Adrian Anglin's Will

Link to Will

By now, if you are reading the blogs, or looking at the site, you are becoming familiar with names.  I purposely repeat them, go back to them, and repeat the connections.  For it is only when you begin to see them and get to know them by repeated introductions, that you begin to make the connections. It happens when you are doing the research.  You see their names over and over, and a picture begins to emerge.  I want to make a short note today about Adrian Anglin.  Lately, several posts and updates to pages have been about William Anglin and his Tygart River Valley home, and how his homestead eventually became the County Seat of Barbour Co. W. VA, called Philippi. I have posted pictures of the covered bridge and the courthouse that were built there in the years since he died and his land belonged to others.  We have mentioned several times, how his son Isaac Anglin migrated to what eventually became Yancey County with his wife Nancy.  We noted that Isaac died within several years of arriving there at age 35, leaving Nancy and the children, and her mother to be the only ones remaining to appear on census records. And I noted that William had tried to help his father Adrian as much as he could before his death back in Virginia, at a time when there was no West Virginia, and Williams homestead was still listed as being in Virginia as well. This was the situation when Adrian died.  Before Anglin's Ford, but after William had built his fort on the land grant. William had returned to his father for a short few years between 1773 and 1777, and perhaps had been there some over the next 3 years, with his family, running the mill, until the estate was settled.
William was the first recipient listed on the Adrian's will. "I give and bequeath to my son William Anglin one shilling sterling and no more of my estate." Which was similarly given to several other married members of his family.

Adrian had been Constable of his town. He had owned a mill. He was intelligent and political. And a reader...
"Now, how do you know that?" you are thinking.
True research of ancestral individuals involves getting to know the people. Kind of like a detective doing an investigation.  Reading the records I find, instead of just marking the names, becomes valuable to know these people.
Adrian Anglin's will is viewable online at:

http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~kmparker/AnglinDNA/Gr3AdrianWill.htm

(note: Adrian had two wives, the first of which was William's mother. Many of the children listed descend from the second wife.)

The site includes the following statement: " A copy of Adrian's Will and the Inventory  and Appraisement of his Estate are to be found in the Library of Virginia, Assession Number 34126, Box 18, Folder 543: The Gravely Family Papers (Anglin- Athey Families)."

I am not sure if one may be ordered of if you need permission from the family, but I would like to see one day.  But in rereading the notes this morning, I rediscovered a statement written by the researcher, which took note of items within the inventory.

How the papers were found in the first place is a worthy read, but this is the info I wish to leave with our family at this time. It has always been rumored that the Anglin family came from French origins. In fact, many believed that Adrian was French.  I once told Aunt Marie, that I was searching through our Scotch Irish heritage, and she said: "you mean our Scotch-French heritage, don't you.?" I was puzzled, and researched the origin of the name.  It appeared to me that Adrian's indenture meant he came like many others by ship out of ports in London.  As had many Scotch or other European individuals, whose families lived for some time in England or Scotland, before moving on to America. I wasn't, just as many others weren't, sure there was evidence that Adrian was French.  Until, I read on page 9 on the "INVENTORY AND APPRAISEMENT OF HIS ESTATE"  notes that accompanied it:

" Since the early records of Buckingham County, Virginia, were destroyed in the courthouse fire in 1869, we believed that Adrian Anglin's will was lost forever, and we were surprised, overjoyed and puzzled when a copy of the will appeared in Walt Anglin's book The Anglin Families of Colonial Virginia. I eventually learned that Betty Neill sent it to Walt, but that Donald Price of Richmond, Virginia, had found it among a collection of family papers which had been given to the library of Virginia. Evelyn Williams gave me a citation to that Collection, and I sent a request to the library of Virginia for a copy of the will. I had never heard that an inventory and appraisal of Adrian Anglin's estate was also among the records, so I was surprised to receive that from the Library of Virginia along with the will. since I had long ago given up hope that anyone would ever find any corroboration of the hearsay concerning Adrian Anglin's French origin, I was astonished to see that the first item in the inventory was '40 French books.' "

Looking at a copy of the inventory, I can transcribe, that it actually says: " 40 French Books whole bound to a parcel torn ones." I can't transcribe the Olde English value. However on the next line it reads: "13 English Books whole bound with a parcel torn ones....1...0...0...? " the right side of the page didn't print. I will transcribe as many of the other items as I can to the Documents page, later.
They counted money in shillings, etc.

One last note: the names of those doing the Anglin Estate inventory. One of them we will see again, in Yancey County. The 3 persons making the lists: ? Matthews, Jack or Josh Ferguson, and Ephriham Lee.   The will itself was signed by, either the lawyer or witness,  Rolph Eldridge. The notable name is Ferguson. We will see it again in the story of Sarah Caroline Roland, Roland, Ray.  Because her firstborn daughter, Samantha Roland, married a Jeremiah Ferguson, with family roots that trailed those of our other ancestors. That is the kind of thing that leads me on a chase...to see if this Ferguson family has decendants in Yancey Co, one day. So far, it is becoming clear that many of the families of Yancey knew their neighbor's families for years back, into other states.  More on that when we discuss the Civil War and the hardship of knowing what side you were on. Hope your interest is peaked.
Bye for now.