Early Pardue References In The Watersheds Of The Appomattox River

FIRST PAGE of THE HENRICO PARISH REGISTER 1730 

The following is a short explanation by retired genealogist, Myra Vanderpool Gormley, showing that under Henry VIII, with the establishment of the Church of England, haphazardly, at first, began the keeping of vital records in the English Parish Registers.

"In 1538, the English Parliament passed a law that ordered the clerk in each parish to keep records of the birth, christening, death, and marriage of each person in the parish. Previous to the establishment of the Church of England by Henry VIII, only records of families of nobles and the wealthy had been kept, haphazardly, by monks, primarily to assist proving age and pedigrees for inheritances, but until 1538, no systematic record keeping for England's population occurred before that time when ".... all baptisms, marriages and deaths were to be written down in a book after service on Sunday evenings, in the presence of the churchwardens." However, in 1540, keeping the parish registers was abandoned in many areas, and it was not until 1558, when ordered by Queen Elizabeth I at the beginning of her reign, that the registers were kept once again.Some registers were kept on loose paper sheets, and in 1597, as Elizabeth's reign was nearing its end, she ordered that all existing registers to be copied into "fair parchment books." In large parishes, this was a monumental task and due to a loophole, some clergy simply started their copy task with the 1558 records, and ignored what had gone before. Others dutifully re-copied the earlier registers." Genealogist, Myra Vanderpool Gormley.

Parish registers were kept in register chests under lock and key and many of those early registers have survived and have been transcribed and posted to the LDS Church's website at: http://www.familysearch.org/

The earliest record referring to the P*rdue name living in watersheds of James and Appomattox Rivers is found in a 1730 entry in the Henrico Parish Register of Henrico Parish where the name was recorded PARDUE in a vestry held at Curls, or Curles, Church in October 1730.

One of two churches and a chapel (of ease) in Henrico Parish, Curls, or Curles Church was named for the Curls, or Curles, Plantation where the church building stood several miles east downstream on the north side of the James River from present day Richmond. It appears to have been the principal church located within the boundaries of the parish, as noted in a record in 1724, when the Bishop of London requested a report on the Church in Virginia. In that same report it was noted that size of the parish was 25 miles by 18 miles, with a total of about 400 families having a combined total of about 1100 tithables both white and negro males age 16 and over, and Indian women.

In 1730, the year when the first reference to the Pardue name is found, in a processioning, eg: walking the metes and bounds to determine the boundaries of land ownership within the parish, the western boundary of the Curles Church was positioned where Tuckahoe Creek entered into the James River. Proceeding west beyond the mouth of Tuckahoe Creek, the Henrico Parish boundary, itself, extended to Goochland County -- formed in 1727 -- running north to the Chickahominy River and south to the Appomattox River, and it was south of the James River in that area of Henrico County the second unnamed church was located.

In 1737, Dale Parish was formed in that western portion of Henrico County south of the James River and in 1749 that portion became Chesterfield County. It is probable the former unnamed church, then, became the principle church of Dale Parish. The smaller chapel (of ease) -- a term used to designate a place more easily accessible for worship -- may have stood where St. John's Church is located in present day Richmond.

The above conclusions were formed from information contained in The Annals and History of Henrico Parish, Diocese of Virginia, and St. John's P.E. Church; edited and compiled by J. Stauton Moore. 1904 (available online in Google Books) and from the foreward in Births from the Bristol Parish Register of Henrico, Prince George and Dinwiddie Counties, Virginia, 1720-1798, by Chamberlayne, C. G. (Churchill Gibson) , 1876-1939, and from quadrangle maps produced by the US Geological Survey.  In 1730 a small area of Bristol Parish was located in Henrico County.

At a Vestry held in October 1730 in Henrico Parish, the first record of any variant of the surname in the watersheds of the Appomattox and James Rivers is found in  Vestry proceedings when it was recorded that an unnamed son of an unknown individual named PARDUE received an unknown quantity of tobacco - the medium of exchange in the Virginia Colony at that time - from the Church Wardens for the Poor. Church Wardens were the leaders of the parishes of The Church of England, (of which all English citizens were members) and, among their other parish responsibilities, they were charged with undertaking the care of the poor and indigent in their congregations.

In the printed references I've encountered of the Henrico Parish Register, this entry has always been recorded as Pardue's sons, in the plural, all of which likely proceeds from the first transcription made by Virginia historian, R. A. Brock, published in 1874, which also appears in The Annals and History of Henrico Parish, Diocese of Virginia, and St. John's P.E. Church; edited and compiled by J. Stauton Moore. 1904.

As can be seen in the above headline image, that transcription was in error; that in the original parish register the entry was recorded in the manuscript as ______ Pardue's son, in the singular, of which only the microfilm version of the original is available for view. Church Records 1730-1860, 1785-1887 [Henrico County, Virginia;] Microfilm of original at the Virginia State Library, Richmond; Manuscript (On Film); FHL Film 31761.

This entry has prompted many researchers to conclude that  _________ Pardue's son was an orphan. While it is possible that he was an orphan, there is nothing in the record that implies such. Pardue's son could also have been an indigent in some way and had no means to adequately care for himself, which, as previously noted above, came under the jurisdiction of the Church Wardens of the parish.

If he were an orphan and had not reached the age of fourteen, the tobacco would have been paid to a gaurdian, since; upon reaching the age of fourteen, orphans were bound out and apprenticed by the Church Wardens to learn a trade, thus, were no longer eligible to receive church assistance. If, however, an orphan were indigent and had no means of care and support  church assistance would have been available after the age of fourteen.

Another possibility exists judging from other entries in the register, that ______ Pardue's son was being paid to provide care for an unnamed indigent family member, or a parish member. If so, he would then have been an adult; but, from the information shown, it cannot be concluded the circumstances surrounding this entry, nor can it be assumed that _______ Pardue was a male.  ______ Pardue could have been a woman.

Also, in the same Henrico Parish Register in 1732, a William Pardue was recorded receiving 600 pounds of tobacco from the Church Wardens for the Poor. It is possible that William was the same person as ________ Pardue's son in the 1730 record and the 1732 record now records his name. However, he could have also been the father of the unknown son in the 1730 record, or neither; but, again, the qualifications for church assistance would apply in both the 1730 and 1732 instances. Whether from those two records there was one or two males or perhaps even three with the surname Pardue, the remaining early Henrico Parish records make no further mention of the name.

In 1736 in the Account Book of Sheriff John Nash transcribed by Beverly Fleet in Virginia Colonial Abstracts, Vol. XXI of Henrico County, appear the names of a William, Richard and John Perdue.

In 1744, in Henrico County, a patent of 240 acres of land on Sapony Creek in the watersheds of the Appomattox River and Swift Creek was issued to William Perdue, most probably the William in the account book of John Nash.

On 5 June 1746 also in Henrico County, a patent of 400 acres of land was recorded to a John Perdue on Sapony Road. And, yet, still another patent of 400 acres was recorded, also on June 5, 1746, to a John Perdue across the Appomattox River in Amelia County on Winitpomack Creek, who was the John P*rdue who died in 1769 in Bute County, North Carolina.

The John who received the Henrico patent was very probably the same John Perdue, who, on 2 February 1750/51, served on a jury in Chesterfield County (Chesterfield County, Virginia Court Orders 1749-1752, page 88 in original order book, compiled and published by Mrs. J. Franklin Thompson, Genealogist in Columbia, Missouri) and given that only landowners could serve on juries at that time in Virginia history, and given that John Pardue who died in Bute County, NC in 1769 was already living according to tithable (tax) records in Amelia County, then living in proximity to one another, there were two men with the same name.

John Perdue who patented the land in Henrico County - of which the process for obtaining the patent was at least one year and more probably three years prior to the patent being recorded - had to have been at least twenty one years old when  the patent processing was begun, thus putting his birth year no later than 1724 and likely very much earlier. The land for the 1746 Henrico patent, unless the records have been overlooked, misplaced, or lost, or never recorded, cannot be accounted for in any subsequent deed records prior to 1749 in the Henrico deeds - though there are some missing deeds for that period - or in the records in Chesterfield County, formed in 1749 out of Henrico, up until 1770 the last year this researcher reviewed the records, of which the deeds in Chesterfield County are substantially intact.

Two court records appear in the court record books of Henrico County in the area from which Chesterfield County was formed:  one for a John Perdue, who, with a John Belsher and a John Ferguson, witnessed the will of Gilbert Gee in 1734; the second one, a record where a John Perdue presented to court on 20 February 1734 the inventory of the estate of Ann Powell appraised in the amount of 8/4/6, (8 pounds, 4 shillings, 6 pence), the inventory having been conducted by John Bowman, Samuel Hancock, and John Nuby. Colonial Wills of Henrico County, Virginia Part One, 1667-1737. Abstracted and Compiled by Benjamin B. Weisiger III. Page 143.

It cannot be determined if the two records represent the same man, or if they were two separate men, since as previously noted there appears to have been two men named John Perdue living in close proximity of one another in the watersheds of the Appomattox River during this time.  Not knowing the difference in the ages of the two men, it simply cannot be determined if the records are of one, or of two, individuals of the same name. Please note that the age to witness a will was seventeen for males, so the John Perdue who witnessed Gilbert Gee's will in 1734 would have been born no later than the year 1717.

It is very probable that the John Perdue who presented the inventory of the estate of Ann Powell to court had been appointed administrator of her estate by the court, being related, either by blood, or by marriage to her, and his appointment as administrator was not recorded, if not lost, having at present not having found a record of that appointment.  As administrator, he would have been at least twenty one years old, born no later than 1712/13.  

No doubt she was Ann Powell, the wife, appointed administrator of the estate of John Powell who died several years earlier in 1727 also in Henrico County. She could have been married previous to her marriage to John Powell and in the previous marriage she may have been married to the father of the John Perdue and John was her son. John could also have been married to her daughter, or she could have been John's sister, or she could have been the sister of an unknown wife of John, or another close kinship relation. From the limited number records it is impossible to know the reason the court appointed him administrator as returning the inventory of Ann Powell's estate.. The John Powell inventory and appraisal source appear at: http://tinyurl.com/25myo4   It seems highly probable that he was also the John Perdue who later appeared in the Sheriff Account Book of John Nash in 1736.

The sheriff, as noted previously, was charged with collecting tithables for the parish. And in 1736, John Nash was charged with collecting the tithables in Henrico Parish. According to Beverly Fleet, who abstracted John Nash's account book, it measured three and half inches by five and half inches, written in an exquisite hand, and was a kind of tax record, or a partial tithables record for Henrico County.

From the beginning of the plantation system in the South, the acquistion of cash was a never ending challenge, and most planters, now the farmers, even up to the present day, made credit arrangements to plant the next seasons crop(s) and the accounts were paid at harvest by the owner of the debt or by someone else to whom the debtor had bargained his labor or other collateral for credit. In Virginia and Colonial America of that period, persons with the designator of planter owned the land on which they planted, while farmers, except in New England, were tenants who worked on land owned by others for which the farmer received a portion of his living from the land's owner. That sharecropping system existed in the South from the beginning with the settlement at Jamestown, having been imported by the English system of land tenure, especially by the immigrants to Virginia from the South and Southwestern parts of England.

There is a gap in the available records from 1736, where no record has yet been found by this compiler containing any reference to any variation of the surname, until 21 October 1743, when a charge was made by the court in Amelia County, to, among other hands,  John Perdue, under Abraham Green, to clear the road from Deep Creek to the river (Appomattox).  Amelia County Court Book I. 

This record indicates that by that date in 1743, John Pardue was in possession of the land on which he lived on Deep Creek, only landowners having responsibility to see that the roads were built and/or maintained.  The persons responsible could hire the work done, have their slaves do it, or other family members, or they themselves could to do it, but the persons charged would have to answer in court for the work.

With this record begins documentation that establishes the confirmable history of John Pardue who died in 1769, leaving a will naming fourteen children, eleven of them sons.

Genealogy is never done; it is always a work in progress!