1715 - 1819
William HenryFrom Ireland to America
While the Lloyds were enjoying their life in Brunswick, William Henry was starting a new life 150 miles away in Augusta County.
Born in County Tyrone, Ireland in 1715, William Henry was the only son of a wealthy landowner. His mother died young and his father remarried but William didn’t like his stepmother so well. In 1733, he left home, only 18 years of age, and set sail for America. There is no record of him here until 1740 so could it be possible that he paid for his passage as an indentured servant?
In Virginia, more than two-thirds of all white immigrants arrived as indentured servants or transported
convict bond servants. By law, anyone 16 or older should serve 4 years, however they required slightly different terms for Irish servants: “all above sixteen yeares old to serve six years, and all under to serve till they be twenty-four years old.”
Conditions and treatment of indentured servants varied according to their master and where they lived. There were laws that protected them but the more remote the plantation, the more the master could get away with abuse.
The upside of servitude came at the end of the contract. It could have included up to 100 acres, a year’s worth of corn, arms, a cow, and new clothes.
By 1740 William had settled in Augusta County, Virginia and married Margaret Isabella McCown, 10 years his junior. Her father, Francis was only 5 years older than him and they were from neighboring counties in Ireland. They were more like friends than father and son-in-law.
One day in April 1749, Francis and William were hanging out with friends William McCanless and John McCowen. Another local, John Lockhart, discovered money missing from his pocketbook in the amount of 4 pistoles, 21 shillings, and 6 pence and he accused Francis of stealing it. He sued him in court and both McCanless and Henry testitfied that they “never saw Francis McCown steal, pick, or rob John Lockhart’s pocketbook.
A pistole was a common coin in Virginia until the 1760s. It was a Spanish gold coin, also called a doubloon. It was worth almost a pound (.83). A shilling was worth 1/20 pound. A pence was worth 1/100, like a penny to a dollar. 4 pistoles, 21 shillings, and 6 pence in 1749 would be about $1,639.29 in 2021. Back then you could have bought either 1 cow, 5 pigs, 140 lbs. of wool, or 3 quarters of wheat. It is understandable why Mr. Lockhart would have been upset by the theft but he had no evidence that Mr, McCown had taken the money.
In May of 1750, at 35 years old, William became the guardian of James McCord, son of William McCord. Nothing more is known about William McCord or how he died but he did have a brother who was NOT appointed guardian of James. William was already the father of a baby girl, Mary, born the year before, so guardianship would not have been new to him, however, 6 months later, James went back to court to request that the appointment be transferred to Francis. It’s possible this happened because William and Isabella were relocating to the Carolinas and James did not want to leave Virginia. William’s name shows up on a 1750 list of delinquent taxpayers with the notation “Gone to Carolina”.
A year after the initial appointment, May 1751, Andrew McCord brought a complaint against Francis because he was going to “send the boy to Carolina”. The complaint was dropped because Andrew didn’t show up on the day of court.
Note: I have the date of William and Isabella’s marriage as 1740 but their first child was born in 1749. It seems very unusual that there would be a 9 year gap so it’s possible that the marriage was later. I made contact with another McCown from Irving, TX who has done a lot of research on his family branch. He has Isabella’s birth year as 1732 vs. my date of 1725. This would make her 17 years younger than William, a little creepy by today’s standards but not so unusual back then. This also would mean that the marriage took place closer to 1748, when she was 16 or 17, and she had their first child a year later.
1st Magazines of America
The General Magazine
Printed and Sold by B. Franklin
The American Magazine
Printed and Sold by A. Bradford
Benjamin Franklin had decided in 1740 that he wanted to publish a general magazine much like those published in Britain. He discussed the idea with John Webbe, with the proposal that Webbe act as editor. Webbe revealed the plan to Andrew Bradford, a competing newspaper publisher in Philadelphia, and Bradford made Webbe a better offer, which he accepted. Bradford and Franklin were now in a race to publish first, advertising the upcoming periodicals in their respective newspapers and lowering the subscription price with each ad.
Bradford’s American Magazine beat Franklin’s General Magazine to publication by 3 days. Franklin’s, however, lasted six months while Bradford’s only lasted three. The American Magazine only included political articles but The General also included cultural, economic, and religious content.
Articles included in The General Magazine:
- Proceedings in the Parliament of Great Britain on the Affair of Paper-Money in the American Colonies (January 1741)
- Act of Parliament for Naturalizing Foreigners in the British Colonies (January 1741)
- The New Manual Exercise: Directions for the Position of a Soldier under Arms (February & March 1741)
- Excerpts from new books and poetical Essays (January – June 1741)
- Disputes between Rev. George Whitefield and other ministers and members of congregations. (January – June 1741)
My personal favorite:
A New Method of making excellent Melasses
The apple that produces the Molasses is a Summer Sweeting of a Middling Size, pleasant to the Taste and full of Juice, so that 7 Bushels will make a Barrel of Cyder. The Manner of Making it is thus; you must grind and press the Apples, and then take the Juice and boil it in a Copper till three Quarters of it is wasted, which will be done in about 6 Hours gentle Boiling, and by that Time it comes to be of the Sweetness and Consistency of Molasses.
Some of our People scum the Cyder as it boils, others do not, and yet there seems to be no great Difference in the Goodness.
The Great Awakening
The Great Awakening arrived in Virginia in 1740. It began in New England and the Middle Colonies with a series of revivals led by Anglican Reverend George Whitefield who, along with Presbyterians and Baptists, began the evangelical movement centered on the experience of the “new birth” of salvation.
Whitefield, having not been assigned a pulpit by the Church of England, began preaching in parks and fields in England on his own, reaching out to people who did not normally attend church. To him, the Gospel message was “so critically important that he felt compelled to use all earthly means to get the word out.”¹ He often used print media to announce his sermons, publish them, or address specific issues. He was published in every issue of Benjamin Franklin’s General Magazine (see above).
Whitefield took great issue with the treatment if slaves and in 1740 published “an open letter to the planters of South Carolina, Virginia, and Maryland” chastising them for their cruelty saying, “I think God has a quarrel with you for your abuse of and cruelty to the poor negroes.” Furthermore stating, “Your dogs are caressed and fondled at your tables, but your slaves who are frequently styled as dogs or beasts, have not an equal privelege.”
¹Thomas Kidd “George Whitefield’s troubled relationship to race and slavery”
Scots-Irish were predominately Presbyterian and Henry and Francis and their families could very well have attended one of these revivals and heard Whitefield preach. These revivals eventually led to the disestablishment of the Church of England as the official church in America.
Supporting Documents
