Mary “Polly” (11 Oct 1771-1832) — m. William McClellan Lowry
unnamed daughter (1773-1788)
Thomas, Jr. (~1771-18xx)
John Thomas (16 Jul 1774-21 Mar 1855) — m. Ellender McDowell on 11 Feb 1799; m. Elizabeth Epler on 6 May 1819
James (1775-1820) — m. Leah ??? about 1797
Jenny (1781-????) — m. Allen Parker
Nancy (1783-????)
William (1785-1840)
Edmund (~1785-????)
Elizabeth (~1786-6 Aug 1792
Nicholas, Sr. (~1787-1878) — m. Nancy Tucker about 1810; m. Temperance Gardner on 15 Aug 1844; m. Sarah Mullens on 25 Nov 1851
Thomas was born in North Carolina, parents unknown. A familysearch.org family tree claims his parents were English immigrants Thomas Norris, Sr. (1718-1833) and Mary Elizabeth Milbourne (1718-1788), who married in 1741 in England. The family name supposedly derives from Norse or Norseman, referring to the Scandinavian invaders who settled parts of the British Isles starting in the 9th century. Online research into the family is tricky, though, because multiple sources confuse Thomas with a Thomas Norris III who was born about 1734 in Baltimore, Maryland, married one Hannah Norrington there, and apparently had fifteen children. Different man. Some sources mix up their children as well.
Jenny was reportedly born in Tennessee (but I bet it was North Carolina), parents likewise unknown. Sources say her last name was Bowers, or Barrett/Berrett. Claims that she was born in Springfield, Robertson County, Tennessee, where she later lived, aren’t plausible, as this town didn’t exist until many years later.
Thomas and Jenny married around 1770. Accounts that place the marriage in 1782 conflict with other evidence for the ages of their children. About 1777, they moved west to the part of North Carolina that later became Tennessee.
Between 1776 and 1783, Thomas served in the North Carolina Line, the North Carolina infantry units that were part of the Continental Army. He was a drummer. He was also reportedly stationed aboard a ship in 1777-1778, deserted after some 8 months, but continued to serve in the Line.
In December 1784, Thomas initiated the purchase of a military land grant of 357 acres at Brown’s Fork in what later became Springfield, Robertson County, Tennessee. He took full possession on 15 Sep 1787. Information accompanying his will records this, saying that in 1787 the area was wilderness, Thomas and Jenny were about 41 and 37 respectively, and there were nine Norris children ranging in age from 16 to infancy.
Thomas’s daughter Elizabeth, age 6, was killed by Indians in 1792. Thomas died in 1804 in Springfield. His will, written in 1802, included Jenny and the nine living children named above. It also directed Jenny to free a slave, Elizabeth Chambers, upon Jenny’s death. I don’t know when Jenny died; some accounts say 1821.
The text of that will:
I Thomas Norris of Robertson County and state of Tennessee being very sick and weak but of perfect mind and memory thanks be to God allowing it is for all men once to die do ordain this my last will and testament and principally and first of all I commend my soul into the hands of God that gave it and my Body to the earth to be buried in a Christian like and decent manner and secondly I recommend that all my just debts be paid out of my Estate --
Thirdly, My dear beloved son Thomas Norris is to take one hundred acres of land out of my tract that I live on ____ Beginning on the South east line and running North for compliment and Fourthly I give and bequeath unto my dearly beloved wife Jenny Norris, William Norris my son, and Nicholas Norris my son my dwelling and spring and all the clear ground adjacent to said house and spring, all my horses and mares, all my cows and calves and steers, and all my hogs and sows, all my furniture in said house, all my tools of Husbandry and when my two sons William and Nicholas comes of age they are to have an equal part with my wife during her life.
Also I give to my dearly beloved son James Norris eighty six acres of land out of my tract beginning on the South line and running North for compliment, and then after they come of age the remainder of my tract is to be equally divided for land and water between my two sons William and Nicholas, and also I give to my son John Norris and also my son Edmund Norris two hundred and twenty three acres of land lying on Duck River to be equally divided between them two for wood and water and also I give unto Jenny Parker my daughter one cow and calf and one sow of size -- and also I give unto Nancy Norris my daughter one cow, and also I give unto Mary Lowry my daughter one cow seven years after my decease. And the said James Norris is to have all the property that he has now in hand to himself without any further dispute. And I appoint my wife Jenny Norris and Thos. Norris my son to be my exectrix of this my last Will and testament, and after my decease i wish my wife to let Elizabeth Chambers free after her decease if she should not be free by law. Where unto I have set my hand and seal this thirteenth day of February One Thousand Eight Hundred and two.
(signed) Thomas Norris. Testified by Daniel Hogan - William Norris, August Ten 1804, this will was proven in open Court by the oath of William Norris and ordered to be recorded.
A family story says that one of the Norris sons was blind, and moved to Pennsylvania. It doesn’t say what his name was.
Polly married William McClellan Lowry (1775-1811). They lived in Robertson County, Tennessee. There are records of three children, although there could have been others:
John (10 Aug 1799-7 Jan 1867) — m. Susan Grooms in 1817; m. Mary Wilcox on 1 Feb 1824; m. Elizabeth Haydock Crompton on 11 Feb 1848; m. Anna Maria Johnston on 13 Feb 1853
Ira (~1801-181x)
James (~1803-????)
William was employed by the US government as a mail carrier, and disappeared while riding one of his routes. His hat was found by a stream that had flooded in a storm. The family speculated that he drowned trying to cross it, or possibly was robbed and murdered. Polly was forced to apprentice out her young sons, but their master treated them cruelly; Ira became sick and died, and John subsequently ran away, with the encouragement of his mother, to join his uncle Nicholas Norris in the Missouri Territory. He later became a Mormon and settled in Utah.
Sometime before 1810, Thomas settled in Logan County, Kentucky. Nothing more.
John, born in North Carolina, left home at age 16 and learned to be a blacksmith. He married Ellender McDowell (1772-????) on 11 Feb 1799 in Shelby County, Kentucky. They settled in Indiana, where all but the first of their reported seven children were born:
Rachel (1800-????) — m. John Rupell on 10 Jan 1816
Charles (1804-????)
James (1806-????) — m. Eliza Espy on 30 Nov 1839
Elizabeth (1808-????) — m. William Summers on 10 Apr 1824
Mary (1810-????) — poss. m. Thomas Jefferson Henley
Meribah J. (15 Jul 1814-4 Apr 1867) — m. Reuben Hart on 18 Feb 1833
Caroline (18?20?-????) — m. Thomas W. Thompson on 1 Mar 1838
John took part in the Battle of Tippecanoe in Indiana in November 1811. According to one account of the 3 Sep 1812 Pigeon Roost Massacre at Pigeon Roost, Indiana, John was one of just two men who successfully defended a frontier house against Indian attack. He subsequently served in the War of 1812, enlisting as a private and being promoted to captain.
John married Elizabeth Epler (29 Nov 1792-16 Oct 1879) from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania in 1819. They had nine or ten children, but there’s little or no data about some of them:
Nancy
Thomas (twin of Nancy)
Eliza Jane “Jane” (11 Jan 1822-8 Jun 1903) — m. John Lough
Delilah Catherine (18 Mar 1824-27 Apr 1905) — m. Joseph Napoleon Bonaparte Bowen on 5 Dec 1844
Zerelda (died age 16)
Sarah Maria (20 Aug 1825-10 Jan 1917) — m. John Lafayette Jones on 7 Sep 1848
George Epler (30 Apr 1831-10 Nov 1908) — m. Anna Lavina Jay on 30 Oct 1866
Isaac E. (27 Apr 1835-13 Mar 1911) — m. Martha A. Mitchell on 8 Nov 1864
John M. (19 Dec ?1836?-23 Feb 1858)
The 1850 census showed them in Charlestown, Clark County, Indiana. It said John Jr. was 17. John Sr. died in 1855, and is buried in Montgomery Family Cemetery, Charlestown, Clark County, Indiana. Several of the children moved west to Iowa and Kansas.
James married someone named Leah about 1797, and in 1820 died in Logan, Shelby County, Kentucky.
William, like two of his older brothers, settled by 1810 in Logan County, Kentucky. Nothing further.
Edmund, like his older brother John, went west to Indiana.
Nicholas has his own entry in the family tree.
https://books.google.com/books?id=8Vc0AQAAMAAJ&q=george+e.+norris#v=onepage&q&f=false -- Family history focusing on John and son George, p. 354
http://www.familycentral.net/index/family.cfm?ref1=5704:472&ref2=5704:473 -- full list of children, but with bogus dates
http://www.karlsplace.org/getperson.php?personID=I3708 -- same info
https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Norris-1962 -- Thomas
https://www.geni.com/people/Thomas-Norris-III/3939491974770029149 -- Thomas’s will; good data, unfortunately mixed up with the Baltimore Norrises thing
https://www.ancestry.com/boards/localities.northam.usa.states.tennessee.counties.robertson/4717/mb.ashx -- question about Thomas
https://www.geni.com/people/Jennie-Norris/6000000026000918519 -- Jennie
https://www.myheritage.com/names/jenny_norris -- short auto-compiled blurb about Jennie
http://www.genealogy.com/forum/surnames/topics/norris/2087/ -- conversation about family history
https://www.geni.com/people/Mary-Polly-Lowry/6000000014139024499 -- daughter Polly, with Baltimore contamination
http://www.tngenweb.org/goodspeed/robertson/history.html -- mentions a daughter of Thomas Norris in Robertson County killed by Indians in 1788
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:Q2QD-SKTK -- 1799 wedding, John
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XXG1-TZJ -- 1816 wedding of John’s daughter Rachel
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XXPD-H6Y -- 1824 wedding of John’s daughter Elizabeth
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XXPM-D5F -- 1833 weddding of John’s daughter Meribah
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XXPM-VPJ -- 1838 wedding of John’s daughter Caroline
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XXPD-5ZG -- 1839 wedding of John’s son James
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MHVJ-BCH -- 1850 census, John
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MCSX-WBV -- 1850 census, Polly's son John
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MHV7-CTZ -- 1850 census, John’s daughter Elizabeth
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MHVJ-TTQ -- 1850 census, John’s daughter Caroline
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/69824196/john-thomas-norris -- 1855 grave, John
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MH27-RPR -- 1860 census, Polly's son John
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:M4NR-CX2 -- 1860 census, John’s daughter Elizabeth
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:M4F8-PJM -- 1860 census, John’s daughter Meribah
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/42881297 -- 1867 grave of Polly's son John
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:M4XH-GGT -- 1870 census, John’s daughter Elizabeth
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QKHM-8ZT5 -- 1830 wedding of an E. Norris
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QKHM-Z1XM -- 1850 wedding of a John Lowry