Chapter I: Virginia

The First Four Generations

The first permanent English settlement in Colonial America was at Jamestown, Virginia. On April 17, 1607 the first group of hardy settlers landed on the north side of the James River. Living conditions were very bad and a huge proportion of the settlers died as a result of malaria, dysentery, and malnutrition. The colony would have foundered except for the ships that arrived from England several times a year. They brought both supplies and additional settlers. The new arrivals were sufficiently numerous to maintain and slowly increase the population, so that by 1622 about 2,000 settlers were living on the narrow peninsula between the James and York Rivers.

The first settlement of Virginia was made by the Virginia Company, a privately financed stock company, an early forerunner of the modern corporation. Merchants and wealthy persons bought shares in the Company. These shareholders were called "Adventurers". Some of them ventured only their money while others ventured their person; that is, they came in person to Virginia and worked to establish the colony. From the start the Company was in trouble financially, and in 162 the Charter of The Virginia Company was canceled and the King took over the enterprise as a part of his government.

In the process of transferring ownership from the private company to the Crown, an inventory was taken of the people and property then available to the enterprise. A committee of three persons was designated by the authorities in London to conduct the inventory and to “close the books" as ownership was transferred. One of these men was Captain Samuel Matthews who figured in our early Thomas history. He may have been a naval captain, but more likely he was commissioned in the British army. He probably was the younger son in a wealthy, landed family. Since the oldest son in England always inherited the estate, the younger sons found careers in the army, the church, or in the government. He probably was an original shareholder in the Company, an "Adventurer" who came in person. In somewhat later years, he was known as Colonel Matthews; in those years he owned a large plantation named "Denbigh" on the north side of the James River at Blount Point and the mouth of the Warwick River (now Warwick County).

Between January 20 and February 7, 1624/251, during the term of Governor Sir Francis Wyatt the inventory was taken. At each farm or plantation in the Colony all inhabitants were "mustered oat" for a count. At the same time they reported the number of bushels of corn on hand, as well as other forms of property. The muster of Capt. Samuel Matthews included one John Thomas, age 18, who came over on the Southampton in 1622. This John Thomas was the earliest member of our branch of the Thomas family to come to America.

Captain Matthews continued to bring additional settlers to Virginia and to employ them on his extensive lands. In 1643 he brought over William Thomas and John Thomas, Jr. and used them as headrights to land in Rappahannock County. We cannot establish that this John Thomas, Jr. was the son of the first Thomas, but it is at least reasonable that he was from the same family group back in England and was related to the first John Thomas.

A word is in order concerning the economic arrangements whereby these early settlers were brought to Virginia. During the first ten years of the new Colony all new settlers were brought in as employees of the Virginia Company, under long term contract to the Company. However, between 1615 and 1620 there gradually evolved the system known as "indentured servitude", whereby the new arrival bound himself to an employer for a period of from three to seven years (average of 5 years). Although called servants at that time, today we would call them employees. Some worked as domestic servants, but mostly they worked as farm workers or (if they had such skills) as craftsmen, such as blacksmiths, carpenters, coopers, etc. This system was very widely used in the English colonies in America for a hundred years, until it was displaced by the growing use of African slaves after 1700.

During the period of indenture, the employee worked without money wages but was provided by the master with food, lodging, and clothing. (Of course, money in those days was largely nonexistent; tobacco served as the medium of exchange). The indenture contract was not always the same. In some instances it provided the master would give the servant a plot of land to have as his own after he had worked off his indenture. In any case, he usually bought land of his own in a short time. Because the servants were from England— speaking the same language and being of the same race and religion—there was no stigma against having started as an indentured servant. Many former servants married the daughters of their former masters; as early as the 1640's more than a few members of the House of Burgesses of the Virginia Assembly were listed as former “servants”.

In the early years of the Colony, a land-entitlement law was passed; this greatly facilitated immigration to the Colony. The Colonial Government pledged itself to grant 50 acres free to every person who migrated to the Colony. Every immigrant, of whatever age or marital status, was entitled to a “headright", as the entitlement was called. Moreover, the headright was salable. Under this arrangement, even a desperately poor person in England could enter into a contract whereby he could be transported free to Virginia, and upon reaching the Colony he would sign over his headright to the person who paid for his passage. Usually, but not necessarily, the same individual who paid the passage of the migrant and obtained his headright to the 50 acres also signed a contract of indenture whereby the migrant worked for him during the specified number of years.

Because of this system of colonizing, we have on record the names of at least three-fourths of all settlers who came to Virginia during the 17th century. Much of our knowledge of our early ancestors is based on these contracts. When the 50-acre blocks of land were granted, the name of the migrant was always entered. Likewise, the contracts of indenture were regarded as property (the value depending on the length of the unexpired time) and the contract could be sold or handed down by inheritance.

Altogether, probably more than 100,000 persons were brought to the Virginia Cology from England between 1607 and the end of the 17th Century. During the latter half of the Century about 3,000 persons often arrived in a single year. By 1660 all the Tidewater areas had been settled and by 1700 the settlers had pushed westward as far as Richmond and southward to the Albermarle River in North Carolina. However, since the period of indenture was so short, the accumulated number of indentured servants was never large. Even as late as 1704, when the Governor of Virginia made an inventory of all landowners in the Colony, there were about 6,500 land owners and about 4,000 servants and 6,000 slaves. This would average out to about one and one-half workers for each family farm.

The John Thomas whom we count as the second generation of our family in America was born about 1628 and died about 1655. About 1647 he married a young lady whose first name was Elinor. Since John Thomas was given land by Peter Montague who had a daughter named Elinor, we assume that his wife, Elinor, was the daughter of Peter Montague who had settled south of the James River, in Nansemond County, about 1636.

Peter Montague had come to Virginia on the Charles in 1621 when he was 17 years old. His first land of record was obtained in 1642, in what is now Nansemond County, Virginia. Montague was a leader in Colonial affairs, representing Nansemond County in the House of Burgesses in 1652 and 1653. After this service he moved to what is now Lancaster County. He owned land in that area, and was a Burgess for the County in 1657-58 and on September 29, 1658 his name was presented to the General Court for appointment as sheriff.

Peter Montague had patented 150 acres of land in upper Nansemond County on December 18, 1645. This land, described as east of the head of New Towne Haven River (now Chuckatuck Creek), was transferred to John Thomas at an unspecified date (probably at the time of his marriage) and was then repatented by John Thomas on November 19, 1654. Montague had given the land to Thomas at least a year before it was repatented, since Hopkins Howell, on January 12, 1653/54 had patented 400 acres which he described as "at the head pt New Towne Haven River and running by John Thomas's land".

John Thomas died intestate not long after 1654. At his death he was about 27 years old, had been married some 7 or 8 years, and left one or more small children. He owned at the time the 150 acres referred to above, plus another 24 acres which he had also patented. The deed records for this land indicate that his widow lived about 20 years more. Her second husband was William Thompson, as indicated by the fact that on March 27, 1659 the will of her father, Peter Montague of Lancaster County, left to his daughter, Ellen (Elinor),the wife of William Thompson, 1,000 pounds of tobacco in cask.

During her lifetime, Elinor Thomas Thompson did not own in fee simple the land she inherited from her first husband. She had what is known as a life estate. It was hers for her lifetime and would then pass to the oldest son of her late husband. This was in accord with the laws of primogeniture.

In those days, England (and the English Colonies, of course) followed the old feudal laws which specified that only the eldest son could inherit the land owned by his father. These laws prevailed in the Colonies until 1791, after the beginning of the American Union. (They prevailed in England for still another hundred years. )

The third generation in the Thomas line is represented by Richard Thomas, the only known son of John and Elinor (Mantague) Thomas. He was perhaps born in York County about 1648, but was brought as an infant to Nansemond County and where he lived until his death about 1687. Existing records indicate that about 1668 he married Elizabeth Sanders who was born about 1650 and died about 1685. We believe she was the daughter of John Sanders, Sr., of Nansemond County. The date on her life are uncertain because most of the Nansemond County records were destroyed by fire. This often happened in those days since court houses were only wooden houses and easily destroyed by fire.

Richard Thomas became a substantial landowner for those days. On March 21, 1675/76, the same 174 acres which had been granted to his father in 1654 were regranted to him, described in the deed as "son and heir" of John Thomas, late of Nansemond County. His mother must have died just a few weeks prior to this date. How do we know this? Because just two months earlier - on January 20 - Hopkins Howell sold the tract of land he had patented 22 years earlier. In 1676, just as in 1654, he described his tract as adjoining the tract owned by John Thomas.

Richard Thomas made a considerable addition to holdings in 1681 when he acquired another 550 acres. He joined with two other men, John Sanders and Jonathan Robinson by name, to import 33 colonists. Being entitled to 50 acres for each immigrant, they patented 1650 acres on Queen's Grave and King Saile (Kinsale) S s in Isle of Wight County (near the Nansemond County line). Although the records do not exist, he probably also signed a contract of indenture to employ the 11 workers on his newly acquired land. This seems plausible since at about the same time that he patented the 550 acres he sold his 174 acre farm in upper Nansemond County and moved to his new property between Kinsale Swamp and Queen's Grave Swamp. His new land was near the Isle of Wight County line, about a mile south of the present town of Carrsville, Virginia. It was on this plantation that the family lived until most of them migrated to Edgecombe County, North Carolina, some sixty years later.

During the latter part of the 17th Century, the Thomas family, like most of their neighbors, were sturdy yeomen farmers. On their separate farms they were independent and self sufficient. Most of their needed goods were raised or fabricated on their own place. Their surplus produce was shipped from their own wharf to England and many needed items were imported from there.

In Virginia in those years there were no aristocratic planters in the sense that term was used a century later. Throughout the entire 17th Century there were no large plantations in Virginia. The slave trade was insignificant in America until after 1700. Although many wealthy and influential men speculated in land and held title to many thousands of acres, these lands were usually not brought together into working plantations. Even as late as 1704 when Governor Nicholson made his inventory of farms in the Colony, he listed 376 farms in Nansemond County and the largest of these was only 2,300 acres. The average was 212 acres. Twenty-six farms were of 50 acres or less, 66 were between 50 and 100 acres, 110 between 100 and 200 acres, 88 between 200 and 400 acres, 78 between 400 and 1,000 acres, and only 8 over 1,000 acres. These modest family farms were the great source of wealth in those days. Most pieces of land stayed in a single family for a hundred years or more, often being handed down by means of a written will, on file in the Court House (unless the Court House burned).

We have no record that the Thomas family was active in county government in those years. Nor did they sit in the House of Burgesses. Yet we can be sure they were much interested in the actions of the Colonial government and the Royal Governor at Williamsburg. The taxes and other fees collected by the sheriff were uncertain and often unjustified. The military protection afforded by the government was likewise uncertain and inadequate. People in the tidewater area complained that their river fronts were not safe; the Dutch fleet had invaded Chesapeake Bay as recently as 1667 and pirates continued their depredations. Although the Indians were no longer a problem in the tidewater area, they were a constant menace in the counties further up the Rivers.

There was much discontent with the administration of Governor Berkeley who was a dedicated royalist. The discontent erupted in 1676 in the famous Whiskey Rebellion which was led by Nathaniel Bacon in support of the frontier farmers who rose in rebellion against the Governor. The yeomen farmers of Nansemond County used the occasion for expressing their discontent with the administration of Governor Berkeley. They drafted a letter to the King and it was signed by Richard Thomas, John Thomas, and about 100 other County farmers. Although they signed the letter as the "King's Loyal Subjects," they made clear their discontent with the administration by the Governor, listing more than a dozen grievances.

Six years after he moved to the lower part of Nansemond County, Richard Thomas made his will, on April 10, 1687. Later in the same year he died, at the age of about 41. Because the Court House in Nansemond County burned, we do not have a copy of the will. We know from the land econ deed, however, that he bequeathed his land to his four children. These were John, Phoebe, Sarah, and Elizabeth. Each received 1372 acres wabeele is one-fourth of the 550 acres on Kinsale Swamp, Richard's part of the 1,650 acres which he and two other men patented in 1681.

It is interesting to note the history of each of these : 1374-acre tracts. In 1704 when the Royal Governor of Virginia compiled the Quit Rents roll, John owned 275 acres, exactly two shares from the inheritance. We assume he owned also in that year the share that had been inherited by his sister, Sarah, who apparently had died unmarried before 1704 and left her share to her brother.

Richard's daughter, Phoebe, married William Curle and apparently had two children. In the 1704 Quit Rents roll of Nansemond County William Kerle held 325 acres. At least some of this land remained in the family until 1751. In that year John and Phoebe Winborn sold 75 acres which was described as being from a patent of 1,650 acres to Jonathan Robinson, Richard Thomas, and John Sanders in 1681, and the title had come to Winborn's wife "as a jointure from her grandmother Phoebe Kerle in the year 1706."

Richard's daughter, Elizabeth, was living in Newport Parish of Isle of Wight County when, on October 27, 1712, she made her mark (E) to sell her share to Robert Sanders who lived in the Upper Parish of Nansemond County. The price was 1,000 pounds of tobacco. On July 12, 1731, Robert Sanders bequeathed this tract to his nephew, Richard Sanders.

Richard's oldest (perhaps his only) son, John, also inherited land from an aunt and uncle. Entries in the earliest Will and Deed books of Isle of Wight County indicate that Richard Thomas had a sister named Katherine. She married Thomas Oglethorpe who, in May of 1679, bought 170 acres in Nansemond County. In 1686 he was still living in Isle of Wight County, since his name appeared as a witness to a will drawn by a neighbor of his. On March 31, 1687, Oglethorpe made his own will in Isle of Wight County, and it was probated on February 9, 1687/ 88. He left his property to his daughters and equal heirs, Katherine, Sarah, and Mary, but stipulated that the eldest son of Richard Thomas was to have the reversional interest in the estate. Richard Thomas signed this will as a witness.

John Thomas, the son of Richard Thomas, represents the fourth generation in our history. He was born in 1668 and died 38 years later, in 1706. At about the age of 20 he married Mary Rogers and by her had four children—John, Elizabeth, Mary, and Richard. After about fifteen years of marriage, his first wife died, and John Thomas married again, this time to Mary Lawrence. Before his death in 1706, he had a son by his second wife, and again he named him John. A111 we know of this John Thomas, the son of Richard, is that he moved with his parents to the southern part of Nansemond County (near the town of Carrsville) in 1681 when he was about 13; he married very near the time his father died, and undoubtedly took over ownership and operation of the family farm. Although the early records of Nansemond were lost when that Court House burned, the deed records on the ownership of land are available and these provide the evidence of his two marriages and his five (at least) children.

Both his first wife and his second inherited land from their respective fathers, and the wills left by these men give the names of John Thomas's children by each wife. The father of his first wife was Michael Rogers of Newport Parish in Isle of Wight County. His will was filed on April 5, 1710. It provided that each of his two granddaughters, Elizabeth Thomas and Mary Thomas, should have 1,000 pounds of tobacco when they should become 21 years of age or married. To his grandson, John Thomas, he left one cow, while his other grandson, Richare Thomas, was to be the executor and to have the residue of the estate. (Isle of Wight Will and Deed Book 2, p.499) It was customary in those years to leave only personal property to the daughters, while leaving the land to the sons. The obvious explanation of why he left to one grandson only a cow and the bulk of the estate to the other was this: under the law of primogeniture the oldest grandson, John, would automatically inherit the entire estate of his father. This would have amounted to about 275 acres of land, since the Quit Rents roll of 1704 listed "Jn° Thomas" with a farm of that size. Richard Thomas, therefore, inherited no land from his father, but he did from his maternal grandfather.

Under the law of primogeniture, sons by a second marriage likewise could not share in the landed estate of the father. It is fortunate, therefore, that John Thanas's wife also inherited land from her father and it was passed on to her son. (Without this particular will, it probably would have been impossible for current genealogical searchers to make a connection between our ancestors who lived in North Carolina and the earlier generations that lived in Nansemond County. )

Mary (Lawrence ) Thomas, the second wife of John Thomas was a daughter of John Lawrence, Sr., of Nansemond County, Virginia. On November 22, 1704—soon after he married Mary Lay rence—John Thomas of Nansemond County sold a tract of 208-73 acres of land which lay in North Carolina, about 30 miles due south of their home in Nansemond County. It was a part of a 625-acre tract which John Lawrence (deceased in 1704) had patented on September 25, 1663. John Thomas indicated that he sold the land "by right of Mary my now wife, daughter of y¢ afores? gJn° Lawrence." (Chowan County, North Carolina, Deed Mary (Lawrence) Thomas's husband, John, died (probably ) in 1706 when she was 25 years old. She continued to live on lend inherited from her father, located on the main Blackwater River which forms the boundary between Nansemond and Isle of Wight Counties. If she followed the custom for those days, she combined households with either her father or a brother, with one of them taking the responsibility for farming her land. Perhaps she lived in her brother's home, since in 1713 she deeded 100 acres to John Lawrence, Jr. In this transaction she was described as a "widow" and Lawrence as her brother. The tract lay in Lower Parish of Isle of Wight County and was a part of the 530 acres patented by the late John Lawrence on June 6, 1678. The price for the 100-acre tract was 5,100 pounds of tobacco. She continued to own another 100 acres from her paternal inheritance until her son and heir, John Thomas, sold it after her death in 1736.

Although we have no records other than those for land, we can assume that young John was raised with some advantages for that day. Based on his activities in later life, we can assume that he was given an education that was of a level attained by not more than 10 percent of the Colonial population. There must have been books in the home, probably forming the nucleus of what was referred to as a "Liberry of Books" when his estate was inventoried many years later.2 It is also believed, though not supported by actual records, that he studied law. If this is so, he probably attended William and Mary College or the Grammar School operated in connection with it. After the College was established in 1693, the prosperous plant ers from the Virginia Colony began to send their sons there to study law, agriculture, and administration of local government, as well as theology and the classics. Williamsburg, the site of the College, was 40 miles from lower Nansemond County and could easily be reached by boat or by horseback.