Darwintern Home The Origin of Darwins I: William Darwin - Colonial Virginia 1743-1776

 

I: William Darwin: Colonial Virginia 1743-1776

 

I: William Darwin: Colonial Virginia 1743-1776 Early Records of Hanover and Louisa Counties Family of William Darwin Hardy/Darwin Lawsuit of 1743 Shelton/Darwin Lawsuit of 1743 Harralson/Walton Land Deed of 1744 The 1746 Hardy/Darwin Land Indenture William Darwins, Junior and Senior? Theory A: Junior Born 1707 Theory B: Junior Born 1742 The Darwin Home in Louisa County The French and Indian War James Darwin’s Migration to South Carolina Colonial Politics

 

The vast majority of American Darwins bear the surname as a legacy from a single progenitor, one William Darwin of Virginia, who also bears one of the earliest known occurrences of the name in North America . He was a farmer who had been born in 1707 (parents and birthplace unknown) and who lived, at least for the latter 43 of his 79 years, in Louisa County. Apart from a family Bible record, considered later, the only surviving documents concerning William Darwin are official records from that county.

Early Records of Hanover and Louisa Counties

 

William Darwin lived in north central Virginia between the North and South Anna rivers, approximately 45 miles northwest of Richmond. The area had originally been incorporated into the Commonwealth of Virginia in 1654 as part of New Kent County. In 1721, this same portion was included in the newly-created Hanover County. In turn, Hanover County was bisected in 1742, with the western portion designated as Louisa County, which name it still bears today.

 

These changes in administrative boundaries during the course of William Darwin’s lifetime have a profound bearing on our knowledge of his origins, as it is only Louisa County for which complete records have survived. Early public records for New Kent County perished in a fire in 1787 (an act of arson by one John Price Posey, for which crime he was hanged), and those for Hanover County also went up in flames, in 1865 (somewhat ironically, while being stored in Richmond for supposed safe-keeping during the Civil War).

 

None of the surviving documents of either New Kent or Hanover Counties refer to William Darwin; the earliest Louisa County record found so far dates from shortly after the County's formation, when William was 36 years of age. In the absence of any official records, it is impossible to establish from whence William Darwin came.

 

It is of course possible that William Darwin was born or had resided from a much earlier age in the same area in which he later lived, but any official documents of his earlier life (such as court cases or land transactions) would have been recorded at New Kent or Hanover courthouses and subsequently perished. Or it may be that in 1743, the date of the earliest surviving official document, William Darwin was a recent arrival in Louisa, perhaps from England or elsewhere in the American Colonies. In the absence of evidence, none of these possibilities can be argued strongly. But we incline toward the view William Darwin arrived in Louisa County in his adult years, chiefly because all of the later Darwins in the region appear to be his own offspring. Had he been born into an earlier generation of Darwins already in the area, it would be reasonable to expect some records of his relations or their descendents in Louisa or adjoining counties, but no such records appear to exist.

 

Family of William Darwin

 

Before considering the surviving Louisa County documents concerning William Darwin, there is one other unique source for William Darwin’s first 36 years. The document, which other researchers have designated the Darwin-Bland "Bible" Record more properly belongs in our later consideration of the family in South Carolina, but we offer a partial transcription here for its help in the narrative of William Darwin's life.

 

Marriages and Births

William Darwin born June 26th................... 1707

And Maried Sept 26th...................................1734

Jane Darwin born June 23thd........................1715

1. Agnes Darwin born June 29th................173(x)

2. Jane Darwin born Sept 26th....................1737

3. Keziah Darwin born Jan 13th..................1740

4. William Darwin born August 5th............1742

5. James Darwin born June 19th.................17(xx)

6. Bartlett Darwin born Jan 3th...................1(xxx)

 

This incomplete page of the “Darwin/Bland Bible Record” is our sole source for the birth dates of William Darwin, his wife Jane, and their first 6 children. The precise years for Agnes, James and Bartlett are not legible in the original (marked (x); Agnes was probably born in 1735, James in 1744, and Bartlett in 1745 or 1746.

 

There are many curious features of this document, which are considered in a later chapter. As will be shown, the presence in this record of a Bland family tree and the recording of floods on the Broad River in South Carolina between 1784 and 1834 certainly associates the document with William's son John, who married Jane Bland in 1783. But it should be noted here that no maiden name is given for William’s wife, though later researchers have generally stated it as ‘Wilkinson’ or ‘Wilkerson.’ However, we have been unable to find any original document in which this maiden name is given, despite its wide currency in secondary sources. Until such an original source can be found (which perhaps contains further information on the family), the maiden name of Jane, William Darwin’s wife, cannot be stated.

 

Given the “Darwin/Bland Bible Record’s” undoubted connection with the family, it seems reasonable to accept its genealogical data, which agrees with findings by other family researchers. Thus, following the chart drawn up by Christopher B. Darwin, we may show our present "best guess" about William Darwin's family as follows:

 

 

Acknowledging that our sources above are imperfect, our provisional narrative of William Darwin's life can be outlined. He was born 26 June 1707, place and parents unknown. He was 27 in 1734, when he married Jane (surname unknown) on 26 September, place again unknown; his bride, born 23 June 1715, was 19 years of age. They appear to have lost no time starting a family: just over nine months later (and barely missing their own birthdays on the 23rd and 26th), Jane gave birth on 29 June 1735 to their first child, daughter Agnes.

 

We do not know where they were for their third wedding anniversary on 26 September 1737, but we know the day was marked by the arrival of their second child, daughter Jane. The third daughter, Keziah, arrived over two years later, on 13 January 1740. Without venturing into too elaborate a conjecture, it is at least worth noting that it was the second rather than the first daughter who was given the mother's name, perhaps suggesting that “Agnes" was also the name of either William's or Jane's own mother—but we have no evidence.

 

But perhaps it is not too fanciful to suppose that there was no hesitation in naming their fourth child, born 5 August 1742: William Darwin, the 35-year-old father of three daughters, named his first son after himself, and possibly thereby after the child’s grandfather.

 

Hardy/Darwin Lawsuit of 1743

 

Just under a year after this first son's birth, we can at last place the Darwin family in Louisa County as a certainty. In his 36th year, William Darwin seems to have undergone some financial embarrassment. The register of Louisa County court proceedings notes, for July 1743, names William Darwin as the defendant in a Lawsuit brought by Thomas Hardy. This is the earliest record found to date concerning William Darwin, but it contains no further details about the nature of the lawsuit. This particular suit was either settled on this one hearing or subsequently dropped; in either case, no permanent ill-will would seem to have been in place here, as William Darwin (as will be shown) subsequently purchases 100 acres from this same Thomas Hardy.

 

Shelton/Darwin Lawsuit of 1743

 

William Darwin's financial embarrassment at this time is indicated by further entries in the register of Louisa County court proceedings, which notes a Shelton/Darwin Lawsuit, commencing with an entry on 12 September 1743 for a:

 

Suit by petition between Major Kimbrow ptf. and William Darwin deft. Action of debt between James Shelton appointee of A. Graham ptf. and William Darwin, deft.

 

We do not know the details of the case, part of which continued on 10 October with an

 

Action of court between James Shelton, assignee of Augustine Graham ptf. and William Darwin, deft.

 

The case had grown even more complicated by December, when it is listed as

 

James Shelton vs. William Darwin in debt. John Redd vs. William Darwin in Trespass for assault and battery.

 

Without knowing particulars of these hearings, it is not necessary to assume William was habitually tardy as a debtor or unusually quick-tempered. Taking neighbours to court seems to have been something of a pastime in the colonies, and our national appetite for such litigation has scarcely diminished in the intervening centuries.!

 

Harralson/Walton Land Deed of 1744

 

In December 1743, William Darwin may or may not have been worried about the court case; we may be safer in supposing he was more concerned by the pending arrival of their fifth child. Nor does any stigma seem to have attached from his court case with James Shelton, for on 13 February 1743 (Old Style: February 1744 on our calendar) William Darwin acted as a witness to the 1744 Land Deed of "Burgis Harralson of St. Pauls Par., Hanover County" to "John Walton of St. Martin's Par., Hanover Co." As will be seen, William Darwin subsequently purchased 100 acres adjoining John Walton’s tract—and may further have been allied to him by the marriage of a Darwin daughter.

 

On 19 June 1744 (only days before her own 29th birthday and her husband's 37th birthday), Jane Darwin gave birth to their second son, James—from whom the majority of American Darwins today are descended.

 

Whatever the outcome of the court proceedings, matters seem to have soon settled down; no further suits against William Darwin are recorded. Probably a year and half after James' birth, a sixth child was added to the family, third son Bartlett. The Darwin-Bland "Bible" Record shows his birth date as "Jan 5th 17(xx)"; the rest of the page is missing. Christopher B. Darwin gives the year as "1746": supposing that this was also the date on the missing part of the page, and that the Darwin-Bible "Bible" Record is a later copy from some contemporary source, it may be that the date "Jan 5th 1746" is Old Style and thus January 1747 on the modern calendar.

 

The 1746 Hardy/Darwin Land Indenture

 

Thus we are not certain if, in October 1746, William Darwin was a recent or expectant father of six. Indeed, as will be seen, we do not know for certain how many of his offspring survived infancy. But whatever the size of his family at the time, it is in October 1746 that William purchases 100 acres of land for the sum of 15 pounds from a Thomas Hardy and Ambrose Smith , the tract adjoining that of John Walton of the witnessed 1744 Deed. As this 1746 Hardy - Darwin Land Indenture seems to contain genealogical information (albeit controversial), it is given in full:

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William Darwins, Junior and Senior?

 

There are two possible genealogical interpretations from the particulars of this indenture. Two William Darwins are distinguished, Senior and Junior, and the question immediately arises, which William is the one whom we know, from the Darwin-Bland "Bible" Record as the one born in 1707? The two theories may be summarised:

 

Theory A: Junior Born 1707

A common reading of the 1746 Indenture takes the named "William Darwin, Junr" to be the one who was born in 1707. In this interpretation, the Indenture thus includes a genealogical "bonus" by revealing the previous generation of the family, namely the "William Darwin, Senr., and Jean his wife." The assumption is that 36 year old William Darwin, Junior, required financial assistance from his father, William Darwin, Senior, in order to purchase the 100 acres, and secured that aid by writing both his parents (“William and Jean his wife”) into the deed.

 

Theory B: Junior Born 1742

Under this interpretation, the “Senior” William Darwin is the one born in 1707, and the “Junior” is his son, William, whom we know from the Darwin-Bland "Bible" Record to have been born in August 1742. In this interpretation, 36 year old William Darwin, Senior, purchases the 100 acres in the name of his 4 year-old son, William Junior by means of a Life Estate Deed, whereby the son does not come into title until the death of his named parents.

 

 

Theory A, Junior Born 1707, has a certain currency among other researchers’ notes published on the internet, probably because it appears to more closely match the interpretation one would give a modern real estate deed, as Life Estate Deeds are now a rarity. Such a reading certainly seems plausible and was indeed our own first assessment. But further investigation has led us to regard Theory B, Junior Born 1742, as far more likely to be correct, for the following reasons:

 

• First, we strongly suspect the name JEAN represents a spelling of JANE (both would have been pronounced identically); we have seen very clearly in other 18th-century American cases where both spellings are used interchangeably to refer unquestionably to the same individual. That William Darwins Junior and Senior (in the Theory A reading) should both have wives named JANE is not, given the frequency of the names, a noteworthy ‘coincidence’. But the spelling in the document alone does not rule out the possibility that "William Darwin Senr and Jean his wife" in fact refers to William Darwin (1707-86) and Jane (?Wilkinson).

 

• The 1746 Indenture needs to be considered in its contemporary context , and we are likely to be wrong to read it as we would a modern deed. We think this Indenture represents a transaction whereby William Darwin Senior (in this reading, the one who lived 1707-86) and Jane (?Wilkinson) secure title to 100 acres in the name of their 4-year-old firstborn son William Darwin Jr. (b. 1742), their son not to come into possession of title until their own deaths. The advantage of making the transaction this way would be to remove the need for a change of title (with attendant stamp or other legal costs) across two generations; in the event, when William Jr. (b.1742) died before his father (as we assume, for we know nothing further about him), title would automatically fall to the father and was subsequently transferred (as we know) in his will. More immediately, given the previous legal actions for debt against him, William Darwin may have used to Life Estate Deed to ensure his land was not in his own name and thus safe from future legal action by his creditors.

 

• The arrival of second son James in 1744 and third son Bartlett in 1746 or 1747 might have encouraged his father to think along the lines of eventual inheritance: 100 acres was simply not enough to divide among several sons. In accordance with the English practise of primogeniture , the eldest son would inherit to the exclusion of any younger in the event the father died intestate, so neither a Will nor a Life Estate deed was necessary to pass the property on to William Junior (born 1742). However, a Life Estate deed would allow provision to be made for William Senior’s widow (Jane (?Wilkinson)) without the overhead of other legal instruments, such as a Will.

 

• Perhaps the most telling argument against Theory A is that the 1746 Indenture is unique in naming two William Darwins, Junior and Senior. If there were two adult William Darwins, father and son, in Louisa in 1743, there would seem a good chance the lawsuits against one would specify Darwin Senior or Junior, and if so that would have to be conclusive that William Darwin (1707-1786) is indeed Junior. And if there were an elder William Darwin, who had indeed arranged in 1747 to spend the remainder of his life, with his wife, in a county for which all early records have survived, how can there be neither a will nor, if he died intestate, other legal documents about him? How can he not appear in any of the later parish or county tithing records, when his ‘son’ does?

 

For these reasons, we think it nearly certain that

 

• “William Darwin, Senr” of the 1746 Indenture is the same “William Darwin” of the Darwin/Bland Bible Record born in June 1707—and thus the same “William Darwin” of later Louisa County records down to 1786

 

• “Jean his wife” is the Jane (? Wilkinson) Darwin, born 1715, of the Darwin/Bland Bible Record

 

• “William Darwin, Junr” of the 1746 Indenture is the same “William Darwin” of the Darwin/Bland Bible Record born in June 1742, son of the William Darwin born in 1707. It is highly probable this William subsequently died in childhood.

 

The above interpretation, we believe, is a far better fit with the available documents. Unless further evidence is found, the assumption that the parents of the William Darwin, born in 1707, were an otherwise undocumented "William and Jean" in Louisa County in 1746 is not proven, and that the designation "Junior" applied to this William Darwin is almost certainly an error.

 

 

The Darwin Home in Louisa County

 

A superb piece of research in September 1992 by Bill and Bonnie Darwin of Grand Terrace, California, successfully located William Darwin's 100 acre tract (Bill and Bonnie Darwin, Newsletter of 1 December 1992, who also provided the following photgraphs). The house on the site has been identified as 18th Century and may have been built by William Darwin, or perhaps by his son Jesse. The site is off Route 608 near its intersection with Route 701 (identified as the Old Bethany Church Road) very close to the border of Hanover County: the modern address of the property is 265 Signboard Road, Bumpass, Virginia 23024 (N 37 54'01.44", W 77 44'54.11").

 

 

 

 

The property is identified in Chisholm, Claudia Anderson and Lillie, Ellen Gray: Old Home Places of Louisa County (1979: Louisa County Historical Society) as follows (the form of the name "Durvin" is considered in Chapter II):

 

 

Bill and Bonnie Darwin also commissioned a title search establishing chain of title back to William Darwin and his wife in 1746 (which tends to confirm the Theory B interpretation of the Indenture of that date). Search undertaken by Valerie G. Waller of the Louisa Title Company (310 E. Main St., Louisa, Virginia); title works back to Darwin ownership as follows:

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James C. Hardyman and Susan Jane Hardyman

(in Deed Book W, p. 268) 7 Aug 1838. 62 acres from

 

William Durvin and Elizabeth Durvin

(in unknown) from

 

Jesse Darwin

(in Will Book 3, p. 163) 1786. 85 acres from

 

William Darwin and Jean Darwin

(in Deed Book A, p. 262) 31 Oct 1746. 100 acres.

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Much of the cultivated land of Virginia at that time was given over to tobacco, and William Darwin may have raised this lucrative crop during at least part of his tenure in Louisa County. But whatever he farmed, the local economy was dominated by tobacco production, notes issued against stores of tobacco even circulating as money. In 1748, two years after William Darwin purchased his 100 acres, a British statute even specified that Anglican clergy be paid in tobacco—at the rate of 17,280 pounds of tobacco annually.

 

We do not have a date of birth for William's son Jesse; our best guess is that he was born sometime between Bartlett's birth in 1746/7 and John's on 19 March 1755. It cannot be ruled out that may have been other offspring (born after Bartlett in 1746?) who did not survive infancy. Of the eight known children of William and Jane Darwin, only four—James, John, Jesse and one daughter (probably Agnes, as we have noted)—are positively known to have reached adulthood.

 

William was nearly 48 at the time of John's birth, and Jane nearly 40: if all of John's siblings were living, their ages would have been Agnes (19), Jane (17), Keziah (15), William (12), James (10), Bartlett (9), and possibly Jesse (?). Even supposing the eldest daughter Agnes had left home to marry by this time, or that infant mortality had previously claimed some of his offspring, it seems safe enough to imagine William Darwin had quite a few mouths to feed from 100 acres.

 

The French and Indian War

 

It may be that providing for his sizable family and its most recent addition wholly occupied William Darwin's thoughts and energies, but it is more probable he would have shared in the public interest aroused by General Edward Braddock's arrival in Virginia in April 1755. Appointed the previous year Commander of all British forces in America, his opening campaign in what would be the last of the French and Indian Wars was an attempt on Fort Duquesne (now Pittsburgh), against which he led a column of 1400 British Regulars and 450 Colonial Militiamen. The campaign was a disaster (by general consent, through Braddock's incompetence), ending when the British forces were surrounded and severely mauled. Braddock himself was mortally wounded, leaving the survivors of his forces to be led back to Maryland by the commander of the Colonial Militia, Lt. Col George Washington. Among the survivors was Edward Lacey, a 12-year-old-boy who had run away from his home in Shippensburg, Pennsylvania to join the militia--and was allowed to look after the pack horses. After Braddock's Defeat, his father found him in service and brought him back home. At age 16, he ran away again--this time to Chester District, South Carolina, where he plays a part in the later history of the Darwin family .

 

Braddock's Defeat marked the beginning of a period of renewed hostilities on the colonial frontiers, although formal declaration of war by Britain upon France was not made until the following year, on 17 May 1756. Later known as the Seven Years' War, this conflict would prove to be the culmination of the vast dynastic struggle that had been waged between Britain and France since 1689.

 

The formal outbreak of war, which was not proclaimed in Williamsburg until 7 August 1756, was greeted with much popular enthusiasm: many colonists (not least, Lt. Col. Washington, who was already a considerable landowner) were eager to see French influence in the Mississippi valley overturned and "new"—that is, Indian—lands made available for colonial expansion. How a man of William Darwin's modest holdings viewed the war is less certain. In the main, popular sentiment favoured the war aims but often grumbled about the means, particularly service in the militia.

 

No doubt, many reports (and even more rumours) circulated in Louisa about frontier raids, invasion scares, and new campaigns against Fort Duquesne, but there were always pressing concerns closer to home. The severe drought of 1758 ruined much of the Virginian harvest of tobacco, which trebled in price, and led to tensions between Virginia and Britain. The House of Burgesses, responding to pressure from planters, passed a law whereby debts payable in tobacco could, for the following year, be settled in currency at the rate of two pence per pound of tobacco (higher than the normal price, but lower than the prevailing inflated one). Called the Two Penny Act, the statue angered some colonial clergymen, who through the Privy Council in London had the Act set aside in 1759. The Councillors added to their ruling a coda stating that local Virginian laws contrary to the British government's instructions had no force.

 

With the Act thus overturned, some clergymen sued to collect their salaries in kind. The first two county court cases heard found against the clergymen. But the third was won by a Reverend James Maury—of Louisa County. The case went to jury to determine the amount of damages to be awarded to Rev. Maury. To argue against the clergyman, the court appointed an unknown and inexperienced lawyer from adjoining Hanover County, 23-year-old Patrick Henry. The case, known as the Parson's Cause, was the making of Henry, who in the course of the hearing defiantly proclaimed, "a King, by disallowing (Virginian) Acts of this salutary nature, far from being the father of his people, degenerates into a Tyrant, and forfeits all rights to his subjects' obedience." This speech brought forth some cries of "Treason!", but the jury was moved to award Rev. Maury damages of just one penny.

 

Henry's inflammatory speech made the Parson's Cause a celebrated case throughout Virginia. We can assume the Darwins were well aware of this local issue which did much to fuel anti-British sentiment even as British arms were prevailing over the French and securing the interior for colonial expansion. The case established the radical credentials of the local young firebrand Patrick Henry, who continued as a spokesman for colonial disaffection with London over the following years.

 

The Treaty of Paris (1763), brought a formal end to the Seven Years' War: French Canada and Spanish Florida were ceded to Great Britain, more than doubling British holdings in the Americas and setting the foundations for an imperial system of unprecedented scale. Among the American Colonists, the territorial expansion inspired boundless enthusiasm: James Otis, speaking at a peace celebration in Boston, joyously proclaimed, "What God in his providence has united, let no man dare attempt to pull asunder!"

 

Yet within two years, Otis would be a member of the Massachusetts Committee of Correspondence, author of an influential tract denouncing Parliamentary powers over the American colonies, and an orator of radical reputation. Ironically, Otis' dispute with British rule arose directly from the imperial aggrandisement he had so lavishly praised. Acquiring and defending the vast new empire was expensive: in the view of Parliament, the American Colonists, who stood to gain so much, must also help meet the costs. To this end, the Stamp Act was passed.

Word of this new tax, due to come into force on 1 November 1765, reached the Colonies in the spring of that year, where it was received with mounting discontent. In a special election, the people of Louisa County chose Patrick Henry as their representative. He took his seat at the House of Burgesses in Williamsburg on 20 May and, ten days later, introduced the Virginia Resolves. The Resolves sought to establish the principle that American Colonists, having no representatives in Parliament, could not be taxed by Parliament. They were only partially adopted, but the episode was a critical opening salvo in the growing struggle for independence--in which the Burgess for Louisa County would play a prominent role.

 

We cannot know what William Darwin thought of his local representative, but he may well have shared in the general discontent with Parliament. The only certain document found so far concerning him is the 1765 Tate Land Deed, which simply names William Darwin as the owner of the land adjoining the tract of this particular deed.

 

One puzzling document (but uncertain) suggestive of the Darwins' political views concerns service in the Colonial militia and dates from 1767. In apparent protest over British rule, large numbers of local militia men (sometimes entire companies) failed to report at a required mustering: the penalty was a fine (sum unknown), and it would seem from the large number of violations that failure to appear may have been an orchestrated protest. In recorded court martial proceedings held 16 April 1768 , a "John Dervin" is listed with nine others of "Capt. Benjamin Harrison's deliquents" ordered

 

...John Dervin...to appear at the next court martial to show why they did not appear at a private muster on 27 June 1767

 

(This document is reprinted in Bocstruck, Lloyd Dewitt: Virginia's Colonial Soldiers (1988); the mustering was not near Louisa County).

 

We previously thought, if "John Darwin" is indeed the name here, that this could not be William Darwin's son, who was barely 12 at the time. But the case of Edward Lacey, who at 12 was a survivor of Braddock's Defeat, suggests it is not the impossibility we previously assumed that William's son John is indeed referred to in this militia record. However, we still do not think it probable; it seems far more likely the individual is not a Darwin at all.

 

James Darwin’s Migration to South Carolina

 

Nor do we know just when William's son James migrated to South Carolina, though we are certain he was there before his 23rd birthday in 1767.

 

Strictly speaking, James probably thought he had migrated to North Carolina: an extended controversy at the time over the NC/SC line led the earliest land deeds in what was later determined to be Craven County S.C. (part of which still later formed York District S.C.) to be issued by North Carolina Counties . The region east of the Catawba River was re-surveyed in 1764, that west of it in 1772: prior to those dates, over a thousand land grants in those regions were issued by Mecklenburg County NC (formed from part of Anson County in 1763) and Tryon County (formed from part of Mecklenburg in 1769). Holcomb's notes to the following transcriptions explain the abbreviation "C.B." as "Chain-bearer," denoting "important personages as they are often close neighbours or relatives of the grantee." James Darwin is named as "Chain-Bearer" in at least two North Carolina Land Deeds of this period, and in a third secures land in his own name:

 

 

File No. 2011; Grant No. 437; Book 23, page 36. Plat of 9 February 1767, Surveyed for Zacariah Bullock, 580 acres on Ridge between Turkey and Fishing Creek....Wm Simms, Surveyor, Robert Swan, James Darwin, C.B. Issued 25 April 1767

 

Tryon County NC Deed of 20 July 1770: John FULTON sells 100 acres to James DARWIN, proved by Robt McCurdy.

 

File No. 436, Grant No. 104; Book 20, p. 707. Plat surveyed for John McKenny, 176 acres on both sides of Lafertys Creek of Broad River, adj. Robert McCurdy, John McKnitt Alader (sic.)...Goin Moore, 25 July 1771. Jno Kirkconnell, Survr, Robt. McCurdy, James Darwin, C.B. Granted 14 Nov 1771.

 

Hopefully, further study of the North Carolina deeds will allow us to more precisely identify the above land tracts; the 100 acres James Darwin acquired from John Fulton (probably his first land purchase) were almost certainly very close to the property he later owned. It is possible (though we have no evidence) James already owned land in the district prior to his purchase in July 1770. But even if not, we know that by the time he was barely 26, his own land holdings at least equalled those of his father. And so did some of his responsibilities. We do not know the date or place of the wedding, but some time in the late 1760's James Darwin married Mary Cowan (born 1746).

 

The Zacariah Bullock referenced above was a major holder of land grants in the region: it is possible he was a member of the same Bullock family of Louisa and Hanover Counties, Virginia, where (we know from a later record ) they were likely to have been friends of the Darwins. A branch of the Virginian Bullock family seems to have migrated to South Carolina in much the same way (although slightly earlier) than James Darwin did; perhaps it was through their reports that James decided upon the Carolinas as a region of opportunity. But doubtless, after the peace settlement of 1763, many stories about affordable land on a number of frontiers would have reached James Darwin in Virginia. His reasons for setting out from the Old Dominion were probably much the same as for so many others of his generation.

 

Colonial Politics

 

We need not imagine such migrants lost contact with family back "home"; we know from a later period that family members separated by such migrations endeavoured to maintain contact with one another. More certain is our assumption that James took a lively interest in news of the momentous political agitation spreading throughout the American Colonies in this period. In both North and South Carolina of the late 1760's, groups of Piedmont "Regulators" were in open—and sometimes bloody—conflict with low country planters, heightening the social tensions that would give the approaching Revolution such internecine violence in the region:

 

Unlike a traditional urban uprising, a rural rebellion offered a challenge to the whole social and political pattern. ... The South Carolina Regulator movement developed as settlers with few or no slaves moved down the interior valleys and began to set up a small-farm society. A frontier can be a lawless, ugly place, and theirs rapidly became one. The settlers sought representation in Charleston and could not get it; they sought courts and sheriffs, and their petitions were denied. They finally realised that they had to look to themselves; hence the name they chose. All they wanted, they proclaimed, was to protect their lives. Yet they challenged the power of the governor, Lord Charles Montagu, who called them lawless. They challenged the planters in the Commons House of Assembly, who were more worried about their slaves and about the Stamp Act then they were about the backcountry. Though Montagu once sent the militia to put it down, the movement did not lead to pitched battle, but it did lay bare the differences between lowland and backland. Those differences would count in 1776 (Countryman, Edward: The American Revolution (1985: London), pp. 80-81.)

 

Somewhat confusing can be the disparity between 18th century American rhetoric on liberty and the initiating issues of property, a theme a number of historians have explored:

 

On the surface the Americans' preoccupation with their property—more particularly their determination to resist the levy of taxes on it—seems petty, demeaning, poor stuff with which to make a revolution as they were soon to do with the cry "no taxation without representation." Their concern with property, indeed their obsession with it, should not be dismissed easily; they meant what they said, and they felt more than they could express about the importance of property. Their understanding of property, in fact, was profoundly embedded in their thinking not only about the nature and purposes of political society, but also about the character and meaning of liberty itself. Although the intellectuals—the planters, lawyers, ministers, and others who wrote about public policy—generally agreed that political society had its ultimate origins in divine will, they believed that its purposes were the preservation and regulation of property. It had been formed by agreement or compact among property owners for these purposes. This theory had already had a long life in political speculations, though the Americans learned of it from John Locke's Two Treatises of Government. Locke had used the word "property" in at least two ways, one to mean material possessions, things, land; and another to refer to "lives, liberties, and estates." Property in material possessions arose through the mixing of one's labour with things--cultivating or improving the land, for example. By lives, liberties, and estates as property, Locke seems to have intended that the word "property" represents one's rights--man's freedom and his equality and his power to execute the law of nature. Like man's material possessions, these rights are separate or distinguishable from himself: man can alienate them, can give them up. But a person's consent is required if his rights are to be alienated, just as it is when he surrenders his material possessions. In fact, as Locke described freedom and slavery, slavery existed when consent was not required, when one's person or one's property was subjected to the arbitrary and absolute will of another. (Middlekauff, Robert: The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution 1763-1789 (1982, Oxford University Press))

 

The hated Stamp Act was repealed in the spring of 1766, only to be succeeded by the more provocative Townshend Acts of 1767. Although these Acts were primarily concerned with import levies applied at American ports,

 

a closer look would show that inland life was profoundly affected. Port taxes and restrictions were looked upon as denials of basic colonial rights, and such denials could be extended to reach the deepest settlements or farms. This point was underscored again and again by the spoken, written, and particularly the printed word. Editorially there was a massive unanimity in the press, for the Sons of Liberty were more than reluctant to allow much liberty to opposition sheets. Mr. Royle of the Virginia Gazette, the man who suppressed all mention of the Virginia Resolves, was hustled out of the way and his paper taken over by local Sons (Lancaster, Bruce: The American Revolution (1971, Boston))

 

It is also safe to imagine that a new set of Resolves, introduced to the House of Burgesses in 1769 by Colonel George Washington to restate the claim that only Virginians could tax Virginians, were widely publicised and discussed in Louisa County--and perhaps, through letters from there, James Darwin learned of the growing discontent with British rule. It is very difficult to not presume James Darwin was wholly in agreement with the political stand taken by his fellow Virginian: when James' first child, a son, was born that same year, he gave him the name William Washington Darwin.

 

William Washington Darwin was the first of our family born a South Carolinian, and also the first of his generation to bear the family name (we do not know how many of his cousins, if any, there may have been from James Darwin's elder sisters). He also seems to be the first to have been given a "famous" name, a notorious family habit. And from William Washington Darwin later spring two great branches of our family tree, the Darwins of Rhea County, Tennessee and Madison County, Alabama.

 

Although we can give the above account for William Darwin's second son James, no records at all have yet been found on his first son, William Junior. If living, William Junior would celebrate his 28th birthday in 1770; if our alternate reading of the 1746 Indenture is correct, he stood to eventually gain title to the 100 acres in St. Martin's Parish, Louisa County (and so much would have obliged James Darwin to seek his fortune elsewhere). Or it may be that, just as James did, William Junior migrated to the frontier, but to what destination we do not know. If this latter is the case, it must be noted he does not appear to have started a family, for we have no later records about such supposed descendents. Nor is he likely to have remained in Virginia, for he never comes into possession of title of his father's land. Indeed, our only record of his existence is the Darwin-Bland "Bible" Record given above, which simply notes his birth. The absence of any further records about him cannot be conclusive, but it is highly suggestive he did not survive into adulthood. The same comments apply to William's third son, Bartlett. Unless and until some further evidence about William Junior and Bartlett is found, we incline toward the view both died certainly before starting families of their own, and possibly while still in childhood.

 

The Boston Massacre of March 1770 was hot news carried by a highly partisan press throughout the American Colonies, and we cannot doubt the issue was discussed in the homes of William Darwin of Virginia and James Darwin of South Carolina, whose own family was soon to include his second son, George Cowan Darwin (born 1771) and first daughter, Jane Darwin (born 1773).

 

An intriguing Louisa County Deed is dated 12 April 1773 and abstracted by Janice L. Abercrombie (Louisa County Deed Book D1/2, p. 486):

 

Charles Dickenson and Sarah his wife of Louisa to John Ward of same for £21 for 50 acres. William Ward and Agness his wife shall have their lives in the said 50 acres of land or the longest liver of them.

 

The grantee here could possibly be the same "Charles Dickerson" who engages John Darwin as an overseer in 1775 (described below), and this deed is the basis for the guess that Agnes Darwin, as the wife of William Ward, is the mother of William Darwin's granddaughter Fanny Ward (named in his later will). If this guess is correct, then the John Ward named here is likely to be a brother to Fanny and grandson to William Darwin—and probably a minor named in a life estate deed in the manner we have proposed William Darwin's son is named in the 1746 Indenture.

 

We can imagine William Darwin's son John passing his adolescence well aware of the growing political agitation in New England and sharing in the radical thinking now spreading throughout Virginia and espoused by Patrick Henry, who addressed the First Congress sitting in Philadelphia in September 1774. The historian Edward Countryman argues that, unlike other colonies, Virginia entered upon Revolution with great unity of resolve across all social classes:

 

The Old Dominion had not known serious internal strife since Bacon's Rebellion, a full century earlier. But its leaders were aware both of the decay of their own civic virtue and of the challenge posed by militant evangelical Protestants. So serious was it that at times planters dealt with Baptists and Methodists in the same way that Sir John Johnson tried to deal with Mohawk Valley revolutionaries. In Virginia, even more than in Massachusetts, the top echelon of leaders chose loyalism; 57 percent of the councillors and high administrative officials ended up on the king's side. But save for the men who stood at the very pinnacle, most of Virginia's elite chose the Revolution. As a result, similar to the one in Massachusetts, the provincial assembly became a core of resistance, confronting the governor above it, not the committees below. Lord Dunmore dissolved the House of Burgesses at the end of May 1774, for voting a day of "Fasting, Humiliation and Prayer" against the Intolerable Acts. But its members simply reconvened as a provincial congress. Then they set in motion a campaign to win the backing of lesser Virginians, inviting them to join in rituals of virtue and commitment. Virginians of the "middling and lower classes" stood patiently at county court houses while condescending orators explained how "on the virtue...of the people...does it depend whether we shall be happy or miserable." Others turned out in good order for ceremonies like the return from the Continental Congress in 1775 of Peyton Randolph, its president. As one account, noted by Rhys Isaac, put it, they surrounded "the FATHER of his COUNTRY, whom they attended to his house, amidst repeated acclamations, and then respectfully retired." Virginia's whites entered their Revolution as something close to a united people. The committee movement that grew there reflected the existing order, rather than either a desire or a need to subject that order to change (Countryman, Edward The American Revolution (1985: London), pp. 119-120)

 

In April of 1775, the Battles of Lexington and Concord marked the opening of the War of the Revolution. On 8 May 1775, the brigantine Industry arrived in Charleston, S.C., with news of the outbreak of hostilities in Massachusetts: the South Carolina Assembly at once voted to raise two infantry regiments (1500 men-at-arms) and one million pounds in support of the patriot cause. At the end of the month, a committee in Charlotte, Mecklenburg County N.C., drafted resolutions for the North Carolina delegates to present to the Continental Congress: under the terms of this "Mecklenburg Declaration," British rule in America was proclaimed suspended in favour of the colonial assemblies' sovereignty under Congress (although approved in North Carolina, the resolves were not presented to Congress). And on 8 June, patriot agitation obliged the British Governor of Virginia--John Murray, Lord Dunmore--to take refuge on board HMS Fowey, anchored off Yorktown.

 

Portions of the Louisa County Tithables Lists survive for this period and have been transcribed . The earliest (surviving) relevant entry appears to be James Overton's list of 10 June 1773 for Trinity Parish (central Louisa County, boardering St. Martin's Parish). An entry names tithepayer "SAML. DICKARSON" with (white male) thithables "THOS. DARWIN, WILLIM. ZACKARY, NATHL. HARRIS." We know of no such 'Thomas Darwin' and strongly suspect this is a mistranscription, possibly for Jesse Darwin: editor Davis states in her introduction that the originals are "faded and smudged with ink, making difficult the transcription of unusual names." Moreover, as will be later seen, a "John Dickason" signs, with Jesse Darwin, an executor bond for the will of William Darwin.

 

James Dabney's list of tithables for St. Martin's Parish, 1775, includes "CHARLES DICKERSON : Nat, Easter, JOHN DARWIN Ovsr. 4." Davis' notes explain "overseer" can represent someone managing a farm on behalf of a tithe-payer resident outside the Parish; "4" here represents the "combined white and black tithables," in this example including slaves Nat and Easter (Esther).

 

On 24 October 1775, Lord Dunmore directed a naval force to bombard Norfolk: the 'shooting war' had arrived in Virginia. On 7 November, Dunmore proclaimed martial law in the colony, calling upon its inhabitants to support British rule "or be looked upon as traitors." He further offered freedom to indentured servants and slaves willing to join British forces attempting to put down the rebellion. Raising this spectre of servile insurrection proved to be a blunder: white Virginians previously loyal to the Crown now joined forces with the rebels. The Virginia Council of Safety, seeking to end Dunmore's coastal raids, directed 1,000 militiamen under Col. William Woodford to eliminate Dunmore's force, which end they accomplished on 9 December at Norfolk, where the Governor was again obliged to seek refuge with the Royal Navy.

 

On New Years Day 1776, Gen. George Washington issued General Orders to the diverse forces under his command in Cambridge besieging the British forces in Boston: "This day giving commencement to the new army, which, in every point of View, is Continental, The General flatters himself, that a laudable Spirit of emulation will now take place and pervade the whole of it." There was then raised what Washington called "the union flag in compliment to the United Colonies," its field containing thirteen alternating red and white stripes.

 

The following day, Lord Dunmore (safely aboard the fleet) demanded provisions from the town of Norfolk, but local rebels refused to supply him. Dunmore retaliated with an extended cannonade on the town, followed by raiding parties setting fire to the dockside warehouses. Local rebels, in turn, put the torch to the homes of prominent Tories, with the result that Norfolk was wholly destroyed. The Virginia Gazette, firmly in patriot hands and not noted for temperate language, denounced the British:

 

They have destroyed one of the first towns in America, and the only one...in Virginia, which carried on anything like a trade.... They have done their worst, and...to no other purpose than to give the world specimans of British cruelty and American fortitude, unless it be to force us to lay aside that childish fondness for Britain, and that foolish, tame dependence on her. We had borne so long with the oppressions of an ungenerous restriction of our trade...that our patience and moderation served but to encourage them to proceed to greater lengths. To greater lengths they have proceeded, as far as the proudest tyrant's lust of despotism, stimulated by cruelty, a rancorous malice, and an infernal spirit of revenge, could hurry them. How sunk is Britain! (Reprinted in Purcell, L. Edward & Burg, David F. World Almanac of the American Revolution (1992: New York).

 

Much better prose--and far more compelling reasoning--was available a week letter, when Thomas Paine's pamphlet Common Sense was published in Philadelphia on 9 January 1776. Calling for an independent, continental republic under Congress and a constitution, Paine declared "a government of our own is our natural right," adding:

 

The sun never shone on a cause of greater worth. "Tis not the affair of a city, a county, a province, or a kingdom but of a continent--of at least one-eighth part of the habitable globe. 'Tis not the concern of a day, a year, or an age; posterity are virtually involved in the contest and will be more or less affected even to the end of time by the proceedings now.... O! ye that love mankind! Ye that dare oppose, not only tyranny but the tyrant, stand forth! Every spot of the Old World is overrun with oppression. Freedom has been haunted round the globe.... O! receive the fugitive, and prepare in time an asylum for mankind!

 

In a letter dated 31 January to Joseph Reed, Gen. George Washington praised "the sound doctrine and unanswerable reasoning" of Paine's pamphlet. On that same date, William Darwin of Louisa County was 68 years of age, his wife Jane 61: they had lived nearly 30 years on the same 100-acre farm purchased from Thomas Hardy. Their son James, aged 32, owned his own 100-acres in South Carolina, where he had lived for nine years or more with wife Mary, aged 30, and children William Washington (6), George Cowan (4), and Jane (2). Close by in Louisa was probably their daughter Agnes (41), whom we have presumed married William Ward and was the mother of William and Jane Darwin's granddaughter, Fanny. We do not know Jesse's age at this date, nor anything of William and Jane's other children save John, who was approaching his 21st birthday. But before that celebration in March, we know that on 2 February 1776 John Darwin enlisted as a private in the Third Virginia Regiment, Continental Line.