Tag Archives: edward_maddox

Pulling a thread

21 Friday Apr 2017

Posted by in Developing stories, Edward Maddox, Maps, Uncategorized

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The 16th-century Guild in Shrewsbury.
A ribbon of metal inlaid in the stone below the Guild explains that the Welsh and English cooperated in the Guild.
A Shrewsbury church steeple.

We’ve been trying to understand our Edward Maddox‘s (d. 1694) origins in Shropshire, England, and add any more evidence to our assessment of his migration to the American Colonies.  Most evidence of such early migration is oblique, so maybe it shouldn’t be surprising to find hints of Edward’s origins in obscure write-ups about the 17th-century English cloth trade…

It turns out that the town of Shrewsbury, in Edward’s County of Shropshire, was the center of trade (export) for woolens and the headquarters of the Drapers Guild.  Edward lived just south of Shrewsbury in the town of Munslow, placing him ideally for involvement in the cloth trade.  Perhaps he was warehousing locally grown wool.  Other towns in the area were used as markets or warehouses.

One author explains that “The ‘proud Salopians’ of Shrewsbury, as their rivals termed them, achieved the high-water mark of their prosperity in the century before the [1642-51] Civil War: the town’s population rose from 3,000 to 7,000, the urban area was largely rebuilt, and the borough evolved from a county seat into the economic and social focus of an area stretching from the Wrekin to Cardigan Bay. Shrewsbury’s urban growth mirrored developments at neighbouring Chester and Worcester, but the simultaneous expansion of its hinterland gave it a regional significance comparable to that of much larger centres such as York, Norwich, Bristol or Exeter. This expansion was partly due to Shrewsbury’s location at the head of the Severn navigation, which facilitated communications to Gloucester, Bristol and beyond, while Shrewsbury’s proximity to the upland pastures of southern Shropshire [where Edward’s town of Munslow is located] made it the entrepôt for top-quality March wool coveted by broadcloth weavers from Gloucestershire to the Low Countries.” (Source: http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1604-1629/constituencies/shrewsbury)

The Drapers Guild fell apart in the mid-1600s after the Glorious Revolution. According to a Wikipedia article, “after the English Civil War (1642–51) regulations were made in 1654 ‘for preventing the Drapers forestalling or engrossing the Welsh flannels, cloths, etc.’ Many of the drapers supported Parliament during the civil war, and as a consequence the Company was not given royal support after the monarchy was restored in 1660 under Charles II (r. 1660–85). The cloth trade went into a gradual decline after this date. The number of drapers had fallen back to 61 in 1665.” (Source: The Shrewsbury Drapers and the Welsh Wool Trade in the XVI and XVII Centuries, T.C. Mendenhall)  Edward migrated to Virginia at about this time.

The cloth trade suggestion is particularly compelling as an explanation for Edward’s migration because he imported “fuetiane” (a kind of heavy cloth) to Maryland in 1675 .  It was enough cloth to be reported in official Colonial records (Source: Colonial Survey Report #3964, p. 16).  His son Cornelius would be called a merchant in some records and this might have been because of a cloth import business.  We’ll have to continue pulling this thread.  The Shrewsbury archive contains records of the Guild.

Edward the puritan?

03 Friday Feb 2017

Posted by in Edward Maddox, Religious leanings

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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.

Dr. Edward Maddock (d. 1694) was likely the father of Mr. Edward Maddock (1645-1690) of Nanjemoy, Md.

14 Sunday Sep 2014

Posted by in Edward Maddox

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We’ve already provided evidence of the location of Dr. Edward Maddock (d. 1694) in Nanjemoy, Maryland, in the mid- to late-1600s.  He practised medicine in Charles County and owned numerous tracts of land along the Potomac River in Charles County, Maryland, and in Stafford County, Virginia, and he served as a Justice of Peace in Stafford County in the early 1690s.

It has been difficult to determine the relationship between the Edward Maddocks called “doctor,” “apothecary,” or “physician” in Charles County records, and another Edward Maddocks who is described only as “mister” in the same county.  But it seemed likely, based on their common name and common location, that they were immediately related.

Now we have good circumstantial evidence to demonstrate that Dr. Edward was the father of Mr. Edward.  Most importantly, pages 165-166 of Liber D of the Charles County Court Proceedings, 1668-1670, shows that Edward Maddock sued Samuell Price for 240 pounds of tobacco for physicians services that Edward provided.  That the younger Edward Maddock was practising medicine in Charles County, just like the elder Dr. Edward Maddock around the same time, supports an immediate relationship.

We also clearly know that the elder Dr. Edward Maddock and the younger Mr. Edward Maddock are not the same person, since Dr. Maddock left Charles County for Stafford County, Virginia, a decade or so earlier: the elder Dr. Maddock is described as “late of Charles County” on Page 374 of Liber B, No. 3, Provincial Court Proceedings, 1657-1658.  The elder Dr. Edward Maddock did return to Charles County in the 1670s, though, and lived on Cheshires, part of Poynton Manor, with his wife Margery (Stone) Maddox, but sold that land to Richard Fowke and departed again by 1684.

The younger Edward was born circa 1645/6, since he claimed to the court that he was “22 or 23” years old in 1668 and claimed that he was 26 in 1670 (Charles County Court Proceedings, 1668-1670, Liber D, p. 133 and pp. 165-166).  He married Henry Frankcum’s widow Annah/Amey Frankcum on or after 1668 (I&A 5.285).  His cattle mark was “the left eare cropt the right ear hole with a nick in the under part of the same” (Charles County Court Proceedings, Liber E, 10 September 1672).  He died between 1685 and 1690, based on a petition by his stepson Henry Frankcum, Jr. for land held by Edward Maddock, “dec’d” (Charles County Land Records, Volume III Liber Q, Page 10 – dated 10 June 1690).

It is possible that Amey/Annah Maddock is the same Amey Maddock whom Dr. Edward Maddock chastised in his 1694 will for marrying without consent.  She would have been single again after the younger Edward’s death in circa 1690.  A circa-1899 history of Stafford County’s Overwharton Parish 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, by not willing anything to her.  She had married a man without Edward’s consent.

Richard Fowke seems to be the common link between the elder Dr. Edward Maddock, the younger Mr. Edward Maddox, and Annah/Amey (Frankcum) Maddox.  Richard Fowke purchased two plots of land from the elder Dr. Edward Maddock in 1672 and 1684, and witnessed the administration of a gift of one mare from the younger Edward Maddock to the newly widowed Annah/Amey Frankcum in March 1668/9 (Charles County Court & Land Records Vol II, p. 26; Charles County Court & Land Records Vol II, p. 82; Charles County Court Proceedings Liber D, p. 55).  Since Richard Fowke and Zachary Wade both witnessed the administration of the mare, and since Fowke’s and Wade’s lands adjoined at Lyon’s Hole (Charles Court Court & Land Records Vol II, p. 26), it is possible that their role as witnesses was based on geography – perhaps the younger Edward Maddock was living near Lyon’s Hole, which also once belonged to the elder Dr. Edward Maddock.

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