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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.
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