c:c:~ns nnstraqu:e ~.en./' THE ANCIENT ROGERS Morrro. A. D. 1483. "WE AND ouasFOR GoD." KITH AND KIN WRITrEN, AT THEIR URGENT REQUES'l', FOR THE CHILDREN OF MR. AND MRS. JOHN RUSSELL SAMPSON BY THEIR MOTHER It includes records of their ancestors bearing the names BAKER, BALDWIN, BRECKINRIDGE, BROWN, BRYSON, BYRD, CURD, DUDLEY, GooDMAN, HORSLEY, KENNEDY, LE BRUEN, McCLANAHAN, McDoWELL, McKEssoN, POAGE, REED, ROGERS, THORNTON, TRICE, SAMPSON, AND WOODS. "A worthy ancestcy is a stimulus to a worthy Zife."-RusKIN. RICHMOND, VA.: THE WILLIAM BYRD PRESS, INC. 1922 COPYRIGHT 1922 BY MBS. JOHN RUSSELL SAMPSON ~~ TO OUR CHILDREN'S CHILDREN JOHN RUSSELL TAYLOR MARGARET LANGDON TAYLOR ANNE RUSSELL TAYLOR ANNE CAMPBELL TOLL OLIVER WOLCOTT TOLL, JR. STEPHEN SAMPSON TOLL "From generation to generationof themthatfear Him.'' "His righteousness unto children's children." AUTHORITIES Among authorities consulted and quoted are: Hening's Statutes of Virginia. Baird's Huguenots. Lists of Huguenots East London Parishes. Hanna's Scotch-Irish. Neale's Puritans. Huguenot Emigration _to Virginia. Va. Historical Society. Foote's Sketches. The Byrd Papers. History of Albemarle Co. Rev. Edgar Woods. History of King and Queen Co. Rev. A. L. Bagby. History of Pocahontas Co. Rev. \i\Tm. T. Price. Annals of Augusta Co. Hon. Addison Waddell. Economic History of Va. 17th Cent. Philip A. Bruce. Social History of Va. 17th Cent. Philip A. Bruce. Captive of i\bb's Valley. Rev. Wm. Brown. Historic Families of Kentucky. Thos. M. Green. List of Persons of Quality, etc. Pub. ~ondon 1874. Records in Patents. Capitol, Richmond, Va. Record of Deeds. Philadelphia, Pa. Records of Albemarle Co., Va. Records of Frederick Co., Va. Records of Goochland Co., Va. Records of Henrico Co., "\la. Records of Orange Co., Va. Old Churches and Old Families. Bishop Meade. Parish Book, Stratton-Major. King and Queen Co., Va. Parish Book, St. James-Northam. Goochland Co., Va. Parish Book, Frederick Parish. Frederick Co., Va. Voyage of the "George and Anne." Charles Clinton. The Baldwin Genealogy. C. C. Baldwin. The Cabells and Their Kin. Alex. G. Brown. The Dudley Family. Dean Dudley. The Sampson Fa1nily. Mrs. L. B. Sampson. The \Valker Family of vVigton Scotland. 4 KITH AND KIN The Woods-McAfee 11emorial. Rev. Neander !IL \Voods. One Branch of the Woodses. Rev. Edgar vVoods. Ms. History of lviary Moore's Descendants. 11:argaret Dabney Walker. Ms. Statement of the Rogers Family. Senator Joseph R. U nder,vood. Ms. l\1emorabilia Rogers Family. Edmonia Beauchamp. The Rogers Family. Lieut.-Gov. John Cox Underwood. 'fhe l\licClanahans. Rev. H. M. White, D. D. Also several hundred letters, some very old, including the col­ lections of Col. Archibald Woods and of Col. Micajah vVoods. Also full notes taken at the time from the statements of reliable older people now passed away. FOREWORD To my daughters Anne Russell Sampson, now since June 11, 1912, Mrs. Richard V. Taylor, Jr., and Merle D'Aubigne Sampson, now since September 25, 1917, ~frs. Oliver Wolcott Toll, and to all others who care to "listen in." When you were little children and got the stories you begged for, you would say, "O Mother, write it down"; and as you grew older you were more and more insistent. And you would ask, "What kin are they?" as I myself had done, about certain cousins dear to us, but not closely related: those within such Virginia degrees as to "call cousin," which meant of the same blood! My mother, even my father, Rev. Edgar Woods, a natural genealogist, would answer, "I do not know exactly where they come in." Yet the · clan was strong in their blood, and so it ~ame to me. About 18go I began to coll~ct definite information about ancestors and collaterals. My father did much of this, and cared much for Kith and Kin. Now the first meaning the dic­ tionary gives of Kith is "Knowledge": the secondary meaning "one'-s own people," those we know, or are supposed to know, all about. So for the purpose of this ·writing, Kith and Kin seems an appropriate name. People t:nay be kin to you, of your blood and race, yet not Kith or k-nown, until you know what kin they are. All the people in the following pages are kin to you-my children-and when you have read, they will be both kith and kin. Your father's father, Rev. Dr. Francis Sampson, died when your father was only four years old : he was separated from his mother when he was ten: he knew about no one beyond "Grandfather Dick," not even his great-grandfather's name, which seemed to me like a breach of the Fifth Command. So I needs must search out his kindred for you. ~aving heard my father and others lament that much had been lost which might have been obtained from those older who had passed away unquestioned or unheeded, I first of all wrote to 6 KITH AND KIN every old person on all sides of both families. 1fost appreciative letters came back, full of interesting items. Also the clerks of all the counties where your forbears had lived, responded most kindly. Where people have owned' land, the generations can be followed. But in Virginia by the fortunes of three wars, many records had been destroyed. In King-and-Queen County, for instance, the Court House was burned in the Revolutionary \Var, again in 1812, again in the Civil War. In this case and others, I was able partially to recoup this loss from Parish Books. To you, my children, I am glad to say thc:1t you come of good people. They were gentle£olk; and better, godly folk Almost every drop of your blood came to America for conscience' sake, fleeing from persecution in one form or other. Scotch, Ulster- Scotch, Puritan, Huguenot, "they loved their God more than goods or native land." As to their station, in almost every case they were leaders in those early days. In Virginia, as a rule, civic honours were denied them. As most of them were Presbyterians, there£ ore Nonconformists to the Church of England, they could not be members of Council or of the House of Burgesses. But until the Test Act shut them out, they held offices : Clerk of Court, "High Sheriff" and "Gentlemen Justices of the King's Peace." In Colonial Virginia as in England, the sheriff was a personage, the chief officer of the Crown, "Letters Patent committing to him the custody of the County as Keeper of the King's Peace." -..The High Sheriff had "honorable" deputies, beside all the justices as administrators of his decrees. The word Sheriff is Saxon, "shire-reeve," reeve meaning "judge, prefect or fiscal officer." I can remember older people speaking with pride of one or an­ other who "rode sheriff." Rank as officers came more easily. Governor Gooch approved of these sturdy Presbyterians as a "frontier ,vall against the savages": a good opinion which George \V ashington also held. A word as to "proving importation." A great number of people were sent to Virginia, the Barbadoes and other Colonies, as to­ Australia in the last century, in punishment for legal off <:.nces : hence New England's sometime sneer about "convict aristocracy." But many of those "convicts" were the very best people both as to birth and character and they were exiled for no crime, but for KITH AND KIN political or politico-ecclesiastical reasons. There is in all great public libraries a "List of Persons of Quality"-being simply copies of receipts given by ship captains 'Yho bought the best blood of the \Vest of England after Monmouth's Rebellion and Jeffrey's Assizes. Moreover many, impoverished by fines or per­ secution, in order to reach the land of promise and freedom, sold then1selves for a term of service. They were known as "in­ dentured servants" and wer_e often cultured persons, such as the one in "Prisoners of Hope." Many of the early teachers were such. After the stipulated five, ten, twenty years of service, they ,vere free. T}:tere should have been no obloquy: but they could not patent land, though they could buy of any who would sell. Those ,vho would patent, must state that they "came at their own charges." Not one of your fathers were "indentured servants" or exiles by law. All are found in the records in such case as the follow­ ing: "Alexander Brackenridge ( they changed the spelling later) came into court May 22, 1740, and made oath that he had im­ ported himself, his wife and seven children (named) from Ire­ land (Ulster) to Philadelphia and thence to this Colony at his own charges, and now appears to partake of His Majesty's bounty for taking up lands and this is the first time of proving his and their rights in order to obtain lands, which is ordered to be certi­ fied."~- This Alexander who was your five-greats-grandfather, also purchased 245 acres from Beverley, March 24, 1741. Robert Poage and his ,vife, your four-greats-grandparents, qualified the same May day, 1740. The Colony was anxious to attract good settlers. Governor Gooch, October 3, 1734, promised Benj. Borden 100,000 acres "on James River west of the Blue Ridge" as soon as he would locate a hundred settlers on the tract. This Benj. Borden had just received a very large grant-a very different thing from a patent-in Frederick County, afterwards called "Borden's Manor." Richard \i\Toods, the oldest son of Michael Woods, and his son Samuel, ,vere among the first settlers of this Manor.