However, Anne Kelly and Mary’s brother, Thomas Durham Jr. I don’t know if the girls would have been allowed just to be girls, at least part of the time, or if their class difference would have kept them apart, even though they lived under the same roof. She was almost exactly Mary Durham’s age, 14 at that time, as judged by the court. In 1699, Thomas Durham, Mary’s father, had “purchased” an indentured servant named Anne Kelly. In 17, and probably somewhat before and after, the Durham family was embroiled in a whopper of a scandal.
In the article about Thomas Dodson, we identified where Rich Neck was located.Īt age sixteen and a half, with a four month old baby, if not two children, Mary was now the mistress of a plantation. The other half is the land Thomas received, separated from Rich Neck by a branch of the creek. The land deeded to Thomas was half of Charles Dodson’s 300 acre tract and the half that brother Charles lived on was called Rich Neck. On the same day, he also deeded land to son Charles Dodson and indicated that Charles was already living on his land – so it’s likely that Thomas was too. He apparently decided to go ahead and deed the land before his death. A month earlier, Charles had written his will and included that same land for Thomas. In February 1702/03, Thomas Dodson’s father, Charles Dodson, deeded land to Thomas. If Thomas was the second born, who was the first born, George, named after, and why? Mary’s son, Thomas Dodson Jr.’s birth is unrecorded, but he was married before 1725 to Elizabeth Rose, suggesting he was born before 1705. was the first child born to Mary and Thomas, then Mary would have to have been VERY pregnant when she married Thomas, in order for there to be enough time to have Thomas Jr., conceive George and give birth to him in October of 1702. Typically, the first male child is named after the father. whose birth is not recorded in the Farnham Church register, which is known to be incomplete. That too is unusual, as effective birth control did not exist at that time and there was no reason in that time and place not to begin a family immediately. That means Mary did not get pregnant until they had been married 6 months. The first child recorded in the Farnham Parish Church registry for Mary and Thomas was George, born on October 31, 1702, a year and almost 3 months after their marriage. We can’t really rule that in or out, but here’s what we do know. Of course, that raises the question of why they married so young. Thomas Dodson was all of 20 years old, young for a colonial male to marry too. That’s awfully young to marry, even in colonial Virginia. Mary was all of 15 years old, specifically 15 years and almost 3 months. Their marriage was recorded on Augin the North Farnham Parish parish register. Mary was quite young when she married Thomas Dodson. She would have sweat to death in the summer, and washing machines were still an invention of the future. All I can say is that I hope it was winter with all of that fabric. The lady above is fashionably dressed in 1700 in England. The Durham family was not poor, but they also weren’t aristocratic. We don’t really know how Mary dressed or much about her lifestyle, but in general, the colonial Virginians attempted to keep up with the styles in England. Mary and her family would have attended the original church, located a few miles north of the present-day church, in a now forgotten location. Mary and Thomas probably saw each other during their daily life, and on Sunday’s dressed up for church at North Farnham Parish, although the current church wasn’t built until 1737. At that time, the economy was driven by tobacco.īased on deeds of her father as well as her brother, husband and husband’s father, it appears that Mary’s parents were neighbors with her husband’s parents, and she married the boy from across the fence. Mary grew up along Totuskey Creek, red pin below, on the peninsula of land in Virginia known as the Northern Neck, surrounded on three sides by water the Rappahannock River, the Potomac River and the Chesapeake Bay. Most of what we know about Mary Durham is related to her husbands, mostly her first husband by whom her children were born, Thomas Dodson. Mary Durham, daughter of Thomas Durham and Dorothy Smoot was born Jin North Farnham Parish in what was then Old Rappahannock County, Virginia.
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