I will admit to reading only this post so I may have missed something of
importance. However, tax records were listed in the name of whomever the
tax taker considered the owner/responsible for the taxes and were not always
accurate. There is a case in Orange County that I can document where the
taxes were listed for over thirty years as an estate--granted the estate had
never been settled--a member of the family simply paid the taxes. While some
tax takers list property as an estate as long as there were underage heirs
and the property not divided, others list the widow's dower as the estate
rather than under the widow's name. There was no consistency. My guess is
that someone finally informed the tax taker that the owner's name had
changed.
When you say the marriage was finally made a matter of record in Virginia,
what do you mean? I have again seen instances where a minister turned in his
list of marriages a number of years after the fact and not necessarily in
the place where the parties were married.
What kind of marriage record are you referring to--bond, license, minister's
return? I'm not sure that I understand what you mean by civil ceremony.
Barbara
----- Original Message -----
From: <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, October 31, 2001 5:29 PM
Subject: [VA-HIST] NC/VA Marriage Riddle
Hi, Michael.
I am really interested in the answer you find to your riddle.
While no "certified" historian, I do have some comments.
The Rev War ended in 1783 and the Articles were in control until late 1789
when all thirteen states ratified the Constitution. That would account for a
six year period (at least) when the colonies were free states (not under any
conjecture caused by a state of war). I sincerely doubt that the two
colonies/states had such "different" legal systems that a marriage would be
in doubt simply because of location. Afterall... I am sure that folks
arrived
"married" who left England as "single" folks, with/without benefit of clergy
interference. People simply showed up as a married entity and society had
very little recourse but to believe them. Or... could I be that far off
target? I know of an Eastern Shore case where there was a multitude of
"marriages" for a person who only went through the ceremony ONCE!
I am curious as to whether there were:
1. any legal suits in place in Mechlenburg that created
the impass in recognizing the land as legally that of
the wife/widow (regardless of her residence);
2. any questions as to the legality of her subsequent
marriage to the second husband that could have been
squelched by the civil ceremony you mentioned (I don't
know WHO was recognized by the government of Va as
certified to perform or ratify marriages);
3. any stipulations in the will or intent of the first
husband that bound the land, excluding his widow
if she married this particular husband afterwards,
encumbering her if she married at all, etc. You
mentioned no will probate or testamentary proceedings
of estate. So... I wonder. My contention here is that the
will, if not probated, may have left the land "technically"
in the name of the first husband.
Again, I am neither a "certified" historian... nor a lawyer. So... my
questions are just my mental meanderings.
Hope any of this either helps or feeds the conversation toward finding a
possible path.
Good luck.
Jon
Atlanta
Michael Flanagan wrote:
The following statements by Harold Forsyth and John Maas may hold the keys
to a riddle I've been trying to understand for a number of years:
HF: "The second regime was under the Articles of Confederation (1781-1788).
Under that constitution, the states were declared to be sovereign."
JM: "I argue that the 13 colonies WERE in fact separate states albeit for a
short period of time. For ex., there was a brief period after the
Revolutionary war when NC refused to adopt the Constitution; for 7-8 months
NC was not a member of the new union, but then in a second convention at
Fayetteville NC decided to join.
. . .
The riddle: A wealthy young widow/mother of 4 (Martha), raised in
VA/Sussex-Dinwiddie but lived her married life in VA/Mecklenburg, was
married 2nd in mid-1783 to an equally well-heeled widower/father of several
(John) who had grown up in VA/Brunswick but lived at the time of the
marriage (and after) in NC/Warren. For some reason, it was not until August
1792 that the marriage of John and Martha was also made a matter of record
in VA. The 1783 marriage year is unmistakable. Nonetheless, for several
years, the widow's land by her former husband (just across the state line
from where she and 2nd husband John lived in NC) was reported in the
Mecklenburg tax lists under her former married name (initially as the
"Estate" of her former husband). Only after the marriage to her 2nd husband
was formalized in 1792 did the property lists change to the name of her 2nd
husband. Neither the premarital agreement between John and Martha, nor the
will and estate records of John and Martha, shed any light as to why
VA/Mecklenburg did not recognize her surname by her 2nd marriage, or why
John & Martha opted to have their marriage formalized in VA after having
been married and living just across the state line in NC for 9 years. Even
after the VA ceremony, they continued to live in NC, and are not found in
any of the VA land or property tax lists, with the exception of the property
of Martha's first husband. One exception to this: A son from Martha's first
marriage did show up in the Mecklenburg tax lists for one year, in 1787,
about the time he came of legal age, but he, too, returned to live in NC.
In trying to understand the WHY of this, I have assumed that there must have
been some post-Rev.War statutory differences in property and inheritance
laws between VA and NC that would be significant enough to account for this.
I further assume that something happened in 1792 to precipitate the August
civil ceremony in VA, probably to protect the interests of the
yours-mine-ours family structure of John and Martha.
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