History and genealogy of Peter Montague, of Nansemond and ...

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DESCENDANTS OF PETER MONTAGUE.
Upper Norfolk consisted in what is now known as Nansemond
County, and the present Norfolk and Princess Anne Counties were
called lower Norfolk until 1691. The Clerk's office and all the
:records of Nansemond were destroyed by fire in 1736 [Hening's
Statutes, Vol. 4, p. 526], and all the records were again destroyed by
fire in February, 1866, and the history of Peter Montague during
these years is entirely and irrevocably lost. It is known, however,
that he resided in Nansemond in 1652 and 1653. He represented
that Co. in the House of Burgesses under dates of Nov. 25, 1652,
and July 5, 1653, and Col. Samuel Mathews was a member from Co.
of Warwick during the same time [Hen. Va. Stat. Vol. 1, pp. 373-
379]. His children were probably born in this Co. That his mind
.often reverted to his family in England is evidenced by the fact that
his children are named after his brothers and sisters in his native
country, and the names of William, Peter, Ann, Margaret and Eliza-
beth are perpetuated in the new world. Having still another daugh-
ter he named her after his mother,—Ellen (or Eleanor). This is
regarded as corroborative evidence of the correctness of his pedigree
as stated in the Introduction. Of the exact date of the birth of his
children no record exists. There is no doubt that they were faith-
fully recorded in the church records of that County, but those records
have shared the fate of other early church records of Va. No church
records exist back of Nov. 30, 1743. Nansemond was divided into
two parishes, Lower or Suffolk parish, and the Upper parish in which
was the town of Suffolk. In the Lower parish were two old brick
churches, one on the left and the other on the right bank of the
Nansemond river, each about ten miles from Suffolk. On a hill one
mile back of Suffolk was an old graveyard, a very beautiful spot.
But it too has disappeared, having long since been plowed up. On
the 3d of November, 1647, Peter bought one hundred acres of land
in County Nansemond [Va. Land Office, Book 2, p. 130]. This
makes a total of 450 acres of land which he owned in that County,
the purchase of which extended from 1637 to 1647 a space of ten
years. This land is not mentioned in his will and probably he gave
it to his son Peter, as we find Peter disposing of land in that Co.
after his father's death. Probably before the year 1654 he had
removed his family from Nansemond to Lancaster Co. and made a
home on the north bank of the river Rappahannock, probably not far
from the present county seat of Lancaster. That he owned consid-