A Chronology of the New Kent/Hanover Davenports -- a Family History Working Paper As of April 2014
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A Chronology of the New Kent/Hanover Davenports -- A Family History Working Paper as of April 2014-- Being A Genealogical Study Defining A NEW DAVENPORT FAMILY WITH COLONIAL VIRGINIA ORIGINS— A MATTER OF MAKING DIFFICULT ANCESTRAL IDENTIFICATIONS LIMITED BY BURNED OR LOST PUBLIC RECORDS (INCLUDING NEW IDENTIFICATIONS FOR KENNEDY FAMILY MEMBERS) & An Attempt to Resolve the Dilemma of Descendants with a Documented Paper Trail to One Davenport Ancestor, Who Carry the DNA of a Different Davenport Ancestor or How a DNA Enigma and 150 Acres Straddling a County Line Led to the DNA-SUPPORTED Hypothesis that One Colonial Virginia Family Was/Is Actually Two Extracted from The Pamunkey Davenport Papers CD, (2009), viz. Parts 1 and 2 of The Further Chronicles of the Pamunkey Davenports, and Supplement No. 2: The Smith/Kennedy/Wash Presence on North Anna Waters of Colonial and Post Revolution Virginia, With New Original Research Covering the Years 1667-1910 By Randi Davenport, Ph.D © Chapel Hill, North Carolina Not for Citation Without Attribution 1 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS No project of this nature could exist without help from others. Therefore, I wish to thank New Kent/Hanover Davenport descendants Steven Siegrist, JD; Donna Lou Walker, Deborah Leavitts, Mark Davenport, PhD; AJ Davenport, John Davenport, Lynette Aasheim, Julie Shepard, and Vicki Davenport for sharing their files and memories with me. I also appreciate the willingness of Woodruff descendants to share what they knew of their history, and I am grateful to Jim McMillen, Draper family historian, for our correspondence regarding William D. Davenport. Early on, I corresponded with Andrew Hinshaw about Davenport family connections in Jackson County, Illinois and I thank him for his willingness to share. I owe a particular debt of gratitude to New Kent/Hanover Davenport descendant Deborah Small for her constant encouragement and friendship, as well as for her companionship on research trips, and her willingness to get stuck in the mud in Crittenden County, Kentucky. All of us are further indebted to her for her meticulous updates to the New Kent/Hanover information on Ancestry.com. Without Bill Davenport’s tireless work on the DAVENPORT SURNAME DNA PROJECT, the Davenport descendants who were originally in “limbo” would not have had an opportunity to find one another and share family histories. I thank him for his many late night emails. I am grateful to the archivists who maintain the Southern Collection at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and who gave me access to the papers of Francis Jerdone. I owe thanks to Aaron Shackelford and Jon Cochrane, for their assistance with technology. Last but certainly not least, I wish to thank the late John Scott Davenport, PhD, for making his Pamunkey Davenport database available to me. He patiently answered all of my questions, discussed his fifty-plus years of research in the primary documents, and egged me on when I started to falter. “Doc” also proof- read, provided editorial comment on multiple drafts of the manuscript, and provided the typography for the final draft. He was a mentor throughout and I was delighted to call him my friend. Long before this project began, I sought the father of my earliest known ancestor, Charles Lewis Davenport. I traveled down many blind alleys trying to find him. Any errors that appear in the monograph, therefore, are entirely my own. Randi Davenport, PhD Chapel Hill, North Carolina July 12, 2012 2 For Gene Alan Davenport And Dedicated to the Memory of John Clyde Davenport 3 Table of Contents Acknowldegments 2 Charles Kennedy Buys Spotsylvania Plantation 59 Introduction: The New Kent/Hanover Davenports 6 Richard, Jr. Born 61 Tips for Using this Document 16 As to Who Provided the Deviating DNA: The Beginning of the New Kent/Hanover George Woodroof or Richard of County Davenports 19 Line? 63 The Birth of the Known Patriarch of the Eldest Son of Richard Appears as Deed New Kent/Hanover Davenports 22 Witness 66 The New Kent/Hanover Story Begins Richard of County Line Acquires Land in With Two Patents 25 Albemarle County 68 The Patent that Would Include the County Line Community 27 A Kennedy Given to Violence Bonded by a Pamunkey 73 Davenport Kennedy is Born 28 Richard Served as Vestryman in St. Anne’s Parish 91 Richard Davenport’s County Line Tract 31 First Pamunkey with the New Richard to Richard Deed on Hardware River 98 Kent/Hanover DNA Born 33 Kennedy Sells Spotsylvania Plantation 105 The First Appearance of a Lewis 37 Personal Property Tax Lists Begin 106 The First Kennedy Appears 38 First Appearance of New Kent/Hanover An Unknown William Davenport in New Kent 112 Patriarch in an Extant Public Record 40 Davenport Kennedy Dead 113 A Pamunkey and a Kennedy Witness 42 Charles Kennedy Makes His Will 114 Richard of County Line Identified as a Land Owner, With James Overton as a witness Widow Boards Orphans Out for Four Years 48 118 Richard ’s Future Wife Widowed and the Gambill and Davenport Indicted for Benge Connection Established 50 Gambling 122 The Curious Apprenticeship Indenture 51 Charles Kennedy Dead 128 A Pamunkey Follows Richard to Albemarle Richard, Jr. Arrives in Wilkes County, 58 Georgia 129 4 Richard Loses Long Standing Lawsuit 144 William Davenport Makes His Will 212 Richard’s Long Time Tract Conveyed to Rev. John Lewis Makes His Will 139 Arnold 225 Richard, Jr.’s Troubles Begin 141 First Pamunkey Carrer of New Kent/Hanover DNA Dies 237 Murderous Words in Wilkes County, Georgia 143 The County Line Tract Mortgaged (and Lost) 260 False Imprisonment in Wilkes County, Georgia 144 Crotia Davenport Kennedy Dead 264 DK’s Widow Dead, Leaving Bought Estate Death of Richard, Jr. 280 Assets Unpaid 165 Second Pamunkey Carrier of New A Davenport-Wingfield Marriage 173 Kent/Hanover DNA Makes Will 283 Richard, Jr. Indicted Again 188 Richard of Charlotte County, Carrier of New Kent/Hanover Davenport DNA Dies 287 Death of Known New Kent/Hanover Conclusion 294 Patriarch 193 CASE A: Family of John Forbes Davenport 297 CASE B: Family of Charles Lewis Davenport 312 CASE C: Family of William D. Davenport 333 CASE D: Children of Joseph Davenport, Sr. 351 APPENDIX I Five Generations of the New Kent/Hanover Davenports: A Chart For Reference 354 APPENDIX II Davenports in DNA Limbo and The Woodroof/Woodruff Presence in Pamunkey Davenport Family History 369 5 Note: The introduction provides a framework for the research questions that drove this study and “Tips for using this Document” (page 16). If you wish, you may skip to the analysis itself, which begins on page 19. INTRODUCTION: The New Kent/Hanover Davenports This monograph concerns a Davenport family whose beginnings in Virginia originated in the York River Basin in Southside New Kent County. This Davenport family was “discovered” when its descendants—all believing in a Colonial Virginia heritage— began to be tested as part of the DAVENPORT SURNAME DNA PROJECT. All of the project participants who participated in the surname project who were ultimately identified as New Kent/Hanover Davenports expected to test Pamunkey Davenport. That is, they expected to be located by DNA analysis among the Davenport family that had been thought to exist to the exclusion of other Davenports in the geopolitical scene on Pamunkey Neck and immediately adjacent territories. These project participants were Y-DNA tested and that testing extended to 67 markers. Only males who bore the Davenport surname were tested. But members of this group—with the striking exception of paper-trail proven descendants of two Pamunkey sons—did not test Pamunkey. Instead, their tests revealed that they matched each other but they carried a DNA genotype that was completely different from the Pamunkey genotype. A number of individuals bearing other surnames—Woodruff, Overton—also matched this new line at every match point through the 67 marker. The original goal of this study, therefore, was to identify the earliest common ancestor of this new Davenport family. Chief Pamunkey researcher John Scott Davenport, PhD had a powerful theory. Long ago he had included Richard Davenport of New Kent/Hanover counties—the same Richard whose land straddled the Louisa/Hanover county line—among the Pamunkey Davenports. But he had never been comfortable with that identification and often wondered if Richard Davenport of County Line was, in fact, actually a Pamunkey Davenport at all. His original identification had been based on a “best guess” hypothesis: if all the Davenports in the Pamunkey Neck region were Pamunkey Davenports, Richard of County Line must be a Pamunkey Davenport too. When project participants who expected to test Pamunkey turned up with a different genotype, John Scott Davenport returned to his original discomfort over Richard of County Line’s Pamunkey identification. He wrote to me and said that he had always been uneasy about this identification and he noted that Charles was a name that appeared 6 on this line but not on Pamunkey lines. Very quickly, he theorized that Richard Davenport of County Line might, in fact, be the earliest documented member of the New Kent/Hanover Davenports. This identification also gave a home to two other Davenports who had never fit easily among the Pamunkey Davenport lines: Richard the Headright, who whose 50 acre headright was part of a New Kent County Land Patent in 1677, and West Davenport, who appeared on the New Kent Quit Rents of 1704. Once we’d agreed to test the theory that Richard of County Line was the first documented patriarch of the New Kent/Hanover Davenports, we agreed that members of this family had been innocently included in the Pamunkey family tree while research was underway for The Pamunkey Chronicles (2009).