The following was posted by Ronald Gene Couch on the www.genforum.com Couch forum.  Ron and his family have been researching the Jacob Couch line for many, many years and most of the information I have on Couch ancestry comes from this family.

"John Couch, Sr. was born 1760, and died 1846 in an area along Gap Creek, in Greene Co, Tennessee. He married Sarah Anderson, about 1780. She was the daughter of Francis Anderson, of Caroline and Amelia Counties, Virginia.

Notes for John Couch, Sr.:

He left a will dated May, 1846, which is extant in the Greene Co. Tennessee, Courthouse. A copy is available, also, at the Greeneville Public Library. In the earliest census of the state of Pennsylvania, John is listed as age 20, and still at home with Jacob, in an area of southern Pennsylvania, known as Gap Creek.

Contrary to some stories, John was not a Baptist preacher at Gap Creek, North Carolina, (now Tennessee). He seems to have been a religious man, and donated the land for the first church there, and the land for the cemetery which became known as the "Couch-Pattison Cemetery."  His home was the hostel for the traveling clergy who visited the area, and, in fact, the first person buried in the "Couch" cemetery was not a Couch at all, but a preacher who had been staying in his home and who had taken ill and died. Since it would have been prohibitive to transport the deceased, he became the first occupant of the cemetery.

John was a planter, and judging from the numerous deeds and land transfers recorded in the Greene County Courthouse, a successful one. He is recorded as buying and selling significant "tracts" throughout his life. In his will, he lists three separate "plantations," which he divides to his heirs. He was a slave owner, and the disposition of these human "possessions" is also mentioned in his will."

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