The Trents of Virginia How Many Fredericks? |
| There
are many mysteries in the Trent family tree. The ancestry of the
William Trent (c.1715-1800) who married Sarah/Susannah Bryant is
unclear (see separate
article on
the results of the Trent Family DNA project).
But there are
also questions about his descendants. It is generally agreed that
William had a son named Frederick, as well as four other sons named
John, Bryant, Alexander and William (aka Williamson). There may or may not
be other sons, including James Harvey Trent whose
descendants appear to have the right Y-DNA type. One of the questions is how many Frederick Trents were in southwestern Virginia during the time period of roughly 1795-1835. There is a widespread belief that there are two Fredericks, but the evidence for this is flimsy. It seems more likely that there was only one Frederick who moved frequently between different counties instead of living in one place, creating the impression that there was more than one of him. The only real evidence for the existence of two Fredericks is the presence of two signatures on the same petition in 1795, but it's possible that this was an accidental or intentional double counting of the same person. There are no records of him living in more than one place in the same year, and there are a number of years where he can't be located at all. Assuming that there was just one Frederick, it's not clear whether he had one wife who was known by two different names, or two different wives (probably one after the other, not both at the same time). Frederick's first appearance in the record books is in 1795, but we don't know his age at that time. He was presumably at least 21 years old (leading to the general assumption that he was born before 1774), but he could have been significantly older. His wife's name is usually given as Lydia, Liddy, or Leddy (all nicknames for Elizabeth). She will be called Lydia in this article. Her maiden name is unknown, but is sometimes listed as Hawke or Leeds with no supporting documentation. The alleged second Frederick
Trent also makes his first appearance in the record books in 1795, in
the same county as the first Frederick (Russell; part of the
county was renamed Tazewell at the end of 1799) . His wife was
Agnes Horton (or Harper, according to some sources). This
Frederick's descendants have the same Y-DNA type as the other
descendants of William Trent and Sarah Bryant, but no one knows who
his father was. The DNA project indicates that these two Fredericks have the same Y-DNA haplogroup, so if there really are two Fredericks they must be related. But where could the second Frederick have come from? One possibility is that Frederick/Agnes is descended from Henry Trent of Amherst (who has the right DNA type, and might be the brother of William/Bryant), or the John Trent who died in Albemarle County (who is believed to be the brother of Henry of Amherst). There could be other Group 2 "founding fathers" who never made it into the record books. Some sources say (without evidence) that Frederick/Agnes is the son of Frederick/Lydia, while other sources say (also without evidence) that this is impossible. The birthdates of William Trent and Sarah Bryant are unknown, their marriage date was not recorded, and neither was the birthdate of any of their children. So we don't know what's possible and what isn't.
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The petition versus the
tax records. In
1795, there was a petition of the inhabitants of Wythe and Russell county to
form a new county, which resulted in the creation of Tazewell county.
The Trents were living in Russell county at petition time, and the
Zajac website reports that Then Zajac cites evidence that Frederick and Agnes were in Logan county in 1806, which doesn't tell us where they were in 1795. The 1806 citation is from "History of Logan County" by Henry Clay Ragland which is not always accurate - see the Reference section. Furthermore the 1806 location on Gilbert Creek was never part of Russell or Tazewell county; in 1795 it was in Kanawha county, and the area became part of Cabell county in 1809 and Logan county in 1824. Click
here to see
a pdf of the petition with the Trent signatures marked. This is
clearly a list made by a clerk, not a collection of original signatures by
hundreds of different people. We don't know the details of the
signature collection process, what kind of source
documents were used to make the list, or how much potential there was for
clerical error.
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Multiple residences. Most discussions of the family rely on sporadic records of Frederick/Lydia in Tazewell county through 1824, and a report of Frederick/Agnes in Logan county in 1806. It is assumed that each Frederick settled down in one place because that's what most people do. So on the surface, it looks like they couldn't be the same person because they lived in two different places. But looks can be deceiving. A closer look at the records suggest that the Frederick Trent family moved frequently between multiple locations including the counties of Russell, Tazewell, and Cabell/Logan in Virginia, and possibly even some locations in Kentucky. In many years, they are conspicuously absent from the tax records in the county where they were assumed to be living. We do not find records of a Frederick Trent living in two different counties in the same year, although there are occasions where he is recorded on the tax list for one county, and recorded as visiting a different county for a specific purpose. It is highly probable that Frederick/Lydia and Frederick/Agnes are the same person.
The quick summary:
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| Lydia and Agnes - too many wives?
Although we can't rule out the possibility that Frederick was a
bigamist who shuttled back and forth between wives in different
counties, there are other ways to reconcile this difference that
seem more likely. If Frederick really was a bigamist, then where did
Agnes live? Apparently it wasn't in Logan County. As the sons
attributed to her started appearing on tax lists, that isn't where
they were.
We know very little about Lydia and Agnes.
We don't know who their parents were, or the dates of their birth,
marriage, and death, and we don't even have a clear idea of what
their maiden names were. It's generally accepted that Agnes
had at least five children based on the Ragland book. It looks like the only documented child
attributed to Lydia is
a daughter named Linea/Linney (often transcribed as Sinea) who was born around 1801/02 (Zajac).
Another possibility is that Lydia was Frederick's first wife, and based on the timeline she was probably the mother of the children that have been attributed to Agnes (see Reference section). If Lydia and Agnes are not the same person, then Frederick and Agnes may have married after Lydia died. They did not necessarily have any children together, but later generations may have mistakenly thought that Agnes was their biological grandmother. Such mistakes are not unusual. The Ragland book published in 1896 is our only source of information about the name of the children's mother, and it is apparently based on anecdotes from later generations which may not be accurate. If Frederick was really living in Logan circa 1806, it might have been Lydia who was with him at the time not Agnes, and her name was misreported ninety years later. The 1835 Logan tax list is proof that a person called Agnes Trent really did exist, just as the earlier Tazewell records prove that someone called Lydia Trent really existed. But it doesn't prove that they were two different people, or that they were married to two different Frederick Trents. The evidence indicates strongly that there was just one Frederick. It doesn't seem too likely that Lydia and Agnes were the same person, but it can't be ruled out. The death record for Frederick's daughter Sarah Trent Riffe says that her parents were T and A Trent, which points to a belief that her mother's name was Agnes; the "T" may have started out as an F that was never completed. Sarah died of old age in 1893, roughly 60 years after Agnes' first and last appearance in a public document. This is about the same time that the Ragland book was published, reporting that Agnes was the mother of the five children. By the 1890s, Frederick's descendants clearly believed that Agnes was the mother of the children; but this might be wrong. Triangulated autosomal DNA matches between the descendants of Humphrey Trent
and descendants of John
Horton II,
William Horton, and members of the Kendrick family
indicate that Humphrey had Horton/Kendrick ancestry. But
this doesn't prove who his mother was; Lydia could have been a Horton, whether or not she was the same person as Agnes.
Based on the estimated birthdates of all the children (not just the
five attributed to Agnes), it's likely that
Frederick and Lydia married around 1799-1800, when Frederick was
living in Russell County. If Agnes is not the same person as Lydia
and really is the mother of the children attributed to her,
then Frederick and Agnes were presumably married by 1806 when son Humphrey was born.
This is also the year that Ragland reported them in Logan county,
saying that Frederick was from Russell County and Agnes was from
Tazewell (which was part of Russell until the end of 1799). Russell County
is obviously a good place to look for family members of Lydia
and/or Agnes. But there are two Horton/Kendrick heads of household on the Russell tax list (Familysearch) in the relevant time period. John Horton II is on the tax list almost every year from 1788-1806, and he had landholdings on Indian Creek, midway between Frederick's land at the Cove and John Trent's land at Kents Ridge (see Landholdings article). But the 1818 deeds disposing of these lands list his heirs, and there's no room for Frederick's wife to be one of them (Library of Virginia). There are records indicating that Lydia ordered a survey for 20 acres on Indian Creek, but the details are vague (Genealogy.com). John's brother William Horton apparently never lived in Russell County. William's wife Mary Kendrick Horton was the sister of John Horton's wife Isabella, and both women were sisters of Patrick Kendrick, who unsuccessfully sued Frederick Trent in 1824. After William Horton died in 1797, his widow and children moved to Russell County, and Mary Horton appears on the Russell tax lists during the 1798-1811 time period in years when she had a reportable underage male in the household. From 1812 onwards, she no longer had minor sons in her household. The children of William and Mary Horton are not very well documented, especially the daughters. There's room in this family for an undocumented daughter who married Frederick Trent. John and William Horton had other brothers who are also poorly documented, but these brothers don't appear on the Russell tax list during the relevant time period. It seems most likely that William and Mary Horton are the parents of Frederick's childbearing wife. The sons of William and Mary Horton include Daniel and Lewis Horton, who achieved lasting notoriety when Lewis was murdered by Abner Vance in 1817. A romantic legend has sprung up that Vance killed Lewis in a fit of rage because Lewis dishonored Vance's daughter. But the surviving records tell a different story. They report that Vance was waiting at a river crossing to kill Daniel Horton, apparently because Vance was angry about a legal dispute. But Vance killed Lewis Horton instead because Lewis came to the river crossing and Daniel didn't (Abner Vance article). The Riffe Bible entry. Frederick's daughter Sarah/Sallie (born 1810) married William Riffe. A
member story on Ancestry says that the Riffe family bible
contains this entry: Chilhowie is currently in Smyth County, Virginia, which was formed from Washington and Wythe counties in 1832. The exact location of Sallie's birth can't be determined, but the general area is adjacent to Russell and Tazewell counties. We have no record of Frederick in Washington or Wythe county, but it's certainly an area that he could have visited. He was recorded on the Tazewell tax lists for 1809-1811, so any stay in Washington/Wythe must have been temporary. The bible entry is written in the past tense, indicating that it was made sometime after the 1893 death of Sarah/Sallie Trent Riffe. It looks like her parents' first names had already been forgotten, but their last names were still remembered. Two of her siblings were still known, as well as a family connection to John Skaggs. The member story notes that the entry made an error about Peter Cline; the Peter Cline who married Edy Trent was probably the grandson of the Peter Cline from Holland. "Old Fred Trent" is apparently Sarah's brother Frederick Junior. Based on this bible entry, the member story concludes that Agnes Horton must have been the sister of Cynthia Horton (wife of John Skaggs). I disagree with this conclusion because it's unlikely that Sarah was the literal niece of John Skaggs. "Uncle" is often used as a courtesy title for an older relative, and the actual relationship might be something else. Agnes and Cynthia could be sisters if Agnes was Frederick's younger second wife and not the mother of his children. But the timeline doesn't work for them to be sisters if Agnes was the children's biological mother. The member story says "Records also show that Cynthia Horton's father was John Horton." I haven't found any documentation for her parents, but she is usually claimed to be the daughter of John Horton III and Jane Sargent. John III and Jane Sargent are too young to be the grandparents of Humphrey Trent (he's the oldest of the children attributed to Frederick and Agnes, and was born in 1806). John Horton III was born circa 1777, Jane Sargent was born circa 1782, they married around 1800, and Cynthia Horton was born in 1804. John III and Jane are plausible parents for Cynthia, but not for the mother of Frederick's children. The US census for 1850, 1860 and 1870 shows a John Skaggs with a
wife named Cynthia, but they don't show her maiden name and
neither does her
tombstone. I can't find any record that she was a Horton,
although I have no reason to doubt that this is the couple that the
bible entry was referring to. This
John Skaggs is unlikely to have been an Indian fighter and
scout. He is documented as living his entire life (1795-1876)
in Virginia, which didn't provide that sort of employment during this
time period. |
These are the Trents who appear on the tax records, all from the upper district of Russell county. It's likely that they are brothers, the sons of William Trent and Sarah Bryant, but we can't be certain of this. The William Trent who appears on the tax list might be the father.
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| The Tazewell county records |
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According to Zajac, these are the records of Frederick/Lydia in Tazewell county:
Tazewell county was formed in December 1799. According to FamilySearch microfilm records of the Tazewell property tax list [note: the first 410 images are for Tyler County; Tazewell begins at Image 411]:
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| Kanawha/Cabell/Logan county records |
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There are fewer records for Frederick/Agnes than there are
for Frederick/Lydia. A major source of information is Ragland's "History
of Logan County", which states:
Notice that the book says Frederick was from Russell
county, which shows only one Frederick Trent on the tax list from 1795-1803.
It says that Agnes was from Tazewell - a place where Lydia appears in the
record books several times but Agnes can't be found.
Microfilm records at FamilySearch show the following on the Cabell county tax lists:
The
Cabell County deed records show no Trents in the relevant time period. WVGenWeb (now on Archive.org; the original website seems to be offline) has transcribed lists for a few years of Logan County personal tax lists; these are the records that survived the Civil War, and the other years perished. The originals are not available online. Here's the number of Trents that are reported in the available years:
Microfilms of the Logan County land books for 1824-1902 are available online at FamilySearch. This is a real estate tax list that shows the property owners. There is no index or search function; manual scrolling is required. They show the following through 1846:
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| The Lydia Trent census records |
| We need a good understanding of Frederick's
children in order to interpret the census records, as well as
keeping an open mind about who their mother really was. The children
that the Ragland book attributes to Agnes are sons Humphrey born
1806, Eli born 1809, and Frederick junior born 1815 (according to
their ages as reported on a later federal census). Ragland also
reported two daughters, Susan and Sarah. Sarah's death record
indicates a birthdate of 1810 (WVculture).
Susan's birthdate isn't as clear, but 1811 is the date usually given. Frederick and Agnes are sometimes given credit
for more children, particularly a daughter named Edy who was born
around 1803. Edy's 1820 marriage bond in Floyd County KY says
clearly that Frederick is her father but doesn't mention her mother.
The 1820 census indicates that Lydia and all the kids were in
Floyd County five weeks after the wedding, which strongly suggests
that Lydia is Edy's mother. DNA evidence indicates that Edy
has Horton/Kendrick ancestry, and so do the children attributed to
Agnes. Zajac
reports a daughter named Sinea/Linney (real name looks like Linea) who was born in 1801/02.
A daughter Chloe born around 1800 has also been reported without
supporting evidence. The 1820 federal census helps support the
notion that Lydia was the mother of all these
children, and possibly more whose names have not been linked
to Frederick. Side note: Although the Ragland book says that Frederick was the father of the five children, it does not say that Agnes was their mother! But this is just the book's style, which typically gave all the credit for children to the father alone. So we can't read anything into this.
On the 1820 census, there is a woman named Lydia Trent living in Floyd county with nine children and young adults. She is listed as the head of household, and there is no male in the house old enough to be her husband. There are no other Trents on the page, but Valentine Hatfield is there and so is his brother Joseph. Their presence provides indirect evidence that this is Frederick's wife, as explained in the section on the Hatfield connection. The census shows a total of ten people in the household:
Overall, this is a good fit with the known children of Frederick Trent. If this is the correct family, and if Lydia and Agnes are two different people, then we can conclude that the mother of the children was Lydia, not Agnes. Assuming that Frederick did not have large families in two different places, of course. The census shows a total of six people in the household, and it's
not a particularly good match for Frederick's family:
James Harvey Trent and Lydia Young(?) married around 1795.
She seems more likely to be over 50 in 1830, but 49 is not
impossible. On the 1830 census, the male 15-19 could be
their son John (born 1812); the male 10-14 could be Jackson
(born 1818); the female 10-14 could be Nancy (born 1815); and
the 2 females 5-9 could be Charity (born 1819) and Lynie (born
1823).
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| The Hatfield connection |
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The Trents of Logan county had marriage ties to the Hatfields (whose famous feud with the McCoys was still several decades in the future at this point). An understanding of this connection will help explain why the presence of two Hatfields on the 1820 census for Floyd County, Kentucky provides evidence that the Lydia Trent on the same page was Frederick Trent's wife. In 1825, Frederick's son Humphrey Trent married Martha Smith in Pike/Floyd county. Martha was the daughter of Thomas Smith, and Thomas was a half-brother of Valentine Hatfield (they had the same mother). The question is, how did Humphrey and Martha meet? Thomas Smith was in Logan county in 1824 according to the Logan county tax lists, and the Ragland book says that he settled in Logan "some time before Frederick Trent" allegedly arrived in 1806. The Trents may have had a sporadic presence in Logan county, but they didn't start appearing as continuous residents until Humphrey became a landowner there in 1830. The timeline suggests that they traveled around a lot in the interim. In addition, Frederick's daughter Susan had married Valentine Hatfield's son Andrew by 1833; their first child was reportedly born in February 1834. Several Hatfields made their first appearance on the Logan tax list in 1833, including Ephraim Hatfield (Valentine's father and Thomas Smith's stepfather). But Valentine Hatfield is first seen on the tax list for 1835, and Andrew doesn't appear until 1837. The Logan County deed records show that the family started buying land there in 1838. How did Susan and Andrew meet? The presence of both Valentine Hatfield and Lydia Trent on the same page of the 1820 Floyd census suggests that they didn't live too far apart, so these families could have known each other for a long time before they started appearing on the Logan tax list in the 1830s. We naturally expect Andrew Hatfield to be living in his father's household at least until he comes of age; there were a lot of children in Lydia's household on the 1820 census, apparently including Humphrey and Susan; and there may have been visits between the Smiths and the Hatfields in Floyd and/or Logan, with possible opportunities for the Trents to meet them as they traveled through the area. Thomas Smith is on the 1824 Logan tax list, then is absent from the list in 1827, and reappears in 1833; we don't know where he and his family were in the interim, and the records are sporadic so we don't know how long they were away. Humphrey Trent and Martha Smith got married on June 15, 1825 in Pike/Floyd county (there's a record proving it), so we know that they went to that county at least once. Marriage records for Susan Trent and Andrew Hatfield have not been located, so we don't know exactly when or where they got married. The Hatfields were still in Kentucky on the 1830 census, in the part of Floyd county that had been renamed Pike county in 1821. There are no Trents on the same census page. Valentine Hatfield is on the Pike County tax list from 1823 to 1834. Andrew Hatfield is on the Pike tax list for 1831 (when he turned 21) and 1833 (there is no list for 1832), then disappears from Pike County. He appears in Logan county in 1837. The relationship between the Hatfields and the Trents apparently continued after they all moved to Logan county in the 1830s. The 1840 census shows Valentine Hatfield, Thomas Smith, and Humphrey Trent consecutively - one right after another - so it looks like they were near neighbors. Land records suggest that this was near the Browning Fork of Horsepen Creek. Humphrey Trent and Valentine Hatfield are listed on the same page of the 1850 census, along with two other Hatfield households and two Smith households (but not Thomas Smith, who may have died by this time). In 1860, Humphrey is listed on the same page as three Hatfield households, but Valentine isn't one of them even though he was still alive. That was Humphrey's last census - he died in 1866, reportedly after being bitten by a rabid squirrel.
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| Other information |
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Kentucky records. There are signs of a sporadic family presence in the part of Floyd County, Kentucky that became Pike County in 1821. But we haven't found any record of Frederick himself in Kentucky. The Kentucky property tax list included both land and personal property, and simply owning a horse was enough to put an adult male on the tax list (Kentucky Secretary of State). The available Pike County tax lists for 1823-1836 do not show any Trents. The Floyd County tax lists for the relevant years are missing. The Annals of Floyd County, Kentucky, page 254 has the July 1, 1820 marriage bond for the marriage of Edy Trent. It says: "My son Peter Cline wishes to obtain licence to marry Edy Trent, a daughter of Frederick Trent who has hereto requested and signed his name for you to issue the same. We both have mutually agreed for them to marry and do hereby request you to issue the license. 16, June 1820". FamilySearch has a statement from the deputy clerk saying "I... do hereby certify that Peter Cline produced the necessary certificate from his father and Frederick Trent the father of the said Edy Trent authorising me to issue them license". It sounds like Frederick wrote out his permission and gave it to Cline to submit to the clerk, but Frederick may not have been physically present when the document was submitted. Virginia county name changes. MAPofUS has an excellent interactive map of Virginia that lets you click through the years to see how the county lines changed. You can also watch a time-lapse animation, but it moves too fast to be useful. Other state maps are also available.
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Other family history articles:
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Article by Carolyn H (a descendant of Frederick Trent through his son Humphrey), with much assistance from Sharon Carter (a descendant of Field Trent of Patrick County, Virginia). 2020-2024 All rights reserved |