John Dillard

John Dillard
Grave of John Dillard in Dillard, GA with Re-Enactors
Born	1760 Culpeper County, Virginia
Died	1842 Rabun County, Georgia
Occupation	soldier, settler, commissioner
Known for	Establishing Buncombe County, NC and Dillard, GA; Revolutionary Soldier

John Dillard (August 12, 1760 – June 5, 1842) was an American soldier and pioneer settler, and a prominent figure in the establishment of Buncombe County, North Carolina and Dillard, Georgia.

Dillard was born in Culpeper County, Virginia and served in the American Revolution, achieving the rank of lieutenant. A later resident of Pittsylvania County, Virginia, he participated in the Battle of Guilford Court House. Dillard's ancestor George Dillard had arrived from England to Jamestown, Virginia, in 1650. John Dillard resided in Buncombe County, North Carolina, for some 33 years where he was active in the formation of the county and the selection of its county seat of Asheville.

In 1780, the General Assembly of North Carolina enacted a statute granting 3,000 acres (12 km²) of vacant land "not fit for cultivation" for iron works as a bounty from the State to any persons who "would build and carry on the same". At the October term of court in 1792, John Dillard and others were ordered by the court to be on a jury to view a piece of land "entered by Robert Love and William Trodway" to erect iron works and report thereon agreeably to the act of the Assembly.

At the April, 1792 term of court it was ordered that a jury consisting of John Dillard and others view and lay off a road from the Wagon Ford of Rims Creek to join the road from the Turkey Cove to Robert Hunters on Lindsay Creek of Cane River, the most advantageous and best according to law, "which jury is to meet the fourth Monday of May at John Dillard's; William Brittain (who was an adjoining property owner of John Dillard) to attend and qualify said jury who are to report to July court."

In December, 1792 and April 1793, John Dillard was a Commissioner in a local political dispute of determining where the county seat of Buncombe County should be located. It was provided in an act creating Buncombe County that a committee of five persons be appointed for the selection of the site. A dispute arose between two factions of Buncombe County residents on opposite sides of the Swannanoa River, one faction pressing for the county seat to be north of Swannanoa, which is now the center of Asheville, and the other faction demanding it to be at a place south of Swannanoa River which later became known as the "Steam Saw Mill Place" and which is now the southern part of the City of Asheville.