Joshua Gordon, who first showed up in this area as a Revolutionary War soldier, was undoubtably a colorful character, for he left little traces and scattered pieces of evidence that show him to be a little out of the ordinary. A complete biography cannot be written but there is enough to give us some insight into the man's life and times.

The York District 1790 census shows a Joshua Gordon, but we cannot be sure that this is the same Joshua who settled in Lancaster District's Indian Land on Tar Kiln Branch near Six Mile Creek Meeting House (a Presbyterian church).

The Lancaster District Census of 1800 shows Joshua Gordon in the same neighborhood as families named Morrow, Patton, Spratt, Hagins, Potts, etc., who would be his neighbors for the remainder of his life. The census showed 8 children under the age of 16, and 2 males and 1 female, all between 26 and 45. He had a Catawba Indian lease dated 1811 for 640 acres on Six Mile Creek and Tar Kiln Branch.

It was said that Joshua was a boyhood friend of Andrew Jackson. More than that, at the March 15, 1962, celebration of Andrew Jackson's birthday, the Jackson State Park museum had a scarf pin on display that had been handed down from a Joshua Gordon descendant to a favorite doctor, Dr. S.H. Ezzell of Van Wyck. The pin had the name "Jackson" inscribed on it in a semi-circle and the figure "8," indicating the 8 years Jackson was president. There had once been a diamond set into the pin.

The story was that Joshua Gordon attended a celebration in which Jackson was the main speaker, and that Jackson was so delighted to see Gordon that he took off the scarf pin and gave it to him as a momento of their past.

North Carolina Revolutionary Pension lists show that a Joshua Gordon applied for a disability pension in 1801, testifying that he was wounded in "Sumpter's Defeat" and that he enlisted from Franklin County, NC. He also testified that he was currently living there and had 7 children. Vouchers were issued and from 1805 to 1808 the vouchers gave Rutherford County as the address. There is no way to know if this is the same Joshua Gordon as the once in lancaster District, but no Joshua Gordon is present in North Carolina census.

The York County Library has a typescript of an original manuscript which is in the South Caroliniana Library in Columbia. The small book was written by Joshua Gordon and his name signed with the date 1783 inside along with "John Gordon hand an pen --89". The book is a compilation of "recipes" for breaking spells, ending ruptures in children, curing sores, remedies for cattle afflictions, etc.

This is one of Joshua Gordon's recipes: "A cuar for an Old Soar: Let the pashent tak a peic of pickeled beaf and cut it thin and lay it on the soar which must be dun thre times and each piec Stay on twent four ours and then aploy save [salve] to it which will cuar it sound in a short time."

Joshua Gordon married Hannah Dunbar. She is said to have memorized a poem titled "The Pilgrim" or "Jacob's Dream" when she was a child in England. For at least four generations the daughter of the family memorized the poem.

Around 1810 Joshua Gordon petitioned the South Carolina legislature "complaining of the improper conduct of the Board of Commissioners of Roads of the district of Lancaster". Gordon said there were already two public roads to connect Charlotte and Lancaster Court House and that it was a hardship to add another (those who lived on the road had to keep it up). What is remarkable is that Gordon included a hand-drawn road map showing the roads, creeks, some households, the Six Mile and Providence Meeting House locations, etc. It is probably the earliest road map of the area that is extant, preceding the Mills Atlas map by around 15 years.

The Six Mile Meeting House burned in the early 1830s. Allen Morrow, a neighbor of Gordon, had a sawmill and he furnished the wood and the labor for a new church. Morrow decided the place the new church on his own land about a mile and a half from the old site. The story is told that Gordon was furious and vowed never to set foot in the new church (still standing). However, he would sit on the front steps and the minister would take the communion cup outside to serve the stubborn old man.

In 1844, Joshua Gordon was crushed to death when a tree, being cut down by his slaves, toppled on him.