Category Archives: Religious leanings

Our “brother versus brother” story has been published in the Civil War Monitor

23 Wednesday Feb 2022

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It took 159 years to publish it, but the story of the Civil War fight between our great-great uncles Benjamin Wesley Maddox (1835-1913) and Joseph Jefferson Maddox (1840-1905) finally appears in the Civil War Monitor. As the story goes, one Maddox shot the other’s horse out from under him – twice – in the heat of a battle during Morgan’s Great Raid. It took years to untangle the reality of the fight – a skirmish at Bashan Church, Ohio, on July 19, 1863.

Beyond the fight itself, the story describes the political, familial, religious, media, and martial forces that compelled the Maddox brothers to enlist on opposite sides of the war, and reconsiders the moralism normally assigned to Civil War enlistment decisions. It offers lessons that affect us all.

Edward, the Newgate prisoner

25 Friday Aug 2017

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We’ve been trying to understand how the Maddoxes of Shropshire, England, might have been affected by the English Civil War (1642-1651) and the Restoration (1660).  These events almost certainly played a role in Edward Maddox‘s emigration from England sometime after 1661.  In America, Edward’s records demonstrate strong anti-Papism, possibly implying that he was aligned against King Charles II (who was in favor of religious freedom) during this tumultuous period.

A fellow Maddox researcher, David Pugh, recently found evidence that an Edward Maddox was ejected from England in 1670 after spending time in London’s infamous Newgate Prison.  A 14 February 1670 warrant offers to set him free if he “gives security for his good behavior and transports himself abroad.”

Edward Maddox 1670 Transported (1)

David Pugh’s research on FindYourPast offers a possible cause for Edward Maddox’s emigration.

Newgate was known for its horrifying conditions – including dungeons, starvation, exposure, extortionist guards, and more.  Public punishments such as hanging, drawing and quartering attracted 17th-century crowds, and sealed the prison’s reputation.  London-In-Sight offers a description.

Edward Maddox might have been among allies at Newgate.  During the late 1600s the prison housed a number of well known anti-monarchists and anti-Papists, such as Titus Oates, who had fabricated the 1678-1681 Popish Plot and instigated violence against Catholics.  Oates alleged that there was an extensive Catholic conspiracy to assassinate Charles II.

Oates’ Popish Plot sounds very similar to the conspiracy by Edward Maddox’s friend, Parson John Waugh, in March 1688/9.  Waugh falsely claimed that Maryland Catholics were crossing the Potomac River with Seneca Indians to murder Virginians in their sleep. Waugh and Edward Maddox’s other friend George Mason (grandfather of the Founding Father) would be punished for the subterfuge.  Perhaps Waugh and his friends were copying Oates?

A visit to the Maddoxes’ historic Munslow Parish church in Shropshire, England

05 Monday Jun 2017

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We’re touring our Maddox sites in Shropshire and Wales this week, and one of the most impressive has been St. Michael’s Church in Munslow, Shropshire, England.  St. Michael’s is a 12th-century Norman-style Anglican church with an intricate interior, including 15th-century stained glass windows, a 15th-century baptismal font, and original pews.  Our ancestors attended this church in the 1600s.  They were baptized in the same font, sat in the same pews, and stared at the same stained glass windows.  It was an impressive visit.  We’re indebted to Reverend John Beesley for allowing us to join his congregation for Evensong.

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One of three 15th-century stained glass windows in St. Michael’s Church.

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The baptismal font in which Edward, Cornelius, John, Ellinor, and Alice Maddox were baptized in the mid-1600s.

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Hand-knitted kneeling pads depicting rural scenes around Munslow parish.

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A broken headstone from the 1800s.  Unfortunately, most of the older headstones have fallen or been buried over time and there’s no hope of finding them – such as the headstones for Ellinor and John Maddox (mother and son), who were buried a week apart in 1656.

Edward the puritan?

03 Friday Feb 2017

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Our ninth great grandfather, Dr. Edward Maddox, emigrated from England to the American Colonies sometime between 1656 and 1668.  We wonder at his motivations to leave England, and the resolve it must have taken to settle in the harsh wilderness along the Potomac River.  He was among the very first Englishmen to live in the area.  Court records document Edward’s rough frontier medicine, land speculation, wolf hunts and conflict with the Native Americans.

In his early adulthood in England, Edward would have endured the 1642-1651 English Civil War, during which 6 percent – or 300,000 – of his countrymen died.  It was a fight between “roundheads” and “cavaliers” – parliamentarians and royalists.  The parliamentarians won in 1651.  It was England’s experiment with republicanism, and for a decade it functioned roughly as intended, with Oliver Cromwell’s cronies keeping order over a rowdy parliament until 1659.

But beneath Cromwell’s anti-monarchism there was a darker religious fervor… against Catholics.  The English establishment could not stand the implications of a Catholic king – the economic upheaval it would risk – and rumors of English kings’ Papal alliances were truly incendiary.

To be certain, everything in Edward’s records indicates he was a fervent anti-Catholic.  We see him in Stafford County, Virginia, in the late 1680s befriending the notorious Parson Waugh, whose claim to infamy was his 1681 incitement of an anti-Catholic riot in Virginia.  Waugh falsely claimed that Maryland Catholics were crossing the Potomac River with Seneca Indians to murder Virginians in their sleep. Waugh and Edward Maddox’s other friend George Mason (grandfather of the Founding Father) would be punished for the subterfuge.

But where Edward’s Colonial records reveal his strong anti-Catholic sentiments, the records do not reveal any strong favor for the king.  Instead, his departure from England around 1660 – as the parliamentarians lost power and King Charles II restored the monarchy – could mean just the opposite.  If Edward left England at the time of Charles’ crowning in 1660, it could mean he was fleeing the royalists’ wrath, or rejecting the king’s rumored Papism in favor of more puritanical Protestantism in America like many others did.  He would have been among friends in Maryland, where he resided until 1684 –  a year before King Charles II’s death.

Edward’s later life also raises some questions about his competing allegiances to god and king.  Although Edward rose in social prominence in Maryland and Virginia through the 1680s by marrying into the prominent Stone and Mason families, he did not attain a public position as a Justice of the Peace in Stafford County, Virginia, until 1691.  His very late Justice appointment – when he was probably 80, and just after the king’s death – may indicate that Edward had been a political outsider during the king’s reign, but that he was finally brought into the fold after allegiances changed.

Just a theory.

The watery graves of Christ Church, Port Tobacco, Maryland

15 Saturday Oct 2016

Posted by in Maps, Religious leanings

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Kayakers on Port Tobacco Creek, in Charles County, Maryland, recently found a pair of very old coffins floating downstream.  It seems the coffins – which contained a mother and her child – surfaced after a major rainstorm further damaged the now-submerged Christ Church cemetery that used to lie on the bank of the creek.

The Christ Church parish formed before 1692 and has met in at least three churches.  The first of these was located just northwest of the once-thriving town of Port Tobacco, along the creek.  Following the destruction of the first, the congregation rebuilt its church on the Port Tobacco town square, and later moved to LaPlata as Port Tobacco withered economically.  But the original Christ Church cemetery interments (now underwater) were never moved from the site northwest of Port Tobacco.

One Maddox researcher believes that our Cornelius Maddox (1651-1705) and Benjamin Maddox (I) (1690-1773) were buried in the original Christ Church cemetery, but has provided no evidence.  We tend to believe the assertion, since Christ Church would have been the closest Anglican church to Cornelius’ and Benjamin’s lands and would be the logical place for burial.  But nobody has been able to produce a list of interments.

During a visit to the Port Tobacco Courthouse today, local historian Anita Barbour Gordon relayed her father’s account of hunting ducks while perching atop semi-submerged gravestones in the Christ Church cemetery.  Those stones are now fully submerged, and nothing remains of the place.

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A sign near the current Port Tobacco Courthouse points toward the location of the second Christ Church location.  The original (Old Old Christ Church) location is in the opposite direction.

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An 1895 photo shows Christ Church as it stood in Port Tobacco in the 19th century.  This stone church replaced the 17th-century original, which had stood to the northwest across Port Tobacco Creek.

Pesky parson

30 Saturday Apr 2016

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Parson John Waugh was a notorious Protestant Whig in Stafford County, Virginia, in the late 1600s.  He incited Catholic-Protestant violence, officiated men’s marriages to preteen girls, and connived his way into free acreage from at least one rich woman.

Edward Maddox willed about 500 acres in King George County, Virginia, to the parson and we’ve always wondered at the circumstances.  Edward, as a Stafford justice of the peace, personally ruled against the parson for one of his preteen marriages and must have understood his character.  So why would he give land to Waugh?  We know that Edward was politically aligned with the Waughs and their Mason allies, but the 500 acre conveyance seems unusual.

Today we discovered that John Waugh not only received 500 acres from Edward’s estate, but also was appointed to directly administer Edward’s estate (Westmoreland County Order Book 1690-1698, Part Three (1694-1698), p. 178-179).  No conflict of interests there, right?  Something stinks.

 

The many wills of Dr. Edward Maddox (d. 1694)

16 Monday Jun 2014

Posted by in Developing stories, Edward Maddox, Religious leanings

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Four accounts of Dr. Edward Maddox’s 1694 will offer little hope of making a father-son link between the doctor and Cornelius Maddox, our 8th great grandfather, but reveal an unexpected possible link to George Washington’s boyhood home.

Dr. Edward Maddox’s original will burned with other Stafford County, Virginia, court records in the Civil War, but the four secondary will records below imply that Cornelius was not included for land inheritance.  If Cornelius was a son, he would have had precedence of inheritance over Edward’s daughters Alice and Amey/Anne and over the local parish (see accounts 3&4), but he received nothing in these documents.  On the other hand, the doctor owned thousands of acres at various sites in Maryland and Virginia along the Potomac River and these four documents do not necessarily cover all of them.

The first three deeds, below, combine to form a 550-acre allotment along the Rappahanock River one mile below the falls, in Stafford County, Virginia.  This would later be the site of George Washington’s boyhood home, Ferry Farm.  The fourth account is for a 500-acre allotment along the Passapantanzy Creek in Stafford County.

1. The first account of Dr. Edward Maddox’s will is a 1710 deed recorded in Richmond County, Virginia, establishing ownership of 150 of 550 acres that Dr. Edward Maddox owned on Acquia Run in Stafford County, Virginia.  The first house built on this site (pre-1710) was recently excavated by the George Washington Foundation and the results can be seen here.  Here’s the deed:

“3-263: John Hamilton died seized of 150 A. in Richmond Co. part of 550 A. purchased by Edward Maddock purchased of John Waugh Clk. of Stafford County.  Said 550 A. is part of 2000 A. granted Col. John Catlett 2 June 1666 & by conveyances vested in Maddock, who by will 13 June 1694, gave 150 A. of remaining 550 A. not disposed of by his Will to Clark.  Endorsement by Marmaduke Beckwith, Clk. of said Co.  Escheat grant to Maurice Clark of Richmond Co. 150 A. on Rappahanock R. adj. Mr. Brent & John Robins in Richmond Co. 14 Sept. 1710.”  – From “Virginia Northern Neck Land Grants,” Book No. 3, 1703-1710, Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, Inc., 1987, p. 44.

2. The second account of Dr. Edward Maddox’s will is related to the first account, above.  It is a King George County, Virginia, deed in 1722, claiming that Dr. Maddox willed a 200-acre portion of a 500-acre plantation (the same as in the first account) to his heir John Robbins (possible descendant of Edward’s second wife, Marjery (Stone) Maddox).  This land was “about a mile below the falls” of the Rappahanock River in Stafford County.  Here’s the deed:

“Indenture ffirst day of March 1721/ffryday 2nd March 1721 between THOMAS STONE of Charles County in the Province of Maryland Gent. and WILLIAM THORNTON of King George in Colony of Virginia .. by Deeds of Lease and Release .. for thirty pounds Sterling .. grant 200 acres about a mile below the ffalls of Rappahanock river it being part of a tract containing 2000 acres granted to Colo. JOHN CATTLETT by pattent bearing date 2 June 1666, 500 acres of which by sundry means conveyance passed in the proper court became property of one EDWARD MADDOCK late of Stafford County Deceased who by his last will in writeing bearing date 23rd June 1694 and duly proved in Stafford County Court December the 11th 1694 relation thereunto being had .. did give 200 acres of land above said of the said ffive hundred acres to one JOHN ROBBINS son of ROBERT ROBBINS in Maryland and his heir .. with this reservation and proviso that if JOHN ROBBINS should dye without issue of his body lawfully begotten said land should descent to JOHN STONE Son of JOHN STONE Elder of Maryland and his heirs forever which said parties being dead without heirs of their body .. the same doth descend to the within named THOMAS STONE only Brother of the said JOHN STONE of the whole blood as heir at law.”  – From 1721-1735 King George County Deed Book 1, Part 1, (Antient Press); pp.54- 58.

3. The third account of Dr. Edward Maddox’s will also relates to the first and second accounts, above.  In this 1723 King George County, Virgnia, deed, Alice Cale (probably the doctor’s daughter) receives 200 acres of the 500-acre plot that was originally owned by Dr. Edward Meaddock.  This third account of 200 acres completes the dispersal of Edward’s 550-acre plot along the Rappahanock River.  Cale’s acreage is specifically described in the National Park Service’s survey of George Washington’s Ferry Farm site.

“Indenture 3rd/4th March 1723 between CHARLES CALE and ALICE his wife of Parish of Hanover King George County and WILLIAM THORNTON of same by deeds of Lease and Release .. sold 35 acres for ffourteen pounds current money tract being on North side of Rappahanock River in King George about a mile below the ffalls of the said river .. it being part of a tract of 2000 acres granted to COLL: JOHN CATLET by Pattent bearing date 2d day of June 1666 ffive hundred acres of which having been passed by sundry conveyances at length became the right of EDWARD MEADDOCK late of Stafford County deceased who by his last Will in writing bearing date 23rd day of June 1694 and duly proved in Stafford County Court December 11th 1694 relation being thereunto had .. did grant unto the within named ALICE now the wife of the said CHARLES CALE 200 acres part of the said 500 acres of which 200 acres are hereby leased and is a part and includes the plantation whereon the said Charles did lately live .. bounded .. East side of mouth of Claburns run; land now in possession of WILLIAM THORNTON which he bought of Mr. THOMAS STONE; on run a little above Fitzhugh’s Mill pond ..
Witnesses Thomas Benson, Charles Cale
John x Hall, Wm. x Hall Alice Cale
ALICE being soley and secretly examined .. acknowledged her Right of the Land .. to be to the uses in the said Deed ..
7th August 1724 .. Deeds of Lease and Release recorded.”  – From: 1721-1735 King George County Deed Book 1, Part 1, (Antient Press); pp. 249-252.

4. The fourth account of Dr. Edward Maddox’s will is from a circa-1899 history of Stafford County’s Overwharton Parish, in which the author claims Dr. Maddox willed the entirety of his estate – 450-500 acres with a home along the Passapantanzy Creek in Stafford County – to the parish in 1694.  Importantly, in this account Dr. Edward Maddox was apparently punishing his only heir, Amey Maddox (probably a misspelling of Anne Maddox), by not willing anything to her.  But we know the doctor did have at least one other heir in the county – his daughter Alice, in account #3, above.  Here’s an account of the Parish register by circa 1899 researcher William Boogher:

“The largest legacy that Overwharton Parish received during the Seventeenth Century was from Doctor Edward Maddox.  The last will and Testament of Doctor Edward Maddox ‘of Stafford Parish, Stafford, in the Colony of Virginia’ was dated June 23, 1694; it was admitted to probate on December 11, 1694.  His only child, Amy Maddox, married without his approbation, Thomas Derrick and for this reason Doctor Maddox mad the following bequest:

‘I first give and bequeath this plantation whereupon I now live and all the lands thereto appertaining and to me belonging to be and forever after to continue as a glebe and manse for the reception and encouragement of a pious and able minister in that parish wherein I now live being commonly known and called by the name of Stafford, or the upper parish of Stafford County; and that after my decease it be well and truly improved and managed at all times for the intent above said excepting that while there is no minister to serve ye cure in the said parish then I will and desire that the said plantation and land together with all its profits and advantages (before the time of vacancy above said) fully  improved and laid out for the relief and support of such poor and indigent as in the said parish shall seem most in want at the discretion of the church wardens and vestry of the above said parish for the time being.’

“Doctor Maddox’s plantation consisted of between 450 and 500 acres on Passapantanzy Creek not far from the plantation of the Reverend Mr. John Waugh.  It was enjoyed as a glebe by the curate of Stafford [later Overwharton] Parish until after the death of the Reverend Mr. Robert Buchan in 1804 when Doctor Maddox’s descendants instigated suit claiming it was no longer being used as stipulated in his last will and Testament and recovered it.” – From Boogher, William Fletcher. Virginia, Overwharton Parish Register, 1720 to 1760, old Stafford County. Washington: Saxton Printing Co., 1899, pp. 176-195, online at http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~vastaffo/overwhartonparishregister176.htm.

Separately, three land records recorded during the formation of Prince George’s County, Maryland, in 1696 indicate that an Edward Maddock owned three of the by-then deceased Doctor Edward Maddocks’ former lands.  These three plots lie about 8-10 miles south of the current Capital Beltway, just east of the north-south Route 210 in Prince George County.  Since the doctor was dead by 1694, it is possible that the three 1696 parcels of land had been transferred to an heir in the years before the doctor’s death.  Or the records are in error.  Here are the land records:

Prince George’s County, Maryland – Land Owners at Time PGCo Was Formed – 1696: Tract Name: LYONS HOLE; Owner: Maddock, Edward: Orig County = C {Charles = C, Calvert = V}; Patent Date: May 8, 1669 : Ref: Libor 12 f 448 : Map Location: P-15
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Prince George’s County, Maryland – Land Owners at Time PGCo Was Formed – 1696: Tract Name: STONEHILL; Owner: Maddock, Edward: Orig County = C {Charles = C, Calvert = V}; Patent Date: May 8, 1669 : Ref: Liber 12 f 450 : Map Location: P-16
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Prince George’s County, Maryland – Land Owners at Time PGCo Was Formed – 1696: Tract Name: MADDUCKS FOLLY; Owner: Maddock, Edward: Orig County = C {Charles = C, Calvert = V}; Patent Date: Jun 21, 1675: Ref: Liber 19 f 100 : Map Location: Q-14

Joseph the Baptist

06 Sunday Apr 2014

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We know that Cornelius Maddox was an Anglican in the 17th century, based on his British citizenship and his family’s name in the records of the Anglican Nanjemoy Parish in Charles County, Maryland.  The family’s 1790 move to Abbeville, South Carolina, followed the Revolution, and the Revolution resulted in a rejection of Anglicanism among many of the victorious rebels.  In the case of the Maddoxes in South Carolina, Baptist Protestantism was the favored religion.  Baptist Protestantism was gaining a strong foothold in the settlements of western South Carolina at the time.

When Benjamin (III) and Joseph Maddox left South Carolina around 1810, they settled in Christian County, Kentucky, for a few decades before eventually settling in Illinois.  We have now determined from Joseph’s certificate of marriage to his first wife Susannah Shelton, in 1825, that Joseph was a Baptist at that time.  On the marriage certificate is Baptist Minister John Bobbitt‘s name.  At the time, most churches were nothing more than open-air arbors, or services were held in settlers’ cabins, according to William Henry Perrin’s 1884 religious history of the county.  Minister Bobbitt would be buried in the Bobbitt Cemetery near Kelly, Kentucky.  It is quite possible that he was one of the originators – in name or deed – of the Mount Zoar Baptist Church, which was established in Kelly in 1841.

Of the many Baptist churches of Christian County that might have served as the Maddox family’s parish, the Crofton Baptist Church stands out.  It was just upstream from Joseph’s farm and included Joseph’s Long and Ford neighbors, and later was served by two Maddox ministers.

The evolution of religious leanings over the generations is curiously fluid.  Later, John Napoleon Maddox was a Methodist, but his daughter Irene was a Presbyterian.  Later generations have chosen yet other creeds.

John Napoleon Maddox’s conserved Family History document

04 Saturday May 2013

Posted by in Gaines Family, Religious leanings

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John Napoleon‘s 19th-century Family History sheet bore the brunt of time and was crumbling into dust, but it’s now fully restored and framed.  It names Frances Gaines as his wife and lists their four children, Lloyd, Francis, Lolith and Milfred.

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The secrets of Benjamin (I)’s last will and testament

15 Sunday Jul 2012

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Benjamin (I)’s 1770 will includes a peculiar signature mark, looking very much like a cross…

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Benjamin’s will proclaims his love for his wife Francis [sic], and includes a strong testament of his dedication to God and his desire for a fine burial. I wonder if Benjamin’s cross-shaped mark is intended to convey his faith, despite his illiteracy.

A comparison of his father Cornelius’ post-death household inventory with his own shows that there was no transfer of literacy from one generation to the next, but there certainly was a transfer of property.  Cornelius’ 1705 inventory includes “five small books” (I wish they had included the titles), but few household luxuries; whereas, Benjamin’s inventory is fairly extensive and includes a veritable ark of animals… sheep, pigs, cows and horses.  Benjamin did quite well for a man who couldn’t keep written records.

Here’s a link to the entire original will: Benjamin I will.