A Round Robin - The Walloons and French at Jamestown in 1621

A Round Robin

 

The term round-robin was originally used to describe a document signed by multiple parties in a circle to make it more difficult to determine the order in which it was signed, thus preventing the  instigator from being identified.  Each signature in a round robin is of equal importance and thus, political retribution is avoidable. This form of petitioning was in common usage. 

The Walloons and French at Jamestown in 1621

                     c. 2010 by Billie Jo Monger

 

The 1621 promise of certain "Walloons and French" to emigrate to Virginia maybe verified in Martha W. McCartney’s Virginia Immigrants and Adventures as it is an index where many of  the following individuals are cited by name.  Just as other Virginia colonists, many of their individual land records are also later documented in Nugent’s Cavaliers and Pioneers.

A Round Robin agreement was signed by the Walloons [French-speaking people of southern Belgium] and French in 1621 in which they stated their intention to come to inhabit the Virginia colony/Jamestowne.  The following statement was found in the centre of a large sheet of paper written in French, "We promise my Lord Ambassador of the Most Serene King of Great Britain to go and inhabit in Virginia, a land under his Majesty's obedience, as soon as conveniently may be, and this under the conditions to be carried out in the articles we have cocumunicated to the said Ambassador, and not otherwise, on the faith of which we have unanimously signed this present with our sign manual."

 

The signatures and the calling of each person are appended in the form of a round robin, and in an outer circle the person signing states whether he is married, and the number of his children.  This document, "Signature of such Wallons and French as offer themselfs to goe into Verginia" was endorsed by Sir Dudley Carleton.

 

The names with an asterisk have only signed their marks. There were a total of 227, including 55 men, 41 women, 129 children, and two servants:

Mousnier de la Montagne, medical student; marrying man

Mousnier de la Montagne, apothecary and surgeon; marrying man

Jacque Conne, tiller of the earth; wife and two children

Henry Lambert, woolen draper; wife
*George Béava, porter; wife and one child
Michel Du Pon, hatter; wife and two children
Jan Bullt, labourer; wife and four children
Paul de Pasar, weaver; wife and two children
Antoine Grenier, gardener; wife

Jean Gourdeman, labourer; wife and five children
Jean Campion, wool carder; wife and four children
*Jan De La Met, labourer; young man
*Antoine Martin; wife and one child

Francois Fourdrin, leather dresser; young man
*Jan Leca, labourer; wife and five children
Theodore Dufour, draper; wife and two children
*Gillain Broque, labourer; young man

George Wauter, musician; wife and four children
*Jan Sage, serge maker; wife and six children
Marie Flit, in the name of her husband, a miller; wife and two children

P. Gantois, student in theology; young man
Jacques de Lecheilles, brewer; marrying man
*Jan Le Rou, printer; wife and six children
*Jan de Croy, sawyer; wife and five children
*Charles Chancy, labourer; wife and two children
*François Clitdeu, labourer; wife and five children
*Phillipe Campion, draper; wife and one child
*Robert Broque, labourer; young man
Phillipe De le Mer, carpenter; young man
*Jeanne Martin; young girl 

Pierre Cornille, vine-dresser; young man
Jan de Carpentry, labourer; wife and two children
*Martin de Carpentier, brass founder; young man
Thomas Farnarcque, locksmith; wife and seven children
Pierre Gaspar
*Gregoire Le Jeune, shoemaker; wife and four children
Martin Framerie, musician; wife and one child
Pierre Quesnée, brewer; marrying man
Pontus Le Gean, bolting-cloth weaver; wife and three children
*Barthelemy Digaud, sawyer; wife and eight children
Jesse de Forest, dyer; wife and five children
*Nicolas De la Marlier, dyer; wife and two children
*Jan Damont, labourer; wife
*Jan Gille, labourer; wife and three children
*Jan de Trou, wool carder; wife and five children
Philippe Maton, dyer, and two servants; wife and five children
Anthoine de Lielate, vinedresser; wife and four children
Ernou Catoir, wool carder; wife and five children
Anthoin Desendre, labourer; wife and one child
Abel de Crepy, shuttle worker; wife and four children
*Adrian Barbe, dyer; wife and four children
*Michel Leusier, cloth weaver; wife and one child
*Jerome Le Roy, cloth weaver; wife and four children
*Claude Ghiselin, tailor; young man
*Jan de Crenne, glass maker? [fritteur]; wife and one child
*Louis Broque, labourer; wife and two children

This document is very insightful regarding the plurality of cultures which composed early Jamestown society. 

 

Source:

Sainsbury, W. Noel, ed., Calender of State Papers, Colonial Series (Volume 1), America and West Indies, 1574-1660, Preserved in the State Paper Department of Her Majesty's Public Record Office (Vaduz: Kraus Reprint Ltd., 1964) First Published London: HMSO, 1860. pp. 498-499.

Miss Lottie M. Davis 's Journal - January 1933 - February 1933

GRAVESTONE OF MISS LOTTIE M. DAVIS

Page 80
January 1933
  3 Jan 1933 - Mr. McGuire operated on.
  1 Jan 1933 - All in bed but Daddy.
  4 Jan 1933 - George Lawson shot Alger.
  2 Jan 1933 - Mr. Will Shifflett store closed.
  5 Jan 1933 - Mr. Calvin Coolidge died age sixty years.
  5 Jan 1933 - Lenoa Shifflett new baby.
  1 Jan 1933 - Ray ears open by Dr. Conrad.
  7 Jan 1933 - Miss Nina Monger twenty-six years and Mr. Brown forty-four years married.
 10 Jan 1933 - Mr. Sellers taken to hospital.
Page 81
January 1933
17 Jan 1933 - Mr. Walter Petty operated on Tuesday.
19 Jan 1933 - Daddy taken to hospital on Thursday.
21 Jan 1933 - Mr. Walters died at Hospital on Saturday.
22 Jan 1933 - Mr. McGuire came home.
24 Jan 1933 - Daddy died at Rockingham Memorial Hospital on Tuesday morning age sixty-five years four months five days.
 30 Jan 1933 - Will read by Mr. Scott Eaton.
21 Jan 1933 - Aunt Sis came to see Daddy.
 3 or 31 Jan 1933 - Mr. Luther Breeden died.
23 Jan 1933 - Rev. Mr. Smith parlized [paralyzed].
25 Jan 1933 - Mr. Louderback's Mill burned.
Page 82
February 1933
8 Feb 1933 - Mr. Luther Lam died.
3 Feb 1933 - Mrs. Sam Herring went to hospital..
5 Feb 1933 - Mrs. Sam Herring came home.
4 Feb 1933 - Mr. Will Shifflett's Sale.
28 Feb 1933 - Rev. Smith went to Hospital.
28 Feb 1933 - Merchant Grocery closed.
    Feb 1933 - Mrs. Grace Lam baby.
    Feb 1933 - Mrs. F.D. Eiler to Richmond.
To be continued ...

Wild Foods Common to the Mountains of Virginia and West Virginia

In the Mountains

There are more than five hundred plants, fifty animals, and several insects which can be eaten by humans in the mountainous areas of Virginia and West Virginia.  Several of these plants were introduced to the area by our ancestors and are therefore are not native.

Creasy Greens

 Potherbs or boiled greens are on most wild food menus. The more common among the several dozen that can be eaten are ramps, spring beauties also known as "fairy spuds," nettles, giant chickweed, pokeweed, milkweed, dandelion, creasy greens also called dry-land cress, purslane, chicory, fireweed, race weed, lamb’s quarters, and watercress. Many mushrooms can be used for food, although there are others which are deadly poisonous. In our area there are four easily recognized edible types of mushrooms: morel, shaggy mane, sulfur polypore, and puffball.

Morel Mushroom

  Among the many wild fruits and berries that are more easily found are persimmons, strawberries, wild grapes, crab apples, cranberries, blueberries, huckleberries, blackberries, raspberries, dew berries, black haw, elderberries, and wild cherries.

Common nuts collected in the wild are black walnuts, chinquapins, beechnuts, hickory nuts, and hazelnuts.

In the past, wild honey made from the pollen of yellow poplar, basswood, and sourwood was often ‘‘robbed’’ from trees colonized by wild honeybees. Today, wild honeybees have now almost entirely succumbed to parasites. The sap from sugar maple trees is evaporated to produce maple syrup and further evaporated to make maple sugar.

Bees and Comb Honey

There are also dozens of starchy vegetable substitutes, salad ingredients, wheat flour substitutes, tea and coffee substitutes, cool beverages, condiments, oils, and many other culinary uses of wild plants.

Like wild plants, wild animals have been a source of food since the beginning of mankind.  Among the historic food animals no longer found in our area are such extinct species as the passenger pigeon and the woods buffalo which is a larger forest dwelling bison now mainly found in Canada. Among those species still used as food are several species of fish, crayfish, eel, beaver, black bear, frog, muskrat, opossum, rabbit, raccoon, squirrel, turtle, rattlesnake, white-tailed deer, woodchuck, ruffed grouse, wild turkey, dove, duck, and woodcock.