Becca and Stephanie's Family History Extravaganza : 2014

Saturday, July 26, 2014

We found our Holy Grail!!

Once again, we apologize for not blogging the last few days. We had some discouraging days and didn't have much to report. We'd like to start with a brief recap of Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, which were spent in Alexandria and D.C.

Wednesday: On our way to Alexandria, Becca and I were discussing the events from the day before (feeling of Timothy's spirit and trying to find the Bromfield church). I then told her that I had a strange dream the night before. I dreamt that Becca and I were back at the F.T. Baptist Church. We were walking around the grounds of the church and man was telling us that there was a cemetery at the top of the hill back behind the church. He walked up to the edge of the property with us and then I woke up. Becca mentioned that we should look up on Google to see if the church had a cemetery, as most old churches do. We looked it up, however there was no mention of a cemetery. BUT!!!!!!!! it did list the current pastor for the church and his contact information. I immediately sent him an email to ask him if he knew where the Bromfield church marker was and if he had any information that would be helpful to us.

We arrived at the hotel and immediately took the free shuttle to the metro where we purchased out fancy "smart cards". We ventured off into the big city. Our destination: the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) library. Once we got off the metro, it didn't take long to figure out how darn humid and hot it was!! We walked for what felt like forever and finally reached the DAR. We were disappointed on the lack of records on our ancestor. The only record we could find of Rev. War Timothy was in a book that listed soldiers who fought at the Battle of King's Mountain, which is information we already knew from his pension application. We talked to my dad the next day and he informed us that an interesting fact about the soldiers who fought in the Battle of King's Mountain was that they were militia men rather than soldiers from the continental army. Since the DAR mostly had records on the continental army, it wouldn't be worth our time to go back. After all the walking and sweating, I ended up getting heat exhaustion so was down for the count the rest of the evening.

Pretty excited to be at the DAR!

Very impressive library

Thursday: I woke up with a terrible migraine from the heat on Wednesday so Nurse Becca set me up with water and a cold wash cloth. I insisted that she take some time to go see some sites while I tried to recoup in bed. By 11:30 I was feeling much better. I called Becca to find out where she was so I could meet up with her. As I was getting ready to leave, I received and email from the pastor, Pastor Dan Yowell, in response to my email the day before. He said he would be willing to meet with us and show us where the Bromfield marker was and give us a history of the F.T. church. I was so excited to tell Becca the news!!!! We had fun and it was the perfect weather day to go site seeing. We felt like we were the pioneers with the amount of walking we did, which was a nice tribute to our pioneer ancestors as it was Pioneer Day! At one point we broke out into song, singing "Pioneer children sang as they walked...and walked...and walked..."

My grandpa on my dad's side fought in WWII and was from Utah so had to get a picture taken here at the WWII memorial

At the top of the stairs at the Lincoln Memorial

JFK and his family's graves at Arlington

Gave of the Unknown Soldier

The White House

Capital building

Friday: We got up fairly early and ventured to the National Archives. Our plan was to research military and land records. While we went very hopeful, we left without any new information. But don't worry, it wasn't a total let down....we got to ride a fancy, dancing elevator and we got fancy research cards that are good for a year! :) After that, we decided that we were tired and needed to be done researching. We exhausted every angle and lead we could at this point. Later that afternoon, Pastor Dan had contacted us again with a time to meet with him. We were beyond thrilled to be going back to Culpeper!

Becca struggling with the microfilm reel...again

official researchers!

Outside the National Archives

That brings us to today. We got up even earlier today because we were so excited! We drove the hour and a half back to the F.T. Baptist Church where we met Pastor Dan and several members of their congregation. He was kind enough to give us some background information/history of the church and a free copy of their church's history, which stated that the first marriage in the F.T. Baptist church was performed in 1789 and that the surname Thornhill was common for members of that congregation. This further cemented our belief that William Holdaway was married in the F.T. church to Elizabeth Thornhill in 1798. While discussing the history of the church with Pastor Dan, I asked him if there was a cemetery for the church or one nearby that we could take a look at. He said, "Well, actually there is a cemetery up on the hill behind the church, but it's not technically on the church's property." My eyes widened in disbelief and I hit Becca on the arm. We both looked at each other with excitement, as that was where the cemetery was at in my dream. We took us to the top of the hill to show us the whereabouts of the cemetery, but to access it from that point was too difficult as it was too wooded and dense to walk through. It was the strangest thing since that was exactly how my dream happened.

Then we followed Pastor Dan to 3 stops: the first stop was near Old Rag Mountain and the site he believed was the original site of the Ragged Mountain Baptist church, which later became F.T. Baptist Church. He believed this because of the information the local historian had told him.

The second stop was the site of the first Bromfield church. It was abandoned sometime in the 1770s and a new Bromfield church was built. The newly formed F.T. Baptist church then took over the first Bromfield church building.

If you look carefully, you can see a rock sticking out by the trees...it looks like a tree but it's not. That's the spot Pastor Dan was talking about.

The third stop we followed Pastor Dan to was the monument for the 2nd Bromfield Church building. This was the memorial marker Becca and I went searching for on Tuesday due to an article written in 1930 mentioning the marker. We had actually driven past the marker on Tuesday, but it was in the middle of a field amongst tall grass. Pastor Dan helped us over the barbed wire fence and we walked out to the marker. What an amazing feeling being on the site of the church that our 5th great grandfather attended!

Historical marker for the F.T. church. This is the kind of marker Pastor Dan was talking about for the Bromfield marker

Lo and behold, the Bromfield Church marker!

Me and my friend Pastor Dan!

Becca was pretty excited to get a picture with good ol Pastor Dan!

The back of the marker has a cross in it

The view from the street to the marker

After discovering the Bromfield Church marker, we went back to a spot that Pastor Dan had pointed out that would be easier to hike up to the cemetery at the top of the hill. We parked the car on the side of the road and immediately 2 people in a row stopped to ask if we were ok. Gotta love Southern Hospitality! As soon as the coast was clear, we scampered over the fence and began our journey to the top of the hill. As we were walking, I noticed some fresh poo on the ground. I didn't like the looks of it, for multiple reasons, but Becca told me it was all going to be ok. Boy was she wrong! We walked a bit further, when we noticed 4 sets of eyes staring at us through the tall grass. I cannot believe the fear that immediately struck my heart. Becca said, "Oh! Cows!", in a really happy, excited voice. Meanwhile, I start having a panic attack. Yes, I realize how that sounds... They kept coming towards us and I couldn't get away from the fast enough but Becca kept telling me to calm down and not to run because then they would sense my fear. So I continued in my panic attack when suddenly my silent prayers weren't so silent anymore. But let me tell you, God answers prayers, no matter how silly the situation may be. :)

We made it to the top of the hill and discovered a small cemetery surrounded by a rod iron fence and completely covered by overgrown trees and shrubbery. Becca immediately climbed in as I kept a look out for the attack cows ;) She made a path for us to climb into the cemetery. We realized that none of the headstones were our ancestors, but it was still pretty amazing that I had a dream about something and it was actually true. We don't know the reason for having the dream at this point, but who knows what will happen as a result of it down the road. Becca got pictures of about 5 of the 8 or so headstones. Some of them were broken and others hard to read, but it was still a great experience.

The front of the cemetery

The view from the top of the hill looking at the back of the cemetery

Some of the head stones

Another headstone

This is a house on the road that goes down to the Bromfield maker and the F.T. church

We came on this trip with expectations of finding far different things than what we did, hoping to find our "holy grail"; but as the trip progressed, all these new things we didn't know anything about kept coming up and leading us in the direction of the Bromfield church. We now know that the holy grail of our trip was finding this marker and discovering the land and area that Indentured Servant Timothy lived and raised his family. We discussed today how the Lord has had a hand in our trip, every step of the way. We also recognized the amount of people that were put in our path to help us get to this point. Pastor Dan told us that he was going to contact the Episcopal church in Culpeper and have them put a historical marker on the road where the Bromfield church marker is so more people are aware of it. He also said how glad he was that it meant something to someone.

Tuesday, July 22, 2014

Everything is awesome when you're part of the Rebephanie Team!

First of all, we apologize for not blogging last night. We were exhausted and quite honestly, too discouraged.

A brief overview of yesterday: we finished up at the Library of Virginia. We were able to find 3 historical and geographical records from the colonial Episcopal churches in Virginia. We garnered a lot of information about Little Fork Church, St. Mark's Parish, and Bromfield Parish. We had already determined, based on a record of 1744, that Timothy was part of St. Mark's Parish (Little Fork Church was part of this parish).

When we were finished looking at those records, we talked with some experts there about indentured servant records. They told us that if we didn't find what we were looking for in the sources we mentioned, we probably wouldn't find anything. Alas, we had already researched said sources and found nothing. Enter discouragement.

We left the Library of Virginia. I had the idea to go up to the Rappahannock Library since we were aware of a possible record there. We got to Fredericksburg, which is a beautiful little town in Spotsylvania County, and spent some time researching in their family history room at the local library. Again, we found nothing new. As you can tell, we've done quite a bit of research.

After striking out, we wandered through Fredericksburg, but apparently everything around there closes at 5, so we got back into the car, feeling downtrodden, and drove back the hour to the hotel.

At midnight, inspiration struck Becca. She pulled out her topographical map of current Culpeper County and we began researching the boundaries of Bromfield and St. Mark's Parishes. We compared the current map to a map we took a picture of 1776 Culpeper from the Culpeper Museum.

St. Mark's Parish was formed in 1720 by Alexander Spotswood. Over the next 30 years, the parish had grown quite a bit, and in 1752, it was split into two parishes: one being St. Mark's Parish, the other being Bromfield Parish. Bromfield Parish and all of it's records no longer exist. From this analysis, we came to the conclusion that Indentured Servant Timothy's land fell within the boundaries of Bromfield Parish, as did many of his neighbor's whose names we have found in several land deeds.

We then compared the two maps (current and 1776) trying to find the location of Bromfield church by looking at landmarks that are still around. By 12:30 I (Stephanie) was no longer making sense because I had taken a Melatonin quite a bit earlier. We decided to go to bed, but felt we had a general idea of where Bromfield Parish was located before it disappeared.

That brings us to today. My "barometer" as Becca calls it (meaning, I start crying out of nowhere) was off the charts, which meant it was going to be a good day! This morning we decided to go back to Fredericksburg. We went to the Rappahannock Heritage Center where they had a record of the Nalle family. We knew this family was a neighbor of Timothy based on information found in a land record. Timothy's name was mentioned in their family history so we were hoping it would give us another lead. We found the record but it ended up being another land record. However, we didn't have this land record before so it was a new piece to the puzzle. Since this didn't take us very long, we decided to do some touring before heading to Culpeper for more research. We took the trolley tour around Fredericksburg and enjoyed the sights, and not so much the humidity.

After the tour we wanted to get back to business so we got in the car for the hour trip over to Culpeper. We went straight to the Culpeper County Library to search the local history section. A very nice librarian showed us the room and the records they had for the time period we were looking for. The books they had were books we had already searched in. We told her we were trying to find the location of Bromfield church. She immediately went to get a map that had both historic and current information on it for Culpeper County. She then pulled out a file that had newspaper articles on Bromfield Parish from the 1930s. We of course were very excited that these even existed so we starting reading them right away.

We discovered that Bromfield church was only used for 40-50 years and the building fell into disrepair and was eventually burned...and all its records with it. We also learned that a Baptist church, named F.T. Baptist Church, is located very near the site of Bromfield church. In 1930 a marker was dedicated as a memorial to the Bromfield church. We had learned prior to the trip that one of the preachers at F.T. Baptist Church was William Mason. We have a marriage record for William Holdaway, one of the sons of Indentured Servant Timothy Holdaway, being married by William Mason in 1798. Since Bromfield Church had possibly ceased operation, we felt it was natural to assume the family would have gone to the next closest church, being F.T. church. As a quick side note, the articles also mentioned that George Washington attended the Bromfield church when he was in the area to survey the land. So it is very likely that Timothy and George Washington knew each other, as they attended the same church and were both surveyors.

We were so excited that we immediately left the library in search of this historical marker (as you can see in one of the videos on Facebook!). After an hour and a half of driving around in search for this, we realized we needed to go back and look at the maps that we so eagerly left without taking pictures. When we got back to the library, the lady was really nice and gave us the maps again. We took pictures and decided to look up F.T. Church to see if it was still standing. Lo and behold, it is!! We put that address into the GPS and headed out for a second look.

We found the church and walked around the property. It was gorgeous and a neat experience to be where one of Timothy's sons was most likely married.

According to the maps and articles, the Bromfield church marker was supposed to be very nearby. We drove, and drove....and drove some more. But to our misfortune, we never did find it. We drove for a good hour in search for it. But strangely, Becca and I didn't feel discouraged.

We would now like you to introduce you to Timothy Holdaway, our 5th great grandfather, whom even though we still don't have a lot of actual facts on, we have come to know and love.

Here's what we do know: He arrived in America in 1728 as either a convict or as a poor young, indentured for a set amount of years to Alexander Spotswood. After fulfilling his servitude, he obtained his first tract of land in 1734 in the amount of 163 acres. We have record of him paying his tithes in 1744 in St. Mark's Parish. Throughout his time in Culpeper County, he bought and sold land, and at one point in his life he had 1100 acres. We also know from court documents that he was a land surveyor. At some point he married a woman named Bridget. They had at least 8 children, 4 of the girls listed in his will: Anne, Abigail, Elizabeth, Phebe, Timothy, Henry, Charles, and William. We know that three of his sons fought in the American Revolution, with at least one of them enlisting at the very beginning of the war. He died in 1791 in Culpeper, leaving all of his belongings to his wife and 4 daughters.

Here, an ordinary man, with little to no means, came to America to better his life. Through the few facts that we have, we know this to be true. Throughout the day today, we felt very strongly that Timothy was taking this journey with us and guiding us to the information that we needed. At one point, Becca and I got talking about how he really left a legacy for his family that has been passed down to us. He was a hard worker, determined to make his life, and his family's life better. We have seen this in each generation of Holdaway's since. We also discussed how we both got the strong feeling that we have done every possible thing to find his information and both felt an overwhelming feeling of peace. We both agreed after having this peaceful feeling, that is was Timothy's way of telling us that we can "lay him to rest" and focus on his son. As we were driving back to the hotel tonight, I had a strong impression and thought come to my mind that Timothy is happy that we have found him, and more importantly, come to know him as a man, rather than a name.