William Rountree of Gloucester County

There seems to have been one more early immigrant who produced a child named William Rountree. This William Rountree was born c1722 in Virginia and was living in Gloucester County in 1756-7 when he served in the French and Indian War. The published papers of George Washington contain two documents mentioning him in that regard. The first is his appearance on a militia roll of Captain Charles Lewis’s company dated 13 July 1756, which identifies him as a 6’3” schoolteacher who enlisted in Gloucester County in May 1756 at the age of 34.1  The composition of the unit was unusual in that the company consisted of just 39 soldiers drawn from 16 different counties. That William Rountree was actually living in or very near to Gloucester County is proven by the second document dated a year later, a “List of the men brought by John Wiatt from Gloucester, July-August 1757.”2  This list identifies “William Rowntree” in the same way — 34 years old, born in Virginia, 6’3” in height — except that his occupation was “planter.”

His identification as a native of Virginia implies a father living in Virginia circa 1722. Does this represent yet another Rountree immigration? It seems likely. There does not seem to be an unaccounted-for William Rountree among the Nansemond County families. Perhaps significantly, the 39 members of Lewis’s company in 1756 came from 16 different counties, but not a single one was from Nansemond or any of the other counties along the James River.

In adjacent Middlesex County, for there is a single record in Christ Church parish of the birth of a daughter to William and Margaret Rountree on 26 April 1752.3

Unfortunately, as with so many Virginia locales, Gloucester County’s records before the mid-1800s are non-existent.  In adjacent Middlesex County, though, there is a deed of 4 February 1775 from William and Sally Bird to William Roundtree “of Gloucester County” for 55 aces of land in Middlesex County.4  The following year on William Roundtree, now of Prince William County, sold the land back to William Bird.5.  There are no deeds to him in Prince William County.

There is also a record of a “Will. Rowntree” signing a petition dated 23 May 1780 to establish a ferry across the York River in Gloucester County6 A quick check of tax records shows no William Rountree in Gloucester in 1789, though a Samuel Rountree appears there in 1799.

 

  1. Virginia’s Colonial Soldiers, Lloyd DeWitt Bockstruck (1988), pp73-74. [↩]
  2. Ibid., p97. [↩]
  3. he Parish Register of Christ Church Parish, Middlesex County, Virginia 1653-1812, (Clearfield Co., reprint 1990), p288 [↩]
  4. Middlesex County Deed Book 9, p172.  This is extremely blurry in the FHL film. [↩]
  5. Middlesex County Deed Book 9, Part 2, p356. [↩]
  6. Virginia Genealogical Society Quarterly, Vol. 29, No. 4, p260. [↩]