Chapter I. the Scarborough of the Eastern Shore
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CHAPTER I. THE SCARBOROUGH OF THE EASTERN SHORE Data secured from: Hayden's Virginia Genealogies; Nottingham's Virginia Wills; J. C. Wises's Col. John Wise of England and Virginia, supplemented by special research in the Virginia Land Grants and official Court Records. The Scarborough name has been spelled in various ways- Scarborough, Scarbrough, Scarburgh, Scarborgh, Scarboro, Scarborh, to mention on a few, but a careful study of the family in America seems to indicate that all of them were from a common ancestor. The spelling, Scarborough, will be used in this record since the earliest records of the family in Virginia, wills list the name as Scarburgh, with one exception, which if pronounced as is Edinburgh in Scotland, would still be Scarborough. Much has been written about the Scarborough family, in various historical and genealogical publications, but to my knowledge, no complete genealogical record has been published. After beginning my research I can well understand the reason. There were so many wives and children, many bearing the same given name, and filling the same public and Church offices, that the genealogist flounders constantly in a sea of uncertainty. During the early 17th Century the family seemed to be content to remain on the Eastern Shore of Virginia and Maryland, though one group settled in New England, but after the Revolutionary War there was a great migration to North Carolina, Tennessee, South Carolina, and Georgia, with the most venturesome ones going to Mississippi Territory, and to Louisiana, after it was acquired from the French. This record is concerned primarily with the ancestors and descendants of Major James Scarborough, of Edgecombe County, North Carolina, whose family was undoubtedly connected with the Scarboroughs of the Eastern Shore of Virginia - Accomac and Northampton counties - but official proof of this connection has not been found. Mr. Jennings Cropper Wise, in his Ye Kingdome of Accawmacke, or the Eastern Shore of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century, offers SOUTHERN KITH AND KIN 14 the only Clue when he says, in speaking of Bacon's Rebellion, that William Scarborough who was an active participant and lost his life and property as a result, was a cousin of Col. Charles Scarborough, son of Col. Edmond Scarborough, of the Eastern Shore, Virginia. No effort will be made to present a complete record of the Scarboroughs of the Eastern Shore, which would require a large volume, but the most important data concerning the early members of the family can not be omitted in any record of the Scarborough family. The Scarboroughs of the Eastern Shore: The Scarborough of the Eastern Shore of Viriginia were descended from Henry Skarborowgh of North Walsham, County, Norfolk, England, who was baptized there September 21, 1565 died August 24, 1617, in North Walsham, where there is a monument to him in the local church, married Mary Humberstone, daughter of John Humberstone of Loddon, County Norfolk, England. His will, (Norwich) was proved in 1617. We have record of four sons were: Edmond, who married Hannah Butler and migrated to Virginia; Henry, who was baptized at North Walsham, July 21, 1590, admitted to Caius College October 9, 1606, died in College, and buried April 11, 1609; Samuel, who was baptized at North Walsham, November 4, 1593, admitted to Caius College November 3, 1610, receiving a B. A. degree in 1614, admitted to Lincoln's Inn in 1614, and died April 20, 1655, (monument to him in the church at North Walsham); and John, who was baptized at North Walsham May 7, 1598, admitted to Caius College in 1614 received a B. A. there in 1617, admitted to Gray's Inn in 1616. He married a daughter of William King of Hempstead, Norfolk County. There may have been other children though we have no record of them. The only one of the above four sons who came to Virginia was Edmond Scarborough, the eldest son of Henry and Mary Humberstone Scarborough, who was known in Virginia records as "Captain Edmond Scarborough"" and was progenitor of the group of the Eastern Shore. Though we know that William Scarborough, of Bacon's Rebellion, was of this family, we have been unable to identify his father. He may have been descended from one of the other three sons of Henry Scarborough listed above. Captain Edmond Scarborough, founder of the family in Virginia was baptized on Christmas day, 1584, in North Walsham, County Norfolk, England, died in Virginia in 1634, 15 SOUTHERN KITH AND KIN or 1635, married Hannah Butler, daughter of Robert Butler, in England, and lived there in St Martin's in the field Parish, London, England. As stated before, he was the eldest son of Henry Scarburgh (Scarborough), Gentleman, born in 1565 in North Walsham, where he died August 24, 1617, and his wife Mary Humberstone, daughter of John Humberstone of Loddon, County Norfolk, England. This Captain Edmond Scarborough was prominent in the affairs of Ye Kingdome of Accawmacke from the time of his arrival, circa 1620, in Virginia, serving as the first Justice of Accomac county in 1631, abd as Burgess in 1629, 1631, and 1632. It is evident that his wife Hannah, did not come to Virginia with him, but remained in England until he was settled and had prepared a place for her. She is listed in Greer's Early Virginia Immigrants as arriving in 1635, and brought over by her husband, Captain Edmond Scarborough, Accomac county. Captain Edmond must have died soon after the arrival of his wife, for on November 28, 1635, his son, Edmond Scarborough, afterwards known as Col. Edmond Scarborough, applied for a patent for land in Accomac county, on Maggitye Bay, "50 acres in right of and for the personal adventure of my mother, Mrs. Hannah Scarborough; 50 acres for my own personal adventure; and 50 acres for the transportation of a servant, Robert Button (Britton or Butler)." Some historians have said that Hannah's maiden name was Butler, and I have accepted hat assumption, though no official proof of the record has been listed. If is possible that Robert Butler, listed as a servant, for whom Col. Edmond Scarborough claimed 50 acres of land, was the father, brother or kinsman of Hannah. Many of the people listed as servants in the early records of Virginia were not servants at all, though their passage was paid by an interested party in order to get the 50 acres of land to which they were entitled by the existing laws. The arms used by the Virginia Scarboroughs are those of the Scarboroughs of County Norfolk, England as follows: Arms: Or a chevron between three towers triple towered gules. Crest: Out of a mural coronet gules a demi-lion, holding upon the point of a lance of the first a Saracen's head proper, wreathed azure. The known children of Captain Edmond and Hannah Butler Scarborough were: Sir Charles; Col. Edmond; Henry, SOUTHERN KITH AND KIN 16 who remained in London; Hannah, who married Col. John Wise, of Clifton Accomac County, Virginia; and Catherine (or Katherine) who, according to Mr. T. T. Upshur, in the Virginia Historical magazine (Vol 23, Nos. 2 and 3), married Randall Revel… Somerset County, Maryland. There may have been other children who remained in England, among them the father of William Scarborough, of Bacon's Rebellion, who Mr. J. C. Wise says was a cousin of Col. Charles Scarborough, son of Col. Edmond and Mary Littleton- Scarborough, of the Eastern Shore. It is this William Scarborough, of Bacon's Rebellion, from whom Major James Scarborough, of Edgecombe County, North Carolina, is descended. Issue of Captain Edmond and Hannah Butler Scarborough: 1. Sir Charles Scarborough, of London, England, born circa 1616, remained in England when his parents came to America, and held many positions of honor under the Crown; A.M. of Caius College in 1639, where he became a Fellow; Doctor of Physics at Merton College, Oxford, in 1646; Court Physician to Charles II, James II, and William III; Member of Parliament, and knighted August 11, 1669. Samuel Pepus mentioned him many times in his chatty diary. He married Mary, daughter of Thomas Daniel, of Newberry, County Bedford. Sir Charles died February 26, 1694, and is buried at Cranford, Middlesex. His portrait hangs in Barber Surgeons Hall, in London. His only known children were: Charles Scarborough, Esquire, who was in the service of Prince George of Denmark, and was Envoy from him to his brother, the King of Denmark, on his accession to the Crown; and Rev. Edmond Scarborough, who was born 1656, and died in 1705. 2. Col. Edmond Scarborough,1 the second son of Captain Edmond and Hannah Butler Scarborough, came to America with his father. He married Mary Littleton, 2 1 The Early History of the Eastern Shore of Virginia, by Jennings Cropper Wise 2 Some genealogists have said that Mary Scarborough may have been a West or a Charlton, judging from the will of Henry Scarborough, son of Col. Edmond, who names his Uncle, John West Executor; his Aunt, Mrs. Matilda West as a legatee, and his grandmother, as Mrs. Ann Charlton. Accomac Wills, by Nottingham, p. 6. 17 SOUTHERN KITH AND KIN daughter of Col. Nathaniel Littleton, in England, and patented vast tracts of land in Virginia. (Mary Scarborough did not come over with her husband, but arrived in 1640, brought over by her husband, Edmond Scarborough, of Accomac, according to Greer.) He held the highest offices within the gift of the people, and the Crown, and was the most distinguished member of the family, as well as the most spectacular. There are many traditions concerning him and his high handed actions in Colonial Virginia, some of which were called unscrupulous.