Thomas Pettus, of "Littletown"

Misinformation on the Pettus Family

According to researcher William Pettus, he was not a Captain (per surviving contemporary records), and he never married a Dabney:

see more at the link, "Misinformation on the Pettus Family"

https://pettusheritage.wordpress.com/2016/11/07/misinformation-on-t...

Thomas Pettus died in Holland c1687

Only one proven child, Elizabeth Pettus

In 1686, Thomas Pettus II traveled to Holland with power of attorney from the heirs of George Billingsley of Chuckatuck, Virginia, to claim money from the estate of his grandmother, Agatha Billingslee. One of George’s heirs was his half-sister, Mourning Burgh, who had married Thomas Pettus II. Thomas succeeded in getting the money, but he died while still in Holland. Before leaving Virginia, Thomas had made a will in which he had named Nathaniel Bacon, Sr., and Maj. Lewis Burwell as executors. Bacon died in 1692, but Burwell eventually distributed the money to the surviving Billingslee heirs in Virginia except for Mourning. Mourning never got her share, because she had already proved Thomas’s will, which evidently didn’t mention the money! In 1691 Thomas’s former guardian, Nathaniel Bacon, Sr., inventoried Thomas’s estates on the James River, including Littletown and Utopia. The title of the inventory reveals that the goods and chattels then belonged to Thomas’s “Orphand,” but Bacon did not identify the orphan. Stacy and others misread “Orphand” as “Orphans,” but a close inspection of the original document reveals that they were incorrect.In a codicil to his own will made in 1692, Bacon mentioned Elizabeth, daughter of Mr. Thomas Pettus, should she live to be 21. Clearly, Thomas left an orphan daughter, but was she the orphan heir Bacon had in mind when he made the inventory? Was she Thomas’s only child? That question is one of the most important in Pettus genealogy and one that has occupied my thought for many years.

--William Pettus

http://www.genealogy.com/forum/surnames/topics/pettus/856/

In this record dated August 12, 1687, his wife Mourning PETTUS was a widow, giving us another reference for Thomas Pettus's date of death. George Billingsley was one of Mourning's half-brothers from her mother's first marriage to John Billingsley.

A deed in Prince George's County, Maryland, enrolled 22 Apr 1725 (folio 627):

From: Thomas JORDAN, planter of Chuccatuck, Nansemond County, Virginia, and Elizabeth his wife and Mourning PETTUS of James City County, widow

To: James HOLLYDAY

"George BILLINGSLY, late of Chuccatuck, deceased, by his will dated 21 Dec 1681 bequeathed Margaret BURGH, his sister, a parcel of land on the Patuxent River called "Billingsly's Point" of 500 acres; part of "Pottern" of 700 acres granted to Maj. John BILLINGSLY deceased; at her death the land went to her sisters, Elizabeth and Mourning; for a certain amount of money sold to Thomas HOLLYDAY of Calvert County, merchant.

(signed) Tho. JORDAN (seal), Elizabeth JORDAN (seal), Mourning PETTUS (seal)

Witnesses: Thomas CLASON (mark), James CARR (mark)

Signatures sworn to before Nathaniel BACON 12 Aug 1687"

http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?db=kbkeeley&id=I400...

Found this info but do not know if it is true.

According to this ino Thomas Pettus of Littletown is not the son of Thomas of Jamestown but of Sir Thomas Pettus, Kt., born 1552

https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/235409813.pdf

In the 1620s, William Harwood, Governor o f the Martins Hundred settlement, constructed a 40’ x 18’ 6” post structure at site A (Hume 1991). In Hampton, an unknown owner built a 35’ x 16’ post structure in the 1630s which contained a brick-lined cellar paved with tiles. Artifacts recovered indicated that the owner o f this dwelling was by no means poor (Edwards et. al 1989). William Drummond, the one time Governor o f North Carolina who was executed for his involvement in Bacon’s Rebellion, resided in a 38’ x 18’ post building constructed around 1648. He later moved into a brick row house at Jamestown (Outlaw 1976). An elaborate 50 ’x 18’ post structure, which contained several wings and a brick-paved cellar, was constructed in the 1640s by Thomas Pettus at Littleton Plantation. The twelfth son o f a gentry family, Pettus became a member o f the Governor’s Council prior to his death in 1669 (Kelso 1984).

About Littletown Plantation

By 1648 a tract in Archer's Hope that abutted the James River had become known as Little Town. When Richard Richards patented it on November 12, 1648, he indicated that it consisted of 350 acres: 250 acres granted to William Claiborne in December 1625 and 100 acres granted to John Commandres in February 1619. Richards stated that he had purchased their acreage (Nugent 1969-1979:I: 178, 466). In 1663 a patentee used the Littletown Divident on the James River as a reference point and later, Thomas Pettus, who owned the Littletown property, applied that name to his plantation. During the late nineteenth or early twentieth century Lyon G. Tyler, who apparently was aware that George Menefie owned a James City County plantation called Littletown, assumed that his and Thomas Pettus's Littletown properties were one and the same. No land records have come to light substantiating Tyler's assumption.

...James Bray II, the son of James Bray I, married Mourning Glenn Pettus, widow of the late Thomas Pettus of Littletown (later Kingsmill) plantation in ca. 1697 [26 October, 1693 per Stanard's notes]. Through their union, James II inherited Mourning's legal interest in her former husband's property. James Bray II and his sister, Ann Bray Ingles, inherited from their brother, David I, a residual interest in his property (Hening 1809-1823:VI:414-415; Goodwin 1972:56). In 1700 James Bray II purchased from the Walker and Pettus heirs "all those tracts called or known by the name or names of Littletown and Utopia… containing 1280 acres."

...James Bray II bequeathed to his daughter, Elizabeth Allen, life-rights to the Pettus plantation, Littletown, until James Bray III came of age...James Bray III, who in 1725 inherited the Pettus plantation called Littletown and property in Wilmington and Bruton Parishes from his grandfather, James Bray II, combined Littletown with his own land, developing the whole into what eventually became the eastern part of Kingsmill Plantation.

LAND OWNERSHIP PATTERNS AND EARLY DEVELOPMENT IN MIDDLE PLANTATION: REPORT OF ARCHIVAL RESEARCH, by Martha W. McCartney, Historian, 2000

Colonial Williamsburg Foundation Library Research Report Series - 1724

http://research.history.org/DigitalLibrary/view/index.cfm?doc=Resea...

Thomas Pettus, immigrant, did marry Elizabeth Durrent, widow of Richard Durrent sometime before 1643. They had a son Thomas Pettus II who was a minor when his father died c1661. Thomas II was the father of Elizabeth Pettus , who was also left an orphan when Thomas died abroad in 1687. Elizabeth died unmarried and still a minor sometime before 1700.

The preceding statements are confirmed by extant records.

Source: http://www.southern-style.com/dabney.htm

https://genealogyadventures.net/2017/10/23/playing-genealogical-hid...

Thomas Pettus, immigrant son of Thomas Pettus and Cecily King married Elizabeth (Freeman) Durrent, widow of Richard Durrent, in Virginia. She was born in 1606 in England. Thomas received a patent for 886 ac. of land in 1643. Part of the land was by right of intermarriage with the widow Durrent. Patents require several years to process. Thomas II was an orphan in 1672, which means that he was born no earlier than 1651. These considerations prove that Thomas II was not the son of “Powhatan Jane.”

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GEDCOM Note

Capt of littletown plantation

GEDCOM Note

References

References

• “Genealogies of Virginia Families” By Tylers Quarterly Historical and Geneological Magazine. Page 846. GoogleBooks
• https://www.genealogy.com/forum/surnames/topics/pettus/939/
• http://www.mikesclark.com/genealogy/pettus/pettus.html
• http://www.multiwords.de/genealogy/pettus1.htm

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