Andersons of Colonial N. Carolina

Nobody knows my sorrow…. sung to the tune of the olde slave song…  (I remember singing it as a third or fourth grader in Snyder, Texas… my home town until I was 16 and moved to Florida).

So I’ve been doing some considerable re-working of my Isle of Wight map… a commenter has got me all fired up and re-interested in the Robert Coleman of IOW.  He showed up around 1665 or so and that period never makes for a dull moment when attempting to map those early patents.  Here is a real jewel which I had left off my map for obvious reasons…  The problem is that you cannot dismiss a patent just because it can’t be read or it just makes no sense… you have to “deal” with it.

I seriously don’t think I’ve seen a more UN-descriptive description than this…  normally these patents are remarkably accurate… even by modern standards.

To carry on with my rant…

This is Leift (or Leist?) … oh hell, Lieutenant John Upton in 1638…

“IOW…”beginning at the outside of Ambrose Bennetts Land lying Northerly upon the said branch and 500ac of Land more on the other side of the sd. branch opposite against the foresaid Land running Easterly into the woods beginning at an Indian path which goeth over the head of that branch and runneth Southerly upwards from the head of the said branch…”    (no name of the said branch is mentioned)

Like I said… Nobody knows the trubble I’ve seen… (smiling).   About the only hard clue in that diatribe is the mention of Ambrose Bennett and using the full extent of my vivid imagination, that it “seems” to be northerly of said Bennett’s patent…       I think?

This is how I am dealing with it (for now)…   I have added the Ambrose Bennett patent which absolutely corroborates the Robert Coleman purchase…  (but then in actuality the Upton patent is LARGER than Bennett’s… so it has to be added… somehow.  I try to fill up any missing patents with an “explanation” of why it is missing… make sense?

I am still shuffling around patents because I had formerly thought that “Cypress Creek” was the branch just above the Lt John Upton blurb… evidently NOT.  On modern maps (including this base map from the early 1900s) it is named “Champion Swamp”.  Cypress Swamp is to the east and called such on modern maps.  But I am still left scratching my head because I do not recall running  across any mention of Champion Swamp in the early records? Someone find an early reference to settle this? My hunch is that it was named such in the 1800s.  Other issues that confuse me is the William Body (Boddie) patent clearly does not represent 3,350 acres. Note that Boddie’s patent references “Cypress Creek”… it has to be close to it.  I am going to have to decide which of the early patents to delete and replace with newer ones as the old guys die off and are replaced with sons or simply escheat to new patentees.  Perhaps an early and later map.

Hmmm… I think I just answered my own question about the Swamps… I also found another patent for William Boddie’s “way too small” patent of 3350 acres.  Apparently it was re-surveyed in 1684 (which is a beast to figure out but it can be done).  Here is the summary:

Boddie, William. grantee.

Land grant 26 April 1684.

Summary Location: Isle of Wight County.

Description: 3350 acres between and on both sides of the two great swamps of ye Cypress and the western branch of Nanzemond.

Source: Land Office Patents No. 7, 1679-1689 (v.1 & 2 p.1-719), p. 394 (Reel 7).

The telling part which seems to clarify the question of the Swamps (quoting verbatim from the patent):

“between & on both sides of the two great Swamps of ye Cypress and the Western branch of Nansemond in the lower pish of Isle of Wight”

If I am interpreting this correctly… and note his patent is HUGE… my assumption is there are 2 branches of the Cypress. And the Western branch of Nansemond is a different “swamp”.  Please comment if you disagree.  The patent below clearly has Boddie’s land extending to and crossing the Western branch. 

Here is my latest attempt to figure out the conundrum… it just does not fit…  (and yes… I have considered that it has been 300 years…)   Perhaps the RED creek once connected to the PURPLE creek?  If it did then Boddie’s patent would have connected to BOTH the Cypress and Western Branch creeks.  And I can feel confident to proceed with the map with another anchor point.  But I do not feel comfortable yet.

OK… I have re-thunk it… now it makes sense…   If I may be bold and somewhat arrogant…  I feel confident enough of this map that (in my humble opinion) it can now be considered Primary Proof.  That is not to say any of my other map work stands up to this grouping of patents.  This fits like a glove… hence my confidence.

I have a “clean” base map of these creeks if you wish to study it…

https://andersonnc.wordpress.com/isle-of-wight-map/

I also found another 500ac patent for Boddie which needs to be included… [update: it was included in his later 1684 patent]

Robert Coleman’s several patents are beginning to make some sense now…   maybe a beer will help me sort things out…

https://andersonnc.wordpress.com/coleman-notes/