HISTORY of PRYOR FAMILIES in WILLIAMSON COUNTY, TN

Green Pryor and Peter Pryor
Green and Peter Pryor, Land Records
Luke, John, and Henry B. Pryor (off site)

Green Pryor and Peter Pryor.  The best source of information on the early life of Green and Peter Pryor comes from a twenty-two page article by Dorris Callicott Douglass, published in the Williamson County Historical Society Journal, Franklin, Tennessee, Spring 1985, Issue #16: Peter and Green Pryor Pioneer Children of Williamson County.  The article reports that the brothers were born in the 1790's in Pittsylvania County, VA and were children of John Pryor and Elizabeth Perkins. When their father died, they and their mother received an inheritance on January 15, 1799.  Elizabeth remarried to Hendley Stone who had a son from a previous marriage and later six children from the union with Elizabeth Perkins Pryor. In 1799 Hendley Stone was appointed the guardian of the two Pryor boys. In the early 1800's the family moved to Tennessee, settling in Williamson County. Ms. Callicott writes that in 1810 the boys went with Hendley Stone to Franklin, the county seat, to declare Stone as their guardian.  She points out that it was the practice to choose a guardian when a child reached fifteen and that the boys must have been about that age in 1810.   Hendley Stone's records of the boys' expenses showed that the boys were boarded at Harpeth Academy.  In 1816 Stone submitted his records of expenses to the court, so it's probable that Peter and Green Pryor had turned twenty-one years old.

Researcher Melody Pryor located a Congressional Bill on the Library of Congress website that offers insight in to the whereabouts of Peter and Green Pryor after 1816.  In 1818 they purchased land in Claiborne Co., MS --the owner did not hold proper title.  By the time the bill seeking relief was filed in 1836, Peter Pryor was deceased and Green Pryor was living in Hardeman Co., TN. 

By 1820 Peter and Green Pryor were counted on the Census in Maury Co., TN. Researcher Dee Dee Rypka located a deed for land purchased by Peter and Green Pryor in St. Louis, MO in 1818. The purchase was published in the Missouri Republican Newspaper in 1823, without any indication that Peter Pryor was deceased at that time.

The first three of Green Pryor's children were reported by researchers to have been born in Lauderdale Co., AL in the mid-1820's..

Green Pryor and his family were counted in Hardeman Co., TN in 1830 and 1840 which corresponds with his stated residence in the 1836 Congressional papers.

In 1850 Green Pryor and family were living in Marshall Co., MS.