Patrick Hamrick
Family Patriarch
PATRICK'S LIFE
January 7, 1724/25
Lord Fairfax granted unto Roger Day of Stafford County [ . . . ] one Certain Tract or p’sell of Land containing Seven hundred and Sixty Acres Sectuate Lying and being In the Aforesaid County on the North Side of the main run of Occaquan river called Broad run. Bounded as followeth Vizt. Beginning at a white Oak Standing on the East Side of a Branch of the Aforesaid run, it being also a Corner Tree to a parcell of Land. Survey’d for Edward Grayham, and Extending Thence, North Forty three degrees, West Seventy four pole, To a red Oak, Thence North Thirteen degr. West one hundred and twenty po: To a Poplar Standing In the Fork of a branch of the Aforesaid run, Thence down the said Branch According to the Several Courses and Meanders Thereof which Reduces into a Single Course is South Seventy three and a half Degr West four hundred fifty four poles, to two marked white Oaks Standing on the North Side of the Said Branch. Thence Crossing the Said Branch. South Twenty two Degr East Three hundred fifty Six poles. To a hiccory Standing on the South Side of the first mencen’d Branch and alsoo a Corner to Edw:d Grayhams Thence up the Several Courses and Meanders of the Said branch which reduced Into a Single Course is North fifty three deg:r East four hundred and Eighty po: To the first Station. [ . . . ]
At the bottom of the deed is a note that was added on August 17, 1725. It reads: This Deed was returned to me by my Collector Mr. James Carter. Roger Day died without paying the Composition So I Cancelld the Deed and granted the lands to Henry McDonnac who Intermarried with the Said Days widow by deed dated the 17th day of August 1725 See folio 158 (Virginia Northern Neck Land Grants Book A 1722 – 1726. p. 100.)
Patrick ended up with 260 acres of this property by 1739 because of his kinship to Roger Day. REF: August 9 & 10, 1727, 1738/39, and September 3, 1739 The property was located in what eventually became Prince William County at the southern edge of what is now the city of Manassas (about five miles or so southeast of the famous Civil War battle site). (Manassas did not come into existence until well after Patrick’s time.) Roger Day apparently died sometime between January 1725 (when this grant was issued) and August 1725 (as noted above). The Last Will and Testament of Robert Brent, which was dated May 16, 1719, mentions that Roger Day was living on 150 acres of land that belonged to Brent on "acquia run" as of that point in time. (Virginia Magazine of History and Biogrophy, Volume XVIII. Published by The Virginia Historical Society for the year ending December 31, 1910. Richmond: Kraus Reprint Corporation, 1968. p. 444.) Roger was also listed on the Stafford County Tobacco Tenders list for 1724 with 3,895 tobacco plants. (George Harrison Sanford King. Register of Overwharton Parish Stafford County, Virginia 1723 - 1758. Fredericksburg, VA: Compiled and Published by George Harrison Sanford King, 1961. p. 160.) (This would have required about an acre and a half of cultivated land—three to four acres supported 10,000 plants.) (Arthur Pierce Middleton. Tobacco Coast: A Maritime History of Chesapeake Bay in the Colonial Era. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984. p. 114.) The Stafford County General Index [of Wills and Inventories] indicates that Roger Day’s will was on page 169 of Liber K 1721 - 1730 and an inventory on page 183 of the same book but, unfortunately, the book has been lost. A partial inventory of his estate, representing his daughter’s inheritance, was presented in court in 1731 (and preserved). REF: May 10, 1731