Redman’s Old Field
Traci the Librarian and myself often cross paths with our different research projects. She is a certified genealogist and Edgecombe is her local hunting grounds. As it happens we both became focused on one Bartholomew Redman. And Traci promptly sent me this image with the usual “check this out”.
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Griffis Fr 1752 patent
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I had found and dissected a patent for Francis Griffis and it so happened his southernish neighbor was said Batholomew Redman (assuming of course there were not multiple B. Redmans lurking about). Digging around a bit brought out some tidbits that got my historical radar screen flashing. It seems his back yard was the go to place for the first Court House of the brand new Edgecombe County.
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Of course I promptly focused on the dilemma facing the Court at the time of the problem of West India Rum they wanted at the Enfield Court House in Halifax County and demanding it not to be served as Punch or Toddy and not to be too damn expensive! I settled for my usual Old Fashioned in sympathy for their cause. First order of business was taken care of in 1754 or so. But things began to sour by 1759 and the Old Field fell into disfavor.
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December 1759 — an earlier, angrier complaint. North Carolina Colonial Records, printed page 152 (FS ark 3:1:3Q9M-CSSR-X9WX-7, img 107/721). Barely two months after the 28 Sept 1759 probate bond that shows court still meeting normally at Redman’s Old Field, “Mr. Johnston presented a petition of the Principal part of the Freeholders and Inhabitants of Edgcomb County — Setting forth that thro’ mismanagement and a Secret and Clandestine Manner an Act was passed last Session of Assembly to fix the Courthouse of the said County at Redmans old field on Tyoncoca which is found to be near the verge of said County and inconvenient to the inhabitants to attend the said County Courts Praying Relief.” The House ordered Johnston to prepare a bill. Dated by the adjacent page’s own “Monday the 10th of December 1759” — so early December 1759 [OBRD on the precise date, doxa on the content].
A second petition, likely c. 1761 — Mr. Palmer’s. North Carolina Colonial Records, printed pages 814–815 (FS ark 3:1:3Q9M-CSSR-X94G-9, img 448/721). “Mr. Palmer presented a Petition of sundry of the Inhabitants of Edgcomb County setting forth that the place appointed for Building a Court House, Prison and Stocks &c. at Redmans old Field on Tyanoxo, is an obscure place, and greatly inconvenient for the Inhabitants to meet, and Transact the publick Business of the said County, Praying an Act may pass to direct the Buildings aforementioned at Tarborough.” The House granted leave for a bill. This sits well before the successful 16 Nov 1762 Howell petition (printed p. 908) in the same volume — likely a c. 1761 session, not yet pinned to an exact date [OBRD on date].
Together with what was already on file, the picture changes from a single 1762 petition to a sustained, three-round fight: Johnston’s 1759 complaint, Palmer’s c. 1761 attempt, and Howell’s successful 1762 petition — with the site called “obscure” and its own founding act accused of having passed by “Secret and Clandestine Manner.”
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Back to my quest to find Bart. Redman’s property near the Old Field and much to my frustration, I did not find where Mr. Redman’s old field was on Tyancokey Swamp, however I did manage to find where he said goodbye but it was near Tar River and not Tyancokey Creek.
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FS ark 3:1:33S7-9GCZ-9CH1, “Record of Estates: Edgecombe, North Carolina. Probate Records 1748–1753,” img 77/105, printed page 137. The entry reads: “An Inventory of the Goods and Chattels of Bartholomew Readman Deceast… Mair Jan Readmon Ad 137 Edgecombe of November Court 1751 — County Exhibited on Oath by Jane Redman &c. Test Benj Wynn.”
That means his estate inventory was sworn into court by Jane Redman in November 1751 — not “before 17 Aug 1756” as I’d previously established from the sheriff’s sale deed. He was already dead by late 1751, a full five years earlier than I’d had it. The 1756 sheriff’s sale wasn’t close to his death; it was a creditor (Thomas Edwards) finally getting a judgment and executing against land still sitting in Jane’s hands as administratrix, years into settling the estate — not unusual for the period. This is a real correction, not just an addition, and I’d want to fix the doxa claim in the working note rather than let it stand wrong.
As for what the inventory itself shows: it’s a chattels list only — cattle, feather beds, pewter, a spinning wheel, a gilt trunk, a looking glass, guns, saddles, a “prayer Book,” candlesticks, horses. No land is itemized in it, which is normal — land didn’t pass through a personal-property inventory, it passed by heirship, dower, or eventual sale (as with the Tar River tract).
So we still don’t know if he had any property. Nothing found to date shows Bartholomew Redman ever holding record title to land specifically on Tyancokey Swamp — only that his “line” is cited repeatedly as a real boundary by neighboring patents (Griffith 1752, Newton→Dunn 1755, Permenter Sr→Narsworthy 1791), which is suggestive of an adjoining holding but not proof of one. The only land we can document him actually owning and disposing of remains the separate 150-acre Tar River tract, sold 1756. If he did hold Tyancokey land, its disposition — to Jane, to an heir, or to a buyer — hasn’t surfaced in any search so far.
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