The Butts Family of New Kent, Virginia

By Neil Allen Bristow

Both John and Thomas Butts were present in New Kent County around 1700. John was apparently a son of Peter Butts, who is said to have come to Virginia from London.¹   John was associated with David Clarkson in claiming headrights. There is no record of a marriage or children.

Thomas seems to have been a younger son of Peter Butts and his wife Alice. Peter died before 1704 when Alice was charged with quit rent.²   She registered the births of several slaves in Saint Peter's Parish, where she died in 1718.³

Thomas married Catherine McGehee (various spellings) in 1713. They had six known children:

1. Peter BUTTS b: 01 Sep 1714 in St. Peters Parish, New Kent.
2. John BUTTS b: 27 Jan 1716 in St. Peters Parish, New Kent.
3. Frances BUTTS b: 10 Nov 1719 in St. Peters Parish, New Kent.
4. Elenor BUTTS b: 20 Nov 1722 in St. Peters Parish, New Kent. Some sources give her name as Alice. She does not appear in Saint Peter's Register, but was listed in court records as Elenor with her husband, Charles Simmons, and her siblings in an agreement to settle her father's estate.⁴
5. Sarah BUTTS b: 04 Jan 1725 in St. Peters Parish, New Kent.
6. Daniel BUTTS b: 20 Sep 1729 in St. Peters Parish, New Kent.

Several of the children moved below the James River to Southampton County, where they and their descendants appear in court records in the 1750s.

If there was an Elizabeth Butts who was the mother of Julius Clarkson (1749-1831), as Samuel W. Hughes came to believe,⁵ she might have been a granddaughter or great-granddaughter of Peter Butts, either by John and an unknown wife or perhaps by another (unknown) son. That members of the Butts and Clarkson families were neighbors and business associates is clear, but the lack of records keeps us from demonstrating family ties.

Notes:

¹ Pedigree "Our Family" <worldconnect.rootsweb.com> 12 Aug 2002 by Patti Martin <fcspatti@hotmail.com> 10 Sep 2002.

² Virginia Tax Records (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1983), 272.

³ Parish Register of Saint Peter's, New Kent County, Virginia, 1680-1787 (Bowie, MD: Heritage Books, 1988 [1904]).

⁴ Southampton County Virginia Deed Book 1, 1749 to 1753, 504-506. 25 Apr 1753, Agreement on the division of THOMAS BUTTS of New Kent County. Transcribed by Forrest King.

⁵ Samuel W. Hughes to Mrs Martha Woodruff Hiden, 6 Mar 1934. George Harrison Sanford King papers, Virginia Historical Society. Mssl K5823 a FA1 sec 1 (Clarkson).