... It is believed that Keith came from Scotland, but there are scant records of his life before his arrival in Virginia. ...
... The earliest documented events that we have for Keith’s life are his ordination as priest in the Church of England, 19 Jan 1728,1 and his receipt of £20 in King’s bounty toward passage to Virginia, 21 Mar 1728/9.2 ...
... James Keith died in Prince William County41 sometime in the winter of 1752 or early spring of 1753,42 leaving Mary Isham with eight children between the ages of four and eighteen years. There is no known documentation of James Keith’s death date: Keith’s will was proved in June 1753 at the Prince William County court43 but the will itself does not appear in the county’s extant will books. Executors of the will44 include Keith’s widow, Mary Isham, and three gentlemen with considerable stature in the social and administrative strata of the colony: Peter Randolph, Mary Isham’s cousin, son of her uncle William Randolph II of Turkey Island;45 Rev. Charles Green, the first regular minister of Truro Parish;46 and William Stith, Mary Isham’s brother-in-law and third president of William and Mary College, 1752–1755.47
Mary Isham lived into old age, residing on the Pignut Ridge land, then in Leeds Parish, under the care of her son Thomas.48
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1. “Orders, Licenses, Institutions and Collations, in the Time of the Right Rev. Edmund Gibson Lord Bishop of London, viz. from 1723 to 1748, drawn up from the Subscription Books during that Period by Wm Dickes, Secry,” in The Fulham Papers : Lambeth Palace Library, 2nd ed. (World Microfilms Publications, reel 20, 42: 1–16). Note that in listing ordination dates, Dickes makes no reference to Old or New Style dating, scribing 19 Jan 1728 as the date of Keith’s ordination as priest.
2. Treasury Quarterly Accounts, 1701–1855, T31_111 folio 58, The National Archives, Kew, England.
41. Because Fauquier County was not established until 1759, it is not accurate to say that James Keith “died in Fauquier County” in 1752 or 1753 (see Figure 1: Descent of Hamilton Parish & Fauquier County).
42. John Neavill's suit against Keith was dismissed 31 May 1753, “the defendant being dead.” Prince William County Minute Book, 1752–1753, p. 146.
43. Prince William County Minute Book, 1752–1753, pp. 25, 163.
44. Prince William County Order Book, 1755–1757, pp. 25, 78-79.
45. Jefferson Randolph Anderson, “Tuckahoe and the Tuckahoe Randolphs,” Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 45, No.1 (1937): 68.
46. Philip Slaughter, Truro Parish, 13.
47. “List of Presidents of the College of William & Mary,” Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/).
48. Fauquier County Deed Book 5, 1772–1774, p. 212.
