Robert Looney 1692

Robert Looney

7th great grandfather

Robert Looney-1692        

Peter Grancer Looney-1734                                            

Peter Grancer Luna-1759                                                

James Luna-1785                                               

Malinda Luna-1813                                           

James William Sanders-1832                                            

Elisha Kane Sanders-1861                                         

Frona Elizabeth Sanders-1890                                              

Elisha Kane Brown-1921                                         

Kathleen Elizabeth Brown Hill-1947

Isle of Man

In about 1724, Robert and Elizabeth Looney came to America from the Ballagilley Farms, Maughold Parish, Isle of Man with their family, settling first in Philadelphia, PA and later in colonial Maryland. Soon thereafter they moved west to the new frontier and settled in Augusta County, Virginia on the James River. There on Looney Creek, Robert and Elizabeth raised their family, established the first ferry crossing of the James River, built a mill, grew crops and raised livestock. Due to the constant conflict between France and England, as well as the threat of Indian attack, a fort was ordered built in 1755 around the Looney homesite. This fort was named Fort Looney and was at the junction of Looney Creek and the James River. This fort was part of a series of forts ordered built along the frontier to protect settlers and to keep the French from claiming the territory. Fort Looney was visited in 1756 by Col. George Washington, future first president of the United States. The Looney sons were frontiersmen and pioneers. Some fought and died with the British against the French and Indians. Some were killed by Indians during frequent frontier raids on settlers while others helped to explore and expand the frontier boundaries first into southwestern Virginia and eventually into Tennessee Indian Territory. The Looney sons and grandsons fought against the British in the War of Independence.

In the Beginning: Robert Looney. From a 1974 article published in The Bulletin of the North American Manx Assoc.

Little did Robert Looney, a Manx farmer from Ballagilley, Maughold, realize that when he arrived in the New World about 1731, that he and his descendants would be recorded in the annals of their new land as frontiersmen and patriots. Records show that by 1734, Robert Looney and his wife, Elizabeth Llewellyn, and at least seven sons (they were to have 14 sons!) were in Philadelphia where they joined an expedition into the colony of Virginia. The following year he settled on a patent of 291 acres--for which he was to pay the Crown land rent of one shilling a year--on the south bank of Cohongoronta (Upper Potomac) river, probably near present day Hagerstown,Maryland.

By 1739-1740 Robert Looney and his family moved southward through the Shenandoah Valley, finally settling on a grant of 250 acres on the James River, in what was to become Augusta County, where another Manxman, Israel Christian, had prospered. They later donated lands for the county seat and became influential in colonial politics. In 1742 Robert gained another 400 acres in grants, and became one of the most prosperous farmers in the area, with his own mill, orchards, nursery, cattle and horses, and even operated a ferry across what may still be found today not far from Natural Bridge--Looney's Mill creek. At least three of his sons served in the Augusta County Militia. One of these sons, Absalom, was of a true frontier spirit, trapping and hunting in the rugged southwest of the colony, Virginia's last frontier. There, while living in caves to avoid the Indians, Absalom discovered a fertile valley, rich in blue grass pastures, to which he led his family and some followers and founded a new settlement, at least four years before that noted frontier explorer, Daniel Boone, arrived in the same area to build a fort only six miles from Absalom's homestead. To this day, the quiet valley some seventeen miles from Bluefield, Virginia, is known as "Abb's Valley" in honor of its discoverer, Absalom Looney. 

Indian attacks on these frontier communities were not uncommon, but soon the Indians were to be joined by a new ally, the French, and the settlers were swept violently into the bloody conflict between the British and the French known as the "Seven Years War" or "French and Indian War." General Braddock, the British Commander in Chief, was mortally wounded and his regiment turned to route at the "Battle of the Wilderness." Col. George Washington, Commander of the Virginia Militia, lost some of his men in the same engagement. The picture was grim, no regular army, no militia to protect the settlers. Robert Looney's son, Peter, was captured by the Indians and held prisoner at Fort Detroit for almost a year, dying three years after his release. Another son, Samuel, was killed by the Indians in 1760, and the homestead of Robert's daughter, Lucy Jane, was raided and looted by the Indians. Robert Looney, mindful of his responsibilities to his family and followers, erected a fort (Fort Looney). This was one of the few forts which withstood capture and provided provisions to the militia until the end of the war in 1763. Absalom recalled from Abb's Valley with his family to assist his father in building the fort, was to learn that those who remained in his valley settlement had been massacred by the Indians, a fate which would later befall him at Dunkard's Spring, Virginia, between 1791-1796.

But the end of the Indian wars was not to spare the Looney family. During the American Revolution, two of Robert Looney's sons, Absalom and David, were to see duty--Absalom in patriotic service under General George Washington and David as a Major in the North Carolina Militia. Three of Absalom's sons, like the offspring of his brothers, were to serve in the Virginia Militia, with one dying of gunshot wounds in both legs after his role in the American victory at the Battle of King's Mountain in North Carolina. Absalom's son Michael homesteaded after the revolution in eastern Tennessee, where his log cabin stood until 1919 and where the 1,500 acre farm he acquired at a half-shilling an acre is still held by his heirs.

Others moved westward into Missouri, and are documented in LeRoy Tilton's"Early Looneys in America." Seven branches of the family founded by Robert Looney's sons have extended into more than fifteen states. Robert and Elizabeth Looney are presumed buried near the Reed Creek area of Augusta Co. (Botetourt Co.), Virginia. Another of his sons, Joseph, was a Captain in the Botetourt County, Virginia Militia.