Old Tombstones in Charles City County, VA Transcribed by Paul S chrank for the USGenWeb Archives Special Collections Project ************************************************************************ USGENWEB ARCHIVES NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by any other organization or persons. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material, must obtain the written consent of the contributor, or the legal representative of the submitter, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of this consent. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently for free access. http://www.usgwarchives.net *********************************************************************** William and Mary College Quarterly Historical Magazine Vol. IV. JANUARY, 1896. No. 3 Pages 143-150 OLD TOMBSTONES IN CHARLES CITY COUNTY COLLECTED BY THE EDITOR IV. WESTOVER Here lies the body of Ralph Davis Died July 22nd 1751. ***** Here Lyeth Interred the Body of Mr. William Willabe who Departed this Life the 7th day of June 1723 In the 30th Year of his Age. ***** Here Lyes interred the Body of Rev. Charles Anderson who was Minister of this Parish 26 yeares and dyed the 7th of April 1718 in the 49th hear of his Age. ***** [Arms] S.M. Prudentis & Eruditi Theodorici Bland Armig qui obit Aprilis 23rd ad, 1671 Aetatis 41 Cujus vidua Moestissima Anna Filia Richard Bennett Armig: hoc Marmor Posuit ***** 144 William and Mary College Quarterly Here Lyeth interred the body of leftenant Colonel Walter Aston who died the 6th April 1656. He was Aged 49 years And Lived in this country 28 yeares Also here lyeth the Body of Walter Aston the son of Leftenant Collonel Walter Aston who departed this life the 29th of Ianuary 1666 Aged 27 Yeares and 7 Monthes. ***** Here lyeth the body of Captaine Wm Perry who lived neere Westovear in this Collony who departed this life the 6th day of August Anno Domini 1637 ***** Hic reconduntur cineres Gulielmi Byrd Armigeri et regii huj Provinciae Qaestoris qui hanc Vitam Cum Eternitate commutavit 4th Die Decembris 1701 postquam vixisset 52 annos. ***** Here Lyeth the Body of Mary Byrd Late wife of William Byrd, Esq. And Daughter of Warham Horsmanded Esq. Who Dyed the 9th Day of November 1699 in the 47th Year of Her Age ***** [On the North Side] [Arms] Here lyeth the Honorable William Byrd, Esq. Being Born to one of the amplest fortunes in this country He was sent early to England for his education: Old Tombstones in Charles City County 145 Where under the care and direction of Sir Robery Southwell And ever favored with his particular instructions, He made a happy proficiency in polite and various learning; By the means of the same noble friend, He was introduced to the acquaintance of many of the first persons of that age For knowledge, wit, virtue, birth, or high station, and particularly contracted a most close and bosom friendship with the learned and illustrious Charles Boyle, Earl of Orrery. He was called to the bar in the Middle Temple, studied for some time in the Low Countries, visited the court of France, and was chosen Fellow of the Royal Society. [On the south side is the inscription:] Thus eminently fitted for the service and ornament of his country, He was made Receiver General of his Majestey's revenues here, was thrice appointed publick agent to the Court and ministry of England, and being thirty-seven years a member, at last became President of the Council of this colony. To all this were added a great elegancy of taste and life, the well bred gentleman and polite companion, the splendid economist, and prudent father of a family, with-all the constant enemy of all exorbitant power, and hearty friend to the liberties of his country. Nat: Mar. 28, 1674, Mort. Aug. 26, 1744, An. Aetat. 70. ***** Here in the Sleep of Peace Reposes the Body of Mrs. Evelyn Byrd Daughter of the Hon. William Byrd Esq. The various & excellent Endowments of Nature Improved and perfected by an accomplished Education Formed her For the Happyness of her Friends: For an Ornament of her Country; 146 William and Mary Quarterly One can detain nothing however valued From unrelenting Death: Beauty, Fortune, or exalted Honour! See here a Proof! And be reminded by this awfull Tomb that every worldly Comfort flees away Excepting only what arises from imitating the virtues of our Friends and the contemplation of the Happyness To which God was pleased to call this Lady On the 13th Day of Novemb 1737, In the 29th year of her Age ***** [Arms.] Under this marble rests [the] Body of Mrs. Elizabeth Harrison Relict [of] Benjamin Harrison of Ber[keley] and second Daughter of Col Lewis Burwell of Gloster county She Departed [th]is Life on Monday the 30th of [De]cember 1734 in the Fifty-Seventh [Year of her] Age * * * aven * * r only one son * and * * * d children. ***** Memoriae Sacrum Hic situs est in Spem Resurectionis Benjaminus Harrison de Berkeley Benjamini Harrison de Surrey filius Natu, Maximus Uxorem Duxit Elizabetham Lodovici Burwell Glocestriensis Filiam E Qua Filium Reliquit Unicum Benjamin et unam Filiam Elizabetham. Obijt Apr x Anno Dom MDCCX Aetatis xxxvii,plurimum Desideratus Prolocutor Domus Burgentium Causidicus Ingenio Doctrina, Eloquentia Fide et à à à insignis Old Tombstones in Charles City County 147 Viduarum Orphanorum omniumque Pauperum Oppressorum Patronus Indefessus Controversarum Et Literum Arbiter et Diremptor Auspicatus Ed Pacificus, In Administratione Iustitiae Absque Tricis Et Ambagibus comitatus Hujus Iudex Aequissimus Ibidemque Impietatis Et Nequitiae Vindex Acerrimus Libertatis Patriae Assertor Intrepidus Et Boni Publici Imprimis Studiosus Hunc Merito Proprium Virginia Iactet Alumnum Tam Propere Abreptum, sed Querebunda Dolet. Publicus Hic Dolor Et Nunquam Reparabile Damnum Det Deus Ut Vitae sint Documenta Novae. ***** V. SHIRLEY [Arms] Here lyeth Intered the Body of Edward Hill Esq. one of his Majesty's Honorable Councell of State Collonel and Comander in chiefe of the County of Charles Citty and Surrey Judge of His Majestyes high court of Admiralty and Sometime Treasurer of Virginia who dyed the 30th day of November in the 63rd year of his age Anno Dom 1700 ***** VI. WILKINSON'S GRAVEYARD Sacred to the Memory of Anne B. Southall who died the 8th day of Oct 1820 in the 74th year of her age ***** VII. SANDY POINT Here Lieth the Body of Dorothy Farrell who Deceased the 18th of January 1673 ***** 148William and Mary Quarterly VIII. WEYANOKE Here lyeth ye Body of William Harris who departer this life ye 8 day of March 1687-8 Aged 35 years. ***** NOTES NOTES 1. The church and churchyard of Westover Parish were at Westover till about 1731, when the present church was built. The history of this celebrated colonial home is given in another place. 2. See page 127 (last Magazine) for an account of Rev. Charles Anderson. His daughter Frances, by her marriage with Captain Ellyson Armistead, of York county, was grandmother of President John Tyler's mother, Mary Marot Armistead, daughter of Robert Booth Armistead, of York county. 3 These arms represent Bland impaling Bennett: on a bend three pheons for Bland; three demi-lions for Bennett. This Richard Bennett mentioned in the insctription was Richard Bennett, Governor of Virginia under the Commonwealth. In a letter in 1666 Thomas Ludwell informed the Earl of Arling­ton that his arms were similar to the Earls. See Virginia Magazine of His­tory and Biography, July, 1895, for an account of the Bennett family. 4 Theodorick Bland bought Westover from Sir John Pawlett in 1666. He left it to his son Tbeodorick Bland, who took into joint occupancy his brother Richard, and together they sold the estate to William Byrd in 1688. For Bland Family see Familiae Gentium Minorum, and Richmond Critic, July 9, 1888, etc. 5. On August 12, 1646, Walter Aston patented one thousand and forty acres, near Shirley Hundred, on Kimage’s Creek, two hundred acres of which, known as " Cawsey's Care," were purchased, in 1634, by Aston of John Causey, being the same land patented by Nathaniel Causey (probably his father), 10th December, 1620. (Land Register.) Nathaniel Causey was an old soldier, who came in with the first supply in 1608. Walter Aston's wife is named in the land patents Warbow or Narbow. He represented Shirley Hundred 1sland in 1629-‘30; both Shirley Hundreds, Mr. Farrar's and Chaplain’s, in February,1631-‘32; Shirley Hundred Maine and “Cawsey's Care,” in September, 1632, and February, 1632-'33, Charles City county in 1642-'43. He was Justice of the Peace and Lieutenant-colonel. He married secondly, Hannah---------who appears to have married after his death Colonel Edward Hill. Lieutenant­-colonel Walter Aston had issue: 1, Susannah, relict, in 1655, of Lieutenant­-colonel Edward Major, deceased; 2, Walter; 3, Mary, m. Richard Cocke, deceased before 1666; 4, Elizabeth, m. --------Binns. In Byrd's Book of Title Deeds is the will of Walter Aston, of "Cawsey's Care": To Hannah Hill, his mother, he gives that parcell of land called the “Level”: to godson Old Tombstones in Charles City County 149 John Cocke, the son of Richard Cocke, deceas’d, 4,000 pds. of tobacco to be paid in 1668; to godson Edward Cocke, son of the abovesaid Cocke, 6,000 pds. of tobacco, to be paid in 1669; survivor to have the whole 10,000, and in case both die, to the rest of the children; to sisters Mary Cocke and Elizabeth Binns 20 shillings apiece for a ring; gun called Pollard to servant John Mitten, and a young white sow shoat that is with pig; to my Irish boy Edward a sow; to Mr. George Harris, merchant, all my dividend at Cawsey's Care and the land at Canting Point and all the residue of my estate. Dated 21 Dec., 1666; Prov'd Feb. 4, 1666-‘67. The testator before his death bad sold two hundred acres of the land, above mentioned, to William Edwards, and one hundred more to Hannah Hill. But both these parcels were purchased by George Harris, of Westover, merchant, who dying seized of the entire tract and leaving no children, it all fell to his brother, Thomas Harris, merchant tailor, of London, who sold the same to Col. Thos. Grendon, Jr., of Cawseys Care, who by his will (Feb.23, 1683-'84-Dec. 3, 1684) devised the same to William Byrd, Jr., son of William Byrd, Sr.; whereupon it became absorbed into the Byrd estate. (Byrd’s Book of Title Deeds) Brown says that Walter Aston, the immigrant, was cousin of Sir Walter Aston, Ambassador to Spain, 1620-1625 and 1635-1638, created a baronet in 1611, and Lord Aston, of Forfar, in the Scottish Peerage, Nov. 28, 1627. We have the following pedigree from the Visitation, of London, 1634: Virginia was often called “ the West Indies,” and thus Walter Aston was one of four brothers, sons of Walter Aston, of Longdon, Stafford county, and ,great-grandsons of Sir Walter Aston (knighted in 1560--see Metcalfe’s Book Book of Knights), Lord Aston was descended from the elder line as follows: Sir Walter Aston, knighted in 1560; Sir Edward Aston, eldest son, knighted in 1570; Sir Walter (Lord) Aston, born July 9, 1584, died August 13, 1639. Arms of Aston: Argent a fess and in chief three lozenges sable. 6 Between the tombstones of Walter Aston and of Theodrick Bland is a stone from which the inscription is entirely worn away. This was probably the tombstone of Captain William Perry, which Campbell, the historian, says ???e, in his day, the inscription given in the text. 150 William and Mary Quarterly 7 This is the tombstone of the first William Byrd. For Byrd pedigree, see Richmond Critic, December 16, 1688. 8 Mary Byrd's father, Colonel Warham Horsmanden, was the son of Rev. Daniel Horsmanden, removed by Parliament as a cavalier minister in 1643. See Brown's Genesis for an account of the St. Legers and Horsmandens. (Vol. II. p. 990) 9 The monument of Colonel William Byrd, the second, is not in the old graveyard, but in the garden at Westover. It has suffered some mutilation, and. the handsomely carved escutcheon, bearing the family arms, was broken off and carried away when the county was in the Federal occupation during the war. This has since been replaced, however, by an exact copy. --W. G. Stannard Richmond Critic for December 16, 1888. 10 The portrait of Evelyn Byrd, with those of a number of others of the family, as well as of the English friends of the second Colonel Byrd, is at Brandon. This young lady has been the frequent subject of magazine articles. 11The arms on the tomb of Elizabeth Harrison stand for Burwell: A saltire between four eagles’ heads, erased; crest, an eagle's head erased, with a branch in its beak. The tomb of James Burwell, at King’s Creek, York county, and Lewis Burwell, at Carter’s Creek, Gloucester county, have griffins instead of eagles. (See Quarterly, Vol. II, p. 231.) 12 The marble is very much shattered, but I gathered the pieces together with the above result. 13 Benjamin Harrison, clerk of the council, was in Virginia as early as 1634. He was father of Benjamin Harrison, of Surry, a distinguished lawyer, whose tombstone is at Cabin Point; born 20th September, 1645, died 30th January, 1712-‘13. This tomb at Westover is that of the third Benjamin Har­rison. He was the father of the fourth Benjamin Hrrison, who was father of Benjamin Harrison, of Berkeley, the signer, the fifth of the name. With the exception of the Lees, there is no family in the United States which has exhib­ited a similar heredity of talent as the Harrison family, holding for two hun­dred and sixty years the very first offices. See Richmond Critic June 23, 1889, for Harrison family, and Keith’s Ancestry of Benjamin Harrison. 14 The arms of Colonel Edward Hill, of Shirley, of whose family an account is given by Mr. Stanard in Virginia Historical Magazine (Vol. III., p. 149), appear from the picture in The Century Magazine to be a lion passant, and the crest, a demi-lion rampant. This splendid colonial homestead, “Shirley,” is well described by Mr. Charles Washington Coleman in his article, Along the Lower James, published in The Century. . (Vol XLI, p. 326.) 15 The tombstone of Dorothy Farrell was taken from Sandy Point (not Weyanoke, as elsewhere stated), and is now in the outside of the walls of St. Paul’s Church, Norfolk. Dorothy Farrell was the daughter of Colonel Thomas Drew, of Charles City county. She married Captain Hubert Farrell, of James City county, who was killed in 1676 in an attack at King's Creek on Major Thomas Whaley. Sandy Point was, until the eighteenth century, in James City county. There is a tomb of Daniel Farrell at St. Peter's Church in New Kent. He died in 1786. 16 This tombstone of William Harris was moved from Weyanoke to Norfolk, and also placed in the walls of St. Paul’s Church. Major William Harris, of Henrico, had a son of that name.