The Family Tree Searcher Volume 17 - Number 2 December 2013 TABLE OF CONTENTS The Editor’s Page ....................................................................................................................... 2 Gloucester Hall .......................................................................................................................... 3 By A. J. Pate “Free Negroes” and “Mulattoes” of Gloucester County and the Tidewater Area of Virginia Prior to 1800 ............................................................................................14 By Wayne K. Driver The 5th Virginia Cavalry During the Gettysburg Campaign .........................................22 By Doug Fitchett John Clayton’s Home ..............................................................................................................27 By Wesley Greene Introduction by Thane Harpole Alumni of Gloucester Public High Schools, 1909-1922 .................................................33 By L. Roane Hunt Insurance Photographs of Gloucester County School Buildings .................................48 Submitted by Lee Brown 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] The Editor’s Page— This issue raises several questions for our readers. Does anyone know where the homes of John Clayton and John Pate might have been? We continue to hope that someday someone will report a pile of bricks or pottery that will solve these mysteries. And what more can anyone say about graduates of the Gloucester school system – people who will be the ancestors that future generations will be researching? We don’t only want to raise questions, of course. In this issue you can read about the lives of free families of African heritage before our Civil War and the lives of cavalrymen during a Civil War battle campaign. We hope that some of the people or some of the experiences written about in this issue can bring you to a better understanding of the lives of your ancestors and the people they knew. Speaking of botanist John Clayton, Gloucester recently hosted a celebration of the publication of Flora Virginica , a guide to 3,164 Virginia plant species that follows in the footprints of the work of Clayton and the publication, in 1762, of Flora Virginica . In October, Gloucester was also the site of the second reenactment of the Battle of the Hook, a Gloucester engagement that preceded the surrender in Yorktown of British forces during our Revolutionary War. Once again, the event was a huge success, drawing both spectators and reenactors (photo below). I hope everyone who is interested in local history got out to Warner Hall to enjoy the action. The Flora Virginica and the Battle of the Hook are but two examples of the contributions of the people of an earlier Gloucester county and reminders that we should never forget them. Lee Brown, Editor Vol. 17, No. 2 2 December 2013 Gloucester Hall The Pate Men who Owned the Plantation and its Historical Significance in Colonial Virginia This article is based on remarks during the dedication of the Gloucester Hall historical marker on October 26, 2012, expanded for publication. By A. J. Pate Houston, Texas The Pate Men of Gloucester Hall The story of Gloucester Hall begins with four generations of Pate men who once owned this land and lived in this house. These men were descendants of the ancient Pate family of Leicestershire, England, whose surname traces back to the 1100s, even before surnames were widely adopted. This family was the beneficiary of close association with Henry VIII and later royalty. They owned two grand manor houses near Melton Mowbray, perhaps built in the 1400s and enduring into the early 1700s. The Pate family was very prominent in Gloucester County, Virginia, in its early history from at least 1650 to 1706, though today no trace of the family name remains. Why did three Pate men leave privileged lives in their homeland to emigrate to the strange new world of colonial Virginia? We must put their actions within the historical perspective of tremendous religious and political turmoil in England. In those dangerous and unsettled times, persons who supported the losing side were at great risk of losing not only their wealth, but also their own lives. Those continual conflicts and upheavals had so destabilized England that adventurous young men readily accepted the challenges of creating a new life in the colonies. Richard Pate Richard Pate was the first person of the Pate surname to emigrate from England to the colony of Virginia. He was born in 1601 in London and came to Virginia about 1636. Nothing further is known of his life until 1650. In that year, he and Wingfield Webb were granted a patent of land for 1,141 acres for transporting 23 people from England to the colony. In time, Richard Pate became the sole owner of the land. This was a historic patent in Gloucester County. The House of Burgesses had summoned settlers from north of the York River and did not reopen this country again for settlement until late 1649. The patent issued to Richard Pate in late 1650 was one of the first and largest granted after the area was reopened. This was the first patent issued in Virginia with a reference to the Poropotank River or Creek. And it was two years later before the name Gloucester County first appeared in official records. Vol. 17, No. 2 3 December 2013 Gloucester Hall In 1653, the year following Family of Edward Pate formation of Gloucester County, Richard Pate was elected to the Edward Pate, b. 1560, d. bef 1625 House of Burgesses, one of the first +m. Anne Blount, b. ~ 1562, d. 1640 four men to represent the county as Richard Pate , b. 1601, d. 1657 a burgess. There is no record that Richard Pate ever married. When he Thomas Pate, b. 1596, d. 1644 died in 1657, the plantation was +m. Margaret Jones, b. ~ 1597, d. aft 1651 inherited by his nephew, John Pate. Col. John Pate , b. ~ 1630, d. 1672 +m. (wife unknown, no children) Col. John Pate Edward Pate, b. ~ 1632, d. ~ 1700 John Pate was born about 1630 +m. (wife unknown) in London. He had been educated as Col. Thomas Pate , b. ~ 1652, d. 1703 a lawyer in England, earning an MA +m. Elizabeth ? degree from Oxford. Coming from a John Pate , b. 1677, d. 1706 family of royalists, he emigrated to +m. (wife unknown) Virginia in 1651, following the Sarah Pate, b. ~ 1705, d. 1783 execution of Charles I by Parliament +m. Col. Wilson Cary, b. 1702, d. 1772 in 1650. He seems to have Col. Wilson Miles Cary, b. 1730, d. 1817 emigrated with the prospect of +m. Sarah Blair, b. 1738 assisting in the establishment of the Elizabeth Cary Pate plantation in Gloucester and +m. Rev. Bryan Lord Fairfax was likely appointed administrator Sarah Cary of his Uncle Richard Pate’s estate by +m. George William Fairfax the Council of State. In any case, he Elizabeth Pate, bapt. 1680 inherited the plantation and soon Mary Pate, bapt. 1684 increased its size by 1,000 acres, in Mathew Pate, bapt. 1687 addition to acquiring several +m. Anne Read, m. ~ 1710 thousand acres elsewhere in William Pate, bapt. 1690 Virginia. In 1660, he was appointed Justice of the Peace in Gloucester County by the Council of State. He was also appointed by the Council as administrator of a number of estates. Between his plantation revenues, legal work, and income from various political offices, John Pate became a very wealthy man. In November 1671, he was sworn in as a member of the Council of State by Governor Berkeley, joining the elder Nathaniel Bacon on the Council. The Council of State was composed of ten to twelve of the colony's wealthiest and most influential men. These were lifetime appointments by the British Crown. He had earned the military rank of colonel in the Gloucester County militia by 1672. It can be safely concluded that John Pate built Gloucester Hall in the mid-1600s. This was a very prosperous period for Virginia's tobacco planters, and particularly for John Pate. The building may even have become necessary because a major hurricane hit Virginia in November 1667, including Gloucester County. Thomas Lowell sent a letter to the governor stating that no plantation escaped ruin and at least 10,000 houses were blown down. When Col. John Pate died in 1672, his nephew Thomas Pate was appointed administrator of his “considerable estate” by the Council of State. John Pate had a wife in England, but she did not join him in Virginia. There is no record that they had any children. Vol. 17, No. 2 4 December 2013 Gloucester Hall Col. Thomas Pate Thomas Pate was born about 1650, son of a prominent London merchant Edward Pate, who was a brother of Col. John Pate of Virginia. Thomas Pate emigrated to Virginia in 1672, shortly before the death of his uncle. Of the pages still existing of the vestry book of Petsworth Parish, Thomas Pate is listed on the first page as a vestryman and warden. He served as a vestryman from 1677 until 1684. It is unknown how long he may have served since pages are missing prior to 1677 and from 1684 to 1690. Thomas Pate had earned the military rank of colonel in the Gloucester County militia in 1678. Thomas Pate was elected to represent Gloucester County in the House of Burgesses in 1684. In 1686, the Earl of Rochester, Lord High Treasurer of England, appointed Thomas Pate as Collector of the Plantation Duty for the colony, replacing Phillip Ludwell. Later that same year, Governor Howard appointed him Collector of Customs for the York River. Thomas started ferry operations on the York River about 1690 before Yorktown was founded as a port in 1691. The ferry operated between Tindall’s Point (now Gloucester Point) and Yorktown. On March 24, 1694, he received licenses to operate a ferry and to keep an ordinary at Yorktown, likely the first person there to operate both.