**This research was first published in the April 22, 2026 edition of the Chatham Star-Tribune newspaper as part of Kyle Griffith’s weekly segment entitled “Heritage Highlights.”
Yates family cemetery near the old tavern, photo by Kyle Griffith 2025
During a recent living history event at Yates Tavern on April 11, it was gratifying to meet more descendants of the original tavernkeeper, Samuel Yates (born 1776), and his wife Mary Davis. Their lineage has grown into one of the most expansive family trees in the county. The 1820 census accounted for six boys and four girls in the household, but a couple had already married and moved out. As a note, the following are not exactly in order of birth and may not be a complete list.
The first, Stephen Yates (born 1796) married Mary Terry. Their grandson Coleman Bennett Yeatts (born 1853) settled in Dry Fork and raised an extensive family of his own. Other relatives married into the local Hardy, Jones, Stowe, Powell, Grant, and Daniel families. Former local Congressman Dan Daniel was a descendant of this Yates line.
The second, Letitia “Letty” Yates (born around 1796) married Richard Parsons. Their daughter Tempy Parsons married David T. Yates, a son of the aforementioned Samuel (born 1796). Together they raised two children, but Tempy soon passed away around the age of thirty-two. Descendants of this branch include relatives of Chism, Motley, Blair, Nuckols, and Echols. Some of the direct Parsons descendants settled in the Hollywood Church community.
There were three of the Yates who married into the Boswell family. The third, Thomas W. Yates (born 1801) married Mary Boswell. Many of their grandchildren stayed in the northern section of the county and married into some of the known Pennsylvania German merchant families such as Craft, Shelhorse, and Ramsey. One of Thomas’s great-grandsons, Jippie S. Yeatts, served as postmaster of Hurt for about thirty-one years.
The fourth, Susan E. Yates (born 1805) married Ignatius “Nacy” Boswell. Nacy was one of the final Yates relatives to own the former tavern building. Some of their children and grandchildren also ingrained themselves in the Dry Fork community when they married into local Powell and Herndon families. The fifth, Mary “Polly” Yates (born 1803) married James Boswell. Their branch appears to have moved westward to Floyd County, Virginia sometime before 1850.
There were also three Yates sons who married Lipford brides. The sixth, John Yardley Yates (born 1807) married Elizabeth F. Lipford. Census records show that their family moved to Patrick County after 1850. John’s daughter Susan married into a branch of the Pigg family that connected to the historic Pigg Mill (AKA Jones Mill) site in Pittsylvania County. During the 1870s they moved further west to Floyd County, Virginia.
The seventh, Byrd R. Yates (born 1813) married Julia R. Lipford. Their daughter Elizabeth married Ralph Smith Shelton, a patriarch of many Shelton families in the Dry Fork community. Julia passed away in 1846 when she was only about twenty-four years old, and Byrd remarried a couple of years later to Perninah Keesee, a widow of Mr. William H. Brumfield. One grandson from this marriage, named Braxton Rorer, served as postmaster of the Riceville community between 1906 and 1913. The eighth, William D. Yates (born 1813) married Mary B. Lipford. William inherited the Yates Tavern property following his father’s death in 1836 and sold it to his brother-in-law Nacy Boswell in 1848. Some of William’s descendants moved to Montgomery County and the Roanoke area of Virginia, while others stayed local and married into families such as Midkiff and Worley.
The ninth, George W. Yates (born 1811) married Milly Roach. His life was cut short to around the age of twenty-seven, so not much is known about him or any possible descendants. The tenth, Elizabeth Ann Yates (born 1815) married Giles Johnson Jr. It appears that she passed away around 1842, not long after their marriage. The eleventh and final child, Judith J. Yates (born 1819) lived a brief life of twenty-four years. She remained unmarried and was buried next to her father near the old tavern in 1843.
Today, the number of living Yates descendants is difficult to estimate, though it likely numbers into the tens of thousands. At least sixty-five grandchildren can be identified, most of whom adopted the spelling of Yeatts for their name. Five further generations into the present day leave genealogists with an extensive web of family lines to research. This does not account for the siblings of Samuel Yates who established their own legacies and whose modern-day descendants remain innumerable.