David Job

David Job was born in 1741 Virginia, a grandson of Andrew Job, whose parents immigrated from Kent, England.  Andrew settled in Rising Sun, Maryland along with several other Quaker families, including that of William Penn.  Andrew’s son, Abraham was the father of David Job.  Abraham spent his life in the Augusta County, Virginia area, where he died sometime before 1750. 

David married Abigail Denton in Shenandoah County, Virginia on 24 Nov 1772 and they began moving south out of Virginia and into the area that was then Washington County, North Carolina (present Washington County, Tennessee). 

The first appearance of David Job in early Washington County is in 1779 when he was mentioned in the August term of Quarterly Court as being the defendant in a lawsuit brought about by Andrew Greer.  He was also listed on the 1779 tax list (image below) for the county. He was an overseer of the road and was summoned several times to be a juror in the Quarterly Court of Washington County.

Job received four land grants from North Carolina, #1035, #1040, #1041, and #1043, amounting to over 700 acres within the county.  NC Land Grant #1035 is the one shown below within the green border and is the subject of this installment of the Early Settlers of Northeast Tennessee project.

This property (green boundary) is in present-day downtown Johnson City and was just north of the property owned by the sons of Robert Young.  The small red number 1 near the intersection of the green and purple boundaries of the bottom edge of the plat indicates a small variation in the deed calls of the William Nelson plat, which is the reason we focused on this property.  The deed indicates that there were graves in this area located near present-day Pactolas Road, but there is now no trace of them.  These graves were mentioned in early deeds beginning in 1794, but are not noted in any deed after 1821. 

David Job died sometime prior to February 1803 and the papers from his estate can be found in the Washington County Archives.  His wife, Abigail Denton Job died in 1819 and her will is on file in the Archives as well.  The graves mentioned in the deeds could be the graves of the Job family, as it has been passed down through the Job/Jobe family that David and Abigail were buried on their property in present-day Johnson City.  I guess we will never know for certain who was buried there. 

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