History
of Old Rappahannock, Essex County, Virginia and Caroline County, Virginia
Index to Marriages of Old Rappahannock and
Essex Counties, Virginia 1655-1900 by Eva Eubank Wilkerson. Published by
Whittet & Shepperson, Richmond, Virginia, 1953.
Foreword: Old Rappahannock County embraces land
lying on both sides of the Rappahannock River and was organized in 1656, being
formerly part of Lancaster County which was organized in 1652. Courts were held
alternately on the north and south sides of the River but all records were kept
in the court house on the south side. There are some records, such as, land
grants, deeds, etc. of earlier dates than 1656 which were recorded under the
name of Lancaster County, and remained as records of Rappahannock County after
the division was made. In April, 1692, old Rappahannock County was divided into
two distinct counties, the river dividing the same, the North Side became
Richmond County, and the South Side was called Essex County, courts to be held
on the 10th of each month. Records of deeds, wills and court orders from 1655
to the present time (1953) are in the Record Room of the Court House in
Tappahannock, Essex County, Virginia. There is no register of marriages prior
to 1853. Some marriage bonds dating back to 1804 have been recently recorded in
the marriage register which began in 1853 and is known as Book One.
The author in doing much research and in
indexing old records found many marriages with record proof and began an Index
to Marriages. By reading all deeds, wills, court orders and land trials, she
has secured a large number of marriages to which have been added marriages from
the Marriage Register from 1853 to 1900, also Marriage Bonds now recorded in
this book. The date of marriages shown in deeds, wills and court orders is the
date of the record in which the marriage is found and not the date of the
marriage, these having only the year given and no month nor day.
Terms used in reference, "D" Deeds, "W" Willis, "O" Court Orders, "D&W" both Deeds and Willis, Box 101, "C", "D", Etc. is Steel Box numbered 101, containing original papers, such as Deeds, Wills, Powers of Attorney, etc. The letter "C", "D," etc. represent the folder in which the papers are filed according to dates.
Colonial Caroline: A History of Caroline County, Virginia by T. E. Campbell, published in 1954.
When the English settlers built Fort Mattapony
its site was located in New Kent County. At that time all of Caroline’s
Mattapony and Pamunkey valleys’ lands were in New Kent and its Rappahannock
lands were in Rappahannock, a county long since extinct.
The political genesis of Caroline is as
complicated as the genealogies of many of its leading families, but if a lucid
history of the county is to be recorded it must be set out here. From the time
of Captain John Smith first explored its rivers in 1607-08 until 1634 its area
remained, so far as the white man was concerned, Indian country. When the
Virginia House of Burgesses divided the colony into its eight original
political subdivisions in 1634 it became, nominally at least, along with all
the other land north of the watershed between the James and the York basins, a
part of the shire of Charles River. Eights years later the Burgesses changed
the name of Charles River to York without changing its boundaries and Caroline
became a part of York.
All of Caroline remained in York until 1648
when the Burgesses cut off the Potomac and Rappahannock valleys from that
county and formed a new county which they called at first Chickacoan, and a
short time later Northumberland. This division placed the lands that were to
become Caroline in two political subdivisions; its lands along the Pamunkey and
the Mattapony remained in York while its lands along the Rappahannock went to
Northumberland. This split lasted for seventy nine years, which is almost on
quarter of Caroline’s total recorded history. The two sections were not
reunited under the same local government until the Burgesses established
Caroline, as a county, in 1727.
The Rappahannock Valley was not long part of Northumberland.
In 1652 the Burgesses separated it from the Potomac Valley and put it in a new
county which they called Lancaster. This new county they split four years later
along the north and south line which now divides Lancaster from Richmond County,
and Middlesex from Essex. The area to the east remained Lancaster and the area
to the west became Rappahannock. The Rappahannock Valley section of Caroline
was a part of Rappahannock County for thirty-six years, that is until 1692 when
the Burgesses obliterated that county and placed its lands north of the
Rappahannock River in Richmond and its lands south of the river in Essex. From
1692 until Caroline was established as a county in 1727, Caroline’s
Rappahannock River valley was a part of Essex.
Caroline south of the Rappahannock-Mattapony
watershed was a part of York until the House of Burgesses organized New Kent in
1654 and fixed its boundaries as extending from Scimino Creek on the east to
the headwaters of the Pamunkey and the Mattapony on the west. This act placed a
portion of Caroline in a political subdivision by metes and bounds for the
first time.
New Kent retained its original limits for
thirty-seven years. In 1691 the Burgesses split it along the Pamunkey and
established King and Queen County north of the river. This division put all of
Caroline between the Mattapony-Rappahannock watershed and the Pamunkey River in
King and Queen. Here the lands north of the Mattapony remained for thirty-six
years, but the lands south of the river became a part of King William ten years
later when the Burgesses created that county from King and Queen’s land between
the Pamunkey and the Mattapony.
This was the last change in territorial
jurisdiction before the Burgesses reunited the three narrow strips, which were
at the time the heads of Essex, King and Queen and King William, and set up
Caroline. The first English settlers came to Caroline, when the area, that was
to become the county, was split between Rappahannock and New Kent. The white
man claimed title to over ninety per cent of its area while it was still
divided between Essex, King and Queen and King William. To write a complete
history of Caroline the research student must carefully study the papers
concerning these five counties, which record events that happened before
Caroline was organized, because as Minerva sprang full grown from the head of
Jove so Caroline sprang full grown from the heads of Essex, King and Queen and
King William.
Page 18
Although the lands between the Golden Vale and
the present-day Caroline-Essex line and the land along the north side of the
Mattapony westward from the mouth of the Marocossic Creek was filling rapidly
with English settlers before Bacon’s Rebellion, the white man showed little
inclination to take up land elsewhere in the area to be Caroline. Besides the
patents of Smith and Taliaferro at Snow Creek and Henry Corbin eastward from
Ware Creek and the Lewis, Warner and Hoomes grants in the upper Mattapony
Valley there were only two other grants prior to 1676. In 1672 Col. Thomas
Goodrich patented 2,200 acres on Tuckahoe Creek and Francis and Anthony
Thornton took up 2,740 acres on the north side of the Mattapony above the
stream’s major fork. The Thornton brothers, Francis and Anthony, were born in
Virginia and used to pioneer life. In the back country they prospered, and in
time their grant became Ormesby, which for many years was a famous seat of the
Thornton family in Caroline County.
John Frederick Dorman, 1965. Caroline
County, Virginia Order Book 1732-1740.
Preface
Caroline County was formed in 1728 from the
upper pars of Essex, King and Queen, and King William counties. The colonial
will and deed books have been destroyed
and the only remaining colonial records, with the exception of a volume
of surveys 1729-62 and some chancery papers, are the court order books.
The Order Book covering the first four years of
proceedings of the county court is no longer extant. The volume abstracted
herein is the earliest presently preserved.
Many entries appearing herein reveal no more
than the presence of an individual in the county at a specific date. In some
cases a few such references are all that remain to identify Caroline County
residents. For this reason the compiler has felt it better to list every suit
along with the references to wills and deeds and other proceedings than to make
a selection of items for inclusion.
All entries appearing in the original book have
been included herein with the exception of those noting continuances of suits.
The final disposition of a suit is usually the first reference given to it,
unless some noteworthy action was taken previously.
Spelling has been modernized and most
abbreviations have been written out. Names, however, have been retained in the
form appearing in the original.