The Rodham family part 2

Lisaja

Our Early Ancestors in America: The following is a treasure of information that I found as I was searching for genealogy using the internet. I found this source at the Library of Congress. The following is taken from a work by Cleveland Paul Wood and is a vital chapter in our family history. Ron Davis 1999:

"1. MATTHEW RODHAM

In 1899, Lillian J. Wood visited the mound that had once belonged to her forebears, the Kenners of Kennersley, on the River Coan in Northumberland County, Virginia. She knew that Richard Kenner, her ancestor, had received this property from his wifes father, Matthew Rodham.

'Colonel Rodham was buried in the burying ground at Kennerslie" she later recalled. 'A large horizontal, not flat, stone, supported on brick foundations, marked his grave. The inscription related that Colonel Rodham, a colonel in the Royalist army, had fled to America after one of their great (disastrous) defeats.

"My father often read this inscription, but in later life was unable to remember whether the baffle referred to was Naseby or Marston Moor. When my father and I visited the burying ground in 1899, we learned that the stone had been destroyed by a bolt of lightning. I found a few bits of fine sandstone, with small letters still clearly cut. The negroes had carried away the larger pieces to use as heartstones."

This memoir is found in the family papers compiled by Paul Wood Cleveland in 1966. Cleveland dedicated his work to kinsman Charles Wood Eberlein -- who had 'maintained a life-long interest in all that pertained to the history of the Kenner-Rodham families -

- from the ancient past of King Aetheistan to the present.

Eberlein must have assumed that Matthew Rodham came of an ancient Northmnbrian family, the Roddains of Roddam Hall, whose archives (as we learn from Whellans 1855 survey of this English county) contained the following record:

I King Adeistane

Ozifys here to Paulan

Oddam and Roddam,

All gude and all fair

As ever thei myn war

And thumb witness Maid my n~4

This may or may not prove the antiquity of the present Roddam

line. (As a matter of fact, while Aetheistan ruled from 924 to 940,

the traceable Roddam ancestry begins after the Conquest in 1066.)

More to the point, there is no record of any member of this family leaving England for America at any time. More important still there is no record in the extensive collected sources on English emigration to America in the early 17th century of any man named Rodham or Roddam or of any closely related name.

His history begins, not in England, but in America. As Lillian J. Wood knew, the cavaliers who supported the king against parliament in the English Civil Wars of the 1640s experienced defeat and flight, until Charles I was beheaded, in 1649, and his son, Charles II, went into exile. But these were not Matthew Rodhams experiences.

The first record of his life is a jotting made in the Virginia County of Accomack in 1634 to the effect that Matthew Readon was among the 'servants reseaved out of England by the Shipp James and Revenge.

In 1635 Matthew Raidon [sic) was 'hyred out. And in 1636 Matthew Royden [sic] was "employed upon the services in the Isle of Kent.

The name as transcribed by Beverley Fleet in Vhginia Colonial Abstracts. That in those days the handwritten "e often had the rounded appearance of an "O" may account for the transcription of "Roaden in Semmes (see Bibliography).

At that time the possession of Kent Island was a matter of dispute between Maryland and Virginia, or rather, the Virginia Secretary of State William Claiborne. Born in County Kent in 1600, Claiborne had come to Virginia as the colonies surveyor in 1621 -

- that is, when the colony was only 14 years old. He rose rapidly; he was Virginia Secretary of State from 1625 to 1635 and again from 1652 to 1660 (when Cromwell ruled in England); and for a while he was simultaneously the Virginia Treasurer.

As Secretary of State his job was to keep London informed of the colonys progress, to appoint county clerks, and to issue patents under the land grant system. In 1625 the colony rewarded him with a tract of land in Accomack on the Virginia Eastern Shore.

In 1631 Claiborne received a royal charter to trade for "corn, furs, and other commodities in those parts of America for which there was not already a patent granted for the sole trade. He at once set up a trading post on an island in the Chesapeake which he called the Isle of Kent.

Of Kent Island Claiborne wrote in 1634: This year we were much hindered and molested by Indians falling out with us and killing our men and by the Marylanders hindering our trade..."

Kent Island was claimed by the Maryland proprietor Lord Baltimore. He had received his charter in 1632 and founded his

first settlement, named St. Marys, at the mouth of the Potomac in 1634. Claiborne rejected his claim, and in 1637 his men and Baltimores were engaged in a naval baffle involving pinnaces.

The pinnace is a small sailing vessel sometimes used as an auxiliary to a larger ship, sometimes, if of greater tonnage, to transport goods or fighting men, or, if armed, as a fighting ship. The pinnace was an excellent vessel for American waters. Some used in the Chesapeake were assembled in Virginia and Maryland from prefabricated parts imported from England.

e battle favored the Marylanders; but the islanders continued in rebellion even after London confirmed Lord Baltimores claim in 1638.

PICTURE HERE

In 1639 the islanders began to move to a place known, from its Indian Inhabitants, as Chicacone. It was on the Virginia side of the Potomac across from St. Marys and was part of the area j Virginia had previously reserved to the Indians.

The first English settler was John Mottrom (whose descendants would intermarry with the Kenners), and the place of settlement

was a headland known as Walnut Point where the Chicacone River (later called the Coan) joined the Potomac. The record shows that by 1651 the English settlement in Chicacone included an erstwhile Marylander named Matthew LI Rho don.

There is no doubt that this man is the same man as the Matthew Readon who arrived in Accomack from England in 1634. The existing records and the circumstances in Virginia and Maryland allow no other interpretation. And his was not the only name to be spelled so variously.

It is dear that Matthew Rhodon started life in America as an indentured servant. It has been common for some time to treat the indenture as a kind of slavery for poor white people. But it was in fact a means of economic improvement and was not limited to the poorer classes. At that time, too, the word servant" was not used with todays limited connotation: it was applied to anyone of any class who was obligated or in some way subordinated to someone else, as a younger brother might be to an elder.

It is likely that Matthew Readon was bound to the Virginia Secretary of State William Claiborne, From Accomack, where Claiborne had property, he was moved to Claibornes settlement on Kent Island; and as a freeman he took himself to the Claiborne stronghold at Chicacone.

In both Maryland and Virginia indentured servants were bound for a term of four years (longer if they were underage). The usual Maryland contract called for the master to give his servant, when the terms were met, enough 'come for a year and 50 acres of land (in Virginia it was 30).

In both colonies, freed servants rose quickly in the social scale. The Maryland historian Russell Menard has shown that 90 percent of 160 indentured servants who had arrived in the colony before 1642 became landowners. Half of them (including Matthew Rhodon, one of his subjects, tough he moved to Virginia) were to hold such civil offices as sheriff, justice of the peace, and delegate to the assembly. The same was true in Virginia, where in 1629 the legislature contained seven men who had been on the list of servants only five years earlier.

Matthew Rodham lived under Maryland jurisdiction for at least 10 years. The levying of an assessment of 50 wt of tobacco on Kent Islander Matthew Rodarn rsic] by the Maryland Assembly in 1642 indicates that by that time he was a small landowner.

The Name Rodham

The 1642 document concerning an assessment is the first in which we encounter a spelling, Rodain, that has the same phonemes as the name as it is currently spelled.

By 1650 this spelling had given way to ii h o d o n, which dominated the records for two decades, though replaced at times by Rhedon and Rhodum, until finally it gave way almost completely to the modem form which corresponds to the sound rendered in the Kent Island record of 1642.

It is tempting, therefore, to think of Rodham as somehow the original form.

For one thing, Rodham would be a most reasonable English construction, combining, apparently, two common Germanic words

-- rod (meaning clearing) and ham (meaning home or settlement). In German-speaking countries, where rod and its variants (reid, tied) are found in many place names and one German form of ham, heim, is a common suffix, there are towns named Rotham and Roitham.

How surprising it is, therefore, to find that in all Scotland and England there is no place called Rodham -- and that, according to the authorities, as a family name Rodham is only a phonetic variant of names that may not have any relationship to rod or ham. It could derive from the Germanic names Roden or Rowden (roe valley or deer den), Roydon or Raydon (rye bill), or Rudham (Ruddas place).

Rodham is, however, also a common variant of Roddam, which is the modem English spelling of rodum, the dative plural of Anglo-Saxon rod (used with a preposition). Rodum is the original form of the name of the inhabitants of Roddam Hail in Englands Northumberland County (whose name sometimes occurred as Rotham or Rodham). But, as we have noted, Chicacones Matthew Rodham does not appear to be related to this ancient noble family.

We have discovered no Romance possibilities.

A Keltic possibility is the Irish 0 Rodaln, son of Rodan, which Anglicized is Roden, also a variant of Roddani.

These are, of course, mere conjectures. The true history of the name cannot be known.

That Matthew Rodham, no matter his original name, was of gentle birth is a remote possibility that becomes all the more remote in the light of two facts -- that he was about 14 years old when he arrived in Accomack (which makes it more likely that he was an apprentice or one of the many children who in the early days of English colonization were 'spirited away' to America), the other that he did not know for sure how old he was (in a court deposition in 1653 he said that he was "33 yeam old or thereabouts).

ElIZABETH HEWIT, THE MATRIARCH

Possibly before he moved to Chicacone, Matthew Rodham was married to Elizabeth Hewitt, daughter of Robert and Hannah Hewitt (sometimes spelled Huett, which is closer to the original meaning -- little I-high). I-lannahs family name is unlinown, as is Elizabeths date of birth.

Robert Hewitt was a Kent Islander who came over 'many years prior to 1650 (according to the compiler of the lists of early Maryland setder~) as an immigrant (that is, as one who had paid his own way and was not an indentured servant). An accounting of 1636 is the first record we have discovered of him; it notes that

MATTHEW RODHAMS ODYSSEY

1 6 3 4 -- 1 6 4 4 (2

picture here

he was paid by William Claiborne "for sheathing the pinnace --that is, for laying the boats bottom.

In 1644 there was a complaint against him by one Robert Clark for "carrying away his servant Henry Wroughter." But by tThs time, it was noted, he was in Chicacone. At his death his wife Hannah married a Chicacone landowner named Hugh Lee (not related to the Robert E. Lees).

Hugh Lees first property in Chicacone was a tract adjacent to land owned by John Mottrom.

chicacone and the Northern Neck

Chicacone was represented in the House of Burgesses as Northumberland County as early as 1645 but was not officially org~zed under that name until 1648. At first the county comprised all the area of English settlement between the Potomac and the Rappahannock, but in 1652 the southern part was separated as Lancaster County and in 1653 the northern, as Westmoreland County

The whole area between the two rivers from the Chesapeake to their long undiscovered headwaters was known as the Northern Neck. Sometimes the term seems to apply only to the region affected by the tides, the Tidewater, which on the Potomac side extends to the northwestern borders of present-day Stafford County.

The Chesapeake and Potomac shores were indented by many sheltered rivers and creeks -- the Great and Little Wicomico Rivers, Chicacone (Cone) River, Yeocomico River, Nornini Creek (River), Machodig Creek, Mattox Creek, Occaquon River, to name but a few -- which afforded natural harbors.16

"In 1657 the merchant ship Seahorse of London arrived at Mattox Creek to pick up a cargo of tobacco, wrote Frank Graham in his book Potomac; The Nation River. "Before the vessel could leave, however, it sank in a sudden storm. Its second officer, John Washington, decided to stay in Virginia, where he married the daughter of Colonel Nathaniel Pope, receiving a plantation as a wedding gift from his father-in-law, and founded the Virginia family that was to produce the 'Pather of the new nation. John Marshall and Robert B. Lee were other men descended from early settlers who built their homes on Northern Neck."

The settlers acquired their land from the colony as agent of the king. Their tenure was free and common soccage according to the custom of East Greenwich -- as we are informed by Robert Beverley in his The History and Present State of Virginia, the first comprehensive history of Virginia, published in 1705.

A title by 'right and survival -- wrote Beverley -- was the title "any one hath by the Royal Charter, to fifty acres of land, in consideration of his personal transportation into that county, to settle and remain there; by this rule also, a man that removes his family, is entitled to the same number of acres for his wife and each of his children.

A man (or woman) also received 50 acres for each servant transported; and in Chicacone (as apparently elsewhere) it was the custom to buy from the Indians the land a person proposed to obtain title to from the colony by "right and survey."

In the Northern Neck ownership was complicated by the claims of the Northern Neck proprietors. In 1649 Charles H in exile after his father was beheaded, granted the whole of the neck from sea to mountain to seven cavaliers who had supported his father and lost, not theft heads, but their property. These monopolists were not able to press their claims until Charles II was restored to the throne in 1660. A revised charter of 1669 recognized the colonies political jurisdiction, and when a third charter was issued in 1688, the several interests had all been acquired by Lord Culpeper, who passed them on to his grandson, Thomas, Lord Fairfax.

Insert picture here

Fairfax family claims were not fully extinguished until 1808.

Settlers who held their land under Virginia patents often resisted the proprietors efforts to collect their quit-rents. Finally the Lees of Stratford Hall sought an accommodation, and in 1702 Robert Carter of Corotciman (Lancaster County) became Culpepers land agent and subsequently so extended his own property that he became known as King Carter.

Old Rodhams Land

The exact date of Matthew Rodhams removal to Chicacone is unl<nown. It must have been sometime between 1644, when he was called to testifr in a Mazyland court case, and 1651, when, as Northumberland records show, Hannah Lee gave Matthew Rhodon [sic] a cow for the use of his daughter Hannah Rhoden [sic] "to be got at age 16." By then he would have been married to Hannah Lees daughter, Elizabeth Hewitt, and have had another daughter, older than Hannah, named Elizabeth.

He may have been one of the many Virginia landowners who took possession of their land before receiving their patent, for a report of 1652 notes the appointment of a collector for the area of Yeoccnxico and Cherry Point "[up] to Matthew Rodhams. He must have had at least a dwelling house.

But it was not until September 1654 that Matthew Rhodum [sic] was issued a patent for 280 acres N.E. upon branch of creek issuing out of Chicokoon Ply called Kings Creek, adj. land of Hugh Lee, and 70 acres adj. the sd. land. Trans. of 7 persons.

A total of 350 acres.

As by then Matthew had a wife and two daughters, three persons worth 50 acres each are unaccounted for.

Next to Matthew's lay a tract of 393 acres belonging to Hugh Lee, Matthews step-father-in-law. Matthew inherited this land when Lee died in 1661.

That is, in 1661 Matthew Rodhams total estate in Chicacone was 743 acres.

2.RICHARD KENNER

In 1664 Matthew Rodhams elder daughter, Elizabeth, married a man named Richard Kenner..

We do not know when he was born or whether it was in England or Amenca. The early Virginia records are silent on this point, and the English parish records extracted by The Church of Jesus Chiist of Latter-day Saints contain one man named Richard Rennet who was born before the marriage took place, and he was born in Hampstead Morris, Berkshire, in 1609, much too early to have been married in 1664 and died in 1691 (as our Richard Kenner did).

We accept the conclusion of the Colonial Dames of America that he was born about 1636. Though not supported by documents, this is a reasonable date, considering the age at which most men got married in those days. Others conjecture that he was born about 1640.

The marriage date can be fixed by the date of the deed of gift from the brides father -- which was all of Matthew Rodhams contiguous land in Northumberland County except the portion he had inherited from Hugh Lee.

This leaves the question of his origins.

We have examined the lists of British family histories, family name etymotogies, lexicons of gentry and nobility, books of heraldry and family crests, the catalogues of Cantabridgians and Oxonians, published and unpublished parish records, collections of English wills and other legal documents, the published records of Northumbrian genealogy (this because of the family belief that he came from the English county of Northumberland), and other collections -- and are sorry to report that (except for the records extracted by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, noted above) the name Kenner does not appear m any of them.

We have examined the records of the venturers who founded the London Company which sent the first Englishmen to Virginia and the lists of the first settlers in Virginia, Maryland, and New England -- with no results.

There are no Kenners or persons with names close to Kenner in Hotten?s lists of "persons of quality ... and others" who came to America from Britain between 1600 and 1700. Here the closest possibilities are a Phiflip Connor transported in the ship Bonn venture in 1634 (probably the Philip Connor in the Kent Island records) and a Thomas Connier, age 22, transported to Virginia in the George in 1635.

There are three Kenners in the Bristol records of servants to forraign plantations for the years 1654 - 1663: John Kenner and

Anne Kenner bound for Virginia and Elizabeth Kenner bound for Barbados (which in those days often meant Virginia).

In 14,sinia G1eani,~g~, the Virginia genealogist Lothrop Withington has reproduced the wilts of a Richard Kennor [sic] of Shipton under Whichwood, county Oxon, yeoman (made in 1627) and of a tailor named Henry Kenner of St. Peters Baylie in the City of Oxford (made in 1639). To Withfrgton it occurred that these instruments might 'indicate the locality where search should be made for the ancestors of Richard Kenner." But there is no logical connection between these testators and the man who married Matthew Rodhams daughter,

In the early Virginia records we have discovered a Richard Kennor rsicl of Lower Norfolk County (who in 1641 was ordered by the county court to pay Thomas Todd seven pounds due since 1640), and a John Kennar [sic] (who died in that county in 1651).

In Northern Neck records we find only one person who might be our man. It is the Richard Conniers who was among the 14

people transported by Mrs. Margaret Brent for the 700 acres she patented at the mouth of Hunting Creek in Westmoreland County in 1654.

(Margaret Brent is sometimes called Americas first feminist, though she was in fact a Margaret Thatcher of a woman. She was Lord Calvert?s attorney. She is the ancestress if we may be permitted this sexually differentiated term -- of Confederate General Joseph Lancaster Brent, who married Duncan Farrar Kennels daughter Rosella.)

Considering that in the 17th century names were spelled as they were heard, with no thought to consistency, and the fact that in Virginia, if not in England, the name Kenner was some nines spelled Connor, the identity of the two men is not inconceivable.

It is of moment, too, that in 1665, one year after his marriage, Richard Kenner and his wife sold 140 acres on the southeast side of Nornini River, in Westmoreland County. As there is no record of this tract being part of his dot, it could well have been land that he had acquired before his marriage and, if he is Rkbard Conniers, sometime after 1658, when he would have been relieved of his obligation to Margaret Brent.

But his absence from the records speaks for the family tradition that he was a cavalier who had come to Virginia after Charles II returned from exile in 1660. Records are complete for the original London Company settlers and the passengers of the A* and the Dove and virtually complete for servants transported to Arnenca; but there are almost no records of emigrants who paid their own way.

But even if Richard Kenner received a grant of land in Maryland or Virginia for services to the king, for which the record has been lost, it would have been a grant from the colony and not from the king himself, who had exhausted his gratitude in giving the whole of the Northern Neck to six of his most engrossing cavaliers.

If the monument at Kennersley described by Lillian J. Wood did commemorate someone who fought in the English Civil Wars, we know it could not have been Matthew Rodham, who was living in America. Nor could it have been Richard Kenner, as, if born in 1640, he would have been five years old at the Battle of Naseby and eight years at the time of the Baffle of Preston which ended the fighting. He would have been too young even if born in 1636.

The Name Kenner

K e n n e r was the way Richard Kenners name was spelled in the first document in which he appears, the deed of gift of 1664. As we have suggested above, this is possibly one scribes rendering of a name that others might hear as Connor or Connier. But from 1664 K e n ne r is the accepted spelling within the family and is used in all but a few aberrant colonial records.

This spelling K e n n e r was well established in England by 1600, though there continued to be some local variations in the vowels. The origin of the name is not dear, and could vary from family to family. One quite possible source is the Anglo-Saxon personal name of Cyneweard, which means royal or brave guard. It is known that the present-day town of Kennerleigh was originally called Cyneweardsleah (leah being a meadow or wood clearing, related to the German place name suffix loh).

Another possible source is kyneard -- a cowyard, a place for the kme, a kraal.

There are Keltic possibilities in place names, but none are directly traceable to the present-day family name of Kenner.

Romance possibilities are limited, it seems, to derivations from Norman French forms based on Latin canis. Huntsmen were dependent on the care and breeding of dogs, keeping a kennel. As with Rodham, so with Kenner we cannot know for sure from which of the possible sources the name derives.

3. RODHAM - KENNER

Virginia landowners were often classified as great planters, middle planters, and lesser fanners, depending on how much they owned. The great and middle planters were regarded as gentlemen, and so styled. The others were yeomen,

Great plantations rubbed gently against the fences of the many smaller plantations of the freed indentured servants, as Gutheim wrote in The Potomac.

'In seventeenth-century Virginia, Richard Lee of Northumberland County accumulated 20 thousand acres; and only a littler later the magnificent Robert Carter owned the staggering total of 330 thousand acres. The Brents, who came from Maxyland to the Virginia side, held nearly 10 thousand acres. Later, George Masons holdings came to some 15 thousand and George Washingtons lands in the valley may be accounted modest at 8,000 acres.... As the valley filled up, these large original grants soon became smaller. The large estates were often divided among the children, or were broken up and sold for other reasons."

Richard Kenners estate developed from the nucleus patented by Matthew Rodham -- which the family later called Old Rodhams land. It would appear that the Kenners also acquired the tract that Matthew Rodham had inherited from Hugh Lee and given to Christopher Neale upon his marriage to Matthews daughter Hannah in 1666. The whole of the contiguous property between the river, the Coari, and the creek, the Glebe, became known as Kennersley (with the suffix spelled in all possible ways).

His acquisitions in Northumberland County included 200 acres he bought in 1677 and 1,359 acres he patented in 1682 (having arranged for the transport of 27 persons). In Westmoreland County he reacquired, in 1669, the 140 acres he had sold four years earlier.

PICTURE HERE

With this acreage, something over two thousand, he belonged to the class of middle planters -- and so did all his sons.

Richard Kenner and Elizabeth Rodham had five sons: Rodham (b. 1671), Richard (b. 1673), Francis (b. 1675), John (b. 1677), and Matthew (date of birth unknown). They had two daughters, Elizabeth (b. 1681) and Hannah (b. 1684).

In accordance with the English rule of primogeniwre (which was not invariably followed in Virginia), Kennersley passed from Richard the Founder to his first-born son, Rodham (1671-1706), and successively to the first-born or eldest living son until there was no son to pass it on to.

We have not discovered the Founders will. He must have left part of the property outside Kennersley to his two daughters (who had to find the right kind of husband) and possibly some to the four younger Sons.

At the Founders death in 1692 Kennersley itself would have amounted to something more than two thousand acres. In 1699 Rodham, his eldest son, enlarged this with a grant of 500 acres (involving the transport of ten persons) and in 1702, of 1,700 acres (involving the transport of 34 persons).

The arrangements that the first Rodham Kenner made with his siblings and his progeny are shown by the terms of his will, following:

In the name of God Amen I Rodham Kenner of the Paris/i of St Stevens in the County of Northerberl, Genti being sick and weak in body but of perfect sense and memory praised be almighty God therefor and calling to remembrance the uncertaine Estate of this Ttansitory life and that all flesh must yield unto death when it shall please God to call, doe make ordain anti declare this my last will and

Testament in manner and form following hereby revoking all other and former will and wills Testament and Testaments by me made and this only to be taken for my last will and Testam. First I bequeath my soul to A/mighty God my maker in sure and certaine hope of an everbiessed and an immonall Salvation lion through the menitts of my blessed Saviour Christ Jesus, my body to the Earth to be decently buryed at the discretion of my Exo hereafter named, and for what Estate God of his great mercy hath beene pleased to bestowe on me. I give and dispose thereof as folio weth:

Imprimis. I give and devise to my daughter Elizabeth all my land situated in the County of Westinoreland between lower Machodig river and Nomanie river in the neck comonlv cal/cd Machodig neck to her and the heires of her body lawfully begotten forever, and for what of such issue to the heires ott law of the said Elizabeth forever Item I give and devise all my land situated in this County neare the head of Yeocomoco River to my daughter Hannah and the heires of her body lawfully begotten and for want of such to the next heirs at law to the said Hannah forever Item I give and devise to each of my A daughters Elizabeth and Hannah the sum of one hundred pounds Steri money and Four thousand pounds of Tobacco, the said sum of Money and Tobacco to be paid to each of them respectively upon demand after they and each of them arrive to the age of Eighteen years (that is to say) so much to be paid to my Daughter Elizabeth upon demand after she arrives to she age of afores and soc mich to my daughter Hannah upon demand after she arrives to the age aforesd. Item I appoint and ordain my loving brother Capt Francis Kenner and my loving Cozen Capt Christ" Neale my whole and sole Exo of this my last Will and Testament to Receive and pay my debts and to manage what Estate my children shall have to the best advantage for my said children and to see my children well educated and brought up, and in consideration of their care and trouble afores I give to them and each of them the sum of Three thousand pounds of Tobacco for the first year and for every year after the sum of two thousand pounds of Tobacco Each out of the profflts of my Estate. item 1 give to my brother John Kenner one thousand pounds of Tobacco to be paid by my ExcP. Item I give to my brother Matthew Kenner one thousand pounds of Tobacco to be paid by my Exo Item all the rest of my Estate both real) and personal I give and devise to my son Richard Kenner and his heires forever In witness

whereof I have hereunto set my hand and scale this 26th day of 1706.

Rodham Kenner, Sigili

Signed sealed and published in presence of Wm. Harcum Danl McCarthy, Elizabeth Kenner, Hanak Neale.

Die Augt / 21, 1706, Mr Dan) McCarthy Mrs Eliza Kenner and Mrs Hannah Neale witnesses to this will did then in Northumberland County Court make oath on the Holy Evangelists, that they did see and hear Col Rodham Kenner the Testator and subscriber thereof Sign, seal, and publish this to be his last will anti Testament and the same is admitted to records.

Teste

Tho Hobson byon C C.

The History of Kermersly

In this section we use numerical designations for members of the primogeniture line, as follows:

Rodham Kenner I Rodham Kenner (1671 - 1706),

first son of Richard the Pounder

Rodham Kenner II -- Rodham Kenner 1717 - 1743),

first son of Rodham Kenner I

Rodham Kenner III Rodham Kenner (1740 - 1777),

second son of Rodham Kermer II

Some of the information on this line is taken from the family letters (all of the early 19th century), l9th-centuiy remembrances of the last days and heirs of Kennerstey, 18th-century legal documents (including inventories), and the plat of the part of Kennersley inherited by the Woods -- all of which were collected by Paul Wood Cleveland.

The following table showing the descent of Kennersley is based on our own research confirming and supplementing that done by the Wood family.

DESCENT OF KENNERSLEY

Matthew Rodham = Elizabeth Hewitt

(c.1620 - 1692) ? - 1675)

Richard Kenner Elizabeth Rodham

(c.1636 - 1691) (c.1640 - 2 )

Rodham Kenner Hannah Pox

(1671 - 1706) (1671 -

Richard Kenner Elizabeth Heale

7 - 1726)

Rodham Kenner = Susanna Opie

(1717- 1743) (1719- 1749)

Richard Kenner

(1738- 1751)

Rodham Kenner -- Elizabeth Plater

(1740 - 1777) (1744- 1803)

Rebecca K = Ch. Turner Susan K S.T.

(1773-1851) (1762-1802) Thornton

Eliza K. Turner Frederick Wood

(1799-1890) (1797-1835)

sold 1844 sold 1818

By 1750 the Rodham - Kenner nucleus between the Glebe Creek and the River Coan had spread, perhaps irregularly, down the river as far, at least, as the bank across from the town, or wharf, of Coan. This would have been a plantation of several thousand acres.

But when Rodham Kenner III died in 1777, the nucleus was an estate comprising approximately 1,300 acres.

The Great House

Matthew Rodham received his grant of land in 1654, as did Robert

Carter. His neighbor Peter Presley received is in 1647 and Richard

Lee his in 1651. But George Mason was not enfeoffed until 1657.

Frederick Gutheim has quoted a description of 1686 of the Northern Neck plantation owned by an early cavalier settler, William Fitzhugh, which then comprised a thousand acres. 'Aside from the inevitable and omnipresent tobacco, the plantation supported livestock, an orchard of 2,500 apple trees, a gristmill and a cider mill. Colonel Pitzhughs "sense of luxury was marked for that early date. In letters to his agent in London, orders for silver plate predominate. His living room was unique among the river houses and was hung with tapestries."

Most of the historic houses were built later -- Robert "King Carters Corotoman Hall in Lancaster County in 1705, his Nomini flail in Westmoreland in 1730, George Masons Gunston Hall in 1755, and Thomas Lees Stratford Hall in 1730.

We have no record of the houses constructed by Richard the Founder or his sons and grandsons. But the Paul Wood Cleveland collection contains the inventory and appraisement of the estate of Rodham Kenner III taken upon his death in 1777, as follows:

AN INVENTORY and appraisement of the Estate of Col. Rodham Kenner, of Northumberland County, deceased, taken by Capt. Matthew Neale, Capt. Joseph Williams and Mr. Peter Cox,

on 30th July 1777

Viz. In THE Hall *L S. D.

1 mahogany clock -- 1.. 15, one pr. andirons 12/ 15 12

1 desk t. 6-- 14 mahogany chairs t. 21 27 0

2 square mahogany dining tables L. 10, 1 do. do.

tea table L. 5 15 0

1 round DO. 00. 451, 1 tea chest 2$/, 1 tea

board 20/ 10 0

2 carpets, 1. 5, 1 large mahogany looking glass

L. 10 15 0 0

IN IZIIE CHAMbER

I chest of dravero L. 3 3, a large looking glass

t. 4 7 0 0

1 dressing glass 40/, 1 tea chest 8/, 1 case

printing types t. 1 3 9

ruin case 25/, 1 small walnut table 10/ 1 15

1 bedstead and furniture L. 15, 1 small

childrens Do. do. 30/ 16 10

12 walnut chair6 L. S ---- S maple 8 6, trunk 6/ 15 14

1 large fowling peace L.4--20, 1 smll no. L. 3 7 10 0

1 muskett with bayonet, Cartouch box and

buckett L.3 3 0 0

1 pr. pistols with Soisters and housing t.3 3 0 0

2 swords, train mounts 5/, 1 pr. bellows 10/ 15 0

pr. tongs and Shovells 301, 1 pr. andirons 10/ 2 0

IN THE CHAMBER CLOSET

1 old desk 40/, 1 trenkett case 20/, 3 band boxes 5/ 3 5

1 Hair portinanteau truck 20/, 1 work baskett 6/,

2 leather trunkn 15/ 2 1

1 Cloths press 15. 1 tea table bell 6/ 1 1

1 Starch box 2/6, 1 pr. Battle doors 2/6 0 5 0

2 Sugar box 15/, 1 steal hand vice 10/ 1 5 0

2 Pr. large brass candlesticks 30/, 1 tin do. Cd 1 10

1 Pr. small do. and do. 10/, 2 clothes brushes 6/ 0 16

1 Pr. flat Champer Do. 12/ 1 camp chaffing dish 10/ 0 18 0

2 Pr. steel snuffers 10/. 2 pr. iron do. 2/C 0 12 C

1 large copper tea kettle 25/, 1 small do. 12/6 1 17 6

1 old Do. with lamp 5/. 2 brass chaffing dishes 10/ 0 15 0

1 large copper cotfee pot 12/. 1 iron tripod 2/6 0 15

1 small Do. and Do. 8/. 1 chocolate pott 6/ 0 14 0

I dust shovell 2/6. 1 old lanthorn Cd!, 2 hair brooms 3/6 0 6

3 scrubbing brushes 6/, 1 marble oaortar and pestle 401 2 6 0

mahogany apr glass 40/. 1 pine table 1/3 2 1 3

2 cotton reels and winder 10/. sundry wooden spoons 3/ 0 13 0

2 pr. large brass scales and *.eights 15/ 15

1 pr. money do. and do. 10/. 1 old pair do. do. and

do. 5/ 0 15 0

1 Search 4/, 1 coffee toaster 4/, 2 tin funnells 2/6 0 10 6

I Tom flahk 3/, 5 baskets 6/ 0 9 0

1 box ot Brimstone 12/6. 1 flower tubb 3/ L 15 6

2 mouse traps 2/, 1 candle box 2.6 0 4 6

1 pewter half gallon meat3ure 5/, 1 tin do. do. 2/ 7 U

1 no. point Do. 2/, 4 potts and 1 Thug 6/ 0 8

1 box with medicine 40/. 1 sope box 1/3 2 1

Sundry Cannistera and Phylls 20/ 1 0 0

Tobacco

'By the 1 630s," Frank Graham wrote in his well-illustrated book on the Potomac, tobacco "was already ascendant among the commercial products of the Tidewater county ... and tobacco (jotted tobo in thousands of contemporary ledgers and bills of lading) became king of the Tidewater country as, to the south and north of it, cotton and cod ruled their own domains.

Tobacco could be shipped directly from wharves the planters had built on their own property along the banls of the Potomac many sheltered and navigable tributaries. In 1680, in an effort to build up towns as centers of commerce and industry, the Virginia Assembly passed a bill of ports establishing in each county one place of export and import. In Northumberland it was the towm or wharf, of Coan. The planters resistance was so strong that the bill was suspended.

To facilitate the tobacco trade, the coiony established public warehouses at various accessible points, including Coan, which lay across the river fwm Kennersly. In 1738 the Assembly decided to build new warehouses opposite Coan on Rodham Kenners land. And in 1748 when the decision was made to close the Coan warehouses new ones were to be built at Ferry Neck on the upper side of the river on other land belonging to Rodham Kenner.

The tobacco trade was dependent on sailing ships adapted to both the Chesapeake and the open seas. For a while, at least, the masters of Kennersley had a vessel named, after Rodham Kenner rs daughters (or his sisters), the Elizabeth and Hannah. It was a square-sterned brigantine of 30 tons built at Coan in 1701. A brig was a two-masted, square-rigged vessel; the brigantine differed in that it did not carry a square sail.

The Elizabeth and Hannah was recorded in the admiraltys list of ships 'entering inwards in Potomack District in 1703-04, with Major Rodham kenner the owner and Richard Kenner (younger brother) the master. How long the Kenners kept this ship sailing

A BRIGANTINE

from G. Albion, Five Centuries of Famous Ships An English Brigantine of 1754

is not known. In any case, another planter discovered that the brigantine was not suitable for shipping tobacco to England.

Tobacco was hard on the land," wrote Frank Graham. Later agriculturists referred to tobacco planters as mining the soil. That is an accurate description, for the plants soon extracted all nourishing minerals from the soil and left it exhausted...

The tobacco society was doomed. Smaller planters moved west, leaving tobacco to their betters, and started a new life raising grains and livestock in the rich limestone lands of the high valleys.... By the close of the eighteenth century, the golden years were past in the Tidewater tobacco culture."

In a letter of April 10, 1830, Frederick Wood, inheritor of part of Kennersley, wrote ".1 shall have to move from this country as we really do not make both ends meet. There is a little balance against us every year. The fruits of the ground are what we depend upon for a living and for some years the depression with the farmers here has been very great and our land is not rich so that we have to cultivate a great deal of ground to make a little corn...

Frederick Wood was married to the granddaughter of Rodham Kermer III the last of the male Kenners to sit on Kennersley. Lillian J. Wood recalled the following story about him. 'During a severe epidemic which raged in Westmoreland County, where they lived, Travers and Susanna Colston [wife in her first marriage to Rodham Kenner [In and her oldest son, Richard Kenner, died in 1751. The Colston children, all very young, were taken away by the Mends of Mr. Coiston, leaving Rodham III Kenner, when about twelve years old, along with the old slave Adam. This old man took young Rodham back to his own fathers friends in the neighborhood where his property lay."

Rodham Kenner HI had no suns but two daughters -- Rebecca (who married Charles Turner, and upon his death, the Irishman Plannery) and Susan (who married John Tayloe Thornton). Each daughter inherited half of the property at Kennersley. Susan (Mrs.

Thornton) sold her share to a neighbor, John Grinstead, in 1818.

Rebecca Renner Turner Flannery deeded half of her share to her son Charles Turner and half to her son-rn-law Frederick Wood but retained a lifetime interest in the whole.

Unable to make a go of it at Kennersley, Frederick Wood and his family (with Mrs. Flannery) moved to Wood Grove, Ohio, in 1831, leaving his share to John Grinstead to manage.

Charles Turner sold his interest in 1843. Frederick Wood died in 1835, and his widow, Rebeccas daughter Elizabeth, sold his share in 18A4.

SIC TRANSIT GLORIA FVNDI!

MAIN UNES FROM ThE PROGENITORS

Rodham - Kenner

Ball - Kenner

Lee - Kenner

Rodham - Neale - Jackson

Matthew Rodham = Elizabeth Hewitt

(c.1620 - 1692) (? - 1675)

Richard Kenner = Elizabeth Rodham Christo. Neale = Hannah Rodham

(c. 1636 - 1691) (c.16.40 -

William Ball Richard Lee

Pox = Ball Howson = Lee

Geo. Washington R. E. Lee I Stonewall Jackson

Rodham Kenner s Hannah Foz Francis Kenner = Margaret Howson

(1671 - 1706) (1671 -7) (1675 - 1728)

Richard Kenner Howson Kenner Rodham Kenner

( ? 7 - 1726) (1712 - 1778) (1707 - 1735)

I . I

Kennerslie Ernest R. Kenner Duncan F. Kenner (1885 - 1936) (1813 - 1887)

(Cf. separate tables following)

Ramifications

Richard the Founders younger sons -- Richard, Francis, John and Matthew -- must have acquired most of their property by purchase and maniage, possibly also -- though we have no record of it -- by right and survey.

For a while, at least, all seem to have had land in Northumberland

County -- Francis and Matthew at Cherry Point and Richard on the

Chesapeake side ('Breritons Neck). Soon, however, the collatemi

descendants moved to westward-lying counties -- Westmoreland,

Stafford, Caroline, Spotsylvania, Icing George, Prince William, and

Fauquier.

There is a steam called Xennei-s Creek listed in the gazetteer to Warners 1737 map of the Northern Neck (but not shown on the map itself). it was said to be located between the Great Wiconilco and the Utile Wicomico Rivers -- which would place it on property patented by William Claiborne in 1651. Four years later Claiborne sold a part of this to Thomas Brereton.

The explanation would seem to be that Richard the Founders second son, the Richard who was born in 1673, acquired property on this stream through his marriage to Elizabeth Winder, the great-granddaughter of the aforesaid Thomas Brereton. The abstract of a court order of 1714 seems to show that Richard and his wife Elizabeth had to give up this property to his wifes niece. But we may not be reading this document correctly, as in 1742 -- a date that may be incorrectly transcribed -- a Richard Kenner conveyed to his brother-in-law Robert Vault 700 aaes received from Elizabeth Winder "in the neck called Breritons." The data are confusing at this point; it is not dear to us who is involved in the tnnsactions; but in any case it would appear that at the time Warner was gathering information for his map and gazetteer dated 1737 there was a Kenner sitting on property between the two Wicomko Rivers through which there was a creek flowing into the Chesapeake.

Ramifications

Richard the Founders younger sons -- Richard, Francis, John and Matthew -- must have acquired most of their property by purchase and marriage, possibly also -- tough we have no record of it --by right and survey.

For a while, at least, all seem to have had land in Northumberland County -- Francis and Matthew at Cherry Point and Richard on the Chesapeake side (Breritons Neck"). Soon, however, the collateral descendants moved to westward-lying counties -- Westmoreland,Stafford, Caroline, Spotsylvania, King George, Prince William, and

Fauquier.

There is a stream called Kenners Creek listed in the gazetteer to Warners 1737 map of the Northern Neck (but not shown on the map itself). It was said to be located between the Great Wicomico and the Utile Wicomico Rivers --which would place it on property patented by William Claiborne in 1651. Four years later Claiborne sold a part of this to Thomas Brereton.

The explanation would seem to be tat Richard the Founders second son, the Richard who was born in 1673, acquired property on this steam through his marriage to Elizabeth Winder, the great-granddaughter of the aforesaid Thomas Brereton. The abstract of a court order of 1714 seems to show that Richard and his wife Elizabeth had to give up this property to his wifes niece. But we may not be reading this document correctly, as in 1742 -a date that may be incorrectly transcribed -- a Richard Kenner conveyed to his brother-in-law Robert Vaulx 700 acres received from Elizabeth Winder 'in the neck called Breritons." The data are confusing at this point; it is not clear to us who is involved in the transactions; but in any case it would appear that at the time Warner was gathering information for his map and gazetteer dated 1737 there was a Kenner sitting on property between the two Wicomico Rivers through which there was a creek flowing into the Chesapeake.

We point out the location of this stream on the map of Northumberland showing the location of the original Rodham - Renner plantations.

The Kenners had wide ramifications in the Northern Neck, and there is scarcely a dynasty of early planters to which they are not in some way related. There are the Howsons, the Cralles, the Winders, the Eskridges, the Mottroms, the Claibornes, the Balls (of several origins), the Opies, the de Butts, the Vaulxes, the Bush-rods, the Spelmans, the Neales, the Washingtons, and the Lees.

We point out the location of this stream on the map of Northuinberland showing the location of the original Rodham - Kenner plantations.

The Kenners had wide ramifications in the Northern Neck, and there is scarcely a dynasty of early planters to which they are not in some way related. There are the Howsons, the Cralles, the Winders, the Eskridges, the Mottrom, the Claibornes, the Balls (of several origins), the Opies, the de Buffs, the Vaulxes the Bush-rods, the Spelmans, the Neales, the Washingtons, and the Lees.

George Washington

As the following table shows, it is the primogeniture line that is related to George Washington. Rodham Kenner I and his descendants share with the countrys father a common descent from William Ball and Mary Aetherold. If we could reconstruct all the lines leading from Richard the Founders seven children we would no doubt discover other connections with various branches of the Washington family, but no other direct lines to the first President.

KENNER RELATION SHIP WITH GEORGE WASHINGTON

David Fox = Mary ? William Ball = MatyAtherold

David Fox = Hannah Ball Joseph Ball = Mary Johnson

(1647-?) (1650-?) j (1649 - 1711)::

Rodham Kenner = Hannah Fox r Mary Ball = Augustine Washington

(1671 -1706) (1707-1789) (1694- 1743)

Richard Kenner George Washington

- 1726) (1732 - 1799)

Primogernture Line*

* See herein DESCENT OF KENNERSLEY

Robert R Lee

The connection with the Stratford Hall (that is, Robert B.) Lees is in the line of Ernest Rodham Kenner (1885 - 1936), who is a direct descendant of Richard the Foundets third son, Francis.

The following table shows that the medium of common descent is Franciss wife, Margaret. Her last name is left blank in the Kenner genealogy prepared by the editors of the William and Mary Quarterly in 1906. But it seems quite indisputable that her name was Margaret Howson. For one thing, Howson is the name they gave to their second son; and this name continues in the family as a first name for male children for more than a century. This is in accordance with the practice of the time to adopt the mothers family name as a first name and to perpetuate that name throughout the generations.

Likewise, the available documents are not explicit on the relationship of Margaret Howson and Elizabeth Lee. But our analysis of the exisdng data on the 17th-century HowsonS leads us inexorably to the conclusion that the Margaret Howson who married Francis Kenner is the daughter of the Leonard Howson who married Elizabeth Lee. (The Howson - Lee connection was established by 0. A. Keach in a 1923 article cited fully in our Bibliography.)

The Lee - Kenner connection was perpetuated also in the children of John Howson (d. 1714) and Elizabeth Kenner (1681-1714).

We have not been able to establish the antecedents of the 17th-century Virginia Howsons; and the faniily virtually disappears from Virginia records after a few generations.

KENNER - HOWSON - (ROBERT E. LEE CONNECTIONS

Matthew Rodham = Eliza. Hewitt Rich. Lee = Anne Constable

(C. 1620 - '92) (? 1675) (1600 - '64)

Eliza. Rodham = Rich. Kenner Eliza. Lee = Leonard Howson

(c. 1636-91) (1653 - ?) (? - 1689)

Francis Kenner = Marg. Howson John Howson = Elk. Kenner

(1675 - 1728) (? - 1714) (1681 - 1714)

Howson Kenner = Margaret Eskridge

(1712- 1778) (1715- 1801)

Ernest Rodham Kenner

(1885 - 1936)

* (See table herein: LINEAGE OF ERNEST RODHAM KENNER)

Thomas Jonathan Cstonewall") Jackson

As are all Kenners, so Stonewall Jackson too is a descendant of Matthew Rodham and Elizabeth Hewitt.

The table, following, shows the line descending from their second daughter, Hannah, and Christopher Neale. (By the marriage contact Matthew Rodham gave Christopher Neale the property he had inherited from Hugh Lee. As noted above, we think it possible that this land was later added to the property at Kennersley.)

We learned of the Rodham - Jackson connection from a book review in the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography of Roy Bird Cooks book called The Family and Life of Stonewall Jackson. We discovered that Cook did not detail this lineage but was content merely to inform his readers of the Jackson connection with the Rodhams. We have tried to establish the succession from Matthew to Stonewall, but many of the links we are unable to identify with certainty.

RODHAM - NEALE - JACKSON

Matthew Rodham = Elizabeth Hewitt

(c. 1620 - 1692) ( ? - 1675)

E. Rodham = Hannah Rodham = Christopher Neale

R Kenner (1644 - 1696)

Richard Neale =

(1682 - 1722)

DanielNeale =

(1713 - 1758)

Richard Neale =

(1747 - 1801)

Thomas Neale =

Julia Beckwith Neale = jonathan jackson Thomas Jonathan ("Stonewall) Jackson

Following is a table of Rennet connections with John Mottroni, the first English settler in Chicacone, and the adventurer William Claibome. Hut for Claiborne, Matthew Rodham would never have come to the New World nor wooed Elizabeth Hewitt, and they would have had no daughter for Richard Kenner to meet.

KENNER - CLAIBORNE - MOTTROM

Wm. Claiborne = Eliza. or Jane Butler

(1600 - 1677)

Jane Clalborne = Thorn. Brereton

Richard Kenner = Eliza. Rodham Elk. Brereton = Thom Winder

(c. 1636 - 1691) (? 1640 -7) (1640 -7)

Richard Kenner = Elizabeth winder

(1673 - 1719) (1691 - 7)

Winder Kenner = 7 Spencer Mottram Ball = 7

(c. 1711 - 1759)

Winder Kenner = Mary Ball

(1735 - 1785)

4. OFFICERS AND GENTLEMEN

Some Virginia gentlemen, not many, went to Oxford or Cambridge (or Edinburgh) or had digs at the Inns of Court. A few more went to English grammar schools, a favorite being St. Bees in Cumberland, founded in 1587, which the first Reverend Rodham Kenner (1707-1735) attended.

The College of William and Mary, founded in 1693, was the colonys only college. (Washington and Lee has a dubious claim to birth iii 1749.) Rodham Kenner III, of the primogeniture line, attended William and Mary in 1759-60 (when Thomas Jefferson was there).

Except for two who became churchmen (and perhaps the descendants of the founders youngest sons, John and Matthew), all Kenners followed the occupations of lay gentlemen -- tobacco farming, shipping, and factoring; suiveying; court and vestry service; and service in the militia. Horsebreeding and racing were favorite pursuits. In 1704 a body of Northumberland squires tried to force one of their peers to keep a promise that he would race his horse with any in the county except the one owned by Major Kenner.

Civil Offices

Virginia civil service included the governor and his council (that is, his advisors, mostly magnates, who had executive functions and also sat as the supreme court) and the county offices usually held by gentlemen of the middle rant.

These included the offices of sheriff, clerk of the court, and justice of the peace, filled by appointment by the governor.

Robert Beverley shows that these were profitable offices. The stated fees for county clerks in large and populous counties would allow them, as he wrote, a 'plentiful maintenance."

"The sheriffs Profit is likewise by fees on all business done in the County-Courts, to which he is the ministerial officer; but the best of his income is by a Salary of 10 percent on all his collections.

The county courts consisted of eight or more gentlemen called justices of the peace. They judged cases at law and had duties that nowadays usually are performed by county supervisors. Because there were simply not enough gentlemen to go around, it often happened that the justices who tried a case in the first instance were the ones who tried the same case on appeal.

For the same reason a man might be simultaneously a burgess, a sheriff, and member of the vestry. And almost all gentlemen were officers of the militia.

The first Rodham - Kerner with civil service responsibilities was Old Rodham himself, who was sworn commissioner (that is, justice of the peace) by then Colonel John Mottrom in 1655. This was only one year after he had patented his land and 17 years after his release from bondage.

Richard the Founder was a justice too, as was his first-born son, Rodham, who was commissioned as follows:

WILLIAM THE THIRD BY THE Grace of God King of

England, Scotland, France & Ireland, Defender of the faith, etc. To Samuel! Gnffin, Hancock Lee, Charles Lee, George Cowper, Rodham Kenn or, William Jones; Refer Hack John Harris William Howson,

Cuthbert Span, Christopher Neale, John Crowley, Peter Contancea [u?] and Thomas Winder, Gentlemen, Greeting: KNOW YEE that whereas WEE have constituted and appointed you Samuell Griffin,

Hancock Lee, Charles Lee, George Cowper, Rodham Kennor, Win. Jones, Peter Hack John Harris Wm. Hcwson. Cuthbert Span, Christopher Neale, John Crowley, Peter Contancean and Thomas

Winder, Gentlemen, Justices of the Peace for Northumberland County.

WEE Doe therefore authorise and appoint that the Comission being read as usuall any two of You the said Samuell Gniffin, Hancock Lee, Charles Lee, George Cowper, Rodham Kennor & William Jones haveing first taken the Oathes appointed by Act of Parliament to be taken instead of the Oathes of Allegiance & Supremacy the Test together with the oath of duely executing the Office of Justice of the Peace and subscribed the Association mentioned in an Act of Parliament of the 7th & 8th years of Our Reign, entituied an act for the better security of his Maj"" Rounli Person & Government (a copy of which you herewith receive) which the A Peter Hack and John Harris or any two in the Coinission above namef are hereby required authorised & impowered to give & administer unto you, You administer unto the above A Justices and every of them in the Comission above named the Oathes appointed bu Act of Parliamt to be taken in stead of the Qathes of Allegiance and Supremacy and the Test, together with the Oath of Duly Executing the Office of Justice of the Peace and subscribed the aforementioned Association, of the performance of which You are to make due return to our Secretaries Office at James City on the sixth day of next General Court. WITNESS Our Trusty and well beloved Francis Nicholson, Escf Our Lieutenant and Governor Gen1 of Our Colony & Dominion of Virginia at James Town, under the seale of Our Colony the 8th day of June June, in the elventh yeare of Our Reign, anno qe Donz. 1699.

FR. NICHOLSON

A Deduinus for Administring the Oathes & Test, etc., to the Justices of the Peace for Northumberland County.

E. JENINGS, Dep~ SeS.

Rodham Kennor, Sheriff of Northumberr County, this year,

1699.

Thomas Hobson, Clerk of Northumberl" County Court.

This is Rodham Kenner I, and he was sheriff in Northumberland for one term. His great-grandson, Rodham Kenner HI, was this counts sheriff from 1770 to 1773, and then the office passed to

kissing cousin Spencer Mottrom Ball. Three years later Ball was replaced by another cousin, Winder Kenner.

The Virginia House of Burgesses

In 1619, 12 years after the London Companys first settlers landed at the mouth of the James River, Virginia became a self-governing colony with a legislature, the General Assembly, consisting of two houses -- the Council, appointed by the governor, and the House of Burgesses, elected by the freeholders.

The councillors were always large planters, and the burgesses, mostly, middle planters.

By 1776 the Burgesses had 104 members -- two for each county, one each for Jamestown, Williamsburg, and Norfolk, and (as with the English university constituencies) one for the College of William and Mary.

Richard the Founder was the first of three Renners elected to the House of Burgesses. He was first chosen in 1688. Unlike earlier works, the most recent compilation of burgesses, done by Leonard for the Virginia General Assembly in 1978, has Richard Kennon as one of the Northumberland representatives for that year; but as there were no Kennors in Northumberland this is obviously a confusion with the Richard Kennon who was burgess for Henrico County m 1685-6.

Richard Kenner served again in 1691, keeping company with George Mason of Stafford County, Lawrence Washington of Westinoreland, and Henry Applewbite of Isle of Wight. He died before the end of the session.

Rodham Kenner I was burgess for four terms between 1695 and

1702.

The Virginia Calendar of Stare Papers contains a letter he wrote to Robert Caner, Speaker of the House of Burgesses at James City, in 1696:

Worthy Sr --This pillS 1 take to luforme you that I have had bread (bred) on the side of my neck; A Veny grate Impost, and it is toted breakd, soe that now is a Hole in my Neck that a man may put three of his fingers. The dotter tells me it will be veny dangerous to goe foe much as about the plantation, soe lam aifraide I shall no: be able to appeare on the day perfixt, at towne; I therefore humbly request that you will please to inform the house of Burgeffes of the occadon of my absence from yt fd. House, and that they may afshuredly Conclude that as soone as Ever shalt please God to make me able, shall give my true attendance on the House, the Contrwy I hope will neither by you nor them be supposed. Sr / ifavour herein will oblige, Sr yor Humble Servant

RODHAM KENNER.

Rodham Kenner III sat in the House of Burgesses from 1773 to 1776. Governor Dunmore dissolved the rebellious house in 1774, but the members continued to meet as 'conventions until October 1776, when they adopted the name Rouse of Delegates.

The Virginia Militia

The Virginia Colony relied for its protection on a well-regulated militia comprising the freemen between the ages of i6 and 60. It was organized by county.

The governor was commander-in-chief with the rank of lieutenant-general, and for each county he appointed a colonel, a lieutenant-colonel, and a major, who had authority over all other rank. The colonel was the county commander-in-chief and also bore the tide of county lieutenant. Officers were almost always gentlemen, and their rank was carefully noted in legal documents and vital records.

The militia of each county met in a general muster once a year, and troops and companies came together more frequently. A little bit of exercise, thought Robert Beverley, would make the militia 'little inferior to regular troops," as the men were 'very skillful in the use of Fire-arms, being all their lives accustomed to shoot in the woods.

Kenners held ranks from lieutenant to colonel. The Founder was a captain, and his first-born son, Rodham Kenner I, advanced through all the ranks, until in 1706 he was appointed Northumberland colonel.

Is Rodham Kenner I the "Colonel Rodham commemorated on the tombstone that Lillian S. Wood saw in its disintegrated state and heard about from her father? There must have been some gravestone erected in his memory, and when this monument fell apart the family saw on it instead of an inscription about the Virginia Militia the story incised on theft minds of an ancestor who was a cavalier and had fought for the king at Naseby. Of course, the monument could have existed exactly as described, erected by some descendant who did not know Matthew Rodham s true history. Or it could have commemorated some member of the Neale family who also inherited from Matthew Rodham.