Gentrys, Randolphs, and Others

Sir William Berkeley was appointed colonial governor of Virginia in 1641, was compelled to resign in 1652, and was reappointed in 1672. His administrations were marked by unrest caused by unequal taxation of the colonists, the levying of unjust tobacco duties, and unfairness in the voting system.

Discontent with his management of colonial affairs broke into open rebellion in 1676, when the governor refused to take steps to put down Indian uprisings. After the plantation of Nathaniel Bacon, a member of the governor s council, was attacked by the Indians, Bacon asked permission to lead a company of troops against the Indians, which request was refused. In defiance of the governor, Bacon led out a band of troops. Some fighting took place, and Jamestown was burned. However, the sudden death of Bacon put an end to the rebellion, and Governor Berkeley executed a number of the leaders of the affair.

When news of these events reached England, even Charles II was displeased with the governor's actions. Additional troops were dispatched to the colony to deal with the situation, and Governor Berkeley was relieved of his office and recalled to England.

Among the soldiers sent from England to Virginia to cope with Bacon's Rebellion were two brothers, Nicholas and Samuel Gentry, who arrived at Jamestown in 1677. They were discharged and paid off in the fall of 1683 and elected to remain in Virginia.

The earliest record we find of Nicholas Gentry is in Old Land Book of Virginia, in a patent in favor of Samuel Gentry dated October, 21, 1684, to lands adjacent to lands of Nicholas Gentry and others, in New Kent County, Virginia.

The records of the baptism of Nicholas Gentry's children--Elizabeth on August 29, 1687, Nicholas on May 30, 1697, and Mabel on December 13, 1702--are found in St. Peter's Parish Register of New Kent County. Joseph Gentry is mentioned in 1709 as having land adjoining Nicholas. Nicholas Gentry is mentioned in St. Paul Parish Vestry Book as Road Overseer in 1709. He is also mentioned in 1711, 1723, 1734, 1735 and 1739. We also find him listed as being in Hanover County, Virginia, in 1720.

James Randolph, who had married Robert Gentry's daughter Sarah and moved from Virginia to what later became Jefferson County, Tennessee, with Robert Gentry and others in 1782 or 1783, received two separate grants of land in Tennessee. In addition to the lands at the mouth of Chucky Creek on the French Broad, where he made his home, he also received lands on Big Limestone and Little Limestone Creeks. Robert Gentry also received a grant on the Big and Little Limestone Creeks. Robert Gentry settled on the north side of the French Broad four miles east of present Dandridge, Tennessee, the county seat of Jefferson County.

The will of James Randolph is of record in Jefferson County, Tennessee, in Will Book 1794-1810, page 80. An abstract of this will reads as follows: Names wife. Children: Henry, Lucy, Robert (100 acres land on Tennessee River), John, Elizabeth, Sarah and Mary. Land I live on. Child wife is now with. 29 October 1794. Appoints wife Sarah and Robert Gentry and Bartlett Gentry as Executors. Susannah was evidently the child "wife is now with" and was born after her father's death.

On Page 150 of East Tennessee Historical Society Publications No. 28 (1956), Sarah Randolph is listed on the Tax List of Jefferson County, Tennessee (year not stated, but presumably after the death of James Randolph in 1795 and before her marriage to John McGirk). She owned "400 acres and two black polls."

NICHOLAS GENTRY

b. ca. 1655, Essex County, England (An English soldier dispatched to Virginia to help deal with Bacon s Rebellion, arrived at Jamestown in 1677.)

m. ---

d. ---

The will of Nicholas Gentry (Jr.) mentions granddaughters Jane Timberlake and Ann Jenkins, indicating second marriages for his daughters Mary and Elizabeth, or that he had other daughters, one of whom married a Timberlake, another a Jenkins.

Nicholas Gentry (Jr.) at one time owned the lands on which the University of Virginia is now located.

ROBERT GENTRY

b. 1730, Hanover Co., Va.

m/1 JUDITH JOYNER (Dau. of Phillip Joyner)

m/2 Rachel West, 13 Nov. 1804, Jefferson Co., Tenn.

(No issue)

d. ---, Jefferson Co., Tenn.

A. Euphemia Hodge

b. Nov. 1801

d. 10 June 1807 (age 5 yrs., 8 mos.)

B. Sarah Wells Hodge

b. 1807

m. Josiah Walker Baldridge, Tenn.

Joseph Hodge served in the Revolutionary War as a captain under General Green and was wounded at the Battle of Guilford Courthouse.

Euphemia Agnew remembered her father holding her up, when she was four years old, to see King George III as he passed through the English village where her father practiced medicine before emigrating to the United States. He finally settled at Guilford Courthouse. (From a biography, Dr. William Dennis Kelley, 1825-1888: Texas Physician and Surgeon, by his grandson, William Wallace McCullough, Jr., privately printed in Galveston in 1961.)

II. Unknown

III. Sarah (Sally) Agnew

b. 1769 in Ireland

m. Robert Hamilton, 31 July 1787, Guilford Co., N.C.

d. 29 Nov. 1827, Humphreys Co., Tenn.

Children—see under Robert Hamilton in the Hamilton pages.

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