A Race of Extraordinary Goodness

Bombast was unusual, as my mother's people passed family lore to me. Body language behind assertion – that James Monroe Leer, Sr. (1841-1894) "was the largest dealer of Jennys and Jacks in the Mississippi Valley" – cast dignity. It was a grand statement … offered in a staid yet impressive manner.

Illustriousness lingered, whenever I imagined this maternal great-grandfather (right).

My immediate question was, "What's a Jenny?"

Properly called a 'jennet,' it's a female donkey. A 'jack' is its gender counterpart: think 'jackass.'

I was, at that young age, astounded to learn donkeys and horses will interbreed. A mule is the offspring of a male donkey – a jack – and a female horse. This presents a wise market niche: mules are nearly always infertile. Jacks must be trained to breed outside their species, however. Breeders receive credit in trade journals because theirs is not a passive practice: let's just say much is involved beyond mate selection.

Leer, born in Bourbon County, Kentucky, opted out of his father's agrarianism. "In his youth, he took mules South and sold them to the cotton growers," a cousin relayed. He emerged from Civil War (in which he was not known to serve¹) as a cattle broker. His father, farmer David Leer, Jr. (1803-1885) likely experienced the vicissitudes of war: David valued his real estate at $34,000 when – in 1860 – sons James Monroe and Charles Carrol Leer (1835-1922) yet remained in a household he kept with his wife of thirty years, the former Charlotte Corday Kenney (1809-1897). Another $9,000 were accorded to David's personal estate. Ten years later he appeared in reduced circumstances, claiming $25,000 and $5,000 respectively in the 1870 census.

Bulletin 176 of the University of Kentucky’s Agricultural Experiment Station appeared in 1913. It is replete with ancestral lines … for jacks and jennets. Just as my grandmother and her sisters forged membership with Daughters of the Ameri-can Revolution, Daughters of Colonial Wars and the like, Hooper and Anderson gave lineage to ‘Jack Stock of Kentucky.’ They depict a King of Spain’s gift of a jennet to George Washington, and confer that Lafayette “sent him a jack from France.” And, sure enough, Washington’s correspondence confirms Charles III of Spain shipped a pair of jacks (and a Spanish keeper) to honor him, c1784. “I have likewise a Jack & two Jennets from Malta, of a very good size, which the Marquis de la Fayette sent to me,” penned the retired General while occupied at Mount Vernon. “From these, all together, I hope to secure a race of extraordinary goodness, which will stock the Country.”  

Anderson (who taught eugenics at Kentucky Wesleyan College) and Professor Hooper (in the newly-formed American Genetics Association) followed on in the next paragraph: “It appears that a Mr. Leer was in the employ of General Washington at this time and, on a visit to his relatives in Bourbon County, Kentucky, he told of Washington's jack stock and mules. Soon after this, a small jack was secured and brought to Bourbon County, Kentucky. It attracted no little attention and comment. The story is told in this county that the people went miles just to look at the little fellow.”²

Tobias Lear (1762-1816) did serve as Washington’s personal secretary … from c1786 until the President’s 1799 death. Lear descended from a long line of New Hampshire Yankee namesakes, however. He’s unlikely related to German or Flemish ‘Lier’ ancestors in my line, arriving at Maryland a decade before revolution.

Hooper and Anderson anchor many Kentucky ancestral lines on ‘Imported (or Imp.) Mammoth,’ a “very large jack” brought overseas in a hammock from a place unidentified. His South Carolina-to-Kentucky journey, c1840, required six months. In what must have been part spectacle, the prodigious beast was walked but short distances and permitted to rest each day. Eventually and near the date of it, Imp. Mammoth reached James Monroe Leer's place of birth. The academics asserted “Henry Leer, of Bourbon County, bred a jennet to him and called the jack foal ‘Buena Vista.’ This proved to be a very large animal and at this time would be considered a rough jack, but in 1853 Mr. Leer sold him … for the sum of $3000.”

This is almost assuredly reference to Henry Leer (1797-1871), brother to David and uncle to James Monroe and Charles Carrol. Anderson and Hooper carried on in Bulletin 212 (1917): “Henry Leer, of Bourbon County, breeder of Buena Vista, imported a jack that had a far-reaching influence in molding the breed. The name of this animal was Imp. Napoleon, and thru his son, Leer's Napoleon, he proved to be a sire of most beneficial influence on the early stock of that county.” Reference among breeders became plural: “The Leers also imported two other valuable jacks: Moro Castle and Alvarado. No description has been left of these two animals but both appear in the ancestry of good strains of the present day.” Moro Castle fetched $5,000 from a Tennessean … “a record price for a jack” at that unspecified date.

It’s not insignificant business. “From these few jacks which have been named, sprang the great jack stock which has made Kentucky, Missouri, Tennessee, and to a lesser extent, Indiana and Illinois famous as mule producing states.” Perhaps on firmer, factual footing, the academics attested “Had Imp. Mammoth sired only one son … Maringo Mammoth … he would have justified all the confidence placed in him by Messrs. Everette and Young in bringing him at a great cost to Kentucky.” The scientists estimated one Maringo Mammoth bloodline alone “was worth $100,000 to Tennessee,” in terms of stud fees generated and livestock produced.

The Leers, as breeders and boosters, played no insignificant part in this vocation. 'Dr. Hartman' (right) was "one of the most noted jacks in the Cook herd" at Lexington, Kentucky, according to The Southern Planter. Chicago's Mayor Fred A. Busse (1866-1914), while in office in 1909, bought the six-year-old. He planned his own breeding program, employing the jack chosen Reserve Champion at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition of 1904. "While the price paid is not made public, it is known that he sold for more money than any jack has brought Kentucky for fifteen years," when Monroe Leer was most prominent as a market-defining stockman.

The chart below depicts Dr. Hartman's lineage.³ I've boxed antecedents with which Leer family breeders were known to be affiliated. Their influence extended for generations. Allow three years, minimum, for a jack to reach breeding age; they can remain fertile for decades.

Perhaps David settled legacies on his two sons after the war. In one of two land deals the brothers were known to have engaged in, in the summer of 1866, Monroe and about-to-be-married brother Charles 'C. C.' Leer purchased the Major Hibler Farm. The partners promptly resold fifty of the 250 acres … and covered their purchase price.

Observations by "Monroe Leer, a promising young trader," circulated. Return from Demopolis, Alabama, "where he had sold 300 mules at handsome profits," was reprinted in Raleigh, North Carolina in March, 1867: "He reports the trade as having been active, but declining somewhat."

“Cattle men are shipping but few East,” a Louisville paper acknowledged in the fall. “We also observed some superior free martins, sold by Monroe Leer, being shipped on Monday last.” I'd not heard of such a creature: a freemartin is an infertile, female heifer. It offers no reproductive value. If you understand how masculinized cows could be deemed 'superior,' please leave a comment below.

Leer, still in his twenties, was often willing to appear knowledgeable in his trade. The interestingly named Weekly Caucasian in Lexington, Missouri carried his report of an 1869 venture to New Orleans. He'd sold forty head of "medium stock" for $185, and reported "a reasonable market" in The South. We can justifiably associate Leer with Mississippi riverboats.

By 1870, Monroe and Charles were sharing a household, quite likely the Hibler place. Charles valued his estates - combined - at $8,500: his younger brother had apparently begun outpacing him. His estates amounted to $12,500; real estate alone (which included livestock) was enumerated at $9,000.

An 1893 account (left) relays economics of animal husbandry. Language is attributed to 'J. M. Leer, of Paris, Kentucky' … locale of the state's oldest, continuously operated Thoroughbred breeding farm. “In years past, when horses became so low [in value] that it did not pay to raise them in Kentucky, all mares were turned to the jack,” declared Leer. "Mule raising was the order of the day; in a few years, horses became very scarce, and mules not numerous because they do not reproduce." Mares were not delivering horse stock.

The breeder is keenly aware of long-term, economic trade-offs. In commentary no doubt meant to draw attention to his offer of twenty-one Kentucky Mam-moth Jacks, Leer advocates “Now is a good time to commence breeding to jacks, which virtually means stop raising horses, and thus raise their price …” Does he encourage Indiana competition in mule breeding? It seems contrary to self-interest.

Perhaps Leer could afford to be magnanimous. Accounts a decade earlier reported "the principal jack man of Bourbon" selling dozens of animals, some fetching more than a thousand dollars. When offering five jacks in 1884 (right), Leer boasted "They are of the best breeding, descending from Napoleon, Buena Vista and Imp. Mammoth." Leer's reputation had been established: "Mr. Leer has long been known as one of the most reliable breeders of jack stock in Kentucky," trumpeted a Kansas newspaper in 1886.

In 1887, two years after his father's death, Leer began purveying in earnest: a Delaware buyer spent $700 on one beast. Reporting in both Kentucky and Texas describe, in their own ways, "one of the finest car loads ever shipped from Paris pens to Fort Worth." Fourteen jacks accrued him $10,000. His days of wandering southern byways had passed: Leer offered a catalogue of bred stallions and jacks.

"J. Monroe Leer, of Glenwater Stock Farm … is one of the largest jack handlers in America," advanced the Courier-Journal, from Louisville, Kentucky in 1888. He'd spent $8,000 on a buying trip into Tennessee. (The same page reports an Ohio real estate investor had just disappeared in that state: "He had a large amount of money on his person, foul play is suspected.") Leer's twenty-two acquisitions were to have descended from "old Buena Vista stock, their dams from Napoleon." Glenwater, which may have been a name he gave his father's 400-acre farm upon inheriting it, reportedly contained-ninety nine head, perhaps in jacks alone.

“Stand upon the crest of the ridge anywhere upon the farm and cast your eye north, east or west, and somewhere in the shade of a locust bush or maple tree you will see one of these shaggy haired lovers,” wrote a “Kentucky newspaper man, detailed to write up the Monroe Leer jackass stock farm” in 1889. The account, which included an up close and personal experience of “the emperor of jackasses, the great ‘Napoleon of Glenwater,'” was reprinted in Missouri. It’s an extraordinary word picture (right): it conveyed a clear sense of the braying cacophony surrounding Leer and his family. Dolefulness permeated the work: “Pulsatory poems … touch the heart of the listener with a strange, half melancholy flavor of hope deferred.” Death came as relief in a pair of allegorical allusions. Perhaps a demise is inadvertently foreshadowed. 

Though breeding vigorously, and buying a herd of Cotswold sheep, Leer seemed to liquidate jacks in the next two years. A Kansas buyer spent $1200 for one. A Californian payed $900 each for a jennet and jack. The Climax in nearby Madison County reported (April, 1890) that Leer sold forty-two jacks – at an average exceeding $700 apiece – in two weeks. Likely based on self-report, the paper declared he'd accrued $66,875 in the previous six months.

That's a tidy sum to put away. Commodities worth $67k in 1890 might today be valued at $1,860,000.

It's a convenient amount.

Leer had married Amelia Turner (1852-1915) at Madison County, Kentucky in 1874. At the cusp of the 'Gay Nineties,' she – and five surviving of nine children that had then been born to the couple – filled a five-room cottage on their Glenwater Stock Farm in Bourbon County. In November, 1889 – for $61,000 – Leer purchased an estate almost adjoining the Hibler place, and within sight of Glenwater. 

[See A Basket Filled with Tears and Flowers for more on Amelia.]

The name 'New Forest' rang with enchantment whenever my grandmother spoke of her Old Kentucky Home. Loura Kittrel (Leer) Early (1891-1984) would be born there twenty months after the purchase.

“The farm is watered by ponds and never-failing springs, has plenty of timber of the best quality; there are two orchards on the farm; both contain the best varieties of fruit, cherries, plums, apricots, etc., also a fine vineyard," read an 1882 Horace Miller (1831-1903) biography. Leer would supplant Miller as New Forest's "owner and proprietor" seven years later. Amelia must have been delighted. "The residence is a large, two-story brick, with basement of nine rooms; above contains eight large rooms, besides halls, attics, and double porches on the rear; [the structure] has a double parlor with folding doors; the wood work is of solid cherry, all of which was grown on the farm; the yard contains about ten acres, filled with evergreen and forest trees of all kinds; its long winding avenues and drives are lined with trees and shrubs, forming a compact arbor overhead, giving the place a picturesque and romantic appearance.”

The stock farm served its proprietor well. "Its location is 2½ miles from Paris, on the Maysville and Lexington Pike. The Maysville and Lexington [Railroad] runs within 200 yards of his yard gate, where there is a station named ‘New Forest,’ in honor of the farm, which contains 610 acres of choice land, handsomely located, and nearly in a square, in plain sight of Paris …” A rail siding would have facilitated shipping carloads of mules. I will attend presently to some irony contained in that.

An 1877 map (below) shows New Forest, the Pike, and M&L rail line:

Brother Charles' home can be identified on what is today Mitchell's Run, proximate to a Maysville and Lexington Pike Toll House. The Leer home on the Jackstown Pike – kept by David, 'Cordee' and their Black, inter-generational domestic servant and farmhand (Rachel and son Shadford Bates) – is also indicated. 

The selling spree continued at least through 1891. "Monroe Leer, our noted dealer in jack stock, sold to Mr. Monroe, of Monroe City, Monroe County, Mo., the yearling Jack Monroe, for $1,500, the highest price ever paid for a yearling," bragged the Kentuckian-Citizen, ninety days after Leer secured New Forest.

Sales in 1891 include nine jacks, a jennet, and a gelding and stallion sired by Almont (above), the 'Great Sire of Trotters,' at Lexington, Kentucky … for $12,000 in April. In September, Leer collected about $10,000 for a dozen jacks, a pair of horses and two of Charles Leer's colts, all disposed of in Missouri. At close of the year, Leer was offering – as far away as Kansas – seventy-seven jacks "of extra bone, muscle and vigor," and "some high bred trotting stallions."

Contemporary authors contend "The Sherman Silver Purchase Act of 1890, perhaps along with the protectionist McKinley Tariff of 1890, has been partially blamed," for a financial crisis which swept into the United States from Europe three years later.

Financial collapse at the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad in January, 1893 focused people’s minds on market instability. A string of failures continued, with the Erie Railroad going under in July, Northern Pacific in August, Union Pacific in October and the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad in December. In all, perhaps 30% of the nation’s railways went into receiver-ship that year. Creditors lost confidence in lenders that had financed railroads. At least five hundred banks foundered, initially suspect for funding shaky enterprises, and then – in a panic – as investors watched logging, mining and livestock transport slow to a crawl. In his lifetime, Leer had seen locomotion replace brute animals in haulage and tilling. In the end, collapse of speculation in that supplanting industry did him in.

That, and bad weather.

Drought-stricken Toronto, 1893.

"Farm products shared in the universal depression," declared Kentucky historian Smith, in what he two years later described as "what will be known in the future as the great panic of 1893." Drought struck the planet. "Although the yields were comparatively small, prices were the lowest ever before reached," Smith reported … on Kentucky crops, specifically. "The prices of wheat fell below forty and fifty cents on the farms, according to distances from market; other grain and products shared in the decline." Demand for mules fell away as millions of unemployed laborers became itinerant.
[I Cannot Enjoy Reading Bad News describes another victim of the Panic of '93.]

Kentucky Advocate editors made 'personal mention' in January, 1894: “Mr. Monroe Leer, a prominent stock man of Bourbon county, is attending the Fox & Co. sale to-day” at Danville, Kentucky. The presence of a monied man likely buoyed hopes for a good auction. Depression lingered, however: "Prices do not compare with last year," came report from the annual jack sale. "Money matters considered," values were described as "fairly good." Leer purchased 'Jim Lane' for $375.

Hard money grew scarce. European banks hoarded American gold. Relays Smith, "The demand for [paper] currency fell off until money soon became a drug in the market." And Leer apparently had creditors. From October through December, 1894, in several publications (left), Leer offered two carloads of extra-fine jacks.

Seventy years later, I heard murmured observation that 'Uncle Charlie' "held notes" to his younger brother. And that he had been unable to cover his IOUs.

On Christmas Eve 1894, a short paragraph in an evening newspaper at Maysville, Kentucky reported J. Monroe Leer's death. In that enumeration of his survivors, "a wife, four daughters and three sons," was correct, perhaps we can trust as accurate that he "died Saturday morning after a brief illness." Leer was described as "a prominent and wealthy stock man of Bourbon County."⁴

James Monroe Leer succumbed - mysteriously - at age fifty-three. My grandmother … and her sisters … were known to contend, "If you can't say something nice about your family, it's best not to say anything at all." Cause of death was murmured as 'Papa's Condition' and, for some time prior, the children had been encouraged not to invade on Mr. Leer's tranquility.
(Read Finding Everett, for more on whispered family lore.)

Cure for Papa's Condition may have centered on opiates. Dr. Bell's opium-based 'Anti-Pain' (right) was likely introduced at Paducah, Kentucky in 1890. It was just one of many such serums available to the afflicted.

Almost as if hurried into type, the Louisville Courier-Journal tucked mention of Leer at the bottom of page seven. Beneath "Sudden Death at Paris" were thirty words. In conclusion: "Mr. Leer was probably the most extensive importer and breeder of jacks in the United States." Certainly a sphere of influence beyond the Mississippi Valley.

I'll leave it to another post, to describe widow Amelia's travails with New Forest. She traded the property with William W. Massie (1820-1906) in 1897.

A photographic record was made in 1905: T. W. Allen, of Paris, as a novice, won Honorable Mention in Kodak’s national competition that year … for "Driveway at New Forest, Bourbon Co., Ky..' Undoubtedly from that outing, I provide (below) an image of the home the Leers occupied for eight, bustling years.

---

NOTES:
¹ 'Munroe' and Charles Leer registered for the draft in July, 1863. With a Provost Marshal in the Union Army.

² Anderson and Hooper relied on Charles Carrol Leer as a source. Though fully six years older than brother James Monroe, ‘Uncle Charlie’ outlived him by 28 ½ years. On Imported Mammoth in Bulletin 176, the authors declare “We have been able to find only one man, Mr. C. C. Leer, who saw this great old jack. He says he was fully 16 hands high and wonderfully well made for his day and time.” Charles’ son Courtland Ewing Leer (1871-1956) would, in 1904 offer ‘Napoleon Jack,’ a “direct descendant of Old Napoleon." He declaimed antecedents had "been in our family for eighty years.” He no doubt referenced Imp. Napoleon, imported by his Great-uncle Henry Leer.

³ Note replication of 'Alverado' in the chart (in one instance as 'Imp. Alverado'). According to Kilgore (1858), “From Mammoth has descended Buena Vista, one of his best sons and the largest jack in America.” The indicated animal, sired by 'Patterson's Napoleon,' bears the name … but was not bred by Henry Leer. Deft breeding undoubtedly added value to genetic strains. There was merit in attending to ancestry. Naming was often intended to indicate heritage and, at times, the breeder. By the 20th century, stock associations registered births and set about protecting against misattribution. Even following introduction, names recycled furiously: historians added appellation, 'Old Buena Vista,' 'Buena Vista, Jr.' and the like. I found examples of Missouri jacks including the preface "Leer's …" Bourbon County Leers' reputation extended that far; though I am unsure whether any had responsibility for those animals' bloodlines. 'Duke of Glenwater,' foaled there in 1887, plays on Monroe Leer's brand.

Kentucky livestock naming conventions at times hint at the same whimsicality I found in titles to colonial Maryland land parcels. (See Good Luck If It Hits.) Some animals' names are so unusual, there's almost certainly a backstory in their selection. Particularly in early days, name choices often commended owners' values … or places, events and personages they admired.

⁴ In a way evoking herd instincts, both Charles Carrol, and James Monroe at New Forest, died within a mile of their place of birth. The sense of not straying went back generations. The brothers’ grandfather, David Leer, Sr. (baptized as ‘Lier,’ c1769-1852) built identical houses on Jackstown Pike for four sons … David, Jr. included. The ‘D. Lear’ home place, which Monroe likely later ran as Glenwater Stock Farm, is indicated on the 1877 map above. It sits on land Heinrich Lier (c1720-1802) settled by 1785. “On the east side of the Stoner [Creek], one of the earliest settlers was Henry Leer …” who was grandfather to David, Jr. and the Henry Leer referenced above. According to Perrin (1882), Heinrich (as Henry) "settled among the very earliest, locating on the land now owned by his grandson, David Leer … it having been in the family ever since its original purchase.” My maternal grandmother was delivered within sight of a holding that her foreign-born, great-great grandfather pioneered.

Bold face indicates the author's ancestors.

Good Luck If It Hits

The Restoration had begun: Charles II was on the British throne. A lad named Edward Milstead (1656-1734) traipsed Bethersden, County of Kent, in England. He was listed as a ‘labourer’ when – at perhaps aged 15 – he is to have stolen "3 shillings in money" from the home of widow Martha Tapely. On the same day, 7 April 1671, Milstead is to have burgled the house of James Bateman and stolen two nutmegs (value 1 pence) and one pound of gingerbread (value 3 pence).

Young Edward was tried on both counts by a 12-man jury in August 1671 in the Maidstone Assizes. He was found guilty of larceny. [See Maidstone Assizes 35/112/5, item 1416.]

A 1671 crime would have followed the Great Fire of London by five years, and the outbreak of plague by six: it’s possible Edward Milstead had been orphaned. Some think the father of our subject was another Edward Milstead. A lath-cleaver of Bethersden, the elder Milstead was, on 22 June 1654 - at the beginning of Cromwell's reign during the Interregnum - indicted for trespass. This Milstead (likely christened 1627) and others had "assembled riotously at Pluckley, forcibly entered a close in the possession of Israel Tonge (1621-1680), rector of Pluckley, and cut down and carried away five oaks." [See Maidstone Assizes 35/95/12, item 1034.] Trees would have been useful to a Lath Cleaver, engaged as he was in splitting wood strips from timber, to be used as building materials. Being "much vexed with factious parishioners and Quakers," Tonge left Kent in the spring of 1657. Two who were indicted with Milstead - Elias, shovel-maker, and Stephen Tonge, Sr., yeoman - shared the Anglican cleric's surname.

One account has the young burglar, Edward Milstead (1656-1734), related to a churchwarden. In Kent stands the 'Milstead Manor House,' begun 1256. The nearby Milstead Church was erected by the pious in 1541. “Perhaps Edward Milstead’s ancestors helped to build these stately monuments,” posits another family historian, confronted by the idea that she descends from a convicted nutmeg thief.

Milstead "prayed Clergy." He had an Anglican priest intervene to commute his sentence. The lad was thereon "reprieved under condition of transport." His commutation was exile, to spend years in the status of indentured servitude. On 13 March 1674 Milstead's group of reprieved convicts were ordered transported to Barbados or Jamaica. [See Bonded Passengers to America, Vol. III & IV, by Philip Slaughter, pg. 54.] In July 1674 Edward ‘was carted’ from Kent and sailed away.

To the New World
William Chandler presented “Edward Milstead, age 19” to the court in Charles County, Maryland in 1674. Records are pretty clear that Edward was indentured to the master of ‘Chandler's Hope,’ though I’ve found none to explain the young man's change of course. Maryland planters may have engaged agents to divert laborers north, to work their tobacco fields.

Milstead is likely to have arrived at Chandler's Town, which had in the not-too-distant past been renamed Port Tobacco. In the year of Milstead's arrival, the Charles County seat had been removed inland along a native trade route. The second courthouse in the entire Province of Maryland had just been erected, in the direction of Fort Zekiah, whence 'friendly' Piscataway peoples had been removed four years prior.

Chandler took Milstead on as a cobbler. “An immigrant with an actual trade obtained a much better indenture than unskilled laborers, who were put to work as field hands, so he likely had some previous training as a shoemaker,” says a researcher. “Interestingly, only two immigrants to the Tidewater area in the late 17th century gave their occupation as cobbler, of whom Edward was one.”

Declared a ‘freeman’ in 1680, Milstead completed his period of servitude when he was about 25 years old. "During the first period of convict transportation, convict servants who served out their terms generally enjoyed the same right to collect 'freedom dues' as indentured servants," declares Anthony Vaver, author of Bound with an Iron Chain, at his blog. It may be that Chandler provided Milstead with 50 acres of land as concluding compensation for his period of forced labor. I've found no land records indicating such. 

[This Moderate and Less Shamefull Way touched upon freemen at Province of Maryland in the era; the author has grown to appreciate the term as distinctive element in corporate governance, Massachusetts Bay Colony Company.]

Milstead may have been unique. Researchers report freed servants often promptly divested themselves of their parcels of land.

Milstead's new start was undoubtedly challenging: on 22 September 1682 he took a promissory note from one William Newman, likely for his first crops. It wouldn't be until November of the following year that the Sheriff seized Newman, and Milstead received a judgement of 1,400 lbs. of tobacco.
[See Charles County Circuit Court, Liber K; pp. 260, 266-7.]

A 1,000-acre parcel called Blew Plane is mentioned in an indenture to Giles Blizard, recorded 4 August 1684. [See Charles County Land Folio, Liber unk., #1.1] At age 28, Milstead leased this newly-acquired tract, variously called 'Bow Plain' or ‘Bow Plane,' from Blizard. Milstead made it produce. In June he took a note from a Thomas Kearsey, whereupon Kearsey agreed to pay Milstead 633 lbs. of tobacco 'in cask' on 10 October the following year. [See CCCC, Liber L; pp. 10, 73-74, 127-8.]

A Thomas Kersey had in 1681 petitioned the state Assembly for "Maintenance being Cripled in the Susquehannah Warr." [See Archives of Maryland, V. 7, pg 148, here.] Milstead may have been trusting the wrong caliber of men. When it came time for Milstead to collect, the Sheriff found Kearsey had "absented himself out of Maryland." Milstead won a judgment against Kearsey's estate for the tobacco and court costs, but was ordered a while later to post bond of 1,000 pounds of tobacco, in case Kearsey should reappear and contest the ruling.

Enter Susannah Clarke
In February 1685/86 (a period of double-dates in chronology), a John Butcher “acknowledged to be indebted to ye Lord Proprietary in £5 and Susan Clarke in £10 to be levied against them in case ye said Susan shall not appear at ye next court to prosecute Edward Milstead for a bastard child begotten on her body." [See CCCC, Liber M; pg. 90.]

[The Third Lord Baltimore, Charles Calvert (1637-1715), here as Maryland Proprietor, in 1669 introduced ancestor William Calvert (c1642/3-1682) to Provincial Council at This Moderate and Less Shamefull Way.]

I can’t tell you much – definitively – about Susannah Clarke (b c1658). The first birth recorded in Charles County Circuit Court, Birth, Deaths & Marriage Records is that of "William Millsteade [sic], son of Edward and Susanna Millsteade," born 20 July 1685. [See CCCC, Liber Q.]

As recorded, Susanna’s last name is surprising ... for it is not at all certain that William’s parents married. Without giving a source, an online post (likely by a descendant) states: “Trinity Parish Vestry records of Charles County, Maryland show birth registry of child William Milstead, son of Edward and Susanna Milstead, born 20 July 1685.” Church records establish legitimacy, and perhaps would not be recorded without an actual marriage between parents.

It is likely that Susannah Clarke was born in England, and also transported to the New World. Hargreaves-Mawdsley surveyed English records for his Servants to Foreign Plantations and reported a Susannah Clarke was a ‘primary immigrant’ from Bristol (not traveling with other family members). [See Bristol And America; A Record Of The First Settlers in The Colonies of North America, 1654-1685; London: R.S. Glover; 1929. Reprinted 1978.] No skills or point of origin are listed in the entry for Susannah Clarke: she was destined for the island of Nevis, location of the grueling but immensely profitable sugar trade. It was not unusual for children to be placed in bondage, their labor was at times used to pay parents’ debts. Though surname of Susannah’s parents is unknown to me, researchers think it likely that a John Clarke was her brother. Several named John Clarke were transported to Maryland.

Recorded 14 January 1675, agent Edward Yeamans arranged a 4-year indenture for a Susannah Clarke. On 11 January 1675, Clarke had been “presented as a servant” to Robert Thompson, in Charles County. It is this record [See CC Land Folio #1; pg. 63.] that gives Susannah’s age as 16, and from which I estimated her date of birth. Citing a slightly different page number [pg. 163] another researcher indicates Clarke was "dau. of Robert and Mary," and bound to Henry Robert Thompson.

The Marriage that Wasn't
Two weeks prior to this indenture, “Roger Boyden and Susanna Clarke was not lawfully joined in matrimony [sic] at Mr. Robert Thompson's house by Mr. Robert Barrott, in ye presence of Mr. Robert Doyne and his wife, Mr. John Fanning, Mr. James Boreman on ye first day of January Anno Dom. 1675.” This cryptic document reflects a decision by the Charles County Circuit Court, made subsequent to the ceremony. [See CCCC, Liber F.] It is not understood how long Clarke and Boyden thought themselves married. [See note on secret marriages below.]

I know little of groom Boyden, other than that he was likely born before 1654, in Saint Mary’s Parish, Maryland ... and that he may have been the youngest of four brothers.

Robert Barrott/ Barrett, who performed the ceremony, was likely in his mid-twenties at the time, and went on to marry a prosperous widow. In 1697 he and Clarke's master Thompson will have an outstanding debt settled in the George Plater estate ... administered by non-wedding guest Robert Doyne.

Witness John Fanning (bef 1641-1688) would, in 1679, have an outstanding debt to the estate of one Charles Gregory. So would Barret, who couldn't be found by then. Also in the list of debtors were Thompson and Chandler, masters of Clarke and Wilstead; and witness to the non-wedding, Robert Doyne.

Robert Doyne (c1640-1689) was, by the time of the non-event, a man of rising influence. He was a Justice and High Sheriff in Charles County. He and his brother Joshua had been transported to Maryland from Ireland about 1670. They may have spent time in Barbados. According to one descendant, “They were an Anglican family from County Wexford.” This source speculates the court ruled the Boyden-Clarke marriage illegal because it was a Catholic service.

In his 2007 text, All of the Above, Cook reports, “Both Robert and Joshua Doyne may have been Catholic. Or perhaps Robert was Anglican and Joshua was Catholic,” a stratagem employed to avoid making the family’s fortunes “too dependent on only one allegiance.” [See pg. 358.] Cook identifies Robert Doyne’s first wife as the former Mary Stone (c1656-1682). Mary, witness to the Boyden-Clarke non-wedding, was daughter to William Stone (1603-1660), Maryland’s third Colonial Governor and its first Protestant Governor. Catholic Lord Baltimore had appointed Stone Governor in 1654, at the conclusion of the Third English Civil War. Oliver Cromwell sent an armed squad to Maryland and ordered Stone replaced. Stone emerged from exile in Virginia; a Protestant backed by Cavalier forces. He was defeated and taken prisoner the following year.

[See This Moderate and Less Shamefull Way for Maryland Catholicism. Stone and his daughter Elizabeth appear.]

Court ledger, Charles County MD, March 1685/86

A Grand Jury was convened more than ten years after Clarke's non-wedding ... in March 1685/86. Sheriff Robert Doyne returned a panel of 15 men that included a John Clarke and Robert Thompson, likely the non-wedding host who went on to be Clarke's master. The body “do present Edward Milstead for getting Susannah Clarke with child of which she of said [illegible] is delivered.” [See image, right.] As one researcher posted: “Edward payed a fine of fifty pounds of tobacco for siring a bastard child.”

In November 1686 the Charles County Circuit Court ordered, “William Milstead, son of Edward Milstead, begotten on ye body of Susannah Clarke by ye said Edward, be bound to Thomas Craxton of Nangemie in Charles County till he comes to ye age of 21 years." [See CCCC, Liber M; pg. 226.] Young Willliam Milstead (1685-1742) was not yet a year-and-a-half old. This decision makes it unlikely that William’s parents had wed. Susannah was perhaps 26; the economically viable Edward Milstead, thirty years old. Their baby went into long-term bondage among Craxtons in Nanjemoy Parish.

I’ve lost Susannah’s paper trail at this point, but the rascal Edward Milstead’s legacy plays out over volumes of court records. He’d been involved in lawsuits since before leasing ‘Bow Plain.’ He’d had more success prior to Susannah Clarke’s accusations, but Milstead's fortunes continued to accumulate. An Edward Millsteed [sic] signed a statement “in support of The King,” in Prince George's County, Maryland, c1693.

Other family history researchers have difficulty assigning maternity for the Milstead daughter and three sons who followed William, for Edward Milstead did marry. Early estimates for Milstead’s marriage to Elizabeth ‘Eliza’ Ward (1667-c1719) come in around 1694.

Enter the Bitch Whore

The bride's father, John Ward (bef 1630-1687) had died: her mother, Damaris (d aft1699), had twice remarried before Elizabeth wed Edward Milstead. Ward's legacy contained more than 1,300 acres. Damaris and a son were executors of Ward's will and, despite language about her having rights to the 112-acre tract ‘Angerstone’ “during widowhood,” she and third husband, William Serjeant, were administering considerable Ward holdings when Milstead entered the family. Eliza and two sisters were to equally divide Damaris’ portion of the estate in the event of their mother’s death; it could be inferred from the will that their inheritance came due when Damaris remarried.

Damaris was not without notariety. With second husband Charles Shepherd, Damaris had brought slander charges against Elizabeth Brett and her husband. On 3 October 1691 - at Mattawoman in Charles County - Brett is to have called Damaris "an old satchell arse bastard bearing bitch whore," referring to Damrais' daughter, wife of John Gray [the former Ann Ward (1667-c1710)] as a bastard. Brett is to have made "several such like scandalous and malicious expressions." It was alleged that Brett's accusations of fornication and adultery “were false, maliciously made and were designed to injure Damaris' reputation," (which it was alleged had been good), and "to cause her to be forsaken by her husband.”

I've been unable to cull reference to a marriage record for John Ward and Damaris. Researchers tend to give a wedding date concurrent to the birth of first child Ann(e) (5 February 1663/4), who had died prior to the birth of namesake sister Anne, on 10 April 1667. Land records were being maintained in these primitive conditions, however: John Ward was living on James Lee's tract; acknowledged in November 1663 to have been legally purchased from Winganetta, native 'King of the Nanjemoy.' Damaris is not mentioned in this entry.

At the Court of 8 March 1691/2, "ye said action is abated by occasion of ye death of ye said Charles." [See CCCC, Liber R; pg. 384.] Perhaps the accusations had been hard on Charles Shepherd.

Damaris did not get the 5,000 pounds of tobacco she was suing for. However, I will say genial family historians – without being aware of this case – puzzle over several of the John and Damaris Ward children's birth dates, including Ann (Ward) Grey’s. 

By the end of 1696 Edward Milstead and Elizabeth had taken Damaris to court, alleging the mother, together with subsequent husbands, “failed to file an inventory or administration account for John Ward's estate, and have converted to her and their use and failed to protect the estate, in violation of John's will and the law, to the detriment of the children.” The court found in favor of the newlyweds. It appears that Milstead began administering John Ward’s properties, and carried on until all of Elizabeth’s siblings reached their majority; and perhaps until Damaris’ death.

Milstead's Ascent

Thus begins a string of victorious litigation. A Prince George's County Court finds Cornelius Hunt has trespassed against Milstead in January 1696/7. Milstead's wealth increases. By the turn of the century he’s acquired a 190-acre tract, ‘Good Luck if it Hits.’ His character is considered such that the one-time convict sits on juries, making judgments in the name of The King.

Then, in November 1700, Milstead is tried in the name of The King for assault on the body of William Grey. Milstead pleads not guilty, and a jury concurs in January 1701. [See CCCC, Liber Y, p. 127.] William may have been a relative of Milstead's brother-in-law, (Ann Ward's husband) John Grey. It probably doesn't help William's case that John Grey was an informer in 1686/87, accusing Sheriff Robert Doyne of receiving stolen goods, and that the Lord Proprietary had declared Doyne “to be free and clear of the crime above imposed on him.” [See CCCC, Liber N; pg. 166 & pp. 286-7]

Milstead is – by 1701 – styled ‘Planter.’ He’s squarely in the landed gentry. By 1707 he holds the 100-acre tract called 'Nonsuch' (or 'Nonesuch') in Nanjemoy Hundred. He becomes associated with tracts named ‘Ignatius' Winter,’ ‘Ward’s Addition,’ and the 150-acre parcel, ‘Milstead Range.’

It appears that Milstead’s relationship with his former master was amicable. On 31 March 1707 Chandler had surveyed a 160-acre tract adjoining Milstead’s ‘Good Luck.’ Chandler whimsically called it ‘Orphan’s Loss.’ [See 1642-1753 Rent Rolls Charles County, Maryland, p. 380, sequence 28.]

Following a brisk regimen of mostly successful lawsuits, culminating with the elder Milstead being found in contempt in 1715, the former 'transported convict' has gained serious financial clout by age fifty. (A documented Loyalist, he perhaps had the means to bribe corrupt royal officials to help achieve his goals.) Quite wealthy; Milstead provides surety for a string of estates as they are being settled. He knows property values and has learned whom he can trust ... so as not lose the financial guarantee he’s made. Milstead is a lender: I've discovered at least eight estates that, when settled between 1698 and 1728, make payments to Edward Milstead.

Milstead’s wife Elizabeth died, likely in 1719. We soon find evidence of collaboration between Edward Milstead and his bastard son William, who'd completed his indenture to Craxton a dozen years earlier. On 19 March 1719/20, William (then perhaps 35 years of age, married and a father) was made administrator of the estate of his father-in-law Henry Blanchard/ Blanksheat/ Blankshot. William's father gave surety, which might indicate that Edward trusted and esteemed his illegitimate son.

By October 1720 Edward had remarried. Third wife, Mary Lemaster (1665-c1733), had – in 1718 – been widowed by her (perhaps second) husband, John Shekertie/ Shaklet/ Sherklie. Mary would draw income from the 100-acre tract ‘Ingothorp’[likely 'Inglethorp'] for the rest of her days.

It’s more likely that Milstead's 20-something son, Edward Milstead Jr. (c1693-c1783), carried out the task, but in November 1717 the court “allows Edward Milstead 180 lbs. of tobacco for 45 squirrel heads (4 lbs. each) and 12 lbs of tobacco for 2 crow heads (6 lbs. each.).” [See: CCCC, Liber I, #2; pp. 35-6.] At this rate of exchange, Milstead Sr. could have paid his fine for siring a bastard child by securing the heads of eight crows and a squirrel.

1671 - Northerne part of Virginia

I’m just reminded by the pest control account that, absent in my post is sufficient reference to pioneer conditions. The Crown’s administrative authority over the Chesapeake basin had only (and likely, nominally) been established five years before Milstead’s arrival: in fact, the Dutch controlled territory we now think of as Maryland. It was an unsettled place with indistinct boundaries.

In 1729 Edward Milstead’s vigor seems to subside. On 11 Febrary, Edward Milstead Sr., Planter, conveyed the 190-acre tract ‘Good Luck if it Hits’ to Edward, “for the natural love that he has for his son ... and for divers other good causes” “And likewise, another tract of land called Nonsuch … laid out for about 100 acres.” Edward, Sr. made his mark (an ‘E’) on the document. [See CCCC Liber M No. 2; page 194.] Milstead’s second (by most accounts) legitimate son, Thomas Milstead (1696-1737), likely with his father’s backing, had also been acquiring land. He was already styled ‘Planter’ when on 24 June 1727 he bought “for 3,200 pounds of tobacco in cask and for divers other good causes,” a tract called ‘Winter's Employment’ from (likely his uncle) Walter Winter and William Godfrey. [See CCCC, Liber L, #2; pg. 448.]

By 1707 Edward Milstead and Susannah Clarke’s ‘out of wedlock’ son William had concluded his parent's indenture. Thomas was in relationship with his illegitimate, half-brother: on 12 June 1733, Thomas conveyed to “William Milstead of Charles County, Planter, and his now wife, Elizabeth, for divers good causes and for the yearly rent of 500 lbs. of tobacco each Nov 10, 130 acres … called ‘Winter's Imployment [sic],’ including the house and plantation, with free liberty of cutting down timber for the plantation's use, provided he makes no waste thereof,” during the natural lives of said William and Elizabeth. [See CC Land Folio, Liber M, #2; pg. 344.]

Edward Milstead, Sr. made out his last will on 13 December 1733. He was dead before mid-January, having lived about seventy-six years:

In the name of God Amen. I Edward Milstead, Sr. of Charles County in the province of Maryland ... being sick of body but of sound and ... memory thanks to God ... do make and ordain this my last will and testament in manner and form following, that is to say first and ... I commit and commend my soul and spirit into the hands of Almighty God hoping through his mercy and the merits of my dear Saviour's blood which he hath shed for me and all others who through faith and belief in His name do obtain ... and ...

My body I commit unto the earth and to Christian and ... burial to the discretion of my well beloved wife Mary if she survives me or my eldest son if he die before and touching the disposal of my temporal estate which God hath blessed me with all my will is to dispose thereof as followeth:

Item: I give unto my son Edward Milstead my wearing apparel also an orphan boy Jno Ettil?? and one pair of hand millstones and one pair of iron ... at my decease.

Item: I give unto my wife Mary Milstead the one third of my cattle and of hoggs and of the ... during her life and after her depose to fall to Jno (?) Milstead and William Milstead also appoint my well beloved wife Mary Milstead the whole executor of this my last will and testament.

Item: I give unto James Mordock one cow and calf at my decease.

Item: I give and bequeath the residue of my personal estate which is not here mentioned to be equally divided in three parts between William Milstead and John Milstead and John [likely Grew, perhaps Grey]

And there it is, Edward Milstead, Sr. Planter and once-convicted thief, ultimately claimed his illegitimate son William as next-of-kin. Milstead may have fathered other children out of wedlock. In addition to not naming his daughters, the document concludes:

“All my children that are not here mentioned I give unto them one shilling.”

Freedom Denied
While the rise of Edward Milstead, Sr. (1656-1734) - plucked from his laboring class life in England and rising to higher status as landed gentry in the New World - is inescapable in this account, indentured servitude weaves its way throughout this cast of characters.

Five years after committing his ‘out of wedlock’ son William to two decades of bondage, Milstead contracts for a servant. In 1691 Francis Hanby is to have bound his son, John Hanby, “which he had by Elizabeth Harleton,” to Edward Millstead [sic]. In 1695 Francis bound out his wife Alise's seven-year-old son Samuel Barker - born to a previous marriage. Under the right circumstances, indentured servitude in Maryland may have brought social and economic advance. By 1725, Charles Countian John Hanby is also styled 'Planter.'

Perhaps eight years after his father's death, James Ward, "son of John Ward (dec'd) and Dameris, his wife, alias Damaris Sarjeant, the natural mother of James Ward," forms his own indenture. On 17 July 1694 James "bounds himself to Robert Edmondson." [See Charles County Land Folio S, #1.430]

In November 1710 Margaret Smith, age 19, would also be bound to Edward Milstead, Sr. [See CC Land Folio, Liber M, #2.200] 'Indenture' was a term used interchangeably in contracting for humans, crops and land leases.

"Indentured servants resembled other groups of colonial migrants, including African slaves and transported convicts. Indentured servants, in fact, often were called "white slaves,'" declares Murphy, in his Origins of Colonial Chesapeake Indentured Servants. "All three groups experienced mistreatment. The groups also differed. Convict servants were the only group whose emigration and unpaid labor were penalties imposed for criminal behavior. Whether indentured servants were voluntary or forced laborers, their indentures were temporary, unlike the Africans, who were enslaved for life."

Until just prior to Edward Milstead, Sr.'s arrival in the new world, slaves were "treated as indentured servants, and given the same opportunities for freedom dues as whites. However, slave laws were soon passed ... and any small freedoms that might have existed for blacks were taken away, declares History Detectives. Only two years after his arrival, Maryland passed an act making importation of convicts much more difficult. Smith, in his Colonists in Bondage, indicates Milstead may have been one of only 200 to arrive in Maryland under such circumstances. [See page 104.]

Being indentured did not have the ruptive effects on family I imagined. Edward Milstead, Sr. left "orphan boy John E [illegible]" to his son Edward in 1733. A John Elgin witnessed Edward Jr.'s 1771 will. If this is the same John, it might indicate that being received as property did not close the pathway to subsequent trust and affection. Edward Sr.'s son Thomas left the tract 'Mountain' or 'Mountaine' to his illegitimate, half-brother William in 1737. Familial bonds were more resilient than I expected. There was far less stigma in 18th century Maryland - surrounding illegitimacy and indentured servitude - than I imagined.

My People
I went into this work with the understanding that Jane Milstead (1705-1776), my 5th great-grandmother, was the product of union between William Milstead and wife Susannah Blanchard/ Blanchet/ Blanshot. It came as quite a surprise to discover William born in such inauspicious circumstances. However, through developing this post, I've learned William and Susannah did not marry until 1717. Jane may have been born out of wedlock to a twenty-year-old William, but I find it more likely that she descends - as others contend - from William's father, Edward Milstead, Sr., and wife Elizabeth Ward (daughter of the satchel-assed bitch).

It’s commonly asserted that my 5th great-grandfather, Virginian Thomas Ford (1704-1776), married Jane Milstead at her father’s home. I’m now willing to posit that the couple were likely wed on the plantation ‘Good Luck If It Hits.’

In 1725, Ford begins amassing land grants from Lord Fairfax, including tracts on Pope’s Head Creek, off the Occoquan River and almost due west, across the Potomac from Milstead holdings at Charles County. Ford attains the stature of Vestryman in Truro Parish. Notes from February 1776 show him in deep planning with another member of the parish: Ford and Col. George Washington are laying out the plans for a new church building … with the exacting detail I've come to expect from the nation's first President. [See The History of Truro Parish in Virginia, by Peter Coldham, pg. 137.]

The Fords bear, as their 2nd son and 7th surviving child, Edward Ford, Sr. (1734-1814). Edward also marries well: the mother of his bride, Elizabeth Keith (1745-1821), was a Randolph. Edward too becomes Vestryman in Truro Parish and - despite doubling the size of landholdings he’d inherited - brings his children onto thousands of fresh, uncultivated Kentucky acres he (with a Charles Morgan) had surveyed for him on the Licking River. With them is daughter Susan Tarleton Ford (1770-1830). She will marry James Rogers (1771-1840) in 1810. To them will be born Adeline Ford Rogers (1812-1887) and she will marry Dr. Joseph Early (1800-1871) in 1838. They will give birth to my great-grandfather, Rogers Randolph Early on 1 March 1852. I derive my first name from Rogers' son, subsequently styled Roger Randolph Early.

[Young Fellows upon Wrong Pursuits centers on Elizabeth's mother, Mary Isham (Randolph) Keith (c1718-1753). While She Was Laughing Them To Scorn introduces Elizabeth's father, Rev. James Keith (1696-1753). Roger Randolph Early, Jr. (1893-1951), appears in A Basket Filled with Tears and Flowers.]

Discovering I descend from a man for years denied his freedom was initially startling. I now understand at least a quarter of those arriving in the Province of Maryland, contemporary to Edward Milstead and Susannah Clarke, were contracted into forced labor. Despite Milstead's eventual success, Crown policy sticks in my craw. Europe's economy was depressed, and both skilled and unskilled laborers were without work. Drawing income from New World lands, obtained by conquest, would have been attractive to royal investors. But the family rupture with preceding Milstead generations was significant, whether due to shame or the difficulty of a likely illiterate communicating with his European family in primitive conditions.

TOP

Notes:
Though Susannah Clarke's soon-to-be master was a 1675 wedding guest, it is interesting to see that Virginia Law weighed in on secret marriages:

"WHEREAS many greate abuses and much detriment have been found to arise both against the lawe of God and likewise to the service of many masters of ffamilies in the collonie, occasioned through secret marriages of servants, their masters and mistresses not any waies made privie thereunto, As also by comitting of ffornication; for the prevention of the like abuses hereafter, Be it enacted, and confirmed by this Grand Assembly that what servant soever hath since January, 1656, or hereafter shall secretly marrie with any maid or woman servant without the consent of her master or mistresse, (if she be a widowe) hee or they soe offending shall in the first place serve out his or their times with his or their master or mistresse, and after shall serve his or their master or mistresse one complete yeare more for such offence comited, And the maid or woman servant so marrying without consent as aforesaid shall for such her offence to her master or mistresse serve one year after her freedom by indenture ..."

Also:
I managed, initially, to find the wrong Susannah Clarke; but in so doing, learned something about colonial practices tending to anchor marriage.

By custom, Maryland couples married in the mid-17th century were awarded a flitch of bacon (side of salted and cured pork) ... if they could swear to not having regretted their marriage for a year and a day. In 1659 Susan and James Atchison gave depositions in a Calvert County, Maryland case involving Cornelius Abrams: "Susan Acheson wife unto James Atchison aged 27 yeares or thereabouts, Sayth That John Knap did deliuer unto Two of Cornelius Abrams seruants ffowre fflitches of Bacon, for the use of their Master, & to the best of her remembrance they weighed One hundd & fifty pownds ..." Susannah Clarke - subject in this Milstead account and likely born in 1658 - was not yet in the New World. The maiden name for Susan Atchison (referenced here) is unknown. She was born c1632 and later took her final surname from a fourth husband, Richard Clarke.

I am indebted to the 96,000 entries Mike Marshall has compiled at 1658-1758 Charles County MD Families: The first 100 years.

The Impatient Man at My Elbow

My 5x gr-grandfather, Thomas Burris (c1722 – 1789), made sacrifices in what Americans call the French and Indian War. He fought from darn near the inception of hostilities. According to Hawthorne in the Register of the Kentucky Historical Society, Vol. III (pg 107), Burris “fought at the Battle of the Meadows in early July 1754, and was one of the number ‘who received the present of a Pistole from the Country as an acknowledgement of their gallant behavior upon that occasion.’” Of 400 Virginians engaged in service to The Crown, 17 were killed and 43 wounded (a 15% casualty rate in nine hours of combat). According to an unknown book; found in Burris Family Folders at the public library in Winchester, Kentucky: “George Washington personally presented [Burriss] with a pistol for bravery. The citation is in Washington's handwriting. He is referred to as Sgt. Burrus.”
See note: A Pistole was probably not a weapon.

It's incontrovertible that the 22-year-old Col. George Washington knew Private Burris, ten years his senior. Both a Thomas Burris and Thomas Bhurras are listed on a roll for the Virginia Regiment which surrendered Fort Necessity to the French and their native allies that summer. Washington, however, sternly and suspiciously noted that he was uncertain whether some of his troops arrived in camp after the battle.

19^th century rendition of Fort Cumberland in 1755.

This gruesome letter, from Lt. Col. Adam Stephen, to Washington (in charge of Virginia troops at Fort Cumberland on the Potomac River (right), where routed Virginians had retreated and been joined by Marylanders) describes how Burris became a casualty between 9am and noon on 25 Sep 1755. Another man "who would not venture to Run" was captured. Wounded by a tomahawk, “Burris was lucky enough to escape.”

Maryland Gazette, 2 Oct 1755

Burris was tomahawked the year following the Battle of the Meadows at Fort Necessity. It is likely that the regimental surgeon, Scotsman James Craik (1730-1814), performed the amputation. The Maryland Gazette (Annapolis), dated 2 October 1755, has an account of this affair (left). Stephen’s incident report does not mention a wound to the head.

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania now occupies the land on which the French Fort DuQuesne stood. Young Washington was one of British General Edward Braddock’s two aides in an attack on Fort DuQuesne. Private Burris had likely seen action at Braddock’s Defeat/ Battle of the Monongahela/ Battle of the Wilderness on 9 July, 1755. He served in Company M, under Capt. George Mercer, maternal cousin to George Mason.

The National Archives have done an excellent job of  cross-referencing Burris entries in their collection of Washington's papers. Following the hyperlink trail, I met with some consternation their next revelation. In this letter, Col. Washington - while at his headquarters in Winchester, Virginia - writes Stephen, his second-in-command, about the ‘villain Burrass:’

6 September 1756 –  [Cpl. Philemon Waters and Thomas Burris both served in Mercer’s company.] “Waters and Burrass behaved extremely ill when they were sent down last. If I could lay my hands on them, I would try the effect of 1000 lashes on the former, and whether a General court-martial would not condemn the latter to a life eternal! I shall not at this time enumerate the different kinds of charges laid to both—but desire you will enquire minutely of Mr Burrass what he did with the mare he brought from Fort-Cumberland: She was a creature belonging to the Heirs of Theobald, [poss. Michael Teabolt] caught by Captain Ashby for me. I intended to have had her appraised, and allowed the heirs her full value. She was first carried to Fort-Cumberland, then brought down by that villain Burrass, and here sold or swapped—I want to know to whom, that I may get her, & do as I first intended.” 

Washington carries on for many paragraphs, explaining how he wants plunder handled in the future.

It was on 25 May 1757 that the Virginia House of Burgesses resolved that the Treasurer pay £10 out of Public Money ‘in his hands’ to Burris “as a Recompence for the Loss of his Arm in the Service of his Country,” which was, at that time, more likely Virginia than England.

Journals of the House of Burgesses, page 478. Entry for 25 May 1757.

I'd like to think it a tribute to Burris' character that, despite wounds received, he persevered in wartime service. Fitting his abilities to military need, he was chosen to act as a courier. Because some correspondents referred to the messenger, my ancestor remains in the historical record.

Commisary officer Maj. John Carlyle writes Washington from Alexandria. The one-armed Burris is apparently back in good graces: he had delivered Washington’s letter written on 27 August. Five days later, we have this reply.

1 September 1758 – “It is Extream Wett Weather & Burriss In his Shirt I recolected I had the Suit of Cloaths that was At Williamsburg I therefor Lett him have them to Carrey Up & Deliver to You.”

What service was Burriss then performing for his country? Was he modelling a fine suit of clothes? More likely he stood; tired, wet and bedraggled; in worn buckskins. Carlyle had added fineries to his saddlebag.

Also dated 1 September 1758 is a letter destined for Washington from his mentor, George William Fairfax, penned at Fairfax’s plantation Belvoir. He begs off in the second sentence, writing,“… I dont care to detain the bearer.” 

Near the end of this rather short note, Fairfax writes:

“And being call’d upon by an impatient Man at my Elbow, which I hope will be a sufficient Apology to conclude with all our Compliments …”

In the curator’s notes we find:

“The impatient man was Thomas Burris who brought down from GW at his camp the two [now] missing letters to Fairfax (dated 22 & 27 August) as well as the missing letter of 27 Aug. to John Carlyle, and the missing letter to Humphrey Knight referred to in Knight’s letter of 2 September. Burris got back to Fort Cumberland from Alexandria and Winchester on 11 Sept. with letters from Alexandria and environs, written by John Carlyle (1 Sept.), George William Fairfax (1 Sept.), Sarah Cary Fairfax (1 Sept., missing), Humphrey Knight (2 Sept.), John Patterson (2 Sept.), and probably John Kirkpatrick (3 Sept.), and with letters from Winchester and environs written by Charles Smith (7 Sept.) and perhaps by Christopher Hardwick (3 Sept.).” 

The unmarried Washington was supposedly sweet on Fairfax’s wife, Sarah (Cary) Fairfax. It is not unlikely that the missing note from her was deemed too personal to survive. A purported love letter from Sally, dated 12 September 1758, is thought to be a forgery. The date of the missive fits the scheme of things, however.
See note: Convergence on the Cary clan.

On the cover of a letter, written 2 September 1758 by Humphrey Knight at Mount Vernon, to be delivered to Washington, was the notation: “Sr I was obli[ged] to let Bu[rris] have 2.6 shillings before [he] would go away: H.K.” Knight, reporting the plantation’s profitability to its owner, may have sought to highlight fiduciary responsibility to his employer. Burris seems not only impatient, but insistent.

Washington's map of route between HQ & Ft. Cumberland.

These curator’s notes give readers a sense of the time Burris was investing, and how far he traveled between collection points. It may have taken ten days to get from one end of the circuit they've described to the other. 
(See Google map here.) 

Washington's map (right) relays his perception of the geography Burris operated in, when close to the front lines. Missives from landed gentry do little to describe the risks he faced as a wartime courier.

On 7 Sep 1758 Capt. Charles Smith writes Washington from Fort Loudoun, which was under Smith's authority.

“I was oblig. to keep Burris one Day after he came from Alexandrey, there being many Gentlemen at cort wanting to write to ther friends at camp & withall to send the Last Papers up. I have kept a hors Burris Wrode Down here very Poor, which most People says he is yours …” 

Memories of ‘sharp dealing’ may have lingered in Smith’s assessment of Thomas Burris’ character. The consequences of being caught trading in horseflesh a second time could have been deadly for Burris. The selection of able mounts might indicate Burris' desire to succeed in his task ... in difficult terrain.

Smith continues about the horse more than a week later:

18 Sep 1758 – “The Horse that Burres rode Down is a Light bay about 14 Hands high, favours a horse I have seen you have no brands, only some white hairs Groing on the top of his Neck the Reason of my Stoping him—Burres first told me he was Your’s, & you Lent him & afterwards Offered him for Sale, hardwick says he Does not know him to be Yours.”

From the curators:

“Thomas Burris brought GW’s letters down from Fort Cumberland to Winchester and Alexandria in late August. Smith took this horse - the ‘Light bay’ - from Burris on Burris’s return from Alexandria to Winchester [en route] to Fort Cumberland. This was the same “villain Burrass” who in 1756 “sold or swapped” one of GW’s [Teabolt’s estate’s] horses …” 

Is there an aspersion here, cast by curators in the National Archives?

A month later, Smith continues to contend with the ‘Light bay.’ He writes Washington on 12 October 1758, “I have sent the Horse I Stopt from Burris to Your Quarter …” The man responsible for Washington's Bullskin Plantation reports he does not recognize the horse as Washington's.

Thomas Burris, Sr. had married Frances Tandy (1730-1816) in 1750. They’d had four daughters (including my 4x gr-grandmother Sarah) by the time Tom lost his arm in 1755. Two more children were born between his trauma and the inception of Burris’ courier service. Daughter Jane was likely conceived in late September or early October of 1758, around the time Burris disappears from this set of records.

North American hostilities between France and Britain ended in 1760. Frances bore Thomas two more sons and two daughters in peacetime. Thomas lived out his days in Orange County, Virginia, but Frances and the children migrated to his Kentucky lands after his death. [See Condemned to a Life Eternal.]

Notes ~
Burris' Pistole:
A Pistole was probably not a weapon. It was likely a Spanish doubloon, perhaps in addition to ‘bounty money’ of £2 8p Burris received for service from 29 July – 29 September 1754. A 'Pistole' is also colloquialism for a land patent greater than 100 acres. I’ve found no land records for Burris/ Burras/ Burrace/ Burroughs/ Bhurass/ Birris/ Burrows from that era. His 1788 will, however allocates more than 2000 acres in Kentucky, perhaps granted during the revolutionary era.

Mapmaker and surveyor George Washington aspired to follow Fairfax into land speculation. According to Loudermilk, the 'New Store' in Stephen's 1755 account of Burris' wounds (above) was a storehouse or magazine, situated by the Ohio Company of Virginia and protected by Fort Cumberland. Those with access to men like Mercer and Washington had opportunities to cash in on westward expansion. In 1767 Washington acquired the land on which the Battle of The Meadows was fought. He kept title to the 234-acre tract that he called 'Mount Washington,' until he died.

Side Note on Sarah Cary:
Sarah Cary (1730-1811) and I both are to have descended from Col. Thomas Randolph (1683-1729) and wife Judith Fleming (1689-1743). Cary’s great, great-grandparents are my 6x great-grandparents … via Randolph lines that lead, individually, to each of my maternal grandparents.

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