Solomon Sparks "a celebrated Tory"--Just as David Fanning was "a celebrated Tory"

 I should have said that "celebrated" was commonly used to mean "notorious." It was used frequently of the murderous David Fanning. I suspect that Grandpa Sparks had spoken his mind loudly but had not done bodily harm to anyone. If he was beaten after being lifted from the canoe, he was not killed, for a couple of records indicate that he survived the Revolution. Some of his sons were Patriots. It was generational, that war, as well as what we think of as a civil war, and a particularly familial civil war at that.

I assume George Parks is not one of my Parkses, but maybe.
Solomon Sparks, my GGGGGG Grandfather, was born around 1725 in Maryland and during the Revolution lived on land partly in Wilkes and partly in Surry Counties, North Carolina. The younger Sparks men were Whigs, but Grandpa was Ornery. Tricked by an appeal to his neighborliness, then assaulted, the old man (fifty-odd was old) fought back, kicking young George Parks--34 years younger than Grandpa--and even when bound hand and foot in the canoe he shout out, "Hurra for King George." What a man! I wish I had inherited just a smidgeon of his DNA.