Person:William Cherryholmes (1)

William may have been the son of Edward Cherryholme and Mary Watkinson of Bolton on Dearne, Yorkshire, see for example, http://records.ancestry.com.au/william_cherryholme_records.ashx?pid=50211416. At any rate, all Cherryholmes originate in Yorkshire. William was arrested for burglary in 1749, and was sentenced in the Assize Courts to be transported to America. He was purchased by John Hammond, a planter of Elkridge, Anne Arundel Co. Maryland, who would have used him in his tobacco raising operations. In 1750, William escaped, along with another English servant and an enslaved African. John Hammond placed advertisements for their return in the Maryland Gazette and in those of several other states. I have not yet discovered whether William was re-captured.

It isn't until 1777 that we find evidence of William again. He turns up in the Augusta Co. list of Tithables for 1777, as "Wm Cheryham." This record was published in the Magazine of Virginia Genealogy, Vol 44, no. 3, Aug. 2006. The neighbors among whom he is found on Josiah Davidson's list are not those he would late be found among, but closer to the Lincolns and other families of the Linville Creek area.

He can then be tracked in Rockingham Co. tax and tithables lists through the late 1700s. These show him in the Bergton area among the Caplingers and Doves. His son William Jr settled in the Dry River area with his in-laws, the Bibles.

Since William Sr's children were married from 1786-1799, he must have been married by around 1770. He could have married anytime after freeing himself of his condition of servitude, which didn't permit marriage. Unfortunately, no marriage record has yet been found. The identity of his wife is mysterious. In different records she is known as Mary or Elizabeth. She has died by 1800, as there is an administration bond for Elizabeth Cherryholmes, and George Minnick, their daughter Ann's husband, is the administrator. Perhaps this indicates that her husband had already passed away by that time. In the 1800 Rockingham tax list, there is only one William "Cherryholands," which may indicate that only William Jr then survived.