Person:Nicolas Gentry (1)

Notes

Comprehensive article: http://trees.ancestry.com/pt/ViewStory.aspx?tid=2078061&pid=-1854368510&did=84ff9cc8-4ac7-452e-b314-1c2e16e10865&src=search

Notes from the Gentry Family Journal (ancestry.com) Added by thorntonj141 on 15 May 2008 Originally submitted by charisma_classic to Benek Family Tree on 26 Jan 2008

Of the two related Gentry immigrants, only Nicholas survived or remained in America, so that all the Gentrys of colonial Virginia and their progeny descend from Nicholas Gentry only.

The vestry book of St. Peter's Parish, New Kent County, Virginia, which was transcribed by C. G. Chamberlayne, contains the following entries on pages 357-358 relating to the baptisms of:

Peter, son of Samuel Gentry on April 10, 1687;

Elizabeth, daughter of Nicholas Gentry an August 29, 1689;

Nicholas, son of Nicholas Gentry on May 30, 1697; and

Mable, daughter of Nicholas Gentry on December 13, 1702.

Both immigrants clearly had children in Virginia and it could be supposed that the many Gentrys who cannot be definitely related to the Nicholas-II are descended either from Peter or from other sons of Samuel and Nicholas-I who did not get entered into the St. Peter's Parish Vestry Book.

There are however two circumstances which suggest that the immigrant Samuel Gentry and his son Peter either died or did not stay in colonial Virginia. The first of these is the complete absence of any mention of either this Samuel Gentry or of Peter Gentry in the existing records of this period. (A later Samuel Gentry who is a member of the second generation starts showing up in the records in the 1720s and can be traced through at least the 1760s.) Of course, the records for this period are not many, particularly for New Kent County, where the Gentry family first settled. Nevertheless, a continuous skein of evidence attests to the presence of Nicholas Gentry from 1684 through 1709, and always in the vicinity of Totopotomoy's Creek. This skein of evidence consists of the following items:

1684 Nicholas Gentry is cited as an adjacent landowner in the previously cited patent which granted 300 acres on Totopotomoy's Creek in New Kent County to Samuel Gentry.

1689 Nicholas Gentry is named in a processioning order of the St. Peter's Parish Vestry (op.cit., p. 21).

1689 Nicholas Gentry is cited as the father of Elizabeth who was baptised on August 29 of this year in St. Peter's Parish in New Kent County (Chamberlayne, "St. Peter's," p. 357).

1697 Nicholas Gentry is identified as the father of Nicholas who was baptised on May 30 of this year in St. Peter's Parish (op.cit., p. 357).

1701 Nicholas Gentry is ordered paid for clothes and funeral charges for a Mabel Wood (op. cit., p. 78).

1702 Nicholas Gentry is identified as father of Mable baptised on December 13 in St. Peter's Parish (op. cit. p. 358)

1703 Nicholas Gentry and all the "tithables up the north side of Totopotomoy's Creek," are ordered to help George Alves clear the roads in his predinct (op. cit., p. 89).

1709 Nicholas Gentry and "Jo Gentry" are named as land-owners in Precinct 13 for the 1708/09 Procesioning (Chamberlayne, "St. Paul's," p. 212). (St. Paul's Parish was formed in 1704 from the upper reaches of St. Peter's Parish including Totopotomoy's Creek.)

1709 Nicholas Gentry is appointed overseer for and keeping in repair an unspecified road cited in a county court order of January 8, 1708/09. Joseph Gentry as well as several others named in the Precinct 13 processioning order for this year are ordered to assist (op. cit., pp. 32-33).

1709 Nicholas Gentry enters complaint that more assistance is needed to keep his road passable and the vestry wardens order that 12 additional tithables be sent for two days to assist Nicholas Gentry make bridges over Crump's Creek and the Deep Swamp (op. cit., pp. 33-34). (Crump's Creek is a tributary of the Pamunkey River to the north of Totopotomoy's Creek and south of Mechumps Creek on which the Hanover County Court House would later be located.)

1709 Nicholas Gentry is cited in a payment order of the St. Peter's Parish vestry wardens in connection with Henry Chiles for keeping Benjamin Billingsly (op. cit., p. 35).

This undoubtedly incomplete record is nevertheless convincing in demonstrating that Nicholas Gentry was alive and did remain in New Kent County at what must be presumed to have been the first home of the Gentry family in America in the vicinity of Totopotomoy's Creek. (This part of the county later became Hanover County which it remains to this day.)

1.   W. M. Gentry. Journal of Gentry Genealogy.

   http://www.gentryjournal.org/index.htm