1. Nathaniel Bradford of Accomack County, Virginia - Lower ...

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Nathaniel as Attorney
On 2 March 1682/3 Nathaniel appeared in Northampton County court as an attorney for Robert Richardson
in a suit for debt against Robert Riggs. 282 Robert and Susan Richardson (Nathaniel’s brother and sister-inlaw)
had well before this date moved out of Accomack and settled in Somerset County, Maryland, and
Robert himself died in September of the previous year, 283 so perhaps Nathaniel’s suit was on behalf of
Robert’s estate or on behalf of his son. In any case, though Nathaniel acted as an attorney in this instance, it
doesn’t mean he was a practicing lawyer. There were professional attorneys in Accomack during
Nathaniel’s lifetime – John Fawsett, who purchased land from Nathaniel, was “the King’s attorney” in
Accomack for a time, and Charles Holden, against whom Nathaniel brought a paternity suit, made his
living as a lawyer before becoming the King’s attorney for the eastern shore. 284 However, in essence an
attorney was simply a designated individual who had authority to represent another individual before the
court – and this meant that any one could in theory appear before the court as an attorney for another. In
this case, since Robert Richardson lived outside the county, he probably designated his kinsman Nathaniel
as his representative to bring the suit in Northampton.
Nathaniel acted as an attorney on one other occasion, when on 20 April 1674 he appeared on behalf of
Miles Halbert, who was being sued by Isaac Jacob in Accomack court for a debt. 285 Halbert had been a
headright of Colonel Edmund Scarburgh’s in 1670 and was an employee on Scarburgh’s estate during that
year, in which he gave a deposition as witness to the currier Martin Moore’s assault of the Colonel. 286 It’s
unknown what Halbert’s connection to Nathaniel might have been. Perhaps he became Nathaniel’s servant
Page 51 of 74 Copyright 2008 Adam M. Bradford