Andersons of Colonial N. Carolina

The more I map (its what I do)… the deeper in the woods (otherwise known as going down a rabbit hole) I find myself. I have been whining and complaining about it lately… sorry about that, I should just man up and deal with it.

There may be an explanation for some of my frustration (and on the extreme side , some of my exasperation and short temper)…

It is just in the cards when you do research of 300 or so years ago that there will be missing elements in the history… fires, wars, dumb asses, book eating worms and critters, and of course politicians ( the worst kind of bacterial infestation). So I dare to exclaim that sometimes a researcher must “adapt” to the circumstances and make an educated (shudder) ‘guess’.

Here is an example…

One Richard Milton acquired a patent for 640 acres south of the Meherrin River in then Chowan precinct (now Northampton County, NC). Cool… I dutifully found the pertinent record and attempted to map the thing in it’s rightful place in history.

I placed theMilton patent here just as a hunch that it was close… and note that the Joseph Boon patent adjoins him. Also note the patent line between them… that line is 2 miles long… this is unusual. Unusual things like that get my attention.

Purely by accident I noticed a reference to this Milton patent… and by the coincidence of that “goofy” patent line it leaves little doubt that this is the same land. So, I suppose, I am explaining that pure dumb luck is an element of my particular flavor of research. This all amounts to just matching the jig saw puzzle pieces.

Sometime between 1719 and 1731 this patent went from 640 acres to 340 acres. It also became the property of Michael Hanley… those records may have just been “lost”. But the deed speaks for itself. The patent may have escheated, it may have been ‘assigned’ from Milton to Hanley. These are the types of problems I am dealing with in this area.

I’m still beating on this dead horse… I’m beginning to feel like Wyle E. Coyote chasing the Roadrunner.

I’ve added a very aggravating element of a blue “Wm Browne 1706” graphic. It is a taunt that drives me nuts. So naturally I figure maybe it will drive one of you to solve the mystery just to shut me up.

William Browne left William Boon about 100 acres in his will ca. 1718… “at the other side of Meherrin River”… where (or what part of the 640 acres is that 100 acres)?

In 1720 William Boon sold John Bryant 100 acres… is that the same land?

Where is the mouth of Rushin’s Branch?

Where is the “Dividing Run”?

Note below that the William Boon patent of 1745 (100 acres) on the north side of Meherrin River under Carolus Anderson is an “anchor” patent …meaning it cannot be disputed… it is a fact of history. Note also that I have successfully narrowed down the other patents just above the Country Line into Virginia. I have almost “but not quite” proven the missing 1706 patent. (it is roughly in the blue area I have highlighted).

Not sure if this is a correct term … but it works to generally describe the area of the Meherrin River where it borders Northampton and Hertford Counties in North Carolina and Southampton Virginia. I have discovered and mapped three patents from 1706. None of these patents can be found… but they were referenced in later deeds. That begs the question of if there were any more missing patents. My assumption is that they were probably burned in the courthouse fires of Northampton.

This is the general area I am focused on…

Note the 640 acre patent for Thomas Britt in 1723. It seems that no way in hell can I make that patent fit. The patent behind it is one of those 1706 patents (James Gee). But now note the two 1714 patents for Wm Maule in my notes below. This seems to be a conundrum. I am desperate for a clue.

The Wm Maule patent of 1714 is obviously the same land as the Thomas Britt patent of 1723… there is a missing piece of the puzzle here???

Here is some background I have compiled…

I have numerous other notes if anyone is interested.

I hope this is not taken as an ambush question… I am genuinely curious.

I like and respect Thomas Sowell… over the years he has earned a position of respect in my mind. I have heard him posit this point before that Colonial English folks brought over from England a “white trash” attitude. (that is my words… NOT Mr Sowell). (I observe that my expression of ‘white trash’ may be construed as racist. If you think so then so be it… I do not care… I am simply postulating my thought.) Mr. Sowell postulates that white English folks used the expressions Dis and Dat for “this” and “that”. And further he posits that the expression “AXE” as opposed to the expression “ASK” has an etemology that can be traced to the island of England.

I have joked in the past using the expression “I don’t want to be considered an “ask” murderer.”

I don’t want to put one of my long time commenters on the spot… but he and I have commented civilly on questions of Indians, Black and Whites. He seems pretty rational… (and I think he has his own blog).

So… what do you think about dat?

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From the video…

An aside…

I’ve never been inclined to write much about my “Southern Pride”… I once commented on an article from a Virginian University website (left unnamed because I did not save the comments) upon the author’s rejection of being a member of a Civil War reenactment group. This was just before the current “woke” movement. The author lamented his past mistake and stated he was wrong for ever having the racist idea of participating in a reenactment. He was insulted at my mere mention of the term “Southern Pride” Sad I thought, I was dumbfounded by it all. Little did I know that next to follow this nonsense was the “Woke” movement.

Here is an article where an author only a decade or so ago was confronted with a similar “confrontation” of this new and modern abomination of “Woke” bullsh*t. It seems to me the woke clowns are just trying to silence speech. Good luck with that clowns…

https://www.nas.org/academic-questions/31/4/race_crime_and_culture

“Southern honor did exist, did breed violence among men of every class, did cut against evangelical Christianity and the law of the state. Without the concept of honor, Southern violence remains inexplicable. Honor was the catalyst necessary to ignite the South’s volatile mixture of slavery, scattered settlement, heavy drinking, and ubiquitous weaponry. Honor thus served to set the South apart from the North, and once established honor became an integral part of the Southern identity.[7]

This southern culture of violence has long been associated with high crime rates among white southerners—in particular, violent crime. As far back as the 1870s H. V. Redfield found that murder was four to fifteen times more frequent in the southern states than elsewhere in the United States.[8] This southern proclivity for violence continued well into the twentieth century, and even endures in the twenty-first.[9]

Arguments that southern whites share a subculture of violence won’t get your book condemned. Slamming southern whites is perfectly acceptable among intellectuals and elites. It’s only when one speaks of a black subculture of violence that one steps over the line. Theoretically, of course, there’s no difference. “

If I may be so bold as to try to aid Mr. Sowell in understanding a “Southerner” and a redneck cracker (all of which I am) it is to understand “Southern Pride”. The author above alludes to it… I found his article very interesting.

I find it highly plausible that Blacks picked up on “Southern Pride”. Could it be that the odd shootings in Chicago are merely black Hatfields and McCoys?

This is an interesting record…

10 Feb 1724 – Bertie Ct – John Perry is on jury “to lay out the road from Mr Simon Jeffries Landing on the Roanoke to the maine branch that begins at Mr James Bryants and goes to Chesshires Landing on Maherin River where the trading Vessell comonly lye according to law and that William Bridges be and he is hereby appointed overseer of the said road for the ensuing year.” Haun abstract

(I cannot find the original of this quote… if anyone can clue me in, please do so)

As a mapping guy, I get caught up in these things when I find some clues…

In this case I have found where “Chesshires Landing on the Maherin River” was… I won’t bore you with the details but suffice it to say I am willing to bet serious amounts of money I am right.

William Bridgers is below (upper left) on the Meherrin River in 1716. James Bryan has property (since 1708) near another grant of John Cheser (1720)… but I have not determined exactly where on the Meherrin River Bryan had any land… (But Moseley clearly has him on his map of 1733).

Note the next part: “where the trading Vessell comonly lye according to law “.

My question is… do the Trading Vessels commonly lie on the Roanoke River or the Meherrin River?

This is from the Moseley Map of 1733…

Note in the Moseley Map that the Jeffries Road never seems to have been completed or came into being… but the Road from Wheelers Mill appears from the “Landing Area’ through Stony Bridge and on to Bryan’s Ferry.

Here is my latest Chowan “PRECINCT” map… this was just before even Bertie County was formed (roughly). You can zoom in for details…

Click to access 1chowan-prec-working-2.pdf

This is the area on the Collet map of 1770…

There are no particular questions I have about this Post… the area is just interesting to me. I do have a curiosity about the trade that was carried on in this early colonial period… particularly concerning the Indian Trade… hence my interest in any Trading “Vessels”… you know, small skiffs, boats, periaugers or whatever. And who were the captains.

an afterthought… I do have an ongoing suspicion that many of the modern roads have a genesis in the early colonial roads. Even to a point that many of ‘those’ roads were based on Indian Paths or trails.

This is an interesting article of the early ‘Militia’ of Bertie ‘precinct’ and later County. This author did his homework… a hat tip to him. These were many of the movers and shakers… real people.

Click to access History_NC_Bertie_Colonial_Militia.pdf

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If you have kept an interest thus far then you will find this interesting; I have consulted it a lot. I recognize this as someone who has studied enough to become comfortable with the history. This takes years.

https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~fcharper/genealogy/JonesandWoodwards.html

This is for any puzzle solvers out there…

I ran across this article :

http://files.usgwarchives.net/nc/bertie/history/other/courthou283gms.txt

I mapped the patent… approximately… (center of graphic)

I am curious of any neighbors to more accurately map the location.

This may be one… but it seems to reference the East shore of Chowan [River]?… but I think I may be totally off base and am reading too much into the description?