 |
| Jamestown Fort |
When they crossed the Mississippi River nearly two centuries ago, my fourth great grandparents John Farmer (1800-1834) and wife Jane Woodson Farmer (1800-1895) entered a new world. There would be no Holiday Inn with complementary breakfast waiting for them. Pike County in the young state of Missouri boasted fertile farmland, however, and available acreage with ample game for these settlers from Virginia who likely crossed the country in 1833 with an ox-drawn wagon and other neighbors. It’s unclear if they traveled with the family of another of my fourth great-grandfathers John Walker Wright (1780-1858), but they soon would settle near one another in Pike’s Indian Township seeking similar opportunities and facing the same challenges for a fresh start in the country’s Midwest.
In the decades ahead, the Farmers’ union and kinship
with Wright’s family would lead eventually to the birth of my mother in 1918 and,
of course, to me. In 1844, John Walker Wright’s son Thomas Washington Wright
(1821-1916) would marry Mary Ann Farmer (1823-1893), the daughter of John
Farmer and Jane Woodson. But that siren song of a new world that brought them
to Missouri in the 19th Century was not the first heard by the lines of the
Farmers and Woodsons, or the Wrights. To appreciate their journey—and mine plus
that of countless others descended from those lines—we must travel further back
two more centuries to an earlier version of a new world when the ancestors of
John Farmer and Jane Woodson arrived in a place called Virginia and created the
first permanent English colony in America at Jamestown.
For those earlier ancestors, Pike County in 1833 would
have seemed a lost closer to a reservation at a Holiday Inn compared with the
savage reception that greeted them in 17th Century Virginia, where the local
inhabitants would take every chance they could to kill them and drive them back
across the sea. The ancestors of John Farmer and Jane Woodson would overcome
all manner of suffering from near-starvation to near-constant warfare with
natives to pass down their lifeblood to the couple that arrived in Missouri in
1833.
This post represents another chapter in my effort to
share the story of my ancestral lines so that my descendants will have more
than names and dates to understand their place in time. It follows earlier
posts about my Mayflower ancestors, my
Puritan ancestors and
my Libby family ancestors from Maine who
comprise the New England portion of my ancestry. Now I want to share the story
of the southern lines destined to join those New Englanders in Missouri on my
mother’s side of my family.
I’ve already chronicled the life of one of my three
ancestors who traveled to Jamestown in the early 1600s. My 10th
Great-Grandfather Stephen Hopkins (1581-1644) had spent about five years in Jamestown before returning to England in 1616.
From there he joined the Mayflower voyage of 1620 and finally settled in
Massachusetts. I recounted his life story in my 2020 post about my Mayflower
ancestors.
Besides Hopkins, I know of two other ancestors who
brought their family lines through Jamestown. Another 10th Great-Grandfather
Thomas Farmer (1593-1633) came to Jamestown in 1616 as a merchant. Then three
years later, my 9th Great-Grandfather Dr. John Woodson (1586-1644) arrived with
his wife, my 9th Great-Grandmother Sarah Winston (1590-1659) to serve as
military surgeon for the Jamestown garrison. Although the research into my
Farmer lineage still raises some questions, research into my Woodson line appears
solid. I have not sought membership in the Jamestown Society for any of these
lines, so no official source has affirmed my research. I have, however,
submitted my Hopkins lineage to the Mayflower Society which affirmed it in 2020
and assigned me a membership number. I’m still reasonably certain enough to
include both Thomas Farmer and Dr. John Woodson in this post.
THE ENGLISH SEEK AN AMERICAN OUTPOST
“In the history of the founding of Jamestown can be glimpsed lines of development that have continued to influence American society ever since,” writes historian James Horn in his definitive 2008 history on the founding of Jamestown, A Land As God Made It: Jamestown and the Birth of America. Anyone interested in learning more details about the first 30 years of English exploration in America can find it in this book. Of course, there’s alwaysWikiPedia for a shorter account.
Reading either version will convince us of two
important observations. Establishment of an English colony in America did not
come easy. But its eventual success laid the foundation for the government
structures we revere today.
Horn underscores the challenge: “But, against all
odds, Jamestown survived and, by surviving, became the first transatlantic site
of an empire that would eventually carry the English language, laws and
institutions across North America.”
He continues: “Representative government, first
established at Jamestown in 1619, would in time blossom into a vibrant
political culture throughout the British colonies and contribute to a new
republican credo expressed in the founding of the United States, which itself
would become an inspiration to peoples around the world.”
Reviewing the variety of people who came together at
Jamestown—white, Black and native—Horn concludes: “Together they shaped a new
world and forged a new people.”
Before reaching those conclusions, however, Horn
provides ample evidence of my first general observation about the English
arrival in America: Establishment of an English colony in America did not come
easy.
By all accounts, the English arrived late to the
colonial game begun at the dawn of the 16th Century following the discovery of
a New World by Columbus in the 1490s. Spain and Portugal moved quickly to
establish outposts in the southern part of the Western Hemisphere while the
French and Dutch moved north toward Canada. Meanwhile, the English seemed
content during the 1500s to let their privateers on the high seas claim their
share of New World resources through hijacking. As English merchants and
officials watched the Spanish acquire cargos of gold, sugar and other
products—even humans—from their holdings in Mexico and South America, however, they
decided they wanted to get some, too. They saw a vacancy sign flashing along
the North American eastern coast from Spanish Florida to French Canada and
decided to take a look.
It wasn’t as if the Spanish hadn’t already looked
there themselves. But they had determined it presented no urgency for
exploration. A few skirmishes with the native warriors in the region sealed
their resolve to place Middle America and the Chesapeake Bay region on the back
burner of their colonial stove. Nevertheless, the Spanish would keep an eye
peeled on English ambitions there in case the English wanted to use the region
as a haven for privateers. As a result, the prospect of a Spanish invasion
would always represent one additional threat for English settlers in Virginia.
Colonization of Virginia began as a private enterprise
rather than a government project. Despite a notorious failure at the first
attempt in 1585 at North Carolina’s Roanoke Island, investors still showed interest and sought a charter in 1606 to create the
Virginia Company, named
for the late virgin Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603). And it began with a
monumental burst of wishful thinking: Investors hoped to find either gold or a
river route to the Pacific Ocean by colonizing Virginia. They would find
neither. Instead, they eventually would find a bonanza in a new money
agricultural crop called tobacco. But that would only come after they nearly
died trying to find their initial desires.
“When the English arrived in Virginia early in the new
century, they would encounter a powerful and complex chiefdom,” writes Horn,
describing the Powhatan Confederacy of
tribes inhabiting the region they called “Tsenacommacah”—a word meaning
“densely inhabited land.”
Virginia held an estimated 15,000 native residents in
1600 scattered through several hundred villages and hamlets. Even the largest
rarely contained more than 20 or 30 houses made of curved wood and covered with
mats or tree bark. Despite the spread of the villages, communication and
commerce remained linked by the network of rivers and ancient trails available
to the tribes. They survived on a mixture of agriculture, fishing, hunting and
foraging. They worshipped a great creator god they called Ahone who lived in
the heavens above with boundless powers but ignored the affairs of men.
“Powhatan society was organized for war,” writes Horn,
adding: “Warfare involved a variety of tactics such as frontal assaults, hit-and-run
sorties by small raiding parties, ambush and deception.”
Whenever invaders arrive in new lands with advanced
technology, however, the future of local control becomes dismal at best.
Despite their superior numbers, knowledge of the terrain and unified front, the
Powhatans did not stand a chance. That doesn’t mean they failed to give the
English a savage fight.
Mindful of the mysterious disappearance 20 years
earlier at the English Roanoke colony, Virginia Company investors focused on
exploration as a preliminary requisite for selecting the best site for an
outpost. And their first wave of settlers would reflect that focus as they
filled their fleet of three ships in late 1606 with 144 male adventurers,
treasure-hunters and fortune seekers destined to fail miserably at creating an
agriculturally sustainable home. After a stop in the Caribbean, the fleet
reached Virginia on 10 April 1607.
Exploring farther north in the Chesapeake Bay region,
the expedition discovered a deepwater channel in what they had named the James
River, honoring the English King James I and providing an entrance for larger
ships that had not been available at Roanoke. And the fort constructed on a peninsula
about 50 miles from the coast became Jamestown. Exploring upriver in small
boats, they found the natives friendly enough but learned of the Powhatan
Confederacy and its major chief Wahunsonacock. The James River ran inland for about 160
miles with a width ranging from a quarter mile to two miles at some spots.
 |
| National Geographic Map |
“Within just seven weeks of disembarking at Jamestown,
they had fortified themselves against the Indians, sown a good crop of wheat,
and produced samples of clapboard and sassafras for export,” writes Horn,
describing the situation left by the first leader to return to England and
report to investors. “The colony’s potential must have seemed boundless.”
That summer, however, the colonists began to learn
about the problems with their location of a post at Jamestown. Swampy marshes
covered about half the peninsula rendering much of the land unsuitable for
growing anything besides mosquitoes. Even worse, the land included no
freshwater springs, forcing the settlers to dig wells. By the end of August,
one colonist wrote, many comrades were suffering from disease and famine, with
polluted river water as a major cause of death that shrank the population from
104 to less than 40 by October.
Although neighboring tribes provided food to help the
colonists survive the winter, the leaders of the Powhatan Confederacy took note
of another potential tactic they would later employ to try to destroy
Jamestown. They realized these English invaders would need food from them to
survive, so any trade boycott or siege could be effective. They offered to
provide food if the colonists would accept Wahunsonacock as their leader and
become citizens of the Powhatan Confederacy. He obviously had decided to try an
alliance that would boost his military prowess by providing access to guns and
modern trade goods.
While the colonists instead clearly considered the
Powhatans to now be subjects of King James, they continued a negotiation
through an uneasy truce that lasted until a new supply of about 120 men arrived
in early 1608. As Horn puts it: “Survival depended on a deadly game of keeping
one step ahead of their adversaries.”
Under pressure from the Virginia Company investors to find either gold or a passage to the Pacific Ocean, the colonists also burned much energy on further exploration. And eventually Wahunsonacock imposed his embargo on trade with the colonists. A confrontation in January 1609 brought a stalemate: Wahunsonacock demanded English weapons in exchange for corn, but the colonists refused to deal. While the colonists at Jamestown struggled against starvation and sporadic Powhatan attacks, the impatient investors in London decided to get tough with the colonists by imposing martial law and reorganize, dispatching new leadership to the colony in the form of a governor, Sir Thomas Gates (?-1622).
The company recruited new settlers from all over
Europe in hopes of making Jamestown into an outpost of industry, Recruits
included glassmakers from Italy, millwrights from Germany, carpenters,
blacksmiths, fishermen and planters. It registered these recruits as
“Adventurers” and promised housing. A fleet of six ships with 500 new recruits
left England in June of 1609. But a storm disrupted the voyage of the flag ship
Sea Venture and forced Gates to delay for nine months while making
repairs on Bermuda. It was there that my 10GG Stephen Hopkins barely avoided execution for mutiny as described in
my post on his eventual
resettlement to Massachusetts aboard the Mayflower a decade later.
The year of 1609 has become known in Jamestown lore as
“the starving time.” It’s difficult to understand how the colony survived. The
Powhatans successfully prevented the colonists from leaving the fort. The
record reflects reports of cannibalism, starvation, disease and brutal deaths
from native attacks. The natives lifted their siege in May of 1610 so they
could plant their own corn for the summer. By the time Gates arrived from
Bermuda with new supplies about then, the colony had been reduced to a
population of 60. In June, another supply ship arrived with 150 new recruits and orders to work harder to sustain the colony.
“From being on the brink of collapse, the colony now
had a full complement of leaders, some 375 settlers, and for the first time in
more than a year it was well provisioned,” writes Horn.
So, Jamestown continued with the military
reorganization clawing back some level of self-sufficiency through martial law,
forcing the “adventurers” to accept roles as farmers, hunters and fishermen
with protection from the natives in the woods. About the same time, the
Powhatans grew mysteriously friendly as an uneasy tension filled the colony. This
was the Jamestown my 10th Great-Grandfather Thomas Farmer (1593-1633) would
find waiting when he arrived aboard the Tryall in 1616.
THE MYSTERIES OF FARMER GENEALOGY
“The history of the New World can be summarized simply as the search for a better life,” writes Elizabeth Ann Farmer in the introduction of her 2013 book reporting on her research into the Thomas Farmer lineage, The George Washington Farmer Jr. Family: His Ancestors and Descendants.
Her book tries to solve a mystery about the Thomas
Farmer lineage that had puzzled family researchers since the 1956 publication
of a lineage by Ellery Farmer, a retired U.S Army Colonel, entitled simply Farmer:
Descendants of Thomas Farmer Who Came to Virginia in 1616. Although
thoroughly researched, this earlier Farmer book raised questions about the
birth of Thomas Farmer’s son, Henry Farmer, listing his birth year as 1657 when
Thomas Farmer would have been well into his 60s and after his official paper
trail had ended with his election to the Virginia legislature in 1630.
Members of the WikiTree online community continue to
list Thomas Farmer’s lineage to Henry Farmer as disputed, noting the
possibility that a generation had been missed. But the FamilySearch.org
community appears to have accepted the lineage recorded in the 2013 research by
Elizabeth Ann Farmer that uses DNA profiling to propose an explanation. According
to her, Thomas Farmer’s English-born son, Henry Farmer, came to Virginia in
1657 and quickly married a newly-arrived Scotch-Irish widow named Alice who
gave birth to a son that year. They named him Henry Farmer Jr. (1657-1734) and
he would be my 8th Great-Grandfather if Elizabeth Ann Farmer’s DNA speculation
is correct.
DNA testing of her male relatives descended from Henry
Jr. has shown Scotch-Irish heritage, rather than the pure English stock of
descendants from the couple’s later-born children as had been expected from a
Farmer line that had come directly from England. As a result, she concludes:
“Henry Jr.’s father must have been Alice’s first
husband William, the Scotch-Irishman that died in route to Virginia. Although
there may never be proof, below is the theory most Farmer researchers support.
Since Alice's husband William died on board the ship, or shortly after his
arrival in Virginia, it is quite plausible that Alice was pregnant when she
arrived in America.”
What’s a possible Farmer descendant like me supposed
to believe in 2025? I can still document my Farmer lineage back at least to
Henry Jr., whose biological dad may not have been a Farmer. If not, however, he
was raised as one who probably considered Thomas Farmer to have been his
grandpa. And both lineage books agree Thomas Farmer arrived in 1616 on the Tyrall.
Besides offering the DNA solution to the mystery of
the missing generation, Elizabeth Ann Farmer offers an extended lineage record
on the Farmer name and more information about Thomas himself. She traces her
family line back to 1410 in Oxfordshire, England, and identifies Thomas Farmer
as a descendant baptized in 1593, the son of a land owner wealthy enough to
have two homes.
All sources agree on 1593 as the birth year for Thomas
Farmer in England, 1616 as the year of arrival in Jamestown and on the identity
of his wife as Mary Ward (1594-1638)—my 10th Great-Grandmother. They also agree
on 1633 as the year of his death in Henrico County, Virginia Colony. His
WikiTree profile cites sources listing him living in 1623 on an area now called
Farrar’s Island, then called simply “Neck of Land.” The muster of Virginia
settlers for 1624 also lists him as age 30. Records also show him elected to
serve in the Virginia House of Burgesses for 1629-30, representing the Neck of
Land.
Elizabeth Ann Farmer elaborates in her book: “He
arrived in Jamestown, Virginia in October of 1616. Thomas was one of the first
four or five thousand people ever to set foot on Virginia soil from across the
ocean. Thomas settled on land near a bend in the James River that had an
island. It was legally listed as the Bermuda Hundred, Neck of Land, Henrico
City Corporation, Virginia Colony. Hundred was an English land term that
referred to a tract of land presumed to be capable of supporting 100 families.
Bermuda Hundred was intended by the London Company to be the site for a
college, but that never happened. Bermuda Hundred was about 1,000 acres in a
place called The Neck of Land where the James River meandered around an island.
The island is called Farrar’s Island today.”
She writes that Thomas made frequent trips back to
England and speculates that he likely brought cattle back to the colony due to
his association with Abraham Peirsey, the primary procurement official for the
London company charged with coordinating the import of goods needed by the
colony. Peirsey would gain notoriety later as one of the first importers of Black
African slaves to the colony in 1619. On a trip back to England about 1624, she
writes that Thomas married Mary Ward, the widowed-daughter of the ship’s
captain who had brought Thomas to Jamestown in 1616 abord the Tyrall.
After Thomas’s death, Mary married a third time to another Virginia colonist
living there until her death about 1638.
This chart describes my Farmer lineage as best I
understand it now, based on the research of the Farmer family researchers.
|
Gen |
Name |
Spouse |
comments |
|
1 |
Thomas
Farmer (1593-1633) |
Mary
Ward (1594-?) |
Arrived
1616 in Jamestown as a single man. |
|
2 |
Henry
Charles Farmer (1634-1668) |
Alice
West (1633-1708) |
Alice
arrived as a widow. |
|
3 |
Henry
Farmer Jr. (1657-1734) |
Mary
Clarke (1666-1695) |
Some
dispute about Jr.’s biological father by DNA. |
|
4 |
Henry
William Farmer (1686-1753) |
Sarah
Ward (1690-1753) |
Labeled
Henry Farmer III in some references. |
|
5 |
Lodowick
Farmer (1715-1780) |
Sarah
Cheatham (1717-1789) |
|
|
6 |
James
Farmer (1742-1809) |
First
wife name unknown. |
Served
in the Revolution DAR A038675 |
|
7 |
Marlin
“Billy” Farmer (1766-1828) |
Elizabeth
“Betsy” Echols (1776-1823) |
|
|
8 |
John
Farmer (1800-1834) |
Jane
B. Woodson (1800-1895) |
Migrated
to Missouri in 1833. |
|
9 |
Mary
Ann Farmer (1823-1893) |
Thomas
Washington Wright (1821-1916) |
|
|
10 |
James
Harvey Wright (1857-1948) |
Clara
Dean Lafferty (1870-1950) |
Participated
in the Oklahoma land rush. |
|
11 |
Leslie
Riggs Wright (1891-1972) |
Della
May Libby (1891-1969) |
|
|
12 |
Rheva
Wright (1918-1981) |
Dale
Taylor (1921-1984) |
|
|
13 |
Gary
Dale Taylor (1947-) |
|
|
1619: TOBACCO BRIDES AND BLACK SLAVES MAKE A MONUMENTAL YEAR IN JAMESTOWN
Three years after Thomas arrived in Jamestown, my 9th
Great-Grandfather arrived there, too. While questions linger about my Farmer
lineage, I’m certain about the line to Dr. John Woodson (1586-1644) who came in
April 1619 aboard the George with his wife, my 9th Great-Grandmother
Sarah Winston (1590-1659). Both Dr. John and Sarah would become well-researched
for a variety of reasons: Him for both his prominence as a surgeon and his
connection to the birth of slavery in America; her for a dramatic and heroic fight
against Powhatans who stormed her cabin after killing him outside in 1644.
The year 1619 was destined to rank as a turning point
in Virginia history—but not because it marked the arrival of my ancestors! More
importantly, the year recognized London’s acknowledgement that continued search
for gold and silver likely would prove futile. Instead, the company investors
decided to make the colony profitable as an agricultural center, particularly
for the exporting of tobacco. Besides becoming legendary as the husband of the
Native Princess Pocahontas (1596-1617), early Virginia colonist John Rolfe (1585-1622) provided more of an economic contribution by experimenting with hybridization
of tobacco plants to create a crop that conquered Europe and would make the
American south a tobacco empire.
With this new attitude at play, the Jamestown
investors had decided to make it more of a colony for families and farmers. So,
they started sending destitute females and children to Virginia with a large
shipment of women arriving in 1619 also aboard the George. Later that
year, the colony welcomed a Dutch slaving vessel holding 19 enslaved Black Africans auctioned to settlers for use in the tobacco fields. My 9GG Dr. John
Woodson bought six.
Born in Devonshire, England, Dr. John studied medicine
at St. Johns College, Oxford, graduating in 1604, according to one early source
on his lineage, The Woodson Family History published in 1915. Citing
Hotten’s Emigrants to America from 1600 to 1700, descendant Henry Morton
Woodson wrote in 1915: “It is seen that our progenitor John Woodson and his
wife Sara were registered at Fleur de Hundred in 1623 and with them were also
registered their six African slaves, unnamed and only designated by Roman
numerals.”
That location lies up the James River from Jamestown
where the company had decided to expand to take advantage of rich farmland
there. It had been granted to the governor Sir George Yeardley (1587-1627) who had recruited Dr. John to serve as surgeon for his company of soldiers. Besides bringing women and welcoming slaves,
Yeardley also created the first Virginia legislature that year, in effect
introducing representative government to English America. So, 1619 indeed
represented a watershed year in colonial America.
The women would come to be known as “tobacco brides” with
male settlers trading tobacco for their passage to Virginia. The settlers never
found gold, but they did create an agricultural industry with even more value.
Between 1618 and 1621, some 50 ships would carry more than 3,700 new settlers
to Virginia.
 |
| Tobacco Brides Arrive |
“Fueled by the tobacco revolution, by early 1622,
thousands of acres of prime agricultural land had been taken up by settlers
along both sides of the James River,” notes Horn in his history of Jamestown.
He adds: “Tobacco had produced estates of hundreds and even thousands of pounds
per year for men who had gone to Virginia ‘not worth so many pence’.”
And the Powhatans noticed the growth. During those
years a mysterious peace prevailed in Virginia under the rule of a chief named
Opechancanough. Alarmed by this invasion, he would execute one of the most
successful stealth campaigns in military history. For six long years they feigned
subservience to the English, trading food and visiting regularly. The natives
under his leadership quietly bided their time to gain the colonists’ trust.
Lulled into a fog of overconfidence and wishful
thinking, the colonists suffered what Horn has called “a slaughter of
unimaginable proportions” on 22 March 1622 when the Powhatan alliance of more
than 500 warriors struck on multiple fronts in a sophisticated and coordinated
attack across the colony. They overwhelmed 19 different settlements killing 142
colonists in what Horn describes as a plan to “kill as many men, women, and
children as possible, destroy their houses, livestock, and property.” It left a
quarter of the colonists dead and the colony devastated.
Horn salutes the “brilliance” of Opechancanough’s
strategy because he took advantage of the English settlers’ “unquenching belief
in their own superiority and their fatal underestimation of Indian tactical and
fighting ability.” By so successfully feigning an era of peace and
subservience, the Powhatans forced the colonists into a day of hand-to-hand
combat where the natives enjoyed a clear advantage. He lists “arrogance” as the
European’s greatest vulnerability.
Thanks to the quality of fortifications at their plantation, the Woodsons escaped unharmed. They would spend the next two decades building a profitable tobacco farm and bringing two sons into the world. Their list began with the child destined to become my 8th Great-Grandfather John Woodson Jr. (1632-1684) and his brother Robert Woodson (1634-1707). Their descendants have included a wide range of famous or infamous Americans from the fourth First Lady Dolley Madison (1768-1849)—my fourth cousin six times removed—to the Missouri outlaw Jesse Woodson James (1847-1882)—my sixth cousin twice removed.
During this time the colony remained in a constant
state of guerilla warfare. Superior weapons of the colonists drove the
Powhatans further back into the country, but random attacks always remained a
possibility. A decisive two-day battle occurred in July of 1624 when 60 armored
settlers sailed up the Pamunkey River and confronted 800 native bowmen forcing
them to flee. By then the Virginia Company had gone bankrupt, and the English
government had seized control 24 May 1624 converting Jamestown into a Crown
Colony. The muster of 1625 found a population of 1,218 people living in 21
English settlements along the James River. The colonists built a six-mile fence
to block future incursions and create a secure range for livestock and farming.
“Tobacco was Virginia’s salvation,” concludes Horn.
But they hadn’t seen the last of Opechancanough, who
would launch another attack in 1644 claiming the lives of 400 settlers
including Dr. John Woodson. The story of that massacre at the Woodson farm has
become the source of family legend, providing Virginia with a cherished
historical relic and me and my own descendants with a new nickname—“Washtub.”
Family researchers have raised some questions about
the Woodsons’ backgrounds. It remains unclear why they would have delayed
having children for more than a decade after their 1619 marriage in England.
Perhaps they had children in Jamestown who died. Researchers also believe Dr.
John Woodson ventured to Virginia because he lost his inheritance after
choosing a Quaker for his bride. One Woodson family blogger posted an article in 2013 raising several questions about his identification as
a physician. The blog post by Ronald Davis agrees that all sources identify
Woodson as a “medical man.”
But, Davis writes:
“John probably was not both a physician and a surgeon. In those days physicians
were college men, trained in theoretical medicine—though much of the theory was
wrong—as well as Latin and Greek, while surgeons were considered skilled tradesmen,
members of the guild of barbers and surgeons. The physicians liked to bleed
patients with leeches, while the surgeons performed operations. The latter were
more likely actually to do some good.”
His research found
two men in Jamestown identified as physicians, but John was not one of them.
Nevertheless, family lore and other sources have described him as a doctor
visiting a patient on 18 April 1644 when Opechancanough unleashed
his final attack. That day at his home, the slaves worked in the fields while
Sarah and their two sons were hosting a visit from a shoemaker named Ligon.
When the Powhatans attacked, Ligon bolted the cabin door and used the Woodsons’
heavy seven-foot-four-inch musket to kill five attackers.
While Ligon used the musket, Sarah moved quickly to
hide her two sons. She stashed ten-year-old Robert in a hole the family used
for storing potatoes and placed twelve-year-old John beneath a washtub. With
natives climbing onto the cabin roof, she noted the pot of boiling water in the
fireplace. Two attackers descended the chimney. She scalded one with the water
and stabbed the other with a hot poker from the fire. When Ligon killed two
more with the musket, the natives fled, leaving nine dead companions behind.
Venturing outside, Sarah and Ligon walked up the road
that led to the Woodson cabin. There they discovered the body of Dr. John with
a native arrow imbedded in his chest. The Powhatans obviously had ambushed my
9GG as he returned home from his visit. He died at the age of 58. That story of
Sarah’s bravery has been shared widely in print and even on a 2016 YouTubevideo. The huge musket resides in a display at the
Virginia Historical Society in Richmond, Virginia. And all descendants of the
surviving sons identify themselves as either “washtub” for John or “potato hole”
for Robert.
The Woodson legacy has not been limited to heroic tales of violence and battles with the natives. That Woodson name became associated recently with its connection to slavery in a way that garnered national attention through coverage by NPR’s Code Switch podcast in 2023. The news organization told the story of the white Woodsons and the Black Woodsons—descendants of the slaves purchased by Dr. John and Sarah in 1619. One of those Black Woodson descendants was Carter G. Woodson (1875-1950), an author and scholar often called the father of Black history. When white Woodson descendant Dr. Craig Woodson spotted Carter’s face honored on a postage stamp in 1984 at the age of 41, he started asking questions and reviewing his family genealogy records.
Deeply impacted by the realization his family—our
family—had a hand in bringing slavery to America, Craig, who earned a doctorate
in 1983 from UCLA, decided he had to do something about it. He began
apologizing to descendants of the Black Woodsons in a campaign that culminated
in a Woodson family reconciliation ceremony in 1998 in Los Angeles. The 2023
NPR podcast revisited that event and offered the story of the two Woodson
family lines under the headline: “One Side Owned Slaves. The Other Side Started
Black History Month. How A Family Heals.”
At the reconciliation ceremony attended by members of
both Woodson families, Craig said: “I
apologize on behalf of my ancestors for the holocaust that was caused to your
family and your ancestors. And I ask for your forgiveness.”
As recently as May of 2023 Craig made a speech at a Juneteenth celebration in Sandusky, Ohio, continuing to
spread his message of reconciliation. An ethnomusicologist and founder of the Ethnomusic, Inc.
world music consultancy, he has served as president of the Cleveland branch for
the Study of African American Life and History, an organization begun by Carter
Woodson. His advice to other descendants of slave-owning white Americans is to
just show up and listen to their Black counterparts.
My genealogical research has
found other ancestors who owned slaves. But it also has found ancestors active
as abolitionists before the Civil War. I’ve found ancestors who stole land from
the natives. I’ve found another ancestor who was hanged for murdering his wife.
I’ve found ancestors who fought in the American Revolution. I’ve found
ancestors I consider invaders as well as refugees who helped forge a nation
from a wilderness. I consider them all to have been products of their times.
I’ve concluded the best we can do is learn from their misdeeds while
celebrating their achievements. That’s what I have tried to do.
Here's a copy of my Woodson lineage chart:
|
Gen |
Name |
Spouse |
comments |
|
1 |
Dr.
John Woodson (1586-1644) |
Sarah
Winston (1586-1659) |
Arrived
1619 as military surgeon for Jamestown. |
|
2 |
John
“Tub” Woodson Jr. (1632-1684) |
Mary
Martha Pleasants (1633-1710) |
Survived
native attack by hiding under washtub. |
|
3 |
John
Woodson III (1655-1700) |
Mary
Tucker (1657-1709) |
|
|
4 |
Joseph
Woodson (1682-1752) |
Elizabeth
Murray (1691-1762) |
|
|
5 |
Tucker
Woodson (1720-1810) |
Judith
Allen (1724-1800) |
|
|
6 |
Allen
Woodson (1760-1822) |
Jane
Taylor (1765-1825) |
Served
in the American Revolution for Virginia. |
|
7 |
Jane
B. Woodson (1800-1895) |
John
Farmer (1800-1834) |
|
|
8 |
Mary
Ann Farmer (1823-1893) |
Thomas
Washington Wright (1821-1916) |
|
|
9 |
James
Harvey Wright (1857-1948) |
Clara
Dean Lafferty (1870-1950) |
|
|
10 |
Leslie
Riggs Wright (1891-1972) |
Della
May Libby (1891-1969) |
|
|
11 |
Rheva
Wright (1918-1981) |
Dale
Taylor (1921-1984) |
|
|
12 |
Gary
Dale Taylor (1947-) |
|
|
My research shows that the
descendants of both Thomas Farmer and Dr. John Woodson in my line remained in
Virginia until Missouri became a state in 1820 and began to draw interest as a
magnet for westward expansion. It’s hard to believe that members of the two
families would not have known each other. The Farmer name is so common that
public documents create confusion. It appears both families thrived as farmers
without leaving much of a paper trail, except for one notable exception: My 6th
Great-Grandfather Lodowick Farmer (1715-1780). Before election to the Virginia
House of Burgesses, Lodowick served as an assistant sheriff, a lieutenant in
the militia and a justice of the peace, according to his profiles on both
WikiTree.com and FamilySearch.org.
On 18 December 1820, the Farmer
and Woodson families came together with the marriage of my 3rd
Great-Grandfather John Farmer (1800-1834) to my 3rd Great-Grandmother Jane
Woodson (1800-1895) in Pittsylvania, Virginia. About 1829, it appears they and
five of John’s married sisters joined several families on that cross-country
trek to Pike County, Missouri, in search of new opportunities. Interestingly,
the family paper trail indicates that John’s brother, William W. Farmer
(1797-1877) remained in Virginia where he died.
Those families likely traveled
together. And the census documents for Pike County in 1840 shows them all
living in proximity. But more details emerge from books written later about
Pike County and its pioneers.
A History of Pike County written
in 1883 includes a profile of John Farmer noting he “was born in Pittsylvania
county, Virginia, in 1800, and was the son of William and Elizabeth (Eckells)
Farmer. He was married in February, 1821, to Miss Jane Woodson, daughter of
Allen and Jenny Taylor Woodson. They came to Pike County in 1830, first
settling in Indian township, near New Harmony, where Mr. Farmer resided until
his death in 1834, leaving six children: Mary Ann, Elizabeth T., Ella Louisa,
Moses A., W. M. (deceased), and John. After the death of her husband Mrs. Farmer
married Stephen Burts, who died in 1852.”
Another book written in 1895 includes profiles of two
sons—brothers to my 2nd Great-Grandmother Mary Ann Farmer Wright—and offers
additional details about the family. The Portait and Biographical Record of
Marion, Ralls and Pike Counties reports that John Frances Marion Farmer
(1834-1913)—my 2nd Great-Granduncle—never knew his father because John Farmer
died in July of 1834 before John F.M. Farmer’s December birth. The cause of
death is not known. And there remains some dispute about the actual year the
couple arrived in Missouri, with a profile of Moses Allen Farmer
(1829-1902)—also my 2nd Great-Granduncle—citing 1832 as the year of arrival
when the Virginia-born Moses would have been three years old.
Nevertheless, the profiles of these two 2nd
Great-Granduncles offers more color about the family’s life settling in
Missouri. The family bought a 40-acre tract of land and built a log cabin with
a board roof and puncheon floor. A large fireplace provided heat while a window
covered with greasy paper welcomed the light.
The children continued to live with their widowed
mother, who appears in the 1840 census as the head of household. They all
worked the farm. Moses left in 1849 at the age of 20 to take a job on a
neighboring farm as an overseer for the slaves. In 1855 he traveled to
California, then returned and bought 80 acres of land in Pike County. He
enlisted in the Union Army in 1862. After his discharge a year later, he bought
a herd of mules, drove them to California and sold them. In 1885, he laid out
and founded a town in Pike County he named Farmer, described in the book as a
“thriving and prosperous village.” Of Moses, the book notes: “He never smoked,
chewed or drank beer.”
Meanwhile, John F.M. Farmer served in Pike County as a Justice of the Peace for a dozen years and also as a road supervisor while running a general store on the corner of his farm and the main road in Estes, another village in Pike’s Indian Township.
I’ve always enjoyed browsing the actual census
documents themselves and noting all the familiar family names living in
proximity. Until 1850, however, census records were limited to names for heads
of households using only numbers to show children, other adults and slaves.
With the 1850 census, those documents emerge as true historical documents
listing the names, ages, birthplaces and occupations of everyone in a home.
Census workers would visit the homes and record the information first-hand.
Sometimes the writing is difficult, but often it shows the pride taken in
artistic penmanship for that era—easy to read. Sometimes they misspelled the
names. But simple names like Farmer and Wright pop with life from the faded
pages to reveal secrets of their family units.
Thus, the 1850 census for Pike County ranks as a
favorite of mine. It is there we find my 2GG Mary Ann Farmer as a 27-year-old mother
with three daughters living in the household of my 2nd Great-Grandfather Thomas
Washington Wright (1821-1916). Scroll
around the pages and you find the household of his brother, John Fernie Wright
(1808-1878) and farther on the household of her sister, Lucy Farmer Jenkins
(1791-??), wife of William Jenkins (1785-1853). My message for other
researchers: View the scan of the original document and don’t stop browsing
when you find your primary ancestor. Scroll around and see the other names. The
exercise will take you back in time to the perspective of the census worker knocking
on a farmhouse door and meeting the people inside.
Although the 1840 census lists only names for head of
household, it still reveals some details about the Farmer-Woodson line. By
then, Jane Woodson was a widowed head-of-household with three boys and three
girls on page 188. Nearby on page 186 stood the household of John W. Wright
with two boys and one girl living there. Among those teenagers would be my
19-year-old 2nd Great-Grandfather Thomas Washington Wright (1821-1916) and my
17-year-old 2nd Great-Grandmother Mary Ann Farmer (1823-1893). These
neighborhood kids from 1840 would marry in 1844 and join the Wrights into the
Farmers and Woodsons from Jamestown. Eventually this union would produce a
Wright line to my mother.
FROM SCOTLAND TO VIRGINIA, THEN KENTUCKY AND MISSOURI
My Wright line traces its immigration back to William
Wright (1754-1836) from Scotland. Not much is known about him and other details
remain in dispute, likely because William Wright is such a common name. He is
believed to have served in the American Revolution from Virginia, indicating he
arrived about 1770. The record seems clear he was the father of my 3rd
Great-Grandfather John Walker Wright (1780-1858?) thanks to research on the
family of his wife, my 3rd Great-Grandmother Nancy Bullifant (1779-1860) in a
book from 2002 by Carolyn Hutchinson Brown titled The Bullifants of Virginia, Brown
found Bullifants living in Virginia since the 1600s. Besides scouring land
records and wills, her research included actual contact with other Bullifants.
“In 1995 I located 55 families of Bullifants in the
United States through the online phone directory. I wrote to all of them for
information, however only four replied to my letters,” Brown explained. Sharing
information with those other family members, she assembled her best educated
guess on the Bullifant lineage.
She believes Nancy married John Walker Wright in 1799
in Richmond, Virginia. He served in the War of 1812. Between 1803 and 1813,
they had seven children all born in Virginia. Then they moved to Kentucky and
had five more, including my 2GG Thomas Washington Wright in 1821. The family
moved from Kentucky to Pike County, Missouri in 1833. Although Thomas’s
survivors listed Virginia as his birthplace on his 1916 Missouri death
certificate, he reported Kentucky as his birthplace on every census interview
from 1850 through 1910. In 1833 the John Walker Wright family settled on Indian
Creek, eight miles southeast of what is now Vandalia, Missouri.
In his
three-volume History of Northeast Missouri, Walter Williams defines the
region as the land north of the Missouri River and west of the Mississippi
River. Comprised of fertile farm and pasturelands and lush wooded forests, that
region would prove attractive to settlers from the upper south following the
end of the War of 1812 in 1815.
The land
that would become Pike County borders the Mississippi and had seen limited development at a river town
named Louisiana in 1816 as well as the inland towns of Bowling Green and
Clarksville in 1819. Pike actually became a county before Missouri gained
statehood in 1821, earning status from the territorial legislature in 1818.
Over the years the legislature would carve it into other counties in the region
where other members of my family lines would live—Ralls, Audrain, Boone and
Montgomery.
Legendary
frontiersman Daniel Boone (1734-1820) stimulated the first wave of
southern settlement after 1799 when he moved his family to St. Charles,
Missouri, for a fresh start after suffering financial and legal troubles in
Kentucky. At that time owned by Spain, Missouri boasted the young city of St.
Louis on the Mississippi River with St. Charles emerging a few miles west on
the Missouri River. After the United
States purchased Missouri as part of Louisiana in 1804, Boone had to fight for
recognition of his Spanish land grants. He died in 1820 in Missouri. But his
iconic reputation shined a beacon on the place as pioneers from the upper south
sought fresh opportunities and prime land to farm.
Early
settlers grew wheat, potatoes, flax, cotton, tobacco and corn, which emerged as
the primary crop in Northeastern Missouri. They built cabins from logs and
hunted game in the woods. Confrontation with native Americans rarely occurred.
The census of 1820 found Pike County with a population of 3,747. By 1830 it
recorded 6,129, then grew to 10,646 by 1840, then 13,609 by 1850. Pike’s
population peaked in 1880 at 26,715.
While most
sources agree my 3GG John Walker Wright died in 1858, I could not find him
listed in the 1850 census. But I did find my 3GG Nancy Bullifant Wright listed
there at age 72, living in the household of her 38-year-old married daughter,
Lavina Wright Smith (1812-1890). Perhaps the old man was sleeping in
a back room when the census worker visited the house. Or, perhaps those sources
are incorrect in assigning 1858 as his year of death and Nancy was a widow. I
believe some of the dates ascribed to John Walker Wright’s life appear sketchy.
But it seems
clear that his son, my 2GG Thomas Washington Wright outlived all of his
siblings. One 1916 newspaper obituary declared him the oldest man in Pike
County at 95. He had spent his life farming and raising stock. His wife, my 2GG
Mary Ann Farmer Wright, had died 23 years earlier in 1893. Although “strong and
robust in his youth,” the obituary reported he suffered the lingering pain from
a hip broken in a fall on a wet porch in 1891 and lived with two daughters. He
also was blind for the last 20 years of his life—a situation I consider often
after learning in 1995 that I have a genetic affliction of the cornea called
Fuchs Dystrophy, curable only through a corneal transplant. I can use drops to help me see and
doubt that doctors from his time even knew about Fuchs. Without those drops I
might be living out my days in the bedroom of one of my daughters, too.
 |
| Thomas Washington Wright (far left) |
From the 1830s, all the Wrights lived in central Missouri farming and raising stock. My Great-Grandfather James Harvey “Bud” Wright (1857-1948) did attempt an escape for a while when he joined his in-laws to claim acreage in the Oklahoma land rush. While Bud left no written record about his Oklahoma adventure, my research uncovered a document among historic Oklahoma papers recording a 1937 interview with Bud’s brother-in-law, Lawson Lafferty (1876-1948) about his family’s experience in the Cherokee Strip land rush of 1893.
Bud had
married Clara Dean Lafferty (1870-1950) in 1888, after the 1880 census lists
him as a 22-year-old single man living with his father Thomas Washington Wright
and working as a farm hand. The next available census finds him living in 1900
in Garfield, Oklahoma Territory with Clara, a daughter and a son—my Grandfather
Leslie Riggs Wright (1891-1972). Here’s
where we needed a census from 1890, but a fire destroyed that census leaving a
hole in many family paper trails.
In his 1937
interview now stored at the Oklahoma Western History Collection at the
University of Oklahoma, Lawson Lafferty said his father—another 2nd
Great-Grandfather for me—Enoch Lafferty (1840-1918) traveled to Oklahoma in
November of 1893 to buy land. The rest of the family followed in March of 1894,
moving by train to Enid then striking across the prairie in wagons. He only
identifies his two younger brothers as arriving with him. But Bud Wright’s
presence in the Oklahoma census seven years later must mean he joined the
Laffertys with Lawson’s sister at some point that decade.
Lawson
described his new home as “desolate” with a “box house” 16 feet by 16 feet. The
family dug a well. They built a barn from sod while living on sow belly and
beans. The nearby town of Garber boasted a blacksmith shop, a church and a
store. It had been built by the Garber family.
This Lawson
Avis Lafferty—my Great-Granduncle—had been named for his grandfather, Lawson
Valentine Lafferty born 1811 in South Carolina. My 3rd Great-Grandfather,
Lawson Valentine Lafferty represents the earliest known Lafferty in my line. He
moved to Pike County, Missouri before 1834, when records show he married my 3rd
Great-Grandmother Hester Ann Martin (1816-1873). He died in 1880 in Missouri.
For some
unknown reason, Bud Wright brought his family back to Missouri by 1903 when records
indicate his last child was born there. The family appears in the 1910 census
record again for Pike County where Bud listed his occupation as a farmer. Enoch
Lafferty remained in Oklahoma where he died in 1918 at the age of 78.
Bud Wright’s
obituary on 29 April 1948 in The Vandalia Leader described him as a man
who “possessed a strong physique and was active and alert. At 70 he was known
to make a full hand at haying time pitching to stackers for the day long. In
all his undertakings and labor about the farm he asked no one to take his place.”
He lived to the age of 90.
 |
| Bud Wright (seated left) Leslie Wright (standing) |
There
remains one additional story of interest about another member of these
Wright-Lafferty lines concerning a 5th Great-Grandmother Sarah Bean (1717-1820).
I found her story posted on the web and cannot vouch for its veracity. But it sounds too fascinating to
ignore. Described as a family legend, it relates how Sarah was born on old
London Bridge where her father worked in one of the shops that operated along
the bridge in those times. Her mother, who may have been a prostitute, died
when Sarah was young and her father married another woman who did not want to
live as a stepmother.
The
stepmother bribed a nurse to take Sarah to America aboard a ship leaving port.
At the age of 12, Sarah traveled to Virginia in the care of the ship’s captain
who sold the child to a Virginia planter as an indentured servant. As a young woman, Sarah married first the son of her master, then another man after his
death and a third time as a widow to a man named John James Moore
(1713-1752)—who would become my 5th Great-Grandfather. Legend says her children
cared for her even after moving to Kentucky. Her story sounds like the stuff of
a romance novel, and it seems impossible to verify.
But the
paper trail appears solid back to Sarah Bean, regardless the details of her
story, thanks to a book from 1988 entitled Samuel Wood,
His Seven Sons and Their Descendants by William L. and Vera Wood. It
mentions Sarah and then traces her lineage to her grandson and my 3rd Great-Grandfather
Matthew Bates Moore (1802-1858). His daughter, Mary Annette Moore
(1847-1917)—my 2nd Great-Grandmother—became the wife of Enoch Lafferty in 1865.
My
grandfather Leslie Riggs Wright married my grandmother Della May Libby on 3
March 1915 in Bowling Green, Pike County, Missouri. I wrote about her family,
the Libbys of Maine in an earlier post. I never knew any of my grandparents
very well, growing up in St. Louis while they lived on small farms in northeast
Missouri. But I did visit Leslie and Della for a few days when I was 12 years
old. They lived in a house with a chicken coop. She worked as the switchboard
operator for the village of Gazette connecting callers through a unit in her
house during those days before direct dial came to rural America.
After
Della’s 1969 death, my mother and her two brothers debated the best course for
their aging father. By then, I had graduated college and begun work in Michigan
as a newspaper reporter. So, I was not around when Leslie lived briefly at my
old house in St. Louis with my parents. My younger sister remembers him only as
a “grumpy old man” who once threw a Twinkie at my mother’s poodle. After less
than a year, they moved him to a nursing home in Vandalia where he died in 1972
at the age of 80 from viral pneumonia complicated by influenza and heart
disease.
Here's a
chart depicting my lineage from the Wrights:
|
Gen |
Name |
Spouse |
comments |
|
1 |
William
Wright (1754-1836) |
Mary
Unknown (1757-1780) |
Immigrated
from Scotland to Virginia |
|
2 |
John
Walker Wright (1780-1858) |
Nancy
Bullifant (1779-1860) |
Moved
family to Missouri about 1830. |
|
3 |
Thomas
Washington Wright (1821-1916) |
Mary
Ann Farmer (1823-1893) |
|
|
4 |
James
Harvey “Bud” Wright (1857-1948) |
Clara
Dean Lafferty (1870-1950) |
|
|
5 |
Leslie
Riggs Wright (1891-1972) |
Della
May Libby (1891-1969) |
|
|
6 |
Rheva
Wright (1918-1981) |
Dale
Taylor (1921-1984) |
|
|
7 |
Gary
Dale Taylor (1947-) |
|
|
My DNA
testing reveals that my ancestors come 37% from Ireland, 31% from England,
Wales or Scotland and 15% from Scandinavia. The English left a solid paper
trail. The Scandinavian influences likely come from the early Norse migrations
into England. There’s probably a Viking in the woodpile somewhere. My two
Mayflower ancestor families have dispersed proven Norse DNA, according to some
Mayflower experts, and I am now one of them.
In this, my fourth post about ancestral lines on my mother’s side, however, I still haven’t found many clear links to Ireland. According to the Google AI robot, 37% can come from one Irish great-grandparent or potentially trace back 10-12 generations. But Irish and Scottish ancestry can overlap due to historical movements. My next genealogical post will cover ancestors on my father’s side. Maybe an actual Irish immigrant will surface there.
But my DNA report clearly allows me to continue sharing one of my favorite bar jokes: "My Irish half keeps ordering the drinks while my Scottish half refuses to pay."
