Robert King Carter's Correspondence and Diary

   A Collection Transcribed
        and Digitized
   by Edmund Berkeley, Jr.


List of Letters | About This Collection

Electronic Text Center , University of Virginia Library


Summary

ADS

Account of James Thomas

     Robert Carter writes a receipt November 25, 1729, on the bottom of an account of expenses for two strips to Shenandoah made by James Thomas who signs it acknowledging receipt of payment.



Account of James Thomas for Expenses for Two Trips to Shenandoah


-1 -

[Lancaster County, Virginia]

Novr the 25th. 1729


     
octobr 21th,:
1727     An acct: of what I Expended in Two [. . .]
            to Chenandoah -- --
            To mr. fran: Awbrey and John Lewis for fod [der . . . ]
            provision and one chaine carrier and giving them [. . .]
march 28th -- To Isaac Lesscock for pilotin g of me there --
1729 -- -To mr Awbrey for finding provision and corn fo [r . . .]
            horses and Ammunition -- -- --
            To paying Saml: Isaac and his son for carrying the cha [ins]
            To Pierce Noland for a marker 1 pr of Shoes and [. . .]
            To John Awbery for his Assistance --
            To mr. John Lewis for his assistance --
            To Thomas Owins for carrying the Chaine
            To Valentine Holyfield for carrying the C [hain]
            To Wm: Williams an Indian Interpretor
            for wch: I have paid my obligations -- --
                        mr Francis Awbrey p [aid ?]
                        I paid -- -- --
            Errors Excepted Per me James [Thomas]

                        Novr the 25th. 1729
            Received then of
Robert Carter
Esqr the [sum of]
            Three Thousand & One hundred p [ounds of tobacco]
            being the ballce of the above Accot
                        by . . .

                        
James Th [omas]




NOTES



Source copy consulted: Fairfax Papers, BR 227, Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens, San Marino, California. The item is listed in "Contents of Box 1, Fairfax Papers" in Wright. Letters of Robert Carter . . ., p. 130, but is not published in the book.

The document is missing a substantial portion along the right side, perhaps from a deliberate removal. Portions of many lines, including all the individual amounts, have been lost. Robert Carter wrote out in his hand (as is indicated by the use of bold italics) the received statement at the foot of the page; it was signed by James Thomas.

[1] James Thomas was surveyor of Lancaster County, and after 1727, of Westmoreland County. In 1736, he would be one of the surveyors involved in the work of the commission to determine the bounds of the Northern Neck proprietary. (Brown. Virginia Baron. . . . pp. 83, 92. See Carter to Peter Beverley, December 14, 1727. )

[2] Francis (Frank) Awbrey (1690?-1741) was an active land speculator in the area that became Loudoun County, and was one of the first justices when Prince William County was organized in 1731. He was sheriff of that county in 1739. See Harrison. Landmarks. . . ., fn. 18, pp. 153-54, for information about various members of the Awbrey family. (McIlwaine. Executive Journals of the Council. . . . , 4[1721-1739]:239, 439; and Harrison. Landmarks. . . . pp. 148, 150, 153-54 ff. )

[3] Chain carriers were the surveyor's assistants who carried the chains, "a measuring line, used in land-surveying, formed of one hundred iron rods called links jointed together by eyes at their ends. . . . . "A chain's length, as a lineal measure, equal to 66 feet, or 4 poles." "Chains measured 66 feet long, with 80 chains equaling one mile. " ( Oxford English Dictionary Online . Oxford University Press; and "GLO Historic Plat Map Retrieval System.)


This text, originally posted in 2005, was revised July 20, 2015, to add footnotes and strengthen the modern language version text.