MDCHARLE-L Archives

Archiver > MDCHARLE > 2006-10 > 1162165628


From: "Joseph T. Richardson" <>
Subject: [MDCHARLE] DUTTON, PENN, CHUNN
Date: Sun, 29 Oct 2006 17:51:03 -0600


Hello, list. I've been lurking around here forever, and in the past week or
so there's been a flurry of research activity about my DUTTON family of
Charles County. Zachariah DUTTON was born ca. 1750 in Charles County, moved
to Granville County, North Carolina ca. 1795, and died there in 1829. Six of
his sons migrated to North Alabama, where I now reside. I've been
brickwalled for the longest time on Zachariah Dutton, and now in the past
day or so I'm excited to have made some apparent progress. The relevant
posts to my DUTTON-ZACHARIAH list haven't yet shown up in the list archive
or I would link to them, and I would forward them here but there are several
of them and they're rather long. So I'll just summarize, and if anyone out
there is interested, let me know and I'll forward you what I have.

I speculated some time ago that Zachariah Dutton's wife might be a PENN,
perhaps the sister of Stephen Penn (1760-1839), who also migrated to Alabama
and settled adjacent to the Duttons. There are a lot of facts suggesting a
close relationship between Zachariah Dutton and Stephen Penn. We don't know
the parentage of Stephen Penn, either, and yesterday I exhumed some old
notes trying to guess again who he is and how he might be connected. I'm
really not that familiar with the Penns in Charles County beyond what's in
the published early court records, and I know that only gives me a partial
skeleton. I did find in my notes a William Penn who married a Mary Chandler.
Can anyone confirm that this is correct? Our Stephen Penn named a son
Stephen Chandler Penn, and I suspect he may tie into this Penn-Chandler
connection. Is there anyone out there who studies this family who might have
some information or offer some direction?

Second, we've been working for years to try to find the parentage of
Zachariah Dutton, who doesn't seem to show up in any of the estate records.
We feel fairly strongly that he ties into the family of Matthew Dutton (b.
1692, d. ca. 1734, the son of Thomas Dutton the immigrant ancestor and
Elizabeth Hill), as Matthew Dutton married Judith O'Caine, the daughter of
Gerrard O'Caine, and Zachariah Dutton named a son Gerrard Dutton. Matthew
Dutton had three sons: Notley Dutton, Sr. (not to be confused with an older
Notley, the son of Thomas the immigrant, who died a young man), Thomas
Dutton, and Gerrard Dutton. Speculations that he was the son of Thomas
Dutton or Gerrard Dutton did not pan out. I can cite records to prove he has
not to son of Gerrard, can anyone cite records to prove he wasn't the son of
Thomas?

That left three options: either he was the son of Notley, he was someone's
illegitimate or adopted son, or he doesn't tie into these Duttons at all,
and only named a son Gerrard by coincidence (unlikely but always possible).
I was leaning towards the second option until just the other day, when in
reviewing the court records and my notes, it dawned on me that I was wrong
about one family, and that Notley Dutton, Sr. married a CHUNN. Members of
the Chunn family of Charles County had migrated to Morgan County, Alabama,
the same county where two of Zachariah Dutton's sons ended up and where I
now reside. I always thought it was a bizarre coincidence and could never
explain it or make a connection, but I decided to look at the Chunns more
closely. What I found astounded me. There are too many coincidences to be
random:

1. Notley Dutton, Sr. married a Chunn.
2. Chunns from Charles County, Maryland and children of Zachariah Dutton
both ended up in Morgan County, Alabama.
3. Zachariah Dutton served in Capt. John Barnham's Company of Militia, 12th
Battalion during the Revolution, the same company in which Zachariah Chunn
was an officer and several other Chunns served. (There were no other
Duttons.)
4. On the Maryland census of 1775-1778, Zachariah Dutton does not appear in
the same district as the other members of the Dutton family (Upper Hundred,
William and Mary Parish), but instead appears in a district with the Chunns
(East Hundred, Newport).
5. "Zachariah" seems to be an uncharacteristic name for the Duttons, who
seem to have favored New Testament, typical British names, like Thomas,
Matthew, Notley. The Chunns, on the other hand, seem to have favored Old
Testament, Hebrew names: Nahum, Eleazar, Levi, Benjamin.

So I'm now wondering if Zachariah isn't the son of Notley Dutton, Sr. and ?
Chunn. Zachariah seems to be around the same age as Notley's known children.
I've never seen anybody claim to have a complete list of children, but I
don't know of anyone outside my own family who's been researching the
Duttons. What concerns me is that we've just assumed that Zachariah doesn't
appear in any records in Charles County, when we stopped looking in 1800
(Zachariah left Maryland ca. 1795), and Notley, Sr. was still alive in 1800.
If Zachariah was his son, it's very possible that he would not have appeared
in records until after Notley's death (ca. 1801?). Are there any published
estate records for Charles County for this period? I'm not sure I've ever
seen any. If anyone out there has access to these records, I'd appreciate it
if you could look for Notley or Zachariah. Does anyone know anything more
about Notley's family or the other Duttons or the Chunns?

I hope there's someone out there who can help us. I'd appreciate anything
anyone can provide.

Thanks,
Joseph T. Richardson
DUTTON-ZACHARIAH Listowner


This thread: