The Wyche Family of Virginia

The two images that follow are from "Brunswick County, Virginia, Deeds, Wills, Etc., No. 1, 1732-1740, published in The Virginia Genealogist, vol. 2 (1958), pages 126 and 127. It is an abstract of the will of Henry Wyche of Brunswick County. In the will he mentions his daughter Abigail Brewer. (Images were downloaded from AmericanAncestors.org)

And in volume 3 (1959), p. 65, is an abstract of the filing of the inventory of Henry Wyche's estate, by his wife, Frances Brewer, who was executrix.

Henry's daughter, Abigail (Wyche) Brewer, mentioned in his will, was the wife of George Brewer (d. 1760), a son of George Brewer and Sarah Lanier. In the past I have mentioned to some researching George Brewer of Brunswick Co.,, Virginia, that of George Brewer's nine sons, the only one whose wife has been identified with any certainty is his son George's wife, Abigail Wyche. And this is only because her father, Henry Wyche, left a will pointing this out.While the abstract shown above does not specifically mention George Brewer, an account of the estate of Henry Wyche, that was published in 1905, does. This second account, titled "Wyche Family," is found in The William & Mary Quarterly, running over a few issues beginning with volume 13 (1904) available online here on the Internet Archives site. For this Henry Wyche's will see volume 14 (1905), pages 59-60. George Brewer is mentioned as an executor of the will on page 60. This volume is also online.

To my knowledge, this account of the Wyche Family of Virginia, published in The William & Mary Quarterly is the only published account of the Wyche Family. If someone knows of another, more thorough account, please point it out to us. What appears in The William & Mary Quarterly was apparently compiled by Clarence A. Wyche from records he had acquired. This according to a published genealogy titled The Reverend Thomas Johnston Allison Family, Including Tillott History and Wyche History, by Charles Walter Allison in 1955, and also available online. For the early Wyche generation, Allison follows Clarence A. Wyche's account of 1904-06, and does not add anything beyond that account.

Henry Wyche, the testator of the will which mentions his daughter Abigail Brewer, wrote his will on 4 March 1736/37?, and died by 7 April 1737 when the inventory was presented. His date and place of birth is not known, but it was his father, also named Henry Wyche, who was the immigrant (from England) to Virginia. The elder Henry was in Virginia by October 1689 when at a court session in Surry County, Virginia, Robert Owen received a patent on 743 acres, of which 648 had been received from his father Benjamin Owen, and the other 95 having been received for "the importation of Jon. Sharp and Henry Wych" (Sue Mathys, "Early Owen Connections," The Virginia Genealogist 27(1983):26, citing Virginia Patent Book 8, p. 3). The elder Henry also left a will in Surry Co., Virginia, dated 1 August 1712 and proved 18 March 1714. In it he mentions his children Aillinor (Eleanor), William, George, Sarah, Henry and James. Henry does not mention his wife and to my knowledge she has not yet been identified ("Wyche Family," The William & Mary Quarterly 14(1905):59). According the the "Wyche Family" source, the younger Henry received a patent for 370 acres on the north side of the Meherrin River on 22 June 1722. A Surry County, Virginia deed dated 11 July 1719 in which Ralph Jackson sold land to "Hix," mentions Henry Wyche's line with the property, "on the north side of the Meherrin River" (Evelyn Duke Brandenberger, "The Jacksons of Lower Virginia," The Virginia Genealogist 30( 1986):288, citing Patent Book 10, p. 447). The just mentioned, "Jacksons of Lower Virginia" (same page) also mentions that in 1719, both Ralph Jackson and an Ambrose Jackson, received patents on land that was either near or adjoined the land of Henry Wyche. A John Jackson of Surry County is also mentioned as having land on the north side of the Meherrin River, at the corner of Ralph Jackson's land.

If you have spent any time trying to research the earliest generations of the families who settled in Brunswick County, Virginia (which was created in 1720 out of parts of Surry, Prince George and Isle of Wight Counties), you know first hand that birth (or baptism), marriage and death records for this time are non-existent. Families have to be reconstructed from probate records and from those few deeds which might mention family relationships. This is why I'm taking the time and space to bring up the Wyche family and the patents and deeds mentioned in the previous paragraph.To this I would add that settlements in colonial America during the 1600s and early 1700s were rather small and men and women in these settlements would have found marriage partners among the other families who live close by. There were not many "long distance marriages" among colonial period Americans. When looking for the identity of an otherwise unidentified wife, start with the families who lived closest to the the wife's husband. In the case of the wives of the sons of George Brewer, and for the identity of George Brewer's second wife, Alice (___), start with those families that lived near George Brewer. There are a few to start with here. The Wyche family, we know from published research (above) that the families of Jackson and Hix (Hicks) and Owen, are also near by. A search of the deed and patent records from the late 1600s and early 1700s should turn up more family names.

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