In 1751 the name of Kolb first appeared upon the Pee Dee - a name which was destined to become distinguished in after time, and ultimately to become extinct, at least upon the east side of the river.  Several men of this name appear in the early records, viz.:  Jacob, Henry, Martin and Peter.  Whether all brothers, or one a father and the others sons, does not appear.  Peter married Ann, the eldest daughter of Rev. Philip James, first pastor of the Welsh Neck church.  Col. Abel became so distinguished in Revolutionary affairs, and at last sealed his devotion to the cause with his blood, with a son of this marriage.  He also married a Miss James and two daughters were given them. 

  Sarah was first married to Benjamin David, and afterwards to Philip Pledger.  Ann, the other daughter, became the wife of Maj. James Pouncey.  We are to hear of col. Kolb hereafter, and must be content in this chapter to trace the record of Maj. Pouncey and the noble partner of his life.  The father of Maj. Pouncey was named William, and died young, leaving but one other child, a daughter, who married Alex Peterkin.  A brother Anthony, was a soldier of the Revolution and held for a time the position of quartermaster in Murphy's regiment, and a sister of these was the mother of the late Daniel John.  To Maj. Pouncey and his wife were given four sons and five daughters.  William, once the sheriff of Marlboro, married Miss Sarah Sparks, James first married Mary Pledger and afterward
Mary Ferniss.  John married Miss Armstrong and Peter, Miss Adeline Hodges.  The daughters married Sarah to Daniel M. Crosland and was the honored mother of our fellow citizens, W. A. and T. L. Crosland.  Ann married Mr. Smith of North Carolina.  Eliza was the first wife of Dr. Wm. Crosland.  Mary was the wife of Dr. R. S. Thomas, and Ellen married C. M. Cochrane, and not long since was yet alive.  The name Cochrane, although extinct among us, is nevertheless numerously represented both in  Marlboro and Marion.  Thomas Cochrane, the first we know of him, lived on Crooked Creek near the site of the old Court House.  His first wife was a Miss Council, connected in some way with the Pledgers.  The fruit of this marriage was Robt. C., the father of Miss Simon Emanuel; Mary, the first wife of John Hamer, Margaret, the wife of James Bethea, and Rachel who married Phillip Bethea.  And from all these have sprung large families.  The second wife of Thomas Cockrane was a Miss Griffin, whose daughter by a former marriage was the wife of John Rogers, and the issue of this second union was Louisa, who married Henry Covington, who lived at Bennettsville in the early years of its history.  Martha married Thomas Cargill and had a son who died unmarried.  Mr. Cochrane's third wife was a widow Hunter and this marriage was crowned with the birth of Claudius M., mentioned above as the son-in-law of Maj. Pouncey.

     From the old family record, from which the above paragraph is taken, another extract will be here made, although it takes us into a locality a little more distant from "the Neck".  About 1750 Nathaniel
Spears, a native of England, came to Virginia.  While there he married Lidia Wise, and soon after came to Carolina and staked down upon the banks of the Three Creeks.  Two sons and a daughter were born to this ancient couple, when Mr. Spears died, and his widow married a Mr. Trawick.  The
daughter, as we have already recorded, married the second Aaron Pearson.  One son, David, who is put down as a private in Benton's regiment, 1781-82, raised a family of whom one daughter became the wife of Aaron Coxe, to whom reference has already been made, and a son married a daughter of Robt. Cochrane and went West.  The other son, William, married Miss Nancy Breeden, and was the father of a large family.  Among his sons two yet remain in the Hebron community, Lewis and Harris.  Alfred  Parish, Daniel McLeod and Robert Thomas and William Lee married daughters, and William Spears married a Miss Bridges and went to Arkansas.

  It is alone in his hebron family that the name Spears, as derived from Nathaniel, is now borne by living men in Marlboro.  Nathaniel's other son was James, who married Lidia Meekins.  Four sons and five daughters were given this couple.  One son, Meekins, died unmarried.  Another, David, married Margaret McRae and died childless.  James married Deborah Bethea, daughter of James Bethea of Marion and a granddaughter of Thomas Cochrane.  To this pair ten children were born.  Andrew and Edwin, the only sons, both died young and left no children to bear the name.

  Ann became the wife of Thomas E. Stubbs.  Margaret has been the partner of the writer of these lines for forty-seven years.  Martha was the wife of Duncan Moore, Emily became the wife of Isaac Pipkin, and Eliza, first wife of E. C. Pipkin and Rebecca the first wife of Dr. W. J. David.  The other two daughters died young.  Mrs. Stubbs and Mrs. Thomas alone are living.*  Mr. Spears was a man of large brain, great firmness of character, systematic and orderly in all his movements, and Mrs.
Spears was every way worthy of his devotion, and if their name has not been transmitted to their posterity, may we not hope that their virtues will live and bear rich harvests of fruit in their numerous seed.

     The daughters of James Spears, Sr., became mothers of large families.  Two daughters and a son, Nathaniel, married and went West.  Ann married Mathew Heustiss and lived for a long time where John L. McLaurin lived just across the creek from Bennettsville and their descendents were found among the Heustisses, the Stantons and others with whom they have intermarried.  Another daughter, Elizabeth, became Mrs. Jabish Townsend, as already stated in a previous chapter.  And a third, Mary, married Daniel John, and has left her impress for good upon a large and highly respected posterity, not only in Marlboro, but in North Carolina and Arkansas as well.

     Before leaving the Three creeks mention is made of the Vinings.  The tradition, as obtained from the late John Pearson, whose mother was of this stock, is to the effect that two brothers, Jesse and Jephtha, came from either England or Wales about 1750; that one of them settled in Carolina and the other in Georgia, but whether it was Jesse or Jephtha that became the head of the Marlboro family our informant could not tell.  Neither could the Georgia family, which he had visited and found
perpetuating both these names and holding like traditions as to their origin.  However this may be, the one who came here married a Miss Hilson, according to the tradition, and raised a son and two daughters whose posterity, now bearing other names, abound in the country.  The son named Jesse married a Miss Pledger and had three sons - John, who never married; Thomas, who left a son and two daughters among us, and Jesse, who, with a large family of boys, moved to Georgia some forty years  ago.  Ann Vining became the wife of Aaron Pearson, as we have seen, and the mother of John Pearson, and of course is largely and honorably represented in the county to-day.  The other daughter, Elizabeth, first married William Evans, and after his death she married Alexander
Peterkin, and became the mother of James and Jesse, from whom the South Carolina family have come.  James Peterkin married Barbara McRae.  Mrs. Susan Drake at Blenheim, and Mrs. C. D. Easterling of Bennettsville, are daughters of this marriage.  Jessie Peterkin married Sallie McRae and Mrs. A. B. Henagan and Capt. J. A. Peterkin, now of Orangeburg, were children of this marriage.  William Evans, the first husband of Elizabeth Vining, was the son of a young man of the same name who came to Welsh Neck direct from Wales about 1745.  He had several sons besides this one.

  We have heard of Daniel, John and Thomas.  From one of these our fellow citizen, the late Thos. A. Evans, of Blenheim vicinity, is descend ed.  William Evans and Bettie Vining were married in 1781 while the war was in progress; and for two years Bettie had frequently to hide their only horse in the swamps of Pee Dee while William was in cap.  One son, "Uncle Sandy," as we called him was their first born and after him came Catharine, the grandmother of our fellow citizen, M. D. McLeod.

  Next Lucy, who married a Mr. Thomson and moved West.  Then Elizabeth, who was long known in the Red Hill community as Betsy Huggins; and then Eleanor, who became the second wife of William Thomas, of Brownsville; and the writer was the first born to this marriage
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*Both died in 1895.