GERMANNA_COLONIES-L Archives

Archiver > GERMANNA_COLONIES > 2002-10 > 1033595853


From: Craig Kilby <>
Subject: [GERMANNA] Clark v. Towles
Date: Wed, 02 Oct 2002 16:58:32 -0500
In-Reply-To: <37.2e42f013.2accb430@aol.com>


Greystoke and all:

I sent a reply earlier about this file. It is Madison County, VIRGINIA,
Chancery Suit File #14, Clark v. Towles, though it is indexed for some
reason as Towles v. Towles. It was in the basement of the Madison County
Court House when I viewed in 1998. I don't know if they still have it, or
if it is now part of the Library of Virginia collection of Chancery suits.
(Those can be viewed on line, by the way--at least the titles, for some of
the counties).

Maybe someone on here has already copied it. I only have certain parts of
it that were of interest to me. It's main value, among other things, are
the hundreds of receipts signed by the heirs for their portion of the
proceeds, which are ALL original signatures. There are several out of state
depositions as well. It is very important to keep in mind that:

1. This suit was brought in 1841 upon the death of Henry Towles, youngest
son of Stokely Towles by his 2nd wife Jane (Sparks) Wharton. When I say
youngest son I do mean youngest son. He was born in 1756. He was never
married and had no children. He died at the age of 79. The suit set aside
Henry's will of 1836 and distributed his estate to all of his siblings and
their children, grandchildren, great-grandchilden and great-great
grandchildren, and there were many of them.

2. Considering that Henry's eldest sibling, by his father's first marriage
to Anne Vallott, was born in 1710, the number of heirs by 1841 is ENORMOUS.

3. Many of these heirs had long since moved out of Virginia to North
Carolina, South Carolina, Kentucky & Tennessee, Missouri and beyond by the
time this suit was brought. Therefore, there are many "unidentified" heirs
and lots of mistakes in who is whose relation. Simply because nobody still
in Culpeper knew for sure.

4. In an attempt to find these people, there are several depositions in the
file but those may not be accurate. For example, there is a big discrepancy
in the children of Humphrey Sparks and his wife Mildred Nalle from the
deposition of Joseph Jones, taken 1 OCT 1845 in Owen Co, Kentucky, compared
to the will of Martin Nalle.

5. There are two newspapers summons, naming all the heirs and if you know
the families, you can see they are named in a certain order of kinship.
This is how I solved the Aylor/Sparks problem. The court files also helped
clarify it. There are several lists of heirs in the file, and they don't
necessarily agree with each other, or the newspaper summons.

6. As the suit went on, more people died and more heirs were discovered
and/or named.

7. Tyler's article on the suit includes some information that I did not find
in the file, and the file contains a lot of information that Tyler did not
include in his article.

One must be careful in examining all this, but all of our Culpeper/Madison
County friends and families are named in one place or another.

Craig



Joan Tanner could do this if she were SO KIND! It would be a bad idea to
have that file--already tampered with over the years--being pawed over by
100 different people. The main points of it are already published anyway in
Tyler's Quartlery.


on 10/02/02 3:42 PM, at wrote:

> Craig,
> You wrote, in part:
>
> Nobody should ever say their research is complete without
> reviewing the Clark v. Towles suit in Madison County.
>
> Craig,
> How can I access the above? Thanks for the help.
> Cookie, a Hoosier in Florida <<
>
> PS: I sent this to your e-mail earlier and it bounced back to me. (?)
>
>
>
> ==== GERMANNA_COLONIES Mailing List ====
> You can contact the List Manager at:
>
>
> ==============================
> To join Ancestry.com and access our 1.2 billion online genealogy records, go
> to:
> http://www.ancestry.com/rd/redir.asp?targetid=571&sourceid=1237
>

This thread: