I decided to tackle these families in one post, because they are often referred to together, and in my family tree they exist in a web of intermarriage and relatedness. As a reference point, I'm going to start with my ancestor, Mourning Dixon, and take the web both backward and forward to show how these families are connected.
I first mentioned Mourning Dixon in the blog post, The Fowlers, because she starts a long line of women in my family named Mourning. Her granddaughter, Mourning Crudup, married William Fowler in 1800; they were my 4th great-grandparents. Their daughter, Eliza Helen Fowler, married Benjamin Powell; they had a daughter named Mary Mourning Powell who married James Bell in 1866. James and Mary were the parents of my great-grandfather, Thomas Jefferson Bell; his youngest daughter was Cornelia Morning Bell, born 1903. As far as I know, that's where the namesakes of Mourning Dixon in my branch of the family stop, though her name was carried forward through the families of two of her other children, as well.
Mourning Dixon
Mourning Dixon was born 10 November 1722 in Isle of Wight, Virginia. Her parents were Thomas Dixon (bef. 1670-1747) and Penelope (probably Howell.) Shortly after her marriage to John Crudup in Isle of Wight, her husband bought 250 acres of land in Northampton County, North Carolina, and they moved 100 miles southwest from Virginia to North Carolina. Crudup purchased the land from Samuel Williams of Edgecombe County, NC, on 13 March 1745; later, on 18 November 1748, Mourning and John Crudup witnessed Williams's will.
John and Mourning Crudup had four children:
- George, who married Priscilla Thomas on 3 May 1761 in Edgecombe County. His will, dated 21 March 1764, mentions his brother Josiah and his daughter Mary.
- Mary, who married James Ricks on 3 July 1762 in Edgecombe County. They had children: Mourning, born 10 March 1766; Rhoda, born 5 May 1768; and James.
- Chloe, born 1745, who married Nathan Boddie.
- Josiah, who married Elizabeth Battle (my 5th great-grandparents.)
John Crudup died in Halifax County, NC, in 1753. Mourning was the executrix of his estate, according to the inventory of his personal property, dated August 1753. In that same year Mourning married Micajah Thomas on 7 October. They had two children: Bethsheba, born 20 November 1754, died 12 April 1770; and Micajah, Jr., born 3 January 1757. He married Ann Hawkins 7 January 1778, and she died 12 March 1781. The couple had no surviving children. Micajah Jr. represented Nash County in the General Assembly from 1784 to 1787. He died 26 September 1788. Mourning married once more, to James Smith. She made her will as Mourning Smith on 12 May 1778 and died 29 June 1781. Her death date appears in the Thomas family Bible.
Mourning's will was proved in Nash County in July 1781. Again, I find the items of personal property fascinating, with the exception of slaves, which I just find disturbing. When I read the names of people she "gives and bequeaths," I just get a sick feeling in my stomach. Leaving those out, here are some of her bequests:
- To her daughter Chloe, cattle, an English side saddle and bridle, a looking glass, and all "my waring clothes"
- To her son Josiah, cattle, a desk, a feather bed, and furniture
- To her son Micajah, two bed steads, "one dozen and a half" chairs, one table
- To her grandson James Ricks, 25 pounds "proc. money," if he lives to age 21 [Mercy, I had a hard time finding out what "proc. money" was! Because of a shortage of currency, colonies set a value on commodities, like tobacco, used in place of currency, by proclamation, hence "proc. money"]
- To her granddaughter Mourning Ricks, a feather bed, furniture, and 100 pounds proc. money, at age 21 or when she married
- To her granddaughter Rhoda Ricks, a feather bed, furniture, side saddle and bridle
The executors, Nathan Boddie and Josiah Crudup, were to sell the rest of the estate to pay the legacies, and the bequests for the minor grandchildren were to remain in their hands until age 21, or until the girls married. Anything that remained after the legacies were paid was to be divided between Chloe and Josiah. The will was witnessed by Stephen Young, John Biggs, and James Smith.
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| Descendants of Mourning Dixon through 6 generations |
The Dixons
Thomas Dixon (I'm going to call him II) and Penelope Howell were Mourning's parents. Thomas II died in 1747. Most of the information on this family comes from Thomas's will. I first found an abstract of the will in Wills and Administrations of Isle of Wight County, Virginia, 1647-1800 by Blanche Adams Chapman, but I really wanted to see the entire will. I finally stumbled across it on Ancestry in their database, "North America, Family Histories, 1500-2000," which "contains genealogical research privately published in one thousand family history books," the focus being "families from the 18th and 19th centuries, especially those with Revolutionary War and Colonial ties." I really mean I stumbled across it, as Dixon is not indexed in the database but appears as a section in the book, Boddie and Allied Families by John Thomas Boddie, published 1918, which is included in the database. The Dixon section, which includes a transcript of Thomas's will, begins on page 104.
The will was dated 26 April 1746 (Will Book 5, page 141) and was probated 12 January 1748. He gives to his son William "all that land I bought of Godfrey Hunt, it being the same land and plantation whereupon my son Thomas lived." [What happened to Thomas? Thoughts below.] He also gets "appurtenances thereof," plus a feather bed and a chest with lock and key. Son Nicholas (who is also executor, along with his mother Penelope) and daughter Martha (married to Thomas Pearse) are to split 200 acres that Thomas II bought from Benjamin Corbell, with Martha and her husband retaining the part they lived on. Nicholas also gets a feather bed, a chest with lock and key, and a gun.
Grandson Thomas gets "all that land and plantation whereon I now live," with his grandmother to have "the use and occupation of the said land for her natural life." Penelope also gets Thomas's still, which goes to Nicholas and William after her death, "both to have the benefit alike only my desire is that it shall stand upon my son William's plantation..." [I'm guessing a still is just what I think it is.] The remaining part of his estate was to be divided equally among his wife and children: "Nicholas and William, Martha, wife to Thomas Pearse, Penelope, wife to Joseph Bullock, Mourning, wife to John Crudup, and Patience, wife to Jonas Shivers."
So what happened to son Thomas (III), whose former plantation goes to son William? At first, I thought that he must have died, leaving a son Thomas for whom Thomas II provided in his will. However, that doesn't appear to be the case. Some descendants show him living in Isle of Wight until his death in 1764. Another Thomas Dixon wrote a will in Isle of Wight in 1791, leaving bequests to wife Penelope, sons William and Murphy, and daughters Betsey, Penelope, Mary, and Martha, although that could just as easily have been the grandson Thomas who inherited Thomas II's "land and plantation," or someone else altogether. Others point to a Thomas Dixon who died in Edgecombe County, NC, in 1790, leaving bequests to sons Thomas and William, grandsons Nicholas, Hickman, and Thomas, and daughters Elizabeth and Jemima. This Thomas left his lands and plantation to his grandson William, son of William.
Any of these could be Thomas III, and I can certainly see why it's confusing to researchers to find the same names in the same places in succeeding generations and try to pinpoint to which family they belong. I'm sure for those that are descendants of Thomas III there are land or court records that could help them figure it out. I still think it's weird that Thomas III isn't even mentioned in Thomas II's will, except as the former resident of the plantation that Thomas II leaves to William.
In addition to his own will, Thomas II appears in several other records of Isle of Wight County, beginning in 1712 when he was witness to the will of Benjamin Beal. In 1724 he bought land. On 20 March 1731 he witnessed the will of John Howell. Early genealogical histories give no maiden name for Thomas II's wife, Penelope, but many researchers think it likely that she was Penelope Howell, daughter of John Howell and Elizabeth Surbey. The will of John Howell that Thomas Dixon witnessed was also witnessed by Thomas's son-in-law, Joseph Bullock. In his will Howell left bequests to his wife; his brother William; James, Samuel, and Martha Howell; and "daughter Penelope."
Thomas II's year of birth is given as before 1670, as that was the year that his father, Thomas I, died. Thomas I left a widow, Marie, and sons Thomas II and Henry. The appraisal of Thomas I's estate was signed by Henry Martin, "who married the relictt of Thomas Dixon 25 October 1670." That was fast work! Henry and Marie had a son that they also named Henry. "On the 3rd day of the 5th month of 1678" William Boddie gave a gift of cattle to all three of Marie's children. Marie has been identified by researchers as the sister of William Boddie.
When Boddie and Allied Families was published in 1918, the author wrote that Thomas Dixon I was "possibly the first of this family in Virginia." Since that time, a few researchers have tried to push that back a generation. I have seen both the names Adam Dixon and Nicholas Dixon put forth as candidates for the first Dixon in Virginia. While I have not done the research myself, I tend towards Nicholas for the simple reason that that given name, along with Thomas, appears over and over in the Dixon family.
In 2018 the file manager for the Dixon Surname Project prepared a transcript of the Dixon research of Bill Murphy that resides at the Joyner Library at East Carolina University. You can see it here. Murphy proposed that Nicholas Dixon was the first ancestor of the Dixon family in Virginia.
"He first appears in October, 1646, when he is one of three persons transported to Virginia by Thomas Babe of Upper Norfolk County. He must have either brought some wealth with him into Virginia or have achieved a fair measure of wealth in a short time for almost two years in later, in November, 1648, he is granted 300 acres in Nansemond County for transporting six people to Virginia."
Murphy repeats the family legend told to him by a descendant that the Dixons came from the Scots border country via England and then to Virginia "for religious reasons, they being members of the Quaker Religion." Nicholas is "known" to have had at least four children (no proof given): Nicholas, John, William (died 1677 Isle of Wight VA; md. Frances), and Thomas. There was indeed a William Dixon of Isle of Wight who appointed his wife Frances as executrix of his estate by his will, dated 9 April 1677.
Also see Murphy for his take on Thomas III and his descendants.
The Boddies
If it weren't for genealogists named Boddie, we wouldn't be so well-informed about the early history of Virginia and the South. From Elijah Boddie who wrote a "short manuscript history" of the Boddie family in 1840 to his nephew, John Thomas Boddie, who wrote Boddie and Allied Families in 1918 to John Bennett Boddie who contributed over 30 volumes of Southern genealogy in the 20th century, authors named Boddie have contributed genealogical information to the family researcher for over 100 years. In fact, many of their works are still available to genealogists and many of them are now online.
The Boddies are also definitely in the web of families surrounding my ancestor, Mourning Dixon. But are they my direct ancestors? I'm not sure. As I mentioned above, many researchers identify the wife of Thomas Dixon I as Marie/Mary Boddie, sister of William Boddie. Much is known about William Boddie, but not so much about Marie.
John and Mary (Haeward) Boddie of Ingatestone, Essex, are often named as the parents of William and Mary. John was buried in Ingatestone, Essex, on 11 August 1640, leaving a widow, Mary, who was granted Letters of Administration to his estate on 4 September 1640. John and Mary had five children, the two oldest being William, baptized 1633, and Mary, baptized 18 May 1635. John was connected to the Mildmay family through his mother. Sir Thomas Mildmay and Sir Henry Mildmay were shareholders and officers of the London Company of Virginia, an organization dedicated to bringing settlers to Virginia.
Both John Thomas Boddie and John Bennett Boddie made the tentative connection between William Boddie of Essex and William Boddie of Virginia, but neither of them made the same claim about Mary, as far as I can see, and she was not listed with William, wife Ann, daughter Mary, and Mary's future husband, John Browne, on the list of the 56 transportees to Virginia for which William received a grant of 3,350 acres in 1665.
The identification of Mary/Marie Dixon Martin as William's sister Mary probably stems from William's gift of cattle to Marie Martin's three sons in 1678. However, records indicate that William gave cattle to many children of his tenants because God had encouraged him to do so "by his good spirit in my heart." This statement of heartfelt generosity; the wording of the date in the Quaker way, "3rd day of the 5th month"; the fact that he didn't own slaves; and connections with the Quaker community in Isle of Wight have persuaded researchers that William was Quaker, at least for about ten years of his life.
William's history has given me a good background for understanding Isle of Wight and the community around William's home there, but I don't think it has convinced me that Marie Dixon Martin was William's sister. Maybe eventually I will find something that persuades me. For now I have just not found any evidence that the mother of my Thomas II was a Boddie. To find my family's connection to the Boddies, I'll have to move several generations forward.
In Isle of Wight William and his wife Anna settled on Cypress Creek where it ran into Pagan River about 20 miles from Jamestown. With its view of the James River Valley the location was "admirably situated for a beautiful home." Anna, with whom he had daughter Mary, was his first wife. His second wife, Elizabeth, was the mother of John and Elizabeth. John, born about 1685, married Elizabeth Thomas, and died in March 1720, leaving two minor sons, William and John.
William, the eldest, married Mary Bennett, daughter of William Bennett. Sometime in or before 1734 William and his family, including brother John, moved to Bertie Precinct, Albemarle County (which later became Northampton County), North Carolina. John Bennett Boddie explained their move:
"Their land in Virginia which was patented by their grandfather in 1661, had been tilled for 75 years. Tobacco was the equivalent of money in those days and a better quality of tobacco could be grown in North Carolina than in Isle of Wight...The population of North Carolina was then about ten thousand. A strong tide of migration was in process towards this province, as shown by the fact that the population by 1750 had increased by 45,000."
William was an officer in the Colonial Militia for 20 years, participating in a conflict between England and Spain in 1748 and in the Indian War of 1754-55 against the French. In his short history of the Boddie family, written 5 March 1840, Elijah Boddie says that William Boddie's wife, Mary, died of measles and left William a widower with five children, four sons and a daughter, several years before his death. He never remarried. His oldest son was Nathan, born 22 February 1732, before the family left Virginia. And here is our family's connection to the Boddies: Nathan Boddie married Chloe Crudup, daughter of John and Mourning (Dixon) Crudup.
Nathan's grandfather, William Bennett, who had moved to North Carolina about the time that William and John Boddie did, bought land in Edgecombe County on Peach Tree Creek in 1742. By 1758 Nathan and Chloe were already living on this land, known as Rose Hill, as William Bennett's will of 17 July 1758 gives "my grandson Nathan Boddie my plantation whereon he now lives in Edgecombe Co." Nathan continued to accumulate land and eventually bought over 5,000 acres in Edgecombe, Wake, and Nash counties.
But it is Nathan's involvement in the movement toward American independence that I find most interesting. In 1774, along with Elisha Battle (more about him later), Nathan was elected to the Edgecombe Committee of Safety. Their duties were to "gather together all available forces to prevent Loyalist uprising and and repel any possible invasion." Nathan represented Edgecombe County in the Provincial Congress of North Carolina which met at Halifax 4 April 1776 and declared for independence, the first legislative body in any of the thirteen colonies to do so.
In 1777 he was elected a member of the First General Assembly of North Carolina, representing Edgecombe County in the House of Commons. He presented a bill in November 1777 to divide Edgecombe County and to form Nash County, which passed with amendments. He was elected to the Senate from Nash County and took his seat on 8 August 1778, serving continuously until the end of the War in 1781. In 1779 he was on the commission that selected Raleigh as the capital of North Carolina.
Chloe Crudup, daughter of John and Mourning (Dixon) Crudup, was born in 1745 and married Nathan Boddie about 1762. Their three oldest children were sons Bennett, Elijah, and George, followed by five daughters, Temperance, Mary, Basheba, Elizabeth, and Mourning. Chloe died 16 September 1781. Nathan died 7 December 1797. Both are buried at Rose Hill, which is near present day Nashville, North Carolina.
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| Nathan & Chloe Boddie memorial at Rose Hill Photo provided by Findagrave by Helen Sharpe |
The house at Rose Hill, the oldest part of which may have been built by Nathan for his son and heir, George, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982. George became the head of the family when Bennett and Elijah both died while their children were still minors. The children and widowed mothers of Bennett and Elijah came to live at Rose Hill, along with George's seventeen children by two wives. Mourning Boddie married James Hilliard "in the back room of her brother George's house." The house remained in the ownership of George's descendants until the 1930's when it was sold. In 1979 the house came back into the family when it was purchased by descendant Ben Mayo Boddie. It is now a conference and wedding venue.
The Crudups
I wish I had more to tell about the colonial history of the Crudups, because I have always been fascinated with this odd surname. According to John Thomas Boddie in Boddie and Allied Families, the earliest known Crudup in America came from Wales in the 1700's. Josiah Crudup adds another to my list of ancestors from Wales, which now appears as its own category, separate from England, in Ancestry DNA's ethnicity estimate. According to the new estimate, I have 10% Welsh ancestry and my brother has 21%. We both have visited Wales, and for both of us it felt like coming home.
We know that Josiah Crudup died sometime before 1760, as his widow Mary made her will in Halifax County, North Carolina, on 1 February 1760. As we saw above, her son, John Crudup, had died in 1753. Mary's will reads, "I give to my grandchildren, Mary, Cloe, and Josiah, being the children of John Crudup, deceased to each five shillings to be raised and paid out of my estate." To grandson George, who was also the executor, she gave the rest of her estate. (Interesting aside: A Nicholas Dixon was witness to her will.)
We have already met John Crudup; his wife, Mourning Dixon; and their children, George, Mary, Chloe, and Josiah. Josiah Crudup is my 5th great-grandfather, so I'd like to focus this section on him and his line. But first, one more mention of George, because it relates to Josiah. In 1764 George makes his will and leaves "to my brother, Josiah Crudup the plantation where I now live [probably in Halifax County, as that is where the will was made] with two hundred fifty acres of land belonging more or less." He also leaves Josiah "all my stock," "all my clothes of what kind soever they be," and "all the plantation utensils."
Josiah married Elizabeth Battle on 28 November 1767. She was the daughter of Elisha and Elizabeth (Sumner) Battle. (More about the Battles and Sumners later in this post.) Josiah and Elizabeth settled on Little River in Wake County about 1784. He purchased a total of 625 acres from William Wilder Jr. that year. He appears on the 1790 census with two sons and five daughters. According to a biographical sketch of son Josiah in NCPedia, the senior Josiah was a Baptist minister.
The children of Josiah and Elizabeth, as reported in Boddie and Allied Families, are: Temperance (who married a Lockhart); John; Mourning (my 4th great-grandmother, who married William Fowler); Bethsheba (who married Bullard Foster); Chloe (who married James B. Lee); George (who married Leah Ellis); Elizabeth (who married Cullen Andrews); Josiah (who married 1st, Mary Ann Brickell, and 2nd, Mary E. Boddie); and Mary Louisa (who married Solomon Ruffin Perry).
Apparently Josiah Sr. died in late 1818 or early 1819 without making a will, leaving his estate to be administered by Dr. Jeremiah Battle. The inventory and sale of his estate was reported on 23 and 24 April 1819. Six of his children (Temperance is not mentioned) later petitioned the Court of Pleas in Wake County, contending that sons Josiah Jr. and John had both received "from [their] father in his lifetime by way of advancement a much greater & larger amount of property than a child's part or distributive share of said father's estate."
John, who was now deceased, had apparently gone off to Tennessee with several of his father's slaves, and the other children wanted to be recompensed for their share of the value of the slaves. The court calculated an aggregate amount, composed of the value of sibling Josiah's advancement and sibling John's slaves, and ordered on 6 January 1823 that the six petitioning children should receive $1,415.80 each. Jeremiah Battle, administrator of Josiah Sr.'s estate, had to pay the court costs.
While Josiah Jr. is not my line, he is probably the most well-known of the Crudups, and he also brings up an interesting connection. He married Mary E. Boddie, who was the daughter of George Boddie (You'll remember him. He's the one that raised his brother's children plus 17 of his own.) Mary was George's daughter by his second wife, Lucy Williams.
Like his father before him, Josiah Jr. was a Baptist minister. He was educated at Dr. William McPheeter's academy in Raleigh and studied theology at Columbian College (now George Washington University) in Washington, D.C. He was elected to represent Wake County in the state senate in 1820 but was unable to finish his term because the Constitution of North Carolina prohibited practicing ministers from holding office. He was elected to Congress the following year and served one term from 1821-1823. He lost the election in 1823 but ran again in 1825, losing by only a few votes to Willie P. Mangum. Crudup was such a popular minister that Mangum attributed his win to a heavy rainstorm that prevented his opponent from attending a meeting at which they were both supposed to speak.
After losing this election, Crudup returned to preaching and farming in Granville County (now Vance), never again seeking public office, although he was a representative to the constitutional convention of 1835. He built a home in the Tripartite style (originally a two-story central section with flanking one-story wings) in the 1830's, which was added to by succeeding generations of Crudups. The house still stands close to U.S. 1 between Kittrell and the Tar River. Although it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979, it has not been restored and is in bad condition.
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| The Josiah Crudup House |
Although he was a large slaveholder, Crudup did not favor secession and opposed Lincoln in 1860 because he feared that Lincoln's unpopularity in the South would contribute to an increase in the numbers of those voting to secede. In his application for pardon after the Civil War, he stated that he owned about 160 slaves and was worth $20,000. Several sources mention that all his slaves stayed with him voluntarily after the war, which they attribute to his kindness to them. I hope that's true, but it may just as easily have been because they had nowhere else to go.
If you have heard the name Crudup at all, it is probably because of actor, Billy Crudup, and you may have wondered if he is a descendant of this family. Yes, he is a descendant of the very Josiah Crudup whose life I have just outlined. It was in a GQ interview with Crudup that I learned something that was surprising to me. It appears that the name that everybody, including me, has been pronouncing CRUD-up is actually pronounced CREW-dup!
The Battles
Just like the Boddies, the Battles have a book that tells the story of their family, The Battle Book: A Genealogy of the Battle Family in America, which includes "Memoirs of the Battle Family to 1820," by Dr. Jeremiah Battle. From Raleigh, NC, on July 19, 1820, Dr. Battle wrote: "At the request of yourself [William Sumner Battle from the Georgia branch of the family] and several of our common relatives, I now proceed to the task of putting down such an account of our family as my information may enable me." Much of the information for this section comes from The Battle Book and Dr. Jeremiah Battle's 1820 account of the family.
John Battle was the first of this family in America, having been born in Yorkshire, England, and coming to Virginia in 1654 with his family and a group of neighbors and relatives that included the Sumners and the Hunters. He first settled on the west bank of the Nansemond River in what is now Nansemond County. On 14 December 1654 he received a royal patent for 200 acres from the Governor of the Colony of Virginia. On 25 September 1663 he secured additional grants from the Royal Governor, Sir William Berkeley, which included 640 acres of land located on the Paspetank (now Pasquotank) River in North Carolina. His wife was named Elizabeth; their children were William (my 7th great-grandfather) and Alsey, who died young. John died about 1690.
William was born in North Carolina on Paspetank River in 1682. When his father died, his guardians returned him to his former home on the Nansemond River in Virginia, where he lived the rest of his life. He married Sarah Hunter (1684-1769), daughter of William Hunter. Their children were: William Battle II, John, Sarah, Mary, and Elisha (my 6th great-grandfather). William and Sarah raised the two youngest children of their son John, Priscilla and Jesse, after John died in 1740. William Battle died in 1749. Sarah lived to see both grandchildren grown and married.
Elisha Battle was born 9 January 1723 in Nansemond County and at the age of 18 married Elizabeth Sumner. As reported by his grandson, Dr. Jeremiah Battle, "After having two children born, he moved to Tar River about 16 miles above Tarboro. He lived chiefly by agriculture. The country being then new, he could raise stock, hogs particularly with great ease, which enabled him to purchase lands on both sides of the river adjoining him, sufficient to settle all his sons."
On 17 August 1747 he purchased 400 acres in Edgecombe County on the north side of Tar River. This and succeeding purchases of land made up Cool Spring Plantation (near the present town of Rocky Mount) to which Elisha and his family moved in late 1747 or early 1748. He was appointed justice of the peace in 1756, retaining this position until forced by old age to give it up in 1795. By 1759 he was serving as a justice for the Edgecombe County court, and in 1760 he was appointed to a commission to lay out the town of Tarboro.
He was elected to represent Edgecombe in the colonial House of Commons and first appears in the records of that assembly in December 1773. He was named chairman of Edgecombe's committee of safety and represented Edgecombe in the provincial congresses that met in Halifax in April and November of 1776.
Once an independent state government was established, he represented Edgecombe County in the state senate 1777-1781, 1783, and 1785-1787. During the constitutional convention, convened in Hillsborough in 1788, he voted to postpone adoption of the federal Constitution until amendments were added that secured and reserved the rights of the individual states.
Elisha and Elizabeth had eight children: Sarah, who married 1st, Jacob Hilliard, and 2nd, Henry Horn; John who married Frances Davis; Elizabeth who married Josiah Crudup and whom we have already met; Elisha who married Sarah Bunn (Dr. Battle's parents); William who married Charity Horn; Jacob who married Mrs. Penelope Edwards (formerly Langley); Jethro who married Martha Lane; and Dempsey who married Jane Andrews.
Elisha Battle died 6 March 1799 and was buried on the family plantation. His is the only stone in the graveyard. This headstone was erected by descendant George Gordon Battle in 1935.
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| From Findagrave, photo by Walter Raleigh Terry, Jr. |
I was particularly taken with what Jeremiah Battle had to say about his grandfather, his father, and his Uncle Dempsey. About his father he wrote,
"He has always been very strong and hearty and is greatly beloved by his neighbors and children who have always revered and respected him. He has always been of a cheerful disposition, and courteous and obliging in his manner to all his friends and neighbors. He is known for his plainness of speech when in conversation, more so than all of his brothers, but he can argue better than any of them. His mind is inclined to religion, tho he has never made a profession."
This is particularly endearing, especially when you compare it to his description of his grandfather.
"He was bold and free to reprove or censure sin and impudence, not only in his family but among his neighbors, who never took it ill, but felt it a privilege that belonged to his standing in society. It is believed he contributed greatly towards rendering his the most moral and correct neighborhood of any then known to us."
But I particularly admire Jeremiah's Uncle Dempsey, because he seems to have given thoughtful consideration to what it meant to him to be a Christian.
"His temper and sympathetic heart abhorred war, but lest it should be his duty, he thought it best to do his part in supporting them without murmuring. During the [War of 1812] when the President adopted his retaliatory measures, in a conversation between us on the subject, I found his sensibility could not bear abuses of humanity daily practiced in war. He suggested and urged me to write to the President to release those British prisoners, then doomed to die for our American brethren who were taken by the British and threatened with death. He expressed himself at some length on the inconsistency of the practices of war-makers with the Christian religion, on which points he and I agreed perfectly, and I was at length induced to write Mr. Madison a letter on the subject."
That would be James Madison, 4th President of the United States.
The Sumners
The first of our Sumner line in America is probably not known. Our first verifiable ancestor is William Sumner who settled in Nansemond County in 1691. It's possible that he could have lived in Isle of Wight, where he is said to have had a "manor plantation," before moving to Nansemond. The name of William's wife is unknown, but we know of at least six children: Jethro, John, James, William Jr., Dempsey, and Barsheba, all born about 1703-1712.
Jethro was married to Margaret Sullivan. They were the parents of the Revolutionary War Jethro. Jethro Sr. died in 1752. John, who married Elizabeth (maiden name unknown; some trees say Blanchard), was my 7th great-grandfather. James married Mary Blanchard; probate records in Chowan County mention the estate of James Sumner, deceased about 1750, with executors Mary and Luke Sumner. William Jr. married Bridget Sullivan and died in Chowan in the 1730's. Dempsey (also mentioned below) married Martha Baker. He represented Chowan in the House of Commons in 1744-45 and again in 1757-59. Dempsey died in 1779 in Gates County. Nothing more than her name is known of Barsheba.
John Sumner made his will in Chowan County, North Carolina, on 18 April 1754. He is obviously the same John who was born and lived in Nansemond County, which confused me until I discovered that southern Nansemond County became Chowan County in 1728. John was appointed a vestryman of St. Paul's Church in Edenton (Chowan Co.) on 3 April 1738, at the same time his brother Dempsey was appointed church warden. On 10 July 1750 both John and Dempsey were appointed Justices of the Peace. I'm a little disappointed that I didn't know my ancestor, John Sumner, lived in Edenton when I visited there a few years ago. At the time I was just looking for my Ming ancestors.
The children of John Sumner were: Jacob; William; Moses; Samuel, who married Martha "Patty" Alston; Elizabeth, my 6th great-grandmother, who married Elisha Battle in Nansemond County in 1742 and died in Edgecombe County, NC, on 19 January 1794 (her children are listed in the Battle section); and Joseph, who married Anna (maiden name unknown) and "signed, sealed, published, and declared" his will in Edgecombe County on 11 January 1783, witnessed by Elisha Battle, Jethro Battle, and Dempsey Battle. Descendants of Joseph through his son, Joseph Jr., migrated to Jackson County, Alabama.
John's will is typical for wills of the South in this time period: lots of people being bequeathed and inherited, horrific and obviously appearing completely normal to the parties involved. Leaving out those bequests, John left half his plantation "and half the houses thereunto belonging" to his wife Elizabeth and the "plantation whereon I now live," including 500 acres, to his son Samuel, "he not disturbing his mother." Samuel also gets a bunch of other stuff: "two feather beds and their furniture," four iron pots, a walnut desk, a large oval table, "one of my large looking glasses," cattle, sheep, and money. In addition, John willed to Samuel "all my shop of Smith Tools and my Still and Pitch Kettle."
Son William gets the land purchased from Joseph Stallings, Gregory Stallings, and John Knight. Son Jacob gets the land on the west side of Orapeak Swamp "together with my Mill Dam and Liberty to build a Mill." Son Joseph gets the land purchased from Abraham Odum at Tar River. Son Moses gets "all my land purchased of Webb in Bertie County." In addition to slaves, daughter Elizabeth was willed a gold ring and 25 pounds in cash, "Virginia currency." All the sons got thirty pounds sterling.
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| New and Correct Map of the Province of North Carolina, 1733, by Edward Moseley The highlighted label on Orapeak Creek says Sumners M. (Mill?) |
The will was proved in January 1755. Son Samuel and wife Elizabeth appeared and were qualified and appointed as executors.
The Hunters
The Battles were pretty much connected to all the families we've discussed in this post, but specifically to the Hunters through the marriage of William Battle to Sarah Hunter in Nansemond County about 1710. Sarah was the daughter of William Hunter who came to Virginia in 1685. Much of my information about the Hunter family comes from the website, The Hunters of Nansemond, researched and written by Hunter M. Cole, 6th great-grandson of William Hunter, in collaboration with Martha Rester; an article, "William Hunter of Nansemond County, Virginia," presented to the Gates County Historical Society by Harold Mott in 1994; and the website, The Jacob Hunter Memorial Trust, Jacob Hunter being a Revolutionary War soldier and descendant of William.
An origin for William Hunter is not definitive, but researchers have focused on a couple of locations: Alnwick in Northumberland and North Riding in Yorkshire. The odds seem to be tending toward the town of Ingleby Greenhow in North Riding, where Nicholas Hunter and Ellen Wood married in 1637 and had a son, William, in 1653. The clincher seems to be a connection there to the Rountree family, since William was transported to Virginia by Charles Rountree. Another conundrum has been the coincidence of given names among the Hunters of Nansemond County and a William Hunter and wife Rebecca of Massachusetts; researchers have shown that the William of Nansemond and the William of Barnstable are not the same person.
As mentioned above, in 1685 Charles Rountree transported seven persons, including William Hunter, to the "Upper Parish of Nansemond by the Cypress Swamp." Rountree's land patent, dated 4 November, lists the transportees as: "Willm. Hunter, Nicho. Hunter, Joane Hunter, Rebecka Hunter, Charles Rountree, Robert Rountree, John Sayer." Since Nicholas's will mentions his wife Rebecca, some genealogists have speculated that Joane was William's wife, but no documents have been found to prove this. Some researchers believe that this Nicholas Hunter was William's brother; Rebecca could be his sister, as the William of Yorkshire had a sister by that name. William, identified as a "weaver," was granted a patent on 21 April 1695 for "200 acres on the eastward side of the main cypress swamp that runs out of Bennetts Creek" for bringing four slaves to the colony. William would later leave this tract to his son Robert.
In another patent granted on 25 April 1702 he gained 240 acres adjoining his tract in Upper Parish. To this land he transported five persons: "Wm. Hunter & his wife & his daughter Alice & his son Nicho. Hunter [and] Mary Cohon." He left this land to his son Nicholas. William is mentioned in other land transactions: as a witness on 19 October 1700 when Nicholas Stallings sold a tract on Bennetts Creek to Robert Rountree; when a land patent dated 7 November 1700 assigned 481 acres adjacent to his land in Upper Parish to John Moor; and when a patent granted on 14 June 1714 to William Sumner records that William Hunter owned land adjacent to Sumner's 68 acres in the "Up. Par. of Nansemond County at a place called Gordon's Marsh at Orapeak." (See how these families are linked?)
On 8 June 1699 William was named as one of the twelve justices of the quorum in Nansemond County. He continued to serve as "clerk," or justice of the peace from 1702-1714. He appears on a list of magistrates and militia officers of Nansemond County in 1702, enumerated on the Quick Rent Roll of 1704 with 800 acres as Captain William Hunter.
William had four sons, William, Isaac, Nicholas, and Robert, and daughter Sarah.
- William, wife Ann and daughter Alice came to Virginia in 1701. In his will proved 18 January 1732 in Chowan County, he left his water mill in Nansemond County to sons William and Ephraim.
- Isaac married Elizabeth (maybe Parker) and lived in Chowan County. In 1749 he made a claim for serving 3 years as reader at the Episcopal Church at Constant's Chapel. In his will of 17 April 1752 he mentions sons Elisha, Jacob, Jesse, Isaac, Daniel, daughters Elizabeth Perry, Alice Perry, Hannah Riddick, Rachel Walton, Sarah Hunter, and children of daughter Joan. (This makes me wonder again if Joan/Joane was the name of his mother.) In his will he left substantial property to his children. Witnesses to Isaac's will were Moses Sumner, Samuel Sumner, and John Sumner.
- Nicholas and his wife Rebecca came to Virginia in 1685 with his father William. He is listed on the Quit Rent Rolls of 1704 with 190 acres. He was Justice of the Peace in both Onslow and Carteret counties. He died in Carteret County in 1749; Rebecca died in 1785.
- Robert married Elizabeth Bryan Whitmel, widow of Col. Thomas Whitmel. He was a vestryman of St. Paul's Church in Edenton in 1738-40. He died in Bertie County in 1753; in his will of 3 Jun 1753 he left much of his estate to his son Moses.
- Sarah, my 7th great-grandmother, married William Battle. Their children are listed in the section on the Battles. If you remember, William and Sarah brought the two youngest of their son John's children to Nansemond County when he died in 1740. Priscilla married Benjamin Faucette, and Jesse married Susannah Faucette, Benjamin's sister. William died in 1749, but Sarah lived on until 1769 and saw both grandchildren married.
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| Hunters (and related Parkers and Perrys) on 1733 map of North Carolina |
In 1728 the border between Virginia and North Carolina was redrawn, and William Hunter's land in southern Virginia was now in Chowan County, later Gates County, North Carolina. On today's maps, the old Hunter tracts would be near the town of Sunbury. William's will, probably written at about this time, no longer survives, but evidence of it exists in other documents. On 17 March 1729 Nicholas Hunter and his wife Rebecca transferred 120 acres received in William's will to their son William. In an indenture dated 16 February 1742 William's son Robert sold his brother Isaac a tract of land that Robert had been given in William's will.
Mourning Crudup
We started with Mourning Dixon, my 6th great-grandmother, and we're going to end with Mourning Crudup, my 4th great-grandmother.
Mourning Crudup (1781-1852) provides the evidence that all these families are connected. Here's how:
- On her father's father's side she is a Crudup. From her oldest Crudup ancestor in America, Josiah, who died in 1760, she descends through John (1712-1753) and Josiah (1748-1819).
- On her father's mother's side she is a Dixon. Her possibly oldest ancestor in America was Nicholas Dixon, who died sometime after 1648, when he was granted land in Nansemond County, Virginia. Her 2nd great-grandfather, Thomas Dixon I, died after 1670, the year his son, Thomas Dixon II, was born. Her paternal grandmother was Mourning Dixon (1722-1781).
- It's possible that she is a Boddie through her 2nd great-grandmother, Mary/Marie, if Mary was indeed the sister of William Boddie. Her other family connection with the Boddies is through her sister Chloe, who married Nathan Boddie (1732-1797).
- On her mother's father's side she is a Battle. From her oldest Battle ancestor in America, John, she descends through William (1682-1749), Elisha (1723-1799), and her mother, Elizabeth, born 1749.
- Her great-grandmother on her father's side is Sarah Hunter (1684-1769), whose father was William Hunter, possibly born in Ingleby Greenhow, Yorkshire, in 1650, died in Chowan County, North Carolina, in 1729.
- On her mother's mother's side she is a Sumner, descending from William, born in Isle of Wight, Virginia, in 1645, through John (1698-1755), and Elizabeth (1724-1794).
From their first migrations across the ocean, these ancestors moved from Isle of Wight and Nansemond counties in Virginia to various counties in North Carolina and onward to the west. Mourning Crudup, born in Wake County, North Carolina, married William Fowler there in 1800 and died at her home on Fowler Hill in Henry County, Tennessee, in 1852.
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