Charles Rountree, father of Thomas Rountree (1733-1805)

 

We have two clues to the background of the immigrant Thomas Rountree.

  • First, his youngest son Joseph Rountree wrote in his 1867 statement that his father Thomas Rountree “was the son of Charles and Lydia Rountree” and his mother was “Eva Sturgis, daughter of Andrew and Rachel Sturgis.”  He also wrote that his father emigrated from Ireland and related a family legend of his ancestry that seems mostly fantasy.
  • Second, we know that Thomas Rountree was from Richhill in Kilmore civil parish, County Armagh.. According to a 1760 Belfast newspaper notice, Thomas Rountree and John Sturgis of Richhill, County Armagh were scheduled to sail from Londonderry, Ireland on 15 June 1760 in the ship Willey, bound for Philadelphia and New Castle.1. The village of Richhill is just a brisk walk from Mulladry in County Armagh, where we know Rountrees lived at the time.

Early Rountrees in County Armagh

Almost all early records for Armagh were destroyed, mainly in the Four Courts Fire of 1922, including the records for its Kilmore parish.   So we know nothing of the relationships of the Rountrees living there.   However, a handful of fortuitously preserved records provide a few tantalizing clues.

The earliest record of Rountrees in County Armagh is the presence of “Widdow Rowntry” and “Thomas Rowntry” on the Hearth Tax roll of 1664, as two of the five housekeepers in Mullaghdreene (as Mulladry was then styled.)2  A Thomas Rountree was listed as a tenant in the county in 1713 and a gravestone there commenmorates the 1709 death of Jane, daughter of Thomas Rountree.3

We also kmow that a William Rountree leased 120 acres in Mulladry in 1693.4  He moved roughly 40 miles southwest into Cavan County about 1709, where on 6 February 1709/10 William Rowntree “formerly of Mulladry in the parish of Killmore and County of Ardmagh” leased 106 acres in Shercock, County Cavan.5  A few years later on 6 February 1715/6 he gifted that land to his son William Rountree Junior in a deed witnessed by his daughter Lettice Rountree.6  About the same time William Rountree Senior married a widow named Anne.  On 9 March 1715/6, in accordance with a marriage agreement, he placed the 120 acres in Mulladry, County Armagh in trust with a Charles Rountree “of Lattuan in the County of Monaghan, Gent.” for Anne Rountree in the event that she survived him and in lieu of her dower interest in his other property.7.

How this William Rountree might have been related to the other Rountrees of Armagh is unknown, but he appears to have been the first Rountree to settle in County Cavan.

Charles Rountree, father of Thomas Rountree

Charles Rountree was enumerated in 1737 as a freeholder leasing 56 acres on the townland of Derryhale adjoining Mulladry, with a three-lives lease “for ye lives of John, Tho’s & Wm. Rountree sons of ye sd Charles.”8  Men who held land for a lifetime were eligible to vote. These are records of those eligible to vote in 1737/8.))  The same document lists a three-lives lease to Charles Rountree for 36½ acres in the adjacent townland of Mulladry for the lives of himself, his wife “Lidy” and his son John — a lease evidently made before the births of Thomas and William.  They lived on the Mulladry land, as the land in Derryhale did not include a house.

not far away was Thomas Rountree’s eventual father-in-law Andrew Sturgis, leasing 25 acres for the lives of himself and his sons John and Thomas.9

The only other Rountree in County Armagh in the 1737 poll list was a Thomas Rountree, also of Mulladry, who was leasing 46 acres for the lives of his sons John and Richard, and the life of Francis, son of William Rountree.10  Thomas Rountree, perhaps the father or brother of Charles Rountree, had witnessed a deed in Armagh in 1726.11  Thomas bought land in Markethill, just south of Richhill, in 1742 as Thomas Rountree “the elder”, witnessed by Richard Rountree, presumably his son.12

The 1753 Armagh Poll Book listed Charles Rowntree with the same properties as in 1737.13   John Rowntree (Rowntry), perhaps his son, was listed consecutively.  Thomas Rowntree and Richard Rowntree, both in Mulladry, were the only other Rountrees in the county and Andrew Sturgis was listed elsewhere in Kilmore parish.  Both Charles Rountree and John Rountree were later listed as overseers of roads in the Kilmore parish of Mulladry in 1771.14

Charles Rountree is fortuitously mentioned in several surviving records.  Charles Rountree of Mulladry  was given a power of attorney in 1760 and had it retracted in 1765.15  He was leasing a house in Markethill, about six miles south of Richhill, in 1768.16  And on 1 January 1780 a Charles Rountree witnessed a deed of gift from a widow named Ann Jackson to her son John Jackson of Mullatra — the same John Jackson whose wife was Jane Rountree, daughter of John Rountree of Mulladry.1718

Charles Rountree apparently lived until 1782.  A Charles Rountree of Mulladry left a will in County Armagh dated 5 November 1781 and proved in 1782.19  Unfortunately, the will itself no longer exists.  Only the entry in an index survives.  Probably his son John Rountree, identified as of Derryhale, left a will probated in 1801 which was also lost.20

Inaccurate Internet Family Trees

Internet family trees, none of which provide sources, claim that Charles Rountree was born in 1681, married Lydia McMann in 1712 and died about 1759.   These dates, which appear to be guesses, seem at least a decade or two too early for the facts we know.   And they don’t account for Charles Rountree’s presence in Mulladry in 1760, 1765, 1768, 1771 or 1780.  Nor do they seem based on Irish research, as they do not mention that Charles had sons named John and William.

These dates seem to have been chosen in order to make Charles Rountree be the son left behind when his father and older siblings emigrated to Nansemond County, Virginia — as related in the family legend described by   Joseph Rountree’s 1867 document.   The facts do not support this.  Nor did Joseph Rountree’s document state that his grandfather was the child left behind, rather that his family “sprung” from that child — a claim that is probably an embellishment rather than strictly true.

The legend itself has inconsistencies that make portions of it unlikely, which I’ve covered elsewhere.

Most of these internet trees also suggest that Charles Rountree’s father was Francis Rountree, apparently based on the supposition published in Joseph G. Rountree II’s 1959 book and a very cursory glance at the Nansemond and Chowan county records.  In fact, there is persuasive evidence that Francis Rountree was not the immigrant father of legend, but rather a son of that immigrant father and brother to Robert, John and Thomas Rountree.  Indeed, Francis Rountree’s will named numerous children, none of them named Charles.  There is no evidence in Virginia or North Carolina records that any of the Rountree immigrants to Nansemond County left a relative behind.  Nor, for that matter, is there any evidence that the Nansemond Rountrees came from Ireland.

Further, modern DNA results for Rountree descendants suggest that Thomas Rountree (and therefore his father Charles) was more closely related to the Rountrees who settled in New Kent County, Virginia than to the Rountrees of Nansemond County.

  1. Belfast News-Letter, issue of 27 May 1760, page 3, column 1. Also in issues of 20 May and 13 June. [↩]
  2. Archivium Hibernicum, Vol. 8 (1941), p.195. See also Seanchas Ardmhacha: Journal of the Armagh Diocesan Historical Society, Vol. 3, No. 1 (1958), p.138. [↩]
  3. Both mentioned in Fred William Rowntree’s article in Armagh Families, p56.  The original source of the former has not yet been identified. [↩]
  4. Referenced in Memorial No. 7617, Transcripts of Memorials of Deeds, Conveyances and Wills, Vol. 15, p317. [↩]
  5. Memorial No. 518, Transcripts of Memorials of Deeds, Conveyances and Wills, Vol. 2, p377. [↩]
  6. Memorial No. 7293, Transcripts of Memorials of Deeds, Conveyances and Wills, Vol. 15, p221. [↩]
  7. Memorial No. 7617, Transcripts of Memorials of Deeds, Conveyances and Wills, Vol. 15, p317. [↩]
  8. PRONI Freeholders database at apps.proni.gov.uk, see ProniRef D/1928/F/1A. [↩]
  9. PRONI Freeholders database at apps.proni.gov.uk, see ProniRef D/1928/F/1A. [↩]
  10. PRONI Freeholders database at apps.proni.gov.uk, see ProniRef D/1928/F/1A. [↩]
  11. Transcripts of Deeds, Conveyances and Wills, Vol. 80, p306. [↩]
  12. Transcripts of Deeds, Conveyances and Wills, Vol. 192, p150. [↩]
  13. Armagh Poll Book 1753, p18 and p33, accessed website of Public Records Office of Northern Ireland, ProniRef T/808/14936 [↩]
  14. Record courtesy of Fred Rountree. [↩]
  15. Belfast News-Letter, Issue of 5 April 1765, page 2, column 2. [↩]
  16. Transcripts of Deeds, Conveyances and Wills, Vol. 272, p593.  A lease to George McCann for a house in Markethill with an “adjoining house now in the possession of Charles Rowntree… (bordered by) a ditch enclosing Charles Rountree’s holding.” [↩]
  17. Irish Transcripts of Deeds, Conveyances and Wills, Vol. 332, p197 [↩]
  18. Memorial No. 316423, Transcripts of Memorials of Deeds, Conveyances and Wills, Vol. 499, p273. This Memorial mentions land leased to John Rountree in 1747 in Mulladry that was assigned to “Jane Rountree his daughter who intermarried with the said John (Jackson)”. [↩]
  19. Armagh Diocesan Wills Index, FHL FIlm 007246594, image 129 of 240. [↩]
  20. Listed directly below the entry for Charles Rountree on the same page. [↩]