And the Story of Wife Joane testifying in court.
Uncle Francis was mentioned numerous times in my blog, “One of Mine Was at Jamestown, Virginia” Research was done by Marilyn Blanck using Genealogy and History of the Eastern Shore of Virginia which I accessed. She thinks there were three Stockley Brothers, my John, Uncle Francis and another named Woodman Stockley. Woodman lived in St. Mary’s County, Maryland and was a prominent Puritan. It is proven that this Woodman Stockley arrived in Maryland with his wife, son James and three servants in 1652. The Stockley brothers, John and Francis were in Accomack/Northampton County by 1634-36. Since the name Woodman was used by these Stockley’s is there a relationship? And this is where Woodman (my 7th great grandfather) and two brothers took the cows given to them in their father’s John Stockley’s will.
Uncle Francis Stockley has a bill of sale of land on Nov 3, 1634 in Accomack County (now Northampton). The Virginian Land Patent Book says Francis Stockley was granted 50 acres in Accomack County December 22, 1636. I love the visual location: SE by S on the old plantation creek, NW by N into the woods, westerly on Henry Williams an easterly on the creek. For transfer of one servant Francis Jarvis. He later sold this land. This patent was his first grant for transporting another person to America. In 1639, Francis acquired 200 acres, called Milford, on the seaside of the peninsula in the Dunn and Mill Creek area, on Old Plantation Creek. Here he made his home. Francis died about 1655 in Northampton Co. Virginia, his will being dated December 12, 1655 and recorded on Jan 28, 1656. Witnessed by William Gelding, William Ennis and his brother, John Stockley.
Wills are great records to glean children’s names and ownership. Francis’s reads: To wife, not named, 3 cows and 4 steares, plus all the moveables; to Daughter Ann Stockley, 2 cows and 2 steares; To son, John Stockley, 3 cows, two steares, and my gun; To daughters Frances and Ann – a bed apiece; To wife, the best bed, curtains and valance; to godson, Francis Willyams, a calf; The cow my brother, John, owes me – bequeathed to his son, William; to my wife, all my movables and things belonging to me.
Research found me Francis’s wife’s name of Joane Hall. It seems she was an indentured servant paying off her passage. She made an interesting appearance in Northampton County Court, September 20, 1642. Under oath she told that three years ago, (1639), Roger Moye, drunk at the time, had accused four people of killing a hog, and told Mrs. Burdett (now deceased), that four of her servants had killed a hog and roasted it at the creek side; at this time Ann, the wife of Roger Noye, was asleep. In the morning when Anne awoke, Joane (now Joane Stockley) told Anne that “your husband told my mistress that four of her men had killed a hog and roasted it by the Creek side,” Mistress Anne (Mrs. Moye) said she knew nothing about this and questioned her husband. He threatened that he would “run a knife through her” if she contradicted him. Two or three days later Anne and Roger Moye went into the woods and when they came home Joane asked what he had said to her. Anne Moye stated, “Didn’t you hear me cry? Roger swore that he will kill me if I saye not as hee sayth.” Statement signed by Joane with a mark. Continual abuse was not a plea in self defense. The story ends with Mrs. Moye and William Vincent in jail and referred to as ‘condemned prisoners”. In 1646 Roger Moye was murthered. The report sounds like Anne had endured as much as possible and did him in with the help of Mr. Vincent. Joane must have been working off her transportation with Mrs. Burdett. When her indenture was finished she married Uncle Francis Stockley. After Joane’s husband, Uncle Francis died she remarried William Custis, who was sheriff of Accomack County. Uncle Francis’s daughters both raised families in Accomack and received land from William Custis. Of the three children of Francis and Joane Stockley, John married and called his son John and had 370 acres called “Dune” and died in 1713, Frances married Edward Sacker, and Ann married Thomas Bagwell son of Henry Bagwell of the Jamestown Colony, whose story will become important to the next generation of Stockley siblings. Thomas and Ann Stockley Bagwell named their sons, Francis and John. The Stockley family certainly used the names of Francis and John and Woodman to name their children.
A Picture and 1000 Words 