We have completed reading the records covering the Conetoe Creek area. An unscrambling of the land plats in the Taylor neighborhood produced four shipwrights who owned land very near Joseph Taylor. Three of these shipwrights are known to have lived in Norfolk County, Virginia, in the early 1760s, so we naturally began reading the Norfolk deeds. In those deeds is the sale on 20 January 1785 by Richard Taylor, his wife Dinah, and their son John “all of Conetoe of Martin County in the State of North Carolina” of 75 acres on Julian Creek on the Southern Branch of Elizabeth River (Norfolk deeds 28:164). The deed reserves the dower rights of Ann Taylor then living on the tract. So it is very likely Julian Creek was the first pre-Conetoe home of your Taylors and that Ann Taylor may be Joseph’s mother. Also, when Thomas Taylor, shipwright of Norfolk County, sold his part of the 652-acre Conetoe tract, the deed of 1774 says he was “of the Southern Branch,” meaning the Southern Branch of Elizabeth River (see Map 3). We have found several more deeds naming Taylors on Julian Creek (some give detailed family trees) but will not describe them now; this present letter will only summarize the Conetoe data and leave Norfolk records to a later report. So far no Joseph Taylor has been found in the Norfolk records.

Map 1 shows the plotted location of the 652-acre tract. We tried to plot all the tracts in the Taylor neighborhood, going back to the deed indexes as new names were discovered. Many of the tracts could not be plotted because the legal descriptions were never recorded in exact measurements or have been lost or miscopied. Also, the original early patents (as opposed to later resale deeds) are not available in Salt Lake, which meant important tracts were missing. But enough plats could be drawn so that the 652-acre tract could be located on a map with a good fit. We are certain that your Taylors settled on what is now Crisp Creek in the part of Tyrell/Matrin transferred to Edgecombe in 1794. (In the 1760s Crisp Creek was called the south prong of Conetoe Creek and most of the Taylor tracts were “in the forks” of Conetoe Creek..)

As said, many of the deeds could not be drawn or fitted together, but they never-the-less give the names of neighboring owners and this enabled us to know the approximate location of the other Crisp Creek land owners in the 1760s. Map 2 shows these names, which are important because some were probably relatives of your Taylors and also from Norfolk. Four of the names are underlined:

1. William Wallace, shipwright, bought 204 acres on 13 April 1761 (Tyrrell deeds 4-1:162)

2. Markham Maning, shipwright of Norfolk County, bought 300 acres on 20 April 1761 (Tyrrell deeds 4-1:121).

3. Thomas Taylor, of Norfolk County, bought 150 acres on 17 June 1761 from Joseph Taylor. On 3 January 1774, Thomas Taylor, shipwright of Norfolk County, sold the tract to Joseph’s son David (Tyrrell deeds 4-1:146 and Martin deeds A:11).

4. Thomas Grimes, shipwright, bought 200 acres on 15 October 1765. On 19 August 1766 Thomas Grimes “Terrel County in North Carolina shipwright” sold land in Norfolk County (Tyrrell deeds 4-1:492 and Norfolk deeds 23:34). The 1765 purchase in the Tyrrell deeds actually says Thomas Gaims but we proved conclusively that the clerk miscopied the earlier deed book—Gaims was definitely Grimes (see D-17).

These four shipwrights and the Norfolk connections would be good circumstantial evidence that your Taylors came from Norfolk County, Virginia, even if the 1785 Richard Taylor deed did not exist.

We have now finished reading the Tyrrell deeds page-by-page to 1774 (D-14) and the Martin deeds 1774 to 1784 (D-15) for deeds in the Conetoe Creek area. A much better plot of the various tracts could be made if the North Carolina patents were read in Raleigh and if the Martin/Edgecombe deeds were read for 1784 to about 1810, but we did not think this necessary. It would take a lot of time. Should anyone wish to do this, we have listed at D-18 the deeds we have found that relate to the Conetoe area.

Three other points. First, since the Norfolk connection has been found, we will not have the Tyrrell court minutes 1735-1774 read in Raleigh. Second, the Samuel Taylor and sons on Flat Swamp were never found to be associated in any way with your Taylors. Third, the Richard Taylor deed of 1785 shows why we search records long after the prime period. Richard had been gone from Norfolk County over twenty-five years before he sold his land in Virginia.

Sincerely,

William Thorndale