Buckingham County: The French Connection

What nationality were the French?

I am Susan Whiles and come from Matthieu Agee’s son Anthony

My French families who settled at Manakin Towne (Goochland Co, VA) in the early 1700s include Agee, Bondurant, Ford, McAshan, Hall and…all the way back to our Gateway Ancestor Walter Aston.

Hi Joanne,

For years I suspected that my gg-grandfather, Jacob Agee Baber, was connected to the Agees, although it was reported otherwise. I finally found a source that suggested his mother was Elizabeth Agee and cautiously added her to my tree. Well, the DNA/tree matches were phenomenal–Agees dominate the matches. I also have Bondurant, Chastain, Faure/Ford, Gandovin, Garrett, Guerrant, Perreau/Perrow, and Trabue. Nice to see so many cousins.

Carole Jensen

All right, here goes……….. In researching my grandmother’s MOTHER’s Guerrant family, I am interested in the connection to Buckingham…. there appears to be a Guerrant house in Arvonia, Peter Guerrant, c. 1805?). My grandmother, Constance Guerrant Rigby (Figg) was born and raised in Christiansburg, the daughter of James Rigby Jr. and Constance Lacy Guerrant, who was daughter and grand daughter respectively of Maj William Gibson Guerrant C.S.A., and John Reveley Guerrant.
My grandparents are buried at Grace Episcopal Church in Bremo Bluff, as my grandfather, Rev. James Alfred Figg, was Rector there in the 1960’s until his death in 1968. As a young boy, we would visit them in Fork Union in the summer, and spend time at Lower Bremo, with Grandmother’s friend, Mrs. Cocke, and swim in the “swimmin’ hole”. we are direct line to Daniel Guerrant the Immigrant, on the ship “Nassau” in 1700, settled at Manakin. My question is WHO HOW and WHEN the Guerrants went to Southwestern Va, to settle at Pilot, near Christiansburg. There is also a Guerrant plantation, “Algoma” near Calloway, Va…that having belonged to Samuel S. Guerrant.

I don’t know about Sally Austin Guerrant (Norvell)…….. James Alfred Figg III New York City

It is believed that the first American Godsey’s arrived in Charlestown S.C. in 1688 and around 1700 made the trip to Manakin Towne. They were French Huguenots. The Godseys were in the French and Indian War and Revolutionary War and were with Daniel Morgan’s raiders and with George Washington as he crossed the Delaware. They spread from Henrico to Goochland, Buckingham and later Appomattox. They also went to SW Virginia very early, and continued westward.

Dear Reader:

Probably half the people who are following this blog have Ayres blood. The descendants of Mary Leake, “Polly,” Ayres have French blood through her mother. Her mother was French. She was Judith Faure/Ford. Her father was the young boy immigrant Pierre Faure of Manakin. Judith’s brother Jacques/James lived in Buckingham and appears to have built the oldest part of the house of “Humanity Hall,” where the Holmans lived from 1807 to 1848. In old age he moved to a house across from Old Buckingham Church. His daughter Anna married the well-known Rev. Rene Chanstain who was the first minister of Old Buckingham Church and who died in the 1820’s with an obituary published in the Richmond paper. Anna Ford Chastain and her husband are buried in the front of the church. Anna had a number of sisters (one was the ancestor of Dr. Yeck) and had three brothers, including Capt. Baoz Ford. He commanded a troop of soldiers from Buckingham County who were raised largely by him after the destruction of Washington D.C. by the British (1814). Capt. Boaz Ford (b. 1749) was the father of four children: Samuel (1790-1816)–a person of substantial wealth, Mrs. Magdalen Maupin of Missouri, Mariah, the first wife of Col. John B. Ayres (he later married Mary Marshall Moseley), and Ambrose Ford. Mrs. Mariah Ford Ayres died young and left small children including a daughter Elizabeth Hannah,Ayres, who became the wife of Dr. Robert Holman Ayres of Hillsboro, Ohio (the descendants are the offspring of Lula Van Pelt Holman of Hopewell, Virginia). Lula lived as a child with Dr. Ayres at Eldridge Mills, Buckingham County, Virginia. Mariah Ford Ayres’ brother Ambrose Ford died young leaving two children: Addison and Ambrose. Addison died young. Ambrose Ford, Jr. was styled as Ambrose Ford, Esq. and reported by his brother-in-law to have been “a most excellent man–and wealthy.” He married Elizabeth Hales Holman, daughter of William and Jane Ayres Holman (her grandmother was Judith Ford). Elizabeth Hales Holman Ford died at “Humanity Hall,” at twenty-seven, leaving two children: George Burette who died at the University of Virginia–while a student there and Jane Elizabeth–called Bettie. She was the wife of Dr. Thomas Pride Shields of “Mt. Elba,” Cumberland County (they removed to Marysville, Ohio after The War and left descendants including Miss Mary Longbrake–a noted banking personage of Chicago–who just recently died at an advanced age). Ambrose Ford married as a second wife the sister of Mary Marshall Moseley Ayres–Frances Moseley. They lived at “Humanity Hall” about four years and then moved to an old Carrington place, “Newstead,” on James River at Cartersville. He also had a son Ambrose who married Julia Harrison, daughter of Dr. Edward Jacquelin Harrison, son of Carter Henry Harrison–all of Cumberland. Dr. Charles Sydnor of Raleigh is a descendant of Ambrose Ford, II and his wife Frances, Fannie, Marshall Moseley.

My grandmother was a LeSueur.
Ruby Talley-Smith is the author of a book and a very knowledgeable researcher. If you do an internet search of her name, you can find the book and very much info that she has freely shared with others on the forum boards.