COLONIAL Cole Digges House Historic Structures Report

Endnotes

¹Thomas was a family name. It was Richard Pate who patented 1,154 acres on the north side of the York and represented Gloucester County in the House of Burgesses in 1653. He died in 1657 and a nephew, John Pate, of Gloucester administered his estate. Col. John Pate was named a County justice in 1660 and a decade later took the oaths as Councilor. It is of record that "John Pate, Esq., dying possessed of a considerable estate in this County, and his wife, being out of the County, Mr. Thomas Pate his brother's son" was named administrator. Lyon G. Tyler, Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography (New York, 1915), I, 131, 302.

²Tyler's Quarterly Historical and Genealogical Magazine, I, 213, 258.

³York County Records, Deeds, Orders, Wills, No. 9 (1691-1694), p. 314.

⁴Deeds, Orders, Wills, No. 9, p. 82, and No. 11 (1698-1702), p. 382.

⁵Deeds & Bonds, No. 3 (1713-1729), p. 12.

⁶Deeds & Bonds, No. 2 (1701-1713, p. 100.

⁷Deeds & Bonds, No. 2, p. 138.

⁸Deeds, Orders, Wills, No. 12, p. 112.

⁹Deeds & Bonds, No. 2, pp. 100, 138. A court entry of the same date, December 24, 1703, reads: "Thomas Pate late of this County Deced his Deed of Guift of a Certain House & Lott of Portland Lying in York Town being numbered (42) to Joane Lawson was this Day by her Psented in Court And also ye Assignment of Elizabeth Relict of ye Said Deced Thomas of her Right & Dower to ye said House & Lott." Deeds, Orders, Wills, No. 12, p. 167.

¹⁰Earlier, in 1703, Martin had bought property in the "Great Valley" area from another merchant, John Penton; however, in 1705 he had sold this back to Penton. Perhaps he saw Lot 42 and the waterfront area near it as a better location. Deeds & Bonds, No. 2, p. 124.

¹¹Deeds & Bonds, No. 3, pp. 12-13; Orders Wills, No. 14 (1709-1716), p. 297. "All that his lott or half acre of Land Scituate in York Town in ye County of York containing Ten poles in length & Eight in breadth being part of ye Port land . . . wch Lott is known & distinguished by ye number (42)."

¹²Deeds & Bonds, No. 3, p. 13.

¹³Mary N. Stanard, Virginia Historical Register (Baltimore, Md., 1956—reissue of 1902 edition), pp. 15-43; Lyon G. Tyler, Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography (New York, 1915), I, 48, 223.

¹⁴"Pedigree of a Representative Virginia Family," William and Mary College Quarterly, 1st Series, I, 140-54.

¹⁵Susannah Cole was the daughter of Col. William Cole of Warwick, a councilor and sometime Secretary of the Colony.

¹⁶York County Records, Wills and Inventories, No. 19 (1740-1746), pp. 492-93.

¹⁷Charles E. Hatch, Jr., "Dudley Digges House Dependencies: Colonial National Historical Park." (National Park Service report issued in April 1969 by the Division of History, Office of Archeology and Historic Preservation), pp. 3-6.

¹⁸Executive Journals of the Council of Colonial Virginia, edited by H. R. McIlwaine, IV (Richmond, Va., 1930), 207-08.

¹⁹Calendar of Virginia State Papers, edited by William P. Palmer, I, (Richmond, 1875), 212; Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, XXXIII, 175-76; Edward M. Riley, "History of the Founding and Development of Yorktown," typed manuscript report dated March 20, 1942, p. 105; Tyler's Quarterly Historical and Genealogical Magazine, VI, 277.

²⁰William and Mary Quarterly, 1st Series, II, 8; Virginia Gazette, Williamsburg, September 1, 1738, p. 4, c.1.

²¹Stanard, Colonial Virginia Register, pp. 46, 102; Journals of the House of Burgesses of Virginia 1712 . . . 1726, edited by H. R. McIlwaine (Richmond, 1912), pp. Viii, ix, xxviii, 257; Richard Lee Morton, Colonial Virginia (Chapel Hill, N. C., 1960), II, 439; Executive Journals of the Council of Colonial Virginia, III, 318; Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, IV, 350-52.

²²Henry Power's wife, the mother of Elizabeth, was the daughter of the Rev. Edward Foliott of York County's Hampton Parish. Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, XXXIII, 25.

²³"Pedigree," The William and Mary Quarterly, 1st Series, I, 144-45, 211; the Hatch "Dudley Digges House Dependencies" report (pp. 5-9) has a detailed summary relative to Dudley Digges; Tyler, Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography, I, 223.

²⁴Virginia Gazette issues of August 10 and 24.

²⁵Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, IV, 168.

²⁶There was at least one exception, that of Col. Edward Digges' son Cole, it being of note in the College records for May 3, 1756, that: "Resol: unanimously, Yt Cole Digges & Matthew Hubard [another York County lad] be expelled ye College of W & Mary not only for yir remarkable Idleness & bad Behaviour in general, but particularly for whipping ye little Boys in ye Grammar School-for Obstinacy & Disrespect to ye Grammar Master, & refusing to answer before ye President & Masters ye complaints made agt ym." The William and Mary Quarterly, 1st Series, II, 256.

²⁷This mention was in William Stark's deed for a quarter of an acre of ground to "said gentlemen who have bin at the charges of building a Scoulhouse." Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, XXXIII, 28; William and Mary Quarterly, 1st Series, IV, 199.

²⁸The governor had ordered the command officers in the "Counties joyning to the Sea, and the Bay, to muster and discipline the Militia, and to have them in Readiness, in case of Need." Virginia Gazette, March 18, 1737, p. 4, 3. 1.

²⁹From the tomb at Bellfield.

³⁰Hatch, "Dudley Digges House Outbuildings" report, pp. 9ff.

³¹Deed Book, No. 6, p. 223.

³²Charles E. Hatch, Jr., "The Edmund Smith House on Lot 53 in Yorktown and Some of Its Associations," National park Service, Division of History, Office of Archeology and Historic Preservation, report for Colonial National Historical Park, now being processed. The section on "David Jameson and His Nephew John" constitutes a more detailed treatment of Jameson.

³³Deed Book, No. 7, p. 121.

³⁴Frances N. Mason (editor), John Norton & Sons . . . Merchants . . . Papers, (Richmond, 1937), p. 510. But there also was a helpful side as well to Martha as the provision in the will of Richard Ambler in 1765 indicates. He wrote: "It is my desire that Mrs Martha Goosley be paid out of my Store Goods the value of Twenty pounds in consideration of her care in attending my dear daughter in her last sickness if Mrs Gooseley should die then the twenty pounds be paid to her Children." William and Mary Quarterly, 1st Series, XIV, 129.

³⁵Mason, John Norton & Sons, pp. 82, 136; Calendar of Virginia State Papers, edited by W. H. Flournoy, VIII, (Richmond, 1890), 98, 105, 125, 126, 210; John H. Gwathmey, Historical Register of Virginians in the Revolution: Soldiers, Sailors, Marines: 1775-1783 (Richmond, 1938), pp. 316-17; Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, II, 358; Robert Armistead Stewart, The History of the Virginia Navy in the Revolution (Richmond, 1934), pp. 44, 191. The brig Liberty was "a large man of war of 18 guns" and "another transatlantic voyager." By one report she was required to carry a good deal of pig iron ballast due to her "peculiar shape." In due course the State took her whole adventure and with Capt. Thomas Lilly of Gloucester in charge she was outfitted principally for the protection of York River and the inhabitants on its shores. Stewart, Virginia Navy, pp. 44, 191.

³⁶Deed Book, No. 7, p. 298.

³⁷Calendar of Virginia State Papers, edited by H. W. Flournoy, IX (Richmond, 1890), 305, 306, 309; Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, XX, 286. William Goosley of Yorktown also saw service in the Revolution, being captain of a company of "Minute Men" in 1776 as also of a York militia company. He as well provided "Arms & Provisions" for "the Troops at York," and also "10 Cords of wood & c" being paid 163 pounds and 8 pounds respectively in 1776 and 1777. William, in 1773, had married Ludwell Harrison, daughter of Benjamin Harrison of Wakefield in Surry County, and thirteen children had followed in the next twenty-six years. He became established in Yorktown even before the Revolution and had been securing "Books" through John Norton & Sons as early as 1768. After the war he was elected to the town's first common council and selected as one of the first four aldermen in 1787. When he gave permission for his daughter Frances (then 19 years old) to marry James Brown of Richmond in 1802, George Goosley was one of the two witnesses. William, still a resident of York, died on December 31, 1809. Gwathmey, Historical Register pp. 316-17; Tyler's Quarterly Historical and Genealogical Magazine, IX, 95-96; Virginia Magazine, VIII, 306 and XVII, 342, 337, 339; William and Mary Quarterly, 1st Series, VII, 39-40, and XIV, 277; Mason, John Norton & Sons, p. 39.

³⁸Deed Book, No 8, P. 535. A John Southgate in Norfolk was one of a building committee of four that, after the fire of March 9, 1827, which destroyed Christ Church, found a new (the present) site for a new church and proceeded with a new structure, completed in November 1828. It was John Southgate, too, who, at his home on Catherine Street, entertained Bishop Chase during the laying of the cornerstone of the Norfolk Academy in 1840. The Lower Norfolk County Antiquary, I, 152, 155, 162; William and Mary Quarterly, 2nd Series, II, 114.

³⁹"Newman Family, Yorktown Branch," Tyler's Quarterly Historical and Genealogical Magazine, VI, 277-79; IX, 96; and X, 197-98.

⁴⁰"Newman Family," Tyler's Quarterly, VI, 277-79. Thomas' son, Thomas Newman, V, would fight in the Confederate Army and later serve as York County's treasurer for a time. It was noted in 1932 that Thomas Newman, VI, had "an old ledger kept by his grandfather for his business in Yorktown. He kept his store in the building known at present as the Digges House [now Pate]." The entries in the book were said to be from January 1835 to April 1848 for a general merchandise business. Letter from Assistant Park Historian Elbert Cox to Archivist, University of Virginia, Lester J. Cappon, February 16, 1932, in Colonial National Historical Park, Lot 42

⁴¹Mutual Assurance Society of Virginia policies Nos. 8618 (1838), 14292 (1846), 17662 (1853), and 21,357 (1860). Copies of these records in the Virginia State Library are in the files of Colonial National Historical Park at Yorktown.

⁴²One policy, that for 1846, shows a "T" shape with the larger top of the "T" parallel with Main Street.

⁴³See Illustrations Nos. 1-5.

⁴⁴The plot shows "R. Anderson" and "Church wall" about equally spaced along this side of the lot. In 1846 the plot noted it as "Robert Anderson's and Church Yard lots."

⁴⁵The policy was drawn by Special Agent Robert Anderson after evaluation by Appraisers William S. Mallicote and William Rowelle.

⁴⁶Lots in 1879 and 1880 ran about $40 and $50 each; in 1891 they varied from $40 to $200, but were normally about $50 (the Pate House Lot being $100); in 1911-12 the variation was between $75 and $100.

⁴⁷Listed in the name of Elizabeth Bent.

⁴⁸Mrs. E. A. Cooper (who was formerly a Bent) was the name given in the tax list.

⁴⁹W. A. Cooper, Est.

⁵⁰F. D. Cock and J. C. Robinson.

⁵¹Recounted during an interview with the author on August 27, 1969.

⁵²Later, Mr. Chandler related, her remains were moved into the adjacent Grace Church burial ground by the purchaser of the orchard area (John S. DeNeufville). The grave is not now marked.

⁵³Deed Book, No 25, pp. 343, 464 and No. 29, pp. 330, 511.

⁵⁴Recollections of J. R. Chandler; Illustrations Nos. 11 and 12. The Bank, in due course, built its own home on the adjacent corner across Read Street.

⁵⁵Deed Book, No. 38, p. 121.

⁵⁶Elizabeth Ballentine Huntley, Peninsula Pilgrimage (Richmond, c. 1941), pp. 302-03.

⁵⁷See Illustration No. 5.

⁵⁸See Illustration Nos. 6-8. Also evidences of change can still be seen clearly on the exterior walls of the structure itself.

⁵⁹Letter of Mrs. George D. Chenoweth to Weaver Brothers, May 12, in the file of Pate House restoration correspondence, labeled "Dudley Digges House-Plans-Yorktown," in Colonial National Historical Park. This is here after noted as "Restoration File." In addition to correspondence, the file includes a set of four blueprints for the "Restoration of Cottage for Mrs. Carroll Paul" by Wyatt & Nolting, Architects (Keyer Building, Baltimore, Maryland), dated January 26, 1925. These cover: (1) the basement floor, (2) the first floor, (3) the second floor, and (4) some elevations. Also, there is an original "Property Plan" sketch dated July 30, 1924.

⁶⁰Weaver to Chenoweth, "Restoration File."

⁶¹"Restoration File." On August 11 Architect Scarff wrote Mrs. Paul: "What do you think of York Cottage for a name? The alliteration in Dudley sounds almost like a joke."

⁶²Letters of Scarff to Mrs. Paul, June 21 and July 12, "Restoration File."

⁶³Letter of July 12, "Restoration File."

⁶⁴Scarff to Mrs. Paul, July 28, 1924, "Restoration File." In an earlier letter (July 17), he had written that the drainage was a serious matter in the absence of a sewer: "when the new road was put through Main Street, its level was put at about two feet above the existing sidewalk. If a permanent sidewalk is ever put in Yorktown, past your cottage, its level will consequently be about two feet, six inches, above the level of the first floor. There is no way of raising the level of the first floor sufficiently to have it bear the right relation to this future sidewalk without undertaking extensive and expensive alterations to your cottage that would seriously alter its appearance."

⁶⁵Letter of July 28, "Restoration File."

⁶⁶Mrs. Paul to Scarff, August 19.

⁶⁷Letter of July 28.

⁶⁸Letter of August 10, Mrs. Paul to Scarff, "Restoration File."

⁶⁹Letter of August 19.

⁷⁰Preliminary "Memoranda of Specifications," August 27, 1924, and final "Memoranda of Specifications," January 26, "Restoration File." In a letter of August 19, 1924, Mrs. Paul urged: "Lets see just how much of the old irregularity we can keep, and fit our modern changes in so that when we get it done, it won't look like an old house done over at all, but as if it had always been that way."

⁷¹"Specifications," August 27.

⁷²Very possibly this was a chimney at Ringfield, or Bellfield, Plantation.

⁷³"Specifications," January 26.

⁷⁴"Specifications," August 27 and January 26. On March 7, 1925, Scarff wrote: "My idea has always been in regard to this roof that it should, when finished, be inconspicuous, and should only show upon detailed observation a soft and proper texture. I have always thought the York Hall roof its worst feature." ("Restoration File.") On May 20, 1925, Scarff exulted, "The roofer was on the job with the slate, and we together laid a portion on the Main Street roof, which I trust will put me in mind for the medal." ("Restoration File.")

⁷⁵"Specifications," January 26.

⁷⁶"Specifications," August 27.

⁷⁷Scarff to Mrs. Paul, March 7 and 27, 1925.

⁷⁸Scarff to Mrs. Paul, March 16, 1925. Mrs. Paul was cost conscious to some degree. Initially she earmarked $10,000 for the work, yet when the work was completed she had paid the contractor almost twenty thousand (See letter of July 12, 1924, with note dated October 30, 1925. The letter is one from Scarff to Mrs. Paul, "Restoration File").

⁷⁹Scarff to Mrs. Paul, July 6, 1925.

⁸⁰Scarff to Mrs. Paul, July 28, 1924; February 27, 1925; and March 7, 1925.

⁸¹Scarff to Mrs. Paul, letters of July 30 and September 4.

⁸²Recollections of Mrs. Herndon (Bethany Renforth) Jenkins of Yorktown in discussion with the author in October 1969; Deed Book, No. 61-A, p. 450. was sold for $15,000. Mrs. Paul, now a widow, was still in residence in Marquette County, Michigan.

⁸³At the time of purchase by the United States, the occupants were Mr. and Mrs. Charles A. Williamson, who still remain. Mr. Williamson is a writer and public relations consultant and an avid promoter of Yorktown history and its message.

⁸⁴Wallace Nutting, Virginia Beautiful (New York, 1935), pp. 40, 122.

⁸⁵Lawrence A. Kocher and Howard Dearstyne, Shadows in Silver: A Record of Virginia 1850-1900, in Contemporary Photographs (New York 1954), p. 23. This has a view of the house dating from before 1900.

⁸⁶Farrer, Old Virginia Homes Along the James, pp. 210-11.

⁸⁷Second Series (New York, 1930), pp. 19, 59, 73, 142, and 143. These include the "Stair Hall," living room, dining room, a doorway, and a doorway and paneling.

⁸⁸Trudell, Colonial Yorktown, p. 104.