The mysterious case of William Powell

Confirmed present at the Battle of Moore’s Creek Bridge was a private named William Powell, regiment unknown. That his regiment was not listed is not altogether uncommon as in many cases, privates were simply listed as being present without any further detail provided.

However, Powell is something of a mystery in that there appears to be no other reference to him anywhere. Apart from the roster of participants at Moore’s Creek Bridge, he is not mentioned again among the lists of North Carolina Patriots at any time during the War and there appears to be no record of him applying for a war pension or land grants in the years that followed independence.

Based on such a lack of information, it would be easy to put him to one side as an impossible case and all but forget him. 

However, something intrigued me about this mysterious militiaman.

Most likely, the thing that gnawed away at my subconscious was his name: Powell is as Welsh a surname as it is possible to get. It stems from the Welsh name ap Howell, meaning son of Howell. The same is true of names such as Bowen (ap Owen), Probert (ap Robert) and Price or Preece (ap Rhys).

Therefore, I refused to put William Powell aside and instead pulled on my lateral thinking cap and began to dig. What follows is based on speculation, educated guesswork and a whole lot of stitching together of known facts and histories.

Men who joined the North Carolina county militias during the early part of the War signed up for a six-month duty, with recruitment beginning in earnest in the autumn of 1775. Given that Powell was present with his unknown regiment at Moore’s Creek Bridge in February of 1776, it seems fair to surmise that he was not a raw recruit and had been part of his local militia for at least a few months. It seems likely then that he was part of the autumn recruitment and his ‘tour’ ended in the spring of 1776, at which point he disappears from the rolls and from history.

However, on May 1, 1776, – just weeks after Powell’s six-month tour with his local militia ended – a man named William Vowell enlisted with the 6th North Carolina Regiment of George Washington’s Continental Army. Vowell signed up for three years. On September 9, 1778, he was transferred to the 1st North Carolina Regiment. On March 12, 1779, he re-enlisted and remained with 1st North Carolina Regiment for the duration of the Revolutionary War.

He is known to have served under the overall command of General Francis Marion, the “Swamp Fox,” and also under General Nathanael Greene and Major General Horatio Gates.

Vowell is believed to have been captured by the British after a disastrous defeat under the leadership of Gates at the Battle of Camden but was able to escape. He then went on to fight in both the Battle of Kings Mountain, which was a victory for the Patriots, and the Battle of Cowpens, a significant turning point in the war.

However, there is no record of Vowell after the war – no land grants and no pay vouchers, nor any other record of any kind.

However, a William Voyles was paid nine pounds and four shillings in May 1782 for military service and in May 1783, William Voiles was paid nine pounds two shillings, yet there is no record of a William Voyles or a William Voiles ever serving in the Revolutionary War.

There is no doubt that William Voyles/Voiles and William Vowell are one and the same person.

In the years after the war, William Voyles was issued a number of grants along Coldwater Creek in Mecklenburg, later known as Cabarrus, County, North Carolina. Additional land grants in the same area were also issued to a Thomas Voils and a James Voiles at roughly the same time.

Modern descendants of the Voyles family have confirmed through their own research that William Voyles and William Vowell were the same man. They have also shown that William, Thomas and James were three of four brothers who set sail from Pembrokeshire in West Wales along with their father Jacob and fourth brother, John, in 1755, arriving in Charleston, South Carolina, later that same year.

According to family history, Joseph ran up a debt with the ship’s captain while on the voyage and upon arrival in America, the then 14-year-old William was indentured for four years as a deckhand to pay off what his father owed. What seems more likely is that William was indentured to cover the cost of the tickets for his brothers and father. Either way, the issue caused a rift between William and his father that would never heal and, upon completion of his service as a deckhand, he settled in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, while his father remained in South Carolina.

It is also known that while serving as a deckhand and in the years after, William remained in regular contact with his Uncle David back in Wales. It is said that William encouraged David to follow and start a new life in America. David is known to have eventually emigrated from Wales to the US at some point in the 1780s, settling in Mecklenburg County.

William Voyles had 11 children, including a son named Rolin, born 1778, another named David (born 1787) and a daughter Rachel (born 1775). All of William’s the children were born in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina.

In the family records of Rolin Voyles of Indiana, there are details of a letter from the granddaughter of “Revolutionary War veteran, William Voyles”, who she says was born in Wales. The letter describes an exchange between herself and her cousin who was descended from David Voyles of Mecklenburg County. She states that David was also born in Wales.

The letter describes how Rolin (along with brother David and sister Rachel) had made their way from North Carolina to Indiana. Rolin and David had a ‘falling out’ on the journey. Rolin and Rachel subsequently spent a year in Kentucky while David continued on alone.

On his journey, David stayed for a short time with a man named Townsend – “his father’s old Revolutionary messmate”.

There is only one man named Townsend listed anywhere in the roster of North Carolina soldiers during the Revolutionary War – George Townsend, of the Mecklenburg County Regiment.

Townsend joined the regiment in late 1775 and remained on its roster until at least 1781 – and possibly until the end of the war in 1783. Townsend did not at any time join the Continental Army by enlisting with any of the North Carolina Regiments, remaining instead in the county militia for the duration of the war.

Townsend could not possibly have been a ‘messmate’ of William Voyles or Vowell while he was a member of 6th or 1st North Carolina Regiments. To have been Townsend’s ‘messmate’, William must have been in the Mecklenburg County Regiment at some point during the war.

The date of Townsend’s initial enrolment with the militia appears to tie in exactly with that of the mysterious William Powell.

Here is where things become even more interesting.

While it is not impossible that a family named Voyles or Voiles or even Vowell lived in Pembrokeshire in the early 1700s, the name would be something of an oddity. Welsh uses a slightly different alphabet to English and has no letter ‘V’. Instead, the letter ‘F’ produces a similar sound to the English letter ‘V’ and ‘FF’ a similar sound to a single English ‘F’, so a place such as Ffairfach is pronounced Fairvach.

Additionally – though records are sparse and far from complete, there is no record of anyone named Voyles, Voiles or Vowell sailing from any port in the UK to anywhere in America at any time during the 1750s. There are, however, records relating to individuals named Joseph Powell, William Powell, Thomas Powell, James Powell and John Powell arriving in South Carolina in 1755.  

Similarly, there is no record of any David Voyles/Voils/Vowell emigrating to the US from the UK. There is however a record of a David Powell arriving in South Carolina in 1783.

We know that men from the Mecklenburg County Regiment were present at the Battle of Moore’s Creek Bridge, and records show that many of them are simply listed by name but with no reference to their regiment – as is the case with William Powell.

It is my belief, therefore, that not only was William Powell, who was present at the Battle of Moore’s Creek Bridge, a member of the Mecklenburg  County Regiment, but that he is the William Vowell/Voyles/Voiles, who served first with the 6th and then the 1st North Carolina Regiments for the duration of the war, taking part in some of the most important battles to have shaped the history of the South and that of the entire United States.

It is my view that in a time of mass illiteracy, it was not uncommon for the spelling and pronunciation of a name to slip over time – as shown by the accepted slip from Vowell to Voyles/Voiles, especially when you add a Welsh accent into the mix.

William Powell/Voyles might well remain, to some degree, a mystery, but his journey from poverty in West Wales to indentured deckhand and then Revolutionary war hero is a story worth telling.