Joseph Vineyard was born 10 June, 1776, in South Carolina and died in Alabama 17 March, 1840. His wife was Hester, whom he married prior to 1798, when their first child was born. In 1799, Joseph appears in Jackson County, Georgia, on page 38 of the Jackson County Tax Digest. Madison County, Georgia Deeds, Book A, page 183, shows that on 7 November, 1815, Joseph Vineyard of Madison County purchased 155 acres of land from Joshua Clark, Sheriff of Elbert County. On page 219 of this deed volume, a second reference to this deed occurs Later on 29 November, 1816, Allen Leaper of Bedford County, Tennessee, sold two tracts of land to Joseph Vineyard. The first lay on the northeast bank of Broad River in Elbert County, while the second lay on Vineyard's Creek in Madison County. In 1817, Joseph Vineyard appears on page 86 of the Madison County, Georgia, Tax Digest. In Madison County on 10 March, 1818, Joseph Vineyard sold 150 acres of land "being one half of the White Plains tract" to John Moon for $225.
The 1820 Georgia Census shows Joseph Vineyard in Madison County with two sons under age ten and one son aged 16-25. Joseph himself was aged in excess of 45 yeas as was his wife. The census records one daughter under age ten, two daughter aged 10-15, and two daughter aged 16-25. Later on 15 May, 1820, Joseph and Hester Vineyard of Madison County sold two hundred acres of land own Vineyard's Creek "surveyed 15th day of July, 1785, and granted to Ishmael Vinyard" to his nephew James Vineyard, Jr., for $525. Earlier, Joseph Vineyard had purchased this same land from his brother John. John Etchison, a brother-in-law of James Vineyard Jr., and Elizabeth Vineyard, Joseph's daughter, witnessed this deed. Joseph, aged 50-60, was residing in Madison County in 1830. The Madison County census shows two sons, one aged 10-15 and the other aged 15-20, and three females, one aged 15-20 and two aged 20-30. Evidently, then, Hester Vineyard had died between 1820 and 1830, for no female her age is shown in this census. On 28 March, 1830, in Elbert County, Georgia, one Joseph, probably Joseph Vineyard, Sr., remarried Susannah Christian. One must conclude that Joseph remarried following Hester's death, for his Bible records the birth of a last child in 1834.
On 18 October, 1834, Joseph Vineyard applied for a grant of land in Chambers County, Alabama, under the Pre-Emption Act of 29 May, 1830, indicating that he had resided within the area "since early in 1833." In consideration of the sum of $199, Joseph received the southeast quarter of Section 35, Township 23, Range 25, containing 159.6 acres of land. Thus, like his father Ishmael before him, Joseph Vineyard was a pioneer into new lands still very much inhabited by Creek Indians. In his application for these lands, Joseph states that in 1833 he had cultivated a crop of corn on them, having possession of a house and field which he had rented to Nimrod B. Yarbrough. According to Lebanon Land Tract Volume, page 133, Joseph Vineyard purchased the Northwest one-forth of the Northeast one forth of Section 25, Township 15, Range 10, East, in Benton County, Alabama, on 2 February, 1837. It was in Benton County, Alabama, probably on this tract of land that Joseph Vineyard died on 17 March, 1840.
