The Family Tree Searchersites.rootsweb.com/~vaggsv/issue43v22n2.pdf · 2018-12-19 · Over the...

The Family Tree Searcher

Volume 22 - Number 2 December 2018

TABLE OF CONTENTS

The Editor’s Page ...................................................................................................................... 2

My Matches from AncestryDNA ............................................................................................. 3

By L. Roane Hunt

Memories of Hazel Figg Hughes ......................................................................................... 24

By L. Roane Hunt

Former Student and Teacher At Achilles Recalls Old Days ......................................... 35

By Mrs. Joel Thornton (Margaret Clarissa Richardson)

Robert Henry Gwynn: An Ancestor at “Hellmira” ........................................................... 38

By Robert N. Garnett

Deadly Duels of Virginia ........................................................................................................ 43

By Robert Burgess Hitchings

Ebenezer Baptist Church ....................................................................................................... 45

By L. Roane Hunt

GGSV Publications Available by Mail Order .......................................... Inside back cover

Visit the website for Gloucester Genealogical Society of Virginia at

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~vaggsv/

[email protected]

Vol. 22, No. 2 2 December 2018

The Editor’s Page— Recently I had the opportunity to read some biographies of

people who lived around here, and I very much enjoyed doing that. This exercise began when my cousin in the military told me that he was reading about a Gloucester native and did I happen to know him? He was reading Over the Hump, the autobiography by General Bill Tunner who retired to Ware Neck, and I could tell my cousin that I did know General Tunner’s family and in fact he, my cousin, should know that another of our cousins was a close friend of General Tunner’s wife and daughter.

That led to me reading Over the Hump and enjoying it, largely due to the personal connection.

Next I read a biography with a similar connection. Admiral David Farragut married a distantly related aunt prior to the Civil War after he had been stationed in Norfolk where she lived. I read my great grandmother’s memoirs and learned about her three Norfolk aunts who all married naval officers. Admiral Farragut was a Union Lieutenant (promoted to Admiral after the war) who had several important victories on the Mississippi River against the Confederate Navy and was alleged to have exclaimed “Damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead!” The book I read was The Life of David Glasgow Farragut: First Admiral of the United States Navy, Embodying His Journal and Letters by his son Loyall Farragut. My great grandmother also mentioned visits from Loyall Farragut in her memoirs.

And then, continuing my pattern, I read Marine! The Life Of Chesty Puller by Burke Davis. General Lewis Puller grew up in West Point living on First Street next door to my Lewis family ancestors, including my great grandmother. He is buried at Christ Church Cemetery in Saluda. My grandmother’s brother-in-law Dave Feild is mentioned in that book as one of the neighborhood boys during Chesty’s formative years.

My mother wrote notes to call attention to family references in the copy of Marine! that I inherited.

Subsequent to reading those books, I began to look for biographies of other local people. Fortunately, my mother had already started collecting them when she encountered them. She told me about other people like Herman Hollerith. Somehow the name came up one night when I was home from college, and I said I was studying Herman Hollerith in school, and my mother reported that she had occasionally gone to Mathews to play with the Hollerith children when they were young.

So far my intended or completed reading list is this:

Over the Hump, Lt. Gen. William H. Tunner, autobiography.

Marine! the Life of Chesty Puller, Burke Davis.

Fortunate Son: The Healing of a Vietnam Vet, Lewis B. Puller, Jr, autobiography.

The True Story of Pocahontas: The Other Side of History, Custalow and Daniel.

Dearest of Captains: A Biography of Sally Louisa Tompkins, Keppel Hagerman.

The Honey-pod Tree, T.C. Walker, autobiography.

Herman Hollerith: The Forgotten Giant of Information Processing, Geoffrey D. Austrian.

Walter Reed: A Biography, William B. Bean.

The Mathews Men: Seven Brothers and the War Against Hitler’s U-boats, William Geroux.

I miss my mother’s notes!

Lee Brown, Editor


My Matches from AncestryDNA

By L. Roane Hunt

If we pause to think about it, each of us would be amazed at how many changes have

taken place in our lifetime. My Uncle Harold had a goal to live in three centuries, and he succeeded. He was born in the late 19th century, lived in the 20th century, and died in the 21st century. He often referred to the life changes that he observed through his many years. Today we are well aware of the advances produced by scientific research and engineering applications of current discoveries.

Today the community of scientists deal with two types of science: pure science and conscience of scientific opinion. Pure science is demonstrated in the laboratory and life. Modern tools such as the digital computer have made scientific proof of current discoveries. One of the most amazing discoveries has occurred in the study of genetics. It has been proven that there is only one human race, and the division into different races is not justified.

Although we are one race, each of us has a detectable uniqueness. For decades, our unique fingerprints have been useful in the proof of our identity. It is amazing that there has never been a duplication of fingerprints of all the people that have ever lived, but we tend to take this fact for granted. Currently, facial recognition is now being developed to identify us by our unique faces.

The most amazing discovery in genetics is the deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) that is unique in each of us. From this we know that our creator has a “blueprint” on file for each of us. Among many other applications of this discovery, genealogy researchers have found it to be useful because it also reveals our relationship to our ancestors.

Although many of my friends were participating in DNA testing to help sort out uncertainties in family lines, I was slow to have my DNA tested. I was satisfied with the full knowledge of five generations of my ancestors, and I had the documentation of at least four family lines and their arrival to North America. I concluded that I did not need to test my DNA.

The AncestryDNA Test

My family suggested that I move forward and submit to the DNA testing. For many years, my four daughters have struggled to choose gifts for their father at Christmas, birthday, and Father’s Day. The default gift was favorite snack food that helped sustain my unhealthy weight. Sometimes they pooled their money and chose an expensive and useful gift for one of these special occasions. Breaking with tradition, they suggested that they would like to contribute to my DNA test for my seventy-ninth birthday.

Having an interest in reducing my weight, I decided that this may be the best time to do the test. With this commitment, I was faced with the decision of a choice of DNA programs and what level of test to do. I had heard from friends that had made such


choices, and I found these options to be very difficult. I chose AncestryDNA because it had no options to consider and my personal genealogy computer software, RootsMagic, was clearly linked to the Ancestry website. Since the price was low, I planned to try it. If it was not a good plan, I would change to a better one.

After receiving my DNA kit, I spit in the special tub and sent it off to be tested. Eventually, I received the message that directed me to the AncestryDNA website that revealed my results. My first surprise was that it identified a granddaughter who had done the AncestryDNA testing, previously unknown to me.

The second surprise was that my first cousin, Barbara Roane Williams, was identified as a first cousin from the DNA test. A few weeks later, another first cousin appeared as a first cousin. This occurred two days before she received her results. These test results were easily confirmed from my personal knowledge of my close relatives.

The first question that arises, “Are these close relationships predicted from the DNA test or from the genealogical data that we submit?” For many years DNA studies have concentrated on the male and female ancestry lines to sort out various family lines. AncestryDNA claims to go further with a statiistical method of identifying matches by determining common DNA segments to estimate various levels of relationships. Does this method actually broaden the use of DNA for genealogical research?

Also, included in my results were two second cousins, twenty-three third cousins, and twenty-two fourth cousins. Using my extensive genealogy database on my RootsMagic software, I was able to confirm the accuracy of these results. I confirmed all of these results except those that did not submit any of their genealogy data.

As these distant cousins are revealed, the question arises as to why do we want to know all these people. We are likely to know our first and second cousins, but beyond these, we are unlikely to maintain a personal relationship. Well, they are part of your family history, and if a common ancestor can be identified, you may be able to share genealogy data of those unknown distant ancestors that is not in the public records.

In the months following my initial results, I have been searching through thousands of new DNA matches. I have attempted to confirm each match using my RootsMagic database. Many of those tested that match my DNA do not submit genealogical data that identify their known ancestors. So far, I have confirmed over one hundred matches and the closest common ancestors for each match.

To present my findings, I have separated the matches into four parts related to each of my four grandparents shown in the pedigree chart on the next page: Richard Alexander Roane, Elva Maude Worrell, Wilbur Lincoln Hunt, and Laura Kate Lewis. Many more matches are confirmed for the Roane and Worrell family lines because my database is much more extensive for Gloucester and the surrounding counties of Virginia. The Worrell line matches found so far are from the Horsley line of Elva Maude Worrell’s mother. My


Name DNA Results RootsMagic Record

Lewis Roane Hunt & Phyllis Ann Shelton

Carrie Lee Granddaughter Granddaughter

Richard Alexander Roane & Elva Maude Worrell

Barbara Roane Williams 1st - 2nd Cousins 1st Cousins

Virginia Piggott Baston 1st - 2nd Cousins 1st Cousins


Lewis Roane Hunt

Lester & Hulda Roane Hunt

Richard & Elva Worrell Roane Wilbur & Kate Lewis Hunt



Hunt line began in the Massachusetts Bay Colony and then homesteading in Minnesota. My Lewis line homesteaded in Minnesota. The descendents of these latter family lines migrated throughout our nation.

Roane Line

The next closest matches in the Roane line had Charles Alexander Roane as their common ancestor. The match occurred for descendents of both of his marriages, first to Sarah Rebecca Roane and second to Matilda Frances Mitchell. Actually, the matches for Charles A. Roane in his first marriage could have been also through Sarah R. Roane because they were first cousins, grandchildren of Alexander Roane and Elizabeth Pollard.

The table below list the DNA matches from the Ancestry tests with the common ancestor to Charles A. Roane. The middle column gives the DNA prediction of their relationship to me, and the right column is the confirming relationship from my RootsMagic database. The DNA results ranged from 3rd - 6th cousins compared to 2nd cousins with various times removed. Evidently, the times removed causes the DNA record to appear more distant.

The descendent chart on the next page shows how these DNA matches relate to me. The corresponding matches are shown in bold font. The chart shows that I descend from Charles A. Roane and Sarah R. Roane through Richard A. Roane. The chart shows how Toni Lynn Lupton, John David Woodland, David William Roane, Heather Roane, John Scott Gray, Melissa Jean Gray, and Kathy Muse Burke descended from Luther Roane. Melissa J. Gray’s

My Pedigree Chart

Wilbur Lincoln Hunt b. 1868, d. 1935

Lester Lee Hunt b. 1914, d. 1994

Laura Kate Lewis b. 1875, d. 1956

Lewis Roane Hunt b. 1939

Richard Alexander Roane b. 1842, d. 1920

Hulda Rebecca Roane b. 1914, d. 1998

Elva Maude Worrell b. 1890, d. 1973



Charles Alexander Roane & Sarah Rebecca Roane

John David Woodland Jr. 3rd - 4th Cousins 2nd Cousins (1x Removed)

Toni Lynn Lupton 3rd - 4th Cousins 2nd Cousins (2x Removed)

David William Roane 4th - 6th Cousins 2nd Cousins (2x Removed)

Heather Roane Anderson 3rd - 4th Cousins 2nd Cousins (3x Removed)

John Scott Gray 4th - 6th Cousins 2nd Cousins (2x Removed)

Melissa Jean Gray 4th - 6th Cousins 2nd Cousins (2x Removed)

Thomas Argroves 4th - 6th Cousins 2nd Cousins (3x Removed)

Perry Argroves 4th - 6th Cousins 2nd Cousins (3x Removed)

Kathy Muse Burke 3rd - 4th Cousins 2nd Cousins (1x Removed)

Randall Curtis Mosher 4th - 6th Cousins 2nd Cousins (2x Removed)

Shari Lynn Sisco 4th - 6th Cousins 2nd Cousins (3x Removed)

Charles Alexander Roane & Matilda Frances Mitchell

Carter Lively 3rd - 4th Cousins 2nd Cousins (1x Removed)

Jacob Allen Crocker 4th - 6th Cousins 2nd Cousins (2x Removed)

Miriam Jane Roane 3rd - 4th Cousins 2nd Cousins (1x Removed)


two sons, Thomas and Perry Argroves, were also matches. Randall Curtis Mosher and Shari Lynn Sisco descended through Maria Louisa Roane. From the second marriage, Carter Lively and Jacob Allen Crocker descended through Alton Lee Roane, and Miriam Jane Roane descended through Carroll Aubrey Roane.

I had the privilege of knowing or meeting many of the family line of many of these matches. Many were closely associated with my grandfather Richard A. Roane in the stores he established in Gloucester or his religious activities there. He established the Roanes Store and Post Office, Selden Store and Post Office, and Roanes Wharf. Magnolia C. Roane’s husband Thomas J. Woodland purchased the Roanes Store business in 1915. Willian Luther Roane managed the Selden Store for my grandfather. My mother took me to meet her special cousin “Willie” Roane when he lived in a convalescent home in Warwick County. Maude L. Roane managed the Roanes Store for my grandfather, and her daughter Verna Elizabeth Roane assisted me in my early research of Gloucester history and genealogy. Her sons John and James were my friends in elementary school and college. James has been a prominent county surveyor for many years. Verna Etna Roane married Charles W. B. Burke who purchased the Shelden Store in 1920. Her son David managed the York River Ferry until it was replaced with the bridge and served as the treasurer of Gloucester for many years. A previous journal article mentioned that her son William had his initial engraved in the foundation of my grandmother’s hen house constructed in 1928.

My grandfather’s sisters Maria Louisa Roane and Alton Lee Roane were strong supporters of my grandfather’s religious activities. Maria married John H. L. Adams, and her daughter married her

Charles Alexander Roane, b. 1817, d. 1875

+m. 1st Sarah Rebecca Roane, b. 1821, d. 1849 Luther Major Roane, b. 1839, d.. 1897

Magnolia Coles Roane, b. 1870, d.. 1934

Shirley Evelyn Woodland Sr., b. 1892, d.. 1980

William Carroll Lupton, b. 1935

Toni Lynn Lupton, b. 1956

John David Woodland Sr., b. 1906, d.. 1978

John David Woodland Jr., b. 1935

William Luther Roane, b. 1872, d.. 1962

John William Roane, b. 1908, d.. 2002

William Aubrey Roane, b. 1936

David William Roane, b. 1959

Maude Lena Roane, b. 1875, d.. 1936

Samuel Hudson Roane, b. 1907, d. 1986

Donald Hudson Roane, b. 1934, d. 1987

? Roane, b. ?

Heather Roane Anderson, b. ?

Verna Elizabeth Roane, b. 1909, d. 1999

John Ashby Gray, b. 1939, d. 2016

John Scott Gray, b. 1968

James Roane Gray, b. 1941

Melissa Jean Gray, b. 1969

Verna Etna Roane, b. 1878, d. 1964

William Franklin Burke, b. 1919, d.. 2014

Kathy Muse Burke, b. 1954

Richard Alexander Roane, b. 1842, d.. 1920

Hulda Rebecca Roane, b. 1914, d.. 1998

Lewis Roane Hunt, b. 1939

Maria Louisa Roane, b. 1845, d.. 1936

Bessie Brooke Adams, b. 1876, d.. 1936

Elsie Brooke Roane, b. 1901, d.. 1974

Curtis Henry Mosher, b. 1932

Randall Curtis Mosher, b. 1956

Moody Moses Adams, b. 1879, d.. 1960

Bessie May Adams, b. 1900, d.. 1962

Mary Caterine Flynn, b. 1922

Daniel Flynn Sisco, b. 1947

Shari Lynn Sisco, b. 1965

+m. 2nd Matilda Frances Mitchell, b. 1835, d. 1915

Alton Lee Roane, b. 1855, d.. 1927

Charles Hugh Roy Lively, b. 1881, d.. 1979

Warren Powell Lively, b. 1909, d.. 1995

Carter Cunningham Lively, b. 1953

Garland Reverdy Lively, b. 1919, d.. 1987

Elizabeth Rollins Lively, b. 1954

Jacob Allen Crocker, b. 1974

Carroll Aubrey Roane, b. 1867, d.. 1926

John Peach Roane Sr., b. 1907, d.. 1965

John Peach Roane Jr., b. 1932, d.. 2006

Miriam Jane Roane, b. 1963

Family of Charles Alexander Roane



cousin Claude A. Roane. Claude established the ? Center in Newport News and was a leader in the Ohio Friends Church for many years. Alton Lee Roane married Reverdy J. Lively, and for many years, her son Garland R. Lively was school superintendent of Hampton, Virginia. I met Miriam J. Roane at a Roane and Peach family gathering in Maryland. Earlier, I met her father John Peach Roane when he and his cousins drove up to my grandfather’s old Roanes Store where I was tending my vegetable garden. They said that “they were kin to the man that built that store.” I replied, “I am too.”

More distant matches in the Roane line had Charles S. Roane as their common ancestor. The matches occurred for descendents of both of his marriages, first to Frances Guthrie and second to Johanna Bland. The names of the DNA matches are presented in this table where the DNA predictions are compared with the actual relationship from the


Charles S. Roane, b. 1776, d. 1858

+m. 1st Frances Ann Guthrie, b. 1775, d. 1823 Charles Alexander Roane, b. 1817, d.. 1875




+m. 2nd Johanna Bland, b. 1796 Lilly Ann Roane, b. 1833, d.. 1865

Fannie Estelle Acra, b. 1856, d.. 1890

Ann Jeanette Goalder, b. 1875, d.. 1949

Alma Eastwood, b. 1903, d. 1989

Frances Eloise Pierce, b. 1928

Cheryl Elaine May, b. 1953

Robert E. Dover, b. 1992

Joshua William Roane, b. 1838, d.. 1886

Lula Bland Roane, b. 1867, d.. 1936

Lillie Corinne Gaines, b. 1890, d.. 1980

Martha Dudley, b. ?

Family of Charles S. Roane


Charles S. Roane & Frances Guthrie

J. Cannon 5th - 8th Cousins 3rd Cousins (4x Removed)

Emilie Ann Anderson 4th - 6th Cousins 3rd Cousins (2x Removed)

Raymond Taylor 5th - 8th Cousins 3rd Cousins (3x Removed)

Steven Lee Anderson 4th - 6th Cousins 3rd Cousins (2x Removed)

Rebecca Rowley 4th - 6th Cousins 3rd Cousins (1x Removed)

Ronald Roane Gordon 3rd - 4th Cousins 3rd Cousins (1x Removed)

Philip Russell Farinholt 4th - 6th Cousins 3rd Cousins (2x Removed)

William Franklin Sharpe 4th - 6th Cousins 3rd Cousins (1x Removed)

Laura Gray 4th - 6th Cousins 3rd Cousins (1x Removed)

Benton Jefferson Trawick 4th - 6th Cousins 3rd Cousins (1x Removed)

Charles S. Roane & Johanna Bland

Robert Ernest Dover 4th - 6th Cousins 3rd Cousins (3x Removed)

Martha Dudley 4th - 6th Cousins 3rd Cousins

RootsMagic database. Again the number of times removed causes the DNA prediction to be more distant.

The adjacent descendent chart and on the next page for the first and second marriages of Charles S. Roane shows how these DNA matches relate to me. Again, the corresponding matches are shown in bold font. The chart shows that I descended from Charles S. Roane and Frances Ann Guthrie through Charles A. Roane. The chart shows how J. Cannon, Emilie Ann Anderson, Raymond Taylor, and Steven Lee Anderson descended from Wiley Pollard Roane. Rebecca Rowley descended from Allen Roane; Ronald Roane Gordon descended from Elliott G. Roane; and Philip Russell Farinholt, William Franklin Sharpe Sr., and Laura Gray


descended from Samuel Franklin Roane. From the second marriage, Robert E. Dover descended from Lilly Ann Roane, and Martha Dudley descended from Joshua William Roane.

Charles S. Roane married Frances A. Guthrie first and obtained land from her family. It was located on the York River at the mouth of the Poropotank River near the Guthrie Creek. It was inherited by his son Allen Roane and is known as Roane Point in King and Queen County.

Wiley P. Roane’s daughter Elmira F. Roane married Rev. Logan Puryear Anderson and moved to Halifax County, Virginia. After the death of her husband, she returned to King and Queen County to live with her daughter. She died there and was buried in the Beulah Church Cemetery.

Allen Roane’s grandson William Otway Lee Fary worked with my grandfather in the construction and maintenance of the Beulah Church and boarding school in King and Queen County.

Elliott G. Roane’s son Roots Bankhead Roane was associated with my grandfather in his church work and was listed as a witness at the wedding of my grandparents Richard and Elva Roane in 1909.

Four DNA matches descended from Samuel Franklin Roane. Laura Gray was the daughter of Dr. Nelson Turner Gray who practiced medicine as a pediatrician in Virginia Beach, Virginia.

Benton Jefferson Trawick is a great-nephew of Jefferson Sinclair Selden Jr. who wrote and published the classic “Roane Book.”

Two DNA matches came from the second marriage of Charles S.



+m. 1st Frances Ann Guthrie, b. 1775, d. 1823 Wiley Pollard Roane, b. 1804, d.. 1831

Elmira Frances Roane, b. 1825, d.. 1918

Joel Thomas Anderson, b. 18548 d.. 1930

Thomas Willard Anderson, b. 1874, d. 1963

Nora Gelle Anderson, b. 1901, d. 1945

Barbara Ann Owen, b. 1921

Catherine Jean Carperter, b. 1950

J. Cannon, b. ?

John Logan Anderson, b. 1850, d.. 1922

Charles Albert Anderson, b. 1879, d. 1959

Albert Lee Anderson, b. 1905, d. 1987

Emilie Ann Anderson, b. 1939

John Holland Anderson, b. 1886, d. 1958

Sarah Elizabeth Anderson, b. 1916, d. 1998

Rebecca Kay Moore, b. 1942, d. 1977

Raymond Taylor, b. ?

Holland Lee Anderson, b. 1918, d. 2007

Steven Lee Anderson, b. 1948

Allen Roane, b. 1806, d.. 1871

Lucy Ann Roane, b. 1841, d.. 1927

William Otway Lee Fary, b. 1878, d.. 1946

Lucy Elizabeth Fary, b. 1914, d. 2003

Rebecca Rowley, b. ?

Elliott G. Roane, b. 1808, d.. 1858

Roots Bankhead Roane, b. 1848, d.. 1923

Lawrence Courtney Roane, b. 1878, d.. 1952

Mildred Elizabeth Roane, b. 1921, d. 1993

Ronald Roane Gordon, b. 1956

Charles Alexander Roane, b. 1817, d.. 1875




Samuel Franklin Roane, b. 1821, d.. 1877

Richard Upshur Roane, b. 1846, d.. 1882

Evelyn Martin Roane, b. 1873, d.. 1957

Casper Roane Farinholt, b. 1898, d. 1981

Charles Russell Farinholt, b. 1923, d. 2015

Philip Russell Farinholt, b. 1955

Joseph Franklin Roane, b. 1858, d.. 1918

Gladys Inez Roane, b. 1899, d.. 1987

William Franklin Sharpe Sr., b. 1922, d. 2011

William Franklin Sharpe Jr., b. 1950

Matilda Taliaferro Roane, b. 1867, d.. 1946

Stanley Taylor Gray, b. 1896, d.. 1980

Nelson Turner Gray, b. 1935, d. 2017

Laura Gray, b. 1960

Mary Cooke Roane, b. 1874, d.. 1951

Mary Catherine Selden, b. 1907, d.. 1987

Mary Catherine Ramsey, b. 1937

Benton Jefferson Trawick, b. 1964

Family of Charles S. Roane


Roane. Robert E. Dover descended from his daughter Lilly Ann Roane. She died at the birth of her fifth child and was inadvertently left out of the “Roane Book.” Her great-granddaughter Miriam Annett Taylor published her own “Roane Book” entitled, Robert Roane, Gentleman of Surrey County, England and His Descendants, that correctly presented her family line.

Even more distant matches in the Roane lines had Alexander Roane II and Alexander Roane I as their common ancestor. (Although all Roane historians assume the two generations of Alexander Roane, I hold to the possibility that one Alexander Roane married twice.) Six DNA Matches: Nancy Lawrence Coleman, William James Farinholt, Robin Meredith, Denise Roxann Roane, Robert Alexander Sutton III, and Marilyn Sutton Montgomery are descendents of Alexander Roane II and Elizabeth Pollard. Warren Thomas



Alexander Roane II & Elizabeth Pollard

Nancy Lawrence Coleman 4th - 6th Cousins 4th Cousins (2x Removed)

William James Farinholt 4th - 6th Cousins 4th Cousins (2x Removed)

Robin Meredith 4th - 6th Cousins 4th Cousins (1x Removed)

Denise Roxann Roane 5th - 8th Cousins 4rd Cousins (1x Removed)

Robert Alexander Sutton III 4th - 6th Cousins 4th Cousins (1x Removed)

Marilyn Sutton Montgomery 5th - 8th Cousins 4th Cousins (1x Removed)

Alexander Roane I & Mary Warner

Warren Thomas Corr 4th - 6th Cousins 5th Cousins (1x Removed)

Arthur Eldridge LaMan III 5th - 8th Cousins 5th Cousins (3x Removed)

Alexander Roane I, b. ?, d. ?

+m. Mary Warner, b. abt 1695, d. ? Averillia Roane, b. abt 1738, d. ?

John Corr, b. abt 1744, d.. ?

John Corr, b. abt 1790, d.. ?

James E. P. Corr, b. 1828, d.. 1889

John William Corr, b. 1862, d. ?

Levi Thomas Corr, b. 1897, d. 1987

Warren Thomas Corr, b. 1946

Sterling Corr, b. abt 1790, d.. 1850

Lucy Ann Boyd Corr, b. 1818, d.. 1899

James Richard Kemp, b. 1838, d. abt 1907

Charles Thomas Kemp, b. 1873, d. 1951

Nettie Charles Kemp, b. 1908, d. 1991

Nettie Elizabeth Smith, b. 1934, d. 1999

Arthur Eldridge LaMan III, b. ?

Alexander Roane Jr., b. 1748, d. 1785






Family of Alexander Roane I


Corr and Arthur Eldridge LaMan III are descendents of Alexander Roane I and Mary Warner. The names of the DNA matches are listed in the table on the previous page with the comparison of the DNA test with my database.

The matches descending from Alexander Roane II are shown in bold font in the adjacent chart. I am listed for reference as descending from his son Charles S. Roane. Nancy L. Coleman descended through William S. Roane. William J. Farinholt, Robin Meredith, Denise Roxann Roane, Marilyn S. Wright, and Robert A. Sutton II descended through Thomas Roane. These five matches descended through Henry H. Roane, Thomas N. Roane, and James A. Roane. Henry H. Roane was the son of Thomas Roane’s first marriage to Sarah Clegg and settled in Gloucester. Thomas N. Roane was a son of Thomas Roane and his second marriage to Frances Corr, and he moved his family to Middlesex County. His brother James A. Roane inherited the portion of his father’s estate that included the family home called Farmville.

The matches descending from Alexander Roane I are shown on the chart on the previous page. I am listed for reference as descending


Alexander Roane II, b. 1748, d. 1785

+m. Elizabeth Pollard, b. ? William S. Roane, b. 1771

Charles M. Roane, b. 1801, d.. 1871

William Pendleton Roane, b. 1823, d.. 1899

Junius Bland Roane, b. 1857, d.. 1897

Benjamin Franklin Coleman, b. 1885, d. 1958

James Francis Coleman, b. 1909, d. 1968

Nancy Lawrence Coleman, b. 1939






Thomas Roane, b. 1781, d. 1844

Henry Hansford Roane, b. 1811, d.. 1880

Georgianna Roane, b. 1847, d.. 1930

John Leroy Farinholt Jr., b. 1871, d.. 1922

John Leroy Farinholt III, b. 1910, d. 1991

William James Farinholt, b. 1946

Virginia Anderson Roane, b. 1855, d.. 1918

Cary Lee Meredith Sr., b. 1878, d.. 1955

Cary Lee Meredith Jr., b. 1924, d. 2014

Robin Meredith, b. ?

Thomas Nathaniel Roane, b. 1816, d.. 1872

George Henry Roane, b. 1855

George Edward Roane, b. 1887, d.. 1948

Randolph Montague Roane, b. 1921, d. 1985

Denise Roxann Roane, b. 1953

James Alexander Roane, b. 1821, d.. 1894

Richard Henry Roane, b. 1851, d.. 1926

Grace Hudson Roane, b. 1883, d.. 1966

Margarett Lucille Sutton, b. 1909, d. 2011

Marilyn Sutton Wright, b. 1944

Robert Alexander Sutton Jr., b. 1916, d. 1983

Robert Alexander Sutton III, b. 1947

Family of Alexander Roane II

through Alexander Roane II. Warren Thomas Corr and Arthur E. LaMan III are descended through Averilia Roane who married Thomas Corr who was born in Ireland. These DNA matches are significant in showing that Corr family descendents from Gloucester, King and Queen, and Middlesex Counties are distant cousins of Roane family descendents.

An additional DNA match named Keith Williams was revealed as a 4th - 6th cousin to me. The pedigree data that he provided indicated that he was a 7th cousin twice removed to me. In general, when the prediction of a DNA test indicates a closer common ancestor than genealogy records show, there could be missing data that would confirm that closer common ancestor. To illustrate how in local regions where large families live and marry in those locations, there will be multiple relationships on many levels.

According to my genealogy database, Melissa Jean Gray is my second cousin twice removed, and our closest common ancestors are Charles A. Roane and Sarah R. Roane. However, this database reveals eight additional paths of more distant common ancestors.



Their lines of descent from William Lewis are shown in the chart on the next page along with my own for reference. The confirmation of this relationship is a special surprise because this Emerson family has been closely associated to my family throughout my life time and beyond. In fact, my grandmother Elva Worrell Roane’s second marriage was to Edgar Lewis Emerson. I am sure that neither of them had any idea that they were third cousins. Further, many of the Emerson family were members of the same church as my family. Many of those Emersons were bricklayers and applied their trade for our homes. Trina Marie Emerson’s grandfather loaned me an old mortar mixer when I laid the brick for my home in 1979. Thomas Emerson’s grandmother Rebecca Taylor Oliver was a

In addition to the connection in the Roane line, we are also related through the Lawson and Rilee families. These connections are summarized below:

Relationships for Lewis Roane Hunt and Melissa Jean Gray

1. Second cousin twice removed (common ancestor: Charles Alexander Roane & Sarah R. Roane)

2. Fourth cousin twice removed (common ancestor: Alexander Roane II & Elizabeth Pollard)




6. Fifth cousin twice removed (common ancestor: Alexander Roane I & Mary Warner)

7. Fifth cousin (common ancestor: Charles Lawson & Nellie ?)

8. Fifth cousin once removed (common ancestor: Thomas Rilee & E. ?)

9. Sixth cousin once removed (common ancestor: John Rilee & Elizabeth ?)

There were four separate relational paths to the common ancestor Alexander Roane II and Elizabeth Pollard. My relationship with Melissa in the Roane line was through her father James Roane Gray and in the Lawson and Rilee lines through her mother Faye Estelle Gunn. These multiple relationship connections are typical of my Gloucester families.

Worrell and Horsley Line

This family line is based on my grandmother Elva Maude Worrell and her father William “Willie” T. Worrell. He died at the young age of 33. His father Joseph Thomas Worrell came to Middlesex County from King George County, Virginia. He died at the young age of about 27 in the Civil War. His name is engraved on the Civil War monument in the historic Gloucester court circle. The brief life span of this local Worrell family produced very few descendents. Also, very little is known about the Worrell family in King George County.

Willie Worrell married Mary C. Lewis daughter of John T. Lewis and Lucy M. Hall, and my DNA matches are descendents from William Lewis and William Hall from northern Gloucester County. Two matches that I had not noticed in my genealogy database are Thomas Emerson and Tina Marie Emerson listed in the chart below.


William Lewis

Thomas Emerson 5th - 8th Cousins 5th Cousins

Trina Marie Emerson 4th - 6th Cousins 5th Cousins (1x Removed)



Their lines of descent from William Hall are shown in the chart on the next page along with my own for reference. Five of these matches were from the William S. Massey family that worked with my grandfather Richard A. Roane in establishing the Beulah church and boarding school in King and Queen County. Many of the Massey family served as pastors, and others married pastors connected to Beulah. Their ancestors are buried along with mine in the Beulah Cemetery. These Massey family matches are also related to me through the Roane family.

Elva Maude Worrell’s mother was Martha “Mattie” Ann Horsley. She married twice: first to Willie Worrell and second to Richard Beverly Crump. Also, her parents were Allen Smith Horsley and Elizabeth B. Horsley who came from two separate Horsley lines. These lines are assumed to be connected, but that connection has not been proven.

very good friend of my mother and a special inspiration to me in our shared church in York County. The confirmation of a common ancestor back to a period where public records are very sparse is a valued part of my personal genealogy research.

Willie Worrell’s mother-in-law was Lucy M. Hall, and she descended from William Hall of northern Gloucester County. My DNA test revealed six matches who shared William Hall as our common ancestor. They are Betty Rodgers, Ken Taylor, R. Massey, John Wayne Jenkins, K. H. Jenkins, and Sandra Ellen Wilson as listed in the chart below with a comparison of the DNA prediction and my database.

William Lewis, b. abt 1795, d. abt 1846 John Thomas Lewis, b. 1800, d.. abt 1852

Mary C. Lewis, b. 1832, d. 1896

William T. Worrell, b. 1861, d. 1894

Elva Maude Worrell, b. 1890, d. 1973

Hulda Rebecca Roane, b. 1914, d. 1998


Mary “Polly” Lewis, b. 1809, d.. ?

James Thomas Goode, b. 1831, d. 1864

Ida Catherine Goode, b. 1861, d. 1931

George William Emerson, b. 1887, d. 1967

Thomas Nelson Emerson, b. 1923, d. 2015

Thomas Emerson, b. 1947

Frderick Wray Emerson, b. 1931, d. 2002

Larry Oliver Emerson, b. 1953, d. 2013

Trina Marie Emerson, b. 1972

Family of William Lewis


William Hall

Betty Rodgers 5th - 8th Cousins 6th Cousins

Ken Taylor 5th - 8th Cousins 6th Cousins (2x Removed)

R. Massey 5th - 8th Cousins 6th Cousins

John Wayne Jenkins 4th - 6th Cousins 6th Cousins

K. H. Jenkins 4th - 6th Cousins 6th Cousins (1x Removed)

Sandra Ellen Wilson 5th - 8th Cousins 5th Cousins (1x Removed)


The closest DNA match in the Horsley line is Nancy Lee Morey who descended from Martha A. Horsley and her second marriage to Richard B. Crump as shown in the chart below. The DNA test indicated that she was in the 4th - 6th range, but my database indicates we are second cousins once removed. The next closest matches in the chart had the common ancestors of Allen Smith Horsley and Elizabeth B. Horsley. The actual



Martha Ann Horsley & Richard Beverly Crump

Nancy Lee Morey 4th - 6th Cousins 2nd Cousins (1x Removed)

Allen Smith Horsley & Elizabeth B. Horsley

Sandra Jean Horsley 4th - 6th Cousins 3rd Cousins

Alfred Wayne Dunston 4th - 6th Cousins 3rd Cousins

Rhonda Lee Brockwell 4th - 6th Cousins 3rd Cousins (1x Removed)

Jennifer Seay 4th - 6th Cousins 3rd Cousins (2x Removed)

Christopher Thrift 4th - 6th Cousins 3rd Cousins (1x Removed)

Sherry Bath 4th - 6th Cousins 3rd Cousins (1x Removed)

Alonzo Roy Carle 4th - 6th Cousins 3rd Cousins (1x Removed)

Ronald Fletcher 4th - 6th Cousins 3rd Cousins

Shern Jean West 4th - 6th Cousins 3rd Cousins

William Hall, b. ?, d. ?

Thomas Hall, b. ?, d. ? Lucy M. Hall, b. abt 1815, d.. ?

Mary C. Lewis, b. 1836, d. 1896

William T. Worrell, b. 1861, d. 1894




John B. Hall, b. abt 1770, d.. abt 1829

Susan Elizabeth Hall, b. 1818, d. 1885

Mary Elizabeth Bohannon, b. 1835, d. ?

James Curtis Massey, b. 1859, d. 1920

William Samuel Massey, b. 1880, d. 1974

Virginia Gladys Massey, b. 1904, d. 1999

Betty Rodgers, b. ?

Mary Frances Rodgers, b. 1938

Paul Hudson Taylor, b. 1969

Ken Taylor, b. ?

James Hersey Massey, b. 1909, d. 1994

R. Massey

Rebecca Ruth Massey, b. 1922

John Wayne Jenkins, b. 1947

K. H. Jenkins, b. ?

George Washington Wilson, b. 1852, d. 1942

William Bernard Wilson Sr., b. 1924, d. 2004

William Bernard Wilson Jr., b. 1880, d. 1974

Sandra Ellen Wilson, b. 1954

Family of William Hall


relationships of these matches were closer than the DNA test predictions. These matches as listed were Sandra Jean Horsley, Alfred Wayne Dunston, Rhonda Lee Brockwell, Jennifer Seay, Christopher Thrift, Sherry Bath, Alonzo Roy Carle, Ronald Fletcher, and Shern Jean West.

Each of these are included in bold font in the adjacent descendent chart. Mine and Nancy Morey’s line through Martha A. Horsley are included for reference. These matches descended from Martha’s brothers Richard J. and William D. Horsley and her sister Emma Blanche Horsley who married Mordecia S. Carlton. I was not personally acquainted with the families of any of these matches.

I do know that Joan Horsley Roane, wife of Gary Roane, is a descendent of Richard J. Horsley. Also, Gary Ward of Olivia’s Restaurant, Van Johnston, Myra Horsley Clements, and Perry and Donald Horsley are descendents of William D. Horsley. Also, Faye Carlton Burris who has been a long-time member of the Gloucester Genealogical Society is a descendent of Emma Blanche Horsley.

The next closest matches in the Horsley line were descendents of the parents of Allen S. Horsley and Elizabeth B. Horsley. Elizabeth’s parents were James Killingham Horsley I and Elizabeth Lawson. There are three matches from this Horsley line: Mary Crimora Thrift, Linda Lou Shepherd, and David Wayne Miller as shown in the table and descendent chart on the next page.

My Horsley line through James K. Horsley is included for reference. Both matches were descendents through Averella and George Washington Horsley, and the table shows that the DNA test predicted their


Allen Smith Horsley, b. 1834, d. 1892

+m. Elizabeth B. Horsley, b. 1864, d. 1911 Richard Jefferson Horsley, b. 1861, d.. 1939

Cephas Littleton Horsley, b. 1883, d. 1979

James Littleton Horsley, b. 1914, d. 1960

Sandra Jean Horsley, b. 1949

Ruby Blanche Horsley, b. 1922, d. 2015

Alfred Wayne Dunston, b. 1953

William Dudley Horsley, b. 1866, d.. 1939

Ora Belle Horsley, b. 1887, d. 1962

Jack Russell Thrift, b. 1924, d. 1983

? Thrift, b. ?,

Christopher Thrift, b. ?

William Rilee Thrift, b. 1913, d. 1974

Jane Camile Thrift, b. 1942,

Rhonda Lee Brockwell, b. 1967

Oakley Hurrell Horsley, b. 1894, d. 1967

Elsie Pearl Horsley, b. 1915, d. 1993

Herbert Elgin Booker, b. 1934, d. 2011

Anita Booker, b. ?

Jennifer Seay, b. ?

Martha Ann Horsley, b. 1870, d.. 1940




Lillian Davis Crump, b. 1906, d. 1999

Kathleen Tabb Hazzard, b. 1924, d. 1967

Kathleen Joan Brown, b. 1944

Nancy Lee Morey, b. 1964

Emma Blanche Horsley, b. 1875, d.. 1950

Estelle Willis Carlton, b. 1894, d. 1962

Velma Bell Collier, b. 1926, d. ?

? Parrish, b. ?,

Sherry Bath, b. ?,

Blanche Lee Carlton, b. 1896, d. 1989

Sylvia Louneal Gayle, b. 1926, d. 2016

Cynthia Quinn, b. ?

Alonzo Roy Carle, b. ?,

Louise Virginia Carlton, b. 1910, d. 1998

James Herbert Fletcher, b. 1931, d. 1977

Ronald Fletcher, b. ?

Betrice Fletcher, b. 1938

Shern Jean West, b. ?

Family of Allen Smith Horsley

relationship with me.

The matches in the Horsley line were descendents of John W. Horsley and his father Smith Horsley. Four DNA matches through John W. Horsley and Mary A. Rilee are listed in the table on the next page. They were Anne Marie Evans, Shirley McCants Wilson, B. J. Kemp, and David Johnson. Their lines of descendency are from John W. Horsley and Smith Horsley in the descendents chart below. The more distant matches from Smith Horsley and




John W. Horsley & Mary A. Rilee

Anne Marie Evans 3rd - 4th Cousins 3rd Cousins (1x Removed)

Shirley McCants Wilson 5th - 8th Cousins 4th Cousins (1x Removed)

B. J. Kemp 4th - 6th Cousins 4th Cousins

David Johnson 3rd - 4th Cousins 3rd Cousins (1x Removed)

Smith Horsley & Elizabeth Margaret Rilee

Joyce Ann O'Neill 4th - 6th Cousins 5th Cousins

J. Pruiksma 4th - 6th Cousins 5th Cousins (2x Removed)

E. Pruiksma 4th - 6th Cousins 5th Cousins (2x Removed)

Juanita Marie O'Neill 4th - 6th Cousins 5th Cousins

Connie Cherise Witcher 4th - 6th Cousins 5th Cousins

Cynthia Jane Witcher 4th - 6th Cousins 5th Cousins

James Coates 5th - 8th Cousins 5th Cousins

Benjamin Hamilton Harris Jr. 4th - 6th Cousins 4th Cousins (1x Removed)

James Killingham Horsley, b. 1795, d. 1845

+m. Elizabeth Lawson, b. 1794, d. 1879 Averella Riley Horsley, b. 1832, d.. ?

Alice A. Coats, b. 1872, d. 1947

Mary Clementine Thacker, b. 1892, d. 1942

Thelma Marguerite Hopwood, b. 1915, d. 2001

Mary Crimora Thrift, b. ?

George Washington Horsley, b. 1833, d.. 1890

James Monroe Horsley, b. 1872, d. 1947

Evelyn E. Horsley, b. 1898, d. 1982

William Lee Shepherd, b. 1928, d. 2002

Linda Lou Shepherd, b. 1959

Charles Marion Horsley, b. 1877, d. 1940

Edna Frances Horsley, b. 1921, d. 1981

Linda Rae Fuller, b. 1943, d. ?

David Wayne Miller, b. ?

Elizabeth B. Horsley, b. 1834, d. 1911





Family of James Killingham Horsley

Elizabeth Margaret Rilee are also included in these charts. They are Joyce Ann O’Neill and her two grandchildren J. and E. Pruiksma, Juanita Marie O’Neill, Connie Cherise Witcher, Cynthia Jane Witcher, James Coates, and Benjamin Hamilton Harris Jr.


James Killingham Horlsey I & Elizabeth Lawson

Mary Winslow 5th - 8th Cousin 4rd Cousins

David Wayne Miller 4th - 6th Cousins 4rd Cousins

Linda Lou Shepherd 4th - 6th Cousins 4th Cousins


The descendents of John W. Horsley descended through William Henry Horsley, and I descended through Allen S. Horsley. The remaining matches descended through Smith Horsley’s daughter Mary Eleanor Horsley. I was not surprised to find Benjamin H. Harris confirmed as my fourth cousin once removed. For many years, I have worked with Ben and his wife Margaret on our genealogy and interest in the Civil War.


Smith Horsley, b. abt 1760, d. ?

+m. Elizabeth Margaret Rilee, b. abt 1770, d. ? John W. Horsley, b. 1804, d.. 1855

Allen Smith Horsley, b. 1834, d.. 1892




Lewis Roane Hunt, b. 1939,

William Henry Horsley, b. 1840, d.. 1921

William Burgess Horsley, b. 1883, d.. 1968

Alma Pearl Horsley, b. 1912, d. 2011

Anne Marie Evans, b. 1943

James Dabney Horsley, b. 1894, d.. 1976

Fanny Lucile Horsley, b. 1917, d. 1998

Shirley Ann Seward, b. 1942, d. 2012

Shirley Louise McCants, b. 1962

Shirley McCants Wilson, b. ?

Frances D. Horsley, b. 1920, d. ?

Robert Mason Kemp, b. 1946, d. 2001

B. J. Kemp, b. ?

Thomas Carroll Horsley, b. 1905, d.. ?

Mary Arlene Horsley, b. 1940

David Johnson, b. ?

Mary Eleanor Horsley, b. 1824, d.. 1865

John Robert Coates, b. 1842, d.. 1873

Annie Beatrice Coates, b. 1870, d. 1950

Harriet Elizabeth Cartwright, b. 1906, d. 1973

Marion Elizabeth Nelson, b. 1929, d. 2002

Joyce Ann O’Neill, b. 1947

Georgie Alexandra Gibson, b. 1975

J. Pruiksma, b. ?

E. Pruiksma, b. ?

Juanita Marie O’Neill, b. 1949

William L. Coats, b. 1848, d.. ?

William Dudley Coates, b. 1876, d. 1922

Lena Coates, b. 1903, d. 1998

John Calvin Witcher, b. 1929, d. 2016

Connie Cherise Witcher, b. 1958

William Earl Witcher, b. 1932, d. 2012

Cynthia Jane Witcher, b. 1957

Finley Coates, b. 1905, d. 1980

James Mathews Coates, b. 1929, d. 2016

James Coates, b. ?

Annie Ray Coates, b. 1880, d. ?

Ruby Vernelle Marshall, b. 1925, d. 2006

Benjamin Hamilton Harris Jr., b. 1942

Family of Smith Horsley


An important fact made clear from these charts is that there have been many marriages between the Horsleys and other local families thus producing a great number of descendents. Therefore, many matches had the closest common ancestors within the Rilee family, and the next chart demonstrates this.

The matches in the Rilee line were descendents of William A. Rilee and his father Thomas Rilee. The closest Rilee matches are through William A. Rilee and Sarah Walker and are listed in the table shown below. They were Phyllis Ann Rilee, William Woodrow Ambrose Jr., Kristin Lyle Buckson, and Kenneth Robinson. The other matches in the Rilee line desended from Thomas Rilee and E. (surname unknown) and are also listed below. They were Malcolm Hudson, Miccah Dixon, Lori Bristow, Flora Lawson Jennings, Linda Hogge and her two children A. and R. Wollard, Mark Hogge, Donna Hogge, Wilbur Hogge, and Faye Estelle Gunn.



William A. Rilee & Sarah Walker

Phyllis Ann Rilee 4th - 6th Cousins 4rd Cousins (1x Removed)

William Woodrow Ambrose Jr. 4th - 6th Cousins 4rd Cousins (1x Removed)

Kristin Lyle Buckson 4th - 6th Cousins 4rd Cousins (1x Removed)

Kenneth Robinson 4th - 6th Cousins 3rd Cousins (2x Removed)

Thomas Rilee & E. ?

Malcolm Hudson South 5th - 8th Cousin 4rd Cousins (2x Removed)

Miccah Dixon 4th - 6th Cousins 6th Cousins (1x Removed)

Lori Bristow 4th - 6th Cousins 6th Cousins

Flora Lawson Jennings 4th - 6th Cousins 5rd Cousins (1x Removed)

Linda Lee Hogge 4th - 6th Cousins 5th Cousins (1x Removed)

A. Woolard 4th - 6th Cousins 6th Cousins

R. Woolard 4th - 6th Cousins 6th Cousins

Mark Hogge 4th - 6th Cousins 6th Cousins

Donna Hogge 4th - 6th Cousins 5th Cousins (1x Removed)

Wilbur Hogge 4th - 6th Cousins 5th Cousins (1x Removed)

Faye Estelle Gunn 4th - 6th Cousins 4rd Cousins (2x Removed)

These matches are shown in bold font in the descendents chart from Thomas Rilee on the next page with my Rilee line through Mary A. Rilee shown for reference. I am acquainted with the other matches with William A. Rilee, the closest common ancestor. Phyllis Ann Rilee, a match through Richard Cary Rilee, has been a very good friend in our genealogy research and now confirmed as a distant fourth cousin once removed.

The two matches, Kristin Lyle Buckson and Kenneth Robinson, are descended through William A. Rilee’s son Henry G. Rilee. The mother of Henry’s children was Sarah Frances King, the daughter of Hansford Anderson and Elizabeth King, who was registered as a person of color. Hansford Anderson’s large family of King children was acknowledged in the public record as heirs of his large land estate in King and Queen County on the northern border of Gloucester known as “King Town.” He was a close neighbor of my great grandfather Charles A. Roane, and my great-grandfather’s diary indicates that socially they shared meals in their homes.


William Woodrow Ambrose Jr. was another match through William A. Rilee and his daughter Sarah Lucille Rilee. I am not acquainted with William, but I knew his brother Donald, associate pastor of Providence Baptist Church and widely know for his many years of music ministry. In this same line, Cleveland Elbert “Flee” Walker was my high school classmate in York County.

Another acquaintance and DNA match in the Rilee line was Malcolm Hudson South. I first knew him as a distance runner on the Gloucester High School track team. More recently, he wrote articles for our journal about his South and Nuttall family lines.

There were five matches in the Hogge family that descended through Eleanor Nelly Rilee. Also Faye Estelle Gunn descended through her and was the mother of Melissa Jean Gray described earlier as a match in the Roane line.

Hunt Line

My grandfather Wilbur Lincoln Hunt was born in 1868 in Webster, Massachusetts. In the early 1870s, his family moved to Hawley, Minnesota, homesteading along the railroad under construction. He married Laura Kate Lewis in 1895, and around 1903, he and others in his family brought their sawmills to harvest timber in Virginia. They purchased farms in York and James City Counties to cut the timber that had not been cut since the Civil War.

I am the eleventh generation of my Hunt line from William Hunt who was a leader in Concord, the first inland town of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1635. He signed a petition requesting tax relief because of


Thomas Rilee, b. abt 1755, d. ?

+m. E., b. ?, d. ? John G. Rilee, b. 1780, d.. 1851

Harriet Rilee, b. 1834, d. ?

James Henry South, b. 1873, d. 1939

Arthur Hudson South, b. 1907, d. 1997

Malcolm Hudson South, b. 1937

Lewis F. Rilee, b. abt 1793, d.. 1834

John Mustipher Riley, b. 1816, d. 1896

Anna Thomas Rilee, b. 1847, d. 1882

Lora Clarice Jenkins, b. 1902, d. 1985

Mary Marguerite Johnson, b. 1926, d. 2018

Sarah Pratt, b. ?

Miccah Dixon, b. ?

William A. Rilee, b. 1798, d.. abt 1859

Mary A. Rilee, b. abt 1816, d. 1887

Allen Smith Horsley, b. 1834, d. 1892





Richard Cary Rilee, b. 1818, d. ?

Miles Henry Rilee, b. 1845, d. 1909

Cyrus Christian Rilee, b. 1886, d.. 1964

Willard Carlyle Rilee, b. 1890, d. 1973

Phyllis Ann Rilee, b. ?

Henry G. Rilee, b. 1828, d. 1886

Delida Bachelor King, b. 1877, d. 1961

Hope Robinson, b. 1906, d.. 1986

? Randolph, b. ?, d. ?

Kristin Lyle Buckson, b. ?

Wallace Webster Robinson, b. 1914, d.. ?

Kenneth Robinson, b. ?

Sarah Lucille Rilee, b. 1823, d. ?

John William Walker, b. 1852, d.. 1899

Otis Ray Walker, b. 1882, d. 1956

Rosa Blanche Walker, b. 1915, d. 2005

William Woodrow Ambrose Jr.

Eleanor Nelly Rilee, b. 1799, d.. 1886

Emily C. Lawson, b. 1838, d. ?

Anna Catherine Ambrose, b. 1872, d. 1946

James Rudolph Hogge, b. 1900, d. 1991

Eugene Cornelius Hogge, b. 1927, d. 2006

Linda Lee Hogge, b. 1951

A. Woolard, b. ?

R. Woolard, b. ?

Gene Marshall Hogge, b. 1953, d. 2009

Mark Hogge, b. ?

Donna Hogge, b. ?

Lemuel Booker Ambrose, b. 1883, d. ?

Edith Estelle Ambrose, b. 1921, d. 1988

Faye Estelle Gunn, b. 1944

Family of Thomas Rilee


hardship survival without the benefit of river transportation. My Hunt line moved north to Jaffrey, New Hampshire, after the Revolutionary War. The Hunt genealogy was published in a two volume history of Jaffrey which is a helpful source in identifying and confirming DNA matches.

The DNA matches of my Hunt line are listed in the table below. The closest matches were three descendents of William Pomeroy Hunt and Mary Elizabeth Upham: James W. Austin, Stella Diane Fairbank, and Charles Doughtie. Also, I. G. Heselton is a descendent of Paul Hunt and Ann Jewett, and C. Hix and Keith Masters are descendents of Nathaniel Jewett and Ruth Powers.



Nathaniel Jewett & Ruth Powers

C. Hix 4th - 6th Cousins 4th Cousins

Keith Masters 5th - 8th Cousins 4th Cousins (1x Removed)

William Pomeroy Hunt & Mary Elizabeth Upham

James W. Austin 3rd - 4th Cousins 2nd Cousins

Stella Diane Fairbank 3rd - 4th Cousins 2nd Cousins

Charles Doughtie 2nd - 3rd Cousins 2nd Cousins

Paul Hunt & Ann Jewett

I. G. Heselton 3rd - 4th Cousins 3rd Cousins (1x Removed)


Ephraim Upham Jr. & Elizabeth Ann Bruce

Michael Tiegs 4th - 6th Cousins 3rd Cousins (1x Removed)

Lyman Bruce & Lydia Griggs

Kelly Pease 4th - 6th Cousins 4th Cousins

These matches are shown in bold font in the descendent chart for Nathaniel Jewett on the next page including my line for reference. I am a descendent of William P. Hunt through Wilbur L. Hunt. My second cousins matches were descendents through Wilbur’s sisters Hattie and Frances. I met Charles T. Doughtie and his mother at one of our local Hunt Reunions in Charles City County, Virginia. I. G. Heselton is confirmed as a third cousin with a common ancestor of Ann Jewett and her husband Paul Hunt Jr. C. Hix and Keith Masters are matches with the common ancestor Nathaniel Jewett. P. F. Fullam was a predicted match of the DNA test with John Winter and Hannah Culter as the common ancestors.

William P. Hunt married Mary Elizabeth Upham, the daughter of Ephraim Upham Jr. and Elizabeth Ann Bruce. Elizabeth was the daughter of Lyman Bruce and Lydia Griggs. Two matches of my Bruce line are listed in the next table shown below, Michael Tiegs and Kelly Pease.

These two matches are shown in bold font on the bottom of the next page including my line for reference. Michael Tiegs’s line like mine descends through Elizabeth Ann Bruce, but Kelly Pease’s line descends through Joseph Lyman Bruce, the brother of Elizabeth.



Nathaniel Jewett, b. 1760, d. 1828

+m. Ruth Powers, b. 1767, d. 1843

Ruth Jewett, b. 1790, d. 1868 Albert Wilson, b. 1823, d.. 1891

William Albert Wilson, b. 1850, d. 1919

Ruth Emiline Wilson, b. 1897, d. 1962

C. Hix, b. ?

Lydia Jewett, b. 1800, d. 1873 Nathaniel J. Stiles, b. 1830, d.. 1915

Nathaniel Gilbert Stiles, b. 1871, d. 1944

Marion Evelyn Stiles, b. 1909, d. 1995

Gordon Amos Masters, b. 1929, d. 1983

Keith Masters, b. ?

Ann Jewett, b. 1803, d. 1864 William Pomeroy Hunt, b. 1839, d.. 1913

Wilbur Lincoln Hunt, b. 1868, d. 1935

Lester Lee Hunt, b. 1914, d. 1994


Hattie Amelia Hunt, b. 1884, d. 1972

Ruth Irene Fairbank, b. 1920, d. 1979

James W. Austin, b. 1948

David Wilson Fairbank, b. 1922, d. 1995

Stella Diane Fairbank, b. 1950

Frances Belle Hunt, b. 1886, d. 1928

Mary Frances Hawkins, b. 1918, d. 2010

Charles Taylor Doughtie, b. ?

Ruth Elizabeth Hunt, b. 1843, d.. 1891

Henrietta Elizabeth Morse, b. 1863, d. 1957

Hugh Merrill Heselton, b. 1891, d. 1963

Robert Elliott Heselton, b. 1914, d. 1959

I. G. Heselton, b. ?

Family of Nathaniel Jewett

Lyman Bruce, b. 1785, d. 1865

+m. Lydia Griggs, b. 1791, d. ?

Elizabeth Ann Bruce, b. 1812, d. 1891 Payson Ephraim Upham, b. 1843, d.. 1907

Anna Elizabeth Upham, b. 1884, d. 1968

Leonard Albert Tiegs, b. 1912, d. 1996

Harold Arthur Tiegs, b. 1937, d. 1986

Michael Tiegs, b. 1963

Mary Elizabeth Upham, b. 1846, d.. 1935

Wilbur Lincoln Hunt, b. 1868, d. 1935



Joseph Lyman Bruce, b. 1815, d. 1897 Ann Eugenia Bruce, b. 1854, d.. 1944

Roy Lyman Waring, b. 1883, d. 1952

Maxine Elaine Waring, b. 1926, d. 1999

Kelly Pease, b. ?

Family of Lyman Bruce


Lewis Line

My grandmother Laura Kate Lewis was born in 1875 in Clay County, Minnesota, the daughter of Joseph Lewis and Emily Sansom. Laura Kate was their first child born to her parents in America. They left Holwell, England, and like my Hunt family, answered the call to homestead along the railroad at Hawley, Minnesota. After her marriage to Wilbur L. Hunt, they moved to east to Virginia.

Joseph’s parents were John Lewis and Elizabeth Groves, and all of my DNA matches in the Lewis line were from John Lewis. These matches are listed in the table below: Alfred George Slade Jr., Mary Montabana, Carla Beamer, Evelyn Jean Beamer, Joice Gillett and her two children Seth and Sabrina Taylor and two grandchildren by a second marriage K. and S.



John Lewis & Elizabeth Groves

Alfred George Slade 4th - 6th Cousins 3rd Cousins

Joseph Lewis & Emily Sansom

Mary Montabana 3rd - 4th Cousins 2nd Cousins (1x Removed)

Carla Beamer 3rd - 4th Cousins 2nd Cousins (1x Removed)

Evelyn Jean Beamer 3rd - 4th Cousins 2nd Cousins

Joice Gillett 3rd - 4th Cousins 2nd Cousins (1x Removed)

Seth Richard Taylor 4th - 6th Cousins 2nd Cousins (2x Removed)

Sabrina Taylor 4th - 6th Cousins 2nd Cousins (2x Removed)

K. McReavy 4th - 6th Cousins 2nd Cousins (3x Removed)

S. McReavy 4th - 6th Cousins 2nd Cousins (3x Removed)

Jade Garrett Anderson 3rd - 4th Cousins 2nd Cousins (1x Removed)

Douglas Jensen 2nd - 3rd Cousins 2nd Cousins

McReavy, Jade Garrett Anderson, and Douglas Jenson.

All of the Lewis line matches are shown in the descendents chart for John Lewis on the next page along with my line for reference. Alfred George Slade Jr. is a match through Thomas Lewis, son of John Lewis and Elizabeth Groves. The other matches are descendents of Joseph Lewis and Emily Sansom. Mary Montabana is a match through Joseph’s son Ernest Andrew Lewis. Joyce A. Gillett is a match through Samuel Lewis along with her aunt, cousin, children, and grandchildren. Joyce managed much of the DNA testing for her close family members. Jade Garrett Anderson and Douglas Kenneth Jensen are matches through Blanche Emily Lewis and Arthur Lewis, respectively.

Unconfirmed Matches

I have received notices for thousands of distant matches, and I continue to receive new ones. Unfortunately, most do not post enough family data to identify themselves. Also, some that I can identify I cannot confirm our relationship with the identification of a common ancestor. I was notified of three such matches because they were from Gloucester and the surrounding counties where I have an extensive genealogy database.

Marion Proctor Sutton’s DNA results indicated that he is a 5th to 8th cousin to me. He is one of the two sons of Mrs. Sutton who operated the famous restaurant with the special


crab cakes. In fact, both he and his brother assisted their mother when needed to sustain the operation of her restaurant. He and his wife Naomi are active members of the Gloucester Genealogical Society. His match with me has further personal implications to my family. His niece Beth Sutton is a very good friend of my youngest daughter and served as her maid of honor in 1993. They did not know that they were also distant cousins. Although our specific common ancestor is unknown, we both have definite connections to the Hall family from the northern border of Gloucester County.

John Waverly Dixon’s DNA results indicated that he is a 4th - 6th cousin to me. He and Boyd Sears Dixon Jr. are sons of Boyd Sears Dixon Sr., and both are equally cousins to me. I am acquainted with Joseph Boyd Dixon the son of Boyd Sears Dixon and my cousin once removed. Joseph and his wife Carol live on Gwynn’s Island in Mathews County. Actually, Boyd Sr. was adopted by John Avery Dixon and Lessie Marian Cliff Davis. His birth parents are Henry Thomas Sears and Julia Mildred South who died within a year of his birth. His family line includes many of the


John Lewis, b. 1806, d. 1878

+m. Elizabeth Groves, b. 1810, d. 1899

Thomas Lewis, b. 1831, d. 1904 Harry Lewis, b. 1868, d.. 1917

Lucy Evelyn Lewis, b. 1912, d. 1981

Alfred George Slade Jr., b. ?

Joseph Lewis, b. 1833, d. 1901 Ernest Andrew Lewis, b. 1868, d.. 1935

Kenneth Charles Lewis, b. 1904, d. 1997

Mary Carol Lewis, b. 1936

Mary Montabana, b. ?

Samuel Lewis, b. 1869, d.. 1953

May Evelyn Lewis, b. 1896, d. 1995

Dale Arthur Beamer, b. 1918, d. 2011

Carla Beamer, b. 1953

Evelyn Jean Beamer, b. 1928

Idelle Arleen Beamer, b. 1930, d. 2003

Joyce A. Gillett, b. 1955

Seth Richard Taylor, b. 1980

Sabrina Taylor, b. ?

? Newton, b. ?

K. McReavy, b. ?

S. McReavy, b. ?

Laura Kate Lewis, b. 1875, d.. 1956



Blanche Emily Lewis, b. 1877, d.. 1941

Horace Benjamin Plummer, b. 1915, d. 2000

Marjorie Carol Plummer, b. 1942

Jade Garrett Anderson, b. 1969

Arthur Lewis, b. 1880, d.. 1950

Luella Merle Lewis, b. 1919, d. 2011

Douglas Kenneth Jensen, b. 1947

Family of John Lewis

surnames typical of northern Gloucester County. More research is needed to confirm our relationship.

Janice Meredith Wood’s DNA test indicated that she is a 5th to 8th cousin to me. I knew her from our school days at York High School. Although she had Gloucester family lines like me, we did not have enough data to make the connection.

The AncestryDNA program appears to successfully identify relationship estimates between participants by their method of determining common DNA segments in their DNA record. Their predictions were not precise for distant cousins when compared to known relationships from existing genealogy records. However, with the AncestryDNA estimates, more research can reveal the precise relationships in many cases. As shown for my case, more than a hundred distant matches were confirmed with existing genealogy data or further research.

In all, I have surveyed thousands of participants that indicate a match with me, but only a small percentage of them give their ancestry record. The AncestryDNA advertises that

(Continued on page 34)


Memories of Hazel Figg Hughes

By L. Roane Hunt

Hazel Brown Figg was born on October 17, 1918, to Marque Columbus Figg and Mary

Elvira Brown and was a member of the Botetourt Class of 1937. She married Curtis Lee Hughes on December 23, 1939, and they made their home in Mathews County for forty-eight years. Curtis died in 1987, and she decided to be a resident of the Newport News Baptist Retirement Community, now The Chesapeake. She died on October 9, 2009, and her obituary stated, “she found much joy in serving as a volunteer in various programs of the home.” She was a member of Emmanuel United Methodist Church in Mathews since 1944.

Hazel’s grandparents were John Henry Figg and Christina Ann Blake and John Richard Brown and Ruth Helen Marble as shown in the adjacent pedigree chart.

Hazel had two older siblings and two younger siblings as shown in the family chart below. Hazel and Curtis did not have any children, but her obituary mentions that she was survived by several nieces,

Ancestors of Hazel Brown Figg

John Henry Figg b. 1838, d. 1914

Marque Columbus Figg b. 1876, d. 1959

Christina Ann Blake b. 1850, d. 1934

Hazel Brown Figg b. 1918, d. 2009

John Richard Brown b. 1842, d. 1928

Mary Elvira Brown b. 1887, d. 1960

Ruth Helen Marble b. 1862

Marque Columbus Figg, b. 1876, d. 1959

+m. Mary Elvira Brown, b. 1887, d. 1960 Bertha Viola Figg, b. 1908, d. 2001

+m. Dorsie Jacob Rammell, b. 1910, d. James Dorsie Rammell, b. 1939

Wayne Brown Rammell, b. 1946

John Smith Figg, b. 1912, d. 1995

+m. Effie Cornelia Riles, b. 1912, d. 2002 Barbara Jean Figg, b. 1935

John Edwin Figg, b. 1940

Hazel Brown Figg, b. 1918, d. 2009

+m. Curtis Lee Hughes, b. 1904, d. 1987

Mary Elizabeth Figg, b. 1921, d.

+m. Benjamin Craven Gilbert, b.

Edwin Columbus Figg, b. 1922, d.

+m. Vivian Pauline French, b.

Family of Marque Columbus Figg nephews, and cousins. Her oldest sister Bertha Viola Figg married Dorsie Jacob Rammell, and their son Wayne Rammell donated a few items to the Gloucester Museum of History including an autograph book signed by classmates and friends of the high school class of 1937. Also donated was a story told by Hazel to her niece Barbara Jean Figg Copeland that described her childhood Christmas experience.

The Figg fifty-nine acre farm and blacksmith shop were located on the corner of Dutton Road (Rt. 198) and the north end of Figg Shop Road (Rt. 203). The south end of Figg Shop Road intersects with Indian Road. The road got its name from the shop operated by Hazel’s grandfather John Henry Figg.


This article includes Hazel’s Christmas story and a discussion of the contents of her autograph book.

Christmas in Our Early Years On the Figg Farm

March 2003

We were not born with a "Silver Spoon" in our mouths. It was a time of hard work, using your muscles and sweating to get anything done - and a very little pay for a day’s work. But, one thing for sure, a lot of effort was put into making Christmas special for us. Our parents’ love was expressed in homemade gifts even if they stopped at making one gift for each of us.

On Christmas Eve, rain or shine, Daddy would go through his wooded land to find a cedar tree which was put up and decorated as part of our Christmas - big preparation for Santa Claus. If we were big enough we added holly back of the pictures as part of our decorations. Guess we got that from Mama. I am sure she was glad to have us help her, and we were happy to add that to make things look like the holidays. The tree had both


The photograph on the left (about 1928) shows all five siblings. From the top, they are Bertha and Smith; in the middle are Mary and Hazel; and in front Edwin. On the right (about 1930), the three youngest siblings are shown from the left, Hazel, Edwin, and Mary.


bought and homemade items. We liked saving the foil from cigarettes and chewing gum to cover the stars that Daddy had drawn and was cut from probably the back cover of a writing tablet. My favorite of all the decorations were metal candleholders that contained pastel candles that were about three inches long. These candles were only lighted when Daddy was near the tree to protect us in case the tree caught on fire. That fresh cedar had aroma all of its own. It meant a special celebration was in the air.

I don't remember it, but I have been told many times that my first doll was made from a tablecloth. Of course, Mama made it and I named it Sallie. Since this was my first, I have an idea I had help. The story goes that the next Christmas I got a factory made doll which I did not want as I did not want to forsake my Sallie, so, I think she had to be put in hiding in order for the new one to be accepted.

Mama, with the help of my older sister, would make new dresses for the old doll (the one received the year before) plus a new doll from Santa Claus. Dresses were made for the girls and I am sure the boys were remembered too, with a homemade shirt - too long ago for me to remember. But, I do remember that we three younger ones wanted doll babies, even Edwin, we all received them and they were alike - just different colored garments. Edwin named his Bobby Hicks, a businessman of the neighborhood. It was a sight all three lined up, side by side under the tree - nothing was wrapped in those days.

Now for food, between Thanksgiving and Christmas, a hog killing had to take place if the weather had become winter like so the meat would keep without spoiling before it could be cured. In earlier days the small intestines were cleansed to put sausage in. A sausage stuffer was borrowed from Mr. Eddie Sutton [1} to do the stuffing. After stuffing. the gut was twisted to so many inches to form a size for cooking. Seems like without measuring, Mama had each the same length. This was interesting and a real treat for Christmas breakfast.

If this hog killing didn't come off, Daddy would go to the Piankatank River and get some oysters, so we might have some stewed for Christmas morning breakfast. We were delighted over this but we also wanted right away on Christmas morning a piece of that homemade chocolate fudge. We were not allowed to eat the two close together as it was thought the sweet stuff and oysters didn’t go together. In other words we might get sick.

A ham that had been cured for one year was a real treat to us. It was cooked a few days before Christmas, skinned and dotted with black pepper. It was a special decoration made by dipping our middle finger in the pepper and spacing that on the meat. It was real pretty.

Pies and cakes were towards the last of the baking preparation. The traditional fruitcake was the first so the flavors of the ingredients could blend. Mama bought raisins and English walnuts for the cake - the rest of the ingredients consisted of preserves, black walnuts, apples, and flavorings she had on hand. Another specialty was the black walnut loaf cake. We kids had to crack and pick out all the nuts. The chocolate layer cake and freshly grated coconut cake were enjoyed by all. Several kinds of candy were made. Most of these treats lasted through the holidays.

Mama would always have her siblings come for a day and likewise we visited them. I remember hearing them speak of cooking their cabbage. Guess that was a vegetable each had raised as they had them in their fall gardens.


1 Lemuel Edward Sutton (1862-1941) was one of three brothers from North Carolina that moved to Gloucester and are the ancestors of the Suttons in Gloucester and Mathews Counties.


Last. but not least, when we were too small to help in the kitchen, we would take off to Kathryn Brown’s [2} to see what Santa brought her. We were as excited about her toys as she because we played with them as much as she did. Kathryn and I still like to keep in touch on Christmas Day.

We had a good time and it is great to remember that Mama and Daddy did so much for us.

Hazel’s Autograph Book

Hazel collected most of her autographs and comments in February through April, 1937, during the years of the great depression. Mrs. Betty Jean Deal, director of the Gloucester Museum of History, has assembled a very good collection of Gloucester school annuals in the museum archive room. However, there are no annuals for the 1930s during the depression. The last school annual published prior to the depression was the 1928 Dual Annual that included both Achilles and Botetourt High Schools. Therefore, unofficial documents such as Hazel’s autograph book are very useful in describing the school days of the 1930s.

Dennis D. Forrest, principal, and three teachers wrote in Hazel’s book. Mr. Forrest was from Poquoson in York County and was the son of Samuel Forrest and Gertrude Lula Dryden. He began teaching in Gloucester in Camp Chesapeake Academy on the Ware River in Zanoni in 1929. The facilities became Five Gables, home of Dr. Blair Spencer. Later, Dr. Forrest served as principal of Botetourt School in Gloucester County before being named superintendent of the Mathews-Middlesex School Division in 1937. With a realignment of school divisions in 1949, he became superintendent of Gloucester and Mathews County schools.


Book cover

One who counts his blessing never has a just cause to be disheartened.

Dennis D. Forrest

The four teachers included in Hazel’s book are listed below:

Lucille Bell Jayne, b. 8/26/1877, d. 2/9/1945, d/o George Jayne & Julia A. Wallace

Margie Pitman Clements, b. 5/14/1891, d. 11/25/1977, d/o Dr. David Oscar Clements & Caroline Maude Miller

2 Laura Kathryn Brown (1922-2005) daughter of Franklin Woodland Brown and Kate Douglas Miller married Robert Maxwell Strigle. She was Hazel’s cousin who lived across Dutton Road.


Lucy Etta Lewis, b. 11/12/1882, d. 2/6/1966, d/o Joseph Cephas Lewis & Mary Ann Harris, m. Isaiah Milton Anderton on 6/24/1908

Lucille Elizabeth Acuff, b. 6/19/1912, d. 6/25/2000, d/o Harmon O’Neal Acuff & Ida L Lucas, m. 1st Harold R. Brown, m. 2nd Frank Tatum Jarvis on 30 Jan 1938, m. 3rd Nelson Duvall

Lucy Etta Lewis (Mrs. I. M. Anderton as she was known) taught Math and Latin and wrote a verse in Latin on her page. She added the interpretation beneath the verse and signed her name as shown above. She wrote, “Non est vivere, sed valere vita” with the interpretation,

Margie

Clements

Mae

Thornton

Lucy Etta

Lewis

Teachers


“Life is accomplishment, not mere existence.” Using the online capability, the Google translator offered the interpretation, “There is no life but the life force.” By adding an “est” to Mrs. Anderton’s verse, Google gave a closer interpretation, “Life is more than merely staying alive.” Mrs. Anderton’s “old school” interpretation had a higher flare, but she must have forgotten the final “est.” This is no criticism of Mrs. Anderton’s many years of very successful teaching.

Margie Clements wrote a verse to rhyme with Hazel’s maiden name of Figg. She wrote, “ The very finest tree that could grow would be big, and on the end of every branch would be a little Figg!” She seems to have used a lot of poetic license for that verse.

Margie Clements and Lucy Etta Lewis (Mrs. Anderton) were included in the above


photograph of the entire student body of Hayes Store High School taken in 1919. The enlarged picture of the teachers shows Margie holding her cane, Mae Thornton, and Mrs. Anderton. Mae Thornton was identified by her son Hayes William. She also taught at the high school prior to her marriage to Hayes’s father. Miss Thornton’s marriage broke up this happy trio. This was a happy time compared to the difficult years of depression beginning October 29, 1929.

The first and second colorful pages of Hazel’s book are shown below. The second page lists the officers of the class of 1937. They were Pres. Rebecca Wolffe, V. Pres. Robert Selden, Treas. Richard Lawerence, Sec. Bessie Abernathey, and Chaplain Murrayl Groh.



The following students wrote on autograph pages:

Susie Louise Teagle, b. 1920, d/o John F. Teagle & Margaret David, m. Doswell S. Horsley in 1944

Leonidas Ferdinand Rhodes, b. Jun. 20, 1917, s/o Eugene Preston Rhodes & Charlotte Colgate Selden, m. Elizabeth Ann Keesee on Feb. 3, 1951

William Martin Wroten, b. 3/21/1918, d. 11/16/1993, s/o Cornelius Ottwood Wroten & Mattie Lillian Horsley, m. Cathryn Helen Northstein on 8/5/1948

Rebecca Doris Givler, b. 7/3/1918, d. 4/28/1997, d/o Jacob Givler & Leatha Estelle Brown, m. Hudson Hugh Williams on 3/22/1947

Stuart Jones, Unidentified

Margaret Bell Roane, b. Nov. 11, 1917, d/o Clement Wilson Roane & Mattie Ruth Diggs, m. Ernest Lansing Kite in 1942

Ruby Virginia Dunston, b. 8/22/1918, d. 7/10/2009, d/o Wilber Franklin Dunston & Mary Virginia Miller, m. Norman Charles Taylor in 12/23/1944

Murrayl Lillian Groh, b. 1921, d/o Louis Groh & Freida Meyer, m. Dr. Leonard E. Meisels on 9/3/1944

Martha Elizabeth Newcomb, b. 6/4/1920, d. 7/5/2000, d/o Oakley Philpotts Newcomb & Elsie D. Elliott, m. a. Rembert Mathewes

Virginia Louise Trevilian, b. 3/2/1920, d. 7/1/2003, d/o Augustine Smith Trevilian & Mary E. Coates, m. Joseph Addison Atkins on 5/31/1947

Mary Frances Thrift, b. 1/15/1920, d. 11/3/2012, d/o Morris Mason Thrift & Frances L. Walton, m. Earl Nathan Wise in 1939

Helen Louise Moore, b. Nov. 6, 1919, d. Jan. 26, 2010, d/o Leonidas Rosser Moore & Emily Ruth Walker, m. Thomas Lee Carmine

Wilson Stuart Eastwood, b. Feb. 17, 1917, d. Jun. 29, 1984, s/o William Albert Eastwood & Ann Jeanette Goalder

Margaret Elizabeth Teagle, b. 1917, d. 11/13/1990, d/o Zacheous Lee Teagle & Gladys Mae Dunston, m. Leo Joseph Satterfield in 5/19/1946

Evelyn Bridges Selden, b. 8/14/1920, d. 5/4/2005, d/o Robert Colgate Selden III & Olivia Clarke Bridges, m. Edmund Melson Clarke on 3/23/1943

Bessie Nina Abernathey, b. Mar. 25, 1920, d. 9/14/2017, d/o Charles Henry


To keep my friends

is my delight

So in your book

I will gladly write.

Lee (Rhodes)

I love ten

I love twenty

I love you and

that’s a plenty.

Martin Wroten

Remember the girl from the country

Remember the girl from town

Remember the girl who spoiled your book

By writing up side down.

Doris Givler

Remember M

Remember E

Put them together

And remember Me.

Margaret Roane

Keep your head when you win

Keep your heart when you lose

True happiness, if understood

Consists alone in doing good

Ruby Dunston

Can’t write

Bad pen

That’s all

Amen

Louise Trevilian

When you have grown old,

And your hair has turned gray,

Remember I’m still your pal,

Though I may be far away.

Mary Frances Thrift

I’ve never been to college,

I’ve never been to school,

But when it comes to loving,

I’m a educated fool.

Elizabeth Teagle

Yours until hot dogs have fleas

When you get old

And cannot see

Put on your specs

And think of me

Evelyn Selden


Abernathey & Sarah Columbia Lewis, m. 1st Lloyd Graham Clements on Jul. 24, 1939, m. 2nd Thomas M. Emory

Richard Henry Lawrence, b. 6/14/1920, d. 1991, s/o Guy & Elizabeth N. Lawrence, m. Mary Ellen Carney

Eliza Maude Nuttall, b. 7/24/1919, d. 1/7/2016, d/o Luther Monroe Nuttall & Edith Maude Robins, m. Edward Paul Ottarson Jr. on 12/21/1943

James Edwin Robins, b. 7/16/1917, d. 5/28/1944, s/o Jefferson Levi Robins & Ida Belle Robins

Dorothy Countess Bristow, b. 11/3/1919, d. 12/8/2002, d/o Charles Franklin Bristow Sr. & Alice Lena Brooker, m. Wilbur Cary Dutton on 4/27/1946

Robert Colgate Selden IV, b. 1/11/1919, d. 12/23/1996, s/o Robert Colgate Selden III & Olivia Clarke Bridges, m. Adeem Alice Adams on 5/17/1947

Esther Marie Wroten, b. 8/30/1919, d. 8/31/1939, d/o Cornelius Ottwood Wroten & Mattie Lillian Horsley

Charles Curtis Edwards, b. 10/25/1919, d. 8/27/2000, s/o Curtis William Edwards & Clemmtine C. Soles, m. 1st Lavinia Beckum on 6/27/1953, m 2nd Elsie Tolley on 11/29/1973

Dorothy Attwood Minter, b. 7/9/1919, d. 6/24/1991, s/o Emmett Hazlum Minter & Alice Maude Wroten, m. Emmanuel Ernest Eley on 5/4/1947

Hadley Ellsworth Jenkins, b. 9/11/1919, d. 1/13/1997, s/o Andrew Jackson Jenkins & Pearl Eleanor Oliver, m. Nell Valentine Vernon

Dorothy Deal, b. 2/14/1917, d. 2/5/2010, d/o Joseph Statesman Deal & Nora Lee Jenkins, m. William Raymond Mason on 3/18/1937

Kate Elizabeth Oliver, b. 12/24/1916, d. 3/21/2005, d/o Natus Jones Oliver & Mary Arnetha Seawell, m. Floyd Morrison Wilford on 11/2/1940

Verna Elizabeth Soles, b. 11/15/1918, d. 5/15/2004, d/o George Booker Soles & Annie Lucy Jones Purcell, m. Wilbur Garland Sears on 6/17/1941

Violet Geneva German, b. 6/26/1917, d. 11/7/1998, d/o Walter Francis German & Bessie Elva Moore, m. William Clements Williams on 12/17/1937

Margaret Rebecca Wolfe, b. Sep. 11, 1918, d. 4/20/2017, d/o Thomas Bernard Wolfe & Margaret Ruth Clements, m. Raymond Carlton Edwards on Nov. 16, 1954

Hester Anne Wolfe, b. 4/4/1920, d. 11/26/2015, d/o Thomas Bernard Wolfe & Margaret


Summer may change to winter

Flowers may fade and die

Henry may forsake you

But never I.

Countess Bristow

If writing in albums

Remembrance ensures

With greatest of pleasure

I’ll scribble in yours.

Esther Wroten

May your life be like

Arithmetic—joys add,

Sorrows subtracted, love

Multiplied and divided by two.

Dorothy Minter

Twilight pulls the curtain

And pins it with a star

Remember me, Hazel

No matter where you are.

Kate Oliver

I had rather be in the river,

Floating on a log

Than to be in Gloucester Co.

Treated like a dog.

Ellsworth Jenkins

It tickles me

It makes me laugh

To think you want

My Autograph.

Verna Soles

Always remember and bear in mind,

Girls like you are hard to find.

Geneva German

Remember me

And don’t forget

You have a friend

In Gloucester yet.

Bessie Abernathey


Ruth Clements, m. Abner Logan Spivey Jr. on 8/9/1947

Martha Elizabeth Newcomb, b. 6/4/1920, d. 7/5/2000, d/o Oakley Philpotts Newcomb & Elsie D. Elliott, m. A. Rembert Mathewes

Evelyn Byrd Page Hutcheson, b. 10/6/1919, d. 5/21/1986, d/o Henry Edmund Hutcheson & Evelyn Byrd Lee, m. Mathew Fontaine Maury Werth Jr. on 4/16/1955

Marian Esther Sutton, b. 4/2/1921, d. 3/22/2010, d/o Elvin Clinton Sutton & Blanche Fitchett, m. James Luther Soles on 6/7/1951

Charles Graham Wiatt, b. 2/1/1920, d. 6/30/1976, s/o Dr. Robert Graham Wiatt & Nannie May Rudd, m. Margaret Lee Peters on 12/24/1947

Joseph Addison Atkins, b. 6/18/1971, d. 4/25/2000, s/o John Norton Atkins & Katherine Ada Moran, m. Virginia Louise Trevilian on 5/31/1947

Mary Lee Roane, b. 11/30/1918, d. 7/22/1997, d/o Peter Leigh Roane & Mary Lee Eastwood, m. Hamilton Fleet Hibble on 7/6/1940

William Foster Leigh Jr., b. 1/1/1920, d. 1/24/2004, s/o William Foster Leigh & Gladys Ellenger, m. Loretta Catherine Moore on 3/17/1943

Several students signed their pages in ways that could not be identified. There were two signed as Annie, Henry R., Clifton, Ruth, and C.

The most artful poems written to Hazel were shown in boxes and show the popular method of expressing their thoughts for her. Most of the boys preferred to write a brief “Remember me.” As I read the poems, I wondered if Botetourt had a class for brief poems or was there a popular book of album poetry?

Another document that listed seniors of Botetourt in 1937 was an issue of the 1937 Botetourt Journal, Memory Edition published by the Journal Club. This special issue seems to be organized similar to a traditional school annual. It included in the senior section an obituary where seniors bequeath things to under-


If I were a head of cabbage,

I know just what I’d do,

I’d give the leaves to all my friends

And save the head for you.

Marian Esther Sutton

Way back here out of sight,

I’ll sign my name just for spite.

Mary Lee Roane

You have many a friend,

You have many a lover,

To give them all room,

I write on the cover.

Foster Leigh

Hazel Brown Figg (1918-2009) graduate of Botetourt High School, class of 1937

To keep my friend is my delight

So in your book I’ll gladly write.

Evelyn Byrd Hutcheson

Something to write

What shall it be?

Just two little words,

“Remember Me.”

Hester Anne Wolfe


classmen. The following is a copy of that list:

Bessie Abernathy leaves her fatal charm to Hoyle Roane

Edith Hoyle Roane, b. 3/20/1923, d. 4/29, 2000, d/o Cecil Bland Roane & Edith Virginia Trevilian, m. Garrett Freeman Post on 12/24/1942

Esther Wroton leaves her slenderness to Esther Sutton

Marian Esther Sutton (signed a page in the Hazel’s autograph book and identified previously)

Louise Trevilian, the senior sweetheart, leaves her sweet disposition to Josie Kerns

Mary Josephine Kerns, b. 5/10/1920, d/o Martin Shackelford Kerns & Josephine Moore, m. Jefferson Levi Robins Jr. on 2/14/1942

Eliza Nuttall, or “Mitt Maud” gives her lovely voice to Betty Jenkins (unidentified)

Edwin Robins bequeaths his ability to sing to Edward Fields

Dr. Edward Graham Field, b. 4/22/1921, d. 10/9/1965, s/o William Stephen Field & Mary Eleanor Benson

Joseph Atkins leaves his A’s to Everett Powers

William Everett Powers, b. 5/10/1921, d. 12/25/1944, s/o William Malvin Powers & Etta Sterling

Evelyn Selden leaves her gift of gab to Joe Brown

Joseph Walker Brown Jr., b. 5/13/1923, d. 6/21/2015, s/o Joseph Walker Brown & Thelma Virginia Robins, m. Maryann Margaret Bratz on 2/14/1942

Murrayl Groh leaves her way with teachers to Braxton Deal

Charles Braxton Deal, b. 8/22/1919, d. 1/6/1998, s/o Charles Deal & Verna Beatrice West, m. Elsie Lee Pointer on 12/23/1950

Bob Selden leaves all wads of chewing-gum left under his chair in General Science Class to Cary Lawson

Cary Elizabeth Lawson, b. 7/23/1923, d/o George Emmett Lawson & Hazel Estelle Pointer, m. Edgar Warren Franklin on 6/28/1944

Charlie Edwards bequeaths his white socks to Betty Corr

Martha Elizabeth Corr, b. 8/31/1918, d. 6/23/2006, d/o William Ellis Corr Jr. & Ruth Wootten, m. William Jordan Steed on 10/29/1940

Dorothy Deal wills her boyish bob to Mary Jenkins (unidentified)

Verna Soles gives her lovely finger nails to Frances Muse

Frances Haywood Muse, b. 8/17/1920, d. 3/13/2009, d/o Peachy Elbert Muse & Annie Valentine Heywood, m. George M. Evans on 11/9/1946

Helen Moore leaves her straight black hair to Maude Nuttall

Maude Clements Nuttall, b. 1/6/1920, d. 1/28/1999, d/o John Franklin Nuttall & Maude L. Deal, m. George W. Toal



Wilson Eastwood wills his bashfulness to George Paul DeHardit

George Paul DeHardit Jr., b. 9/3/1922, d. 1/15/1938, s/o George Paul DeHardit & Cornelia Hogg

Ruby Dunston leaves her dignity to Louise Mele

Louise Catlett Mele, b. 8/9/1922, d. 3/10/1999, d/o Thomas F. Mele & Maria Pollard Jones, m. Lawrence Norman Harnden on 6/8/1945

Ellsworth Jenkins and Lee Rhodes reluctantly leave their lovely curls to Grace Clements

Grace Clements, b. 7/3/1921, d. 10/27/2001, d/o William Cary Clements & Linda Pratt Marble, m. Chester Rutkowski on 7/20/1944

Louise Teagle gives her red hair to Ruth Johnston

Virginia Ruth Johnston, b. 2/25/1923, d. 4/17/2002, d/o Edwin Lewis Johnston & Nettie Ruth Thrift, m. Joseph Victor Peruzzato on 12/16/1949

Richard Lawrence wills his big feet to Roger Moorman

Roger Moorman, b. 1/21/1922, d. 3/9/2012, s/o William Elliott Moorman & Dorothy Dunn Smith, m. 1st Harriett Alfraretta Friend, M. 2nd Louise Deloss Powell, m. 3rd Barbara Downey Nelson


they will identify from where your ancestors came, and most participants seem to be satisfied with that information. In my case, they indicated that my ancestors were 90% from England and 10% from Ireland/Scotland/Wales. This result was not a surprise. Therefore, if more participants will share their genealogical data, the program will be much more effective for genealogy researchers.

They also predicted that my ancestors settled in New England and Virginia which I knew. However, they predicted that some of them settled in the Kentucky region that I did not know, and they did not predict the fact that my closest Lewis family traveled directly from England and settled in Hawley, Minnesota.

(Continued from page 23)


Former Student and Teacher at Achilles Recalls Old Days

Scenes in Early Schools, Games Played, and Lessons Studied Are Recorded; Beginnings From Which Achilles

High School Grew Are Described

By Mrs. Joel Thornton

Formally: Margaret Clarissa Richardson

In the year 1875 there could be seen a small, unpainted, weathered building a few

hundred yards north by east of Union Baptist Church. Nestling back from the main road behind a veil of pines and myrtles as if to hide its not too beautiful face, and surrounded on two sides by a marsh, through which a meandering stream ran there sat this cocoon from which was to emerge the chrysalis from which sprang after many evolutions of the present Achilles High School. Boarded up and down and sturdy on its legs of log sections with another log section for a doorstep, this little room had been built about twelve years previously by John A. B. Thornton [1] as a private school and he had installed his eldest daughter, Alice, as a teacher for his younger children of whom there were five of school age. These being the Reconstruction days, there was not enough money to be had to pay for their tuition. Other parents had found such a need also and presently there were many others added to these five.

A year or two before this “Miss Alice”[2] had taken a public examination and this little room had been rented to the county and she had become a servant of the county and state at a salary of eighteen dollars a month for five months of the year and for at least one year of her career she was paid in gold. She was given the use of the building for private school for any added time she could obtain pupils.

One day during the aforesaid year, we children were thrilled by a visit from the members of the school board; Mr. Mussen,[3] Mr. John V. Cattlett,[4] and Mr. John A. B. Thornton. After dismounting and tying their horses they walked around talking and gesticulating. We found out later Guinea was to have a wonderful new building of two brand new rooms. These were built directly in front of the original building during vacation and ready for occupation the next session. Each room was equipped with desks having a shelf under which to put our books and upon which we could write and rest our books while we studied our lessons. Paper being scarce, we used our slates for ciphering

1 John Alexander Buchanan Thornton, b. 9/25/1803, d. 3/31/1877, s/o Meaux William Thornton Jr. & Priscilla Churchill McKeand, m. Sarah Elizabeth Hayes on 9/26/1839. They had 14 children.

2 Alice Judson Thornton, b. 11/11/1845, d. 1/22/1930, d/o John A. B. Thornton & Sarah Elizabeth Hayes

3 Matthew J. Musson, b. 10/11/1830, d. 8/20/1905, s/o Thomas & Jane Mussen, m. Lucy F. Sedgwick on 6/3/1862

4 Dr. John B. Catlett, b. 1836, s/o John Walker Carter Catlett & Agnes Jane Thruston


and other written work, washing them in the little ponds in the marsh. In addition to desks there was a space on the wall of each room painted black and called a blackboard and some white stuff called chalk with which we could write, make pictures, play tic tac toe and have ever so much fun. There was also a new teacher, Mr. Meaux Thornton [5] was, I think, the assistant. And I am forgetting the reading chart and the number chart for new pupils, but maybe they came later.

Now that we had moved into the new school we found that events moved on in the same old way except that the class in French had disbanded. Because of the death of their father, its two members were needed at home. Instead of conjugating French verbs and declining French nouns, they were busy breaking ground for next year’s wheat crop and hauling wood to keep the family warm. The rest of us went on with our schooling. In addition to the three R’s there were classes in spelling, geography, both manual and physical, history of the United States, also Roman and Grecian History. Some read astronomy. There was drawing and English grammar and Mr. Thornton had classes in Latin and Algebra. Much of this was eliminated when the state began to use the prescribed course of study. As an extra-curricular course “Miss Alice” taught piano lessons on her own piano before and after school hours and all day Saturday.

We found there was no royal road to learning – that unless we applied ourselves to study we could not accomplish anything.

We still played the same old games on an unlimited playground, each game in its season. Boys and girls played marbles and boys played “cat” a kind of modified baseball and Oh! The fox hunts we had for it was then we roamed afar. We girls played house with myrtles and pines playing a big part. We had weddings with the accompanying feasts which were provided by each bringing an egg and buying candy and cakes. Of course we had to make our appetites fit the quantity of food.

We still dipped water from an open well and resting the bucket on the well casing all drank from the same bucket or dipper. Lunches were eaten out of doors under the pines or on the banks of the marsh in all but the coldest weather. They were usually carried in tin pails and might consist of fried egg and biscuit sandwich, biscuit with preserves, ham, sausage occasionally fresh pork, beef, or chicken, baked sweet potato, cake, pie, and apple or pear. Sometimes there might be only biscuit with molasses poured into a hole made with a finger.

Classes were promiscuous or ungraded and we progressed when we had satisfactorily completed our books. Older pupils assisted the younger to their mutual benefits. Often two or more written spelling classes were conducted simultaneously, one word being called to one and the next to another, alternating thus throughout the lesson. This was done while answering questions of children studying other subjects and to be sure her mind and hands were fully occupied. “Miss Alice” was often busy knitting socks or stockings at the same time.

Oral spelling took the form of spelling bees or of lining up and passing the word to be spelled and defined down the line. If a pupil missed a word, the first one to spell and define it correctly cut up ahead of him and thus all the best spellers landed at the head of the line, but after remaining there a week must start at the foot again.


5 Meaux Thornton, b. 11/25/1850, d. 5/14/1933, s/o John A. B. Thornton & Sarah Elizabeth Hayes, m. Sarah Maria Minor on 12/25/1873


To beginners in Geography definitions of islands, peninsulas, etc., were taught by pointing out these natural formations in the marsh back of the school. Older pupils located cities and rivers, described the topography of the land and thoroughly memorized the names of states and countries with their capitals and principal cities and the leading industries of each.

Space does not permit a detailed description of methods employed in these crowded classrooms, but they produced results and sent out many boys and girls the better equipped to face life’s problems because of them.

Entertainments were given for the public at intervals, and it was an important fact that each child must have some part in the program, either in the plays or readings, drills, or music. This plan never failed to draw a full house so teacher, parents, and children were all pleased.

In 1902 two rooms were added to the two-room school. Here the school colors were adopted and basketball and literary societies inaugurated under Mr. McManaway.

In 1911 two more rooms, an upstairs, and downstairs room were added to the four room school to form a T-shaped building. Two more teachers were employed. Mr. Kirk was the first principal in this six room school. “Miss Alice” was retired from here in 1912, after nearly half a century of teaching, although she had taught in other schools at intervals. It was from this building the first graduating class made its debut in 1914, with Mr. Charles Henry Smith as principal.

In 1919 the Masons granted permission to use their building for two of the grades and Achilles became an eight teacher school. It was in this year the first building on the present site (almost directly in front of the old school) was erected and in 1920 was opened with a faculty of nine. Other buildings have been added until there are now five.

Looking back over these twelve years there is little I should want changed, for there was much fun and happiness packed in them. Growth has been normal and inevitable and surely a school that has helped to produce many fine citizens, several teachers, and two preachers was worth all the growing pains involved.



Robert Henry Gwynn: An Ancestor at “Hellmira”

By Robert N. Garnett

Article based on GGSV program on September 24, 2018, by the author

Unidentified Confederate Soldier (Library of Congress)

Robert Henry Gwynn, my great-great-great-great-grandfather, was one of roughly a thousand Gloucester men to serve in the Confederate States Army during the Civil War. With a white population of only about forty-five hundred in 1860, nearly every able-bodied white man in the county answered Virginia’s call to arms. Alex L. Wiatt’s unit history indicates that Gwynn served in Company B of the 26th Virginia Volunteer Infantry Regiment. The following narrative illuminates his life, death, and legacy.

According to census records, Gwynn—the son of Henry and Elizabeth Williams Gwynn—was born in Matthews County in 1827. He relocated to Gloucester and married Elizabeth Booker by 1850. The couple had four children: Patrick, James, Franklin, and Indiana. Elizabeth does not appear in the 1860 census. With the youngest child listed at two months old, perhaps she died from childbirth complications. Marriage Records of Gloucester County, Virginia, Book 1 reveals that Gwynn, noted as a 34-year-old widower and mechanic, remarried to 22-year-old Adeline F. Bridges on April 11, 1861—the eve of the Civil War. On May 8, Gwynn volunteered at Gloucester Point.


In Gloucester County in the Civil War, Ludwell Lee Montague details Gloucester soldiers’ service. Most of the 26th garrisoned close to home at Gloucester Point during the first year of the war. The regiment was present at the Seven Days Battles in June and July of 1862, but it was deployed far from General Robert E. Lee’s tenacious defense of the Confederate capital. After two years of drilling twice per day, tending vegetable gardens, and marching through South Carolina and Florida, the 26th was recalled to Virginia to resist General Ulysses S. Grant’s colossal, relentless Army of the Potomac. On June 15, 1864, 2,200 Confederates arrayed along fortifications surrounding Petersburg—a critical railroad center which linked Richmond to the Deep South—faced 22,000 Federals. Companies A and B of the 26th manned a salient of high ground designated Battery 5. Gloucester men withstood several Union advances throughout the day, but an unconventional, nighttime attack stunned and eventually overwhelmed them. Altogether, the 26th suffered a fifty percent casualty rate at the three-day Second Battle of Petersburg. Wiatt’s text lists Corporal Gwynn as captured on June 15; New York and New Hampshire troops most likely seized him at Battery 5.

Unfortunately for Gwynn, Union authorities no longer exchanged or paroled prisoners of war. General-in-Chief Grant elected to wage a hard war of attrition by spring 1864. He reasoned that detaining Confederate soldiers would deplete the South’s limited manpower and abbreviate the war: “If we commence a system of exchange which liberates all prisoners taken, we will have to fight on until the whole South is exterminated. If we hold those caught they amount to no more than dead men.” Grant’s chilling logic outraged many Northerners because termination of prisoner exchange also doomed thousands of Union soldiers. In September 1864, a coalition of ministers and physicians congregated at the White House and implored President Abraham Lincoln to resume the exchange system. Even Walt Whitman, the renowned poet who composed “O Captain! My Captain!” and “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d” in remembrance of Lincoln, criticized the administration for allowing his younger brother to languish in Danville and Richmond prison camps. Lincoln refused to rescind Grant’s order despite the public outcry.


Confederate fortifications at Gloucester Point, VA, opposite Yorktown, VA (Library of Congress)


After the Second Battle of Petersburg, Gwynn and other captives of the 26th were transported by boat to Point Lookout, Maryland. From there, officers were transferred to Fort Delaware and the enlisted men condemned to Elmira Prison in Chemung County, New York. Elmira ranked as the deadliest Union-operated prison camp. From July 1864 to July 1865, 2,950 of the 12,122 Confederates held at the camp succumbed to exposure, disease, and malnutrition. In Elmira: Death Camp of the North, Michael Horigan demonstrates that Elmira’s 24.3% fatality rate was orchestrated. The camp was intentionally overcrowded from its inception. Union officers at Elmira set the capacity at five thousand; Washington, D.C. officials sent over ten thousand instead. A stagnant, filthy pond remained undrained and proliferated disease. Although lumber and labor were easily attainable, limited barracks forced many Confederates, accustomed to the South’s balmy climate, to huddle in tents during New York’s frigid fall and winter. Chemung newspapers boasted about the plentiful wheat and apple harvests, but prisoners subsisted on meager, innutritious half-rations. Some starving men resorted to hunting and consuming rats and small dogs. At war’s end, the camp returned one-quarter of its budget to the federal government; this money could have purchased desperately needed food and medical supplies. The immense suffering at Elmira earned it the byname “Hellmira.”

Some historians attempt to rationalize the Elmira atrocity by framing it as retaliation for Andersonville. Located in Georgia, Andersonville preceded Elmira by five months and its inmates suffered a comparable death rate. Unlike New York, however, Georgia was war-torn by 1864. General William Tecumseh Sherman’s army—filled with released foreign and domestic convicts—destroyed railroads, foraged liberally, and razed cities while the Union Navy’s blockade of southern ports exacerbated privation. The barren, constricted Confederacy was unable to supply its soldiers. How could it provide for prisoners Grant and Lincoln refused to exchange? In short, circumstances beyond the Confederacy’s control precipitated the Andersonville tragedy; therefore, Elmira was an unjustified reprisal. Wiatt estimates that 132 members of the 26th were detained at Elmira—forty-one perished. Gwynn died from dysentery on December 26, 1864, just one month before the North, confident of victory, finally recommenced the exchange system. He is buried in grave 1251 at Elmira’s Woodlawn Cemetery.


Elmira Prison, Elmira, New York (Library of Congress)


On September 18, 1889, surviving comrades and family members gathered at Gloucester Courthouse to dedicate a monument to the fallen. “R. H. Gwyn” appears among the 132 names engraved on the granite plaques. Unfortunately, a new war rages over such monuments, but one must contemplate several factors before endorsing their removal. The cost to dismantle, store, and relocate these massive monoliths is exorbitant. The monuments’ emergence decades after the Civil War may signify veterans’ passing from old age instead of Jim Crow subjugation. Contrary to the Deep South, Virginia seceded for a reason unrelated to slavery. Virginia reversed its initial vote of allegiance when Lincoln called for 75,000 troops to avenge the bloodless and arguably provoked bombardment of Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina. Lincoln’s proclamation also spurred Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina to disaffiliate from the Union. The secession of the Upper South, which accounted for approximately half of the Confederacy’s soldiers and resources, ensured a prolonged, bloody war. Washington Roebling, a Union officer, surveyed the carnage near Richmond in 1865: “The conduct of the Southern people appears many times to be truely [sic] noble, as exemplified for instance in the defense of Petersburg. Old men with silver locks lay dead in the trenches side by side with mere boys of thirteen or fourteen. It almost makes one sorry to have to fight against people who show such devotion for their homes and their country.” If a contemporary adversary could recognize Confederate soldiers’ sacrifice, why are Americans unable to tolerate a monument in the public sphere today? As the inscription on Gloucester’s monument reads, “Plant the fair column o’er the vacant grave, a soldier’s honors let a soldier have.”


Confederate Monument, Gloucester, VA (personal photograph by author)



Genealogical Chart

Robert Henry Gwynn

1827—Dec. 26, 1864

Elizabeth Booker

1827—1860

Patrick Henry Gwynn

1850/1—?

Roxanne Acre

1850/1—?

Marion Caroline Gwynn

1879—1918

William Henry Dunston

1867—Oct. 30, 1949

Beverly Eugene Dunston

Sep. 23, 1903—Jan. 7, 1989

Vernetta Mae Deal

Jan. 1, 1906—Jan. 12, 1983

Betty Jean Dunston

Feb. 9, 1933—

Samuel Thomas Deal

Jan. 11, 1927—Jan. 7, 2015

Beverley Vern Deal

Sep. 5, 1951—

Robert Nathan Garnett

May 21, 1943—

Robert Nathan Garnett II

Aug. 12, 1987—

Bibliography

The Civil War. Directed by Ken Burns, PBS, 1990.

DiLorenzo, Thomas J. The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War. Three Rivers Press, 2002.

Horigan, Michael. Elmira: Death Camp of the North. Stackpole Books, 2002.

McCartney, Martha W. With Reverence for the Past: Gloucester County, Virginia. Dietz, 2001.

Montague, Ludwell Lee. Gloucester County in the Civil War. 1965.

Morris, Roy. The Better Angel: Walt Whitman in the Civil War. Oxford, 2000.

Wiatt, Alex L. 26th Virginia Infantry. H. E. Howard, 1984.


Deadly Duels of Virginia

By Robert Burgess Hitchings

During the 17th and 18th centuries, duels were mostly fought with swords –

particularly among the upper classes. The duel was part of a code of honor.

But in the late 18th century, pistols became the fad in duels, which continued into the early part of the 19th century.

Virginia had its fair share of duels especially here in Hampton Roads. In historic St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in downtown Norfolk, you have two different men who died in duels. They are buried in this cemetery. Even Sam Myers, son of Moses Myers (Myers House), was said to have been prepared to duel as a hot-headed young man at the College of William & Mary.

W & M students were driven to the field of honor in the first decades of the 1800s. One of the earliest duels involving a student was in 1786 and another was in 1792. Perhaps this was a dueling craze, a deadly form of rebelliousness against authority. We may never know the answer to this, but we do know when your honor had been insulted, you were expected to be ready in an open plain.

We are reminded by the popularity of the Broadway musical "Hamilton" that dueling reached the highest ranks of politics. After all, Alexander Hamilton’s life ended in a famous duel with Aaron Burr on July 11, 1804, on a grassy plain in Weehawken, N.J. Burr believed that shooting Hamilton would enhance his reputation, but in the end, it branded him a murderer and a villain.

Our seventh president Andrew Jackson was in two duels. And even old honest Abe Lincoln was challenged to a duel in 1842, but common sense prevailed.

Closer to home, the old Eastern Shore Chapel cemetery on Laskin Road in Virginia Beach holds an interesting secret, for inside lies an old tombstone of a duelist who died on June 3, 1763. His name was Will Cornick, age 21. His old tombstone, imported from England, has a carved angel at the top.

Thomas Rowland (1825 - 1918), a Norfolk historian in the early 1900s, was making an inventory of old tombstones in Norfolk County when he came across Cornick’s interesting old tombstone. He recorded the following information in his old scrapbook.

“On the east side of Church Street-extended and above the now-railroad crossing on the property of Col. William Ward’s (1832-1892) farm to the eastward of the pine trees grove - about one third distance toward the creek - is an old tombstone of Mr. Will Cornick, who died on June 3rd 1763, age 21, a flat stone slate. They are now at this time grading for streets and this grave stone is in the center of the street and will soon be destroyed.”

Today, this section of Norfolk is called Linden-wood. But the story does not end here.

On Oct. 9, 1934, The Virginian-Pilot reported a woman, Mrs. Adelaide Fascetta, at 2601 Ruffin Way, could not understand why grass would not grow in a certain spot in her yard.


With her handy-dandy trowel in hand, she started to dig, and to her surprise, she found the gravestone of a Mr. Will Cornick. With the help of a neighbor, they brought to light the marble slab of this young man, who was from a prominent Virginia family of old Princess Anne County, now Virginia Beach. To many, the lettering was still plainly legible after being buried for so many years.

Although many generations have passed, many members of the Cornick family still recall what happened to Will. He was a young man in love; he met his opponent at dawn on the field of honor and was shot through the heart. We were a colony of England in those days, and he was buried where he fell.

Unfortunately, the name of the other young man in the duel has been lost in history. But as the story goes, he was wounded in the shoulder and carried off the field. The young lady was so devastated by the duel, she refused to see the victor.

Excavation of Will Cornick’s grave on Ruffin Way was finished, and no remains were found. An experienced grave-digger had been called in and he said, “The traces of topsoil were discovered in the hole, indicating that at some time in the past the hole and area had been disturbed and refilled.”

We do not know how the stone ended up at Ruffin Way, but apparently a contractor or laborer wanted to preserve this old stone. However, on Oct. 25, 1934, The Virginian-Pilot reported that the old heavy stone of Will Cornick was removed to the old Eastern Shore Chapel cemetery and placed in the Cornick family lot.

Deadly Duels of Virginia

The old Eastern Shore Chapel cemetery on Laskin Road, Virginia Beach, holds an interesting secret, for inside there is an old tombstone of a duelist who died on June 3, 1763. His name was Will Cornick, age 21. His old tomb stone imported from England with its large carved angel at the top lies quietly with his family in this old cemetery.


Ebenezer Baptist Church

By L. Roane Hunt

A brief history of Ebenezer Baptist Church by Clarence H. Dutton, clerk, begins with

the following paragraph, “In 1825 the Methodists were holding a camp meeting on the grounds opposite where Ebenezer now stands. At this meeting there were a few Baptists who decided to build a Baptist Church. We do not know who these few were but our early records were destroyed by fire in 1865.”

The 1912 map below shows the location of Ebenezer Church surrounded by Methodist Churches; the closest was Olive Branch Church. These two churches shaped the society of this community for two centuries.

Dutton wrote, “In 1826 Ebenezer was constituted with 34 members and was received into the Dover Association that year. Her first pastor was Elder Peter Ainslie who serverd only two years.”

Ebenezer Baptist Church is shown in the lower center of a portion of the 1912 map by R. A. Folkes that shows churches, schools, and post offices. Also, noted is the shoreline of the Piankatank River and the locations of prominent families. The map illustrated how Ebenezer was surrounded by Olive Branch, Salem, and St. Andrews Methodist Churches.


Some Pastors of Ebenezer Baptist Church

1827-1828— Peter Ainslie (1788-1835) was born in Scotland and was called to be pastor of Mathews Baptist Church in 1821. He owned a large farm near Turks Ferry in Gloucester. In 1828, he was called to be pastor of Grafton Baptist Church in York County. In 1832, he was removed from the Baptist association because of his connection to the Alexander Campbell movement within the local Baptist churches, and Grafton Baptist became Grafton Christian Church. In addition to the Grafton church, Ainslie is credited in establishing Lebanon in Lee Hall and Olive Branch in James City County as Disciples of Christ Churches. Olive Branch Christian Church was probably named after the Methodist church near Ainslie’s home in Gloucester. Ainslie drowned in the winter of 1835 in King William County in an effort to unite a slave family by rowboat in the icy Mattaponi River. Ebenezer Baptist Church began with a leaning toward the Campbellite movement in the 1820s.

1828-1847— Philip Taliaferro (1779-1848) owned and lived at Warehouse in Gloucester. He served as Commissioner of Revenue for Gloucester from 1826 until his death in 1848. He kept an excellent set of books that can be viewed in the clerks office. During his ministry, a meeting house was established near Taliaferro's home two miles south of the courthouse that was eventually used by Zion Poplars Baptist Church in 1866. In his genealogy book about the Taliaferro family, Professor William Carter Stubbs identified Philip Taliaferro as a Campbellite. Seems Rev. Taliaferro was given that label because of his long association with the Ebenezer Church begun by the notorious Peter Ainslie, a follower of Campbell. However, Taliaferro remained active in the Baptist association and was moderator at least on one occasion.

1851-1858— Azariah Frances (A. F.) Scott (1822-1898) was born in Northampton County. Like many other pastors,


Photograph of the old wooden Ebenezer building moved aside for the new brick Ebenezer building from the 1949 article in the Gloucester-Mathews Gazette-Journal. A model of the old building made by Wallace Fletcher is now displayed on the second floor of the Gloucester Museum of History.

Portrait of Rev. A. F. Scott hung in old Gloucester courthouse


Rev. Scott supported himself as a school teacher. He was a student of J. C. Councill in both Fleetwood and Aberdeen academies in King and Queen County, and in 1852 or 1853, he formed the Centerville Male Academy in King and Queen. He taught at the Newington Academy and was the first pastor of Newington Baptist Church from 1852 until 1873. While serving Newington, Rev. Scott was also pastor of Ebenezer for the years 1863-1868. In 1871, he was the first headmaster of the Stevensville Academy in King and Queen when it became a public school. (Gloucester Baptist churches were blessed by the ministries of many school teachers of King and Queen schools.)

1871-1878— James Calvin Councill (1825-1904) was born in Southampton County and was educated at Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, Virginia. He organized the Aberdeen Academy in 1859 that replaced the Fleetwood Academy that closed in 1858 where he had been teaching. When the 26th Virginia Regiment mustered at Gloucester Point in 1861, he was elected captain of Company I, and in 1862, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel of that unit. After the war, he returned to Aberdeen Academy. Rev. Councill became pastor of Mathews Baptist Church in 1861 and remained pastor throughout the war because Chaplain W. E. Wiatt wrote letters to him about the conversion of men for membership in the Mathews church. In 1874, while serving as pastor of Ebenezer, Rev. Councill agreed to preach twice a month at the newly formed Springhill Baptist Church located on land donated by him in nearby Mathews County. He resigned from Spring Hill in 1879.

1878-1885— Richard Andrew Fox (1824-1901) was born in King William County and served as pastor there and in Caroline County before coming to Gloucester. While serving Ebenezer Baptist Church, he also pastored the Spring Hill church from 1879 until 1891. He settled in Mathews County, and he is buried in the Fox Cemetery in the Moon area of Mathews.

1886-1887— William Edward Wiatt (1826-1918) was born in Gloucester and, along with his family, was a member of Ebenezer Baptist Church. He was educated at the Fleetwood Academy in King and Queen County and was licensed to preach by the Olivet Baptist Church in 1848. He taught school in Kentucky and Alabama before returning to Gloucester to teach school and pastor Union and Providence Baptist Churches. At the muster of the 26th Virginia Regiment, he was elected chaplain and served faithfully throughout the war. After the war, he returned and continued as pastor of Union until 1871. Besides his brief time as pastor of Ebenezer, he served many of the Gloucester Baptist churches: Newington, Petsworth, and Beulah. He was Gloucester’s first public school superintendent and served as the county land surveyor. No man made a greater contribution to the betterment of Gloucester society than Rev. William E. Wiatt.

1887-1890— Robert Andrew Folkes (1845-1932) was born in Charles City County, and in 1879, he was ordained and called to be pastor of Poroporone Baptist Church in King and Queen while teaching at the Centerville Academy. After his pastorate at Ebenezer, he was called to be pastor of Union and Providence Baptist Churches. He returned to serve Ebenezer from 1903 until 1909. He also served churches in Middlesex and Mathews Counties. He followed a career path


Rev. William E. Wiatt


similar to that of Rev. Wiatt; he served as county surveyor and public school superintendent for Gloucester. The Gloucester-Mathews Gazette-Journal wrote the following: “Mr. Folkes was the father of the public school system of the county, serving for many years as county superintendent in the difficult transition period between the old days of one-room schools and the present modern system. Next to his devotion to the ministry, his passion for public education was Mr. Folkes’ chief concern.” Rev. Folkes is buried in the Newington Baptist Church Cemetery.

1915-1917— Weston L. Bristow (1891-1919) was born in Middlesex County and died of influenza in 1919. His war record states: “Rev. Lieut. (Chaplain) Weston Bristow who died of a fatal illness contracted during military service, World War I.” The adjacent photograph of Rev. Bristow was cropped from the group photograph with the students of the 1910 Ware Neck School.

1917-1918— Thomas Reade Corr (1863-1950) was born in Gloucester and was one of three sons of Levi Pace Corr and Nancy Emily Watlington who served as Baptist Pastors. Mr. Levi Corr was a close associate and supporter of Rev. Wiatt and was mentioned frequently in his Civil War diary. Rev. T. R. Corr’s ministry took him to the state of Oklahoma.

1918-1944— Harry Lee Corr (1865-1951) was born in Gloucester, brother of T. R. Corr, and pastored in Gloucester and the surrounding counties. Like many other Gloucester pastors, Rev. H. L. Corr served as pastor of most of the Baptist churches in the county. Rev. Corr was pastor of Providence Baptist Church in Gloucester for twenty-six years, and at the same time was the first pastor of Beech Grove Baptist Church. In 1919, he was called to be pastor of Newington Baptist Church until 1944 while he was pastoring Ebenezer. Rev. Corr is buried in the Newington Cemetery.

1951-1959— Omer Guy Burnett (1904-1992) was born in Pittsylvania County, Virginia. He also served as pastor of Ebenezer 1984-1985.

1859-1980— Preston Eugene Brewer (1915-2003) was born in Dehart Wilke, North Carolina, and was pastor of Ebenezer for twenty-one years. He and his wife are buried in the Ebenezer Cemetery.


1910 Photograph of Weston Bristow teacher of the Ware Neck School in Gloucester

R. A. Folkes

Harry Lee Corr

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