John
Lilly III born ca 1669-died by 1710
For those of us trying to find an
ancestor for Edmund Lilly, this person is the most important. He is
also the most frustrating because he left the fewest records. Edmund might have been a younger son
of
John Lilly III, as
John IV was born ca. 1696 and Edmund was born ca. 1700. He would not
have inherited any land, but
might
have inherited enough money to patent the land in Goochland
County. This is our most likely scenario although Edmund could also
have been the son of an unknown second son of John Lilly II who
left no records. I think this is less likely.
Our theory is that John
Lilly III married ca.
1694, had a son, John Lilly IV, ca. 1696 and died between 1704 and
1710. He could very well have had another child, Edmund. He might also have
had other
children about whom we know nothing.
1669 August 3, John
Lilly, son of John Lilly and Dorothy [Wade] is baptized
in Charles Parish,
York County.
The Jane Chisman Myth See Myths.
1686
Additional references to John
Lilly courtesy of Lou Poole. Since
this
is John Lilly junr, it suggests that John Lilly II was still alive at
this date. The junr would have to be John Lilly III. This
courtesy
reference was generally dropped after the elder individual was
deceased. Senior and junior did not necessarily mean father and son.
The terms were used more to mean older and
younger.
With more than
one family in an area with the same surname, the senior and junior
might not even have been related. Note that the horse was
taken
in 1686, but that the court order was some years later.
Dorman, John Frederick, York County,
Virginia, Deeds, Orders, Wills, Etc., No. 9, 1691-1694,
Part 1,
p. 11.
A
horse being imprest from Mr. Fra:
Read for his Majestie’s use, the horse, bridle and saddle
being
valued
by
two men to bee
worth 1000 pounds of tobacco, being delivered 1 April 1686 to me Geo
_____. John
Lilly,
Junr. and
Christopher (X) Longston. By vertue [sic] of a warrant from Mr. Robt.
Read the horse was
by
me prest being for
his Majestie’s juse being then constable for the upper
precincts
of York Parish. s/
John
Smyth.
1704
Note this
appears to be the
original 350 acres from the 1642 patent plus the 234 acres
patented in 1682. Quit Rent Rolls are a kind of Tax List.
Records
of Colonial
Gloucester County, Virginia, Volume
I, (Newport News, Va. :: Mrs.
G.C.
Mason,
1948)
Page
84: 1705 Quit
Rent Roll for Kingston Parish in Gloucester County.
Jno
Lylley 584 acres.
Other records in this Quit Rent List of
1704 refer to the estate of so and so. So the fact that his name
is here suggests he was still alive. On the other hand his sister
married about 1703. It seems to me that if he had still been
alive he might have been involved with her marriage contract instead
of her brother in law, Robert Reade. She married a Doctor.
I have speculated that John III might have had some illness that
brought her in close contact with the doctor. He might have been
alive in 1703, but ill and unable to take part in the contract.
We do not have a marriage or
death date for John Lilly III. He was born ca. 1669, and it was
common for men of his time of the plantation owner class to marry ca.
age 25. This would suggest he married ca. 1694. We do
not have any information on his wife. This 1694 date would fit in
with a
son born ca. 1696 which appears to be what happened. He died by
1710, and his wife may well have remarried after his death, but again
we have no record of it. All of this along with the names of
possible other children is buried in the
Kingston Parish Register records. The early years burned
and the surviving Kingston Parish Register starts in 1749.
1710
1710
This 1710 guardianship record
must refer to
John Lilly IV, son of John Lilly III who was deceased by that date.
John Lilly, son of John Lilly choose his guardian in 1710
so
his father had died by then. He would have been born by 1696
to
chose his own guardian. Either his father has just died and he was
choosing his guardian because he was over 14 and under 21, or else he
had just turned 14. We don't know why any other children were not
included. It is possible that they were in Gloucester where
the
records did not survive. John Lilly III was living in Gloucester, and
probably died there. After his death, the guardianship may originally
have been in Gloucester records which did not survive. John IV
may have been in York with his mother's relatives when he turned 14 and
chose his own guardian. I would like to
know
more about the men in this
record, but we have found little about them. It was
pretty common
for relatives to post the bond,
etc,
because it was expensive.
Sherry
Raleigh-Adams, York County,
Virginia Deeds, Orders, Wills, Etc 1710-1711
P.
83: 1710: John
Lilly moving the court that he might be admitted to
make choice of a Guardian and the same being granted, nominated Richd.
Kendall, who was approved of and it is ordered that he give
security.
Page
84: 1710 Richard
Kendall together with Robert Crawley and Joseph
Chermeson, his securities, presented and acknowledged their bond to the
court for the said Kendall’s guardianship of John Lilly and
it
is
admitted to record.
P.
93: Bond: Richd.
Kendall, Robert Crawley and Joseph Cermeson, all of
the County of York, to the Justices of said County in the sum of $100.
Dated this 19th day of February 1710/1. Sureties for Richd. Kendall as
Guardian to John Lilly, son
of John Lilly, deceased.
It should be noted at this time
that nothing is known about the
identity or fate of the wife of John LillyIII. John had apparently died
before 1710, but just because his son chose a guardian in 1710 does not
mean that John’s widow was dead. Guardians were always men, and
were essentially trust fund administrators. When the widow was still
alive, she, if she were able, frequently provided food, clothing, and
shelter to her children. It is probable, since I think she was a
relatively young woman at John’s death, that she remarried, and
probably to someone in Gloucester County, meaning that it is highly
unlikely we will ever know what happened to her.
More on John Lilly IV, son of John Lilly III,
born ca. 1696.
*****************************************************************************************************************
The
Lilly home in 1699?
Lou Poole found a fascinating site with information about the
Lilly family home.
http://gale-gaylefamilies.com/strays-allied-families--gayle-family-slaves.html
The
owner of this
website is Gayle Mandell. She is the one who should get the
credit for the interesting information.
This site has the picture of the old house built on the Lilly
land
in the
mid 1700s, perhaps by John Lilly IV. But it appears to have been
on the site of a house built ca. 1699. that house may have been built
by John Lilly III, [born by 1669, died
perhaps ca. 1704.]
This is a
fascinating webpage
which just makes me ache to go there and
sorrow that the house was torn down in 2012. I have copied the
information and posted it here because some of these marvelous pages
have a way of
disappearing off the web. But please go look at this very
interesting webpage. It is full of fascinating information
about
old Mathews
County. This house is not the house of John Lilly II. This
house
would have been built by a later Lilly. However, the
local
legend
suggests that it was built on the site of a previous house, built here
ca. 1699. Unfortunately, there is simply no proof.
Roxbury,
portions possibly built 1755, Photo 2002
ROXBURY, later called STOAKES
PLANTATION,
has sadly been demolished as
of 2012. The date of construction is said to have been either around
1755 or during the late 18th or early 19th century. The property,
bordered by Stoakes Creek, was once Indian land granted to John Lilley
in 1642. Lilly received another grant in 1682 and in 1704 the Rent Roll
for Kingston Parish listed Jno. Lylley with 584 acres, presumed to be
the combination of the two grants. The parcels containing Roxbury and
two nearby homes, Milford and Watcombe Manor, were joined in the 1600s
and an
old family cemetery is
located on the grounds at the latter
house. [There are
now no stones.]
`
The property passed to Lilley's descendants and later owners included
Richard and Lucy Lilly Billups, William Armistead Billups, Harriet S.
Billups Stoades, Confederate veteran Walter R. Stoakes (1847 - 1935)
and his second wife, Bertha Estelle Diggs Stoakes and others. During
the mid-1900s Bertha Diggs Stoakes found a collection of papers known
as the "Lilly, Billups, Stoakes Family Papers" in an un-used loft at
the house. They were donated to the Earl Gregg Swem Memorial Library at
the College of William and Mary in 1941-42 and contain abstracts of
records relating to early Mathews, including fragments of the will of
George Billups, dated 1673.
The
above photo, taken in 2002,
shows the dwelling clad with asbestos
shingles over weatherboard and covered by a roof of standing-seam
metal, Roxbury is a 2½ story dwelling of mortise and tenon
construction consisting of an entry hall, one large room downstairs and
two rooms upstairs. Three gabled dormers peer out from the roof and a
second story porch with carved railings supported by columns is reached
through a door in the upstairs hall. An addition, said to have been
built about 1840, is one room deep with a center hall. An old kitchen
dependency was attached to the rear of this addition and the outhouse
attached to the kitchen. In the attic are three rooms, end-to-end, with
the stairway in the center room. The ceiling height here is no more
than 6½' to 7' 'and slopes to the floor following the
roofline.
Dependencies include a chicken house, now used as a pole shed, and a
smokehouse with wide hewn wooden beams and wooden pegs for hanging
meat.
Local lore attached to
a dwelling on
this property tells of a
long-misplaced photograph of a chimney on the house that showed a
witch's head carved into the brickwork with the date of 1699. In later
years the chimney was in such a state of disrepair that a local brick
mason removed the old masonry and the chimney, including the carving
and dated brick, and covered the chimney in plaster. To this day, no
photograph or dated brick has been found and the origin of the tale is
unknown.
Roxbury is said to be haunted and there
have been
numerous reports of
doors opening and closing and footsteps heard on the stairs. One of the
owners remembered hiding as a child in a small space reached through a
door under the stairs. He was told that the room was used in olden
times as a hiding place in case of Indian attacks and noted that the
door was positioned so that it could be hidden by a piece of furniture.
Legend has it that one of the owners shot silver bullets made from
spoons into the chimney to keep the witches out.
*********************************************************
Further
information
on Roxbury:
Source:
Becky Foster Barnhardt
Head of History & Genealogy,
Mathews Memorial Library
804-725-5747 [email protected]
Attached
is a 1917 map showing
the location of Roxbury. Roxbury, built late 18th century or early 19th
century, was razed in 2012. I have seen a photograph, dated 1931, which
clearly shows a figure painted on the chimney. On the back of the photo
is written “Figure painted on chimney by slaves to scare
ghost
away.” I’m afraid that the “internet
history”
of Roxbury should be taken with a grain of salt.
Lilly & Billups property owners (note: primary source documents
are
not available to prove that this property was from the land grant of
John Lylley on 20 June 1642):
Thomas Lilly: 1782-1806
Richard Billups: 1807-1822
William Armistead Billups: 1823-1863
William Armistead Billups heirs after 1863
Note: The location of Roxbury is clearly marked on the 1917
map
she sent. Lillys Creek is now called Stoakes Creek.
Return
to
Home Page and site index