The Daughters of John and Ann Gaulding of New Kent, Virginia

The children of John and Ann Gaulding of New Kent, Virginia were:

St. Peter’s Parish, New Kent County, Virginia (ca. 1700–1730) 

Child	Birth/Baptism (St. Peter’s Parish)	Death/Burial (St. Peter’s Parish)	Evidence of Adulthood?	Notes
John “Matthew” Gaulding	Abt. 1700-1705 (Register damaged, inferred from siblings)	No burial record	Yes	Appears in Amelia and Prince Edward County records, adult landowner, part of the Gaulding migration west.
SAMUEL GAULDING	Born about 1705-1710 (Register damaged, inferred from siblings)	No burial record	Yes	Appears in Amelia and Prince Edward County tithables and deeds, survived to adulthood.
Alexander Gaulding	Born about 1710-1715 (Register damaged, inferred)	Died 1752, Prince Edward region	Yes	Adult, married.  Father of minor children placed under guardianship in 1757.
Anne Gaulding	Recorded in St. Peter’s Parish	No burial record	Uncertain	No later records.  Likely died young.
Sarah Gaulding	Recorded in St. Peter’s Parish	No burial record	Uncertain	No later records; likely died young.
Martha Gaulding	Born about 1711	Buried September 1721	No	Died at about the age of 10.  Only birth and burial entries survive.
Honour Gaulding	Baptized 4 June 1714	No burial record	Uncertain.  Likely died young.	No later records in any Virginia county.  Absence suggests childhood death.
				St. Peter’s Parish Register is incomplete; some entries are fragmentary

Only the sons of John and Anne Gaulding of New Kent survived.  The daughters all died at an early age.  Given the high childhood mortality of early 18th century Virginia, the family’s documented poverty—including the parish paying for a winding sheet for another Gaulding child in 1721—and the complete absence of any adult references to any of the daughters, the most historically consistent conclusion is that they died in childhood. 

Below is a brief biography for each:

Elizabeth Gaulding (b. 1720): A Brief Life in Tidewater Virginia

Elizabeth Gaulding, daughter of John Gaulding and Ann, enters the historical record only once—on 7 June 1720, when her birth was recorded in the Christ Church Parish Register of Middlesex County, Virginia. Listed as “Elizabeth, daughter of John Gawling,” she represents a distinct child in the Gaulding family, separate from her older sister Sarah. This single parish entry is the only direct evidence of her life.

Her appearance in the Christ Church Parish register, rather than in the family’s home parish of St. Peter’s in New Kent County, reflects the realities of colonial record‑keeping rather than a different family origin. St. Peter’s Register contains gaps and damaged sections for the 1710–1720 period, and families living near county and parish borders often had baptisms recorded in neighboring jurisdictions. The Gauldings lived near the Pamunkey River, close to the New Kent–King William–Middlesex regional boundary, making such overlap entirely typical in Tidewater Virginia.  After her birth entry, Elizabeth disappears from the surviving records. She does not reappear in Christ Church or St. Peter’s Parish, nor in marriage registers, land transactions, probate files, or the westward migration records that later document her brothers in Amelia and Prince Edward Counties. No evidence suggests she reached adulthood, married, or moved with the rest of the family as they left Tidewater.

Sarah Gaulding (ca. 1713–before 1720)

Sarah Gaulding, one of the early children of John Gaulding and Ann, appears briefly in the surviving records of colonial Virginia. Her name is preserved only in the St. Peter’s Parish Register of New Kent County, where she is listed among the Gaulding baptisms recorded between 1711 and 1720. Based on the sequence of entries—Martha in 1711 and Honour in 1715—Sarah’s baptism likely occurred around 1712–1713 (St. Peter’s Parish Register, 1684–1786).

She was probably born into a modest tenant‑farming household living near Eltham Plantation, where her father more than likely worked under Colonel William Bassett. Like other families in the parish, the Gauldings participated fully in Anglican life, and all known children were baptized at St. Peter’s. Their entries appear in the same vestry district that oversaw the plantation community.

After her baptism, Sarah disappears completely from the historical record. She does not appear in later parish entries, marriage registers, land or probate documents, or in the westward migration trail that later carried her brothers into Amelia and Prince Edward Counties.

Some confusion has arisen in secondary sources suggesting that Sarah may have been the same child later recorded as Elizabeth. However, the Christ Church Parish Register of Middlesex County clearly documents a separate daughter, Elizabeth Gaulding, born 7 June 1720 to John and Ann (Christ Church Parish Register, 1653–1812). The two entries represent distinct daughters, not variant names for the same child.

In summary, Sarah Gaulding was baptized around 1713 in St. Peter’s Parish, New Kent County, and—like many children of her time—likely died young, leaving only a single parish entry to mark her brief life.

Honour Gaulding (bapt. 1714 – likely d. before adulthood)

Honour Gaulding, daughter of John “of New Kent” Gaulding and Ann, appears only once in the surviving records of colonial Virginia. Her baptism was recorded on 4 June 1714 in the St. Peter’s Parish Register of New Kent County, where her name is written as “Honour Gaulding.” This entry places her among the early Gaulding children—siblings who included Martha, Sarah, Anne, Samuel, Alexander, and John “Matthew”—and confirms that the family was living within the parish at the time (St. Peter’s Parish Register, 1684–1786).

After this baptismal entry, Honour vanishes from the historical record. She does not reappear in any surviving baptism, marriage, burial, vestry, tithable, land, court, or probate documents. While the St. Peter’s Register is damaged and incomplete—especially for the 1710s through 1730s—the complete absence of any later reference to Honour is significant. In early‑18th‑century Tidewater Virginia, 40–50% of children died before age ten, and several of Honour’s siblings also appear only once in the register before disappearing, a pattern typical of families who lost children young.

No woman named Honour or Honor Gaulding appears in any later Virginia county—New Kent, Hanover, Henrico, Goochland, Amelia, Prince Edward, Cumberland, Caroline, or King William—despite the rarity of the surname. Had she survived to adulthood, married, or migrated west with her family, some trace would normally be expected.

New Kent County’s catastrophic record loss—fires in 1787, 1865, and 1887—means that wills, deeds, and court orders from the early 1700s no longer survive. As a result, Honour’s baptism is the only remaining evidence of her life. Taken together, the historical context, the silence of the records, and the mortality patterns of the period strongly indicate that Honour Gaulding died in childhood, likely not long after her baptism.

Martha Gaulding (c. 1711–1721)

Martha Gaulding, one of the earliest children of John “of New Kent” Gaulding and Ann, is known entirely through the surviving fragments of the St. Peter’s Parish Register of New Kent County. Her birth is recorded there around 1711, placing her among the first generation of Gaulding children baptized in the parish. She belonged to the same sibling group as John “Matthew,” Samuel, Alexander, Anne, and Sarah—children whose entries appear intermittently in the damaged register (St. Peter’s Parish Register, 1680–1787).

Martha’s short life is documented in only two parish entries: her birth and her burial. The register records her death in September 1721, when she was about ten years old. No cause of death is given, which is typical for colonial parish records. Her burial entry appears during a period when childhood mortality in Tidewater Virginia was exceptionally high; historical studies consistently show that 40–50% of children died before age ten in the early 18th century. Disease, malnutrition, and periodic epidemics made childhood survival uncertain, especially for families of modest means like the Gauldings.

Because she died young, Martha left no trace in marriage records, land transactions, court orders, or probate files. Her burial confirms that the Gaulding family was still living in St. Peter’s Parish in 1721, before her brothers later migrated westward into Amelia and Prince Edward Counties.

With New Kent County’s catastrophic record loss—fires in 1787, 1865, and 1887—the parish register remains the only surviving witness to Martha’s brief life. Her two entries stand as a rare and fragile record of a child whose story would otherwise have been lost.

Anne Gaulding (bapt. early 1700s)

Anne Gaulding, one of the earliest documented children of John “of New Kent” Gaulding and his wife Ann, appears in the surviving fragments of the St. Peter’s Parish Register of New Kent County, Virginia. Her baptism is recorded there under the spelling “Anne daughter of John Gaulding,” one of the few primary records that survive for the family in the early 18th century (St. Peter’s Parish Register, 1680–1787).

The register, damaged and incomplete, preserves only scattered entries from this period, yet Anne’s baptism consistently appears in all authoritative transcriptions. Her mother’s name is not listed—typical for Anglican parish records of the time—but the entry firmly places the Gaulding family in St. Peter’s Parish during the early 1700s. Anne belonged to the first generation of Virginia‑born Gauldings, part of a sibling group that included John (often recorded under variant spellings), Samuel, Alexander, and others whose names appear intermittently in the surviving pages.

Anne’s baptism helps anchor the Gaulding family chronologically in New Kent County, confirming that John and Ann were established parishioners well before the 1710s. It also provides one of the earliest documentary links in reconstructing the Gaulding–Stewart kinship network that later appears in mid‑century guardianship and parish records.

Because New Kent County suffered catastrophic record loss—fires in 1787, 1865, and 1887—no additional information about Anne’s later life survives. Her baptismal entry remains the sole surviving trace of her existence, a rare fragment from a parish register that now serves as the foundational source for the earliest Gaulding family in Virginia.

Conclusion

Though the parish register preserves only the faintest traces of their lives, the story of John and Ann Gaulding’s daughters is a quiet and heartbreaking reminder of the fragility of childhood in colonial Virginia. Martha, Sarah, Honour, and Elizabeth each appear briefly in the records—baptized, and in Martha’s case buried—but leave no further mark on the historical landscape. Their short lives, lost to the high mortality of the Tidewater, speak to the hardships faced by ordinary families whose children often slipped away before reaching adulthood.

Yet the legacy of John and Ann did not end in sorrow. Their sons—John “Matthew,” Samuel, and Alexander—survived, married, and carried the Gaulding name westward into Hanover, Goochland, Amelia, and Prince Edward Counties, establishing the branches from which all known Gaulding descendants arise. Through them, the family endured. The daughters’ brief lives and the sons’ long lines together form a single story: a testament to resilience, to survival against the odds, and to the enduring legacy that John and Ann Gaulding left to the generations that followed.

Works cited

The Parish Register of St. Peter’s, New Kent County, Virginia, 1680–1787 (Colonial Dames of America, 1904); C. G. Chamberlayne, The Vestry Book and Register of St. Peter’s Parish, New Kent and James City Counties, Virginia, 1684–1786 (1937).

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