Or, Subtitled: A Venerable House Built of White Oak and “Extensive Land Claims”
This posting continues my discussion of the two daughters of Charles Whitlock and wife Mary Davies — Agnes, who married John Grayson; and Hannah, who married James Calfee. I began this discussion with this previous posting discussing Agnes and her husband John Grason. In what follows, I’ll discuss Hannah Whitlock, her husband James Calfee, and their family.
Or, Subtitled: “He was Living in the House with Thomas Whitlock at the time his Sone Charles was killd by the fall of a tree”
The next child of Thomas Whitlock (abt. 1745 – 1830) and wife Hannah Phillips, their third child if I have their children in correct order, was a son Charles Whitlock. A number of previous postings contain biographical information about Charles. As I state in a previous posting, in my view, Thomas and his siblings were likely raised by their older brother Charles after the Whitlock parents, James Whitlock and Agnes Christmas, died, James in 1749 in Louisa County, Virginia, and Agnes between 1750 and 1757, probably also in Louisa.
I don’t have documentary proof of my deduction that, as the oldest of James and Agnes’s children, Thomas’s brother Charles brought his younger siblings to Albemarle County, where he lived from 1760 or a bit earlier up to around 1780, when he moved to Surry County, North Carolina. But such information as I have suggests to me that this is what happened. As the posting linked above states, in my view Thomas Whitlock named his only son Charles after the older brother who raised him.
Or, Subtitled: When the name you ignore in a document turns out to be the key to the problem you’re trying to solve
In my penultimate posting, I told you that, having recounted Thomas Whitlock’s (abt. 1745 – 1830) story up to the point that he and wife Hannah Phillips Whitlock sold their land in Wythe County, Virginia, and moved to Kentucky in 1805, I’d proceed with a chronicle of their life in Cumberland County, Kentucky. Before I do that, however, I’d like to share some important information I’ve now unearthed about Jonathan Jennings.
Or, Subtitled: In Which I Read the Fusty Old Documents and Summarize Them, Saving You the Trouble
As the previous posting tells you, in this posting I’m going to discuss the lawsuit filed in September 1799 by William Davies, guardian of Agnes and Hannah Whitlock, the orphan daughters of Thomas Whitlock’s son Charles, which ended with Thomas’s sale of his land in Wythe County, Virginia, in 1805 and with his and wife Hannah’s move to Cumberland County, Kentucky.
Or, Subtitled: Road Orders, Estate Appraisals, and Dams Interfering with Fishing for Catfish
I’m now picking up the story of Thomas Whitlock’s life in 1790, when Wythe County was formed from Montgomery, where Thomas was living from before March 1776. If you click the “previous post” link beneath this posting, that will take you to the posting that precedes this one, and if you want to read the entire series of postings I’ve now written about Thomas Whitlock, simply click “previous posting” at the bottom of each new posting you open in the series.
Or, Subtitled: In which I share information strongly supporting the conclusion that the Thomas Whitlock of the 7th Virginia Regiment is, indeed, this Thomas — see discussion of Capt. Robert Sayers below.
In this posting, I’m continuing my chronicle of the life of Thomas Whitlock (abt. 1745 – 1830) in Montgomery County, Virginia, insofar as I’ve found documents there for him. Previous postings have tracked him from the time he appears in Montgomery County in March 1776 witnessing a deed of Jonathan Jennings to Charles Lynch (and here and here). The last link I’ve just provided points to a posting that ends with a discussion of Thomas’s appearance on a 6 April 1781 list of men serving in Jeremiah Pearce/Pierce’s battalion in Montgomery County.
As the previous posting told you, I’ll now begin sharing the information I have about Thomas Whitlock’s years in Montgomery and Wythe Counties, Virginia, from 1776 to 1805, when he and wife Hannah moved to Cumberland County, Kentucky, from Wythe County, Virginia. Wythe was formed from Montgomery in 1790, and Thomas’s land fell into Wythe County at that point.
Or, Subtitled: What a Close Reading of an Historical Document Might Reveal
In this posting, I’ll begin my documentation of the life of Thomas Whitlock (abt. 1745 – May 1830) after he arrived in Montgomery County, Virginia, by 1776: in previous postings, I’ve discussed his probable date of birth, and the sparse documentation I have for him prior to his appearance in Montgomery County records (and here). I noted that, after his appearance in the estate settlement of his father James Whitlock in Louisa County, Virginia, in November 1757,[1] the first solid record I have for Thomas — other than a July 1769 Bedford County, Virginia, court record and the statement of the bible of his daughter Sarah Whitlock and her husband Thomas Brooks that Sarah was born in Bedford on 9 June 1774 — is a 1 March 1776 deed in Montgomery County to which he was a witness.[2]
Or, Subtitled: Fertile New Land, Lead Mines, Shot Towers and Forges, and Movement from the Middle Colonies into the Valley of Virginia
With my first posting about Thomas Brooks (abt. 1747-1805), I shared my information about Thomas’s life in Frederick County, Virginia, up to 1792, when he moved his family to Wythe County, Virginia. My account begins with a March 1767 deed of Patrick Rice to his son John, which Thomas witnessed, the first certain record I have of him in Frederick County. Since, as my posting indicates, I have not found information about Thomas’s father, I haven’t been able to track this family line sufficiently to say with any certainty where Thomas Brooks was born — a point to which I’ll return when I discuss in more detail the information I have about Thomas’s mother Mary, who made her will in Frederick County on 9 July 1786, with the will being probated on 4 April 1787.
Or, Subtitled: “A Rough Hardy Race of Men, Very Large & Stout, & Altogether an Excellent Population, for a New Country”
Thomas and Sarah Brooks Establish Their Young Family in Kentucky (1798-9)
In the previous posting about Thomas Brooks (1775-1838), I track him up to 1798, when he moved with wife Sarah Whitlock and infant daughter Jane from Wythe County, Virginia, to Pulaski (soon to be Wayne) County, Kentucky. As that posting notes, when the Brooks family made that move, Thomas and Sarah were a young couple, he 23 and she 24. You may have noticed that the previous postings discussing the Virginia beginnings of this Brooks family cited no records for Thomas in Wythe County other than tax records — with the exception of the record in his family bible stating that Thomas and Sarah married 14 February 1796.
Begats and Bequeathals 