1=List of 6 June 1849 Russell County, VA Law Order Book No. 12, p. 200-201

2=List of 8 August 1849 Russell County, VA Law Order Book No. 12, p. 202

3=List of 7 November 1849 Russell County, VA Law Order Book No. 12, p. 244

4=List of 5 March 1850 Russell County, VA Law Order Book No. 12, p. 269

5=List of 5 June 1850 Russell County, VA Law Order Book No. 12, p. 291

6=List of 7 August 1850 Russell County, VA Law Order Book No. 12, p. 307

7=List of 5 November 1850 Russell County, VA Law Order Book No. 12, p. 322

8=List of 4 March 1851 Russell County, VA Law Order Book No. 12, p. 343-344

9=List of 4 June 1851 Russell County, VA Law Order Book No. 12, p. 362
 

All but one indictment follows one of these two patterns:

An indictment against ________ and ________ for lewdness.  A True Bill.

The Commonwealth vs _________ & ________ Defendants.  Indictment for lewdness. 
 

These appear to have been long term relationships, and in most cases are likely the only extant of the woman’s maiden name.  It is likely that each person was single, otherwise the charge would have been adultery.

 I have additional information on only two of these couples:

 (1)  William Tate (age 44) married Pheraba Fugate (age 41) on 12 October 1849 according to a minister’s return recently found in the Russell County Courthouse.  I found them in the 1850 Russell County census with four children, ages 1, 4, 7, & 11.

(2)  Henry Hay and “Nicy” Robinson.  They were in Lawrence County, KY in 1850, in Morgan County, KY in 1854 and 1860, and in Elliott County, KY in 1870.  The birth record of a child showed that the mother’s maiden name was Eunice Roberson.  They had appeared on four Russell County VA lewdness lists in1849 and 1850.  Possibly they married in Russell County immediately before they left, but it is more likely they left to avoid further prosecution in the courts.  There is no indication they married in Kentucky and it seems unlikely anyone there knew or cared.  They apparently stayed together for life.  One of their granddaughters could pass for pure Indian, so now I wonder if it would have been legal for Henry to have married Eunice if she had been Indian or other nonwhite. Most of the other individuals charged with lewdness were listed in the 1850 census of Russell County.  There was a wide range of ages and circumstances so I really can’t generalize about what I found.  Perhaps any further research on the matter is best left up to those researching the individual families. There are a number of reasons why individuals charged with lewdness did not or could not marry;

(1)    The expense of the marriage bond and marriage licenses might not have been affordable.

(2)     One or both parties might have still been legally married to someone else.

(3)     One or both might have been legally divorced, yet by law forbidden to remarry by the court which gave the divorce.  (The Russell County Court sometimes disallowed remarriage.)

(4)     Marriage of a white person to one of color was probably illegal at this time.  A person of color could include anyone thought to be part Negro or Indian such as the Melungeons.  Jews and Gypsies and dark Europeans could also fall in this category.

Comments on the Lost Marriage

Records of Russell County Virginia

By Kenneth L. Dyer

 Of all the Courthouse Books that have been lost to fire and other disasters in western Virginia, the most painful loss to genealogists must surely be that of Russell County Marriage Book 1, supposedly to fire, in 1853.  Amazingly, almost all other record books were rescued from this fire.  The thousands of marriages that should have been included in Marriage Book 1 spanned the years 1785-1853.  Many of these lost marriages may be deduced from other records.  Mary D. Fugate extracted marriages implied from information contained in Deed Book 1-14, Will Books 2-6, and Death Register 1 of Russell County; Will Books 1-3 of Lee County; and Deed Book 1 of Scott County.  This compilation was published in 1991 by Uberian Publishing Company, Athens, Georgia under the title “Implied Marriages of Russell County, Virginia”.  These approximately 1,000 records pertain to less than 900 marriages because of overlapping information contained in different sources.  (PG Note: next sentence is incomplete.)  Also many of the marriages implied by Russell County records would-------.  Some believe that Marriage Book 1 was not burned.  It may have been “borrowed” and some day hopefully could be returned.

To understand the magnitude of the loss, even with this partial recovery, we should look at one fragment of the original records which did survive.  A list of eight marriages by Reverend Thomas Hansford was submitted by the County Clerk of Russell County as part of the Revolutionary War pension application of Richard Crabtree.  Here they are:
 

Richard Crabtree m Sarah Richardson 8-10-1792

William Kilgore m Jane Osborn 10-29-1791

Alden Williams m Elizabeth Jackson 4-15-1792

William Whorton m Jemima Briers 12-05-1792

David Canady m Elizabeth Conway ??-25-1792

John Gilbert m Barbara Dowel 7-18-1792

James Kelly m Suzanna Kezar 3-15-1792

Thomas Ford m Sarah Compton 5-23-1792
 

Of these eight marriages, only one – that of William Kilgore to Jane Osborn, was found in the compilation of implied marriages.  From this sample it would appear that only a small percentage of the Russell marriages were included in the published compilation.  Many unpublished records of Russell County marriages have survived in Bible records, family records, county histories, unsearched courthouse records, church records, and even family traditions.  Most of these are now widely scattered in other states.  We need a systematic system of collecting and preserving these records before those that remain also gradually fade away.  About 15 years ago I heard that Netti Schreiner-Yantis was compiling just such a list of Russell County marriages and intended to publish them.  I sent her a few that I had at the time but never heard back. Records for 157 Russell County marriages from August 1848 to January 1853 were recently found in the attic of the Russell County courthouse and posted on the internet by Michael Dye.  (PG Note:  That site is located at http://www.rootsweb.com/~varussel/vitals/index.html and includes other info as well.)  These were of three types on small slips of paper (1) permission to marry, (2) records signed by the clerk indicating a marriage license had been issued, and (3) minister’s returns.  This was a truly significant find. I have scanned Russell County Law Order Books 1-12 for information that might pertain to my many ancestors who resided there until about 1850.  Yes’, I’ve seen and used the indexes to these volumes, but also know that some types of information were not indexed.  I’ll assemble marriage and relationship data from this later and compare it with the marriage data already extracted from these books and posted on the internet by Jack Hockett. While Marriage Book 1 has disappeared court records do survive on what we would call common-law marriages.  Perhaps we would not hope to find our ancestors so listed, yet the information can still be of value in our genealogical quest.  Many couples did not marry, perhaps because of the expense of the marriage bond, or perhaps one or both were not legally free to remarry.  Some of you may have seen an ancestor charged with lewdness in the Law Order Book indexes and hesitated to look further.  A quick glance at these lewdness lists should make it evident that , with one exception, these were couples who were living together without being legally married.  The same names show up on list after list.  I believe evidence was presented in court that one of these coupled had married; however, I failed to record it.