Blog Some Genealogy

At a young age, Christopher BRANCH, the immigrant ancestor of the BRANCH family of Virginia, along with his wife Mary, sailed on The London Merchant from Tilburyhope, England. The sailing vessel of 300 tons carried 200 colonists and arrived at Virginia in the springtime of 1620. By February of 1623/1624, Christopher BRANCH was recorded living at “ye College Land” in present day Henrico County, Virginia.

In England, Christopher’s BRANCH forebears had been very involved with Christ Hospital (The Fraternity of the Holy Cross). His grandfather BRANCH had served as Governor, Treasurer and Master of the Fraternity at various times. These Medieval hospitals were not medical establishments but existed as a means for Christians to help the poor and needy, as had been commanded by the teachings of Jesus.

This family heritage of Christian service and devotion was likely the impetus for Christopher Branch’s involvement in the ‘College Land’ project. “Fifty good persons”, two of whom were Christopher and Mary, were sent to Virginia. Every person had agreed that half of his labor would go to himself and the other half to provide for the work and maintenance of tutors and scholars. College Land was an extensive tract of 10,000 acres and several thousand more set aside by the Virginia Company, who had dispatched the settlers on the London Merchant, to erect and built a college in Virginia in order to Christianise and educate Indian children and to provide a school of higher learning for the families of the settlers.

The College Land of 1619, is considered the site of the first university in America, the University of Henrico. However, the grand plan was temporarily abandoned after the great Indian Massacre of 1622, when 500 settlers were murdered. Christopher and Mary BRANCH were amongst only sixty survivors of the settlers at College Land. Eventually, the funds from the University of Henrico went into the coffers of the College of William and Mary, which school is now more than 300 years old.

That is the Christian heritage of the College of William Mary, a public institution of higher learning that was built upon the blood and sweat of early Christian colonists. On the college grounds in Williamsburg is the Wren Building, the oldest and most famous of William and Mary’s buildings. It was designed by Sir Christopher Wren, completed in 1699, and has burned and been reconstructed three times since then. At the southern end of the Wren building lies the Wren Chapel, an institution of the Church of England in colonial Virginia, and later the Episcopal Church of America. During colonial times regular church services were held there. Now the chapel is used only for special occasions, such as weddings.

In the year 2006, the public college has deemed the golden cross which displays in the Christian chapel to be ‘offensive’ to some. Therefore, the offending Cross of Christ has been banished to a locked closet, to be brought forth only amongst those who would not be offended at the sight of a Christian cross in a Christian chapel. The college president himself, Gene R. Nichol, explained in an email:

“Let me be clear. I have not banished the cross from the Wren Chapel. The Chapel, as you know, is used for religious ceremonies by members of all faiths. The cross will remain in the Chapel and be displayed on the altar at appropriate religious services”.

VIDEO of the Wren Cross Being Removed to a Locked Closet

Christopher BRANCH and his wife, who played a part in the early establishment of a Christian college in Virginia, which became the College of William and Mary, were the ancestors of my great grandmother, Sallie Betty BRANCH of Buckingham County, Virginia.

There is more at “Putting Christ in the Closet” by Baron Bodissey.

At Trinity Church there is a D.A.R. placed tablet which commemorates the Meeting of the Virginia General Assembly between June 7-23, 1781, in the Old Parish Church. There are many, many Virginian patriot names upon this marker including that of Patrick Henry. Marker of 1781

BY THE VIRGINIA COMPANY (1619)

“It is asked what land the children are to have in return for their going over to Virginia. The answer is that they are not to have any; but at the end of their apprenticeship they are to be tenants of the common land. It is thought that the council of the company would then allow twenty-five acres apiece, for every one of them. For the good of these same children it is ordered by the council that every one of the children who are now living at the expense of the Virginia Company shall be educated and brought up in some good trade and profession. By this means they will be able to get their living and support themselves, when they have reached the ages of four-and-twenty years, or are out of their apprenticeships. Their apprenticeships are to last at least seven years, if they live so long. Further it is ordered that all of these children when they become of age, or marry, whichever shall happen first, shall have freely given and made over to them fifty acres of land apiece. This land is to be in Virginia within the limits of the English plantation. It is fully intended that this next spring one hundred children more shall be sent and carried by the Virginia Company out of the city of London to Virginia. During their voyage they shall have their food sweet and good. They shall also be well dressed and have all other things necessary for the voyage. Every one of these children shall there be placed as apprentices with holiest and good masters.

The boys shall serve for seven years, or until they are twenty-one years old or more. The girls shall serve for seven years, that is, until they are twenty-one or married. Their masters during that time must educate them and bring them up in some good trade or business. In this way they will be able to get their living and support themselves when their apprenticeships are over. During their terms of labor, they shall have all things necessary provided for them, such as food drink, and clothing. At the end of their apprenticeships, every one of these children shall have freely given to them by the Virginia Company enough corn to serve for food for a whole year. They shall also each have a house ready built to live in, and shall be placed as tenant in some convenient place upon as much land as they can manage. Each of these children shall, at this time, have one cow, and as much corn as he or she will plant. Each shall have suitable clothing, convenient weapons, and armor for defence in war.Every one shall have the necessary implements and utensils for the household, and enough working tools for his trade.

Every one who has thus served the apprenticeship shall be bound to be tenant or farmer for seven years after his apprenticeship end. During that time of their labor and care they shall have one half of all the profits that shall arise from the management of their farms. At the end of the last seven years every one of the young men and women is to be at liberty to remain as farmer on the same land if he will, or to provide for himself elsewhere.The city of London had agreed to furnish one hundred children for Virginia, and to pay the Virginia Company a premium of twenty-five dollars apiece for each child, partly to pay for the passage to Virginia, and partly for the children’s clothes.

Apprenticeship
The custom of the time as to draw up agreements for boys and girls who were going into trades or service, by which their parents or guardians put children under the legal control of masters who had a right to their services for a term of years, usually seven. Virginia wanted as many farmers or planters as she could get. The first apprenticeship has to he followed in each case by a second, upon easier terms, or at least terms better suited to the age of the apprentice. After a man had worked as a farmer for fourteen years, he would be likely to continue in that occupation.”

This wonderful site from Central Rappahannock Regional Library covers history of Fredericksburg, Stafford, Spotsylvania and Westmoreland counties of northern Virginia. HistoryPoint.org

James Branch Cabell (1879-1958) was a prolific author of fiction, history, criticism, and genealogy. “Let Me Lie” is a carefully researched historical narrative of Virginia from 1559 to 1946–focusing on Tidewater, Richmond, and the Northern Neck. Virginia’s story of itself, Cabell claimed, depends on illusion and myth, and in this work the author constructs and deflates these myths simultaneously, from Don Luis de Velasco and Captain John Smith to Edgar Allan Poe and Ellen Glasgow, from Confederate heroes to the oddities of the post-bellum era.

A very interesting piece of Virginia history was discovered when reading a book “Let Me Lie” by James Branch Cabell (copyright 1947). According to James Cabell, in either 1569 or 1560, a party of Spanish explorers returned to the harbor of Vera Cruz bringing with them the Prince of Ajacan. These Spaniards had entered Chesapeake Bay and sailed some slight distance up the Potomac under the belief that the broad Stream of Swans (Potomac) was also an arm of the ocean. They landed upon its south bank which was inhabited by the Ajacan Indians. The Ajacan Indians entertained them for some two to three weeks and when they were ready to leave, a young chieftain of the Ajacans wished to go with them to become familiar with Christian customs. The Indian Prince was baptized in the Cathedral of the city of Mexico and the Viceroy of New Spain served as godfather and gave him his own name - Luis de Velasco.

Apparently Luis de Velasco was quite a liar and told of twenty noble cities and seventy-two main towns of Ajacan, none of which was built wholly of gold because they found metallic architecture to become monotonous. The buildings were said to be varied with sardonyx, ivory, crystal and jasper. Don Luis convinced others that the northern neck of Virginia was an opulent, vast, pagan earthly paradise which might be persuaded to form an alliance with Spain.

The Prince was next found near Madrid in the King’s private chamber at the Escorial lying to King Phillip II about Ajacan. Don Luis ingratiated himself to such an extent into the good will of Phillip II that he lived at the royal expense during all his stay. The King granted to his cousin of Ajacan the rank of a grandee of Spain with a pension befitting that high estate. He prospered as a well-to-do nobleman in and about the most splendid court in Europe.

Some part of his time was spent in Havana, then to Cuba into Florida, during the same year that Pedro Menendez invaded the peninsula. He is reported to have shared in the founding of St. Augustine as the friend and confidant of Menendez. Through the efforts of Menendez, he was sent back into the northern neck of Virginia in the autumn of 1570 at the head of a Spanish colony consisting of two priests, three brothers and three scholastics of the Society of Jesus, as well as four attendants. By the plan of Menendez, these staunch churchmen during the winter months, would subdue the fierce hearts of the native Indians to the mild tenets of Christianity. Then, when spring returned, Menendez would come with enough soldiers and firearms to take care of their bodies and to put ashore new settlers. The Prince accepted this mission with seeming joy now that he was privileged to go back into his native land as a Paul of the Holy Faith to carry the Gospel to Ajacan.

His expedition reached Don Luis’ former home at the mouth of the Potomac. The caravel left them and returned to Mexico. Don Luis was received with delight and his Spanish friends were greeted with politeness. All Ajacan, after hearing Don Luis’ advice, thronged gladly toward Christian instruction. The Jesuits, for their greater comfort, now that winter approached, were removed yet further up the Coan River and then overland to the shores of the Rappahannock. The Indians aided their spiritual fathers in building a trim chapel so that all offices of the Catholic Church might be conducted suitably. The Ajacans were converted by scores and hundreds.

When winter closed in and there remained no chance of a Spanish ship’s reaching Ajacan until late in the following spring, Don Luis commanded his people to scalp and disembowel the white men. The remnants were buried courteously before Don Luis set fire to the chapel. When the Spaniards sent provisions and reinforcements in the spring of 1571, they could not find any trace of the Jesuits or Don Luis because he had withdrawn his people out of the northern neck going up into the Blue Ridge Mountains beyond reach of the Spaniards’ anger. After hanging the few available Indians, Menendez sailed southward. Spain gave up the notion of settling that territory which is now Virginia and did not renew the attempt after this setback. But for Don Luis de Velasco, the Spanish reinforcements would have landed unopposed in the spring of 1571 and yet further military forces and more settlers would have followed them during the summer as was planned. Virginia and the entire Atlantic seaboard between the Potomac and Florida would have become a Spanish province. (Livingstone Family)