Sarah Holt was born about 1724 in St. Paul’s Parish, Hanover County, Colony of Virginia. She was the eighth of ten children born to David and Margaret (Dibdall) Holt. Her father was born about 1685 and soon after his birth on 28 May 1686, his grandfather Col. David Crawford who served in the House of Burgesses and was a large landowner, gave him 300 acres of land in New Kent County. The land was described as being “on the southside of the York River at the heads of the branches of the said river and the branches of a small creek called Totopotomoy Creek.” [1] In 1719 this land fell into the newly formed Hanover County as the English continued expanding westward. In 1720, the white population of Virginia is estimated to have been about 61,000 and the enslaved African population about 27,000.[2] Prior to its formation, the land that became Hanover County served as hunting grounds for the Pamunkey and Chickahominy Native American tribes who, of course, were still very much living on the fringes of English settlement.[3] This was the English frontier.
Unfortunately, most Hanover County records of that period were lost in the closing days of the Civil War after having been moved to Richmond for safekeeping. Aside from a few parish processioning records mentioning her father, there are no extant county records that might provide insight into Sarah’s childhood. What do we know? In addition to being on the English frontier, Sarah grew up on a 300-acre farm with her nearest neighbors some distance away on similar tracts. Her father, who came from an old Virginia family, was almost certainly a tobacco farmer. Sarah was the eighth of ten children comprised of six girls and four boys. Her father was almost certainly a tobacco farmer and her mother – with 10 children – she was busy with raising them and managing a household. Sarah would have spent time learning the skills that would prepare her for adult life under the guidance of her mother and older sisters. Life off the farm would have been limited to church on Sundays and perhaps occasional visits to neighbors or relatives.
During the early 1740s when Sarah was in her late teens, Hanover County became the launch point for what historians call the “First Great Awakening.” Described as “the most significant cultural upheaval in Colonial America,” it resulted in the “disestablishment of the Church of England as the official church during the American Revolution.” [4] The movement began in the North and was a series of traveling revival style meetings where preachers challenged the authority of the ministers of the established church, advocated for empowerment of the laity and placed emphasis on an individual’s religious experience. This movement gave rise to new groups like the Baptists.
The First Great Awakening came to Hanover when a group of local Hanover citizens began skipping church and instead getting together and reading the sermons of George Whitefield who was a traveling revival style preacher. Despite considerable heat from the secular and religious authorities, the group began to receive visits from preachers from New Jersey and Pennsylvania. In 1747, a Presbyterian minister affiliated with Whitefield movement named Samuel Davies arrived in Hanover County from Pennsylvania. The following year he married one of Sarah’s sisters, Jane Holt. Rev. Davies also became close friends with one of Sarah’s brothers, John Holt, a printer in Williamsburg, Virginia.[5] These connections suggest that at least some of Sarah’s family were what were known as “dissenters” – those that did not follow the state recognized Church of England or Anglican Church. This must have been an exciting time for a teenage girl used to a slow-paced life.
A Husband, A Family and an Ordinary Life
How Sarah Holt met Hector Truly is not known. Truly was – and is – an uncommon name and its origins are uncertain. He was very likely an immigrant to Virginia, but that is a story for another day.
Given their daughter Eleanor was born about 1744, Hector and Sarah (Holt) Truly were probably already married when he appears on a 1743 Amelia County, Virginia tax list for the area “below Flat and Nibbs Creek.”[6] Hector and Sarah started out as tenant farmers. It appears that one of their landlords was Samuel Cobbs. In 1748, Hector Truly was granted a license to keep an ordinary [a tavern] on Mr. Cobb’s land.[7] Cobbs was a large landowner in Amelia and represented the County in the House of Burgesses from 1742-1747 and 1748-1749.[8]
To be an ordinary keeper one had to get a license from the county, and which required a security bond from the licensee. In addition, another person to serve as security for the licensee. Hector’s security in 1748 was John Le Neve who was Samuel Cobb’s son-in-law. Ordinaries served travelers with lodging, food, drink, and fodder for their horses. For the local population, ordinaries served as gathering places for men – otherwise fairly spread out on their farms. The county also set annual rates that ordinary keepers could charge. Hector’s license was renewed annually with various others serving as security over the years.[9] While they ran the ordinary, Hector and Sarah would have also raised various crops and held livestock for their own use as well as for use at the ordinary.
They did not manage all that work alone. Hector and Sarah held enslaved men and women in bondage. Amelia County tithe lists for 1751-1755 indicate that the Holts held at least five slaves named London, Betty, Lucy, Jack, and Charles.[10] Hector also appeared at the September 1755 Amelia Court with an enslaved girl named Nanny whom the court determined to be 12 years old.[11] The Court determining an enslaved person’s age was about deciding when taxes were owed.
Over this time, Hector and Sarah’s family continued to grow as other children followed daughter Eleanor including Sarah (b.c. 1747), John (b.c. 1750), Judith (b.c. 1751), James (b.c. 1755), Bennett (b.c. 1756) and Martha “Patsy” (b.c. 1757).
On 17 February 1748, after about five years of tenant farming, Hector and Sarah purchased their first tract of land from William Foster. They paid £8 10 shillings and 6 pence for 100 acres described as “in the head branches of Great Bent Creek.”[12] About six years later, on 25 July 1754, they paid £50 for 100 acres from George and Margaret Burks in Raleigh Parish on the “lower side of Beaver Pond Branch of Flat Creek” and adjacent to Burks and Col. Harrison.[13] These tracts were not contiguous, the latter being further south toward Jetersville.
On 23 February 1758, the Trulys sold the tract they bought in 1754 – to Edmond Booker, Jr. – for £61.[14] On the same day they bought a 172-acre tract from the same Edmund Booker. Jr. – for £100 described as “adjacent Flat Creek above mouth of Great Tomahawk Creek.”[15] Hector and Sarah bought an adjacent 128-acre tract from Booker on 24 May 1759 for £150 described as being on the lower side of Flat Creek and adjacent to “said Truly’s line” and the “corner in the said Booker’s Mill Pond.[16] Lastly, on 26 June 1760, the Trulys sold the 100 acres they bought in 1748 to Elizabeth Allen for £17.
The Trulys now had a farm of three hundred contiguous acres, were running their ordinary and were raising seven children ranging in age from 16 to 3. Then everything changed for Sarah (Holt) Truly.
Hector Truly made his will on 11 January 1761 and was dead by 26 February when Sarah appeared at Amelia County Court to prove the will by oath of witnesses, have it recorded and pay her bond to serve as Executrix.[18] Hector’s will was written near the end of his life, which was quite common back then. At about 40 years old, he probably got sick – perhaps from the major influenza epidemic that began in the Spring of 1761 and spread throughout all thirteen colonies and to Europe by 1762.[19]
In his will Hector gave to Sarah “all my land purchased of Edmund Booker being 300 acres more or less to enable her to pay my debts.” He went on to say that should his land not have to be sold to pay his debts, that Sarah would have use of it for her natural life and then to be equally divided among his three sons John, James, and Bennett. Eldest son John was given “a man’s saddle” and all his father’s “wearing clothes” as well as a horse “that is now called his own” – meaning already in his possession. Eldest daughter Eleanor received a horse and sidesaddle, and the next oldest daughter Sarah got a featherbed.
Hector then gave wife Sarah use of his slaves until his sons came of age or his daughters “came of age or married.” He then directed that when either of these things occurred, that there was to be an equal division of the then held slaves. He then made the same provision for his livestock.
This was one of the many cruelties of slavery – separating enslaved families to settle an estate. This sometimes meant moving far away and being permanently separated from those one loved. While Hector’s will doesn’t mention any slaves by name, an Amelia County tithe list for 1762 lists Sarah Truly holding three enslaved persons named Jack, Lucy, and Beck.[20] The 1764 Amelia County tax list for Nottoway Parish includes “Sarah Truly’s list of tithes, Jack & Lucy.”[21] Jack and Lucy are presumably the same people mentioned on Hector’s 1755 tithe list.
The Widow Truly
Sarah (Holt) Truly was now a 37-year-old widow with seven children ranging in age from 17-4. Shortly after her father’s death, eldest child Eleanor Truly who was about 17-year-old, married Francis Spain.[22] Sarah still had six children at home and continued farming and running the ordinary. On 27 March 1762, she was granted a license in her own right to keep an ordinary at her house.[23]
Unfortunately, just a month later Sarah was forced to sell the farm to pay debts owed by her husband’s estate. On 22 April 1762 she sold it to William Pride for £260 with the transaction noting that “agreeable to the will of said Hector Truly, is unable to pay his debts, accounts from his books being insufficient to discharge them.”[24] Sarah (Holt) Truly was now landless and broke with six children aged 14 -5 for which she needed to provide.
Sarah would renew her ordinary license in Amelia on 27 May 1763.[25] She remained in Amelia and spent the next three years in and out of Amelia County court suing for debts owed to her husband’s estate. Most of these debts were for small amounts suggesting they were incurred at the ordinary. Between 1763 and 1766, Sarah was a plaintiff in at least 13 suits where she either prevailed or the case was dismissed by consent of the parties, which probably means she got paid.[26]
It was not all one sided as Sarah was a defendant in Amelia Court on several occasions during this period – mostly for debts. Notably on 24 September 1763, Sarah was tried by a jury for slander against Edmond Booker, Gentlemen who was a justice on the Amelia County Court. Sarah had two witnesses both of whom she was required to pay for their attendance. Mr. Booker, who was of the upper class in Amelia County, called and was ordered to pay four witnesses. The jury found her guilty and awarded Booker £5. Sarah then argued that the Court should set the verdict aide “because the words in the declaration are not actionable” and “for other errors.” The Court said it would advise at next court. The case was finally decided on 25 November 1763 when the Court ordered Sarah Truly to pay Edmond Booker £5 plus his costs to bring the suit.[27] Unfortunately, the record does not mention what was said.
In 1766, the legal tables turned even more unfavorably for Sarah Truly. She now appears in the record multiple times – not as a plaintiff but rather a defendant.[28] It was about this time Sarah Truly relocated from Amelia County to adjacent Brunswick County, which was noted in the margin of the Order Book in the 1767 case of Booker v. Truly (a debt case – not the slander case above).[29]
Controversy and legal battles followed Sarah to Brunswick County. First, in 1769, a man named Chamberlain Hudson of Bute County, NC placed an advertisement in the Virginia Gazette to inform and warn the public “that the estate now in the hands of Mrs. Sarah Truly, of Brunswick County, Virginia, is my property, and has been ever since the 4th day of April 1767. I therefore forewarn all persons from executing any part of the said estate for any debt due from the said Sarah Truly, under penalty of being sued.”[30]
Life would not get less complicated in the coming years for Sarah as her debts continued to result in her being brought to Court in Brunswick County. Most were for small amounts, but on 28 July 1772, Benjamin Harrison sued Sarah Truly, executrix of Hector Truly, for a debt of £208, 6 shillings and 3 pence. Sarah asserted she “oweth nothing of the debt in the declaration” and a trial was set for the next meeting of the Court. It took another year, but the trial took place on 24 August 1773 where Sarah was found guilty by a jury. The Court, however, allowed the debt could be discharged by Sarah paying £35 13 shillings and 2 pence – with interest at 5 percent per annum from 11 January 1764 until payment.[31]
Join me next time and find out what happens to Sarah and her children. You’ll be surprised!
[1] Nugent, Nell Marion. Cavaliers & Pioneers (Abstracts of Land Patents and Grants), Vol. III, p. 107.
[2] U.S. Census Bureau. Bicentennial Edition: Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970: Part 2 (Washington, DC: 1975), p. 1152
[3] Hanover County, Virginia website: Hanover’s History | Hanover County, VA
[4] Encyclopedia Virginia. https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/great-awakening-in-virginia-the/
[5] Encyclopedia Virginia. https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/davies-samuel-1723-1761/
[6] Amelia County, Virginia Tithe List 1743, Binns Genealogy, http://www.binnsgenealogy.com/
[7] Amelia County, Virginia Order Book 2, p. 117
[8] Tyler, Lyon Gardiner. Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography, Vol. 1, p. 213; https://vagenweb.org/tylers_bios/vol1-21.htm
[9] Amelia County, Virginia Order Book 2, pp. 190 (1749), 299 (1750); Order Book 3, pp. 24 (1752), 224 (1755); Order Book 4, p. 124 (1757), Order Book 5, pp. 79 (1758), 212 (1759); Order Book 6, p. 16 (1760).
[10] Amelia County, Virginia Tithe Lists 1751-1755, Binns Genealogy, http://www.binnsgenealogy.com/
[11] Amelia County Order Book 4, p. 7
[12] McConnaughey, Gibson Jefferson. Amelia County, Virginia Deed Books 3&4, 1747-1753; (Amelia County, Virginia: Mid-South Publishing Company, reprinted by Iberian Publishing Company, 1999), p. 28
[13] Amelia County, Virginia Deed Book 3, p. 177
[14] Amelia County, Virginia Deed Book 6, p 244
[15] Amelia County, Virginia Deed Book 6, p. 226
[16] Amelia County, Virginia Deed Book 7, p. 27
[17] Fry, J., Jefferson, P. & Jefferys, T. (1755) A map of the most inhabited part of Virginia containing the whole province of Maryland with part of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and North Carolina. [London, Thos. Jefferys] [Map] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/74693166/
[18] Amelia County, Virginia Will Book I, p. 191.
[19] TAUBENBERGER J.K.; MORENS D.M. Pandemic influenza – including a risk assessment of H5N1. Scientific & Technical Review. 2009 04 1; 28 (1): 187-202. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.20506/rst.28.1.1879. https://doc.oie.int/dyn/portal/index.xhtml?page=alo&aloId=30911
[20] Amelia County, Virginia Tithe List 1762, Binns Genealogy, http://www.binnsgenealogy.com/
[21] Amelia County, Virginia Tithe List 1764, Binns Genealogy, http://www.binnsgenealogy.com/
[22] Williams, Kathleen Booth. Marriages of Amelia County, Virginia 1735-1815, (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company for Clearfield Company, Inc., 2005), p. 101
[23] Amelia County Order Book 6, p. 250
[24] Amelia County, Virginia Deed Book 7, p. 591
[25] Amelia County, Virginia Order Book 7, p. 77
[26] Amelia County, Virginia Order Book 7, p. 21 (Truly v. Johnson), p. 105 (Truly v. Wily), p. 113, 246 (Truly v. Lewis); Amelia County Order Book 8, p. 25, 69, 141, 145, 182, 485 (Truly v. Drinkard), p. 91, 118 (Truly v. Roberts), p. 158 (Truly v. Adams), p. 158 (Truly v. Cannon), p. 159 (Truly v. Lacy), p. 174, 236 (Truly v. Lester), p. 185, 552 (Truly v. Booker), p. 265 (Truly v. Anderson), p. 449 (Truly v. Howell); Amelia County Order Book 8A, p. 30 (Truly v. Johnson)
[27] Amelia County, Virginia Order Book 7, pp. 223, 244
[28] Amelia County Order Book 8A, p. 17, 84, 147, 157, 168 (Tabb v. Truly), p. 42, 83, 113 (Booker v. Truly), p. 49 (Speirs & Co. v. Truly)
[29] Amelia County Order Book 8A, p. 113
[30] Virginia Gazette, 16 February 1769, p. 2
[31] Brunswick County, Virginia Order Book 12, pp. 59, 387
A Son of Virginia 