The Cultural History of Marlborough, Virginia: An Archeological and Historical Investigation of the Port Town for Stafford County and the Plantation of John Mercer, Including Data Supplied by Frank M. Setzler and Oscar H. DarterWatkins, C. Malcolm
History
The Cultural History of Marlborough, Virginia: An Archeological and Historical Investigation of the Port Town for Stafford County and the Plantation of John Mercer, Including Data Supplied by Frank M. Setzler and Oscar H. Darter
Watkins, C. Malcolm
Excavations (Archaeology) -- Virginia -- Marlborough; Marlborough (Va.) -- Antiquities; Mercer, John, 1704-1768; Plantation life -- Virginia
The extra row of lots and the court's instructions to Savage to make his
survey with "Regard to the Buildings and Improvements then Standing"
seem to be correlated. Savage made a significant notation on his survey
plat: "The lots marked 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, & 21 joining to the Creek are
in possession of Mr. John Mercer who claims them under Robinson,
Berryman, Pope & Parry, & under Ballard & under John Waugh dec^{ed}, all
w^{ch} he says have been built on and saved." On the Buckner plat the
lots bearing these numbers comprise a block of six in the southwest
corner of the town, extending up from the creek in two 3-tiered rows
(fig. 2). The plat included the lots near the head of the "gutt" where
the courthouse appears to have stood, as well as the land on which
Structure B (the foundation of Mercer's mansion) was excavated. The lots
appear in the same relationship on Savage's survey, except that the new
row bounds them on the west.
We know that the Robinson-Berryman-Pope-Parry lot was the same lot
originally granted to Robert Alexander in 1691, numbered 19 on
Buckner's plat. It was granted to its later owners according to the
Gregg survey in 1707, and was then described as "being the first Lott
known in the Survey Platt by number 1." From Mercer we have learned
already that Gregg made "his number 1 in the corner at Buckner's 19."
The other five lots were claimed under Ballard and John Waugh. Waugh was
granted one lot in 1691--Buckner's number 20--and acquired two more in
1707. All three appear to have been in the corner block of six lots. In
any case, these six lots equal the number of lots known to have been
granted the above-listed lot holders. Both of Ballard's lots were
granted in 1707. His lot number 19 (Gregg survey), where Mercer first
lived, is described as "bounding Easterly with a lott surveyed for Mr.
John Waugh Westerly with a Narrow street Northerly with a lott not yet
surveyed, Southerly with the first main Street which is parallel with
Potomac Creek." We do not know which of Waugh's lots is meant, nor do we
know Gregg's street plan, except that it was at odds with Buckner's. But
it is probable that Ballard's lot (Gregg's number 19) was the same as
Buckner's number 21, that the crosstown street on Gregg's plat lay to
the south of the lot rather than to the north of it, as on Buckner's
plat, and that one of Waugh's lots lay to the east of it.[62]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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