Local and State Histories Archives - Genealogical.com

“They are all noted villains”: Maryland Runaways, 1782-1788

Barry Chodak — Mon, 12 Aug 2024 20:05:50 +0000

This is the fifth volume compiled by Mr. Boyle containing 18^th-century Maryland runaway servant ads posted in local newspapers. It follows runaways from the final years of the American Revolution to the adoption of the U.S. Constitution. While most of these ads concern runaway servants, apprentices and slaves, quite a few name lawbreakers, both men and women, horse thieves, an occasional murderer, and other lowlifes. Most of the crimes beyond running away pertained to thefts of clothing or money.

In addition to an individual’s age and whereabouts, the ads tell a great deal more about the character and physical appearance of runaways than we are accustomed to learning from most source records. While many of the physical descriptions found in the ads are generic, some stand out. One was Michael Toole with “fore teeth like a hog’s tusks.” Irishman Daniel Dunleavy had a scar on his face “and marked with gunpowder all over it, by firing a blast in his hands”. A Black slave named Joe “has a remarkable seam on one side of his head, occasioned by the cut of a hand-saw.” Advertisements by men whose spouses “eloped” from them are included. Francis Brumfield reported that wife Elizabeth “eloped from my bed and board without any provocation” and forbad anyone to deal with her. Adam Strickstroke’s wife, Otillow, eloped and “carried with her my Bed, Furniture and several other Articles.” Black slaves and Indians listed in these advertisements are listed by race as well as by surname, when one is given.

In preparing this latest volume in the series, Mr. Boyle consulted more than twenty late 18^th-century newspapers from New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware, as well as from Maryland. Indeed, some runaways made their escape from places beyond their base in Maryland. The roughly 1,000 ads found here name close to 4,000 persons.

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“Famous for inventing Lies”: Pennsylvania Runaways, 1784-1790

Barry Chodak — Thu, 25 Jan 2024 15:17:54 +0000

For many years, Mr. Boyle has assembled the names of servants whose runaway status was advertised in colonial and Revolutionary-era American newspapers. Mr. Boyle has produced multiple volumes of runaway collections for Pennsylvania, as well as Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, and New England. The Pennsylvania book at hand marks the first collection of runaways based on newspaper ads placed following the Treaty of Paris of 1783 that concluded the American Revolution.

The runaway ads abstracted for this new volume are more diverse than have appeared in previous ones. For instance, multiple ads for slave and Native American runaways appear, and they are identified by race and surname (when available). The Pennsylvania Slave Act, passed on March 19, 1780, which was the first extensive abolition legislation in the western hemisphere, likely encouraged some African Americans to seek their freedom in Pennsylvania. The act stopped the importation of slaves into the state, required all slaves to be registered, and established that all children born in the state were free, regardless of race or parentage. Many of the newspaper ads provide distinctive physical features of the escapees, such as “a slow hobbling gait” or “his feet remarkably deformed,” or “both his arms are marked with the letters W. H.” As he has with previous books, Mr. Boyle has included ads placed by men whose spouses “eloped” from them for one reason or another.

Mr. Boyle’s transcriptions of the runaway ads, taken from twenty-eight different newspapers (including papers from Rhode Island to Virginia, as well as Pennsylvania), provide valuable demographic information, giving name, age, sex, height, place of origin, clothing, occupation, speech, physical imperfections, and sometimes personal vignettes. Individuals whose very existence would have been hidden from us in late 18^th-century newspapers.

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Old New Kent County [Virginia]: Some Account of the Planters, Plantations, and Places – Volume II

gpcdevel — Fri, 03 May 2019 21:29:46 +0000

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Old New Kent County [Virginia]: Some Account of the Planters, Plantations, and Places – 2 Volume Set

gpcdevel — Fri, 03 May 2019 20:27:57 +0000

New Kent County, Virginia, was created from York and a portion of James City County in 1654, and it was itself the parent county of King & Queen and King William counties. Dr. Malcolm Harris’ two-volume history and genealogy of “Old” New Kent County (the three present-day counties in the aggregate) is one of the great achievements of Virginia local history of the last century. Clearfield Company is honored to have been selected by the Harris family to produce this hardcover edition of Old New Kent County. Privately published and out of print for many years, this work takes on even greater importance in light of the loss of county records in New Kent and in King & Queen counties and the survival of mere fragments for King William County prior to 1865.

The scope and arrangement of Old New Kent County are both entertaining and extraordinarily informative. Because the author’s objective was to aid researchers in locating the sites and the inhabitants of the region during the colonial period, a pleasing narrative-supported by numerous photographs-links New Kent’s plantations, ancestral homes, landmarks, and artifacts with its ancestors and their descendants. The work is arranged by county and thereunder according to the Episcopal parishes that comprised each county, namely Blisland and St. Peter’s in New Kent; Stratton Major, St. Stephen’s, and Drysdale in King & Queen; and St. John’s and St. David’s in King William. Besides the local and family histories, the publication boasts of an inventory of extant records at each county clerk’s office, a number of lists of landowners (including a comprehensive list of King William County land tax assessments for 1782), marriage or other source records, and a comprehensive name index.

Of greatest interest to genealogists, of course, are the genealogies and sketches of Old New Kent families. Following is a list of most of the main families covered in this extraordinary work. (Researchers should bear in mind that many more surnames will be found in the index to the work.)

New Kent: Adams, Allen, Apperson, Armistead, Bacon, Bassett, Bathurst, Boyd, Burnet, Butts, Chamberlayne, Christian, Clayton, Clopton, Cousic, Crump, Dancie, Dandridge, Daingerfield, Davies, Ellyson, Foster, Goddin, Graves, Jones, Lacy, Lafayette, Lewis, Littlepage, Lyddall, Macon, Massie, Meaux, Mossom, Otey, Parke, Parkinson, Poindexter, Pollard, Scott, Semple, Stewart, Tarleton, Terrell, Tunstall, Vaiden, Martha Washington, Webb, Wilks, Williams, Winslow, Woodward, and Wyatt-Field-Jefferson.

King & Queen: Bagby, Bates, Baylor, Beverley, Bird, Boyd, Brooke, Camm, Campbell, Coleman, Corbin, Dame, Dew, Didlake, Dillard, Dixon, Dunlap, Field, Fleet, Gaines, Gardner, Gatewood, Govan, Gregory, Gresham, Gwathmey, Hill, Hockley, Holmes, Hoomes, Hoskins, Howell-Fielding-Dixon, Hubbard, Leigh, Lewis, Livingston, Lumpkin, Lyne, Madison, Meredith, Milby, Pendleton, Pollard, Richards, Roane, Robinson, Rootes, Ryland, Sears, Semple, Shackleford, Smith, Soanes, Spencer, Strachey-Metcalfe, Taliaferro, Taylor, Todd, Tunstall, Walker, Ware, Wyatt, and Young.

King William: Arnold, Aylett, Banks, Boothe, Braxton, Buckner, Burwell, Butler, Campbell, Carr, Catlett, Chamberlayne, Chiles, Claiborne, Cocke, Cownes, Dabney, Dandridge, Ellett, Fontaine, Fox, Frazer, Garlick, Harris, Hickman, Hill, Hoomes, Huntington, Johnson, Jones, King, Langbourne, Lipscomb, Littlepage, McGeorge, McGhee, Marshall, Martin, Maury, Mill, Moore, Nelson, Palmer, Perrin, Pollard, Power, Quarles, Ragsdale, Richeson, Ruffin, Seaton, Skyren, Southerland, Spencer, Starke, Taliaferro, Temple, Toler, Tompkins, Valentine, Waller, Webber, West, Wormley, and Winston.

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Old New Kent County [Virginia]: Some Account of the Planters, Plantations, and Places – Volume I

gpcdevel — Fri, 03 May 2019 20:27:57 +0000

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Dorchester Town Records [1632-1686]

gpcdevel — Fri, 03 May 2019 20:27:27 +0000

The town of Dorchester, Massachusetts, is now part of the city of Boston. In 1880 the city fathers authorized the publication of some of the oldest records of the old town of Dorchester, spanning the period 1632-1686. That publication was revised in 1883, forming the basis for this Clearfield Company reprint. Town records, not unlike county order books, are a miscellany of colonial antiquity. For example, the oldest record in the volume (dated January 1632) authorizes the granting of lots to various settlers. In April of the same year, the town commissioners specified how fences were to be constructed along the town marsh and how many feet of fencing each settler was responsible for. Other entries list the town’s freemen with an indication of their acreage and livestock, announce the election of the town’s selectmen, award payments to residents for services rendered to the town, set the minister’s salary, proscribe various acts of misconduct, authorize road construction, order the construction of schools or the hiring of teachers, and so on. In all, these town records place thousands of persons in Dorchester during its first half-century of existence, and the reader can easily find them thanks to the detailed index at the back of the volume.

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Records of the Town of Cambridge (Formerly Newtowne) Massachusetts, 1630-1703

gpcdevel — Fri, 03 May 2019 20:27:28 +0000

The town of Cambridge, Massachusetts (originally known as Newtowne) was founded adjacent to Boston in 1631. The volume at hand–a reprint of Volume II of the printed records of Cambridge as ordered by the Cambridge City Council in 1901–is a transcription of the records of Cambridge town meetings and meetings of selectmen from the town’s beginnings until 1703.

Records of the Town of Cambridge promises to hold the interest of the historian as well as the genealogist. A casual reading of the records reveals Cambridge’s evolution from little more than a cow pasture to that of a bustling New England town as land was parceled out, trees felled, houses and barns erected, roads and bridges surveyed and laid out, ministers’ salaries authorized, and so on. Although the vast majority of the records dwell on Cambridge’s business affairs, they nonetheless have the great genealogical value of placing persons in the town at a particular time. In all, the researcher will find references to more than 6,000 17th-century inhabitants of Cambridge, in roles as diverse as committee members, petitioners, selectmen, fence viewers, shepherds, trespassers, constables, clergy, tradesmen, or farmers. Thankfully, these ancestors are readily identified by means of a name index and detailed subject index found at the back of the volume.

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The History of New England

gpcdevel — Fri, 03 May 2019 20:26:00 +0000

What a combination–John Winthrop, our first source on the early history of New England, and James Savage, the leading name in New England genealogy. “Savage’s Edition of Winthrop’s Journal,” as this work is usually referred to, was inspired by the discovery of a third part (manuscript) of Winthrop’s History of New England in the year 1816. Mr. Savage, a distinguished member of the Massachusetts Historical Society and the author of the seminal Genealogical Dictionary of New England, was assigned the task of transcribing the newly discovered manuscript and integrating it with the previously published pages of Winthrop’s Journal. Applying his customary acumen to the task, Savage completed his transcription and collation of the History of New England in time for an 1825 publication, adding his own learned annotations about the men, women, and events Winthrop referred to, yielding a work perhaps twice as long as the original journal.
Winthrop’s History of New England is arranged, journal-entry-by- journal-entry, from the patriarch’s arrival in Massachusetts Bay in 1630 until 1648, the year before his death. Savage’s notes on any given entry appear on the same page of the volume in smaller type. Turn to any page in the Savage edition and you will find nuggets of great genealogical value. For example, when Winthrop refers to a fire in the house of John Page, Savage’s notes tell us that Page was one of the first freemen admitted to the Massachusetts General Court. When Winthrop refers to an obscure tract of land, Savage reveals that it may now be found in the town of Middleborough. In 1637, Winthrop records that a Captain Mason attacked a group of Pequots, but it is Savage who identifies the same Captain Mason as having arrived with the first settlers of Dorchester in 1637 and having a son, John, who would be wounded in 1675 in a battle with the Narragansetts.
Not every page in the journal is annotated, of course, and, as a matter of fact, many of Winthrop’s entries–e.g. his list of 17th- century New England towns with their original Indian names and a separate list of Congregationalist ministers–are tremendously informative in their own right. On the other hand, Savage’s notes frequently overshadow the entry they refer to, as when the editor marshals lists of oath takers or paragraphs of court records to develop one of Winthrop’s observations. Yet another helpful feature is Savage’s index to over 3,000 persons and places mentioned in the History. It should also be noted here that this revised edition of the work, which has never before been reprinted, not only incorporates corrections to the 1823 edition but is twenty percent longer.
What else is there to say about this remarkable work? Just this, if you are to own only one source book on the beginnings of the New England colonies, the premier source book is Winthrop’s History of New England, and the edition to buy is Savage’s.

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Pioneers On Maine Rivers

gpcdevel — Fri, 03 May 2019 20:26:00 +0000

Following an introductory section devoted to a chronological list of European explorers and traders who made the first tentative soundings in Maine, the bulk of this book consists of a detailed history and description of each river settlement. Appended to the histories is an exhaustive list of pioneers connected with each settlement. The lists are arranged alphabetically by the surname of the original pioneer and yield such critical genealogical data as place of origin, date and place of settlement, occupation, name of wife and names of children, place and date of death, and, in many instances, names of family members in the country of origin.

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A History of the Early Settlement of Newton, County of Middlesex, Massachusetts

gpcdevel — Fri, 03 May 2019 20:25:48 +0000

This account of Newton, Massachusetts, covers the early history of the town and biographical information about its pioneers. An extensive Genealogical Register contains the names of all the inhabitants of Newton prior to 1800, with such facts concerning them as the author could glean from the town and county records and elsewhere. Information given varies greatly but can include marriage and death dates, names and birth dates of children, place of origin, occupation, religious denomination, land transactions, estate details, and more. Seven inhabitants are profiled in detail in the Appendix: Capt. Thomas Prentice; Col. Ephraim Williams; Alexander Shepard; Nathaniel Seger; Timothy Jackson, Esq.; Rev. Elhanan Winchester; and Col. Joseph Ward. Also included in this volume are a map of the town in 1700, showing the approximate location of the homesteads of the early settlers, and lists of names of town clerks and treasurers, selectmen, representatives to the General Court, and freeholders who were in the town at the close of the 18th century. Although in a few instances events of a later date are mentioned, most of the facts included herein pertain to the years between the town’s first settlement in 1639 and 1800.

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