Lusk Family from Ireland to SC

My 9th Great Grandfather Joseph Lusk was born about 1654 in the Ulster Province of Ireland. He lived there all his life, he died in 1722 and is buried there. His son John Joseph Lusk was born in 1671 in the Ulster Province of Ireland. John and his wife Elizabeth Hayes migrated to America with five sons including Nathan Lusk (my 7th Great Grandfather), they arrived in Lancaster County, Pa. and were living there as early as 1730 which sad to say is the same year John Joseph Lusk died in Pa.

Nathan was born about 1698 in Ireland and married Elizabeth Nevitt who was born in England, they migrated from Pa. to Augusta County, Virginia and raised seven children there. According to history the first Lusk's to settle in Augusta County, Virginia were Nathan and his brother John. The muster rolls of Augusta County, Virginia indicate they were in Captain Wilson's Company during the French and Indian War of 1742. Nathans son James Lusk (My 6th Great Grandfather) also fought in this war. Nathan died in 1748 in Rockbridge, Virginia.

James Lusk was born in 1719 in Augusta County, Virginia. James fought in the French and Indian war of 1742 with his father and later was wounded in battle during the Revolutionary war. James served with Andrew Pickens for whom Pickens and Pickens County, SC were later named (Andrew Pickens was a Revolutionary war General and also a 1st cousin 8 times removed of mine—but that’s a story for later). James married Eleanor Smith about 1740 in the Pendleton District of South Carolina (Which is now Pickens, County). James farmed on land acquired through land grants and raised nine children with Eleanor in the Old Lusk house, one of the oldest structures in what is now Salem, South Carolina in Oconee County. It still stands and members of the Lusk family still live on this land today.

British rulers used land grants to persuade colonists to move into new territories, including Upstate South Carolina, and later, the newly formed United States used land grants in payment for service in the Revolutionary War.

In 1765 three land grants from the English monarch King George III were given to James Lusk, "his heirs and successors," together with timber, waters, and with the privilege of "hunting, hawking and fowling," and "all mines and minerals, except reserving to the king all white pine trees and one tenth part of mines of gold and silver," according to the copy of the original grant. Land grant holders also had to promise to clear and maintain three acres for every one hundred acres of land granted by the king, and to pay three shillings sterling or four shillings proclamation money a year for every hundred acres. According to the land grant, if the rent was not paid, or the three acres not kept cleared, the land would revert to the crown.

James Lusk was killed by Indians on September 19th 1786 at Butchers Ford on the Keowee River in the Anderson District of South Carolina. Eleanor died November 5th 1804 in the Abbeville District of South Carolina.