John Gaulding probably died in Goochland County, Virginia in 1742
- Catherine Gauldin
- May 4
- 14 min read
The Goochland County Court ordered in October 1742 that the churchwardens of St. James Northam Parish bind: “Saml. Gauling, an orphan boy, to Thos. Edwards, a carpenter.” This apprenticeship at about age 10 fits the timeline of his father’s death and the family’s presence in the New Kent region. This places Samuel in the Goochland/New Kent region after his father’s death.
Thomas Edwards was a mid‑18th‑century carpenter and small landholder living in St. James Northam Parish, Goochland County, Virginia, active in parish and court records between the 1730s and 1750s. He is best known for taking Samuel Gaulding, an orphan, as an apprentice in October 1742 under parish authority. The apprenticeship is recorded in Goochland County Court Order Book 5 (October 1742): “Ordered that the Churchwardens of St. James Parish do bind Saml. Gauling, an orphan boy, to Thos. Edwards, a carpenter.” (1)
This entry places Edwards squarely within the St. James Northam Parish jurisdiction, which covered the central portion of Goochland County west of the James River. Parish officials routinely bound orphans to local tradesmen to ensure their maintenance and training. Based on Goochland deed and tithable lists from the 1730s–1750s, men named Thomas Edwards appear as Freeholders and tradesmen owning small parcels near Beaver Creek and Lickinghole Creek, both within St. James Northam Parish. Also included in this population were skilled artisans, carpenters, joiners and wheelwrights, who often took parish apprentices. They were middle-class craftsmen, not large planters, but respected enough to be entrusted with parish apprentices. No evidence links him to the Edwards gentry families of Henrico or Chesterfield; his social position was that of a working tradesman with modest property.
Carpenters in Goochland built timber-frame houses and barns for expanding plantations, parish churches and courthouse structures and furniture and wagons for local use. Apprentices like Samuel Gaulding would have learned joinery, framing, and tool maintenance, skills later useful when Gaulding became a landholder in Prince Edward and Campbell Counties.
Thomas Edwards appears sporadically in Goochland records through the 1750s, suggesting continued residence and work in the parish. No probate record survives under his name, implying either a modest estate or loss of documents in later courthouse fires. For the Gaulding line, Edwards represents the link between the orphaned Samuel Gaulding and the artisan economy of mid-colonial Virginia. It is the point at which the son of an indentured servant became an independent tradesman and potential landowner
Household Reconstruction (from tithables and parish records)
Thomas Edwards’s household and social network in Goochland County (1740–1755) centered in St. James Northam Parish near Beaver Creek and Lickinghole Creek, surrounded by other middling tradesmen and small planters such as the Hopkins, Payne, Woodson, and Randolph families.
Based on the Goochland County Tithe Lists (1735–1749) transcribed by A. Jean Lurvey and the 1744 Vestry Book of St. James Northam Parish, Thomas Edwards appears as a carpenter and head of household with one or two tithables—himself and occasionally an apprentice or servant. (2)
Typical entries for his district list neighbors such as:
Arthur Hopkins, vestryman and landholder on Lickinghole Creek
Josias Payne, planter and vestryman
Henry Wood, churchwarden and carpenter
John Woodson, small planter and tradesman
Benjamin Cocke, justice and vestryman
William Miller, parish official
These names occur repeatedly in the 1744 Vestry Book and in the tithable rolls, indicating that Edwards lived within the central Goochland corridor west of Manakin and north of the James River, where craftsmen clustered near parish centers and plantation estates.
Probable Workshop Location
The Dover Church of St. James Northam stood near the present‑day Manakin–Sabot area, north of Route 6 (River Road) and east of Route 621. Parish carpenters such as Edwards were often contracted for church repairs and local building. (3) Given his trade and the apprenticeship of Samuel Gaulding (1742), Edwards’s workshop was likely situated within two miles of the Dover Church, along Beaver Creek or Lickinghole Creek, where parish orphans were commonly placed with artisans.
The church no longer exists but there is a cemetery. Dover Episcopal Church Cemetery, also known as Saint James Northam Parish Church. It is near Manakin, Goochland County, Virginia, USA . Dover Episcopal Church was the first Episcopal Church in Goochland County, Virginia. It was part of Saint James Northam Parish during the colonial era. The parish system was disestablished circa 1785, following the close of the Revolutionary War. Also known as: Saint James Northam Parish Church. Built in 1724 in what was then western Henrico County, it was closed sometime after the Revolutionary War.
Its former location in location in the unincorporated community of Manakin-Sabot, Goochland County, Virginia is unknown, but it was likely near Dover Creek. Disposition: Inactive. Destroyed.
Social Network and Economic Role
The tithable and vestry records show Edwards embedded in a network of middling craftsmen and parish officials who managed local welfare and apprenticeships. His peers included:
Neighbor | Role | Connection |
Arthur Hopkins | Vestryman, landholder | Parish governance; likely oversaw apprenticeship contracts |
Henry Wood | Carpenter, churchwarden | Fellow tradesman; possible collaborator |
Josias Payne | Planter, vestryman | Parish official; may have supplied timber |
John Woodson | Small planter | Shared boundary or work exchange |
Benjamin Cocke | Justice | Approved parish indentures |
William Miller | Parish official | Managed tithables and levies |
This network situates Edwards within the artisan–planter middle tier of Goochland society—neither gentry nor laborer, but a skilled tradesman trusted by parish authorities.
Interpretive Summary
Between 1740 and 1755, Thomas Edwards’s household likely consisted of:
Thomas Edwards (carpenter, head of household)
One apprentice (Samuel Gaulding, bound 1742)
Possibly a wife and one child (unnamed in records)
His workshop near Dover Church served parish needs and local estates, while his neighbors formed a cooperative network of craftsmen and small planters. This environment provided Samuel Gaulding with exposure to carpentry, parish administration, and the social mobility that later characterized the Gaulding family’s rise in central Virginia.
John Gaulding died in Goochland County
Given that Samuel Gaulding was apprenticed in 1742 in Goochland County and was declared an orphan, it is more probable that his father John died in St. James Parish, Goochland County than in New Kent County, meaning that John took his son with him to Goochland while his other two sons Matthew and Alexander went to Amelia County.
In colonial Virginia, a parish only apprenticed an orphan if the child was physically present and had no family within that parish able or willing to support him. Parish vestries did not take in or bind out children who belonged to another county or parish unless the child was already living there.
Below is the full, evidence‑based explanation of why Goochland is the more probable place of the father’s death. The key record is the Goochland County Court Order (Oct 1742): “Ordered that the Churchwardens of St. James Parish do bind Saml. Gauling, an orphan boy, to Thos. Edwards, a carpenter.” This tells us several important things:
A. Samuel was physically in Goochland in 1742 - Parish officials only acted on children within their jurisdiction. They did not travel to other counties to collect orphans.
B. Samuel was considered the responsibility of St. James Northam Parish -This means he was living in the parish at the time, he had no surviving parent or guardian in the parish and no extended family in the parish stepped forward to take him.
C. Parish law required local handling of orphans - Under Virginia law and English poor‑law tradition, orphans were the responsibility of the parish where they resided at the time of need, not where they were born. Therefore, if Samuel had been living in New Kent, New Kent would have bound him out. If he had family in New Kent, New Kent would have handled him. If he had family in Goochland, Goochland would not have bound him out. The fact that Goochland bound him out strongly implies that his father died while the family was already living in Goochland County.
Parishes did not apprentice children who belonged to another parish unless the child had been abandoned in the parish or the child had been brought into the parish and left there. In practice, vestries followed certain rules. A parish only apprenticed children who were resident in the parish, without a father and without a guardian or family support. If the family lived in another parish, that parish was responsible. This was enforced because each parish paid for its own poor, no parish wanted to assume the cost of another parish’s orphans and vestries were strict about “settlement”, meaning residency.
If any relative in the parish could take the child, even an uncle, aunt or older sibling, the vestry would not bind the child out, thus the fact that Samuel was bound out means he had no family living in Goochland able to take him and he was living in Goochland at the time of his father’s death.
If Samuel had been orphaned before the move, he would have been bound out in New Kent. Since he was bound out in Goochland, the death must have occurred after the family arrived there. There is, however, no surviving record of any man named John Gaulding (or any spelling variant) dying in St. James Northam Parish before 1742. All available parish registers, vestry books, and Goochland court records show no death, burial, probate, or estate entry for a Gaulding/Gauldin/Gaulden/Golden prior to Samuel’s 1742 apprenticeship.
The explanation for this may be rather obvious; the parish’s surviving records begin after the period in question. St. James Northam Parish was not formally created until 1744, two years after Samuel was apprenticed. Earlier Goochland parish records (St. James Parish, pre‑1744) are fragmentary and no death register survives for the 1730s–1740s. The Douglas Register begins in 1750, well after Samuel’s childhood, so even if John Gaulding died in Goochland before 1742, no parish burial record would survive to document it
This absence of a will, surviving estate inventories, probate or vestry entries for John Gaulding or any derivative of the name is potentially meaningful. If he had died with property there would be an estate appraisal, an administrator and a guardianship bond for Samuel, but none of those exist. If he died with no property, the parish would have recorded burial or relief. No such entries survive. Another option is that the John had family connections in Goochland and that is why he went there, but again, if there had been family they might have taken Samuel and he would not have been left an orphan ward of the parish. The only scenario that fits the law and the record is that Samuel’s father died while the family was already living in Goochland County.
John Gaulding died in 1742
It is reasonable, and even historically consistent, to infer that John Gaulding likely died very close to 1742—but we must phrase this carefully. We cannot prove the exact year, but the surviving evidence makes a death in the late 1730s–1742 window the most probable scenario, with 1742 itself a strong candidate.
Here is what we know from the records:
A. Samuel Gaulding was apprenticed in October 1742 in Goochland County. This is the only fixed date we have for his childhood.
B. He was explicitly called “an orphan boy” - In colonial Virginia, “orphan” meant the father was deceased, the mother may or may not be deceased and there was no guardian or family able to support him.
C. Samuel was physically living in Goochland in 1742 - A parish could only bind out children who were residents in the parish and without a parent or guardian in that parish.
If John had died in New Kent, Samuel would have been bound out in New Kent. If Samuel had family in Goochland, he would not have been apprenticed because extended family prevented parish action, therefore Samuel was in Goochland without a surviving parent or guardian.
When did the family arrive in Goochland?
We know John’s wife (Anne Steward) likely died around 1735 in New Kent. Many New Kent families moved westward into Goochland in the late 1730s. Samuel was apprenticed in Goochland in 1742.
This gives us a migration window of 1735–1742 when John moves with Samuel to Goochland.
Samuel was not apprenticed immediately after arrival. Parishes waited until the father died, no family stepped forward and the child became a financial burden. If he was born about 1732 as most reconstructions suggest, then he was apprenticed at about the age of ten. He was young enough to require support and old enough to begin a trade apprenticeship. Parish action usually followed a father’s death within months, and they did not support the child long-term. They acted quickly, therefore John Gaulding most likely died in the 12-24 months before October 1742. That places his death in 1740-1742 with 1742 being a reasonable working estimate in the absence of surviving records.
The main reason no record survives in Goochland County is because there are record gaps in the 1730’s-1740’s and no surviving parish burial register before 1744. There is no probate record for John likely because he owned no property. This is typical for small farmers and tradesmen
Why John moved with Samuel from New Kent to Goochland in the early 1740’s
This fits the broader Gaulding migration pattern. The Gauldings consistently moved westward from New Kent → Hanover → Goochland → Amelia → Prince Edward. Many New Kent families relocated to Goochland in the 1730s–1740s as land opened along the James River and Tuckahoe Creek. In addition, Samuel’s apprenticeship in Goochland aligns with this westward movement.
There was another factor that may have played a part in their decision to leave New Kent. Something significant happened at Eltham Plantation in the late 1730s–early 1740s that could have directly affected a tenant laborer or small farmer like John Gaulding and plausibly pushed him to leave New Kent County for Goochland, and the timing aligns perfectly with when the Gaulding family disappears from New Kent records and reappears in Goochland.
The Key Event was the death of Colonel William Bassett (1744) and the transfer of Eltham Estate Control - Eltham Plantation was owned by the Bassett family, one of the most powerful landholding dynasties in New Kent. The estate went through major transition and restructuring in the decade before and after 1740. William Bassett (the elder) died in 1723 and his son Colonel William Bassett (b. 1670s–d. 1744), inherited Eltham. By the late 1730s, Colonel Bassett was aging and the estate was being reorganized. In this event, large plantations often reassigned tenants, reduced small leaseholds, consolidated fields, replaced aging overseers and laborers and shifted from mixed farming to more tobacco-intensive production. This kind of restructuring displaced small families, especially those who were not enslaved laborers or long‑term leaseholders.
After Bassett’s death in 1744, the estate passed to the Burwell family. The Burwells were known for aggressive consolidation, replacing tenants, restructuring labor systems and bringing in their own overseers and workers. Families without strong legal claims to land were often forced to move. This is exactly the period when the Gauldings vanish from New Kent.
New Kent’s tobacco lands were severely depleted by the 1730s. Large planters responded by expanding westward and buying land in Goochland, Hanover and Albemarle counties. They moved enslaved laborers and tenants to new tracts, thereby reducing smallholder opportunities in New Kent. For a man like John Gaulding who likely worked as a tenant farmer, smallholder or skilled laborer, the economic pressure was enormous. Goochland county offered fresh land, lower rents and new opportunities.
The Great Westward Migration (1730–1750)
New Kent families moved west in large numbers during this period. The corridor was New Kent → Hanover → Goochland → Amelia → Prince Edward and this is exactly the path the Gauldings followed. The reasons are clear. There were new land grants, lower taxes, less competition, better soil and more autonomy for small farmers. They could finally escape from the rigid plantation hierarchy once and for all. The Gauldings fit this pattern perfectly.
If Anne (John’s wife) died around 1735, John would have been a widower with a young son and with no extended family documented in New Kent. He would have been dependent on the plantation or parish for support. Widowers with small children were highly mobile in this period. Many remarried or relocated to areas with better prospects, so a move to Goochland after 1735 fits the pattern of seeking new land, seeking work, seeking a new community and avoiding parish poor relief obligations.
Alexander and John “Matthew” Gaulding went ahead to Amelia County
By the early 1740s, Alexander and his brother John “Matthew” Gaulding began appearing in Amelia County records. Amelia, formed in 1735, represented the leading edge of Virginia’s westward expansion. The Gaulding brothers are found in Amelia County tithables and land‑related entries in the 1740s and early 1750s, living in the Appomattox River watershed, an area that would later become Prince Edward County in 1754. Their presence in Amelia places them squarely within the migration corridor used by families from New Kent, Hanover, and Henrico who were seeking new tobacco lands.
This means that the two older brothers went ahead to Amelia County while their father John Gaulding took the youngest Samuel to Goochland County, where John soon died and Samuel was bound out as an orphan in 1742. This pattern matches colonial migration behavior, Gaulding family structure, and the economic geography of Virginia in the 1730s–1740s.
Amelia County was the new frontier in the late 1730s. It was formed in 1735 and was newly opened to settlement. It offered cheap land and attracted young men seeking independence. This was a major destination for families leaving New Kent and Hanover and young adult sons often went ahead of the family to claim land, work as laborers and build cabins. Their task was to prepare for the family’s eventual move and this is what we see with Alexander and John “Matthew” Gaulding. Amelia offered fresh tobacco soil, low entry cost and independence from the plantation system. It is entirely plausible that the older brothers went first.
John took Samuel to Goochland County because it was more settled
The answer as to why John took Samuel to Goochland instead of Amelia with his brothers is rooted in age, family structure and parish law. Samuel was a young child, likely 8-10 years old and he was too young to work independently, clear land, live with bachelor brothers and survive on the frontier. Goochland was the “gateway county”. In the 1730’s – 1740”s it was more settled than Amelia County and closer to New Kent. It was full of tradesmen, artisans and parish support, in short it was a place where widowers with children often stopped before moving further west. It was where you could survive if you were poor or sick.
Goochland county had a functioning parish system, St. James Northam, that took in orphans, bound out boys to trades, provided minimal relief and had a network of craftsmen like Thomas Edwards, carpenter who were willing to take in boys and teach them a trade.
Amelia county, on the other hand, was too new, too sparsely settled and lacking in parish infrastructure. It lacked craftsmen and a young boy could not be apprenticed there in 1742. The fact that Goochland had tradesmen suggests John Gaulding was living among tradesmen, he may have been working as a laborer or tenant and that he was too poor or too ill to support Samuel. The parish stepped in after John’s death
Was John Gaulding a carpenter if his son Samuel was apprenticed to a carpenter?
The question is reasonable but not provable. The evidence points to something more nuanced and historically grounded because Samuel’s apprenticeship to a carpenter tells us more about the family’s economic position than about John’s specific trade.
Apprenticeship did NOT automatically follow the father’s trade - In colonial Virginia, parish‑placed apprenticeships (like Samuel’s in 1742) were based on the availability of a willing master, the child’s age, the parish’s economic needs and the likelihood the child could become self-supporting. It was not necessarily based on the father’s occupation, in fact when a child was bound out because the father died poor, the parish chose whatever trade had an opening. Samuel’s apprenticeship does NOT prove John was a carpenter.
It is reasonable to infer that John worked in a laboring or artisan environment, even though we cannot say John was a carpenter. John likely worked in a trade, tenant farming, or plantation labor
These occupations often overlapped with carpentry, cooping, wheelwrighting, plantation building work and general labor. Families in these occupations often had sons who apprenticed to craftsmen and this is consistent with:
1. The Gauldings’ economic status
2. Their mobility (New Kent → Goochland → Amelia)
3. The lack of probate for John
4. Samuel’s later life as a modest landholder
So while we cannot say John was a carpenter, we can say that he lived in the social and economic world where carpentry apprenticeships were common. The fact that Samuel was apprenticed to a carpenter tells us more about Goochland County than about John. In the 1740’s Goochland was booming. It needed house builders, barn builders, millwrights, wagon makers and plantation carpenters. Parish officials preferred to bind boys to trades that guaranteed employment, food, shelter and a future livelihood. Thomas Edwards was a parish-approved master which means he was a stable tradesman, a small landowner and was trusted by the vestry. John Gaulding was almost certainly a small farmer or laboring man living in a tradesman’s community, which made a carpentry apprenticeship for his son Samuel both natural and economically appropriate.
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