THOMAS WYLIE (1781-1869) was the youngest child of William Wylie and his wife Margaret Grier Wylie, immigrants who settled in Chester County sometime before 1774. Thomas grew up on the family farm in the Landsford area of Chester County. When he was 22, his father died, and the will left a portion of the family farm to Thomas. He inherited the family home when his mother died five years later. Shortly after her death, Thomas was married about 1809 to Agnes Grier (known in the family as Nancy), who was his first cousin. She was the daughter of James Grier II and his wife Martha Nisbet Grier. The Grier family had been neighbors with the Wylies in the Landsford area but had moved to Steele Creek in Mecklenburg County shortly after Thomas was born. Agnes was about eleven years younger than Thomas. There is a Thomas Wylie in the 1810 Census in Chester County, but it appears that he was one of the Fishing Creek family. At some point before the 1820 Census, Thomas and Nancy Wylie moved to the Neelys's Creek area of York County, a few miles north of Landsford. Thomas Wylie evidently received a lease from the Catawba Indians, but the record of that lease does not exist. He does not appear as a lease holder in the book Leasing Away A Nation by Lousie Pettus. However, records of many leases have been lost and she was unable to include them in her book. After the treaty with the Catawba Indians in 1840 ended the leasing system, the lease holders received ownership of their lease holdings. Thomas Wylie received 278 acres as a state grant at this time (S. C. Plat #264, dated 1842), indicating that he had leased this land. The land is bordered on the east by Neely's Creek and on the west by lands of John Roddey. The Thomas Wylie family home still stands. The date of construction is unknown, but the central part of the house is constructed of logs. It is located on what is today Hall Spencer Road. Thomas is listed as a farmer in census reports, but none of them record the presence of slaves. The couple had nine children. The oldest child, born in 1810, was Mary Grier Wylie, known as "Polly," who later married John Roddey, and he appears as the neighboring property owner in several census reports. 

Thomas Wylie was a respected leader in Neely's Creek ARP Church, serving as an elder for many years. William Boyce White, Jr., a local historian, remarked that perhaps Neely's Creek should be renamed the Wylie Memorial Church, since the children of William and Nancy Wylie married into so many families in the church and by the middle twentieth century, most members of the church were descended from the couple.  Thomas Wylie died at the age of 89 on August 21, 1869. He had written his will many years before, in 1842. He left 101 acres on the west side of his farm to his eldest son Samuel. This bequest had already been platted by his son-in-law John Roddey, who was a surveyor. The remainder of the farm was left to his wife. Thomas and Nancy are buried at Neely's Creek Cemetery.  

written by Paul Gettys