I really and seriously have to force myself to stay focused on who I am researching. This started out as a ANDERSON blog as the title suggests, but as you see, I am all over the place with my research. Below is an example… I have so many people in my head and so many brick walls and missing pieces that I will stop and fill in missing pieces in another person on my list… and my list is writ large. The result is that I have difficulties FINISHING with anyone. But then, that is the essence of genealogy I suppose.

But here is a side track… I will not explain where I am at… just give some info which some other researcher may find “golden”.

I was tracking a man by the name of Richard Malpath, Malpass… multiple spellings… and I ran across this family “Richard Parker”. I was impressed with the amount of correct research they had accomplished… my contribution is my “Nansemond” map which shows where they came from.

These folks moved from Nansemond, VA to around the Wiccacon Creek in the modern Hertford county, NC. To cut this Post short… see this link about the Parker folks…

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Parker-1561#_note-0

I could write about so many people from this image … Nansemond is a “burned” county.

Oops… I got sidetracked and forgot to put up the map….

Jonathan Swift had some fun with the first one… Google it for a laugh if you are not familiar with it (written in the 1700s).

The Democrats, in collusion with the Socialists in Washington, DC are hell bent on letting millions of illegal aliens enter our country and sign up for goodies like foodstamps (now debit cards), medical care, free public education, etc… The political goal is to create a voting bloc to bring in a one-party socialist government (see California).

Republicans, at least a few that care, are putting up a half-hearted “fuss”. I’m a little upset by the total lack of anyone doing a damn thing about it.

I propose an “Invading Barbarians at the Gate” tax. The tax is only on registered Democrats and the thoroughly confused Independants. If the Socialists are so proud and good-hearted as to allow a Cloward Piven inspired invasion of our country then they should damn well pay for it at the very least. I suggest $1,000 per month. A switch to the Republican party will nullify the tax.

A commenter just caused a pingback which got my attention…

The subject was a John Bays who the commenter claims is of Indian extraction… along with his purported son James Rutland. All this ruckus just so happens to coincide with me working exactly on that map…

I have no info on Mr Bays nor Mr Rutland… however, if you read my notes in the “blurb” next to Deep Creek, I did mention some history of just that spot where Bays and Rutland settled.

It seems Lewis Williams was pissed at the Indians along with Thomas Pollock and a Capt Downing found the Meherrin Indians “Troublesome”. They had to go…

The “Minutes of the NC Governors Council” in 1726 gives the account mentioned in my “blurb”. My observation is that the real problems started a bit earlier… certainly by 1700 but more likely the 1710ish era. There was an “understanding” between the colonists and the Indians prior to 1700 that the “settlers” would stay to the East side of Chowan River.

The so-called Tuscarora War was the result starting in 1711. The Indians held themselves “generally” in “check” until that time. They simply were pushed too far…

Leaving my historical account there and picking back up on Mr Bays and Mr Rutland… savvy Indians who did not particularly want to die or become a slave sold by South Carolina tribes would “assimilate” into the “white” world. It was quite common at the time. I am forever coming across them in my research. Interesting to me is that it was no big deal at the time… the situation seemed to be that if you could pull it off with hard work you were accepted by your neighbors. Half-breeds were quite common then… no insult intended… its just a fact. Cher getting a hit song out of it notwithstanding…

An anecdote to the above accounts…

This area is several miles south of the above account.

A favorite author of mine is Caiborne T. Smith, he wrote the below article in 1996:

Woodward, Thomas

by Claiborne T. Smith, Jr., 1996

1604–76

Thomas Woodward, surveyor general of the Albemarle, was born in England. Assay master of the Mint under Charles I, he was dismissed from this position on 23 Oct. 1649 by John Bradshaw, president of the Council of State, because of his loyalty to the Crown. Woodward went to Virginia, publicly declaring never to see England again until the return of Charles II to the throne. In November 1661, after the Restoration, John Woodward, a son of Thomas who seems to have remained in England, petitioned the king; reciting the loyalty of his father, he requested that the house and office of assay master be put in his possession until his father’s return or, if his father was dead, to have a grant of it himself. This request was granted, for when John Woodward died in 1665, King Charles II advised the warden of the Mint that the office of assay master was vacant by reason of the death of John Woodward and in the absence of Thomas Woodward, who, if alive, was at some plantation in Virginia. John Brattle was to exercise the office during Woodward’s absence. Thomas Woodward, however, never returned to England.

Assuming a prominent role in Virginia, he served as clerk of court of Isle of Wight County from 1656 to 1662. On 25 Sept. 1663 Sir William Berkeley, governor of Virginia and himself one of the recently appointed Proprietors of Carolina, issued twenty-nine grants in the Albemarle region. These were the first grants of land made in what is now North Carolina. Thomas Woodward was the surveyor appointed to lay off these grants, and of the twenty-nine, three were made to Woodward and members of his family. These tracts, representing over 5,000 acres, lay on the Pasquotank River and on the western side of the Chowan.

Thomas Woodward seems to have remained in the Albemarle section for several years. On 2 June 1665 he sent an interesting report to John Colleton, one of the Lords Proprietors, concerning the new colony and acknowledged his official appointment as surveyor. The report revealed him to be a man of education, as he referred to Bacon’s essay on plantations and quoted a proverb in Spanish. While in Carolina, he served as secretary for the colony and was a member of the governor’s Council. He and Governor William Drummond were commissioners to treat with Maryland and Virginia for a cessation of tobacco planting for the year 1667. This conference, called in response to a sharp drop in the price of tobacco, was held at Jamestown on 12 July 1666.

Woodward returned to Isle of Wight, Va., where he died. In his will, dated 5 Oct. 1677 and probated the same year, he mentioned his wife, his son Thomas, and his daughters Katherine, Elizabeth, Mary, Rachel, and Philarite. Provision was made for the children, if any, of his deceased son John in England. The inventory of his estate listed a parcel of books. The surname of his wife Katherine is unknown; her will was probated in Isle of Wight in 1684.

https://www.ncpedia.org/biography/woodward-thomas

The above Thomas Woodward would patent land which would eventually become known as Mount Pleasant on the western shore of the Chowan River. Woodward himself seems to have deserted the actual patent but it was picked up by Thomas Giles and eventually fell to Thomas Bray in 1714 or so. These accounts are not to be found in any North Carolina records but in Virginia patents.

Read the description to Woodward’s patent in 1667:

“1100 acs. Isle of Wight or Nansemond Co., 17 Apr. 1667, p. 45. Upon the black water or toward the head of Chawon or Chawonock Riv., includ. an old Indian feild called Mountsack.”

It doesn’t take much to read between the lines… the Virginians did not have a clue yet about that area of Carolina… they could not distinguish between the Blackwater River and the Chowan River. Hell, they had not figured out a border between Isle of Wight and Nansemond… they would not lay out a boundary between the colonies for another sixty one years.

Thomas Woodward must have had balls about the size of a full grown bull…(excuse my analogy ladies but you catch the drift). Surely the area was inhabited by Indians who more than likely wanted to trade. Be wary of Greeks bearing gifts

But more to the point of my actually making a point… this creates a new appreciation in my mind of when I now run across these numerous and sundry references scattered thru’ the records of “an old Indian field”. Mount Pleasant must have been something to behold in 1667… enough so that Woodward felt compelled to grab it for himself. He was ‘castletrash’ after all… those bastards could not help themselves… it was the zeitgeist of colonialism to just take it… overtures of buying it from the Indians notwithstanding.

For a flavor of the area (of Nansemond) from a modern Indian perspective… google “Indigenous Life on the Nansemond River” I like the visuals of the Indian settlements… seems pretty accurate to me.

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I am presently working on this map…

This is where the original 1100 acre deed of Thomas Woodward in 1663 had devolved to by 1715…

I read a humorous account by an attorney once where he exclaimed in effect “hell, do you want a title search back to the Indians”…

well, here it is.

I would post the map but I still have some others to track down and add…tedious but fascinating at the same time.

…as Rush Limbaugh used to say… I miss the guy…

Traci the Librarian and I have struggled, to say the least, to find Chowan DB B-1 in the Familysearch.org website.

For any of you brave enough to enter into the fray or ruckus… this may help with your sanity.

A clue to the psychology involved may be found at Image 279 of 627 in Deeds 1714-1735… where you will find a helpful hint by one archivist, I assume, by the name of James Sutten where he lets loose with some angst!.. and informs us that he “thinks” he is dealing with some “Letter_____ C” records.

Of course there is another added note, seemingly by another archivist, who just seems to ramble on a bit, obviously confused by the whole miserable quest. If any of you puzzle solvers want to tackle this garbled response..carry on… I just scratched my head. But be warned… this note may be a symptom of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Be careful in there!… smiling

an update… from PogMo

Wow!! the old boys were MIFFED when they used the term “Scallawag Times”… that is pre Civil War lingo right there for all to see.

See under Pages to the right…

Hat tip to Traci the Librarian… she tantalized my senses with a brand new account of a James Anderson I have not discovered. That got me going on the map… it seems that an Indian Interpreter by the name of William Charlton is involved.

This guy in 1697 or so was living near Edenton ‘Town’… I haven’t researched him to any satisfaction yet… he may have even had some dealings with the Hotshots down on Cape Fear River. Those guys were involved notoriously with wiping out the Tuascaroras in the ‘War’… see Pararamore’s account below.

But now to the fun part… most of my readers know I get a kick out of finding and mapping the Old Guys… Edward Moseley thought he was remarkable enough to be included on his 1733 Map…

…as usual click the filename below the map/ not the download for a better view…

I found an excellent account of the Tuscarora Indians by Thomas C. Parramore at this link… the research of Mr Parramore is Top Notch… a good read. See also his account of Tuscarora Jack… Mr Parramore could be very objective.

https://www.ncpedia.org/american-indians/tuscarora

The man Danced with Indians… well, actually I just made that up.

Anyway… if I can associate the mystery James Anderson with the above rouge, I shall Post it promptly. And, if you check my latest update, I have included Mr Charlton exactly where Mr Moseley said he was in 1733… all cozy with the Indians.

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Hmmm… when Mr Charlton was not cavorting with the Indians he did find amusements in other avenues… to wit:

Rumor has it that he thought about swearing a fifth time… but he said to hell with it and took another drink. We surely would praise him today for not lowering himself to that beastial and unspeakable level such as Jno Hassell who to his utter damnation… dishonoured Almighty God himself!

Happens to me all the time… you run down a rabbit hole and emerge to find yourself confused as to where you had started. In this case, I was researching some BRYANS of IOW and Nansemond. I was looking them up in an IOW Deed abstract book. I find a James Bryan (and I’m now beginning to realize he has a son named Thomas Bryan who is selling his land by a Power of Attorney… I “think” the old man has moved to NC around the Meherrin River.

So that is pretty much the background of what I was doing… so I reference the Richard Williams who is selling some land… the BRYANS are mentioned in the sale and then WHAMMO! there is a Philip Brantley mentioned! Brantley is MY line now that I have figured out I am a bastard of that line. So I track down the deed to figure out where and why… and what was going on…

All of this was “duplicate” work… I had been down that rabbit hole before…

I t just so happened that all these guys “just happened to be in Court that day”…. 28 Dec 1719. I can see Philip Brantley whisked over to a table and asked to “put your mark right here”. Brantley lived maybe ten miles south of there… but Court Day! was a big deal… it got them out and amongst friends, neighbors and likker.

That deed was a bear to unscramble… I’ve done it twice now.

Now that the odious and despicable Democrats have foolishly violated the Fourth Amendment right of Donal Trump by illegally…

and unconstitutionally exposing his tax returns…

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things …

I want to see the tax returns of:

Nancy Pelosi, Mitch McConnel, Hillary and Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and the sitting oaf in office Joe Biden.

Let the fun begin… yeehaw!

I have been interested in this guy for 20 years. My main theory is that a George Anderson of Isle of Wight, VA is the progenitor of my “line”. The father of this Phillip Raiford had property in IOW near to that George Andrewson (Anderson).

This Post is about the “son” of the Wrayford on the below map.

I have it in my head… that the son of Phillip Wrayford and a son of George Anderson (James Anderson) grew up together in Isle of Wight.

To strengthen that theory… I have tracked both men to Occoneechee Swamp, NC to ca 1720.

To continue the theory… I have tracked both men to Saxe Gotha on the Congaree River in South Carolina.

I am getting more and more impressed with the simple WIKITREE web pages… my “quick” down and dirty searches lead me there.

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Raiford-2

I am driven to find copies of the “original” documents… I get perturbed by typewritten copies. With that said, and also because the name “Raisford” is bastardized in the typewritten version… it is lamentable not to be able to see the original.

And to see for myself if the witness to the will “James Henderson” might possibly be James “Anderson”. Just sayin’.

_________________________________

Traci the Librarian kindly forwarded a copy of Raiford’s will… (which looks like a copy of the original to me… the “tell” is in the second sentence where they add the “eight” to the date “Seven Hundred and forty Seven Eight” that is pretty sophisticated stuff). But the name seems to be Henderson and not Anderson… bummer.

So Jennifer from California and myself have been researching the Bryans of “all over the damn place”… seemingly from Isle of Wight/Nansemond to Chowan River and then down to New Bern… they “got around” lets say. And they bred like rabbits.

We run across a reference to this tombstone…

This just smells fishy to me. By all means it is exciting. I mean, hell!, 1663! But…

Reading the newspaper account…

Roy Cahoon and his buds, Wallace and Thad in 1993 run across the thing and use heavy equipment to right the heavy stone… cool. Cahoon remembers some 45-50 years ago (would be WWII era of the 40s) seeing the stone face down.

But Cahoon clearly remembered what his bud Wallace told him [as kids in the 40s, I presume]... “He said that two ladies came here from New York and had the stone put at the grave site”.

I’m just curious who the two ladies from New York were. And how, exactly did Wallace get that info? Did he see them? How did a kid know they were from New York?

I love a good conspiracy… were the two ladies DAR types? If you think about it the inscription reads as “genealogy” and not a bereaved remembrance from grieving family. I’m not an expert but the impressively chiseled letters of the engraving on the stone do not look to me like something that could have been accomplished in remote colonial North Carolina ca 1740s.

I just can’t swallow this pill.

_________________

My friend David Gammon (you know… the guy who penned 40 or so abstract books) chimed in with this comment…

“I suspect that the tombstone was carved many years after the fact.

In Eastern North Carolina, most early tombstones that still exist were made of marble. Even at that, most people in those days could not afford such a thing, and it had to be shipped in from somewhere else.

Of course, there are other early stones that were made of sandstone or something soft like that, but they usually ended up disintegrating.

…sometimes our ancestors simply put up a wooden stake, or a wooden cross to mark a grave.  Of course, these rotted over time.

Or they put  a simple field stone over the grave.  Sometimes they were able to chisel out the initials of the deceased into the stone, and sometimes not.   

But these were not lasting memorials, of course.

I have been in old cemeteries and seen rows of rocks, perfectly lined up, marking graves, without any real idea whose graves they were.

When I read what was carved on that stone, I knew it was not a contemporary stone.  Those early stones didn’t have much more than a name and a date.  This one had too much info.

And as for the London part…… it reminds me of something I used to tell the students in my genealogy classes ….. the person who writes the check to pay for the tombstone gets to dictate what is carved into the stone.  

I recently saw an old friend.  Her mother had actually taught her father in high school, so her mother was at least four or five years older than her father.  She was embarrassed by the age difference, so she always lied to say she was several years younger.  Her daughter told me at a gathering recently that when her mother died, she made sure her mother’s fabricated birth date was carved into the stone. And not the real birth date.  

She wrote the check, she decides the dates!”

A disappearing swamp. So I am working some very early deeds on my Occoneechee Neck map with Jennifer from California who also seems to have ancestors among the rouges of that era.

I was/am attempting to platt a survey of Emperour Wheeler from a Bertie deed of 1728… lo’ and behold the patent discloses the “oddity” of a “first and second” Cypress Swamp. I scratched my head violently at that time.. it still hurts.

A Cypress Swamp for that area is NOT to be found on modern maps (to my knowledge). So if you run across this weird swamp in your research keep this in mind.

Bottom line- Occoneechee Swamp (on modern maps) in Occoneechee Neck was aka Cypress Swamp (for a time).

Now for the question… it seems I have developed a “style” of mapping patents over the last decade or so that is easy for me but difficult to simply explain to others. Hence, I have become somewhat of a lone “expert” if I may be so arrogant. The problem with being your own expert is that you have no one to ask a question of. Capeesh?

Below is what I call a “data sheet”… I hunt down my target (generally from the NC Land Grant and Data) website for North Carolina, an awesome asset by the way, and I find the Metes and Bounds of the patent. The “magic” of what happens then is that those 300 year old survey directions work “precisely” today. Notwithstanding my numerous mistakes. The modern maps of today show “exactly” where the old guys lived. And I do mean “precisely”, you can find old cemeteries and dig up the bones if you call yourself and achaelogist or God forbid, an anthropologist. (See the latest exploits where they merrily are digging up Jamestown, VA old guys. It gives me the creeps.

So here is the question… is there a competent surveyor in my reading audience who I might ask a few technical questions of? They should have some patience because I use a computer program to do the mapping and do not whip out a compass, protractor, ruler and pen and paper, (Metes and Bounds by Sandy Knoll).

The patent above… with the princely name of Emperour Wheeler has the obvious problem that the metes and bounds probably have been corrupted and misinterpreted over the years. I have learned by trial and error over the years to do “minor” corrections to make the patents work. I am however, very hesitant and cautious to do so. I don’t like to mess with the old guys directions! However, I realize that many of these old documents have been re-copied by court house folks over the centuries… and therein can be found unintentional errors. In the above case I find myself clueless to find the errors, which are obvious. Most times I can surround the patent with neighbors and detect the error.

I simply do not have the expertise to “fix” the above patent. A keen observer will realize that (when compared to neighbor patents) it clearly does NOT represent 700 acres… it is a very PUNY 700 acres if correct.

Here is the expanded version with my need to “fix” the Emperour patent. I sent this map to Jennifer from California in our search for her Bryans of that area. Note the John Ha[w]thorn patent (which also has errors)…now look at the neighbor patents which refer to this Hawthorn fella… in a perfect world all these pieces should fit together like a jigsaw puzzle. However… this onslaught of defective patents is severely cramping my style! This whole area of Cypress Creek is NOT fitting together and I am getting extremely irritated with my inability to get on with this THING… hell, I have work to do on my damn Chowan map! smiling…

The Big Kahuna…

https://andersonnc.com/ttt-occoneechee-neck-indian-traders/

But back to the point of this Post… the above patent can be used to “generally” describe an area well enough to do mere genealogy… of which I find interesting. Hopefully this will help to explain why some of my maps have odd “gaps”. Some areas of my maps fit so well that I literally sit back and marvel! at the work of the old surveyors. Hence, the little phrase at the top of my blog page “meant what they said and said what they meant“.

I could do another post on some corruption that I have found in patents, generally by the castletrash bastards that were rampant in colonial government but I prefer to hold my tongue and not waste my time. I do however point it out in my research when they are so reckless and stupid as to expose themselves… i.e. Edward Moseley (he stole the data for his 1733 map. or perhaps I should be more kindly and say “plagiarized” the data). See the patents on my Occoneechee Neck map for Thomas Pollock, the war governor. I find there was a mindset then, and very much today, that this breed of scum that live off our taxes “expect” to be rewarded handsomely simply for sucking vigorously on a hind teet. Sorry… lost my mind for a moment.