William SPEIGHT

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• FamilySearch ID: L5GD-K43
• Name: Wm SPEIGHT
• _UID: FF7EE377D6A44EED9CE21B2D22F2B0C2D84D
• Will: 22 Jun 1774, Wake County, North Carolina

Notes:

William was the son of John Speight and wife Elizabeth. The proof of this can be found in the will of William Powell of Isle of Wight Co, VA, Bk 4, p. 85. John Speight and brother William Speight were the executors of William Powell's will dated 13 Sep 1747, pr 12 Nov 1747. William Speight of Edgecombe Co, NC sold 75 acres in Isle of Wight Co, VA given to William Speight by the last will & testament of William Powell, dec'd. William Powell gave a deed of gift to his dau-in-lw Elizabeth Speight now the wife of John Speight 70 acres in Lower Parish of Isle of Wight during her natural life land on the western branch in Isle of Wight. Bk 4, p. 200 deeds, 1732. Deed BK 4, p. 230 to my loving kinsman John Speight and his wife Elizabeth 50 acres adj. Richard Hutchins & Jacob Powell (1733). William Speight & Abigail sold land in Edgecombe (Halifax deed Bk 8, p. 431 stating he was of Johnston Co, NC. Wake formed in 1771 from Johnston Co, NC.

On 18 November 1760, William Speight requested his brother John's patent of 300 acres be transferred to him since John had recently been killed (Colonial Records of North Carolina, Vol. 6, p. 341).

NOTES BY DORIS SCOTT: William Speight was probably born in Virginia as the Speights were in Nansemond County, Virginia, in the late 1600?s and early 1700?s before migrating to North Carolina through Perquimans and Chowan Counties and settling in Craven County in the section that became Johnston County in 1746 and then part of Wake County in 1770. Several land grants are recorded for William Speight in Craven County from 1751 to 1765. William Speight served as a captain in the Johnston County Militia in the French and Indian Wars in 1754.

SPEIGHT, William will R. 22 June 1774 p40
In the Name of GOD Amen this Second day of July in the Year of Man's Redemption One thousand Seven hundred Seventy and three I William Speight of Wake County in the Province of North Carolina planter, being Sick, and weak, in Body but of perfect mind and Memory do make and Ordain this my last Will and Testament in the following manner and form
Imprimis,
I lend unto Abigail my Well beloved Wife the use and profit of the Plantation whereon I live with the Land in that Tract thereunto Adjoining being by Estemation two hundred and forty Acres and two Negroe Men both Named Dick and One Negroe Woman Named Sarah, and two feather Beds and furnitures thereto belonging and Six Cows and their Calves two Steers and three Yearlings and three Mares One Rhoan One Bay & One Black in Coular and One black Horse or Gelding and all my Hogs raised at the said Plantation One Iron pot and One third part of my Pewter and One side Saddle, and my Plantation Tools, & Casks and Six Chairs and One Disk and One Small walnut Table and One pine Do and One linin Wheel and One Woollen Do and One washing Tubb and One water pail and One piggin, which use or lent of the above said things to my abovesaid Wife I desire may be and remain for and during her Widowhood or Natural Life and no longer.

Item, I give unto my Daughter Winifred Speight and to her heirs and assigns forever One fether bed and furniture and One Chest that was my Mothers and five Chairs and four Cows and their Calves, and two Steers and One Rhoan Coulared Horse or Gelding and One side Sadle and One third part of my Pewter, and as soon as the above lent of the Negroe Man Dick which was my Mothers is Expired to my said Wife either by the Marriage or Death of my said Wife for him to revert to my said Daughter Winifred as & in manner of the other things above given.

Item I give to my Daughter Patience Speight and to her Heirs and Assigns forever the Revertion of the other Negro Man Dick above lent to my said Wife after the Expiration of the said lent and One feather bed and furniture One Ovill Table and five Chairs and One black Walnut Chest and One third part of Pewter and four Cows and their Calves, and four two Year old Cattle-

Item I give unto my Son William Speight and to his Heirs and Assigns forever my Cooper Alembick or Still One Whip Saw and One Crosscutt Saw, and the Reversion of the Land and Plantation above lent to my said Wife after the Expiration of the said lent.

Item it is my further desire in Case any of my said Children theretofore or hereafter Named should depart this life without issue for the Reversion of their Estate to be Distributed in equal Degree among my Surviving Children or their Representatives Except in Case of the Death of Either of my Maiden Daughters above said Winifred or Patience should as afore said die without issue. that before such distribution the Survivor of the two may Inheritt the Negroe Man above given if left alive at the time of the Death of the other Sister and that the same two Maiden Daughters may Inherett an Equal Moiety of the Money That the Negro Woman Sarah above lent to my said Wife shall sell for at fair Sale after the lent to my Wife is Expired,

Item I give to Reuben Hunter Junr my Grandson and to his Heirs and Assigns forever the Survey of Land whereon William _______ Now lives and ten pounds proclamation Money to pay for the taking out or the Issuing a Deed for the Same at the Opening of the Propriators Land Office, and my Negroe Boy Named Pompey and four heifers three Years old each,and One Grey Horse and One New Small Gun, and in case He should depart this life without issue and under the Age of


SUMMARY: Wife Abigail: plantation wheron I now live; two negro men, both named Dick; one negro women named Sarah; household goods; livestock; plantation tools. Daughter Winifred SPEIGHT: furniture; livestock; negro Dick to come to her at remarriage or death of wife. Daughter Patience SPEIGHT: other negroDick at decease of wife; furniture; livestock. Son William SPEIGHT: home plantation after death of wife. Grandson Reuben HUNTER, Jr: land whereon William SIMMONS now lives; negro Pompey; livestock. If grandson should die without issue or before 21, revert to his brother Dempsey HUNTER. Daughter Mary MIATE: negro Sam. Son-in-law Silius GREEN to get right to land surveyed for William BROWN, Jr., and sold to Abner LEEGATT and by him sold to me. Rest equally divided among my 8 children: son William SPEIGHT, daughters Sarah HUNTER, Lydia LANE, Charity GREEN, Betty TURNER, Mary MIATE, Winifred SPEIGHT, Patience SPEIGHT. 2 July 1773. Executors: Wife Abigail and son William. Witnesses: William UTLEY, Isham (x) UTLEY, Jesse LANE.

Will:
SPEIGHT, William will R. 22 June 1774 p40
In the name of God, Amen. Wife Abigail: plantation wheron I now
live; two negro men, both named Dick; one negro women named Sarah;
household goods; livestock; plantation tools. Daughter Winifred
SPEIGHT: furniture; livestock; negro Dick to come to her at remarriage
or death of wife. Daughter Patience SPEIGHT: other negroDick at
decease of wife; furniture; livestock. Son William SPEIGHT: home
plantation after death of wife. Grandson Reuben HUNTER, Jr: land
whereon William SIMMONS now lives; negro Pompey; livestock. If
grandson should die without issue or before 21, revert to his brother
Dempsey HUNTER. Daughter Mary MIATE: negro Sam. Son-in-law Silius
GREEN to get right to land surveyed for William BROWN, Jr., and sold
to Abner LEEGATT and by him sold to me. Rest equally divided among my
8 children: son William SPEIGHT, daughters Sarah HUNTER, Lydia LANE,
Charity GREEN, Betty TURNER, Mary MIATE, Winifred SPEIGHT, Patience
SPEIGHT. 2 July 1773. Executors: Wife Abigail and son William.
Witnesses: William UTLEY, Isham (x) UTLEY, Jesse LANE.

William married Abigail SCARTH about 1740-1744 in Johnston County, North Carolina. Abigail was born about 1724 in Johnson Co., (Wake Co.) North Carolina; died on 17 Jan 1781 in Wake County, North Carolina. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1. Penelope SPEIGHT was born est 1742; and died.
2. Lydia SPEIGHT was born about 1743 in Wake County, North Carolina; and died.
3. William SPEIGHT was born about 1745-1751 in Wake County, North Carolina; died about 1809 in Dickson County, Tennessee.
4. Charity SPEIGHT was born about 1745 in Wake County, North Carolina; and died.
5. Patience SPEIGHT was born about 1747 in North Carolina; and died.
6. Mary SPEIGHT was born on 11 Jan 1748 in Edgecombe, North Carolina, British Colonial America; was christened on 5 Nov 1752 in Wake, North Carolina; died on 15 Jul 1834 in Raleigh, Wake, North Carolina; was buried in 1834 in Myatt Graveyard, North of Myatt's Mill, Wake County, Nort Carolina.
7. Sarah SPEIGHT was born about 1749 in Wake County, North Carolina; and died.
8. Elizabeth "Betty" SPEIGHT was born about 1750 in Wake County, North Carolina; and died.
9. Winifred SPEIGHT was born about 1755 in North Carolina; died about 1840 in Wake County, North Carolina.

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• FamilySearch ID: G3WQ-Q9R
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Notes:

John Speight and brother William Speight were the executors of William Powell's will dated 13 Sep 1747, pr 12 Nov 1747.

John married Elizabeth (Powell) in 1708 in Isle Of Wight, Virginia, Colonial USA. Elizabeth was born about 1690 in Isle Of Wight, Virginia, Colonial USA; died about 1755 in Isle Of Wight, Virginia, Colonial USA. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

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• FamilySearch ID: G3WQ-Q9G
• _UID: D583316FAA634D278C0272072CE98B3959DF

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• FamilySearch ID: G3PK-J6W
• Name: William SPEIGHT
• _UID: 6796C57B1FD44B68949C6C4508C9BFEA3E0D

Notes:

Cannot prove correct "John Speight" father... at this time.

William Speight, son of John Speight, was born about 1665 at Speights Run, Virginia. When William was about eighteen years old his family moved to Somerton Creek (now Pittmantown), Virginia. In 1686 he left home and settled in nearby Isle of Wight County, Virginia. William worked for Henry Southen as a cooper (barrel maker). William was the first Speight with the occupation as a barrel maker and not a planter. William married and had one son, John. William and his family lived in Isle of Wight County for about five years. William and his brother, Francis lived a short distance from each other then in 1691 the Speight families played "musical chairs" with their land. William left the Isle of Wight County and returned to the manor house that his father had left him at Somerton Creek. His brother, Francis, went to the Speights Run plantation, father, John, left Somerton Creek and went to Sunbury, where he and his wife lived at the old home place of our immigrant ancestor, Francis. William continued to expand his land holdings at the Somerton Creek farm. Between 1701 and 1711 he had acquired five hundred and fifteen acres and eleven indentured servants. When William's brother, Francis, died the courts appointed William as guardian of his nineteen-year-old nephew, Moses Speight.

In 1728 the legislatures of Virginia and North Carolina commissioned a surveying team to lay off the line. William Byrd of Virginia and Colonel Edward Moseley of Edenton were appointed Surveyor Generals. Mr. Byrd published his famous book, William's Byrd's Histories of the Dividing Line Betwixt Virginia and North Carolina mentioned William Speight and his cousin, Thomas. In 1733 when Colonel Moseley published a map of North Carolina, William's plantation was divided, leaving his house and orchard in Virginia and his tobacco house in North Carolina. This is how William became known as State Line William. William resided at the Somerton Creek plantation in Virginia until his death in 1735. The grave of William and his wife have not been identified, but most likely they were buried on the Somerton Creek farm.

William married Elizabeth TAYLOR in Perquimans, North Carolina. Elizabeth was born on 16 Oct 1654 in Rappahannock, Virginia, British Colonial America; died about 1730 in Sunbury, Gates, North Carolina. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

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• FamilySearch ID: GZ59-C9J
• _UID: 29C7FA8FC9DD4FD39AFC31DA4A5390445335

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• FamilySearch ID: LBCQ-S2X
• _UID: E8E22A157EBD48A6835BE0532CCFF472A4B3

Notes:

Arrived 1635 according to Passenger List Index COLDHAM, PETER WILSON. The Complete Book of Emigrants.

Francis Speight was born in 1614 in England. His parentage is unknown. He is our immigrant ancestor coming to America in 1635 at the age of twenty-one. Almost all Speight's in America (except the family of North Carolina Governor Richard Dobbs Speight whose line died out when his son went childless) descend from Francis Speight. He sailed from Gravesend, England aboard the ship, "Thomas and John", captained by Richard Lambard. Before the ship left the English port, a minister would have certificated that the Virginia bound passengers conformed to doctrine and practices of The Church of England, followed by an oath of allegiance to King James I.

It is anyone's guess as to what Francis might have been thinking and feeling the day he boarded the ship for America. He was leaving kin and friends. Sailing to America in the early 1600s was anything but a pleasant voyage. They usually did not leave on schedule because they had to wait for a favorable wind and a rising tide to get under way. This was before they had a steam-tug to pull the ship out to sea. The ships were crowded, cold, drafty, and damp. Passengers would have squeezed into any available space not taken up by the crew, cargo, baggage, and farm animals. The ships were never designed for passengers. Crossing the Atlantic was always a dreadful passage with most of the passengers getting sick. There was also the possibility that the ship would not make the voyage. Although the sailing vessels were well constructed and made of sturdy material, they were no matches for the fierce storms of the Atlantic. If the ship made the voyage one out of five passengers died en route. Living conditions were deplorable. The passengers ate poorly. They would have cooked a communal meal in a large cast iron pot. When the sea was rough, meals could not be cooked because of the danger of fire aboard the ship. For days they would eat raw food. Francis would have packed necessities for insuring his survival in the New World in a sea trunk.

He arrived at Jamestown, Virginia on June 16, 1635 after two and half months at sea with one hundred and three other passengers. Just twenty-eight years after the founding of Jamestown. Jamestown was commonly regarded as the first permanent English settlement in what is now the United States. Francis was among fifteen people indentured to Puritan leader William Eyres for seven years working on Chuckatuck Creek Plantation in what is now Suffolk, Virginia.. Indentured servants worked out their loans for passage money to America (known as a temporary white slave). If you were an indentured servant it was not the person, but the work of the servant that was owned by the master. That was a large different than a black slave being owned by their master. In the 1600s three-quarters of all English colonists served as indentured servants. Half of them died before their service was completed. One quarter remained poor afterward and the other quarter achieved a degree of prosperity. As a whole, women fared somewhat better than men. A female servant who had completed her service could easily find a husband. Francis was the first and only indentured servant of the Speight Family and the first one to have indentured servants working for him.

After his seven-year term as an indentured slave, on May 23, 1642 Francis received fifty acres of wilderness land from Mr. Eyres in Indian Branch (now Lake Prince in Suffolk, Virginia). This meant that Francis had saved enough money for the legal fees, tools, seed, and livestock needed to become a planter (which then meant farmer). Indian Branch was an important waterway. Flat bottom boats transported hogsheads of tobacco to market. Francis married in 1642 shortly after his land was deeded to him. Francis' first priority would have been building shelter and digging a well for his family. The family house would have been a thatched roof hut. Its roof was made by bundling reeds from a nearby swamp. "Cottages" had an end-hooded chimney and a hard packed dirt floor. In the English tradition they were called cottages not cabins or huts. In the spring of 1643 the Speights were blessed with their first child, John. In 1644 the Opechancanough Indians attempted to run the colonists from their land, killing almost five hundred colonists, but the population had grown too large for them to succeed.

After eight years at Indian Branch, Francis and his family moved eight miles south through wilderness to land located on Old Major's Creek and Mill Creek, which was later named Speights Run, which made up the head waters of the Nansemond River. The journey would have been a tedious, tiresome, and dangerous one. There were no roads, dangerous Indians. Again Francis' first priority would have been to build shelter and to dig a well for his family. In 1650 Francis Speight and James Arrorke jointing patented fifty acres on the north side of Speights Run. In 1653 Francis and his wife had their second child, William. In 1654 at the age of forty, Francis, his wife, and two sons made their final move to a three hundred acre tobacco farm in Sunbury, North Carolina. This land was located on higher ground bordering a stream (present day Raynor Swamp) that connects with Bennett's Creek, which flows into the Chowan River. Locating near the waterway was necessary for transporting the half-ton tobacco packed hogsheads. For the third time Francis would have to build shelter for his family. One of the reasons for moving would have been to obtain fresh land as tobacco quickly depleted the soil.

Life for Francis and his family was not easy. They had to be strong. Routine tasks of plowing, planting, tool sharpening, baking, mending, washing clothes, grinding corn, milking cows, butchering meat, brewing beer (water was usually contaminated), and other backbreaking efforts required to keep a Virginia plantation together. Raising tobacco was a very labor-intensive job (picking suckers, worms, and insects from the tobacco plants). The fields were cleared and barns built. From sunup to sundown, each family member worked at tasks necessary to survive. Later in 1654 Francis acquired six indentured servants. This group consisted of five males, Abraham Standford, James Prouce, Alexander Dunbarr, John Jackson, Thomas Lightoll and one female, Mary Wells. With the arrival of help, work began on a large house. Mrs. Speight and Mary Wells would have had their hands full feeding eight adults and two children plus all the other daily tasks.

Francis still owned the land at Speights Run and in 1664 he gave that land to his oldest son, John who would be known as "John of Speights Run". Since the land had been left uncultivated for ten years it was ready once again for growing tobacco.

By 1682 Francis was a widower and closed his house at Sunbury. He went north and patented five hundred acres of land on Somerton Creek (now Pittmantown), Virginia where he lived until his death. At this location he had ten indentured servants, Eliza White, John Harris, Walter Price, William Booker, Hum Green, Edward Harris, Richard Catach, Jane Catach, Thomas, Frost, and Richard Jones. This was the largest and last piece of land owned by Francis. In the winter of 1684 Francis died at the age of seventy. The burial place of Francis is unknown. He could be buried in Pittmantown, the place he spent his last two years or more likely he was taken back to Sunbury where he would be laid to rest beside his beloved wife on their plantation.

Francis married Elizbeth O'ROURKE. Elizbeth died in 1682. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

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