In late December 1804 a French frigate, Le President, paused at New Point Comfort to
wait out a winter storm. Aboard were Napoleon Bonaparte’s youngest brother, Jerome, and his
pregnant wife, Elizabeth (Betsy) Patterson of Baltimore. They had hoped to reach France in time
for Napoleon’s coronation, but were delayed. When Napoleon learned about the marriage, he
was furious, as he wanted his siblings to marry into royal families across Europe. When the
young couple touched land, Betsy was denied permission to set foot in continental Europe by
order of Napoleon, who demanded that the marriage annulled. Betsy gave birth to a son in
London on July 7, 1805, and then returned to Baltimore. Jerome, who yielded to his brother’s
demands, wed a German princess although his first marriage had yet to be dissolved. Betsy
returned alone to America with her son and never spoke to Jerome again. In 1815 the Maryland
General Assembly enacted a special decree that made the divorce official.
​
​By Martha McCartney, Passage from Mathews County: Lost Landscapes, Untold Stories

The James Store foundation has been rebuilt and the building lowered back onto the new foundation. Storybound Construction was able to locate handmade bricks that were a good match for the original bricks.

Currently the new floors are being installed and the remaining items on the construction schedule are:
        1.  Attic timber repair
        2.  Replace rotted exterior boards with cedar boards
        3.  Repair rotted timbers in the attic area
        4.  Paint entire building
        5.  Construct new entry stoop and handicap access

Dominion Power reconnected the electrical service to the original pre-project location on the wall of the  adjacent
building which is the Mathews County Library. Mathews County building inspector did not approve the electrical inspection
after Dominion Power connected the electrical service. The inspection report cited the location of the service connection
as not existing at the physical service address and the proximity to another service connection on the same wall. After a three week delay, and negotiations with Mathews County Building inspector and Dominion Power, the electrical connection was approved as installed so we could move forward.

The location of this service had been in place since 1998 and ultimately the previous successful inspection was relied upon to come to a solution to this problem.  Moving the service connection would have created additional costs and placing the connection on the James Store might have compromised the historical integrity of the building. Since the footprint of the building effectively covers the entire land plot, we had no good options for locating the electrical service to the service address. The current location of the electrical connection is approximately six feet from the corner of the James Store. The electrical line is buried underground and comes into the James Store from under the foundation.

Storybound Construction and Marsha Carlton did an onsite inspection to locate historical features requested by Martha McCartney to update the signage in the building.  We located the slash mark numbering of the original beams, pinpointed the location of original rosehead nails, measured locations of window and door openings etc.

​Mathews County Historical Society-owned Thomas James Store (ca. 1820) is in the process of being lifted, readjusted on the site, and having its foundation repaired. The project has been funded through the Emergency Supplemental Historical Preservation Funds provided by the U.S. Department of the Interior National Park Service. The Virginia Department of Historic Resources approved the lift and administers the project.
 
The team overseeing the project for the society is comprised of Marsha Carlton –Project Manager, John Hoffman – Building and Grounds Chairman and Roger Emig – Thomas James Store Curator. Storybound Construction is the contractor.
 
The following pictures show the progress to date. Completion of the work is difficult to determine , but plans are underway to reopen the store to visitors and resume society events this fall.

​By Martha McCartney, Passage from Mathews County: Lost Landscapes, Untold Stories

On May 12, 1729, at 1 A.M., five men and a woman quietly slipped aboard the sloop John and Elizabeth, which anchored at the Piankatank River’s mouth. After they seized the vessel’s tackle, they quickly overpowered the sloop’s master, John Grymes of King George County, and his servant, Alexander Abbott, who were sound asleep below deck. Grymes later said that he was forcibly placed in his cabin and that the sloop’s hatch was secured. The self-proclaimed pirates’ leader, and his accomplices stole Grymes’ and Abbott’s clothing and other personal belongings. Then, at daybreak, the would-be pirates weighed anchor. However, because none of them were unfamiliar with the Piankatank’s channel, the sloop quickly ran aground. 

When a high tide finally put the vessel afloat, currents carried it across the Chesapeake Bay to the Tangier Islands. Some of the men went ashore to obtain drinking water, but left hastily because they thought that the island’s inhabitants seemed suspicious of their motives. Over the next few days, the John and Elizabeth drifted up and down the bay, at the mercy of the tides and the sloop’s inexperienced crew. Finally, when a strong wind blew the sloop toward the mouth of the York River, the pirates allowed their two prisoners to go ashore in a small flat, clothed in some raw hides that were stowed aboard. 

​When the pirates were caught, they were identified as Edmund Williams, George Caves, George Cole alias Sanders, Edward Edwards, Jeremiah Smith, and Mary Critchett. All six were hauled before the Court of Admiralty on August 14 th , whereupon Grymes and Abbott identified them as convict servants. Passenger manifests for vessels that brought convicts to Virginia in 1727 and 1728 include the names of George Cole, Jeremiah Smith, and Mary Critchett, convicted felons who came to Virginia aboard ships registered in the Rappahannock River. Edward Edwards, a convict who arrived in early 1725, seems to have been the Piankatank pirates’ ringleader. All of six of the accused were found guilty and sentenced to death.

Taken from Lost Landscapes, Untold Stories: Mathews County, Virginia.

From 1713 on, anyone exporting tobacco from Virginia was obliged to have it inspected before it was sent overseas. This preliminary step ensured that the colony’s tobacco was of predictably good quality and uniformity. Planters would send their weighty barrels or “hogsheads” of tobacco to the nearest tobacco inspection warehouse, where the dried leaves were examined and then repacked and stored until they could be sent to customs officials. Until 1775, the custom house at Yorktown served planters whose land was along the York, Severn, Ware, North, East, and Piankatank Rivers.

Once a planter’s tobacco had been inspected, they would be given a receipt or “tobacco note,” specifying how much tobacco had been approved for export. These pieces of paper quickly became a convenient medium of exchange. Security was especially important since tobacco was equivalent to currency. Therefore, tobacco inspection warehouses were supposed to be securely locked and enclosed within a fence. The owner of a tobacco inspection warehouse, or “rolling-house,” was allowed to charge a flat fee for storage. An annual performance-based salary was set for those who performed the inspections. Because tobacco inspection warehouses usually were enlarged according to need, they often were asymmetrical and irregularly shaped.

In November 1738, the House of Burgesses decided to have a tobacco inspection warehouse built on the east side of the East (or Easternmost) River, on land that belonged to the late Thomas Hayes’ heirs. This location would have been convenient to planters in Kingston and Ware Parishes. The East River warehouse was several miles inland, but it was susceptible to tidal flooding. In 1751 when a major storm impacted coastal Virginia, planters whose tobacco had been ruined while it was stored in the East River warehouse sought reimbursement from the government. Assembly members agreed but required those seeking compensation to prove that their tobacco had been inspected and that it was stored in the warehouse at the time of the storm. Thanks to this stipulation, we know that more than a third of the 14,563 pounds of tobacco damaged at the East River warehouse belonged to renowned botanist John Clayton. We also know that at least five local women filed compensatory claims. The East River tobacco inspection warehouse was still functioning in 1765, but by the close of the decade, its official operations seem to have ceased. Today, the site of the East River warehouse is known as Williams Wharf.

From Lost Landscapes, Untold Stories: Mathews County, Virginia.
Martha McCartney