I received the following email from Debbie Klapaska which is a most interesting assumption that Capt. David Chadwell may have been a member of the Dunkard Religion.
Anyone who had visited the DAR monument for Capt. David Chadwell above the town of Tazewell on breastwork hill will know that he is buried in the midst of many unmarked graves. These were said to be the African American people that either were slaves or were hired by Capt. Chadwell. To learn more about the Dunkard religion a couple of websites have much more regarding their opinion of slavery.
  • Little Dunker Church
  • From Wikipedia Old German Baptist Brethren
    • From:Debbie Klapaska debbiekla@comcast.net
    To: JPayne5744@aol.com
    Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2008 10:01 pm
    Hello,
    My original ancestors to Claiborne County, Tennessee were the Chadwell family. Captain David Chadwell was from Pittsylvania Virginia and he was a Captain in the revolutionary war.
    I'm seeking information on church life during the early years of Claiborne County. In a book that I saw once, about 25 years ago, a woman who attended David Chadwell's funeral in 1833 said that folks back then said that David Chadwell was a Dunkard.
    Also about 25 years ago, someone in my family said that they remembered their great-grandparent saying that David Chadwell didn't fight in the Rev War, but that he gave cattle and food for the army.
    I've researched a little about the Dunkard religion and found that they are like the Mennonite or Amish, the Anababtists, and so that would make sense that he wouldn't fight in the war but he would help in another way.
    I found your church list on the ancestry.com site I just joined. I'm struggling to find my way around. All of my genealogy is in notebooks, from the past 30 years. I have to learn my way around this new way to research.
    Thank you for reading this. Do you have any information about churches in CC-T in the time frame of 1765 through the early 1800s?
    I'm really interested in the evolution of the church structure, in terms of, if my family was Dunkard when they came to CC-T, what happened structurally, or in their doctrine, to become Baptist?
    Thank you for any information you can pass along my way.
    Debbie Klapaska

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