Thomas Reynolds of Surry and Charles City County

Thomas Reynolds, surgeon, appears in the records of both Surry County and Charles City County.   The earliest record of him is indirect, when he was mentioned as an adjoining landowner in a patent issued on 15 August 1637 to John Hucks for 200 acres in James City County on the south side of James River.1  The land was located in what later became Surry County, near Smith’s Fort Creek [later called Grays Creek].2

In 1652 probably the same Thomas Reynolds assigned a patent of 50 acres in Charles City County to Francis Gray.3  In 1654 the Surry County records identify Thomas Reynolds as a doctor when he sued for “physicke” services.4

He apparently lived on or near the boundary between Surry County and Charles City County (later Prince George County).  On 17 September 1655 the Charles City County court assigned militia companies, one of which is described as covering the area on the “lower end” of Charles City County “and 23 persons at Chepokes to the howse of Tho. Reynolds.”  (Chippoakes Creek was the boundary between Charles City County and Surry County.)5  On 13 February 1657/8 Thomas Warren of Surry sold to Thomas Reynolds. “Chyrurgion” of Martins Brandon in Charles City County, 100 acres on Smith’s Fort Creek near the old 1637 patent.6   The acknowledgement of payment refers to him as “Doctor Tho. Rennals”.7  On 6 March 1664/5 Thomas Reynolds sold the 100 acres purchased seven years earlier by giving power of attorney to “my loveinge wife Jane Reynolds” who then appeared in court to acknowledge the sale.8   At the same court a land sale by Luthird and Chaddocke is recorded, referencing a prior assignment to them from “Dr. Reynolds”, perhaps referring to the land Reynolds owned in 1637.9

He does not appear further in Surry’s records, but is mentioned frequently, often as a doctor, in Charles City records through 1665.10   There is at that point a gap in the Charles City County records until a fragmentary book for 1672-3 in which he is not mentioned at all.   However, on 28 April 1660 Marke Avery of Martins Brandon made a deed of gift of 50 acres to Thomas Reynolds “chirurgeon of Surry County”. 11   A patent renewal was issued to Thomas Reynolds for this land ten years later on 14 October 1670.12  There are no further records of either Thomas Reynolds or of his wife Jane, Charles City County records being essentially nonexistent after 1665.   There are no Reynolds in the 1704 quit rents in either Charles City or Prince George counties.

He is perhaps the “Tho. Reynolds” claimed as a headright by Henry Perry for a patent in Charles City County on 18 December 1637, for land on the north side of the James River roughly opposite Martins Brandon.13  “Thomas Reynolds at Martins Brandon in Virginia” was left £40 in the will of Robert Greene of Stepney, Middlesex in 1658, perhaps an indication of his English origins.14

There are no know records of his children.

  1. Virginia Patent Book 1, p450. [↩]
  2. Some have speculated that the Crosse Creek mentioned in the patent was in another county.  However, a later patent adjoining the John Hucks patent was located on Smith’s Fort Creek, later called Gray’s Creek, in northern Surry.  John Hucks married the daughter of Thomas Gray, after whom the creek was named and is mentioned frequently in early Surry records. [↩]
  3. Virginia Colonial Abstracts, Beverley Fleet, Vol. 3, p284 speaks of a patent to Francis Grey of 20 August 1663 due by assignment from Thomas Reynolds dated 2 February 1651/2, which Grey then assigned to John Patem.  There is no patent recorded to any of the three men which matches this description. [↩]
  4. Surry County Deed Book 1, p57. [↩]
  5. Virginia Colonial Abstracts, Beverley Fleet, Vol. 3, p152. [↩]
  6. Surry County Deed Book 1, p118. [↩]
  7. Surry County Deed Book 1, p115. [↩]
  8. Surry County Deed Book 1, p251. [↩]
  9. Surry County Deed Book 1, p251.  Both deeds on same page. [↩]
  10. Virginia Colonial Abstracts, Beverley Fleet, Vol. 3, p172, p189, p235 all mention him as a doctor. [↩]
  11. Virginia Colonial Abstracts, Beverley Fleet, Vol. 3, p234. [↩]
  12. Virginia Patent Book 6, p326. [↩]
  13. Virginia Patent Book 1, p510. [↩]
  14. Genealogical Gleanings in England, Henry F. Waters (1901), p264. [↩]