Russell WILSON, Sr.  (c.1720 - bet.1750/1795)

He resided in VA and SC. His daughter, Sarah WILSON, married Capt. 
Cornelius CARGILL. He was called "Neil". He was also known as "Captain 
Neely the Tory" who was killed by Whig partisans in the Spring of 1781. 
He received several grants in South Carolina, the earliest dated in 1767. 
His homesite was located on 400 acres in Berkeley County, described as 
being "situated on a branch of Little River called Beaverdam Branch, 
bounded on the east by land laid out to John Cargill... and to the west 
on land laid out to Macheness Good." His death as described in the 
"History of Edgefield County, South Carolina" reads: "Spring of 1781... 
siege of the Fort at Ninety-Six by General Greene... Col. Cruger the com-
mander of the fort... The Tories under Carghill went up early in the Spring
to the assistance of Cruger... After Cruger left 96, having abandoned the 
fort, while passing down the county, he permitted Carghill's men to visit 
their homes and they on their way passed the home of Captain Solomon Pope, 
where they found three of Pope's men, Aaron Wever, Joe Allen, & Fred Sissan,
whom they made prisoners. Having no place of confinement after the loss of 
Ninety-Six, they took them into a swamp nearby on Mine Creek and put them 
to death. Captain Pope immediately called his company together, hastened 
to Mount Willing and called on Capt. [James] Butler for assistance. With 
their united forces they met the troops under Carghill in the fork of 
Cloud's Creek and Little Saluda, where a bloody fight ensued, in which 
Carghill's men were completely exterminated. It is said that about half 
of them were killed after they had surrendered, so great was the exasper-
ation of the Whigs at their conduct in murdering Pope's men a short time 
before. Only one man was left alive, Henry Etheridge...". Captain Neely 
Cargill had turned Tory in the latter years of the Revolutionary War. 

Previously, he had been in the service of the Whigs, and records in the 
South Carolina Archives bear this out. "Account Audited 1060 (AA 1060)... 
Cornelius Cargill... 31 Jan. 1786 to Estate of Cornelius Cargill for 90 
days Service of a Wagon Team & Driver under the command of Col. James 
Williams on the Stono Expidition [sic] in 1779... 42 pounds sterling." 
His estate was administered in 1784 in Newberry County, but his land soon 
fell into the newly formed Laurens County. What motivated him to change 
sides in the latter years of the War has not been learned.

Sources: 
"History of Edgefield County...", pp.65-68, John A. Chapman, 1898.
"Abstracts of Old Ninety-Six and Abbeville District Wills and Bonds",
p.64, Willie Pauline Young, Liberty, SC.