All records of Hamilton Parish prior to 1874 are believed to be lost. We have a photocopy of a booklet called "Hamilton Parish, 1730-1876: an Anniversary Discourse delivered by the Rector, Rev. John S. Lindsay, in St. James' Church, Warrenton, Va., on the eighth Sunday after Trinity, August 6th, 1876." (Baltimore: Printing House of Sherwood & Co., 1876) 15 pp. It states (p. 5-6) "A relic of these times [the ministry of Rev. James Keith, ca. 1745-58]-- a prayer book of the Church of England purchased in London for this parish and bearing upon its lid in gilt figures, the date of the purchae -- 1749 -- was the one sacred heirloom of St. James' Church until the 13th of Nov., 1874, when it was destroyed by fire, with the parish register, in the burning of the Warren Green Hotel. Strange fatality -- the mauscript records of Hamilton Parish reaching back a hundred years, telling of the births and burials and marriages of the ancestors of many of you here were wantonly consumed in our County Clerk's office nearly fifty years ago*, and then, less than two years since, the book that contained the record of like events nearer to your time and to your hearts, with the old prayer book from the mother church ..." *Bishop Meade makes this statement [about the destruction of the register] twice (chapters 55 and 56) in his "Old Churches [, Ministers and Families of Virginia]. In chapter 56 he says the book "was torn up, page after page, by the clerks or others, for the purpose of lighting cigars or pipes." But in reading the minutes of the County Court of Fauquier I find it recorded that Dr. T. Withers, being called to the stand as a witness in a case pending on the 27th of October, 1841, testified substantially as follows: That in the year 1803 or 1804, when a schoolboy in the Warrenton Academy, taught by Parson O'Neal, he had often seen in the academy building the Parish Register, and that it had then been mutilated by the boys of the school. "These two accounts of the destruction of the Register, apparently contradictory, may be reconciled by the supposition that the book was badly torn by the boys of the Academy, and then removed to the Clerk's office for safe keeping; but as its torn and tattered appearance made the impression that it was valueless, its leaves were devoted to the ignoble purposes mentioned by the Bishop." So, according to the preceding, the colonial register (that should cover the years 1730 to 1780+) was first mutilated at the Warrenton Academy by ca. 1804, and destroyed at the courthouse before 1841. A later register was destroyed in the hotel fire of 1874. The author, above, does not distinguish between the parish register (the list of births, marriages, and deaths) and the vestry book (the minutes of the business meetings of the parish government). Those records were often keep separately. The parish vestry was an arm of the colonial government (overseeing public welfare), and it is likely that the vestry book would have been deposited at the court house after disestablishment. (The vestry book of Dettingen Parish, Prince William County, survived because after disestablishment it was given to the County Overseers of the Poor who continued to record their minutes there.) It is possible that the book destroyed at the Fauquier County court house was the vestry book and not the register. If so, the last record we have of the colonial register is its presence at the Warrenton Acadamy ca. 1804. If it survived at all it would be in tatters. By some miracle it might be in private hands. If so, it has never come to light. Sincerely, Donald L. Wilson, Virginiana Librarian Ruth E. Lloyd Information Center for Genealogy and Local History (RELIC) Prince William Public Library System Bull Run Regional Library, 8051 Ashton Avenue Manassas, VA 20109-2892 (703) 792-4540 www.pwcgov.org/library/services/relic -----Original Message----- From: Archidon2@aol.com [mailto:Archidon2@aol.com] Sent: Sunday, March 12, 2000 8:16 AM To: VAPWILLI-L@rootsweb.com Subject: [VAPWILLI-L] Hamilton Parish Does anyone know where I can find records of Hamilton Parish from 1740-1770? Have these records been lost? ==== VAPWILLI Mailing List ==== Search this list's archived messages! http://searches.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/listsearch.pl