Ruby Brank

Possibly born in 1739.

Possible marriage date of 1757, 1762 in Burke Co.

Rebecca Brank was scalped in an Indian raid near Quaker Meadow (present day Morganton, North Carolina), and was unable to raise her son, Robert Houston Brank. She put the boy with her sister and brother-in-law, who, incidentally, are the grandparents of North Carolina Civil War Governor Zebulon Vance's father, meaning Rebecca Brank was Zeb Vance's great aunt.

While family lore has always said her husband, Peter Brank, died at the Battle of Kings Mountain, he actually died a few weeks prior when McDowell's troops skirmished with Major Patrick Ferguson's militia at Cane Creek, a lesser known engagement than one of the same name that occurred in the same time. This skirmish occurred southwest of Quaker Meadow in the far southern tip of the county.

Two pension statements filed decades later by fellow rebels mention Peter by name, identifying him as having been killed September 12 in the brief skirmish.

Rebecca married again, to another Revolutionary War rebel veteran, James Andrew Miller, and her grave is still identifiable (2019 timeframe) in Henderson County, North Carolina, though the small cemetery has been overgrown with towering hardwood trees and is scrunched in beside a modern housing development in the Rugby community near the French Broad River.

See these links for a story about the skirmish in which Peter died, the pension applications that name him, and a story about Rebecca's grave.

https://allthingsliberty.com/2018/08/skulking-shots-on-the-flank-th...

http://revwarapps.org/s32577.pdf

http://revwarapps.org/s6403.pdf

https://www.blueridgenow.com/news/20060417/graves-hold-county-history

This mentions Rebecca's scalping. Pull the newsletter up then search "Brank" http://quakermeadowspc.org/newsletters/2016/0816%20Aug%202016%20new...