University of Virginia Library

ARTICLE XXVIII.

Gloucester County, Abington, and Ware.—No. 2.

I take these together, since they have so long been identified
in the public mind, so long under one minister, and so little to be
said of them, though so much might be said, had we any ancient
records. The following letter from the Rev. Mr. Mann, the present
rector, forbids the hope of ever recovering what is lost in regard
to these parishes:—

To the foregoing information as to the earlier ministers of
Abington I am able to add something from documents in possession.
In the year 1724 the Rev. Thomas Hughes writes to the
Bishop of London "that he has been living in this parish for four
or five years, after having lived in the upper parish of Nansemond
for three years; that he was not inducted,—only four ministers in
the Colony being inducted; that he has three hundred families
under his charge, about two hundred attendants at church, sixty
or seventy communicants, no surplice used in the parish, as is the
statement in many other reports, a free-school endowed with five
hundred acres of land and servants; no parochial library here or
in any other parish in the colony." There being no minister in
Ware parish, he gives a portion of his time to it.

In the years 1754 and 1758 the Rev. William Gates was minister
of Abington, and the Rev. John Fox of Ware parish. In the years
1773-4 and 1776 the Rev. Thomas Price was minister of Abington,
and the Rev. James M. Fontaine of Ware. In the year 1785
neither Abington nor Ware was represented in the Convention by
the clergy, Mr. John Page (Governor) being the lay delegate from
Abington, Mr. Thomas Smith from Kingston, and Matthew Anderson
from Petsworth. Mr. Page attended the next two Conventions,
and Mr. Anderson one. Mr. Thomas Lewis also attended
from Abington in 1787. After this we find no more delegates,
either clerical or lay, from Abington until long after the revival
of the Church commenced. The Rev. Mr. Carnes was the first
minister after that work commenced. He continued for some
years in zealous prosecution of it, and was succeeded by the Rev.
John Cole, now in Culpepper, who was followed by the Rev. Mr.
Mann, the present rector of the parishes of Abington and Ware.

In the absence of all records from which to draw the names of
vestrymen, and thus ascertain who have been the leading families,
from the earliest to the present times, in the parishes of Abington
and Ware, we furnish the following imperfect list of families

known to us, or mentioned to us by one who is better acquainted
with the history of the old settlers.

Of the Burwells, who at an early period settled at Carter's
Creek, we have already said something when speaking of the
family at King's Mill and the Grove, in York and James City.
To this we add the Manns, who settled at Timberneck Bay, on
York River, not far from Shelly and Rosewell, the Montagues, the
Kempes, the Carys, the Tabbs, the Taliaferos, the Dabneys,
Thrustons, Catletts, Throckmortons, Roots, Lewises, Nicholsons,
Nelsons, Vanbibbers, Pages, of Shelly and Rosewell, Byrds, Corbins,
Joneses, Ennises, Curtises, Robinses, Harewoods, Dicksons,
Roys, and Smarts.

Of old Mrs. Vanbibber and Dr. Taliafero—two of the props
of the Church in the day of her adversity—I need not speak to
the present generation in Gloucester, as there are still some living
who knew their religious worth and continue to dwell upon the
same before the younger ones. Of Mrs. Vanbibber some interesting
notices appeared many years since in one of our religious
papers. Of Dr. Taliafero I may say from personal knowledge
that it is not often we meet with a more pious and benevolent man
or more eminent physician. There is one name on the foregoing
list to which I must allude as having, at an early period in the
history of Virginia, been characterized by a devotion to the welfare
of the Church and religion,—that of Kempe. The name often
occurs on the vestry-book of Middlesex county in such a way as
to show this. The high esteem in which one of the family was
held, is seen from the fact that he was the Governor of the Colony
in 1644, and the following extract from the first volume of Henning's
Statutes will show not only the religious character of those
in authority at that day, but the probability that Governor Kempe
sympathized in the movement, for the Governors had great power
either to promote or prevent such a measure. In 1644 it was

I do not remember ever to have seen such an indefinite and prolonged
period appropriated by a public body to public humiliation.
It speaks well for the religion of our public functionaries of that
day. What would be thought of such a measure at this?

Of Governor Page and his family I have already spoken somewhat
in treating of the Church in Williamsburg, where the first
of his name were buried; but, as the celebrated Rosewell and its
graveyard full of tombs with that name are in Abington parish, I
shall add something. And first I must take occasion to speak of
the great folly of erecting such immense and costly houses as that
of Rosewell, even in monarchical and aristocratic days. Richly-carved
mahogany wainscotings and capitals and stairways abound,
and every brick was English. The house was built, or rather
begun to be built, by Mr. Mann Page, grandson of old Sir John
Page, who wrote the good book to his son Matthew, father of
Mann. I am sure the grandfather would not have approved the
act of his grandson. It may be said that, as his mother was the
rich heiress of Timberneck Bay, he had a right to do it, and could
afford it, as he was the first-born son and chief heir. We do not
admit that any one has a right thus to misspend the talent given
to him by God to be used for his glory, and God often punishes
such misconduct by sending poverty on the persons thus acting,
and on their posterity. A most remarkable exemplification of this
appears in the case of Mr. Page, who began to build Rosewell,
and which was finished by his widow and son.

Whoever will look into the fifth volume and at the 277th page
of Henning's Statutes will see an Act of Assembly covering more
than seven octavo pages, and describing all the property in lands
and servants belonging to Mr. Page, and the former of which his
embarrassed son, Mann Page, Jr., petitioned to be allowed to sell,
in order to pay off his father's debts in Virginia and England, and
which all his real estate, though he had many servants on various
estates, was incompetent to discharge. His landed estates were in
Prince William, Frederick, Spottsylvania, Essex, James City,
Hanover, Gloucester, and King William. He had eight thousand
acres in Frederick called Pageland, more than ten thousand in
Prince William called Pageland also, four thousand five hundred
in Spottsylvania, one thousand called Pampatike in King William,
two thousand in Hanover, near two thousand in James City, &c.,
besides other lands not mentioned. Leave is asked and granted
that his son Mann might sell them, in order to pay off the debts
which had been for many years accumulating by interest, and
which the real estate was unable to discharge, and in order to pay
the portions of his brothers and sisters. For a long time had he
been labouring from the proceeds of the estates to do this, but in
vain. Now, it cannot be doubted that the tradition is correct that

much if not all of the original debt was contracted for the erection
of this immense pile of building, every brick of which, and doubtless
much other material, together with the workmen, were imported
from England and not paid for, except by his agents and friends
there, until the sale of these lands in Virginia enabled his son, long
after, to do it. The whole of the roof of this ancient building was
covered with heavy lead over the shingles. The result of this immense
expenditure was not only the entailing a heavy debt upon
his estate, and the causing a sale of lands which might have furnished
his posterity for some generations with farms, but the keeping
up such an establishment has been a burden on all who have
possessed it to the present day, as must be the case with all such
establishments. For a long time old Rosewell has been standing
on Carter's Creek, in sight of York River, like an old deserted English
castle, in solitary grandeur, scarce a tree or shrub around it
to vary and beautify the scene. No one of the name of him who built
it has owned it or could afford to own it for generations. "Some
stranger fills the Stuarts' throne." "Sic transit gloria mundi!"

Would that this were the only folly of the kind in ancient or
modern Virginia! The Acts of Assembly give us other instances
in old Virginia. Mr. Lewis Burwell, of King's Mill, near Williamsburg,
built a large house worthy of his first-born son to live
in; and that first-born son, after his father's death, was obliged to
petition the Legislature for leave to break the entail and sell a
large tract of land in King William to pay for it. The folly is still
going on in many parts of our land; the greater folly now, because
the law of primogeniture being happily abolished, and different and
better views prevailing as to the division of estates among children,
the proud homestead must be sold or be an expense and burden to the
child who inherits it. Even in England—the land of entails and
primogeniture—the philanthropic Howard, a man of birth and
inherited wealth, instead of listening to the plea that our houses
must be proportioned to our wealth, to the extent even of palaces,
and that it was a charity to the poor to employ numbers of them
in the erection of stupendous and costly mansions, built one of
more moderate size and expense for himself, and employed greater
numbers of workmen in rearing neat and comfortable cottages for
the poor on his large and numerous estates. How much of that
now needlessly expended in building and furnishing large houses
might be more rationally and charitably devoted to the improvement
of the dwellings of the labourers, whether on the plantations
of the South or the neighbourhoods of the North!

ROSEWELL HOUSE.

How much wiser was it in the first William Randolph, of Turkey
Island, to live in a house of moderate dimensions himself, though
with every comfort, and to build during his lifetime good houses
for his numerous children in various parts of the State! How
much more becoming Christians, instead of building extravagant
mansions for themselves, to see that the houses of worship are
comely and comfortable, and that all God's ministers are well provided
with houses becoming their station and the means of living
in them!

To return from this digression, let me say that Governor Page,
though living in this proud mansion of his forefathers, was not himself
a proud man. He was not only a true republican in politics, but
an humble man in his religion, and doubtless often wished himself,
on more accounts than one, well rid of his large abode. The poor,
I doubt not, were often kindly treated at Rosewell, and the servants
justly dealt with. There was once a picture—among many
others of higher degree—on the walls of Rosewell parlour, which
shows that he was not too proud to allow the head of a poor
African to be there. It was the head of Selim, an Algerine negro,
well known at Rosewell, York, and Williamsburg, which Mr. Page
had taken while he was a member of Congress in Philadelphia, and
hung up among his portraits. There was something so touching and
very remarkable in the captivity, conversion, and latter end of
Selim, that the Rev. John H. Rice, a Presbyterian minister of high
standing, wrote an account of him, which was published in a Presbyterian
magazine, I think. It is so interesting and so edifying in
a religious point of view that I shall insert it in these sketches;
and I am the more induced so to do because I am able to add some
particulars not contained in Mr. Rice's notice.

Before I introduce this, however, (reserving it for another
article,) I will add that Mr. Page was not only the patriot, soldier
and politician, the well-read theologian and zealous Churchman,—
so that, as I have said before, some wished him to take Orders with
a view to being the first Bishop of Virginia,—but he was a most
affectionate domestic character. His tenderness as a father and
attention to his children is seen in the fact that, when attending a
Congress held in New York, he was continually writing very short
letters to his little ones, even before they could read them. I have
a bundle of them, from which I extract the following:—

These letters were written on very coarse, stiff, dingy paper,
such as no country-merchant would use in wrapping any but his
heaviest and roughest goods in at this day. Some of them were
sent by the two Randolphs,—John and Theodoric,—who were going
to school in New York at that time.[95]

GLOUCESTER, THE RESIDENCE OF POWHATAN AND POCAHONTAS.

We are now in the region where by general consent the chief
residence of King Powhatan has been placed, after discussion and
accurate investigation. Mr. Howe, in his laborious though sometimes
inaccurate History of Virginia, quotes from Captain John
Smith as saying that "twenty-five miles lower (than what is now West
Point, the junction of the Pamunkey and Mattapony) on the north
side of this river (York River) is Werowocomico, where their great
king inhabited when I was delivered to him a prisoner," and where
Smith in another place says "for the most part he was resident."
Mr. Howe says, "Upon a short visit made to that part of Gloucester
county a year or two ago, I was satisfied that Shelly, the

seat of Mrs. Mann Page, is the famous Werowocomico. Shelly
adjoins Rosewell, formerly the seat of John Page, (sometime Governor
of Virginia), and was originally part of the Rosewell plantation;
and I learned from Mrs. Page, of Shelly, that Governor
Page always held Shelly to be the ancient Werowocomico, and accordingly
he at first gave it that name, but afterward, on account
of the inconvenient length of the word, dropped it and adopted
the title of Shelly, on account of the extraordinary accumulation
of shells found there. The enormous beds of oyster-shells deposited
there, especially in front of the Shelly House, indicate it
to have been a place of great resort among the natives. The
situation is highly picturesque and beautiful; and, looking as it
does on the lovely and majestic York, it would seem of all others
to have been the befitting residence of the lordly Powhatan."

Our worthy fellow-citizen, Mr. Charles Campbell, of Petersburg,
after having adopted the above opinion, has renounced it in favour
of another place only two or three miles, I believe, lower down
York River. On paying a visit a few years since to Shelly and
the neighbourhood, for the purpose of examining the question, he
became satisfied that Timberneck Bay, in Gloucester, the ancient
seat of the Manns, only a mile from Shelly, is the famous spot.
Smith, he says, in his work "Newes from Virginia," says "the bay
where Powhatan dwelleth hath three creeks in it." "I have
visited," says Mr. Campbell, "that part of Gloucester county,
and am satisfied that Timberneck Bay is the one referred to by
Mr. Smith. On the east bank of this bay stands an old chimney
known as `Powhatan's chimney,' and its site corresponds with Werowocomico
as laid down in Smith's map." Mr. Campbell supposes
this to be the chimney of the house built by the Colonists to
propitiate the favour of Powhatan, and says he is supported by
tradition. May not the two opinions be reconciled in the following
manner? Shelly may have been the original place of his residence
or of his frequent residence; but when it was offered to build
him a house after the English fashion, he may have preferred a
situation a few miles off, for reasons best known to his royal
majesty. And now, although I have already introduced some
documents touching Powhatan and Pocahontas into my article on
Jamestown and Henrico, yet, as there is another most worthy of
preservation and use, I will do my part toward its perpetuity by
inserting it in this place. It is the famous letter of Captain Smith
to Queen Anne, soliciting her attention to Pocahontas when in
England,—a letter not easily surpassed by any one in any age.

Since the above was in print, we have received the following
extract from one of our public papers:—

GRAVEYARDS IN GLOUCESTER COUNTY.

There are three graveyards of some note near to each other:—
that at Rosewell, where the Pages are buried; at Timberneck Bay,
where the Manns are buried; and at Carter's Creek, where the
Burwells alone are buried. Many inscriptions upon the old tombstones
have been furnished me.

The first of the Pages was John Page, usually called Sir John,
of Williamsburg, who wrote the good book to his son Matthew.
His son Matthew married Mary Mann, of Timberneck Bay, a rich
heiress, and bequeathed an immense estate to his son Mann, who
built Rosewell. His son Mann, Jr. married, first, Judith Wormley,
who had only one child who lived; and she married Thomas Mann
Randolph, of Tuckahoe. Mr. Page's second wife was Judith Carter,
daughter of Robert Carter, of Corotoman, commonly called King
Carter. By this marriage he had Mann Page, of Rosewell, John
Page, of North End, Gloucester, and Robert Page, of Broadneck,
Hanover. The first of these three married Alice Grymes, of Middlesex,
by whom he had two children,—John Page, of Rosewell,
alias Governor Page, and Judith, who married Lewis Burwell, of
Carter's Creek. At the death of his first wife, Alice Grymes,
Mann Page married Miss Ann Corbin Tayloe, sister of the first
Colonel Tayloe, of Mount Airy, by whom he had Mann Page, of
Mansfield, near Fredericksburg, who married his cousin, sister of
the late Colonel Tayloe, of Mount Airy; Robert Page, of Hanover
Town, who married a daughter of Charles Carter, of Fredericksburg;
Gwinn Page, who married first in Prince William and
then in Kentucky; Matthew Page, of Hanover Town, who died
unmarried; Betsey Page, who married Mr. Benjamin Harrison, of
Brandon; Lucy Page, who married first Colonel George Baylor,
and then Colonel Nathaniel Burwell.

The second son of Mann Page and Judith Carter—John Page,
of North End—married Jane Byrd, of Westover, whose son Mann
married Miss Selden, and was the father of William Byrd Page, of
Frederick, who married Miss Lee, and was the father of the Rev.
Charles Page, and many others.

John Page, second son of John, of North End, married Miss
Betty Burwell, and had several children. Their daughter Jane
married Mr. Edmund Pendleton. William, third son of John, of
North End, married Miss Jones, and had three children,—Jane,
Byrd, and Carter. Carter Page, of Cumberland, fourth son of

John, of North End, married, first, Polly, daughter of Archibald
Cary, then Lucy, daughter of General Nelson, of York. Robert
Page, of Janeville, Frederick county, married his cousin Sarah,
of Broadneck. The sixth son was Matthew, who died unmarried.
The seventh, Tom, who married Mildred, daughter of Edmund
Pendleton, of White Plains. The eighth, Judith, who married
Colonel Hugh Nelson, of York. The ninth, Molly, who married
Mr. John Byrd, and had no children. The tenth, Jane, who married
Nathaniel Nelson, and was the mother of Mrs. Nathaniel Burwell,
of Saratoga. The eleventh, Lucy, who married Mr. Frank
Nelson, of Hanover. The above eleven were all the children of
Mr. John Page, of North End, second son of Mann and Judith
Page, of Rosewell. Their third son was Robert, of Broadneck,
Hanover county, who married Miss Sarah Walker. Their children
were, first, Robert, who married a Miss Braxton, and was the
father of Carter B. Page, John White Page, Walker Page, and
three sisters. Second, John, of Page Brook, who married Miss
Byrd, of Westover, and left many children. Third, Matthew
Page, of Annfield, who married Miss Ann R. Meade, and left two
daughters. Fourth, Catharine, who married Benjamin Waller, of
Williamsburg. Fifth, Judith, who married Mr. John Waller.
Sixth, Sarah, who married Mr. Robert Page, of Janeville.

OLD SELIM.