Initial Records for James Whitlock

We know that James Whitlock and wife Agnes Christmas had a son James since an heir of that name is listed in the 22 November 1757 Louisa County settlement of James Whitlock’s estate, which states that the younger James had received an inheritance of an enslaved woman named Fanny, along with ￡2 3s 11d.^[1] James is then named as a grandson of Agnes Christmas Whitlock’s father Thomas Christmas in Thomas’s 29 December 1768 will in St. Martin’s parish, Louisa County.^[2] As the posting I’ve just linked notes, both James Whitlock’s estate settlement and Thomas Christmas’s will appear to be naming the children of James Whitlock and Agnes Christmas in order. Both place James after his brother Charles and before his sister Mary, who is followed by siblings Ann and Thomas.

As the posting I just linked above indicates, Mary Whitlock (Jones) is said to have been born on 15 April 1741. The same linked posting explains why I think her brother Thomas was born around 1745. It’s likely that Charles, as Mary’s older brother, was born about 1739 in either St. Paul’s parish in Hanover County or St. Martin’s parish in Louisa County. Records place James Whitlock (bef. 1690 – 1738), father of the James Whitlock who died in St. Martin’s parish in 1748, in St. Paul’s in Hanover up to his death, and his son James is in the records of the same parish up to around 1740, when he begins appearing in records of St. Martin’s parish in Louisa up to his death in 1749.

If Charles Whitlock was born about 1739, as I think various documents suggest, and if Mary Whitlock (Jones) was born in 1741, then it appears that their brother James Whitlock was born around 1740, and if his birth falls between those two birthdates.  

Whitlock researchers have been undecided about what became of the son James mentioned in the 1757 Louisa County estate settlement of James Whitlock. Researcher Chris Crookston has done very important work on a James Whitlock with wife Sylvia Jones who appears in the records of Rowan County, North Carolina, by 1768, and his valuable research suggests strongly to me that the James Whitlock he is researching in Rowan County is the son of James Whitlock and Agnes Christmas.^[3]

Chris Crookston shows that James Whitlock with wife Sylvia Jones named sons James, Thomas, and John and named a daughter Agnes, as did Charles Whitlock, a known son of James Whitlock and Agnes Christmas.^[4] Both the James Whitlock and Charles Whitlock families ended up in Surry County, North Carolina, Charles in a section that fell into Stokes County at its formation in 1789. Peter Whitlock, who heads the International Whitlock One-Name Study, thinks it’s worth asking whether James Whitlock with wife Sylvia Jones is the son James named as an heir of James Whitlock in his 1757 Louisa County estate settlement.^[5] I’m fairly confident that Peter is correct in suggesting that conclusion, and that James Whitlock with wife Sylvia Jones is the son of James Whitlock and Agnes Christmas. In what follows, I want to acknowledge my heavy indebtedness to Chris Crookston for his research on this line. He has done by far more work on it than I have.

James Whitlock’s Appearance in Lunenburg County, Virginia, Records (and in Granville County, North Carolina, Records?) Before 1768

Though a James Whitlock appears with other Whitlock men as a taxpayer in Rowan County, North Carolina, in 1761, Chris Crookston thinks the James of this tax record was not James Whitlock with wife Sylvia Jones. He thinks James with wife Sylvia Jones was in Lunenburg County, Virginia, in 1761. He explains,^[6]

My reasons for believing this are based on the fact that James Sr.’s wife Sylvia, and her family, were all from Lunenburg County, as well as the fact that a James Whitlock can be found on the 1764 list of tithes for St. James Parish in the county. Further confirmation that this is indeed the correct James Whitlock I feel can be seen in the fact that he is listed adjacent to a Robert and Jessey Bowin on the tithe list. Considering his son James Whitlock Jr. eventually married a Nancy Bowen and even went a step further by naming their oldest son Bowen, this would have to be more than sheer coincidence.

Chris Crookston precedes these observations by stating that Sylvia Jones, wife of James Whitlock, was the sister of “the well-known Methodist Hardy Jones” and the daughter of Samuel and Sarah Jones of Lunenburg County, Virginia, and Rowan County, North Carolina.^[7]

Chris Crookston’s research indicates, then, that by 1764, and perhaps earlier than that, James Whitlock who married Sylvia Jones was in Lunenburg County, Virginia, her county of residence. Note that if he was born in 1740, as I propose above, he’d have been 24 in 1764 and would likely have married Sylvia Jones in the period 1760-4, perhaps in Lunenburg County.

Chris Crookston’s findings suggest that at some point following his father’s death in Louisa County, Virginia, in 1748, James Whitlock moved south to Lunenburg County. Lunenburg is some 90 miles due south of Louisa and is some 80 miles east of Bedford County, to which James’s brother Thomas Whitlock had moved — apparently from Albemarle County, where I think he lived with his brother Charles a few years after their parents died — by 1769. Charles and wife Esther left Albemarle for Surry County, North Carolina, in 1778.

As a previous posting notes, by 1751, John Christmas, uncle of these Whitlock siblings, had a 440-acre grant in southern Virginia, where Lunenburg County is located.^[8] The posting I’ve just linked shows that John Christmas had a close connection to the family of his sister Agnes Whitlock Christmas. On 4 June 1750 in Louisa County, along with Agnes as James Whitlock’s widow, John compiled the inventory of James Whitlock’s (bt. 1718 – 1749) estate.^[9] When James and Agnes’s oldest son Charles Whitlock bought land in Albemarle County on 8 July 1760, John Christmas paid for the land on Charles’ behalf.^[10] By the time Charles Whitlock bought land in Albemarle County in 1760, his uncle John Christmas had moved from Hanover County, Virginia, to Granville (later Warren) County, North Carolina, where he purchased 640 acres on an unspecified date in 1757 from John Hawkins and wife Mary, with the deed stating that all parties lived in Granville County.^[11] On 8 January 1760, John Christmas bought from Robert Callor and wife Jemima more land — 200 acres on both sides of Great Fishing Creek with 40 or 50 acres supposed to belong to Col. Moseley excluded from the 200 acres.^[12]

I’m pointing to the move of John Christmas in 1757 from Hanover County, Virginia, to Granville County, North Carolina, for this reason: according to a family group sheet for the family of James Whitlock and Sylvia Jones on file at the Whitlock One-Name Study website, this James is possibly a James Whitlock who was overseer for a plantation owned by John Christmas in the Fishing Creek district of Granville County, North Carolina, in 1762.^[13]

This information is undocumented in the FGS in which it appears. There is no citation of a source for the information that John Christmas owned a plantation in Fishing Creek district of Granville County in 1762 for which a James Whitlock was overseer. I suspect this information is from a Granville County tax list for 1762. The microfilmed and digitized holdings of Granville County tax lists at the FamilySearch site do not include 1762 tax lists, and, though I find information online about transcriptions of Granville County tax lists in 1762 by Ransom McBride and Jo Anna B. McDaniel that were published in The North Carolina Genealogical Society Journal beginning in August 1986, I haven’t yet found a way to read the transcribed tax records. So I cannot verify whether the information cited in the FGS at the Whitlock One-Name Study website to which I’ve just pointed is from a 1762 Granville County tax list.

I do think this record is worth pursuing, due to the close connection of John Christmas with the family of James Whitlock (abt. 1718 – 1749) and Agnes Christmas. If this citation is accurate, I think it may mean that by 1762, James and Agnes Christmas Whitlock’s son James had joined his uncle John Christmas in Granville County, North Carolina. I think it’s possible that, when James and Agnes’s oldest son Charles settled in Albemarle County by 1759-1760, apparently taking some of his younger siblings including Thomas and Nathaniel with him, as the next oldest son in the family, James (born abt. 1740) was taken in by his uncle John Christmas and worked for him a number of years before settling finally in Rowan County, North Carolina. Lunenburg County, Virginia, where James Whitlock probably met and married his wife Sylvia Jones, is some 50 miles north of Warren County, North Carolina, into which John Christmas’s Fishing Creek land eventually fell. Warren County borders Brunswick County, Virginia, on the south; Brunswick is bordered by Lunenberg on the west. As a previous posting notes, I think the 440 acres granted to John Christmas in 1751 were in Brunswick County.

It’s not difficult to imagine that, having joined his uncle John Christmas in North Carolina by 1762, or perhaps having been a ward of his uncle and taken to North Carolina in 1757, James Whitlock might then have met Sylvia Jones of Lunenburg County by the early 1760s, married her, and then moved with her family to Rowan County, North Carolina, to which her father Samuel Jones relocated from Lunenburg in 1765. I think it would be well worth combing the records of Granville County, North Carolina, in the early 1760s — and please note that I have not done so — for information about James Whitlock.

Move to Rowan County, North Carolina, by 1768

Chris Crookston states,^[14]

At some point prior to 1768 the family of James Whitlock Sr., and his Jones in-laws, decided to relocate to the northwest corner of Rowan County, NC. The earliest mention of James Whitlock that can definitely be attributed to the subject of this post is the 1768 Tax List for Morgan Bryan’s District where he can be found being taxed for himself and a ‘Negro Fan.’”

Note that the enslaved woman for whom James was taxed in 1768 is the enslaved woman Fanny who was part of his inheritance from his father James Whitlock in Louisa County, Virginia, in 1757. This tax record alone proves that the James Whitlock found in Rowan County, North Carolina, by 1768 was son of the James Whitlock who died in Louisa County, Virginia, in 1748.

According to Crookston, James appears again on the tax list in Rowan County in 1772 with one enslaved person listed as taxable property. When his father-in-law Samuel Jones made his will in Rowan County on 6 April 1775, he named James Whitlock along with Sarah his (Samuel’s) wife as executors of his estate.^[15] Rowan court minutes for 2 May 1775 show Sarah Jones and Charles Whitlock being granted execution of Samuel Jones’s estate on that date.^[16]

Regarding Rowan County land records for James Whitlock, Chris Crookston offers the following important information:^[17]

It’s not until 1778 that you find mention of James Whitlock in any of the county land records. On July 28 of that year James Whitlock makes a land entry for 320 acres which lay on both sides of Dutchman’s Creek in what is now Davie County. I expect this is also where he had initially settled when coming to the county because the land is described as including “his own improvement”. The land wouldn’t be officially granted to James by the State until August 9, 1787 which also happens to be three years after his death. At the time the grant is issued, it is listed as Grant #1596 and adjacent “John Beeman and Silvas Whitlock”. The fact that the land was granted to James after his death has led many to question whether this could be the same James Whitlock. To this, I say yes based on the history of the North Carolina land grant system itself. It’s important to know that in the initial years of the land grant system started in 1778 all fees, which included the entry fee, surveyor’s fee, and the grant fee (cost of land) were required at the actual time of entering a land entry. With the land having already been paid for, it was just understood that the individual who made the land entry owned the land, and unless the claim was sold before the official grant was issued, it was issued to the name of the original entry maker.

As Chris Crookston notes, a 7 August 1778 court record in Rowan County compiles a list of persons living in Captain Johnson’s district who had refused or neglected to take the oath of allegiance to the American government.^[18] The list includes James Whitlock, and some researchers have concluded that this indicates that James was a Tory. But as Crookston explains,

In the case of James Whitlock, it was certainly due to neglect and not refusal because he wouldn’t have had any reason to believe he needed to make an appearance having already sworn his allegiance to the State eleven days earlier when he made his land entry on July 28. As part of the requirements to apply for a land grant in 1778, the individual had to swear the “oath of allegiance to the State” at the time of making his initial land entry. This system was set up specifically with the intent of keeping Tories (British Loyalists) from acquiring land that had been recently confiscated from the King by the Colonial government. Further negating the claim that James Whitlock was a Tory is the fact that two months later James Whitlock entered a second land entry on November 3, 1778 for 300 acres on Dutchman’s Creek that was ultimately “made to William Cook.”

James Whitlock’s Death by 1781 and Sylvia’s Remarriage

James Whitlock appears to have died in Rowan County between November 1778 and 20 January 1781 when his widow Sylvia made a petition to General William Davidson which states that “the widow of James Whitlock requests the return of a Negro boy, and she wants to retain 20 bushels of corn demanded of her.”^[19] This information is from Chris Crookston, who says that in the same year, Sylvia filed a claim for compensation that is found in the Revolutionary War Army Accounts held by the North Carolina Archives.^[20]

Chris Crookston suggests that shortly after this date, the family of James Whitlock may have relocated from Rowan to Surry County, where Silvis Whitlock appears as a taxpayer in 1782 in Captain Gains’s district of Surry County, a section of the county that would then fall into Stokes County at its formation in 1789.^[21] Note that this move would have placed Sylvia and her children in closer proximity to James’s brother Charles Whitlock, whose land on Snow Creek in Surry fell into Stokes in 1789.

On 6 February 1784, Sylvia Whitlock was granted letters of administration on James Whitlock’s estate in Rowan County.^[22] Sylvia gave bond on this date with Isaac Enochs in the amount of ￡1,000 for administration of the estate. Note that though it appears Sylvia may have moved her family to Surry County by this point, the administration of James’s estate would have occurred in Rowan because he died there. 

According to Chris Crookston’s notes, Rowan County court minutes for 6 November 1788 state that James Whitlock’s estate had been settled, but Crookston has not found a record of how the estate was settled.^[23] Prior to the estate settlement, as noted above, on 9 August 1787, James Whitlock received (posthumously) the grant for 320 acres on Dutchman’s Creek in Rowan County that he had filed on 28 July 1778.^[24]

Chris Crookston notes that on the same day this land grant was issued posthumously to James Whitlock, a grant for 300 acres on Dutchman’s Creek was also issued to Silvas Whitlock. The grant states that the tract was adjacent to James Whitlock’s land and the land of other neighbors. Crookston takes this tract to be a tract that John Beeman had sold to Silvia Jones Whitlock, which was then issued to her as a grant. He also notes that on 13 March 1790, John Whitlock, son of James and Sylvia, who had acquired his father’s land after James’s demise, sold John Beeman the 320 acres James had entered in 1778 on Dutchman’s Creek, and on the same day, David Anthony and wife Silva of Surry County sold Henry Johnston of Rowan 300 acres on Dutchman’s Creek in Rowan, with John Beeman witnessing. As Chris Crookston notes, the description of this tract matches the land Sylvia Jones Whitlock had acquired on Dutchman’s Creek, suggesting that by this time, the widow Sylvia had remarried to David Anthony. He states, “Further evidence that David Anthony’s wife Silva is actually the remarried Sylvia Jones Whitlock can be found in a later series of Surry County, NC deeds.” 

I’ve relied heavily here on Chris Crookston’s outstanding research regarding the family of James Whitlock and Sylvia Jones at his blog Will The Real Isaac Jones Please Step Forward? For information on the couple’s children, I’ll point you again to the three postings Chris Crookston has made on his blog regarding this family, all cited and linked in note 3 above.

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^[1] Louisa County, Virginia, Inventory Bk. 1743-1790, pp. 39-40. A digital image of this document is at the posting linked in the paragraph to which this footnote points.

^[2] Though the will was made in Hanover County, Virginia, it was recorded in Bute County, North Carolina. Bute was divided in 1779 into Franklin and Warren Counties (Bute then ceasing to exist), and the will ended up in Warren County, North Carolina, Will Bk. A, pp. 105-9. The will would also likely have been filed in Hanover County, but that county’s records almost all burned in 1865, and if the will was of record in that county, it’s now lost in Hanover records.

^[3] Chris Crookston, “The James Whitlock Family of Rowan & Surry County, NC…Part 1,” “The James Whitlock Family of Rowan & Surry County, NC…Part 2,” “The James Whitlock Family of Rowan & Surry County, NC…Part 3,” at the blog Will The Real Isaac Jones Please Step Forward?

^[4] See also “Whitlocks of North Carolina descent from James & Silvia (Jones) Whitlock,” chart WHITLOCK.87 at the linked “Family charts” page of Whitlock Family One-Name Study.

^[5] Peter Whitlock, “Thomas Whitlock of Rowan County, North Carolina,” Whitlock Family Newsletter 32,2 (June 2013), pp. 10-11, online at the website of Whitlock Family One-Name Study.

^[6] Crookston, “The James Whitlock Family of Rowan & Surry County, NC…Part 1.”

^[7] See also the Find a Grave memorial page of Samuel Jones, Yadkin River Plantation Burials, Davie County, North Carolina, created by The Blue Salt Box, and of Hardy Jones, who died in Yadkin County, North Carolina and whose burial details are unknown, created by Joe David.

^[8] See Marian D. Chiarito, Entry Record Book 1737-1770, in Virginia Counties of Halifax, Pittsylvania, etc. (Nathalie, Virginia: Clarkton, 1984], p. 108. Note that the Graves family, the family of John Christmas’s wife Mary, owned land in Lunenburg County: John’s mother-in-law Mary Williams Graves purchased Lunenburg land in 1763 — see Mrs. P.W. Hiden, “The Graves Family of York County,” William and Mary Quarterly 21,3 (July 1941), pp. 256-270; and Evelyn Wallace, “Williams, Graves and Daniel Families,” at the Granville County, North Carolina USGenweb site.

^[9] Louisa County, Virginia, Inventory Book 1743-1790, p. 16.

^[10] Albemarle County, Virginia, Deed Bk. 2, pp. 265-7.

^[11] Granville County, North Carolina, Deed Bk. C, pp. 217-8. On the move of John Christmas to Granville in 1757, see M.H.D. Kerr, “Christmas, William,” at NCPedia stating that William Christmas’s parents John and Mary Graves Christmas “moved in 1757 to North Carolina (present-day Warren County), where John was a large landowner and captain of the Granville County militia in 1763.”

^[12] Granville County, North Carolina, Deed Bk. D, pp. 18-19.

^[13] “Family Group Sheet James & Sylvia (Jones) Whitlock (M1760’s) of NC from Bill King,” file X2432 in “Miscellaneous records index,” Whitlock Family One-Name Study website. Note that Peter Whitlock has marked this FGS with a notation that it contains speculation, and it erroneously lists a Matthew Whitlock as father of James Whitlock who married Sylvia Jones.

^[14] Crookston, “The James Whitlock Family of Rowan & Surry County, NC…Part 1.”

^[15] The original will is on file with North Carolina Archives. See also Rowan County, North Carolina, Will Bk. A, pp. 202-3.

^[16] Crookston, “The James Whitlock Family of Rowan & Surry County, NC…Part 1.” The linked page has a link to a digital image of this court record.

^[17] Ibid. The 28 July 1778 land entry of James Whitlock in Rowan County is in Rowan County, North Carolina, Land Entry Bk. 1778, #1119.

^[18] Crookston, “The James Whitlock Family of Rowan & Surry County, NC…Part 1.” The linked page has a link to a digital image of this court record.

^[19] Crookston, “The James Whitlock Family of Rowan & Surry County, NC…Part 2.”

^[20] Ibid.

^[21] Ibid.

^[22] Crookston, “The James Whitlock Family of Rowan & Surry County, NC…Part 1,” citing Rowan County, North Carolina, Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions Minute Bk. 4, p. 403.

^[23] Crookston, “The James Whitlock Family of Rowan & Surry County, NC…Part 1.”

^[24] North Carolina Land Patent Bk. 67, pp. 200-1.