12/24/2017
John Goode of Whitby (1632-1709)
In a Henrico County, Virginia court deposition dated 2 Oct 1704, John Goode of Whitby Plantation indicated his age to be seventy-two years, meaning he was born about 1632. Although information about his early life is vague and scarce, according to family legend he left home during Cromwell’s revolt against King Charles I. Oral tradition has it that our ancestor was a Cavalier or Royalist sympathetic to the King, which made it uncomfortable for him to remain in England.
Other family lore indicates that the Goode family first came to be represented in the United States by two brothers who, on account of their support of the King Charles the First in the Parliamentary Wars, were exiled by Cromwell in 1648. They reportedly settled at Norfolk, Virginia, where some member of the family has resided to the present day. According to this account, the ancestral home of this branch of the Goode family was Whitby, Yorkshire, England.
The English civil war began in 1642 and lasted until King Charles I was beheaded in 1649. It is during this period that John Goode is thought to have left England. Barbados had an extensive colony of Loyalists, which made it a natural attraction during the time of Cromwell. Two ships carrying passenger John Goode to and from Barbados have been identified, the first in 1650 to Barbados and the second in 1659 to Virginia, meaning he left home at eighteen and arrived in Virginia aged twenty-seven years.
While in Barbados John Goode married his first wife, Frances Mackarness, who is said to have died leaving a child named Frances Goode. Frances Goode-Bridgewater, eldest daughter of John Goode and wife of Samuel Bridgewater, gave a deposition in 1690, stating she was thirty-two years old, placing her birth about 1657. Allowing for the marriage of her parents at least ten months earlier, John Goode would have first married by 1656. A couple years later John Goode, merchant, received merchandise in Barbados from England, which was shipped by Samuel Eames the elder of London and was being brought by his partner, Samuel Eames, the younger. The younger Eames died at sea on May 1, 1659.
Later that same year, in the last Will & Testament of John Mackerness, cooper, written August 8, 1659 and proved September 24, 1659, John Goode about 27 years old at the time, was referred to as "friend." Family members of John Mackerness named in this will included his unmarried daughter Mary Mackerness among others. Shortly thereafter, however, on October 15, 1659, there is a listing of John Goode and Mary Goode as headright passengers traveling to the American colonies. Some researchers have suggested, therefore, that after the death of his first wife, business partner and friend, John Goode married the latter's daughter Mary Mackerness, before making his way to Virginia.
On the voyage from Barbados to Virginia, John Goode is said to have been accompanied by his wife Mary Mackerness, infant son Samuel and a serving maid. Given that daughter Frances Goode is not mentioned in this report, however, its accuracy is questionable. In any case, the name entered on the passenger list was “John Goode, Gentleman."
When he first arrived in America at Jamestown, John lost no time in buying five-hundred acres of virgin land on the upper James River from Captain Matthew Gough (also spelled Goche, Gouche, Gouge, Gooch), a former burgess from Henrico County (1642-1643) who had received a land grant from the Crown.
This land is situated on the south side of the James River, about four miles from the city of Manchester. The location of the "Whitby" homestead (built about 1673) has been established to be in the southeastern corner of present-day Manchester Township, Chesterfield County, Virginia (just south of Richmond at what is now the Tidewater Quarry), by way of land patents secured by his son Samuel Goode in 1698.
This part of Chesterfield County shares a border with both Richmond and Varina Township, Henrico County, Virginia. The site was an eminence on the west bank of the James River and is now located within the Richmond city limits. The colonial frontier Whitby plantation house was one of, if not the first built so far from the Jamestown and Williamsburg settlements, along the James River nearly opposite Powhatan, which is where Captain John Smith first met an Indian chief of the same name.
Goode’s Rock in the James River is said to be in front of the place where Whitby once stood. It has been dangerous enough that navigators have sought to steer clear of it for three centuries. One report has it located near Richmond's Deepwater Terminal. Goode's Creek runs through what was once John Goode's plantation and empties into the James River, although during his time it was called Stoney Creek. This was the “Whitby" seat of the Goode family for more than 200 years.
Although exactly when it was built remains uncertain, Whitby was an English type dwelling with dormer windows and brick chimney at each end (see sketch above), located on high ground overlooking the river, and the original plantation at one time included 5,000 acres. Several generations of the Goode family bred fine racehorses and it was at Whitby they built one of, if not the first, private racecourse in the county.
Whitby Plantation was later used as a Confederate hospital, though, and subsequently destroyed toward the end of the Civil War. The surrounding property, however, remained in the Goode family until 1876. The remnants of a stone barn falling prey to the elements was still standing near the former Goode homestead in 1954. Today, the only trace of the former plantation is a street named to commemorate the family and our ties to the location. The land itself is now a federal mine operated on Deepwater Terminal Road.
Sometime after settling into their new surroundings, though, John's second wife Mary Mackerness is said to have died. While the details concerning her death remain unclear, it has been suggested she might have died giving birth to his second son Robert Goode. Whatever the date or cause, though, she was apparently unable to survive the privations of frontier life. Despite such hardships, after several years of trading between England and the colonies from Barbados, and arriving in Virginia, John Goode soon settled down into the occupation of to***co planter, father, good neighbor, and infrequent church attendee at the local congregation.
By 1667, for example, and again in 1678, records indicate he received merchandise in Virginia aboard the ships "Rebecca," "Humphrey & Elizabeth," and "William & John" of London. A John Goode, of London, also engaged attorney Francis Washington, to represent him at the court of Charles City, seeking relief for debts due him, an agreement witnessed by one Rice Hooe. John Goode was also a witness to the last Will & Testament of Jeremiah Benskin dated April 13, 1670, along with son-in-law Samuel Bridgewater. By January 15, 1677 John Goode had agreed with neighbor William Byrd that Stoney Creek was the boundary between their properties, an agreement made legal August 1, 1678 in Henrico County Court.
And to work this property, four free white males sixteen years and older (i.e., tythables) in the Turkey Island, Henrico County, Virginia household of Mr. John Goode as of June 2, 1679, meaning three of his sons (i.e., Samuel, Robert and John) were by then young men capable of riding a horse and bearing arms. And unsurprisingly, for a man busy providing for and protecting a growing family on the Indian frontier, Thomas Howlett presented John Goode before the grand jury on January 2, 1684, for having “been sixteen years in ye parish and never at church!” The penalty was fifty pounds of to***co.
From the scant information available, the most likely conclusion seems to be that John Goode and Anne Bennett were married about 1662 and their eldest son John Bennett Goode was born ten months later in 1663. The new bride is said to have been born in England, migrated to Virginia by way of Holland, and died at Whitby, Henrico, Virginia before 1708.
The plantations located around the falls of the James River, however, were then on the Indian frontier. The Indians, while nominally at peace with the colony, perpetrated many outrages against the settlers on the outlying farms. Tensions escalated to the point that western landowners made a concerted demand that troops be sent to the frontier to quell them.
From the comfort and security of Jamestown, Royal Governor Sir William Berkeley denied the necessity of such action and refused to act to protect those living further west. As their demands became more insistent, he threatened them as malcontents and seditionists. When conditions reached a point the frontier settlers considered intolerable, Nathaniel Bacon, seconded by John Goode, decided upon direct action.
They formed their own forces and marched against the Indians and gave them such a severe whipping, that the problem of Indian depredations was resolved for decades. John accompanied these expeditions between May and September of 1676 and is said to have represented the Goode family name with distinction, while defending his hearth and kin.
Having accomplished their mission, Bacon and his supporters returned to their normal pursuits. What they soon discovered, though, was that Governor Berkeley was enraged on account of them taking the law into their own hands. His threats of reprisal infuriated them to the point that they were soon talking about marching against the capital at Jamestown and removing the governor by force.
Governor Berkeley was unprepared for such a possibility, though, and after a fierce battle Jamestown fell to the rebels and was burned. It seems at least possible, if not likely, that many of Bacon's own men had amazed themselves by what they had done.
The weight of public opinion and whatever armed force the governor could muster being against them, though, support for Bacon and his supporters soon dissipated as he and his chief lieutenants found themselves fugitives from the law. Bacon then became ill and while sick, the rebellion quickly collapsed.
He died in hiding and is reputed to have been buried under the main road at Gloucester Court House, in hope that his body would not be dug up and drawn-and-quartered, as the law of the day provided. His chief supporters were captured and hung.
John Goode was a leading citizen of the western marches of the colony, with sufficient courage to align himself early on with opponents of the reactionary government. While the Virginia colony at large had applauded the Bacon expeditions against the Indians, though, an armed rebellion against the King’s government, no matter how corrupt and ineffective, was another matter altogether. Fortunately for his descendants, John Goode decided against joining the uprising and remained at Whitby, while Bacon’s Rebellion proceeded to Jamestown.
Thus, John Goode's wisdom, patriotism, loyalty, intuition or whatever his motive was in drawing the distinction between fighting the Indians against the orders of Governor Berkeley and fighting against the King's government itself, can be said to have saved him from the noose, thereby allowing him to continue propagating future generations of proud Americans.
Although John sold two-hundred acres of his land in 1681, he secured a patent to another 888 acres also on the south side of the James in Henrico County by 1690, as well as 2,270 acres in Chesterfield County, and was a surveyor of the highways for Henrico County by 1683, indicating he remained quite active well into his sixth decade.
By April 1690, though, Mr. John Goode described himself to the Henrico County Court as “now ancient” and the highway surveyor work “burdensome,” when nominating William Blackman as his successor. John Good(e), Sr. paid quit rent on six-hundred acres in Henrico County in 1704 and John Trent sold him 109 acres on the north side of Falling Creek later that same year.
At seventy-two years, though, he must have begun to reflect on quite a feat. He had certainly been through a lot. After leaving the green hills of England as a teenager for semi-tropical Barbados, surviving a civil war in both and the plague in the latter; John Goode then moved to the frontier of Virginia, established an English-style estate in the wilderness of the upper James River, withstood Indian attacks, and skirted a rebellion, all while rearing and educating fourteen children.
As an important and well-regarded frontiersman of the Virginia colony a century before the American Revolution, the battles John Goode and like-minded neighbors had with Indians, were so well executed and success so phenomenal, as to allow decades to pass before a more permanent uprising of the people became necessary.
Since they left the task of helping build a new country to their children and descendants, it is interesting to note that the assembly providing the ways and means for John Goode and Nathaniel Bacon to suppress the Indians met in June of 1676, and exactly one-hundred years later to the month, resolutions were made directing Virginia delegates to declare colonial freedom and independence.
After being born in England during the reign of King Charles I, John Goode of Whitby made his way to a wilderness called Jamestown, Virginia twenty-seven years later, with the spirit, courage, determination and foresight needed to pursue a dream and vision that has come to be known as America. He wrote his will November 29, 1708 and departed this world sometime in February of 1709.
The Last Will & Testament of John Goode
In the name of God, Amen! The 29th day of November, in the year of our Lord God, seventeen-hundred-and-eight, I, John Goode of the County; and Parish of Henrico, in Virginia, Gent., being sick and weak of body, but of sound and perfect mind and memory, thanks be to God for it, do make, ordain, constitute and appoint this to be my last will and testament, in manner following:
Imprimis, I resign my soul into the hands of God who gave it, trusting through the merits of Jesus Christ my blessed Lord and Savior to obtain free pardon and forgiveness of all my sins; and my body to the earth, to be decently interred, at the discretion of my Executor, hereafter named.
Item, That my debts and funeral charges be first paid.
Item, I give, bequeath and devise to my son Robert Goode, one hundred acres of my land, lying next, and adjoining to the river, and north by the lands of William Byrd, Esq. To him the said Robert and his heirs forever.
Item, I give, bequeath and devise to my son John Goode, one hundred acres of my land lying next to the James River, and adjoining the land of my son, Samuel Goode, to him the said John and his heirs forever.
Item, I give, bequeath and devise to my sons Thomas Goode and Joseph Goode, my tract of land lying in the woods on the north side of Stony Creek, and at the heads of the aforementioned lands, estimated to be four hundred acres, more or less, to be equally divided between them when they shall come to lawful age: and my will is, that if either the said Thomas or Joseph shall decease in their nonage, the survivor of them shall have, hold, occupy, possess and enjoy the aforesaid tract of land, containing four hundred acres, to him and his heirs forever. But if my two sons shall arrive to lawful age, then my will is that Thomas enjoy two hundred acres of the aforementioned land, to him and his heirs forever, and that Joseph enjoy the other two hundred acres, to him the said Joseph and his heirs forever.
Item, I give and bequeath to my daughter Katherine Roberts, two thousand pounds of to***co.
Item, I give and bequeath to my daughter Elizabeth Blackman, two thousand pounds of to***co.
Item, I give and bequeath to my daughter Susanna Goode, two thousand pounds of to***co to be paid when she comes to age or is married.
Item, I give and bequeath to my daughter Anna Goode, two thousand pounds of to***co, to be paid when she comes to age or is married.
Item, I give and bequeath to my son Thomas Goode, two thousand pounds of to***co when he comes to lawful age.
Item, I give and bequeath to my son Joseph Goode, two thousand pounds of to***co to be paid when he comes of lawful age.
Item, I give and bequeath to my son Robert, two negroes, by name, Jupiter and Moll, and to his heirs forever.
Item, I give and bequeath to my son John, two negroes, by name George and Sabrina, and to his heirs forever.
Item, I give and bequeath to my son Thomas, two negroes, Abraham and Ned, and to his heirs forever.
Item, I give and bequeath to my son Joseph, one negro woman, by name Rose, with her increase, and to his heirs forever.
Item, I give and bequeath to my daughter Katherine Roberts, besides the two thousand pounds of to***co already given, one thousand pounds of to***co more, to be paid four years after my decease.
Item, I give to my son Samuel, ten shillings, and a way for the cart and horse on the outside of the low-grounds by long swamp, during the term of his natural life.
Item, I give to my daughter Frances, one shilling.
Item, I give to my daughter Mary, one shilling.
Item, I give to my daughter Martha, one shilling.
Item, I give to my daughter Ursula, one shilling.
All the rest of my goods and chattels I give and bequeath to my two sons Robert and John, and do make my said two sons Robert and John whole and sole Executors of this my last will and testament, hereby revoking all former wills by me made and done.
In testimony whereof, I hereunto set my hand and seal this day and year first written.
Item, my will is, that if Thomas and Joseph should die before they come to lawful age, their estate to be equally divided between their own brothers.
Signature, JOHN GOODE (seal)
Signed, sealed, delivered and acknowledged as his last will and testament in presence of us, Thomas Byrd, Giles Webb, All., Clerke, Mary Forest
