1607 - 1850 Colonial Period
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The Virginia Company Land was allocated to colonial tenants in exchange for 50% of their agricultural yield paid back to the Company. Later, the land was divided into patents through the headright system, rewarding colonists who paid for others' passage to the New World with acreage.
The tract of land tracing back to the Irby family was named "Kimages and Taylors", a two-fold reference to the river. It refers to both Kimages Creek and Taylor's Ferry, which implies the existence of a nearby ferry business.
An 1863 Confederate map by Jeremy Francis Gilmer confirms the presence of enslaved persons on Rice land. Dots indicating probable enslaved quarters are located between the house of an “Overseer” and residences of the Harrison family.
The role of enslaved people in supporting agriculture, industry and lifestyle, while building wealth and prosperity for white colonists, must be recognized. Through primary documents and Emmaus Baptist Church records, many names have been identified, as the beginning of a narrative that might be told.
Timeline Dates
- Virginia Company Land (1600s)
- Old Westbury: Hugh Cox (1635- 1700s) -> Cocke Family (1754-1793)
- Kimages and Taylors / New Westbury: William Irby (pre-1766) -> Walker Family (1766-1799)
- Old Westbury + Kimages and Taylors/New Westbury: Samuel Tyler/Tyler Family -> W.A. and W.M. Harrison
- Berkeley: Berkeley Hundred (1619-1692) -----> Benjamin Harrison II (1692-1900s)
- All parts: united under King Fulton (1920s)
Amelia Johnson's Gold Award report:
Colonial settlers arrived at Jamestown in 1607, forever impacting Virginian land and its native inhabitants. After colonial arrival, the land that is now the Rice Center passed from Weyanoke control to that of the English colonists. In 1618, the Virginia Company of London took for themselves around 3000 acres of “Common Land” including the area that is now the VCU Rice Rivers Center. This land was divided amongst tenants with the agreement that half of the agricultural yield would go to support the Company1. The English retained control of the land through settlement and force, and conflicts with Native American groups continued as the colonists pressured the tribes to move away. By 1634, 511 colonists were counted living between Weyanoke Point and the nearby Shirley Plantation2, likely all colonists.
In 1635, Hugh Cox received 500 acres of Company Land through the headright system, which allocated property provided that the owner would pay to transport indentured laborers to work the land. Cox’s land was “located between Kimoges Creek and the land of Walter Aston”3 placing it on the western side of the modern Rice tract. At an unknown date but by 1754, 217 acres of this piece were passed to Littlebury Cocke through an intermediary owner and were referred to as Westbury4. The subsequent chain of title for the Westbury property is well-documented and tells half of the story of the land that is now the Rice Center through history.
Westbury remained in the Cocke family for a few generations. After Littlebury Cocke’s death in 1773, it was bequeathed to Rebecca Hubbard Cocke and Rebecca Cocke, his wife and daughter. Two days after the presentation of his will Rebecca Cocke entered into a marriage compact with James Bray Johnson and inherited Westbury and its 36 enslaved people:5 Betty, Pam, Rachel, Will, Tom, Frank, Taga, Suky, Jenny, Lucinda, Rosamond, Lucy, Dick, Abram, Affrica, Beck, Moses, Diley, Wilson, Jacob, Aaron, Mary, Jenny, Mourning, Judith, Kitty, Dick, Scott, Glasgow, Sarah, Cutehenah, Judith, Harry, Sam, Betty, and Silvia6. Rebecca also owned six enslaved people named Bett, Pat, Rachael, Tom, Taga, and Will, whom Littlebury had conveyed to her five years prior but continued working on his estate7. Rebecca Cocke and James Bray Johnson had a daughter named Elizabeth Bray Johnson. James Bray Johnson died in 1779, however8, and Rebecca Cocke remarried John Stith in 1782, tax records crediting Stith with the Westbury tract for 5 years until Rebecca Cocke’s death9. Afterward, Westbury returned to Rebecca Hubbard Cocke, who had outlived both her husband and daughter. She died in 1793, gifting Westbury to her granddaughter Elizabeth Bray Johnson Tyler10, who had married Samuel Tyler.
Sam Tyler was a notable man in his time, the cousin of the 10th US President John Tyler and serving in the House of Delegates, the governor’s council, as the head of the College of William and Mary, and as a chancellor in the Williamsburg District Court11. It was through his marriage to Elizabeth Bray that the Westbury tract passed to the Tyler family, where it was combined with several other parcels of land that now comprise a large section of the Rice Center.
One such parcel was 373 acres of land that passed through the Irby and Walker families. There is no documentation for how this piece of the land was taken from the Weyanoke Tribe to its first colonial owners, but a 1766 deed shows that it was attributed to William Irby, who that year sold it to Mariner Robert Walker, referring to the tract as “Kemidges” after the creek12. 175513 and 177014 maps show the existence of “Taylor’s Ferry” in the vicinity of that land, which explains the name change of Walker’s tract from “Kemidges” to “Kimages and Taylors”, as it was called in his 1780 will that left this parcel to his son Robert Walker. The will also named enslaved persons to be given to the late Mariner Robert Walker’s wife and daughter. “Peter, Grace, George, children of Old George, and Sukey and Hannah, daughters of Nan” were left to his daughter Sarah Walker, while other unnamed enslaved people were left to his wife15. The Kimages and Taylors land was at some point transferred from Robert Walker to his brother Thomas Walker, who sold it to Samuel Tyler in 1799. The deed described the land as being bounded “towards the south by James River, towards the west by the lands of [...] Lucy Hardyman called Hales, towards the north by the main road, and towards the East by the lands of Benjamin Harrison and Kimages Creek”16. With this purchase, Samuel Tyler added 373 acres to the 217 acre Westbury tract, developing the land and building a domestic complex near the creek17.
Tax records attribute Westbury, Kimages and Taylors, and other parcels of land to Samuel Tyler until his death in 1812, though the land is considered part of his estate until 1818. The other parcels mentioned were a 407 acre section of land sold to Tyler by Sarah and John Stagg in 1800, likely located North of the Rice Center, and an undescribed 75 acre section which had been in Tyler’s possession since 179418]. In later deeds the parcel purchased from Littlebury Cocke was referred to as “Old Westbury” while the other parcels Samuel Tyler bought and developed were referred to as “New Westbury”. In 1818, Tyler’s widow Elizabeth Bray sold Old Westbury to their son Lewis Tyler for $119, who subsequently sold it to John B. Christian in 183320. ⅘ of New Westbury meanwhile passed to Tyler’s daughter Chloe and her husband Conway Whittle, who sold it to Christian in 183821. The remaining ⅕ passed to Tyler’s other daughter Adelaide and her husband William Armstrong, who also sold it to Christian in 184222.
That same year, Christian, who had acquired all of Old and New Westbury, sold 717.2 acres to William A. Harrison, which included the 217 acres of Littlebury Cocke’s Old Westbury and 500.2 acres of the New Westbury parcels. This was the upper or western tract of the full property Christian owned. W. A. Harrison sold 33 acres of that purchase to Shirley Plantation in 1844, leaving him with 684.2 acres23. As for the lower or eastern tract, Christian sold “515 acres called Westbury” to Augustus P. Crenshaw in 184524, who sold it to William M. Harrison in 185125.
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1 Martha W. McCartney, “The Walter Aston Site (44CC178) and Westbury Plantation (44CC103, 44CC179, and 44CC180,” Virginia Department of Historic Resources, 1989: 19.
2 McCartney, 37.
3 McCartney, 41.
4 McCartney, 70.
5 McCartney, 72.
6 CCC Deeds & Wills, 1766-1774: 496-499.
7 McCartney, 71.
8 McCartney, 75.
9 McCartney, 77.
10 The Virginia Historical Society, “The Cocke Family,” The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 5 (1898): 83, https://books.google.com/books?id=7b8RAAAAYAAJ; and McCartney, 77.
11 McCartney, 77.
12 Benjamin B. Weisiger, Charles City County, Virginia Records, 1737-1774: With Several 17th Century Fragments, 1986: 2.
13 Joshua Fry, Peter Jefferson, and Thomas Jefferys, A map of the most inhabited part of Virginia containing the whole province of Maryland with part of Pensilvania, New Jersey and North Carolina, London, Thos. Jefferys, 1755, Map, https://www.loc.gov/item/74693166/.
14 John Henry and Thomas Jefferys., A new and accurate map of Virginia wherein most of the counties are laid down from actual surveys. With a concise account of the number of inhabitants, the trade, soil, and produce of that Province, London, Thos. Jefferys, 1770, Map, https://www.loc.gov/item/74693087/.
15 Robert Walker &C By Etc v. Exts of Robert Walker (1789), 1789-001, Virginia Memory, https://www.lva.virginia.gov/chancery/case_detail.asp?CFN=036-1789-001
16 CCC Deed Book 4, pg 477-9; and McCartney, 78.
17 McCartney, 78.
18 Ibid.
19 CCC Deed Book 6, pg 186-6.
20 McCartney, 80.
21 Ibid.
22 Ibid.
23 McCartney, 81.
24 CCC Deed Book 9, pg 438.
25 CCC Deed Book 10, pg 290.