Month: February 2020

I did a bit more searching recently through the Henry County tax lists in the early 1790’s to see if I could get a bit more clarification on the reaons for the Culpeper designation for John Wilson in 1791 and 1793. One theory I wanted to investigate was whether there was a geographic area with that name at that time. Virtually all the extraneous designations I have found in the tax lists, other than Jr. and Sr. and “son of”, were indications on which river or creek the taxpayer lived on, in order to distinguish them from others with the same name. For instance, one of our Moses Wilsons was often designated with “Home Creek”, and the aforementioned John was likely the one designated “Leatherwood”. By looking at all the taxpayers listed in the years around those with John’s Culpeper descriptor, I was hoping to either find others with the same designation, which would likely indicate it was a body of water or area that once had that name.

But in all of the years I looked at every taxpayer name (roughly 1790-1795) I could find no others that contained “Culpeper” or anything other than the known standard designations — except the Wilson clan! What is even more interesting is that none of the other designations added to our Wilson taxpaying relatives such as “Big” and “Little” could be found on any other listed name (I can envision the family gatherings where they referred to “Big Moses” or “Little John” around the fire :-)). The conclusion I draw from this is that those designations were “self-assigned” – i.e. the Wilsons gave themselves those extra nicknames, if you will, and communicated them to the local deputy who was compiling the list and assessing taxes. The implication of this is that John himself probably added the moniker “Culpeper” to his name which means it could very be his middle name, or some other family name he used to distinguish himself from the other John Wilsons (at least one) in the family and county.

Of course, this doesn’t really tell us anything new since I haven’t been able to find any link to Culpeper County or other Culpepers in Virginia, but it does help to perhaps make some sense of why John, and John alone, had such an extra designation.

One of the John Wilsons in the early Henry County area was known to have owned land on the Blackwater River, as per the deed dated 25 Aug 1779: “Thomas Miller to John Wilson of the county of Botetourt for 150 pounds 150 acres  from patent at Williamsburgh (sic) 15 June 1773 … both sides of main … south of Blackwater River”. Whether this John is related to the clan of James Sr. in some way is not known, but I do not believe this is John Culpeper Wilson whom we know to be related through DNA and later proximity, for several reasons.

First of all, John Culpeper would mostly likely have been too young to buy land in those days. Based on the 1830 census in which his age was reported to be between 60 and 69, he would have been born between 1761 and 1770. Assuming this is correct (and not all census records are), he would have been only 18 at most in 1779. Not only would it have been unlikely for an 18 year old to have that kind of money, it also would not have legal for him to purchase land as the legal age to buy or sell property in 18th century Virginia was 21.

The tax records of Henry and Franklin Counties also provide strong evidence. Blackwater River was in the portion of Henry County that was taken to form part of Franklin County in 1785. We can use the tax records of the period to try to figure out whether John C. lived on the Blackwater River or not. Franklin County had separate records beginning in 1786, and in that year the only two Wilsons (Willsons) in Franklin were John and Joshua, in the district recorded by a gentleman named Renfro. There were numerous surveys done for various Renfro/Rentfros (James, Joseph, Stephen, Isaac, etc.) with surveys on the Blackwater River as far back as 1746. Since the tax record takers typically seemed to work in the same geographic region as they lived (not surprisingly), it seems reasonable to assume that Renfro’s district covered Blackwater River, and that this John Wilson lived on Blackwater also.

It is fairly clear that this same John continued in the Franklin County records for many years based on continuing to have 3-5 horses (which was the primary property recorded in the tax records), as well as being the only John Wilson in the Franklin records in this period. Now, the first time there is a definitive mention of John Culpeper Wilson in the Henry County tax records was in 1791 and again in 1793. The 1791 Franklin records are a bit sparse, but the taxpayer I believe is the Blackwater John was in the 1793 records – the same year that John Culpeper was recorded in Henry County. In 1795 there was a Henry County record for John Wilson (Leatherwood), which is likely John Culpeper as his family history says he lived on Cobb Creek, which is a tributary to Leatherwood (thank you Beth for the information!). Other Wilsons in our clan also had property deeds on Leatherwood. And, since Blackwater John appears in the Franklin records from before 1792 to 1796 (the last year I checked), it seems fairly clear that John Culpeper was not the John Willson that lived on Blackwater.

One other item to note is that the original Blackwater deed to John said he was of Botetourt County, which was Henry County’s northern neighbor at that time (1779). While it is certainly possible that a young John Culpeper might have been living in Botetourt then (depending on which branch of the family he came from), I can find no records of any of the others in that county; whereas James, Thomas and Moses (the latter two probably James’ sons) were in southern Henry County at Smith River, Leatherwood Creek and Home Creek based on 1768 surveys. So in addition to John C.’s supposed age ruling out him being the John Wilson of the Blackwater deed, his presumed family’s location also argues against it. None of this is conclusive of course, but I feel the evidence is quite strong that John Culpeper and John Wilson of Blackwater were two different John Wilsons.