Historical and Genealogical Notes; Wm. and Mary Qrtly., Vol. 9, No. 4, 1901 Transcribed by Kathy Merrill 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 *********************************************************************** Historical and Genealogical Notes William and Mary College Quarterly Historical Magazine, Vol. 9, No. 4. (Apr., 1901), pp. 268-272. HISTORICAL AND GENEALOGICAL NOTES. WHITFORD-MADISON - Foster Whitford, of Rhode Island, married, March 6, 1766, Mary Madison, a cousin of President Madison. The date of her birth is August 10, 1747. Can any one tell the exact relationship of Mary Madison Foster with President Madison? SPALDING - Edward Spalding was among the inhabitants of Virginia in 1624. Did he leave descendants? MARTIN - Marshall Martin, son of Abram Martin and Elizabeth Marshall, married at Alexandria, Va., Mary Isham Key, daughter of James Key and Judith Key, daughter of Rev. James Keith and Mary Isham Randolph. (Family Bible, 1784). BELL-CARTER - Charles Bell married circa 1770-'3 Sarah Carter, and had issue Charles, married Willa Porter, Carter married Sarah Wofford, Willis married Polly Early, Thornton unmarried, Elizabeth married William Summers, Lucy married William Prather, Clarissa married Michael Summers. In 1792, when the youngest child was six years old, they moved to Mason county, Ky. Information desired about this Bell and Carter family. [The names of Bell and Carter figure extensively in the register of Overwharton Parish, Stafford county. Summers, Early, etc., also indicate that region. - EDITOR.] GRIGSBY-BURKS-PAXTON - Wanted information regarding the Grigsbys of Stafford county, Burks of Bedford and Paxtons of Augusta county, now Rockbridge county, Va. Answer: GRIGSBY - There is a deed in King George county, 1729, from Thos. Grigsby and Rose his wife, one of the daughters of Gerrard Newton, deceased, late of the county of Richmond, to Samuel Skinker. It also recites that Mathew Herbert, of Maryland, married Elizabeth, the other daughter of Gerard Newton. In the Overwharton register for Stafford county are these entries: Alice Grigsby married Benjamin Bush, April 1, 1744; John and Anne Grigsby had (1) William, born November 11, 1744; (2) Susannah, born October 10, 1747; (3) Rachel, born August 17, 1750; Margaret Grigsby married George Foster December 22, 1740; Lettie Grigsby married Joshua Owens November 10, 1747; Moses Grigsby married Mary Mathews August 20, 1753; Sarah Grigsby married William Rose June 5, 1753; John Page 269. Grigsby, son of Moses, born January 18, 1750; Jane Grigsby married William Rose March 14, 1758. (See "Genealogies and Reminiscences", by Mrs. enrietta Hamilton McCormick, for Grigsby Family). PAXTON - See "Marshall Family", by Wililam M. Paxton, Platte City, Missouri. YANKEE - Mr. Albert Matthews, of Boston, Mass., is pursuing some very interesting in- vestigations in the origin of the word "Yankee". Lieutenant Anbury, in his Travels in the United Statees, says that the term Yankee is derived from a Cherokee word, eankke, meaning "coward or slave", first bestowed upon the inhabitants of New England by the Virginians for not assisting them in a war with the Cherokees. But Mr. Matthews doubts the correctness of this explanation. The earliest uses of the term do not support this notion. One of the earliest examples of Yankee occurs in a letter printed in the QUARTERLY (Vol. II., 239- 241) from Col. Hudson Muse, of Northumberland county, to his brother Thomas Muse. It is dated April 19, 1771, and in it Muse says that he has returned from a visit to Cambridge, and that about fifteen miles from that place the captain of his boat persuaded him to walk back- wards and forwards on the shore side to show him "the Yankee girls", whom he found to be living in a very shiftles condition. In a note to his article on Education (QUARTERLY, VII., 75) this was assumed by the editor to be a reference to Cambridge, New England. But Mr. Matthews, in letter to the editor, shows the mistake, and the reference was undoubtedly to Cambridge in Maryland. It proves two things, the generality of the ignorance of the fishing population* and the difficulty involved in the study which Mr. Matthews has en- countered. Here the term is used to mean a certain class of people in Maryland - not New England. And all other early examples present the same problems. "Not one of them", says Mr. Matthews, "shows exactly what the word meant." SCHOOLING - In Men and Manners in America One Hundred ________________________________________ *John Adams said in 1776 that "the condition of the laboring poor in most countries, that of the fishermen particularly in the Northern States, is as abject as that of slaves". (Jefferson's Works, edited by Randolph, I., p. 23). A correspondent in Cambridge, Md., writes that the description of Col. Muse of the population at "Hill's Point" would no longer apply, as the people there are now exceedingly prosperous and progressive. Page 270. Years Ago, by H. E. Lardden, 1887, we have the following ascribed to Joseph Tinker Bucking- ham, in New England (born 21 December, 1779): "I went to school only in pleasant weather, and never more than half a day at a time till the winter wehn I attained my fourteenth year. Admitting that I went half a day on every alternate day for the two months, which is a calculation that I know exceeds the truth, it would amount to no more than twelve days during the year. When I was fourteen I began to cipher, and the next winter my attendance at the school was more constant, amounting, in the aggregate, perhaps to a couple of months." THE MERIWETHER FAMILY - Mrs. Annie Atmore Caine, 34 St. James' Court, Louisville, Ky., corrects the statement made on page 202 of January Magazine: "Miss Minor's book was not the first compiled or published. In 1848, Mr. George Wood Meriwether finished a sketch of the Meriwether family. It was propared, as he says, partly from an old and mutilated register found among the old papers of his grandfather and partly from a sketch of the family by Hon. George R. Gilmer, of Georgia. George Wood Meriwether was the grandson of William Meriwether, who married Martha Cocke Wood, of Goochland, and removed with his family to Kentucky. In 1889, Mrs. Udolph Snead (born Emerin P. Meriwether) published this history. Only twenty- seven copies were printed, and these were given to various members of the family. I gave Miss Minor one, and when she enlarged her work, she gave the proper credit to George Wood Meriwether". MARRIAGE - Mr. James Geddy, Jr., to Miss Euphan Armistead, both of Petersburg. - Virginia Gazette, May 21, 1789. CAPT. WILLIAM1 PIERCE came to Virginia in the Sea Venture in 1610 with Sir Thomas Gates and his wife, Mrs. Jane Pierce, in the Blessing. He was captain of the guard at Jamestown in 1617. His daughter Jane was third wife of John Rolfe. His house, a wooden building at Jamestown, was in 1624 "the fairest in all Virginia". He had a fine garden in which he raised abundance of figs and other vegetables. George Sandys had a room in his house in which he wrote poetry and raised silkworms. In 1618 he patented 650 acres at Mulberry Island, to which he removed and had a house there, as shown by a land grant for 2,100 Page 271. acres in 1643. In 1632, he stood sixth in the Council of Sir John Harvey, and in 1646, "Capt. William Pierce, Esq.", was second in standing. Mr. William2 Pierce, who patented lands in Northumberland, was doubtless his son. He was a major and justice of Westmoreland county. He married Sarah Underwood, daughter-in-law of Capt. John Upton, of Isle of Wight county. His will, dated February 23, 1701, was proved in Westmoreland county in 1702. It names grandson William, son of son John Pierce, grandson Samuel Bayley; daughters Elizabeth Bridges, Margaret Graham and Mary Rowsy; devisees Pierce and Stanly Gower. His son John3 Pierce had issue, William4 Pierce, under age in 1707, who made his will in 1733, naming Joseph5 Pierce as his second son. This last married Sarah E. Ransdell and among his chidlren were son Ransdell and daughters Martha, Sally Ransdell, Margaret, married elder R. H. Herndon, Fannie and Sibella (married Samuel Templeman). Captain Joseph5 Pierce (born 1719; died 1798), by his will, dated January 1, 1796, liberated a large number of slaves. He is honorably mentioned in Semple's History of Virginia Baptists. See QUARTERLY, p. 27; the account there is erroneous in making Joseph Pierce a grandson of William Pierce, who died 1702, whereas he was a great-grandson. DRUNKENNESS AND ILLITERACY - The prevalence of liquor drinking in England and Virginia during the colonial period is noticed on page 154 of this issue. New England, in neither sobriety nor learning, was ahead of either England or Virginia. Weeden in his remarkable work, The Economic and Social History of New England, says: "The quantity of rum distilled was enormous, and in 1750 it was estimated that Massachusetts alone consumed more than 15,000 hogsheads of molasses for this purpose". About this time, Newport, in Rhode Island, had as many as twenty-two still houses; Boston had the best example, owend by a Mr. Childs. "The consumption of rum in the fisheries and lumbering and shipbuilding districts was large; the export demand [for the slave trade] to Africa was immense". In the Memoirs of Baron Riedesel, it is stated that "the New Englanders all want to be politicians, and love, there- fore, the tavern and the grog bowl, behind the latter of which they transact business, drinking from morning till night". The old Virginian, before the war of 1861, used to claim that every emigrant to Virginia Page 272. was the son of a duke or a lord. The New Englander used to set off against this the equally preposterous claim that everybody in New England was a saint and a scholar. The cold, hard facts of history have shivered the inordinate pride of the Virginian and blasted the conceit of the New Englander. The records of New England down to the Revolution show woful illiteracy. "Not one in ten of the men of New England", writes the Baron Riedesel, "can read writing and still fewer can write". This statement was, of course, a great exag- geration, for the Baron was no friend of the American people. But unfortunately we have the public declaration of John Adams in 1776 that "the condition of the laboring poor in most countries, that of the fishermen particularly in the Northern States, as as abject as that of slaves".