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Doggett, Ann (c. 1700, VA - c. 1770, VA)

Doggett_Ann_3879

Doggett, Ann


Summary

Father: Benjamin Doggett, Jr.
Mother: Betty (Thompson?)

Birth: c. 1700, Lancaster Co., VA
Birth Source: Estimated from son Thomas's birth

Death: c. 1770, Prince William Co., VA
Death Source: Estimated from last known legal appearance

Spouse1: George Reeves

Narrative


Children of George Reeves and Ann Doggett:
  1. Thomas Reeve, b. 17 Oct 1719
  2. Benjamin Reeves, b. 4 Jan 1721
  3. Elizabeth Reeves, b. c 1727, probably m. William Haggard
  4. George Reeves, b. before 1731
  5. John Reeves, b. c. 1732
  6. Moses Reeves, b. c. 1734
  7. Asa Reeves, b. c. 1736

Probable Child of George Reeve and Ann Doggett:
  1. Reuben Reeves, b. bef 1726

Ann Doggett had a younger half-brother named Reuben. The name Reuben appears frequently in the Reeves families that moved to South Carolina. The estate of Moses Reeves mentions money being spent for the education of Reuben Clanton. Reuben Clanton is thought to be a son of Jemima Clanton, who appears to have been a daughter of Moses. Reuben Reeves of Maury Co., Tennessee who came from South Carolina and is known through DNA to be related to the Prince William Reeves was likely a son of Moses or John. In addition, Reuben Reaves son of William Reeves of Bedford Co., Tennessee is also from South Carolina and is also known through DNA to be related to the Prince William Reeves family.

Since George Reeves’s origins have proven elusive, knowing more about the early life and background of his wife Ann Doggett Reeves may help to identify his family. The first documented reference to George Reeves was the birth of his son Thomas on 17 October 1719 in Northumberland County, Virginia; the second was the birth of his son Benjamin on 4 January 1721. (Note that traditional English naming conventions held that the first son should be named after the paternal grandfather and the second son after the maternal grandfather.)

This chronology suggests that George and Ann were married by the start of 1719. Establishing where Ann Doggett was at that time helps establish where George Reeves should have been in order to meet, court, and marry her.

Ann’s grandfather Rev. Benjamin Doggett (1636-1682) was a Cambridge-educated Anglican clergyman. He settled in Lancaster Co., VA, before January 1669/70, and died about 1682. He was minister of both St. Mary’s Whitechapel and Christ Church parishes in Lancaster County.

In 1680, Doggett purchased 350 acres along the western branch of the Corotoman River in Lancaster County from George Flowers. A 1694 land record identifies the land as being adjacent property owned by Elmore George and Thomas Thompson and on or near George’s Creek in northwestern Lancaster County. Thompson died about this time leaving a nuncupative will which left bequests to Benjamin and Betty Doggett – believed to be Thompson’s daughter and Ann Doggett Reeves’s mother – and to Nicholas George, who may also have been related to Doggett and Thompson. George was ancestor of the large George family of Lancaster and Northumberland County and the person for whom George’s Creek was named. The Corotoman River, which adjoined some of this property, served as the boundary between St. Mary’s Whitechapel parish in the northwestern portion of the county and Christ Church parish in the southern region.

Benjamin Doggett (1665-1723) was the eldest son of Rev. Benjamin Doggett and the father of Ann Doggett Reeves. He married first, about 1690, a woman named Betty, probable daughter of Thomas Thompson, who named them as heirs in his nuncupative Lancaster County will. Following her death, he married second about 1711 Mrs. Mary (----) Threlkeld, widow of Christopher Threlkeld of Northumberland County. By his first marriage, Doggett was the father of eight children, including Ann Reeves. By his second marriage, he fathered three additional children. In addition to her ten siblings and half-siblings, Ann Doggett Reeves also had five Threlkeld step-siblings, four step-brothers and one step-sister.

Ann Doggett Reeves’s circle of relatives extended throughout Lancaster, Richmond, and Northumberland Counties. Her extended family ties – through the marriages of her aunts, uncles, siblings, step-siblings, and first cousins – included ties to the Bushrod, Edwards, Frond, Yerby, Pinkard, Ascough, George, Chilton, and Therriott families, among others.

Benjamin Doggett lived on 150 acres of land bequeathed to him by his father near the western branch of Corotoman River and George’s Creek. Maps depicting Northumberland, Richmond, and Lancaster counties show that the western branch of the Corotoman extends through Lancaster (the county seat) northwards to the county line separating Lancaster and Northumberland. It seems that Benjamin Doggett, Christopher Threlkeld (who lived just inside Northumberland in the region between the Corotoman and Wicomico Rivers), and Thomas Reeves (who lived in the area between Farnham and Morattico Creeks in Richmond County before moving into Northumberland) all lived within a couple of miles of the boundaries separating Lancaster, Richmond, and Northumberland Counties. A triangle extending from Morattico Creek to Wicomico River and southward to the town of Lancaster would encompass this area on a modern map.

Ann Doggett Reeves was likely born on the 150-acre tract left by Reverend Benjamin Doggett to his son Benjamin, as it continued to be Benjamin Doggett’s home plantation until his death in 1723. Benjamin Doggett seems to have been a moderately well-to-do farmer in Lancaster County; he is mentioned in several wills, served as a witness in legal documents, and, in 1710, was appointed constable (the same office held by Thomas Reeves in adjoining Richmond County), a position of trust in the local community.

Northumberland County figures prominently in Ann Doggett’s family. Her father’s farm lay not far from the boundary between Lancaster and Northumberland Counties, and, although a resident of Lancaster County, he married a woman from Northumberland in 1711. As stepfather to Christopher Threlkeld’s minor children, he continued to have legal interests in Northumberland throughout the decade. Ann herself was married and living in Northumberland County by 1719. Her brother John also settled in Northumberland about this time. John lived near the boundary with Richmond County, and for a time seems to have resided there (he baptized a child in Richmond County in 1725). He died in Northumberland in 1740, however, and another brother, William, died in there in 1751.

Overall, the analysis of Ann’s extended family suggests that she was living in northwestern Lancaster County, near the boundaries with Richmond and Northumberland Counties, in the vicinity of the western branch of the Corotoman River when she met and married George Reeves. Reeves was probably living in the same area – either northwestern Lancaster, southern Richmond, or southwestern Northumberland – when he met and married Ann Doggett.

This page has the following file(s) attached:-


Sources


Doggetts and Other Cousins, website maintained by James D. Doggett (http://www.doggettfam.org).
Lancaster Co., VA, Deed Book 4.
Ida J. Lee, Wills of Lancaster Co., VA.
Gertrude E. Gray, Virginia Northern Neck Land Grants, 1694-1742, Vol. 1, p. 6.

Note that multiple connections existed between the Dodson and Everett families in Richmond County; the land on which Thomas Reeves was described as living between 1703 and 1706 had in fact been sold to Dodson by Daniel Everett. In Northumberland County, George Everett – believed by Everett researchers to be Daniel’s brother — sold land to Christopher Threlkell and then witnessed his will, appearing at court with Benjamin Doggett to probate that document in 1711. Everett’s family connections, as well as the location of the land owned by him, are discussed in Mrs. L. C. Anderson, “The Taylor Family of Northumberland and Lancaster Counties, Virginia,” The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 35, No. 2 (April 1927), pp. 211-218.