History

This abbreviated Sentelle Family history is taken from the genealogical research done by the family and compiled by Samuel Perry Sentelle. The origins of the name are lost in time but there is a good chance that it was of Huguenot origin. Various members of the family have used the final “e” or not depending on individual preference. The early North Carolina Sentelles served in the Revolutionary War and on both sides of the Civil War setting the stage for Sentelle Grove to welcome those from the north and the south side of the Mason Dixon line.

WILLIAM SENTELL (1756-1835)

William Sentell was born in Southside Virginia on 14 October 1756,1 one of the older, if not the firstborn of the six known children of Jonathan and Ann Sentell.

William fought in the Revolutionary War and saw action at Camden, Guilford Courthouse and then was captured during the seige of Savannah. In later life it was recounted that nothing pleased William so well as to relate his experience as a soldier, and so long as he lived he would look after the welfare of a Revolutionary soldier when he could come up with one.

My grandfather has often told me that when a soldier would come to his father's house, his father and that soldier would sometimes spend the whole night in talking over their hard-fought battles and other hardships in the war. The whole night, at least, would have been needed to retrace the six years of fighting and marching and waiting from Savannah to the Shenandoah. We have a pleasant vision of the "very stout" veteran holding forth through the wee hours. "He told of many bloody conflicts and how he and many others when tired would sit down on dead men to rest." We suspect that he never failed to satisfy the listeners about the open fire in his cabin on Jeter Mountain.

William and his family came to Jeter Mountain after his father Jonathan died early in 1799, and the larger family seems to have broken up about this time. Son Samuel crossed the Savannah into Georgia while William took his family up the river and into the mountains of western North Carolina.

The move was part of a general migration from Southside Virginia and eastern Carolina to this area on the Savannah River in the decades following the close of the Revolution.