The Chamberlaynes of Virginia

Notes

1 This line is often said to trace to the Tancarvilles of Normandy. An explanation of how the name Tancarville is thought to have become Chamberlain was provided in a personal note by Dr. Philip J. Chamberlain of the World Chamberlain Genealogical Society (WCGS), an association of people with interest in genealogical information concerning any and all ancestral lines of Chamberlains by any of the various spellings. WCGS on line.   Philip Chamberlain is one of the co-founders and members of the Board of the WCGS and despite not being known to be linked to the Chamberlaynes of Virginia has accumulated a substantial database of information. His help in this study been immense in scope, depth, and value.
    Tancarville was a place name and hence the various individuals were referred to as "de Tancarville." One of them, Ralph, was said to be a mentor, a chamberlain and companion of Duke William, later William the Conquerer. This "Le Chamberlain de Tancarville" was at the Battle of Hastings. His grandson John was by general agreement a chamberlain for King Henry I. Then the son of John, Richard, was considered to be chamberlain to King Stephen. It is known that this Richard signed charters in both Normandy and England as Richard Camerarius of Tancarville, and in Pipe Rolls as Richard the Chamberlain.
2 A brief look at the long lineage of this Chamberlayne/Chamberlain line may be of interest because of the possibility that a linkage may be established at some time in the future between it and the line that is of primary concern here. Efforts to find such a link have been made by Philip J. Chamberlain, thus far without success.

A good place to start to explore the lineage of Thomas Chamberlayne on the web is Mark Freeman's web site . According to information provided at this site, Maj. Thomas Chamberlayne served at various times as a Justice of the Peace, an attorney, and High Sheriff (1678), and represented Charles City County in the House of Burgesses in 1692 and 1695. Thomas and Elizabeth's daughter Dorothy married Peter Jones, III, who operated a trading post about twenty miles south of the site which later became Richmond. Known as "Peter's Point," the site of the trading post would eventually grow to become the city of Petersburg, named for Peter Jones III, who is considered its founder.

3 The Visitation of Gloucester begun by Thomas May 1682 and finished by Henry Dethick 1683, ed. by T.Fitz-Roy Fenwick and Walter C. Metcalfe, Exeter: Printed by William Pollard, North Street, 1884, p. 193. This source was made known to the author by Philip J. Chamberlain. Under Wall of Lintridge in Dymock, the document notes that "Mary Chamberlayne, dau. of Thomas of London, merchant, married Thomas Wall of Lintridge age 23 in 1683." It also notes that consent for the marriage was given by "Mrs. Elizabeth Chamberlayne, widow."
4 Primary sources on the "Pye family legend" are (a) Charles G. Pye, Jr., "The Pye Family History" (unpublished manuscript, 1978-79), on the web at http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/XXXX.htm. (Several reference names appear at the bottom of the webpage, and the site appears to be managed by Sandy (Pye) Smith (email address provided).
(b) Edgar G. Pye, 1999, "Pye Families of Herefordshire and Norfolk Counties, England," 1999 (rev.) ( http://www.geocities.com/heartland/7849/pyeinfo.htm ). E. G. Pye's work draws heavily upon that of Charles G. Pye, above, but also goes beyond it and includes additional references. One in support of the assertion that the Pye clan dates back to the era of William the Conquerer is the Guide to the Parish of St. Mary and St. David, 1989, p.7.
(c) Robert Barnes, "More on Edward Pye," The Archivist's Bulldog, Vol. 11 No. 17, Newsletter of the Maryland State Archives, September 22, 1997, at Maryland Archives.
5 In view of the fact that Thomas Chamberlayne was a merchant in London, it seems reasonable to speculate that he and his wife's uncle might have conducted a business relationship (Edward as planter-exporter and Thomas as merchant-importer), but again, it is mere conjecture.
6 The Visitation of Gloucester, Op. cit.
7 Links of possible interest: (a) concerning the plague: www.ncl.ac.uk/~nhistory/bills.htm, and (b) concerning the London fire of 1666: www.angliacampus.com/education/fire/london/history/greatfir.htm.
8 Reprinted in Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, V. 28, 1920, pp.237-238, in a section called "Virginia Gleanings in England," made available to the author by Philip J. Chamberlain.
9 William G. Stanard, "The Chamberlayne Family: Descended from William Chamberlayne of New Kent," Beau Monde, Richmond, Va.: March 31, 1894.   The major source of the information used by Stanard was the family pedigree papers of William Byrd Chamberlayne, the lawyer and member of the General Assembly from Richmond, papers which had been passed down through the family. Stanard said William (the immigrant) came in 1721 from Bristol, England, apparently on the basis of something in those papers, but there is no substantiation of the date.
Another source based on the same papers of Gen. William B. Chamberlayne is Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, V. 36 1928, pp.226-227.
10 Malcolm H. Harris, Old New Kent County / Some Account of The Planters, Plantations, and Places in New Kent County, 2 Volumes, West Point, Va., 1977, p.87.
11 Ibid., p.87.   Also, William Chamberlayne's ferry is cited in Hening's Acts of the Legislature for 1748, in which rates were set for crossing fees. William Waller Hening, compiler of the Acts of the colonial legislature of Virginia in The Statutes at Large; Being a Collection of All the Laws of Virginia, From the First Session of the Legislature, in the year 1619; 13 Vols., Richmond, 1809-1823 (New York: R & W & G. Bartow, 1823).   For more on Hening see this brief description of the man and the project.
12 Harris, Op. cit., p. 42, 126, 129. An "Ordinary" was an inn, or tavern, typically characterized by a set price for a meal in a common, or ordinary, as opposed to formal or special, setting, and sometimes including overnight accommodations. Harris offers additional perspective on the ordinaries of the colonial era:
    Ordinaries were private interests, and were spaced along the main thoroughfares at varying distances, that allowed the traveller to go from breakfast to his midday meal, about four hours later, and in the afternoon about the same time until he dines again. A man travelling on horseback covered about twenty miles between meals, or about forty miles per day, depending on the road, the horse, the rider, the urgency of travel. (p.220)
13 See note 16 regarding William's will.     The sale in the 1930s of Poplar Grove received substantial press coverage, although a typed transcription in the possession of the author fails, unfortunately, to name the newspaper or place a date on the article. It is believed to have been a Richmond, Va. newspaper in the 1930s. The headline read as follows: "Famous New Kent Home is Sold to New York Banker // 'Poplar Grove Farm' to be Restored to Former Beauty by Owner."
14 A brief and well done description of the church and its history, previously but no longer posted on the web, is Bonnie C. Chumney, "St Peter's Parish Church," unpublished manuscript. The article was formerly posted at "www.virginiasdescendants.com."

For readers not familiar with the Episcopal church, the church vestry, according to Webster's 7th New Collegiate, is "an elective body administering the temporal affairs and ministerial relations of an Episcopal parish." In view of the central and important place of the parish church in early settlements in Virginia, to be elected vestryman was clearly an honor and a mark of one's prestige in the community.

15 The composition of the family is well established in a mural tablet at St. Peter's Church, although some of the dates are missing. On the marker is inscribed the following, taken from Churchill Gibson Chamberlayne, "Inscriptions from Various Tombstones in Dinwiddie, Chesterfield, Henrico and New Kent Counties, Virginia," William and Mary College Quarterly Magazine, Vol. 8, No. 3 (Jan 1900), pp. 178-183:

    Near this place lyes interred ye
    Body of Mr. William Chamberlayne
    Late of the Parish Mercht.
    Descended of an ancient and Worthy Family
    in the County of Hereford.
    He married Elizabeth ye eldest Daughter
    of Richard Littlepage of this County,
    by whom he has left issue three Sons,
    Edward Pye, Thomas, (4) & Richard,
    & two Daughters, Mary & Elizabeth
    Ob: 20 Augt 1736 AEtat 36.
    Hoc Marmor exiguum summi amoris
    Monumentum posuit Conjux moestissima.
    1737
    Also Ann Kidly (5) Born Sence
    Her Father's Decease,
    M. Sidnell Bristol. fecit.

The spelling of the last daughter's name, whether "Ann" or "Anne," is inconsistent through the various sources and probably depended on who was writing the name after having heard it. We suspect that few people, whether family members or stone cutters, paid a great of attention to such matters. Having seen the "Anne" form used in the case of the original (English) Anne Kidley, we opt for that format in all cases, despite the fact of the "Ann" form being used on the tablet. Also, it is believed that there was a tendency during the early 18th century to use the "Anne" form in honor of Queen Anne of England, whose name is always spelled that way.

It should also be noted that inconsistent spelling is an occasional issue with other names as well, including Chamberlain, Chamberlaine, and others for persons known to have been Chamberlaynes.

16 William's will was made October 1, 1735 and proved in New Kent Court in 1736, following his death on August 20 of that year. Because of the loss to fire of early New Kent records, the only evidence available of that will is in Hening's Statutes At Large, Vol. 15 No. 5, p.119.

That one quarter of the slaves amounted to a count of 33 tells us that Poplar Grove was of a size and scale to require the services of more than 100 workers (with an allowance for small children). Numbers of slaves can be found for households in the censuses of the ante-bellum period, as well as personal property tax lists for various counties. From a perusal of several 18th century personal property tax lists, it can be said that having this many slaves suggests a large, although not necessarily one of the largest, estates of the time and place. Also worth noting is that the 500 pounds sterling left to daughters Mary and Elizabeth was a very considerable sum for the time, enough to provide each a very attractive "dowry."

17 Harris, Op. cit., p. 127.
18 This information apparently was provided in a GenForum message by Phyllis Richerson, dated August 18, 2001, to which James B. Parker, of the WCGS replied with a statement of acknowledgment. This information was made available by Philip J. Chamberlain.
19 Eltham burned and was destoyed in the 19th century, but a good likeness of it, along with architectural and historical notes, can be seen at Sarah Mitchell's "Vintagedesignscom".
20 William Wade Hinshaw, Encyclopedia of American Quaker genealogy, Vol. VI (Virginia), Genealogical Publishing Company, reprint edition, 1991. This information was uncovered by Deborah Carpenter and made available to Philip Chamberlain in an e-mail, dated May, 1999, and by the latter to the author in 2003.

The assertion that Edward Pye Chamberlayne and Burwell Bassett acted on behalf of the county in the seizure of property for failure to pay their share of the wages of the official parish minister replaces an earlier statement to the effect that the same information suggested that the two were members of the Quaker group.  While the matter is one of interpretation, it is believed that the earlier interpretation was in error and that the current one is correct.

21 A tract of land in Buckingham County was sold in 1770, following Edward's death the previous year, pursuant to his last will and testament, said to consist of 800 acres and to adjoin land of Captain Richard Chamberlayne, his brother. Source: Elizabeth Hawes Ryland, King William county, Virginia from Old newspapers and files, Richmond: Dietz Press, 1955, p.43. This information provided by Philip J. Chamberlain.   Also, information provided by Robert S. Brown describes deeds showing ownership by Edward Pye Chamberlayne of land in two places in Louisa County, which prior to 1742 was part of New Kent County.   A third source, Hening's Statutes At Large, Vol.7, pp.125-127, pertaining to the establishment of ferry rates, shows Edward owning land on the Rivanna River in Albemarle County, near or within the current limits of the City of Charlottesville.
22 Ryland, Op. cit., p.40, provided by Philip J. Chamberlain.
23 Guide to the John Norton and Sons Papers in Library Special Collections, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 1990, available at http://www.history.org/History/jdrlweb/guides/aids/Norton.pdf.
24 The Mattaponi River, frequently misspelled "Mattapony," even in maps and other documents of past centuries, takes its name from the combination upstream, a few miles south of the city of Fredericksburg, of first the Po and the Ni Rivers into the Poni, then a couple of miles downstream with the Matta River to form the Mattaponi. Proper pronunciation is "Matta-puh-ni," the last syllable rhyming with "high."
25 The history of the Byrds and their exploits is interesting and worth at least a brief sojourn, for which the links provided here are intended to serve as good places to begin. (Author not named), College of William & Mary   and   David Gore, "The House that Byrd Built"
26 See David Gore, on Daniel Parke, in "The House that Byrd Built".   Also, Harris, Op. cit., refers to Col. Parke as "... one of the most notorious scamps of the colonial period." (p.11)
27 Harris, Op. cit., p. 691.   The legend of Evelyn Byrd is noted by David Gore in the David Gore, on Daniel Parke, in "The House that Byrd Built". "The House that Byrd Built":
    In England Evelyn was much admired for her beauty, wit and gentle disposition. When she was presented at Court, King George I remarked, "I have heard much of Virginia, but no one told me of its beautiful Byrds!" While there Evelyn formed an attachment to a Catholic gentleman - Charles Mordaunt, grandson of the Earl of Peterborough. The Byrds were ardent Protestants and her father broke off the match and brought her home to Westover. There the wistful Evelyn died a few years later still pining for her lost love. It is said that "the tap, tap of Evelyn's high-heeled slippers continues to be heard in the corridors of the home from which, long ago, she faded broken-hearted to the grave".
  We presume that George I, a Hessian who did not speak English, got the linguistic help he needed. See also the Byrd family tree.
28 Information concerning the formation of Eglington, its location, the house, etc., is from Harris, Op. cit., pp. 688-693.   For reference, approximately 638 acres is a square mile, so the original Littlepage estate had consisted of some 3.7 square miles of land.
29 Harris, Op. cit., p. 691.
30 Harris, Op. cit., p. 691.   Service as a justice in colonial Virginia presumably was similar to the counterpart position in England of the late 17th century "Restoration" period and a long time afterward. Palmer and Colton describe the significance of the position in England during that period with implications for comparable practices in colonial Virginia: "The justices, drawn from the gentry of each county, decided small lawsuits, punished misdemeanors, and supervised the parish officials charged with poor relief and care of the roads. The regime of the landlord-justices came to be called the 'squirearchy.'" R. R. Palmer and Joel Colton, A History of the Modern World to 1815, McGraw-Hill, 1995 (8th ed.), p. 176.  
31 Custis, George Washington Parke, Recollections and Private Memoirs of Washington by his Adopted Son, Derby & Jackson: New York, 1860, p.499.

As Col. Washington was only 26 years of age in March, 1758, the question arises as to the degree to which he had acquired fame by that time and on what basis. A useful introductory source on his early years, and especially on the early phase of the French and Indian War, is Grolier's Encyclopedia entry on the First President.

32 Deborah K. Carpenter and Philip J. Chamberlain, "George Washington and the Pamunkey River Chamberlaynes," The Chamberlain Key, Vol. 3 No. 2 Spring 1998, pp.43-45.