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 (bef. 1690 – 1736) of New Kent and Hanover County, Virginia, with Wife Frances

Vestry Book of St. Paul’s Parish, Hanover County, Virginia, 1706-1786, held by State Library of Virginia, minutes for 8 November 1736; digital copy available at FamilySearch

Or, Subtitled: “Mr. James Whitlock was Sworn a Vestry man for this parish and took the Oaths appointed by law, before Peter Garland Gent.”

Researchers have conventionally estimated the birth of the James Whitlock (bef. 1690 – 1736) who was father of James Whitlock younger, who died between 7 March and 28 November 1749 in St. Paul’s parish, Louisia County, Virginia, between 1680 and 1690. For the sake of convenience, in this posting, I’m going to refer to the three James Whitlocks of Gloucester, New Kent, Hanover, and Louisa County, Virginia, who form a chain of fathers and sons, as follows:

James 1 (1651-1716)

James 2 (bef. 1690 – 1736)

James 3 (abt. 1718 – 1749)