Frances, Wife of James Whitlock (bef. 1690 – 1736) of New Kent and Hanover County, Virginia: Some Notes

18 May 1756 Hanover County, Virginia, Affidavit of Reverend Patrick Henry, in Frances Hoggatt v. Exrs. of Anthony Hoggatt, Prince Edward County, Virginia, Chancery Court case 1757-01; the case file is available digitally at the chancery records section of Library of Virginia’s Virginia Memory site

Or, Subtitled: “The said Frances Whitlock was poſseſsed of a good Estate and did live like a gentlewoman and further Saith not”

As I ended my previous posting discussing James Whitlock (bef. 1690 – 1736) of New Kent and Hanover Counties, Virginia, I wrote that in a subsequent posting, I’d provide information about James’s wife Frances following James’s death, when Frances remarried to Anthony Hoggatt. As the posting I’ve just linked indicates, after the death of her second husband Anthony Hoggatt in Albemarle County in 1755, Frances filed suit in chancery court in Prince Edward County against Anthony’s executors Nathaniel Hoggatt, a son of Anthony by his first wife, and Charles Venable.[1] The case file for this chancery lawsuit contains valuable information including a transcript of the otherwise lost will of James Whitlock, a document I discussed in detail in the posting linked above. Other documents in the case file provide important details about Frances’s life including when she married Anthony Hoggatt. In this posting, I’ll discuss the documents in Frances Hoggatt v. Exrs. of Anthony Hoggatt in detail.

James Whitlock (abt. 1718 – 1749) of Hanover and Louisa County, Virginia, with Wife Agnes Christmas

Louisa County, Virginia, Will Bk. 1, p. 13

Or, Subtitled: Drugget, Shalloon, and Hanks of Silk, Execution of an Enslaved Man, and a Father Disinheriting His Son

Having completed a series of postings discussing the children of James Whitlock (abt. 1718 – 1749) and Agnes Christmas of Hanover and Louisa Counties, Virginia — Charles, James, Mary (Jones), Ann (Austin), Thomas,[1] and Nathaniel — I’m moving back a generation to share my (sparse) information on their father James Whitlock (abt. 1718 – 1749).

Thomas Whitlock (abt. 1745 – 1830) of Louisa and Wythe Counties, Virginia, and Cumberland County, Kentucky: Establishing a Date of Birth

James Whitlock’s estate division, Louisa County, Virginia, Inventory Bk. 1743-1790, p. 40

Or Subtitled: “[My will] and desire is that the Estate above mentioned shall be Equally de[vided between] my loving Wife Agness Whitlock and her Six children”

Thomas Whitlock was born in St. Martin’s parish, Louisa County, Virginia, around 1745. Or so I have deduced by putting a number of pieces of information together and asking what they tell me about Thomas’s probable date of birth. Figuring out birthdates of people born in the Southern states (and colonies) prior to the 1850 federal census, which first began providing specific ages of those enumerated, is notoriously challenging. Good luck at finding a family bible or a church baptism or birth record in most cases. If you’re fortunate enough to know exactly where someone — this is usually a male, since women unfortunately often do not appear in official documents — was living when he came of age and began appearing on tax lists, that’s one good way to get a fairly accurate fix on a year of birth. Otherwise….