HATCHER website: http://hatcherfamilyassn.com
HALL DNA project: http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~nhatcher/hall/HDNAtest.htm
"One of the tragedies of life is the murder of a beautiful theory by a brutal gang of facts" - La Rochefoucauld

Neil,

I have all the monthly court records dated from Dec 1730 thru July 1731 ending with this one.

July Court 1731

Hatcher vs. Syms
The action of Trespass on the Case between Henry Hatcher assignee of Samuel Hatcher plt. and Richard Sym Deft. is dismist the plt. not proscuting the Same.

Each month in between contained another plur capias and deft not found until it appears Henry/Sam just gave up. So we have an 8 month attempt here.

I found Elizabeth's reference to legal definitions of much interest but also discovered trespass could refer to a physical assault and not necessarily real property. That gave me another possibility I hadn't considered.

The above recs were from Goochland and our earliest rec in that county was a grant to Henry Hatcher in 1732. While we have many dozens of recs in colonial VA and at least 3 Henrys of age in 1730, there are no recs showing any Sam was ever in Goochland. Of course, that means they've been lost or we just haven't found them yet.

So my attempt here was to glean whatever I could from these recs that "don't fit" and try to fit this court case to a particular Henry. Your explanation, under the circumstances, does seem to make more sense than a pursuit based on a physical assault.

Thanks a bunch,
Nel

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