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What are the cords that connect us to what is not broken? One of the ways . . . is through the power of the word as invocation, through naming, and honouring, the living and the dead who came before us. Another way is by bringing our deities and cultural heroes to the stage, being inhabited by them, and becoming their reflections and manifestations. But this can’t be done in isolation. Creation stories are about transformation. . . . The transformative impulse does not come from individuals acting alone. It comes from building alliances, linking arms. It needs families, clans, Nations. It needs alliances across Nations. . . . It needs collaboration. —Monique Mojica (Kuna/Rappahannock) and Ric Knowles (5)

O N Monday, May 25, I772, a young African woman, one of many slaves aboard the Polly, stepped onto Virginia soil at Bermuda Hundred, a Chesterfield County village close to the confluence of theJames and Appomattox rivers. Perhaps she caught a glimpse of Shirley, the imposing brick manor house majestically sitting beyond the James. Would her fate fall there? she may have wondered. Had she arrived in Virginia a half century earlier, she would probably have landed at a wharf along the York River or the Rappahannock, perhaps destined to live the rest of her life in the tidewater region. But in the years after I750 most Africans brought to Virginia were taken up the James to be sold at ports like Bermuda Hundred. Most were then marched into the interior, where planters eagerly sought their labor on newly settled piedmont plantations and quarters. In this regard, the fate of this African woman was typical. No doubt, many planters and merchants were drawn to Bermuda Hundred on May 25 by newspaper notices advertising the Polly's 450 "fine healthy SLAVES." Among them was Paul Carrington, holder of several local offices and a member of the House of Burgesses for Charlotte County. He bought 50 slaves with intent to resell them in the Southside. As the king's attorney in several counties and a professional lawyer, Carrington traveled regularly in this rapidly expanding subregion. He must have been aware of the Southside's insatiable demand for labor. Perhaps he also found encouragement in the slave prices. Richard Hanson, a Petersburg area merchant, expressed surprise at the owners of this consignment, Burnley and Braikenridge, "breaking the price so low ?6o and ?65 privilege . . . as the People expected to give ?65 to ?67.IO privilege.... They likewise abated ?3 pr inch in the small slaves." Nevertheless, "considering the sum large and a considerable risque in the health & life of the Slaves," Carrington took on three silent partners. With their financial support he could proceed more securely in the resale of his purchases. Carrington led the Africans to his plantation near the junction of the Roanoke and Little Roanoke rivers in southern Charlotte County. He ultimately kept only

This study examines the ebb and flow of social, economic, and political currents on Virginia's Northern Neck—the peninsula bounded by the Potomac River to the north and the Rappahannock River to th...

(1995). The Fredericksburg Campaign: Decision on the Rappahannock. History: Reviews of New Books: Vol. 24, No. 1, pp. 8-9.

Betsy Thomas died suddenly in her home overlooking the Thornton River in Rappahannock County, Virginia, on 2 January 1998. She was 74 years of age. Betsy joined the AOU in 1975 and became an Elective Member in 1985. Born in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, on 3 August 1923, Betsy was drawn to natural history illustration at an early age. She received a B.A. degree in art history from Skidmore College in 1946 but put aside a career to marry and raise a family. Betsy's husband was a highway engineer whose work for the World Bank took him and his family to Vietnam, Colombia, and finally Venezuela, where they settled in 1964 in Valencia. As her family responsibilities lessened, Betsy focused her natural history aptitude on birds. She quickly learned to identify the birds around Valencia and in the llanos and coastal cordillera. By 1970 she was helping others find and identify Venezuelan birds, but Betsy's intense interest led her beyond bird finding. One direction took her to conservation, and she was the main driving force in founding the Sociedad Conservacionista Audubon de Venezuela, an important voice for natural history conservation and education in Venezuela. A second path led to ornithology. Betsy saw the need for additional knowledge of Venezuelan birds. With only the bare essentials and a beaten-up old camper, she set off to the field and spent months on end in wild, remote corners of the country, especially in the llanos. Venezuelan friends were awed by her frugality and fearless determination. In her efforts to improve her scientific skills, she was aided by many ornithologists who sought her help when they visited Venezuela. She, in turn, always took the time to teach Venezuelans about birds. During summers, when she visited her children who had returned to the United States, she took graduate courses at the University of Massachusetts. The results were more than 30 scientific papers, including seminal works on storks, flycatchers, and thornbirds. Betsy returned to the United States in 1984, but she visited Venezuela at least annually to continue her field work. Throughout her life, Betsy exhibited an incredible appetite to learn and the energy and courage to venture into new fields. She earned the appreciation and gratitude of many for her willingness to share her knowledge. It is hard to believe that a person of such indomitable will has passed on. We will miss her.

IN NOVEMBER 1803 A TWENTY-FOUR-YEAR-OLD IRISHMAN LANDED in Norfolk, Virginia. The town struck him as "really a most comical place," where nothing "but dogs and negroes" were to be seen in the streets. Thomas Moore had launched his voyage to the wilds of America from the salons of London, in which he had been welcomed as the translator of the Odes ofAnacreon and a memorable entertainer at evening parties. He sang his own songs at the pianoforte in an "inexpressibly sweet" voice, making men weep and women faint. In his first exposure to American culture, "Anacreon" Moore was cheered to find one friendly drawing room, complete with harpsichord. This "looked like civilisation," but, as he declared to his mother, "music here is like whistling to a wilderness. "1 Six months later Moore followed Virginia's "break-neck" roads to Washington, passing "the Potomac, the Rappahannock, the Occoquan, . . . and many other rivers, with names as barbarous as the inhabitants." He wrote home that "every step I take not only reconciles, but endears to me, not only the excellencies but even the errors of Old England." After accepting the hospitality of expatriate Tories and Virginia Federalists, he arrived in the capital well educated in the errors of Jeffersonianism. Further instruction came from

����� Private Benjamin Ashenfelter of the 6th Pennsylvania Reserves described the experience as "the worst disaster to our army since the war began." Another soldier in the Army of the Potomac declared, "I do not recollect of ever feeling so discouraged over the result of anything we ever undertook to do."1 These observations followed the Battle of Fredericksburg in December 1862. To most students of the Civil War, such references create images of towering Marye's Heights and the terrible stone wall, both blazing with Confederate fire. Yet, Ashenfelter and his comrade never saw these landmarks. They fought their battle of Fredericksburg four and one-half miles south of the city, in a bloody engagement frequently overshadowed by the more famous futility at the Sunken Road. Nevertheless, the combat which pitted Lee's most famous lieutenant against the manwhowould lead the Army of thePotomaclonger than any other individual, represented the Federals' only opportunity toavertwhat became their most lopsided defeat of the war in Virginia. The campaign forFredericksburgbegan on an optimistic note for the Unionists. In early November, President Lincoln replaced the dilatory George Brinton McClellan with Rhode Island's leading military figure, AmbroseEverett Burnside. Onceconvincedto accept command, Burnsidereorganized thearmy into threeGrand Divisions under Edwin Vose Sumner, Joseph Hooker, and William Buel Franklin, and moved his forces southeast from Warrenton toward Fredericksburg. By doing so, he hoped to cross the Rappahannock River quickly at the old colonial town, and move directly south toward Richmond before Lee could react.

IN venturers" 1607 A small stood BAND on the of deck English of their "Gentlemen small ship and as Adit venturers" stood on the deck of their small ship as it sailed from the broad Atlantic between two capes then unnamed, but now known to all marines as Cape Charles and Cape Henry. Veering toward the southern shore (Cape Henry), they soon passed between two more points of land, now named Willoughby Spit and Old Point Comfort. They dropped anchor in a fine deep harbor, now renowned the world over as Hampton Roads. On this historic day, nearly three and a half centuries ago, a great port received its first ship. Little did that company realize that they had discovered a harbor of such vastness that all of the shipping in the world then and now could be sheltered within its limits. Soon the main tributary river, the James, became a highway, bringing the products of forest and plantation to the great port for shipment to England. As hardy pioneers pushed up the Chesapeake Bay, other rivers, the York, the Rappahannock and the Potomac, in turn became highways of trade, each bringing additional commerce for shipment

I N the spring of I774, a young Englishman named Nicholas Cresswell crossed the Atlantic, entered Chesapeake Bay, and came to safe anchorage on the Rappahannock River. From there, three black oarsmen rowed him north on the bay as far as the broad mouth of the Potomac River, then upriver along the shores of St. Mary's and Charles counties, Maryland. On the afternoon of May 2I, Cresswell reached his destination, the tiny village of Nanjemoy in southwestern Charles County.1 A week later, as he was becoming acquainted with the sights and sounds of the Tobacco Coast, Cresswell attended what he called a "Negro Ball" near Nanjemoy. "Sundays being the only days these poor creatures have to themselves," he wrote, "they generally meet together and amuse themselves with Dancing to the Banjo," a four-stringed gourd "something in the imitation of a Guitar." Some of the slaves also sang "very droll music indeed," songs in which "they generally relate the usage they have received from their Masters or Mistresses in a very satirical stile and manner." The newcomer pronounced the music and verse "Rude and uncultivated," the dancing "most violent exercise ... irregular and grotesque." With a hint of disbelief he concluded that the slaves "all appear to be exceedingly happy at these merry-makings and seem as if they had forgot or were not sensible of their miserable condition."2 Cresswell's account is the kind of infrequent literary evidence that historians of the black experience in early America cherish for its clues to

IN August i6o8 John Smith and his band of explorers captured an Indian named Amoroleck during a skirmish along the Rappahannock River. Asked why his men-a hunting party from towns upstreamhad attacked the English, Amoroleck replied that they had heard the strangers "were a people come from under the world, to take their world from them."1 Smith's prisoner grasped a simple yet important truth that students of colonial America have overlooked: after I492 native Americans lived in a world every bit as new as that confronting transplanted Africans or Europeans. The failure to explore the Indians' new world helps explain why, despite many excellent studies of the native American past,2 colonial history often remains "a history of those men and women-English, European, and African-who transformed America from a geographical expression into a new nation."3 One reason Indians generally are left out may be the apparent inability to fit them into the new world theme, a theme that exerts a powerful hold on our historical imagination and runs throughout

In The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. I (January, 1894), No. 3, pp. 242-244, appeared an article entitled, A List of the Parishes in Virginia-June 30th, 1680. This article was preceded by the following note: [This List of the Parishes in Virginia was printed as a Senate Document (Extra) in 1874, but as it is scarce and little known, it is thought well to print it here to fill out the lists for 1680.] State Papers, Colonial Virginia, Vol. 60, No. 410, June 30th, 1680. Recently, through the courtesy of Mr. Wilmer L. Hall, State Librarian of Virginia, the undersigned was furnished with a photostat of the original "List of Parishes in Virginia", which is preserved in the Public Record Office, London (endorsed C. 0. 1/45), a manuscript copy of which the contributor of the article in The Virginia Magazine had evidently made use of in preparing his article. This photostat was secured from London by the Virginia State Library for preservation in the Archives Division of the Library. Upon comparing the "List" as printed in The Virginia MAayla2ine of History and Biography with the photostat of the original manuscript "List", the undersigned discovered the following errors: 1. The alignment of the printed "List" is totally different from that of the original manuscript. Apparently the alignment of the original document was entirely disregarded by the copyist or by the contributor of the article (whose name does not appear), the result being that-even if there were no other errors in the article-it would be impossible for any reader to be certain in the case of many of the parishes in the "List" as printed whether or not there was a minister, or, if so, who the minister was. 2. In six instances (where the parishes of Yorke, New Pocoson, Petsoe, Abington, Choatanck, and Winacommico are mentioned) the name of the parish has been misspelled, in two cases so fundamentally as to change the name entirely. 3. In six instances (where the names of the Rev. Messrs. Moyce, of Surry County; Kern, of Lower Norfolk County; Clack, of Gloucester County; Dacres, of Rappahannock County; Dacres, of Northumberland County; and Wough, of Stafford County

Gov. Spotswood of Virginia had four children; the oldest was John, who married in I745, Mary, daughter of Wm. Dandridge of the British Navy.(1) Dorothea Spotswood married Capt. Nat. West Dandridge, also of the Navy. Alexander and John Spotswood were children of John. Alexander in due course of time became a general in the Revolution, and had high reputation as an excellent officer; he lived on the banks of the Rappahannock, on an excellent estate a few miles below Fredericksburg, Va.(2) He married Elizabeth, daughter of Wm. Augustine Washington, brother of Gen. George. John, brother to Alexander, married Miss Rowzee, and did good service to the colonies in the Revolution as a captain. John Spotswood, son of the Governor, died, and his widow married Mr. Campbell and lived at Williamsburg, Va.; his mother, Mrs. Campbell, named Margaret, was a widow and lived at London. Col. Bernard Moore of Chelsea, Va., who married Kate Spotswood, became guardian of Alexander and John, grandsons of the Governor. Col. Moore sent his wards to school at Eton in England, and they boarded with Mrs. Mary Young. In her yard was a famous elm tree, whose ample

Robert Brooke's manuscript map, A Plan of Potomack River, from the Mouth of Sherrendo, down to Chpapcwamsick, Surveyed in the year 1737, mentioned in the Magazine for April last, where the circumstances surrounding the survey of the Potomac in connection with the effort to determine the bounds of Lord Fairfax's Northern Neck grant were described, is but one of a number of maps that were prepared in the course of the extended investigation at this date. In addition to the joint survey of the River from what is now Harper's Ferry to the head waters (the resulting map of which has been reproduced in these pages) the Crown commissioners ordered the surveyor of each county bounded either by the Potomac or Rappahannock rivers to prepare a map of the waters adjacent to his county.1 The result was a series of minor maps which in turn formed the foundation for the two general maps, one by John Warner and the other by William Mayo, that were sent to England and laid before the Lords Commissioners of Trade. It appears that but two of these county maps survive, though a third, that of Stafford county by John Savage, is perpetuated by a tracing in the library of the Coast and Geodetic Survey at Washington. Of the original surviving maps, both in the Enoch Pratt Free Library, Baltimore, one is an untitled and unsigned plan of the Potomac borders of Westmoreland County, an account of which is here appended. The other is, of course, the excellent map of Brooke which, by reason of its careful execution, the names of settlers shown and the later import of the sites it includes (Washington and Mt. Vernon) merits fuller discussion. It should be noted at the outset that the map of identical title in the Coast and Geodetic Library, recorded by Philips and also by Swem in their lists of Virginia maps and reproduced in Fairfax Harrison's Landmarks of Old Prince William,2 is a comparatively late tracing of a portion of the map herewith reproduced. The northern limit of the tracing is at the Great Falls and all key numbers from 1 to 24 are omitted. Consequently that part of the present plan and key above this point-in the original a strip 17%2 by 11 inches-is here shown in print for the first time. Incidentally, the tracing fails exactly to follow the original lettering (e. g. "Ro. Brooke" was

On page 175, Mr. Nicklin continues his article, correcting, confirming and amplifying the former sketch. Using these two numbers as a nucleus, I am sending you some additional information dealing with other branches of the same family, especially with the descendants of Beheathland3 Bernard by her first husband, Major Francis Dade, Sr. This is data which I have collected from the original records of Stafford, Westmoreland, Old Rappahannock and King George Counties, and from family papers of Mrs. Lucy Ashton (Burton) Lewis, of Gulfport, Mississippi, who is a descendant in several lines from Major Francis Dade. Most of the birth, death and marriage dates were acquired from the St. Paul's Parish Register of Stafford and King George Counties, of which the Reverend David Stuart was pastor from 1722 until 1749, and whose children and grandchildren have, in several instances, married into this family. "Robert' Beheathland, Gentleman," came on the first of the three ships that landed at Jamestown, Virginia, 1607. (The Sarah Constant, The Goodspeed and The Discovery.) After accompanying Smith on expeditions to negotiate with or to fight Indians, we see him ever afterwards referred to as "Captain Robert Beheathland." There seems to be good evidence that he married Mary Nicholson. (William and Mary Quarterly, v. 9, 2d series, p. 60; Va. M., v. 11, p. 363.) Mary2 Beheathland, his daughter, married Captain Thomasl Bernard an early settler in Warwick County, Burgess for Stanley Hundred, 1632; Burgess for Warwick River, 1641-2; 1644-45. In Greer's Early Virginia Immigrants we find also a "Thomas Bernard, Charles City County, 1638, by John George." Their daughter, Beheathland3 Bernard, born , d. 1720, married firstly Major' Francis Dade, Sr., she married secondly, in 1664, Major Andrew Gilson, by whom she had, Issue. (1.) Thomas4 Gilson, m. Elizabeth , who survived him. (2.) Beheathland4 Gilson, (1666-1693), m. Nehemiah Storke, (d. 1693).

The first court held for Middlesex in February, 1673, was presided over by nine gentlemen who had emigrated from England to Virginia and who had already taken out patents for land along the water-front where they had established homes. These gentlemen justices for this first court were: Richard Perrott, Sr., Henry Thacker, John Foxcroft, Richard Perrott, Jr., Walter Whittaker and John Hazlewood. Until 1666 the area comprising the present Middlesex County, although embraced at that time in Lancaster, was divided into the Parishes of Lancaster and Pianketank, coinciding with the later Upper and Lower precincts, and each had its Established Church. Hermitage and Lower Church stand approximately on the sites of older churches in the two parishes. For economic reasons the parishioners decreed to unite Lancaster and Pianketank into one large parish, so we find the union completed at a vestry meeting held at Rosegrill, the residence of Sir Henry Chicheley, in 1666; and the new parish, co-extensive with county boundaries, took the name of Christ Church, Middlesex. Thence forward the churches in each of the old parishes became chapels of ease, and a mother church was built 'midway between Brandon and Rosegill in the small Indian field upon the land of Mrs. Brocas.' Of the old families resident in this section Bishop Meade, writing about 1855, states very significantly that "Middlesex was the seed-bed of Virginia aristocracy". Middlesex was among the most cultured counties in the Colony before the Revolution, and perhaps sent more of her sons back to England for their academic and legal education than any other county in the Colony. The first man from Virginia to return to England for his legal training was Henry Perrott, who entered Gray's Inn, as a student of law November 14, 1674. The Perrotts patented Perrott's Neck on a creek by the same name in upper Middlesex, which is known to us today as Nesting, the old home of the Eubanks. A quaint entry in the Parish Register states that "Richard Perrott, the son of Mr. Richard Perrott, decd., was born the 24th day of February 1657, being the first man child that was born in the Rappahannock River of English parents." Ralph Wormeley, of Rosegill, was the first student from Virginia to enter an English university, having matriculated at Oriel College, Oxford, in July, 1665. Thus you will see that the houses of Perrott and Wormeley set the pace that was liberally followed by other sons of old Middlesex. Since we have reviewed briefly the creation and organization of the county, together with early church history, let