Re: WOODARD of Culpeper & Rappahannock Co.
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In reply to:
Re: WOODARD of Culpeper & Rappahannock Co.
Douglas Beahm 9/08/02
A lot can happen and be learned in the four years between a posting and an answer. But, to answer what is in front of me, most of the material cited, and nowhere do I see the word "evidence" is taken from the Journal of Jacob ALbert Fox. Mr. Fox, before he died traveled the area extensively and interviewed many descendants of the Woodard's, etc. By no means does this prove anything exclusively but is a start for research.
"William Woodard, probably the 15th or 16th child, was born in 1710.At the age of 14 in 1724, he stole a ball of his mother's knitting yarn to play ball with. When his mother caught him and was going to chastise him, he ran away to his wet-nurses house and hid out. His mother went to look for him there but he was hidden in a large cupboard and she didn't find him. In years after, he often said he was more fond of the woman who nursed him than his own mother. Later that evening he went to the harbor and found a ship that was ready to sail for America and he boarded. As he didn't have the fare for the trip, when he landed he was auctioned off to Lord Culpeper as an indentured servant for the period of seven years. In 1731, when his indenture was over, he stayed on and worked for wages. He was hired to clear land and plant tobacco. Lord Culpeper fitted him with two mattocks', two axes and two negro men and one horse. He was told to go west of Fredericksburg and to choose his own location. The place he found was about three miles north of where Sperryville is now, and he put up a log hut. He was the first white man to "grub" in that area. He cleared the land and put in a garden and several hundred tobacco plants. In mid winter, the following year, he took in a family that had no place to go. When Lord Culpeper learned of this he was angry because it was legally his house and land and permission wasn't asked of him. He told William to leave immediately and take the family with him. When Culpeper learned the true circumstance of it all he asked William to return but he wouldn't. By this time, several families had come into the area and he worked about from place to place. In time he married, (we have failed to learn who she was), and they had 6 children. Four sons and two daughters. His wife died and after some time he married Miss Annie Henon. He had purchased a small tract of land about one mile south west of Thornton's Gap where Sperryville now is. We have no account as to what disposition his first wife had but his last wife worked very hard and was as good a woman who ever lived. She raised one child, a son named James. As for this lady, my great grandmother Woodard, I don't know where she was born but she died about the beginning of the War of 1812. Her remains lie about 200 yards north west of the old house on the James Woodard farm, in a grave yard in Rappahannock, Virginia. After her death, her husband still lived in an old house about 150 yards away on the same farm. Here he lived until he was 108 years old.
Often, the old man, William Woodard, who left his boyhood home in Dublin, Ireland, would reflect over his childhood days and would gather his grandchildren around him and would tell their names in rhyme, of his 13 brothers and seven sisters in Ireland. This old man was a great lover of home. When he was 108 years old, a short time before he died, his daughter Hannah by his first wife, took sick. She lived a distance of 5 or 6 miles from his home and the old man, as old as he was, walked all the distance to visit this sick daughter who married James Frashure (Frazier), known as Mud Frashure. But as the old man returned to his home, he was overtaken by a heavy rain from which he took cold and settled in his bowels causing flux which resulted in his death in the year 1818. While he was sick in bed and all alone, his son James worked in a field near the house, and when he wanted aid, he would churn a heavy cane on the floor to serve as a signal for his son, James. At his death, he gave all his possessions to his son James who buried him SouthEast of his home about 150 yards distance. This being buried in a different grave yard from his second wife. I do not know where his first wife is buried.
*From "The Journal of Jacob Albert Fox
More Replies:
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Re: WOODARD of Culpeper & Rappahannock Co.
Douglas Beahm 11/10/02
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Re: WOODARD of Culpeper & Rappahannock Co.
William Barham 11/13/02
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Re: WOODARD of Culpeper & Rappahannock Co.
Douglas Beahm 3/19/03
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Re: WOODARD of Culpeper & Rappahannock Co.
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Re: WOODARD of Culpeper & Rappahannock Co.