University of Virginia Library

CHARLES, OR CHARLES RIVER PARISH, YORK COUNTY.

This was separated from York-Hampton parish before the year
1754, but how long we have been unable as yet to ascertain. The
Rev. Thomas Warrington was ordained in 1747 and was its minister
in 1754, and until he went to Hampton in 1756. As I do not
see his name as belonging to any other parish, it is probable that
he entered at once on the ministry in this parish.

The Rev. Joseph Davenport was the minister in 1773, 1774, and
also in 1785. In the last year he appears in the Convention with
Mr. Robert Shield as lay delegate. This is all we can learn as to
the parish of Charles,—so called because on York River, which
was once called Charles River, and because York county was once
called Charles River county.

Before crossing York River to treat of the parishes of Gloucester
and Mathews, it may be well to observe that at an early period
there may be found the names of a number of parishes which once

existed in that part of Virginia lying between Warwick and
Charles City, below and above Jamestown and round about Williamsburg;
as, for instance, Southwark, Chiskiack, Middletown,
Harop, Nutmeg and Denbigh, Wilmington, Marston, which were
soon merged into James City, York-Hampton, Bruton, and Westover
parish. Soon after the settlement of the country, when the
Indians abounded and it was dangerous to go far to worship, every
little plantation or settlement in that region was made a parish.
There is one parish, by the name of Westminster, which as yet I
have been unable to locate, and which made a report to the Bishop
of London in 1724. Its communicants only numbered sixteen. I
incline to think it was somewhere on the Chickahominy. Its minister
was the Rev. Mr. Cox.

In accordance with the determination expressed above, I have
visited old Warwick, which, though the least of all shires of Virginia,
was one of the most fruitful nurseries of the families of
Virginia. Its contiguity to James River and Jamestown rendered
it a safe place for early Colonists to settle in. It was probably at
one time, according to its dimensions, the most populous of all the
counties. In evidence of which, I find from an examination of the
records of the Clerk's Office, which extend back to about 1642,
that there were, at one time, not less than eight parishes in Warwick.
Two of these were on Mulberry Island,—one called Stanley
Hundred, and the other Nutmeg Quarter. It is really not an
island, as Jamestown was not an island, though both of them so called.
Mulberry Island joined the mainland in its upper part, and one of
its parishes at least—Stanley Hundred—was at one time connected
with the church at Jamestown, and had much the largest congregation.
The result of my hasty examination of the old and decayed
records at Warwick Court-house, some of which are like the
exhumed volumes from the long-buried towns of the East, and will
scarce bear handling, was the discovery that the following were the
most prominent names in this county in times long since gone
by: — Fauntleroy, Hill, Bushrodd, Ryland, Ballard, Purnell,
Ashton, Clayborne, Cary, Dade, Griffith, Whittaker, Pritchard,
Hurd, Harwood, Bassett, Watkins, Smith, Digges, Dudley, Petit,
Radford, Stephens, Wood, Bradford, Stratton, Glascock, Pattison,
Barber, Allsop, Browninge, Killpatricke, Nowell, Lewellin,
Goodale, Dawson, Cosby, Wythe, Reade, Bolton, Dixon, Langhorne,
Morgan, Fenton, Chisman, Watkins, John, Lang, Parker,
West. No one can look over this list without exclaiming, "What

a prolific nursery of Virginia families was old Warwick!" In what
part of Virginia are not some of the descendants of these first
settlers to be found?[71]

Besides visiting the old court-house and Clerk's Office and jail
(the latter without an inmate) of Warwick county, I went to the
ancient seat of the Coles and Digges, at Denbigh, on James
River, just opposite to Nutmeg Quarter, on Mulberry Island, the
island reaching down to this place and only separated from it by
Warwick River. The ancient house at Denbigh is no more, except
one wing of it, which forms a part of the habitation of the
present owner, Mr. Young, a descendant of one of the old Episcopal
families of Denbigh parish. The settlement at Denbigh was
formerly the seat of the Coles and Digges, who intermarried.
The Hon. Edward Digges, no doubt, at one time lived at this place
and owned part of Mulberry Island, which may have received its
name from the trees which furnished food for the worms which
were used in the raising of silk, of which operation Mr. Digges was
the great patron, as appears from history and his tombstone. There
is still handed down, in the family residing there, a ball of the raw
material, made at an early period, a portion of which was presented
to me. Within a few miles of Denbigh farm is one of the
ancient seats of the Cary family, and, at the same distance, old
Denbigh Church. I paid a visit to the latter, and found it in a
much better condition than I could have expected. It is in the
parish called Upper Denbigh, there being formerly one called
Lower Denbigh. The present building was erected one hundred
and ten years since; and the weatherboarding was so well done,
and was of such excellent material, that it is still good. The
foundation of an older one is plainly to be traced a short distance
behind it, in the woods which come up to the present church, which
is only a few yards from the main Warwick road leading up and
down the country. There is only one large tombstone there, on
which is the following inscription:—

Mrs. Harrison was grandmother of the late George Harrison,
of Lower Brandon, and of Mr. William Harrison, of Upper Brandon,
on James River.[72] I also visited the site of another old
church in Warwick, in the parish of Martin's Hundred a few
miles from the Grove, the former seat of the Burwells. After
much exploring of the place, now covered with trees and bushes
and leaves, my companion, Mr. Richard Randolph, and myself felt
beneath our feet a tombstone covered with moss and leaves, and,
on clearing them away, deciphered the name of "Samuel Pond,
of Martin's Hundred parish, in the Colony of Va., who departed
this life in the year of our Lord 1694, aged 48." By this discovery
alone have I been able to locate the parish of Martin's Hundred,
so often mentioned in the early history and statutes of Virginia.
A part of this parish may have been in James City county.

The family of Cary owned large tracts of land in this county,
and had two family-seats, well known and much visited in former
days. One of them is near Denbigh. The tombs of a number of
the family are still to be seen there. The other, called Richneck,
is about eight miles off, and higher up the county. The last occupant
bearing the name was Mr. Cary, who moved to Carysbrook,
in Fluvanna county. On visiting this place, and going to
the graveyard where some of the ancestors had been buried, I
found that the brick enclosure had been removed, and even the
bricks underneath the only large tombstone which was there had
been taken away, and used in constructing a steam mill for sawing
up the timber of the plantation. The whole estate, consisting chiefly

of forest, either of ancient or modern growth, and amounting to
fifteen hundred acres, had been sold to persons from a distance,
who were converting it into lumber and wood. What is true of
this is true of many other old settlements in Warwick. Impoverished
by improper culture, and deserted of its former owners, what
was once covered with habitations and people has now returned to
its primeval state, and is dense forest. It is now feeding the steamboats
and furnishing building-materials for our towns. A few
more generations may see it once more in a different condition.

Before leaving this county, it will be interesting to our readers
to have an extract from the Acts of Assembly, in the year 1654,
touching one whose family name is on the list of the early inhabitants
of Warwick, and who may himself have belonged to it at
the time:—

The above shows in what horror an atheist was then held, and
what a reproach it was to have such a one in a public office.

I also promised to examine further into the history of the Digges,
supposing them to belong much more to the county of Warwick than
I find them to have been. Although they intermarried with the
family of Cole, and some of them were Warwick men, yet, for the
most part, they lived in York county. Their two seats, Chilham,
near Yorktown, and Bellfield, some miles higher up the river and
about eight miles from Williamsburg, were both on the river. The
latter is just opposite to Shelly, on the Gloucester side, and was in
the parish first called Chiskiack, and afterward Hampton, until it was
merged into York-Hampton. Captain Smith, in his history of the
Colony at its first establishment, speaks of King Powhatan as being
sometimes with this tribe of Chiskiack Indians. He had only to
cross the river from his residence at or near Shelly to Bellfield,

now owned by Colonel McCandish, of Williamsburg, and he would
be in the midst of this tribe. Being informed that Bellfield was
the burial-place of the Digges, I recently spent a night there with
Colonel McCandlish and a part of his family, who met me at this—
which is only their occasional—residence. I found the tombs in
much better order than at most of the old family graveyards.
They are very massive. The top-stones, on which the inscriptions
are put, are of what is called ironstone, or black marble, being the
hardest and heaviest stone in England, scarcely less heavy than
iron itself. Nearly all of the old imported tombs are of this kind.
It preserves the inscriptions also much better than any other kind
of stone or marble. The following are the inscriptions:—

I.

II.

This is to the memory of his son Dudley, who married Miss
Cole, of Denbigh:—

Which is thus rendered:—

III. THE TOMB OF HIS WIFE.

IV.