Thomas Prewitt Sr. (abt. 1692 - abt. 1759)

Born about 1692 in Henrico County, Virginia Colony

Ancestors

Husband of Mary (Chastain) Prewitt — married about 1720 in Henrico, Virginia

Descendants

Died about 1759 at about age 67 in Halifax, Halifax County, Virginia Colony

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Biography

Thomas Pruitt, Sr. is said to have been born to Henry Pruitt and Rebecca Dabbs/Dobbs around 1692 in Henrico Co., Va. There are no primary source documents that link Thomas Pruitt to Henry Pruitt, except that they lived in the same county and Thomas began appearing in court records at a time that suggested a possible father-son relationship. At the time of Thomas’s birth, Henrico County was much larger than it is today, so geography alone should not be a factor in deciding if two people were related. There are other possibilities for the parentage of Thomas Pruitt, Sr., including a possible relationship with the French Huguenots who lived in the area of Henrico County that would become Goochland County in 1728, then Cumberland County in 1749 and finally Powhatan County in 1777. Thomas’s possible relationship with the Huguenots should continue to be a research priority as more documents become available.

Thomas Pruitt first appeared in Henrico County court records around 1720. On May 1, 1721, Thomas Jefferson, the grandfather of the future President through his son Peter, won a court decision on a debt owed to him by Thomas Pruit and Mary, his wife.^[1] We believe Thomas married Mary Chastain Ducray, the widow of Nicholas Ducray, around 1720. Nicholas was a French Huguenot who came to Virginia in 1701.^[2] He and his unnamed wife (“sa femme” on the ship passenger list) had arrived on The Nassau from Kensington, England. In 1719 Mary Ducray had received letters of administration^[3][4] for her late husband’s estate and she submitted an inventory of that modest estate on March 28, 1719.^[5] Court filings in 1722 indicate that Thomas Pruitt had married Mary Ducray, the widow of Nicholas, and that he “wasted” a “great part of the said estate.”^[6] Nicholas Ducray had two children, Nicholas and Jean/John. It’s not known if they were the sons of Mary Chastain Ducray since we cannot be entirely sure she was the wife who accompanied him to Virginia. Goochland County court filings between 1738 and 1742^[7][8] appear to have been an attempt by Jean/John Ducray to recover his part of his father’s estate from the two individuals who had posted security in 1719. At the time of his filings, John Ducray believed that Thomas Pruitt had wasted the estate of his father thus depriving him and his brother of the part of the estate they deserved. While it appears that the relationship between Thomas, Mary and her children was strained, it’s also clear from the lists of tithables that Nicholas lived with Thomas and Mary Pruitt at times.^[9]

Thomas Pruitt and Mary Chastain Ducray are believed to have had seven children. While several primary source documents suggest the names of their children, all birth dates are speculative. The birth dates below are ones that are generally accepted by most researchers; however, we’ll propose another scenario for their dates of birth later based on a deeper analysis of court and deed records for Thomas Prewitt, his sons and Judith Chastain Bellew who entered the picture in the 1730s.

• Thomas Pruitt, Jr., b. ~1720 in Henrico Co., Va.
• John Farmer, b. ~1721 in Henrico Co., Va.
• Abraham Pruitt, b. ~1722 in Henrico Co., Va.
• Renny Pruitt, b. ~1724 in Henrico Co., Va.
• William Pruitt, b. ~1725 in Henrico Co., Va.
• David Pruitt, b. ~1731 in Goochland Co.
• Michael Pruitt, b. ~1735 in Goochland Co., Va.

We presume Thomas Pruitt had a few daughters, but since they are generally not named in court, deed or tax records, we do not know their names. John Farmer has often been described as the husband of one of Thomas Pruitt’s unnamed daughters; however, see below for more on why he is likely the natural son of Thomas Pruitt. The last two sons, David and Michael, are sometimes described as the sons of Thomas and a second wife. According to Amelia County records, as late as 1737, Thomas’s wife was named Mary (see below). Therefore, we suspect he did not have a second wife before 1737 unless she was also named Mary. The reason there is a need for a second wife lies in the belief that if Mary Chastain Ducray was Nicholas Ducray’s wife at the time he came to Virginia in 1701, she would have been born around 1680 and would have been in her 50s when David and Michael were born. However, if Mary was the second wife of Nicholas Ducray, then she may have been much younger, perhaps born as late as 1696.

Thomas Pruitt first appeared in Goochland County records soon after the county was created in 1728. This led researcher Richard A. Prewitt to posit that “Thomas was one of the first residents” of Goochland County. Thomas Pruitt’s appearance in King William Parish records even before Goochland was created suggests that he lived in the area that became Goochland as early as 1720 and perhaps much earlier. It’s very likely that Nicholas and his wife settled in the part of Henrico County that became Goochland since that was where Huguenots generally settled. It’s also significant that Andrew and Hugh Pruitt, presumed to be brothers of Thomas, made many appearances in Goochland County records from its beginning. However, they did not appear in surviving King William Parish records.

Sometime between 1733 and 1737, Thomas and Mary Pruitt moved south to Amelia Co., Va. It’s possible they didn’t move far since Goochland and Amelia were contiguous counties at that time. Mary Prouit had shown up in a King William Parish baptism record in 1733. She was listed as the “godmother of Zacarie, son of Jaque Robinson and of Susane Robinson, presented to baptism by Jean Chastain and Rene Chastain.”^[10] Then, in 1737, Thomas and Mary appeared in Amelia County records selling land to James Seay.^[11] Also, Thomas Pruitt was on the 1737 list of tithables for Amelia County.^[12] By 1747, both Thomas and his brother Uriah Pruett appeared in survey records for the South District of Lunenburg Co., Va. in an area which became Halifax County in 1752.^[13]

The most basic questions we have about Thomas Pruitt, Sr. are when his children were born, who their mothers were and who the children lived with in their early years. Some of the answers can be gleaned from the documents filed around the time of Thomas Pruitt’s death in 1759, the subsequent movements of his children and the Y-DNA of their descendants.

Thomas Pruitt appears to have died in 1759, or soon thereafter, in Halifax Co., Va. On May 16, 1759, he deeded 150 acres to "my loving son Abraham Pruett."^[14] The document was signed by Thos Pruett using his mark, an upper case “T”. Witnesses were Dannell Abney, William Prewitt, and Thos Prewett [Jr.] whose mark was also an upper case “T”. On the same day, Thomas Pruitt also deeded 150 acres each to "my loving son Renny Pruett"^[15] and “my loving son John Farmer.”^[16] While John Farmer could have been married to an unknown daughter of Thomas Pruitt, we are confident he was Thomas’s natural son since several modern day Farmers are close Y-DNA matches to this line of Pruitts. Thomas Pruitt described himself as a Blacksmith in all three documents and he described all three sons as Planters. Why did Thomas Pruitt give land to these three sons at this particular time? We suspect he was nearing the end of his life and had written his last will giving most of his assets to his oldest son, Thomas Pruitt, Jr. Why not just use his will as the vehicle for giving land to these three sons? Perhaps the laws of primogeniture, which were not repealed until 1785 in Virginia, were an obstacle; however, many last wills were written in the early and mid-1700s which gave land to more than one son. We suspect the real reason was that these three sons were illegitimate. While illegitimate children could inherit personal property in a will, in most places they could not inherit real property. This appears to have been Thomas’s way of making sure these sons got the land where they likely already lived. We have not found Thomas Pruitt, Sr.’s last will, but we suspect it might answer some of our questions about his family including whether he was married at the time of his death. It’s likely that Mary died earlier since her name was absent from the 1745 Amelia County deed record in which Thomas sold land to Thomas Foster.^[17] Her name was also absent from the three 1759 deeds. Generally, a wife had to agree to give up her dower rights In order for her husband to deed land to someone else.

Who were the mothers of Thomas’s three illegitimate sons and when were they born? Let’s start with John Farmer. Several modern day Farmers who trace their lineages back to Henrico County are close Y-DNA matches to this line of Pruitts. We believe John Farmer was the natural son of Thomas Pruitt, Sr. and a single or married Farmer who lived in Henrico County. Based on the fact that John Farmer kept the Farmer surname in adulthood, we suspect his mother was married and that he was raised in that Farmer family in his early years. He may have been born before Thomas married Mary Chastain Ducray around 1720. One candidate for his mother is Ann Farmer who was a witness for Thomas Pruitt in a court appearance in Goochland County in 1732.^[18] Perhaps Thomas had kept up with his likely son and his mother over the years and brought John Farmer into his family at a later date.

What do we know about the parentage of Renney Pruitt and Abraham Pruitt? Unlike John Farmer, they were Pruitts in the eyes of their father at the time he deeded property to them in 1759. If they were illegitimate, as we suspect, who was their mother and when were they born? While Renney Prewet appeared in a Halifax County court record in 1755,^[19] we have not found a record for Abraham Pruitt prior to the 1759 deeds. The fact that they had the last name of Pruitt suggests they became a part of their father’s family at a young age. They both appeared in legal documents as Pruitts through the mid-1760s. However, they then disappear from the record and, according to many researchers, reappear in North Carolina records using new surnames. It seems from an analysis of the records that Renney Pruitt adopted the name Belue and Abraham Pruitt adopted the name Belew. Each sold the land their father gave them in 1759; Renney in 1766^[20] and Abraham in 1767.^[21] In the 1766 deed Renney indicated his last name was Prewit; in his 1767 deed, Abraham said he was Abraham Pruitt of Rowan Co., N.C. Abraham and Renney likely used their father’s last name when selling the property because the Halifax deeds were filed under that surname. We’re confident that they were already using the Belew/Belue surnames in North Carolina by that time. Who was their mother? We are confident that both were the sons of Judith Chastain Bellew, the widow of Gilles Bellew who died by early 1729 in Goochland County.^[22] In her widowhood, Judith Ballew had several illegitimate children. We are quite sure that Renney and Abraham were the sons of Thomas Pruitt, Sr. based on the Pruitt and Farmer Y-DNA matches of their descendants. We are equally confident that they were the sons of Judith Chastain Bellew who was a cousin of Thomas Pruitt’s wife Mary Chastain Ducray. We suspect that they moved into the Thomas Pruitt household at a young age and adopted the last name of Pruitt. However, they likely kept up a relationship with their mother and within a few years of their father’s death, adopted the Belew/Belue surname and moved to a part of North Carolina where some of their Belue/Belew cousins lived. Both Renney Belue^[23] and Abraham Belew^[24] were in Anson Co., N.C. records in the late 1760s. It appears that Renney Belue went to South Carolina soon after his first appearance; however, Abraham Belew stayed a few years longer in Anson County.

So, what does all this mean with regard to the names and birth dates of the children of Thomas Pruitt, Sr.? Since Judith Bellew’s husband did not die until 1729, we suspect that Renney Belue and Abraham Belew could not have been born before 1730 and likely were born no earlier than 1735. Here is an updated list of names and birth dates for Thomas’s children (again, the birth dates are speculative since no birth records have been found):

• Thomas Pruitt, Jr., b. ~1721 in Henrico Co., Va.
• John Farmer, b. ~1723 in Henrico Co., Va.
• William Pruitt, b. ~1725 in Henrico Co., Va.
• David Pruitt, b. ~1731 in Goochland Co.
• Michael Pruitt, b. ~1733 in Goochland Co., Va.
• Abraham Belew, b. ~1735 in Amelia Co., Va.
• Renney Belue, b. ~1738 in Amelia Co., Va.

Research Notes

County Formation and Geographic Locations

From 1634 to 1728, Henrico Co., Va. included not only today’s Henrico Co. and the city of Richmond but also Chesterfield Co. and all the area due west of both counties. In 1728, Goochland Co. was created out of the western portion of Henrico County. In 1744, Albemarle Co. was created out of the western portion of Goochland Co. Then, in 1749, Chesterfield Co. was carved out of southern Henrico Co. and Cumberland Co. out of southern Goochland Co. Finally, in 1777, Powhatan Co. was created out of the eastern portion of Cumberland Co. This map^[25] gives a visual representation of these changes. The early French Huguenot immigrants to Virginia largely settled in the part of Henrico (later Goochland) Co. that was south of the James River and became Powhatan Co. in 1777. To get a sense of where various individuals lived before all these border changes, it’s important to have access to deeds with physical features like rivers and creeks noted. A 1749 map of Goochland, Cumberland and Amelia counties with Pruitt and Simpkins properties noted^[26] was created by Richard A. Prewitt based on just that kind of analysis of deed records. Unfortunately, far fewer records with that amount of detail exist before 1728, so it’s more difficult to place Pruitts on a map in that period. Some of Henry Pruitt's deed records indicate he lived on Almond Creek north of the James River. That puts him squarely in Henrico County even on a modern-day map. We do not know where Nicholas Ducray settled when he came to Virginia. We presume it was in the area that would become Goochland County and later Cumberland and Powhatan County, but that begs the question as to how Thomas Prewitt, Sr. met his future wife if he lived at or near his father's Almond Creek home. Getting a precise bead on where Thomas Prewitt and Nicolas Ducray lived in the late 1710s would help solve this issue.

Y-DNA and Pruitt Family Lines in Colonial Virginia

One of the driving forces for untangling Pruitt relationships in Henrico County is the fact that direct male descendants of Pruitts who trace their Pruitt lineages back to Henrico County are shown through their Y-DNA to fall into three distinct Pruitt family groups that are not related within the last 5,000 years (see the FTDNA Pruett/Pruitt/Prewitt surname project^[27]). Some members of all three groups claim to be descended from Pruitts born in Henrico County in the early 1700s. At this time, many researchers believe that all of these Pruitts were descended from Henry Pruitt, born around 1654, but their Y-DNA tells a more complicated story. Either there was another Pruitt line (or two) that just happened to appear in Henrico County at the same time as Henry Pruitt, or there are Non-Parental Events (NPEs) involved. It’s now known that one Pruitt line that moved on to Wilkes Co., N.C. is as closely related to Mortons as they are to other Pruitts and likely became Pruitts through an NPE. While some have hypothesized where and when that NPE might have occurred, there is no definitive answer at this time. We know that Mortons and Pruitts lived in Henrico County in the early 1700s, so the answer may lie in the records of that county.

French Huguenot Connection

A Roger Pret/Prat/Prot appeared In King William Parish records in the 1720s and may have died around 1730. King William Parish was specifically created for the French Huguenots who came to Virginia around 1700 at the behest of King William of England. One list of King William Parish tithables from 1729 placed Thomas Prouet and Roger Pret next to each other on the non-alphabetized list, suggesting they may have lived close to each other.^[28] The Huguenot Society of the Founders of Manakin in the Colony of Virginia names Roger Prouit/Prewitt as a French Huguenot who settled in colonial Virginia. While Prouet and Prouit seem to be the preferred spellings in King William Parish records, it should be remembered that an Old English “e” is very similar to an “o” and a “w” can look a lot like “ui”. In other words, Prouit could just be a misreading of Prewit if the text was originally written in Old English or translated into Old English.

Sources

1. ↑ https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CS4K-421B
2. ↑ https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CSVL-P9B6-9
3. ↑ https://www.familysearch.org/photos/artifacts/172221948
4. ↑ https://www.lva.virginia.gov/chancery/case_detail.asp?CFN=075-1742-004#img
5. ↑ https://www.familysearch.org/photos/artifacts/172221934
6. ↑ https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CS4K-4213
7. ↑ https://www.familysearch.org/photos/artifacts/172222012
8. ↑ https://www.familysearch.org/photos/artifacts/172221941
9. ↑ https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CSSW-7SRH-Z
10. ↑ https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CSVL-P9B4-6
11. ↑ https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CS4H-C9ZZ-N
12. ↑ https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CS79-17XQ
13. ↑ https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CSKJ-9SL7-T
14. ↑ https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CS4V-BYXK
15. ↑ https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CS4V-BYZR
16. ↑ https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CS4V-BYZR
17. ↑ https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CS4H-8QDJ-Y
18. ↑ https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CS4K-4YR4
19. ↑ https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CS4V-598T-N
20. ↑ https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CS4V-BY9W
21. ↑ https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CS4V-5S2B-7
22. ↑ https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CS4K-4YQ9
23. ↑ https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QS7-89Z1-F7D2
24. ↑ https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QSQ-G9WV-T5W5
25. ↑ https://www.familysearch.org/photos/artifacts/173006721
26. ↑ https://www.familysearch.org/library/books/viewer/539202/?offset=&return=1#page=8&viewer=picture&o=&n=0&q=
27. ↑ https://www.familytreedna.com/groups/pruitt/about
28. ↑ https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CSSW-7SR4-C