Robert Payne^{[1, 2]}

1738 - 1791  (53 years)

• Name	Robert Payne
  Birth	1738	, Goochland, Virginia, USA   [3]
  Gender	Male
  Residence	1782	, Pittsylvania, Virginia, USA   [4]
  Death	16 May 1791	, Pittsylvania, Virginia, USA   [3]
  Burial	, Goochland, Virginia, USA   [3]
  Person ID	I20491	Master
  Last Modified	8 Mar 2022

  
  

  Father	Josias Payne, Sr,   b. 30 Oct 1705, Northam, Goochland, Virginia, USA d. 17 Dec 1785, , Pittsylvania, Virginia, USA (Age 80 years)
  Mother	Mary Anna Fleming,   b. 30 Oct 1705, Saint Peters Parish, James City, Virginia, USA d. 6 May 1794, , Goochland, Virginia, USA (Age 88 years)
  Marriage	1732	, Goochland, Virginia, USA
  Family ID	F10284	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

  Family	Anne Burton,   b. 12 Aug 1742, , Goochland, Virginia, USA d. Aug 1819, , Pittsylvania, Virginia, USA (Age 77 years)
  Marriage	22 Jul 1762	St James Northam Parish, Goochland, Virginia, USA   [5]
  Children	+ 1. Emily Strain Payne,   b. May 1758, , Prince William, Virginia, USA d. 23 Apr 1837, Buffalo Ridge, Washington, Tennessee, USA (Age 78 years)   2. Margaret 'Peggy' Payne,   b. 1760, , Lancaster, Virginia, USA   3. Charles Burton Payne,   b. 1 Jan 1760, , Goochland, Virginia, USA d. 1808 (Age 47 years)   4. James Payne,   b. 1762, , Lancaster, Virginia, USA   5. Elizabeth Payne,   b. 31 Mar 1763, , Goochland, Virginia, USA d. 1802, , , North Carolina, USA (Age 38 years) + 6. Keturah Payne,   b. 2 Feb 1765, , Pittsylvania, Virginia, USA d. 1802, , , Virginia, USA (Age 36 years)   7. John Payne,   b. 1766, , Chatham, North Carolina, USA d. 1860, Olive Branch, DeSoto, Mississippi, USA (Age 94 years) + 8. Anna Payne,   b. 13 Nov 1766, , Goochland, Virginia, USA d. 1839, , Pittsylvania, Virginia, USA (Age 72 years)   9. Susannah Payne (Ware),   b. 1768, , Pittsylvania, Virginia, USA d. 1828, , Pittsylvania, Virginia, USA (Age 60 years)   10. Martha Payne,   b. 1768, , Pittsylvania, Virginia, USA d. 8 Nov 1800, , Chesterfield, Virginia, USA (Age 32 years) + 11. Robert Payne,   b. Nov 1768, , , Virginia, USA d. 16 Jan 1830, , , Kentucky, USA (Age 61 years)   12. Agnes Payne,   b. 2 Jan 1775, , Pittsylvania, Virginia, USA d. 28 Aug 1850, Tuscaloosa, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, USA (Age 75 years)
  Family ID	F5198	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
  Last Modified	8 Mar 2022

  
  

• Event Map

  Birth - 1738 - , Goochland, Virginia, USA Marriage - 22 Jul 1762 - St James Northam Parish, Goochland, Virginia, USA Residence - 1782 - , Pittsylvania, Virginia, USA Death - 16 May 1791 - , Pittsylvania, Virginia, USA Burial - - , Goochland, Virginia, USA  = Link to Google Earth

  
  

• Notes

  Robert Payne of Goochland and Pittsylvania Co., VA, was born about 1738, grandson of George (will 1744) and Mary Woodson, son of Josias Payne (died Jan. 12, 1785, probate Dec. 17, 1785 Pittsylvania Co. Will Book, 1767-1820) and Ann Fleming of Goochland. Josias and Anna move to the south side of Dan River. "Widow" Anna Fleming Payne lived with son Robert Payne. Her will filed in Orange Co., NC. Robert's brother, John Payne and wife Mary Coles, the parents of Dolley, future wife of President James Madison, live in the Quaker settlement, "New Garden," Rockingham Co., NC, south of Robert's home on the Dan River at Cascades, named "Cascades." John returns 1769 to Hanover, VA, before the Battle Of Alamance. Robert's sister, Anna Payne married William Harrison, settled on the south side of the Dan near his brother Thomas Harrison. The people of goochland are familiar with the Dan river area as it is part of the vast section that neighbor Col. William Byrd claimes, called "New Eden". Robert is said to have been a chain carrier during part of running NC and VA line. Robert Payne died testate about Nov. 5, 1785; probate May 16, 1791 (Pittsylvania Co. Will Book: 1767-1820), married July 20, 1762, Ann Burton, born 1742 Goochland Co., Ann died in 1810 in Bedford Co., part of giant Rutherford, TN. Nine known children: 1. Charles married Ann Lee. 2. Robert married Elizabeth Lee Fern. 3. John, born 1772, died after 1797, married Lucy Lee Fern. 4. Elizabeth "Betsy", born Mar. 31, 1763, married Richard Saunders. 5. Keturah, born Feb. 2, 1765, married Jan. 8, 1786, Wynne Dixon, Pittsylvania. 6. Ann, born Nov. 13, 1766 married (1) Nov. 30, 1784, Pittsylvania, 1st cousin Robert Harrison; (2) May 28, 1804, John Shelton. 7. Susannah, born about 1768, "Cascades," died about 1828, "Cascades", married Oct. 17, 1789 1st cousin William Ware, his second wife, at "Cascades". (Compilers line) Wiliam's first was 1st cousin Susannah Harrison, who died in childbirth. 8. Agnes, b. unknown, died Alabama, married (1) Feb. 2, 1795, Robert Harris, married (2) Dec. 25, 1798, Marmaduke Williams, US Senator, Yanceyville, Caswell Co. NC. 9. Mary "Polly" Woodson, b. unknown, married (1) Christopher Harris, Pittsylvania Co.; (2) John Cooper, Hnederson Co. TN. "Widow" Ann Burton Payne moves with two daughters Agnes and "Polly" to frontier Rutherford Co., TN. The county government meets in her house, "tavern," for three years. David Crockett, Sam Houston, and Andrew Jackson are frequent visitors. She is called the "famous" widow Payne of TN. Relations include Patrick Henry and her neice Dolley Payne Madison, first lady of the land, 1809-1817. She dies in 1810. Cousin William Charles Cole Clayborne is the Jefferson-appointed governor of Mississippi Territory, and new Territorial Govenor of the "Orleans Territory." Marmaduke goes to Alabama and becomes a power. Another Burton clan cousin is neighbor Charles L. Davis, the father of Sam Davis, called "The Nathan Hale of the Confederacy." In TN, the "widow" Payne is famous still, although her grave is unmarked. Robert Payne owned a plantation named "Cascades," which he willed to his daughter Susannah Payne (second wife of William Ware). _______________ As if the place just grew, like Harriet Beecher Stowe's Topsy, the origins of Danville are frustratingly vague because its first settlers did not keep written records of life on the south side of the Dan. It is known from early land records that the first man to ask the Commonwealth for land of his own within what has become the City of Danville was William Wynne, a justice of Brunswick County. He received 200 acres on the south side of the Dan in 1738, at which time Danville, Pittsylvania County and all the land around them in Virginia were a part of Brunswick. Later he moved his family to this area and settled at the falls on the river. The rush of water at that place became known as Wynne's Falls (or Ford), the original name of Danville. This ford, down river from the falls, was the shallowest spot on the Dan in this area. In an age before bridges, it was a natural place for people to cross over and, if they liked the spot, to settle. Recreation Area But before Danville became a town of settled homes and businesses, it was a recreation area. People came to the shallows on the Dan to fish, as they still do today. Dr. George W. Dame, one of Danville's earliest educators and founder of the Episcopal Church of the Epiphany, described this recreational enterprise in his "Notes on the Origin of Danville." He wrote, ". . . some years after the close of the Revolutionary War, many of these gentlemen who had become impoverished by that War, in the Eastern part of the State, moved into this then very thinly settled part of the country to begin life again. "To keep up their acquaintance and talk over the past, they agreed to meet at Wynne's Falls annually, at the fishing season, and enjoy themselves. The fish chiefly sought was the sturgeon, which then abounded in the Dan River." These people vacationed in tents along the river, Dame claimed, because there were no houses south of the Dan at that time. Ferry Operation That situation changed when John Barnett, Danville's second permanent settler known by name, moved here to operate a ferry on the river in the late 18th century. According to Dame, Barnett also "had a line of bateaux (flat-bottom boats) put on the river for trading purposes" and the increasing river traffic determined that Danville would become more than a favorite fishing spot for the new settlers from eastern Virginia. On Nov. 23, 1793, the Virginia Legislature directed that 25 acres of Barnett's land be vested in 12 men who would lay it off into half-acre lots and establish streets. The new town would be called Danville, or village on the Dan. These 12 men, Danville's founders, were George Adams, John Call, Matthew Clay, James Dix, Thomas Fearne, William Harrison, Roberty [sic] Pane, Thomas Smith, John Sutherlin, Thomas Tunstall, John Wilson and Thomas Worsham. Prominent Danvillians Many of their descendants have been prominent Danvillians, instrumental in Danville's later progress. Of the 12 names, seven survive as appellations for streets in the city. Following the legislature's directive, it took nearly two years for sale of the lots to be accomplished. Although Edward Pollock in his "Sketch Book of Danville" claims that a grocery store-tavern-blacksmith's shop was the first edifice erected on this side of the river, the sale of Barnett's lots provides the first documented evidence that structures definitely were to be built. Barnett, later a postmaster here, obviously took land during the sale. Other original landowners, in addition to the founders, included James Colquhoun and Halcourt Townes. They settled on what have become Main and Craghead streets. There were enough citizens in the fledgling town in 1797 to sustain a post office and Danville's first postmaster, Charles Hoyle. Main Street Homes The town grew slowly during the early 19th century. One by one, homes crept up Main Street. Shops were opened and warehouses built on Craghead. In 1820, the Roanoke Sentinel became the town's first newspaper. It folded fast, to be replaced in 1822 by The Telegraph. The Danville Male Academy was opened, followed by the Danville Female Academy. In a grove of trees near the male academy, a cemetery was established. Now called Grove Street Cemetery, in the early 19th century the burial ground was situated on the extreme western edge of town. Beside Dames notes on Danville's early history, which were penned nearly a century after the town's founding, there is only one good source which describes the youthful village built on the banks of the Dan. Thompson Coleman, postmaster of the town from 1831 to 1853, arrived in Danville in 1829. Years later, he carefully described the place as he found it that year. His account is quoted in part below: Coleman's Account When I came to Danville to reside there, in 1829,I approached the place, then a mere struggling village, by way of the country road leading north, towards Pittsylvania Court House (Chatham). The road was a common country road, unimproved by grading or otherwise, narrow and often impassable in winter because of the sticky red mud, into which vehicles sank to the hubs. The country on the north side of the river, opposite Danville (now occupied by the town of North Danville Dan River Bridge The bridge was an old-fashioned structure of heavy girders, twelve to fourteen inches square, laid at length from pillar to pillar - the pillars being pens of logs in the bed of the river, filled in with loose stones. (Coleman then explains that between the river and the canal, which had been cut around the falls to carry river traffic, were situated several milling operations, including flour, saw, corn and linseed-oil mills.) Passing from the toll bridge, the canal was crossed by a small frail bridge, built of hewn togs laid from bank to bank and covered with two-inch boards: and then the road took the name of Main Street, made a sharp turn to the right, and led up the hill and out of the town to a point a mile from the bridge, where it forked - one branch leading south into Caswell County, N.C., and the other west, and known as the Salisbury, N.C. road. (Coleman continues by naming the 55 structures he remembered as being the total number of buildings existing in Danville at the time.) Forty-five residences, business houses and warehouses stood on Main Street, which was a dirt road without sidewalks. It stopped in the vicinity of Grove Street Cemetery. In addition, there were four buildings on Bridge Street and three on Craghead and three others scattered near the river east of there. Limited Business The business of the town was small. There were only two regular stores, the most extensive of which was kept by Thomas and Samuel D. Rawlings, and the other by John Ross & Co. (Wilson and Baskerville and Ross, Lansdown & Co. have just gone into liquidation.) There was an agency of the Farmer's Bank of Virginia with a very small capital, managed by Seymour Scott and John W. Chew, as officers, and a board of directors. There were two tailor's shops, one blacksmith's shop and one shoemaker's shop (Captain John Noble's). There was one tan-yard (Linn's) operated by Samuel Patton, a brother of Dr. James D. Patton. Hats were manufactured on a small scale by Gilmore & Lyon. The trade of the place was in general merchandise, like that of the country stores of the present period, and was mostly carried on by barter for country produce, including whiskey and bacon, which were the staples of this section of the country at this time. New Tobacco Trade The tobacco trade was in its infancy, and was carried on by Thomas and Samuel D. Rawling and John B. Roy (who may be called the pioneers of the trade here). It amounted to about 350 hogsheads per annum. No leaf tobacco was sold loose, but all was prized in hogsheads, which were inspected by State Inspectors and sold at the warehouses; though the greater part of it was purchased from the planters at their barns, then prized and delivered at the warehouses. There was scarcely any tobacco manufactured here at all, but there was one small establishment conducted by Captain Wm. Linn and Wm. Chandler, who were the "Pioneer Manufacturers" of Danville. There was one newspaper, The Telegraph, published weekly by Colonel Thomas H. Clark. There was no church in the town, and but little preaching. Occasionally there was preaching at some private residence, and sometimes at the "Yellow House" or the Male Academy, managed by a board of trustees, with Robert B. Gilliam at that time principal of the school; there were also two mixed schools for girls and boys, one of which was conducted by James Aiken and the other by Robert White. Such was Danville in 1829. Source: The Register & The Bee Bicentennial Edition, Sunday, 4 July 1976. _______________ Robert Payne's will in Pittsylvania County, VA, Deed & Will Book 9, pp. 14-16,written on 15 Nov 1785 names a daughter Keturah and her marriage. The will was witnessed by Robert Burton, Thomas Fearn, and Edmund Burton. In Pittsylvania County, VA, December Court, on 18 Dec 1797 and recorded in Book 8, p.437-8, several of the children of Robert Payne (and their spouses) sued the executor. Keturah is not mentioned by name, but Wynne Dixon is: "It is decreed and ordered that Thomas Fearn, Charles Hoyle, Daniel Coleman, Halcott Townes and John Russell or any three of them do divide between the plaintiffs and defendants their several and respective Legacies devised them by the Last Will and Testament of said Robert Payne deceased and agreeable to said Will, and report thereof to the court for a final decree, and it is ordered that Wynne Dixon be summoned to March Court and to show cause why a final decree should not be entered agreeable to the report of the Commissioners aforesaid, if any there be." (as transcribed by Kitty Dawson).

  
  

• Sources

  [S761] Yates Publishing, Ancestry Family Trees, (Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com. Original data: Family Tree files submitted by Ancestry members.), Ancestry Family Tree. [S302] FamilySearch, Virginia, U.S., Select Marriages, 1785-1940, (FamilySearch ([http://familysearch.org http://familysearch.org]/)). http://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/XRZD-ZMN [S751] Ancestry.com, U.S., Find a Grave® Index, 1600s-Current, (Ancestry.com Operations, Inc.) (Reliability: 3). Name: Robert Payne Gender: Male Birth Date: 1738 Birth Place: Goochland County, Virginia, United States of America Death Date: 1791 Death Place: Pittsylvania County, Virginia, United States of America Cemetery: Payne Cemetery Burial or Cremation Place: Goochland, Goochland County, Virginia, United States of America URL: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/11294619/robert-payne https://www.ancestry.com/discoveryui-content/view/83977122:60525?ssrc=pt&tid=181363857&pid=132363063495 [S36] Jackson, Ron V., Accelerated Indexing Systems, comp., Virginia, U.S., Compiled Census and Census Substitutes Index, 1607-1890, (Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 1999.) (Reliability: 3). Name: Robert Payne State: VA County: Pittsylvania County Township: 13 21 Year: 1782 Record Type: Continental Census Page: 41 Database: VA Early Census Index https://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?indiv=1&dbid=3578&h=33637188&ssrc=pt&tid=181363857&pid=132363063495&usePUB=true [S302] FamilySearch, Virginia, U.S., Select Marriages, 1785-1940, (FamilySearch ([http://familysearch.org http://familysearch.org]/)) (Reliability: 3). Name: Robert Payne, Jr. Gender: Male Marriage Date: 20 Jul 1762 Marriage Place: Goochland County, Virginia Spouse: Ann Burton FHL Film Number: 31650 Reference ID: 266 https://www.ancestry.com/discoveryui-content/view/4881510:60214?ssrc=pt&tid=181363857&pid=132363063495