William Rives, of Surry County

Not the son of Timothy Rives & not the same as William Rives, of Oxfordshire

William Rives

• M
• Born in 1636 in England
• Deceased after 1695 in Virginia

Spouses and children

Elizabeth Pegram 1640..1645-

Children Dates Where born

• M George Rives about 1660 - 09/1719
• M John Rives 1667 - 06/15/1720 Surry Co., VA
• M Timothy Rives 1670 - about 12/15/1716 Surry Co., VA
• M William Reeves 1680 - 10/07/1751 Virginia

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Disputed Origins

https://thereevesproject.org/data/tiki-index.php?page=Rives_William...

Narrative
James Rives Childs' "Reliques of the Rives" showed William to be the first Rives in Virginia and the father of George, Robert, John, and Timothy. However, Childs later came to believe that William's half-brother Timothy could have been the first Rives in America and the father of these four sons.

Childs had two records of a William Rives in 1684 and 1695. There is no evidence that this William was the son of Timothy b 1588 or that he was the father of John, George, Robert, and Timothy.

There was a William Reeves who died in 1698/9 in Northumberland County, VA. No evidence has been found to link him to Timothy Rives. Margery Lunseford filed to become administrator of the will of William Reeves, deceased, Northumberland County, January 19, 1698/9.

Here is a transcription of page 1 of Amendments to Reliques of the Rives:

Twenty-eight years ago I published Reliques of the Rives (Lynchburg, 1929) and since that time certain corrections and additions have been made available by correspondents or as the results of subsequent research. As in all probability the original work will never be reprinted and as it had a fairly wide distribution, the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography has offered me the hospitality of its pages to note the emendations which I would now make in my work if a new edition were ever issued.

When the book was written I offered the conjecture that William Rives was the emigrant ancestor. I have recently had occasion to question this assumption. The basis for the birth of William to Timothy Ryves and his wife of Oxford (pp. 74-75) was the slightest, and his presence in Surry County, Virginia, was made evident only as a tithable in 1684 and 1695. Mr. Laurence B. Gardiner, of Memphis, has recently put me on what I believe is a surer track. He has brought my attention to the discovery of a Charles City Cocunty Order Book for 1687-1695 where, on page 421, there is found: "Capt. Henry Batte ordered to assign and swear appraisers of Estate of Timothy Rieve" (the French pronunciation of the name apparently still persisting). I suggest now the likelihood that this Timothy "Rieve" or Rives was the emigrant ancestor and that he was identical with 206. Timothy Ryves, born 1625, son of Timothy and Mary Ryves of Oxford (p. 51), and that he was the father of George, Robert, John, and Timothy Rives, of Virginia. The William Rives living in Surry I 1684 and 1695 may well have been another son of this Timothy. At any rate I advance the hypothesis as one for future investigators to bear carefully in mind.

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RELIQUES OF THE RIVES (RYVES) Volume 1, by James Rives Childs, J. P. Bell Company, Inc., Lynchburg, Virginia, 1929. Facsimile Reprint Published 1994 by Heritage Books, Inc., 1540E Pointer Ridge Place, Bowie, Md. 20716, ISBN 0-7884-0091-6. Page 73.

Part II, The Virginia Family of Rives, Chapter I, William Rives, the Emigrant, is Children, and Descendents Through the Eldest Male Line.

I. William-1 Reeves (No. 208 and of the fifth generation in the English pedigree of the family) was born about 1636, presumably at Oxfordshire, England, the son of Timothy-4 Ryves (Richard-3, John-2, Robert-1), of Oxford City, Gentleman, by the latter's second wife, Elizabeth.

Although the descent of the emigrant, William Rives, unfortunately is not susceptible of record proof -- despite the fact that no pains have been spared in the effort to establish the fact beyond cavil -- inferential evidence thereof is by no means lacking.

Comparison of the baptismal names used by the first and later generations of the family in Virginia with those of the Oxfordshire branch of the Dorsetshire family reveals a striking similarity and gives strong support to the assumption that the emigrant ancestor of the Virginia family was the youngest son of Timothy Ryves. As a genealogist has remarked: "In old families, baptismal names were religiously adhered to, and it is almost a certinty that any line of descendants may be placed upon the main stem by attention to the baptismal names." (William and Mary Quaterly, zv, 23).

In the first five generations of the family in England there are fifty-six male members represented and, of these, the baptismal name recurs in all but three instances. In the Virginia family there are one hundred and eight male members recorded during the first five generations, of which the baptismal name reoccurs in all but twenty instances.

As noted by Anthony Wood in Antiquities of Oxford, Timothy Ryves was a member of St. Mary Magdalen Parish in Oxford. Upon a first application for a review of it from 1605 to 1645 did not reveal the name Reeves, Rives, Ryves, Rive "or anything like it at all." My informant added that it was not to be taken that "it is not there, but the parchment is so perished, and the ink so faded, that some parts are quite illegible."

A third and last search revealed an entry which, according to the examiner, "may refer to Mr. T. Rives. If correct it reads: William son of Timothie Rives was * * * 1644." It is possible that this refers to the date of bapism of William Rives; it could not have been the date of his birth.

Of this William Rives, the founder of the Virginia family, the only trace which remains in the records is recorded in Surry county, Virginia, where he is listed, in 1684 and 1695, among the tithables or taxpayers from Southwarke Parish, one of the two parishes into which Surry was divided at the time.

William was 16 when his father died in 1643, the year the English Civil War broke out and for a time Oxford was the storm center. of the revolt. He was imported by Littleton Scarburg into Surrey County, Virginia (1652). by 1684 he had paid his indunture and began to appear in county records as a freeman.

He is listed as having land on Blackwater swamp and Nottoway Creek in Virginia in 1711.

William Cabel Ryves father, William Ryves Speculator of Oxford. 1636 Woodstock England - 1695 Surry VA wife Elizabeth Pegram 1645-1702

The Virginia Family of Rives

CHAPTER I

William Rives, the Emigrant, His Children, and Descendants Through the Eldest Male Line.

1. William Rives (No. 208 and of the fifth generation in the English pedigree of the family) was born about 1636, presumably in Oxfordshire, England, the son of Timothy4 Ryves (Richard3, John2, Robert1), of Oxford City, Gentleman, by the latter's second wife, Elizabeth.

Although the descent of the emigrant, William Rives, unfortunately is not susceptible of record proof--despite the fact that no pains have been spared in the effort to establish the fact beyond cavil--inferential evidence thereof is by no means lacking.

Comparison of the baptismal names used by the first and later generations of the family in Virginia with those of the Oxfordshire branch of the Dorsetshire family reveals a striking similarity and gives strong support to the assumption that the emigrant ancestor of the Virginia family was the youngest son of Timothy Ryves. As a genealogist has remarked: "In old families, baptismal names were religiously adhered to, and it is almost a certainty that any line of descendants may be placed upon the main stem by attention to the baptismal names."1

In the first five generations of the family in England there are fifty-six male members represented and, of these, the baptismal name recurs in all but three instances. In the Virginia family there are one hundred and eight male members recorded during the first five generations, of which the baptismal name recurs in all but twenty instances. These baptismal names and their recurrence are presented in the following table; those names occurring only once in the Virginia family, which are unrepresented in the English sept, having been omitted.

1William and Mary Quarterly, xv, 23.

Name English Virginian

John 10 11

Richard 7 4

Robert 5 6

Thomas 5 6

George 5 10

William 4 19

Joseph 3 4

James 3 1

Valentine 3 0

Timothy 2 10

Henry 2 1

Charles 2 2

Brune 2 1

Benjamin 1 4

Mathew 1 0

Gerrard 1 0

Peter 0 3

Burwell 0 3

Nathaniel 0 2

Frederick 0 2

Christopher 0 2

From the foregoing table it will be observed that the six names occurring most frequently in the first five generations of the English family, that is to say, John, Richard, Robert, Thomas, George, and William, represent approximately two-thirds of all the baptismal names.

These same names appear reproduced as the six most common baptismal names in use by members of the first five generations of the family in Virginia with but one exception, the name Richard giving way in popularity to Timothy. Without excluding Richard, the six most common English baptismal names represent no less than half the total number of names appearing in the first five generations of the family in Virginia.

The name Timothy, which occurs with persistent frequency in Virginia, is noted in the English branch only in the family of Timothy Ryves, of Oxford. It is on the strength of this, and other strongly circumstantial evidence hereafter stated, that I have felt it permissible to attribute the Virginia emigrant to the Oxfordshire family.

As noted by Anthony Wood,1 Timothy Ryves was a member of St. Mary Magdalen Parish in Oxford. Upon a first application for a search of the register of that parish the information was conveyed that a review of it from 1605 to 1645 did not reveal the name Reeves, Rives, Ryves, Rive "or anything like it at all." My informant added that it was not to be taken that "it is not there, but the parchment is so perished, and the ink so faded, that some parts are quite illegible."

As a result of further insistence the register was re-examined minutely and this time revealed records of the birth of Timothy Ryves in 1625, and the burial of Mrs. Mary Rives in 1629, the former entry having been unnoted by Anthony Wood.

A third and last search revealed an entry which, according to the examiner, "may refer to Mr. T. Rives. If correct it reads: William Antiquities of Oxford. son of Mr. Timothie Rives was * * * 1644." It is possible that this refers to the date of baptism of William Rives; it could not have been the date of his birth.

Of this William Rives, the founder of the Virginia family, the only trace which remains in the records is recorded in Surry county, Virginia, where he is listed, in 1684 and 1695, among the tithables or taxpayers from Southwarke Parish, one of the two parishes into which Surry was divided at the time.

Alexander Brown stated in The Cabells and their Kin that the emigrant ancestor of the Rives family came to Virginia in the Cavalier emigration of 1649-1659 and settled at or near Blandford in Surry county, but gave no authority for his statement. There is reason to believe that the statement was originally made to Mr. Brown by Mr. Thomas Francis Rives (1591. Thomas Frances8 Rives, 1839-1900), of Dinwiddie county, Virginia, and that the tradition--for it can be nothing more--is probably nearer the facts than family traditions generally prove to be upon close examination.

Timothy Ryves, of Oxford, died in 1643, a year which saw the breaking into full flames of the fire of revolt of the Parliamentary forces against Charles I. The city of Oxford constituted for a time a storm center of the conflict, and it is hardly to be supposed that the family of Timothy Ryves deviated from the unfailing loyalty displayed generally by the family in England to the cause of Charles, and for which more than one member suffered grievously.

The years after Marston Moor were bitter ones for all adherents to the Cavalier cause and a notable emigration took place of individuals and families from England to Virginia. John Fiske has pointed out how many of the families, who later gave distinction to Virginia, came to the colony during the Civil War in England. 1

Included within the number were such outstanding members of the English gentry as General Mainwaring Hammond, Sir Philip Honeywood, Majors Philip Stevens, John Brodnax, and Richard Fox, Colonels Guy Molesworth, Joseph Bridger and Henry Norwood, Alexander Culpepper, Henry Bishop, Sir Thomas Lunsford, Sir Gray Skipwith, Nathaniel Bacon, Sr., William Bassett, Thomas Batte, Lancelot Bathurst, William Randolph, and John and Lawrence
Washington. 2

1Fiske, Virginia and Her Neighbors, ii. Cf., also Channing, History of the United
States, ii, 527-8.

2Bruce, Social Life of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century, and Tyler's Quarterly,
viii, 1.

With the outbreak of the Civil War, William Rives was only some six years of age, and a year later was to be left a full orphan. As a member of a family identified in all its branches with the loyalist cause, his rearing in those troublous times as an orphan must have been attended with unusual vicissitudes.

As an orphan and a younger son it was not unnatural that Virginia should have held out to him, as it did to so many others of high and low station alike at this time, the opportunity of escape from disturbed conditions and the improvement of his prospects in life. Such have been the motives animating the movement of those who, throughout the past, have found their faces turned towards the west.

The flood tide of emigration to Virginia during the Commonwealth probably took place about 1653. In 1642 the population of the Colony did not exceed 10,000; in 1665, the population had increased to 38,000.1 It appears probable that William Rives went out from England at the age of seventeen or eighteen, that is to say, about 1653 or 1654, or at a time when the emigration to Virginia provoked by the wars in England had reached its maximum proportions.

Apart from the appearance of William Rives in the Surry county records in Virginia for the years 1684 and 1695, there are no further references to him to be found from a diligent examination of such of the early colonial records of Virginia as remain. There is neither record of his will nor the administration of this estate. However, it would seem apparent, from the concurrence of names and dates, and the provenance of the respective individuals, that four children at least may be attributed to William Rives, as follows:

2. i. George2, b. 1660; d. after 1719.
3. ii. Robert2, b. about 1662; living in 1734 in Surry co. Va., but
apparently died without male issue. His earliest appearance
in the records is as a taxpayer from Southwarke Parish in
Surry county in 1700. In 1710 his wife, Sarah, joined with
him in a deed to Tho. Calleyham. On Dec. 17, 1714, he was
issued a patent for 219 acres of land in Prince George co.
Va., on the southside of the Nottoway River adjoining Wm.
Jones' land for the transportation into the Colony of five
persons, viz., Wm. Singleton, Charles Tannard, Wm. Sherward,

1Tyler's Quarterly, viii, 3.

Wm. Greefon, and John Hopkins.1 In 1716 he appears
as one of the two sureties of Judith Rives [his sister-in-law]
when her inventory of the estate of her deceased husband,
Timothy Rives, was recorded in Surry co. In 1730 he is
found deeding land to Edward and John Petway in Surry.
His final appearance in the records occurs in Dec. 1734,
when, as "Robert Rives of the County of Surry, Planter," he
made over to his "grandson Robert Rives Jones son of William
Jones * * * one negro girl called Judy and one feather
bed and bolster which I usually lie on and all the furniture
to the same." At the same time he made over to William
Jones "all and singular his goods and chattels and Personal
estate whatsoever * * * in consideration whereof the said Wm
Jones * * * doth covenant * * * to * * * provide the said
Robert Rives during his natural life sufficient meat, drink,
lodging and apparrel and * * * one sober horse to ride on
with Saddle and bridle at all times when the said Robert
Rives shall think fit to require the same." It was presumably
Robert Rives' son-in-law, William Jones, who owned as "Wm
Jones, Jr.," 230 acres in Prince George co. Va., in 1704. Robert
Rives4 Jones and his wife, Anna, were the parents of
Ephraim5 Jones, b. Jan. 2, 1741, according to the Albemarle
Parish Register of Surry co.
4. iii. John2, b. about 1667; d. 1720.
5. iv. Timothy2, b. about 1670; d. 1716.

Reliques of the Rives (Ryves)
by James Rives Childs
Member of the Virginia Historical Society1929, J.P. Bell Company, Inc. Lunchburg, Virginia

William Rives, born in 1636, England, deceased after 1695, Virginia.
With Elizabeth Pegram, born between 1640 and 1645, deceased

... with :

1. George Rives, born about 1660, deceased in September, 1719, Prince George Co., VA (aged about 59 years old) Married in 1683, Virginia, to Frances Tatum, born about 1665, deceased.
2. John Rives, born in 1667, Surry Co., VA, deceased June 15, 1720, Surry Co., VA (aged 53 years old) . Married in 1683, Surry Co., VA, to Grace x, born about 1665, Surry Co., VA, deceased.
3. Timothy Rives, born in 1670, Surry Co., VA, deceased about December 15, 1716, Surry Co., VA (aged about 46 years old) . Married about 1697, Prince George Co., VA, to Judith Chambliss, born about 1676, Prince George Co., VA, deceased, Prince George Co., VA.
4. William Cabel Reeves, born in 1680, Virginia, deceased October 7, 1751, Granville Co., NC (aged 71 years old) . Married to Martha Wiley, born in 1678, North Carolina.

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References

1. < Descendants of William Rives > Tim DOWLING's Family Tree