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The man for whom Dinwiddie County is named -
Robert Dinwiddie from Ronald Seagrave collection |
On July 5th while in Mecklenburg County I visited the
library in South Hill. They had four
whole shelves of genealogy and county history books, and I was thrilled. I set
up camp at a nearby table, adjusting the furniture so I could plug in my laptop
for the duration. Then I started with the top row of shelf number one and
worked my way through to the bottom row of shelf four. It took a couple hours
or more. I checked the titles of each book and took down all that had any
potential.
While on this trip I’ve been dutiful to enter sources
into my Research Log. My log is an EXCEL file with separate tabs for each
family name. The Pattillo tab has 151 listed sources. This is a tremendous help
for avoiding looking at the same source twice. Though there are times when I do
so purposely. For example, on this trip I expanded my research to include new
family names. There is a comments column on my spreadsheet where I make notes
of what names I look up in each reference and something about what I found, so
I might have looked at Pattillo and Land in 2014 and would now check Phillips
and Moseley – two maternal family names. Of course it is equally important to
record references where you find nothing, so you don’t bother with those a
second time.
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Photo of the historic Dinwiddie courthouse from "Dinwiddie
County The Countrey of the Apamatica" compiled by the
Writers Program of the WPA |
At South Hill I also expanded my county research to
include Brunswick, Lunenberg and Dinwiddie Counties – all places my ancestors
lived prior to migrating to Mecklenburg.
I found the DAR (Daughters of the American Revolution) Patriot Index,
also four books on Early Wills, Early Settlers, Family Records and Bible
Records all for Mecklenburg. The South Hill collection included a well-written Hutchison Family History published in
1968. I studied it briefly and decided to copy the entire 88 page book.
Several of the documents that were of interest to me were
written by Katherine B. Elliott who lived in South Hill. One such book was a
synopsis of Revolutionary War Records for
Mecklenburg County that included one Pattillo and four Phillips relations.
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| I like this illustration on the inside cover of the book |
When I finally finished reviewing each book I packed up
and headed for the Tobacco Museum but
I arrived fifteen minutes after they’d closed - darn. Disappointed, I left South Hill and
Mecklenburg County, again with some reluctance.
After driving until I was tired I sought a place to camp
and found Fort Pickens RV Park. I hit
the “navigation” button on my iPhone app and headed that way. When the speaker
directed me towards a military base I thought something must be wrong and
ignored the directions. A few miles later the same thing happened. I was a
little low on gas and was too tired to chase around. There were no other
campgrounds in the vicinity, so on the fourth pass I finally drove onto the
Fort Pickens Military Base to ask directions to the RV Park. There the soldier
at the entry gate told me, “Yes, there’s an RV park on the base. Just turn left
here, right on 10th Street and you’ll see the site on your right.”
It wasn’t much but it was only $11 for the night including electric and water
hookups. So, I spent the night on a
military base and felt very safe.
The following day after finishing at the courthouse I
checked the Dinwiddie Library. It
was a sweet little building but housed only a single book of interest that I
dutifully reviewed and made a few copies.
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| Dinwiddie Library |
Next was the library in Hopewell where I hoped to find more sources for Dinwiddie County
but their archive room was closed and the one woman who could unlock the door
was unavailable until the following week. After checking their shelved books, I
left feeling only mildly disappointed for by now I could feel myself losing
steam.
July 8th
Virginia Library – my last research stop.
This day I returned to the State Library of Virginia in
their capital city Richmond. I did research there in 2014 but knew there was
more to find so looked forward to going back and finding what I’d missed
previously. The highlight of my 2014
visit was being allowed to handle and photograph original documents, so when I
arrived this time that is the first thing I headed for. I was very disappointed
to learn that since 2014 all those documents have been scanned and are now
available on microfilm. The thrill of holding the originals gone and the
ability to make quality copies compromised. I understand why they did it but
was still a disappointment.
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Photo of the Boydton Courthouse from 1905 provided by
Ruth Crowder |
I selected a few rolls of film and searched through them
but without much enthusiasm. But my efforts paid off by producing the wills of
Pettus Phillips a 4th great grandfather, Edward Pattillo a 3rd
great granduncle, Curtis Land a 6th great granduncle, and wills for
three Land brothers that were 4th great granduncles. I found a
couple of indentures for James Pattiloe/Pattillo dated 1778 and 1779 but the
real prize for the day was a Homestead document for my second great grandfather
James H. Pattillo. It listed what he paid for the land including one mule, six
head of cattle, one hog, farming implements valued at $5, household and kitchen
furniture valued at $60 plus the entire crop of wheat on hand, and all other
crops he would produce in the year 1880. I’m not sure if he got a good deal or
not.
Having exhausted all that I could think to check in their
microfilm collection I tackled a few books but only half-heartedly. At this
point I’d been travelling and doing research intensively for 66 days and even
though I knew the State Library had much more to offer I just could not bring
myself to open one more book to scan the index or thread one more reel of
microfilm onto a reader. I was tired of scanning, photographing and assigning
names to files. I could do no more, so I left the library an hour before it
closed and headed for my reserved campsite at Americamps RV Resort in
Ashland, Virginia.
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| Colored lights and decorations at the Americamps RV Resort |
As I write this, I’ve been traveling for 77 days. During
the trip I’ve visited six courthouses in four states, sixteen libraries, and I made
3390 copies of pages of documents. This should keep me busy and content for a
while. I’ll write another story for the CGS Blog when I have a tally of all the
new ancestors I have found and will discover as I process all this new
information – stay tuned.
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Winfield Scott from the Library of Congress. I
copied this because I have an ancestor named
after him |
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| This is the Homestead document for James H. Pattillo |
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Illustration of a tobacco auction in Clarksville, Virginia. Mecklenburg
County was the 3rd largest producer of tobacco in the state. |
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One of Elliott's books. This one summarizing wills in
Mecklenburg County. This page lists Phillips ancestors |
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The Butler Rittenhouse family, 1905, Mecklenburg.
No relation but I wish there were because I like the photo |
