PAMUNKEY DAVENPORTS WITH THE KENNEDY CONNECTION OR INTEREST: Another wrestle with the identification of Davenport Kennedy--Heretofore we have estimated Davenport Kennedy (hereafter DK) to have been a minor (age 14-18) when he indentured himself to Thomas Montague in Sep1752. Recent findings and a closer look at the nature of the recorded indenture in Louisa deeds prompts the deduction that DK was already of legal age when he agreed to be Thomas Montague's apprentice for four years in order to learn carpentry. Consider: 1. Only DK signed the indenture agreement. (If aminor, his signature meant nothing by itself insofar as an enforceable contract was concerned.) 2. If a minor and himself making the contract, no father or guardian existing, the County Court or the Churchwardens of his Parish (St. Martin's in DK's case) stood in loco parentis, and the approbation of one or the other had to be stated as a part of the contract. No such consent is stated in the DK to Montague contract. For example, the 1757 Apprenticeship Indenture (Orange County Deeds 12:508) of minor John Alsop to Henry Gambill (Jr.), carpenter and millwright of Louisa, a Davenport cousin, clearly states that Alsop "with the approval of the County Court of Orange binds himself" etc. The phrase was standard and the action required where an independent minor was the apprenticeship contractor. Where the Churchwardens did the binding, generally for poor orphans or children taken from unfit parents, they so stated. Generally, a Court Order to the Churchwardens preceded the Churchwarden involvement. 3. Montague made no commitments as to Freedom Dues, i.e., what DK would receive from his Master upon completion of his indenture, viz. a set of tools, a suit of clothes, an amount of money, a cow, or whatever as a minimal token of payment for the labor of the apprenticeship period. Such a statement was standard, particularly where a minor was involved. Montague agreed only to train DK in house carpentry in return for DK's four years of labor. 4. The Apprenticeship Indenture was recorded in Louisa in the mid-1760s, more than ten years after the contract was made, and at least six years after it was completed, hence its recording had nothing to do with incipient enforcement of contract provisions. (There was no indication of Montague-DK or vice versa litigation in Louisa Court minutes, but there was an awarding of a contract to Thomas Montague to repair the Louisa Court House concurrent to the recording of DK's indenture. DK was actively engaged in carpentry himself at this time and was a semi-resident of Louisa--his land, in Richard Davenport's name, lay astride the Hanover-Louisa land. DK may have expected the Court House repair work to have been rightfully his, possibly recorded his long completed indenture to Montague as proof of his having achieved craftsmanship under a Master, hence advertised himself for future contract awards by the Court. Montague had no logical reason for recording the Indenture after it had expired. DK's logical reasons for doing so, so long after it had completed, were limited to proving or establishing journeyman carpentry status. All of this being so, or approximate thereto, we conclude that DK was of age 21 or older when he made the indenture, had found it necessary or desirable for whatever reason to become a craftsman, had found Thomas Montague, a Master Carpenter, and traded four years of labor for being taught the Art & Mystery of House Carpentry. DK's 1752 election of Carpentry was concurrent to the widowed Richard Davenport's move from Louisa to Albemarle and marrying the Widow Elizabeth Hamner as his second wife. The now established fact that DK occupied Richard's land astride the Hanover-Louisa Line from the completion of his Apprenticeship c1756 until his death in 1782, suggests a relationship of some sort, the nature of which has constantly eluded us, for when DK died, Richard had no role in or reference to DK's estate, for he evicted DK's widow and eight orphans, and placed his son John on the plantation where DK and family had lived, etc. The enigma of DK's parentage will be solved, we expect, when we determine what the relationship of DK was to Richard, although all of DK's Davenport associations were with the children of Martin, Sr. He possibly became a Carpenter because Richard had ended his prospects of being a Planter, although, if so, that scenario played out strangely, for Richard kept his Louisa land and DK was its resident Planter, of grains, not tobacco, as well as a Master Carpenter until his death. As a sidelight to DK's apprenticeship, it could not have been a comfortable period, for Thomas Montague was under financial stress throughout DK's apprenticeship. Montague mortgaged and remortgaged his land, livestock, household furniture, including a black walnut table, all but his carpenter tools, repetitiously for five years, beginning six months after DK's indenture, and was foreclosed and sold out a year after DK's apprenticeship allegedly had been completed. (We researched Montague as possibility of having been DK's father-in-law. Yet undetermined, so still possibly so, for Mary, DK's widow, does not appear to have been the mother of his eight children.) We take this no further now, but we should move DK's birth year back to 1730-31 at least, which makes for another review of who his father might have been. Other opinions and expertise invited. John Scott Davenport Holmdel, NJ