In my post dedicated to JOSEPH CARTER, born 1704 in Christ Church Parish in Middlesex County, VA, son of WILLIAM CARTER and MARY GOODLOE, I noted a dispute as to whether he was the same JOSEPH CARTER who appears in Spotsylvania County, VA from 1732 on, I asked the following four questions:
1) Are there connections between the Middlesex GOODLOE relatives of JOSEPH CARTER and Spotsylvania County? 2) Are there connections between CATHERINE AMMON, her brother Christopher Ammon, and Spotsylvania County? 3) Does it matter if the persons being so considered are Anglican, Quaker or Baptist? 4) What motivates a person to move from Tidewater Virginia to Virginia’s Spotsylvania or Brunswick Counties?
It is my plan to devote this page to discussing the answers to these four questions, and perhaps to raise additional ones.
1) Are there connections between the Middlesex GOODLOE relatives of JOSEPH CARTER and Spotsylvania County?
The following entry, in Spotsylvania County Deed Book A, 1722-1725; Antient Press; Page 52:
THIS INDENTURE made the Third day of August in the year of Our Lord one thousand seven hundred and twenty three; Between Henry Goodloe, late
of the County of Middlesex and now of the County of Spotsylvania and Parish of Saint George. Gent. of one part and Mark Wheeler of the County of Spotsylvania of the other part; Witnesseth that Henry Goodloe in consideration of the sum of five shillings to him in hand paid by Mark Wheeler the receipt whereof he doth hereby acknowledge, hath and by these presents doth bargain and sell unto Mark Wheeler all that parcell of land being part of a Survey made for Henry Goodloe for eighteen hundred acres of land and lying in the County of Spotsylvania and bounded; Begining at two white Oaks on the side of a Hill corner to the said Goodloe, thence North fourty five degrees East sixty poles to two red Oak saplins on the side of a Hill in Goodoe’s line, thence South twenty seven degrees East one hundred and eighty eight poles to a red Oak on the East side of a Ridge in GOODLOE’s cross line, thence South fourty degrees West one hundred and twenty five poles to a small white Oak on the North side of a small Branch, thence North one hundred and fourty poles to the place it first began containing one hundred acres of land according to the express bound thereof; To have and to hold the one hundred acres of land dureing the term of one year paying therefore the rent of one pepper corn at the Feast of Saint Michael the Arch Angel if the same be lawfully demanded to the intent that by vertue of these presents and the Statute for transerring uses into possession Mark Wheeler may be in actual possession and thereby enabled to accept a grant of the reversion and inheritance thereof to him and his heirs; In Witness whereof Henry Goodloe hath hereunto set his hand and seal the day and year first within written
Signed sealed and delivered in presents of us – Thomas Chew, Henry Goodloe, John Chew, Robert his mark Evenes
The following quotations are from Mansfield, James Roger, A History of Early Spotsylvania, Green Publishers, Inc., Orange, VA, 1977:
“On 4 May 1725, Henry Goodloe and Harry Beverley petitioned the court to have a road cleared from their homes to the new church on the River Ta. [Larkin] Chew, Beverley, and Goodloe were large owners along the Ta and Po Rivers and influential enought to get almost anything they wanted. The new church was named “Mattaponi”, possibly because it stood among the four princiapl branches of the Mattaponi River; the Mat, the Ta, the Po, and the Ni.” Mansfield, ibid., p. 59.
[WHB: JOSEPH CARTER’s uncle, and the brother of MARY GOODLOE CARTER, was named Henry Goodloe. The reference to Henry Goodloe being “late of Middlesex County” makes it virtually certain that it is JOSEPH CARTER’s uncle who became one of the first major landowners in Spotsylvania County at a time when JOSEPH CARTER, living in Middlesex County, was 18 years old. It doesn’t seem implausible that the family group of Henry Goodloe, his sister MARY, the widow of WILLIAM CARTER, and her son JOSEPH might have supported the idea of the newly married JOSEPH establishing his residence in Spotsylvania County by 1733, after having had the marriage ceremony in Middlesex County where the groom’s mother and bride’s brother resided.]
“The presiding justices of the first court [of Spotsylvania County], August 7, 1722, were: Augustine Smith, Richard Booker, John Taliferro, William Hansford, Richard Johnson and William Bledsoe.
“These were the founding fathers and appointees of [Virginia Governor] Alexander Spotswood. Edwin Hickman was added to the court on June 2, 1724. Jeremiah Clowder had also been appointed but declined to take the oath. Henry Goodloe was swon in on July 7.” Mansfield, ibid. p. 108.
“At this time, Edward Franklyn was discharged as overseer of the road from Henry Goodloe’s to the church on the River Ta, and Samuel Ham was appointed in his place.” Mansfield, ibid. p. 133-134.
2) Are there connections between CATHERINE AMMON, her brother Christopher Ammon, and Spotsylvania County?
On 29 January, 1735, Banns were held for Christopher Ammon’s marriage to Mary Bristow. [Original data: National Society of the Colonial Dames of America in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Parish Register of Christ Church, Middlesex County, Virginia from 1653 to 1812. Richmond, VA, USA: Christ Church, 1897.]
Mary Bristow’s mother was MARY GOODLOE [CARTER] BRiSTOW, one of two known children born in the second marriage to John Bristow, after WILLIAM CARTER’s death.
JOSEPH CARTER and Mary Bristow were half-brother and half-sister. They respectively married a full-brother and -sister, CATHERINE AMMON and Christopher Ammon.
Henry Goodloe of Spotsylvania County (born in Middlesex County) was the maternal uncle of both JOSEPH CARTER and Mary Bristow. He was the brother of the mother-in-law for both CATHERINE AMMON and Christopher Ammon.