Family Connections to Virginia Beach History

My parents moved to Princess Anne County from Norfolk in 1959. In my early childhood, our address was Princess Anne County. Until 1963, the town of Virginia Beach existed only on a strip of land at the oceanfront - a quaint cottage village compared to today's bustling commercial tourist destination. When we went to the "beach" it was a pilgrimage from our home in "the county." We parked in the sand and ate picnic lunch from the trunk of our car. 

My father's parents resided in Norfolk, leaving their families and their home in Richmond during the Depression. My mother's parents had moved to Norfolk from "out west" in the 1940s. Though both sets of grandparents lived nearby, I always knew our family was not originally from the area. 

I was lucky to grow up in the "town" of Kempsville. As an early settler in one of the first suburban housing developments in Kempsville, there was a sense of belonging that still holds strong. Back then, there were still plenty of farms and undeveloped land all around us and miles of desolate country roads. We ate fresh produce from farm markets, much of which we picked ourselves. We had milk delivered from the nearby dairy farm. I share common memories with hundreds of neighbors and classmates who all stay connected to Kempsville in one way or another.

Dr. Fletcher was the only dentist in the area. His office in Kempsville was a small brick building behind the fire station in Kempsville. Dad said he was our cousin. Curious! I have written before about "the rift" between my great grandmother and her twin sister so I won't repeat, but I learned eventually about my distant relatives in Virginia Beach. It was surprising and satisfying to learn that my 2X great grandparents were once farmers in the Blackwater area of Virginia Beach. My dad never even knew about this connection. My grandmother never mentioned it.

I am completely invested in the history of Virginia Beach, having worked for the city all of my life. 

Then, I happened to marry into an old "county" family. I heard all the familiar names from the old Princess Anne County days... Waterfield, Flanagan, Whitehurst, Malbon, Mansfield, Henley, Cox, Kellam... these names are still active in Virginia Beach social and cultural life. In my quest to find the graves of my great great grandparents, I became immersed in the history of the area. I discovered that the old names from the county are intertwined with my own family. 

For years I've been drawn to the story of Grace Sherwood, the Witch of Pungo - Virginia Beach's cultural icon. She has become especially significant to me for several reasons:

• My uncle's parents lived at the very end of Witchduck Road at the presumed spot where Grace was ducked. For many years, our family celebrated Easter on the bank of the Lynnhaven River at that place. 
• Also, my father's parents lived in a house on Witchduck Road when I was 4 or 5 years old.
• Grace Sherwood's house and farm were on Muddy Creek Road in Pungo where my parents once considered purchasing land.
• As a teenager, I visited the home of Louisa Venable Kyle who wrote the children's book, The Witch of Pungo. 
• My ex-spouse's uncle drew the portrait on which the Grace Sherwood statue was based...the likeness was actually that of a family member. The statue stands at the corner of Witchduck Road and Independence Blvd. 

I just finished reading the newest, definitive work about The Witch of Pungo, by Scott Moore. So interesting to read about all the names and places that have been familiar to me all of my life. 

Eley Bryant

The Bryants settled in Virginia in the 1600's.  Eley Bryant married Margaret Cobb whose family were also early settlers in southeastern Virginia. Bryant and Cobb are still common names in Southampton County.

Bio from Hardesty's Encyclopedia:

ELEY BRYANT—son of Jacob and Tempie (Owens) Bryant, was born in Southampton county, March 6, 1829. In this county, May 16, 1858, he married Margaret Cobb, and the birth and death record of their children is: Charlie F. born February 18, 1859; Jacob F. born Jane 8, 1860, died June 5, 1861; Mary E., born December 6, 1862; William T., March 29, 1867; Addie and Ida K.[sic], March 2, 1868; Gattie J., June 14, 1870; Maggie, born October 21, 1880, died in October, 1881. William and Evie (Wallace) Cobb are the parents of the wife of Mr. Bryant, and she was born in Southampton county. In 1861 Mr. Bryant enlisted in Company H, 41st Virginia Infantry, and he was made prisoner in 1864, and sent to Point Lookout, where he was held till after the close of the war, when he was paroled. He is engaged in farming, and his post office address is Delawares, Southampton county, Virginia.

Hardesty's Historical and Geographical Encyclopedia, Special Virginia Edition, Southampton County Personal Histories, 1885, from the collection of the Suffolk Public Library System, Suffolk, Va.

According to the Bryant family Bible, Eley and Margaret were married on May 19, 1858. This photo was taken before Eley died in 1895 in Princess Anne County.

The photo above from this family Bible belongs to the Weismantel family in New Jersey.

Southampton County

The Bryants were illiterate farmers, owning land on the east side of the Nottoway River, according to the 1860 U. S. Census. They had nine children, three of whom died as infants:

• Charles F. Bryant, 1859-
• Jacob Fenton Bryant, 1860-61
• Mary Eliza Bryant, 1862-
• William Thomas Bryant, 1867-1932
• Ida Rene Bryant, 1868-1933
• Ariadne Bryant, 1868-1948
• Gattie Jane Bryant, 1870-
• Margaret Bryant, 1880-81
• Fenton Bryant, 1886-87

[Notes on Eley's children: Siblings William and Ida married half-siblings, Bonnie and George Abbott, who were from Fort Lee, NJ, where Charles worked as a piano dealer (the Abbott family built pianos - coincidence?). Eley and Margaret later moved to Princess Anne County. Their farm was near Addie and Blucher Fletchers' in the Blackwater area. William and Bonnie were married in 1900 and lived in Blackwater with Margaret until 1900, then moved back to NJ. Ida's husband (?) Williams was probably from Princess Anne County. Ida and George Abbott were married and made their home in Richmond.

Civil War POW

Eley enlisted in the Confederate Army on March 15, 1862, and joined Virginia Regiment 41, Company H. He was captured on October 31, 1864 near Petersburg and imprisoned at Point Lookout, Maryland, the largest Union POW camp (now a state park). He was exchanged on March 28, 1865.

[Note: Eley's daughter "Addie" was married in 1889 to Blucher Fletcher from Camden County, NC, who had also been a Civil War POW. Addie's twin, Ida Rene, the widow of a man named Williams, married William Butler (another POW) in Princess Anne County in 1895. Both Blucher and William Butler were considerably older than Addie and Ida. Sources explain that marrying older men was common at that time due to the shortage of young men after the war.]

Point Lookout, Maryland 
www.somdhorsetrails.smadc.com

Confederate POWs at Point Lookout
www.wadehamptoncamp.org

Eley's signature on a military record

Princess Anne County

Eley was a plantation owner in Franklin until 1886.  He and Margaret then moved to "Land of Promise Plantation" in Blackwater (now part of Virginia Beach) which they purchased in 1888. There Eley grew cotton, tobacco, and peanuts. He died in 1895. Margaret is listed as a widow and "Head of Household" in the 1900 U. S. Census, Pungo District, Princess Anne County.

Three questions:

1) Where exactly is "Land of Promise Plantation?" [FOUND! present day property: southeast corner of Head of River Rd. and Blackwater Rd.]

2) Why did Eley decide to leave his farm in Franklin? [deed stolen? depleted soil? land grant?]

3) What is the identity of Ida's [3rd?] husband, last name Williams?

Eley Bryant > Ida Rene Abbott > Jacqueline Abbott Zaun > John Beverly Zaun > me.

Asking the Right Questions

erroneous obit

I had reached a stalemate with my family tree - sketchy details with lots of contradictions and unclear relationships.  I started asking questions, and writing them down.  I identified potential sources of information and tested them out. Answering one question led to three more questions.  I am filling up a notebook with questions!  My notebook has tables, and charts, and maps, and lists... organizing the information in a variety of configurations brings up even more questions.  This strategy has given my research such a giant boost, I can't keep up with all the information I'm digging up!

I started with my simplest question:  Was my great grandfather, George Wright Abbott, the son of Gertrude or Sarah?  Records showed Sarah was his mother, but his obituary named Gertrude (his father's first wife).  I knew Gramp Abbott lived with his daughter Miriam when he died - surely she would have known the identity of his mother?  My potential source:  Aunt Teeny (Miriam's daughter).  When I asked, Teeny told me that her mother Miriam had collapsed when Gramp died and was barely able to function much less write an obituary, so the people at Bliley's Funeral Home wrote it.  So there it is:  the obituary is wrong because strangers wrote it.  Mystery solved.  I am confident in saying that Sarah was his mother.

Another question:  Who was Ida Rene's mysterious first husband?  As far as anyone in the family knew, my great grandmother Ida was married only twice - to William B Butler and to George W Abbott. However, the transcription of her marriage record to William Butler gave her name as "Ida Rena [Bryant] Williams."  So who was this Williams guy?  Also, curiously, Ida and William Butler were married in Princess Anne County, though her family was from Southhampton County.  How did she end up in Princess Anne County? This question took me on an adventure to unexpected places.

from Wikipedia:  Princess Anne County in 1895

I decided that the key was with Ida's twin sister Addie.  I started following tangents on her life.  Addie's grandson Charlie Fletcher told me years ago that the family once lived in Princess Anne County, in the Blackwater area.  So maybe this was the connection to the Williams fellow?  Another Ancestry researcher wrote that Eley Bryant, Ida and Addie's father, farmed the "Land of Promise Plantation" in Princess Anne County.  A search on Google maps proved that Land of Promise Road intersects Blackwater Road in what is now Virginia Beach.  This researcher also wrote that Eley was Southern Baptist - the nearest baptist church at the time was located at the corner of Princess Anne Road and....drum roll....Williams Farm Road. Williams?! Could this be the family?  My mother used to buy vegetables from Williams Farm when I was little.  I still haven't identified Ida's first husband, but I'm getting warmer.  The next step is to search the church's records or the Virginia Beach Courthouse records.

Land of Promise-Blackwater - still mostly farms

The Addie tangent led to answers to other questions that I wasn't even asking.  I discovered that she and Blucher moved to Ocean View by 1930.  She and her mentally disabled adult daughter Ruth lived in the same boarding house on Peachtree Street as her son Blucher, his wife Catherine, and their sons Phillip and Charles. This possibly explains why my grandfather Ernie moved from Richmond to Ocean View when he came to Norfolk to look for work - he briefly lived in a boarding house near Addie.  It also ties in with Charlie Fletcher's stories about growing up in Ocean View and remembering my grandfather there.

This tangent led to yet another discovery, one that has been haunting me ever since my son Adam bought a house on Newport Avenue in Norfolk.  Which house on Newport Avenue did my dad live in as a boy? In a search for my grandfather Ernie's address in Ocean View, I stumbled on his address on Newport Ave in a 1952 city directory - there it was - 4306.

"Gramp" standing in front of 4306 Newport Ave in 1954.

4306 Newport Ave today

Lines crossed

The relatives that I am meeting through Ancestry are helping to fill in some of the gaps in my knowledge.  I am communicating with two relatives, both named Matt, who did not know each other except through Ancestry.  One of these newfound relatives is the great grandson of Rebecca Abbott and William Bryant, my great grand aunt and uncle.  The other is a grandson of Rawley Martin Butler, my grand uncle. Common denominator = Ida Rene.

I had always heard that our family line were crossed between Bryants and Abbotts but could not find it in my research.  According to one of these newfound relatives, George Abbott's half sister Rebecca was married to Ida Rene Bryant's brother William.   I may have known this at one time but would never have been able to dredge it up on my own.  Amazing how discovering such a precious nugget of information can make my day.

William Thomas Bryant, brother of Ida Rene and son of Eley and Margaret Bryant, was born in March 1867 in Southhampton County, Va.

Rebecca Godfrey Curtis Abbott, half sister of George Wright Abbott and daughter of Whitfield Barrie and Gertrude Clayton Abbott, b. 28 Jul 1868 in Fort Lee, NJ.

William married Rebecca in 1900. They met when they were coworkers in a hat factory in Fort Lee, NJ. William had probably taken the train to NJ that had recently been extended to Norfolk, VA. William returned to his parents farm in Princess Anne County, but Rebecca (called Bonnie), finding herself pregnant, took the train to Norfolk where William met the train and they were married immediately in the nearest church parsonage. They lived with Eley and Margaret Bryant for about a year before returning to NJ. The baby died soon after childbirth. 

George Abbott married Ida Rene Butler (nee Bryant) in 1904 in Norfolk, VA. 

After Eley Bryant died, Margaret Bryant went to live in Richmond with Ida Rene and George Abbott. She died on a train trip back to Blackwater to visit Addie in 1908.