AL. where he married Susan Graham: "He came down from Mulberry, Tennessee, to Madison County, Alabama. He was one of the pioneer settlers. He was a widower and had seven children when he came to Madison County. … He married Susan Graham and they had 11 children." (Keel-Whitaker Families, p.402). This information and the list of children was recorded from interview with her aunt, Mahala Whitaker Farmer, then aged 85. Continuing:
"Second wife – Susan Graham (She saw this old man and 7 children in a well before he ever moved into the county where she lived. She was a young girl.)" The Keel-Whitaker book p. 402 says, "John and Winnie (probably his second wife) sold their land in Pitt Co. in 1801 and headed west to Rowan County to settle next to relatives mentioned previously. I believe Winnie died there and John then married Susan Graham.
...John (Whitaker) Jr. left N.C. shortly after 1800 and moved to Standing Stone, Tennessee, now named Monterrey. The history of Putman Co., TN. states that John Whitaker was one of the early settlers. John Whitaker III settled there and reared a large family. After a period of several years, John Jr. again moves. This time on his way to Alabama." The latter statements indicate Winnie died in Rowan County, N.C., and that he married Susan there or in Tennessee.

Census records consistently show the first children of John and Susan Whitaker as being born in North Carolina, however, not in Tennessee or Alabama. These records indicate that the oral traditions (and the historic marker at the cemetery) were incorrect; that Winny Whitaker died in North Carolina, not Tennessee, and that John Whitaker and Susan Graham married in North Carolina, probably Pitt or Rowan County.

In 1822: Nathan Whitaker had a land plat in Madison Co., AL. John Whitaker platted the tract for his minor son (as was common), or this was an unknown brother of John.

In 1830: He was in the 1830 census in Jackson County, Alabama, with a household of seven, next to John Stapler and Rebecca Craig, and near Lucretia Whitaker (probably a widowed daughter-in-law), James Troup, John Higdon, Christopher Grayson, and other familiar names near the Madison County-Marshall County line.

This cemetery began as a family cemetery located on the Whitaker plantation, part of which nearby is still owned by descendants today. A portion of the original log house still stands as well.
H. Glenn Whitaker also wrote that John Whitaker Jr. died by 1837 according to a pleading recorded in Jackson County, Alabama on June 13, 1837. That date is the date that his first cousin John "Pegleg" Whitaker of Mulberry, Tennessee, died, hence part of the confusion between the two. According to descendants, these were two separate men, first cousins, and buried in two different graves.
John Whitaker's grave was the first interment here, by the oldest cedar and next to the second grave, that of his son-in-law. He had 19 or 21 children by two or three wives, Priscilla, Winneford and Susan Graham, 7 children by the first, 2 by the second, 11 by the third, and a son named John by each, including one John Hancock and Jack (or Jackson). Some descendants state that he had 21 children. "Priscilla" as the name of the first wife was only a guess or placeholder name for the mother of Priscilla Keel, from H. Glenn Whitaker.

Harold Glenn Whitaker believed that Winnie was the second wife of John Whitaker Jr. because John Whitaker III (b.1785) was known to be a brother of Priscilla Whitaker Keel (daughter of the first wife) while John Whitaker (b.c1798) of Corinth, Tishomingo Co., MS., was known to be a brother of Susan Graham's son William, based on a statement made by William before his death in 1885.

His name has never been found as John Hancock Whitaker in any contemporary record. Some descendants of his son John Hancock Whitaker show this son as John Hancock Whit(t)aker III in their family trees, and therefore some also give the middle name Hancock to the father and grandfather erroneously.

The Whitakers were a very large and well known old family in Madison, Marshall and Jackson Counties, where many descendants still live today. As mentioned in the Keel-Whitaker book, the earlier generations long maintained they were related to the family of John "Pegleg" Whitaker of Mulberry, Tennessee, and often remarked on the striking resemblances between descendants of the two Whitaker families.

Proceedings of the Forty-Fifth Annual Meeting of the Alabama State Bar Association (Montgomery, Ala.: THE PARAGON PRESS, 1922), by Alabama State Bar, vol. 45, p. 216: "WILLIAM JASPER WHITAKER, Lawyer, Notary Public, and Judge of the Municipal Court of Birmingham, was born June 10, 1876, near New Hope, Madison County, and died June 10, 1921, in Birmingham. He was the son of Robert and Frances (Harper) Whitaker, of New Hope, the former a farmer, and a scout in the Union Army during the War of Secession. His grand parents were William and Elizabeth (Stapler) Whitaker of New Hope, and Jasper and Sally (Clapp) Harper, who lived near Guntersville, Marshall County. His great grandfather, John Whitaker, came from England (sic) with seven brothers, and settled in South Carolina, and afterwards moved to Tennessee, and thence to Alabama, a soldier of the Revolutionary War, distinguished for bravery."
The "great grandfather" referenced above was John Whitaker Jr., who did not come from England as stated in the preceeding but came from N.C. to S.C., then Tennessee, and eventually Madison County, Alabama 1819-20. Some later censuses show some of his children born in Alabama as early as 1815. John Whitaker Jr., the Revolutionary soldier, was the grandson of William, said to be one of the seven brothers who came from England, sons of Joshua Whitaker.

John Whitaker's descendant James Oscar Whitaker (190582710) had his YDNA tested by the Whitaker DNA Project before his death. He was placed in Group 1 by the FTDNA project.