ID: I33Name:Nathaniel AyresSurname:AyresGiven Name:Nathaniel_AKA:Nathaniel AyersSex:MBirth:ABT 1700/1705Death: BEF 22 May 1777 in Pittsylvania County, Virginia 1_UID:D1EBE21582D3914084A352604C942E2CEC2ANote:Nathaniel Ayres/Ayers can first be identified in records of Baltimore County, Maryland, in March 1723/24."Baltimore County Families, 1659-1759," by Robert W. Barnes (1989), has this entry at page 16: "AYRES, NATHANIEL, was in Balto. Co. by March 1723/4 when he was named father of Lydia Crompton's illeg. ch.; ind. [meaning "indicted"] to stand trial [to determine whether he was the child's father] Nov. 1724; surv. 28 a. Ayres Desire in 1736; surv. 45 a. Buck's Range in 1745 which he owned in 1750; m. Rhoda (?) and had iss.: RUTH, b. 2 Feb. 1730; JOHN, b. 1 March 1731/2; THOMAS, b. 1 Jan. 1733/4."I presume that Nathaniel Ayres was a young man of about 18 to 24 years of age when he was named as the father of Lydia Crompton's child, so I estimate that he was born between 1700 and 1705. Some people have attributed a birth date of 4 March 1699/1700 or 4 March 1700/01 to Nathaniel based on their assumption that he was the man by the name of Nathaniel Ayers who was born in Woodbridge, Middlesex County, New Jersey, on 4 March 1700/01. Published secondary sources simply give the birth date of the Nathaniel Ayers in New Jersey as 4 March 1700, but the date should be stated as 4 March 1700/01. On the fifteenth page of the original Woodbridge Township, New Jersey, record of births, deaths, and marriages kept by the town clerk, is an entry which states: "Nathaniel Ayers son of John Ayers & Mary his wife born March ye 4th 1700." The date recorded by the clerk was based on the English calendar then in use. In the calendar used by most of the rest of Europe at that time, which was subsequently adopted by the English and their colonies, the birth date would be stated as 4 March 1701. The usual practice now is to show the alternate calendar years for affected dates prior to the calendar change, so the birth date should be stated as "4 March 1700/01." (People who have written the date as 1699/1700 either guessed incorrectly that the authors of the secondary sources had converted the year to our current calendar by changing 1699 to 1700, or simply don't understand the change that occurred in 1752 when the English adopted the calendar we now use.) If the person named Nathaniel Ayers born on 4 March 1700/01 in Woodbridge, New Jersey, lived out his life in New Jersey, he obviously couldn't be the man of the same name who lived his adult life in Maryland and Virginia.And, if the man named Nathaniel Ayers who was born in Woodbridge, NJ, on 4 March 1700/01 lived out his life in New Jersey, it seems there ought to be some surviving record of his marriage, the birth of his children, his purchase or sale of land, his payment of taxes, or his death. I haven't yet found any such evidence of his existence in New Jersey. The date of birth of the Nathaniel Ayers who was born in New Jersey makes him the right age to be the Nathaniel Ayres who first appeared in the Baltimore County, Maryland, records in March 1723/4. The Woodbridge Township record of birth indicates that there could have been a surviving son of John Ayers (d. 1732) named Nathaniel, as stated by the Rev. John C. Rankin in his history of the Basking Ridge Presbyterian Church in 1872. Perhaps the son of John and Mary Ayers named Nathaniel departed from New Jersey as a young man, leaving no record of his presence in New Jersey for the simple reason that he wasn't living there.While it is merely a possibility that Nathaniel Ayres/Ayers of Maryland and Virginia was born in New Jersey, it does seem clear that after living in Baltimore County, Maryland, for more than twenty years, Nathaniel went to the area of Virginia which became Pittsylvania County, Virginia--where he died in 1777. Baltimore County, Maryland, land records indicate that Nathaniel and his family lived in Baltimore County until approximately 1754.On the Maryland State Archives web site is a "Land Survey, Subdivision and Condominium Plats" index of Baltimore County "Patented Certificates" (MSA S1190) that shows four tracts of land for which Nathaniel Ayres/Ayers was granted patents. One was for "Ayerses Lott," a tract of 100 acres, and was dated 26 September 1729. Another was for "Ayers Desire," a tract of 28 acres, and was dated 23 July 1736. The third was for "Nathaniel's Hope," a tract of 15 acres, and was dated 28 Sept. 1745. The fourth was for "Buck Range," a tract of 45 acres, and was dated 18 Oct. 1745.Nathaniel Ayres and his wife Rhoda sold the tract patented as "Ayerses Lott" to Jacob Bull on 8 March 1731. "Baltimore County, Maryland Deed Abstracts," Robert W. Barnes (Westminster, MD: Family Line Publications, 1996)."Inhabitants of Baltimore County, 1692-1763," by F. Edward Wright (1987), has at page 658 this entry stating that Nathaniel and Rhoda Ayres sold land to Roland Vine:"VINE, ROLAND...on 27 March 1735 he purch. 100 a. Brown's Lot from Nathaniel and Rhoda Ayres...."In that Maryland State Archives web site index is "Browns Lott," a patent for a tract of 100 acres granted to Benjamin Jones dated 19 February 1732. The land sold to Roland Vine by Nathaniel and Rhoda Ayres was that tract of land. In "Baltimore County, Maryland Deed Abstracts, 1659-1750," by Robert W. Barnes (Westminster, MD: Family Line Publications, 1996), is an entry stating that Benjamin Jones and John Brown sold 100 acres known as Brown's Lot to Nathaniel Ayres on 10 November 1732."Baltimore County, Maryland Deed Abstracts, 1659-1750," Robert W. Barnes (Westminster, MD: Family Line Publications, 1996) states that Nathaniel Ayres and his wife Rhoda sold the tracts patented as "Ayers Desire" and "Nathaniel's Hope" to Charles Ridgeley on 25 October 1746. "The Dorsey Family: Descendants of Edward Darcy-Dorsey of Virginia and Maryland for Five Generations and Allied Families" by Maxwell J. Dorsey, Jean Muir Dorsey, and Nannie Ball Nimmo contains at page 168 an abstract of the will of John Ridgely, signed 19 March 1771 and probated 1 May 1771, in which he left two tracts of land to his son, William. Those tracts were called "Nathaniel's Hope" and "Ayer's Desire" and were located in Baltimore County according to the will, indicating that they were the two tracts sold by Nathaniel and Rhoda Ayres in 1746.The sale of two tracts of land in 1746 may indicate that Nathaniel was preparing to depart from Baltimore County, or simply that he was moving from one tract of land to another in Baltimore County. Note that he bought "Buck Range" in 1745.Nathaniel may have been the "Nathaniel Ayers" on the 1748 list of tithables for Lunenburg County, Virginia. His household consisted of two male "tithables"--Nathaniel and a man named "John Atwild (?)." See the lists of tithables transcribed from "Sunlight on the Southside" by Landon C. Bell (Philadelphia, PA, 1931) that are posted in the USGenWeb archives for Lunenburg County, Virginia. If Nathaniel was the "Nathaniel Ayers" who was living in Lunenburg County in 1748, he apparently didn't stay in Lunenburg County during the years immediately following 1748. His name appears on the lists of tithables only in the precinct of William Caldwell in 1748 but not at all in the years after 1748."Inhabitants of Baltimore County, 1692-1763," at page 58 contains a "Debt Book" list from 1754 with this entry indicating that Nathaniel Ayres still owned the land called "Buck Range": "Nathll. Ayres - Buck Range." The "Debt Book" is described on the Maryland State Archives web site as follows:Volume 415 of the Archives of Maryland series, originally published in 1946, has as its source document: Elisabeth Hartsook and Gust Skordas. "Land Office and Prerogative Court Records of Colonial Maryland." (Annapolis: Hall of Records Commission, 1946).Page 67:"DEBT BOOK SERIESLiber 1-Debt Book 1753, 54, 55, 56 Anne Arundel County. Four small books bound together, each containing the list of persons owning property, the names of each piece of property and its rent and the total rent, as paid in the years 1753, 1754, 1755, 1756. The 1753 debt book has 89 pages; 1754 has 82 pages; 1755 has 91 (not all numbered); 1756 has 72 pages and the entries, unlike the preceding books, are here arranged alphabetically by names of rent-payers."Page 68:"Liber 3-Debt Books 1754, 55, 56, 57 Baltimore County. Four small books bound together, each containing entries as above. The 1754 debt book has 91 pages; 1755 has 82 pages; 1756 has 89 pages and 1757 has 81 pages. No alphabetical arrangement."For Baltimore County, then, the surviving debt books indicate who owned which tracts of land and what rent was owed to the proprietors of the colony of Maryland for the possession of that land. The Baltimore County debt books indicate that Nathaniel Ayres no longer owned "Buck Range" after 1754. The absence of his name in the years 1755 through 1757 indicates he had sold and moved. (A review of the land records for the years 1754 and 1755 may result in discovering the deed of conveyance.)It appears that Nathaniel and his family moved to Halifax County, Virginia, from Baltimore County, Maryland, in 1754 or 1755.If Nathaniel had been in Lunenburg County, Virginia, in 1748, and had moved back to Baltimore County, he apparently returned to the same general area of Virginia by 1755. The Antrim Parish of the Anglican (Episcopal) Church was in Halifax County, Virginia. Halifax County was formed from the western part of Lunenburg County in 1752. In the Antrim Parish Vestry Book is this entry in the minutes for a vestry meeting held on 20 Nov 1755: "For reasons appearing to this Vestry Nathaniel Ayres is Exempted from paying Parish Levys for the future." The law, from 1705 to 1751, according to "Sunlight on the Southside" by Landon C. Bell, defined all males aged 16 and older as "tithable, or chargeable, for defraying the public, county, and parish charges...excepting such only, as the county court, and vestry, for reasons, in charity, made to appear to them, shall think fit to excuse." Starting in 1751, all males aged 16 and older were subject to the levy, or tithe, "excepting such only as the county court, for charitable reasons appearing to them, shall think fit to excuse."On 16 Dec 1758, Nathaniel Ayres was accepted as a member of the Quakers. The Journal of Proceedings for the South River Monthly Meeting (which encompassed Bedford and Halifax counties in Virginia at that time) contains this entry on page 5: "At a Monthly Meeting held at South River Bedford County the 16 of the 12 Month 1758-- The representatives being called appeared. The Friends appointed to enquire into the failure of those before appointed to recommend such as they though worthy to be received into Membership at Hallifax have rendered a reason to Friends satisfaction also those formerly appointed think proper to recommend the following persons as worthy to come under the notice of Friends, To Wit, Vardry Magba and Hannah Magba his wife Henry Farmer and Agness his wife Moses Kendrake and Ruth his wife Richard Kirby and Elizabeth his wife John Kirby and Johanna his wife Richard Kirby Jun'r John Kirby Elizabeth Cothrun Mary Payn Isham Wammack John Coldwell William Payn and Ruth his wife & Nathaniel Ayrs who are accordingly receiv'd as members. The Following Friends are appointed to attend the ensueing Quarterly Meeting viz William Chandler William Johnson and Charles Lynch-- Meeting adjourns to next in course"In the Antrim Parish Vestry Book minutes of the 28 Nov. 1761 meeting is an entry directing a refund of the Parish levy collected from Nathaniel Ayres the preceding year: "Order that the Collector pay Nath'l Ayres out of the Depositum twenty pounds Tob'o for a levie wrong listed last year." (Twenty pounds of tobacco was the amount to be collected from each tithable person.) I suppose Nathaniel's exemption from the Parish levy is the reason for the absence of his name from the first list of "tithables" for Pittsylvania County, Virginia, in 1767. (Pittsylvania County was formed from the western part of Halifax County in 1766.) Three of Nathaniel's sons, Thomas, Moses and Daniel Ayres, do appear on the first list of tithables for Pittsylvania County, Virginia.The will of Nathaniel Ayres/Ayers was signed 3 September 1776 and proved on 22 May 1777. It was recorded on pages 435 and 436 of Pittsylvania County, Virginia, Deeds and Wills Book No. 5. (The clerk did not indicate the date on which the will was recorded.) The will named his wife "Rhody," sons Thomas (the "eldest son"), Moses, Daniel, and "Regimalich" or "Rogimalich" Baker Ayres, and daughter Yanake Payne. It also mentioned two granddaughters of Nathaniel: Patience Jones and Mary Ayres. Mary was identified in the will as the daughter of Moses Ayres. The will was witnessed by John Jones Jr., William Lynch, and Charles Barnett. Sons Thomas and Moses were appointed as executors.Since neither Ruth nor John was named in the will of Nathaniel Ayres/Ayers, it appears they predeceased him. The granddaughter of Nathaniel named Patience Jones may have been the daughter of Nathaniel's daughter, Ruth.I have searched for any hint of evidence in support of the dates of death some people have attributed to Nathaniel--11 and 12 February 1777. Those dates are obviously before 22 May 1777 (the date on which his will was proved in court), but I haven't found any evidence indicating that he died on either of those days. Someone provided information to Ebenezer Mack Treman and Murray E. Poole for their book titled "The History of the Treman, Tremaine, Truman Family" back in the period from 1893 to the publication of the book in 1901--claiming that Nathaniel Ayers was born "March 4 (o. May 29), 1700"; married; had a son named Jonathan (born 1739); and died on 12 February 1777 at Basking Ridge, New Jersey. The entry in their book that contains this information is on page 1191. Aside from the absence of any citation to the source of this information in the book by Treman and Poole, there is the problem that the only Ayers buried in the Basking Ridge Presbyterian Churchyard who died on 12 February 1777 was named Jonathan Ayers. (See the cemetery survey published in the Somerset County Historical Quarterly in Volume 1, Issue 2, April 1912.) On page 1193 of Treman and Poole's book is an entry for a man named Jonathan Ayers. His birth date was given as 29 May 1704. He was said to have died in 1777--no specific date or place of death was stated. It appears that either Treman and Poole or the persons providing information to them confused Nathaniel with Jonathan. Since Nathaniel's date of birth was recorded in Woodbridge Township records as "March ye 4th 1700," there was no reason for anyone who researched the records to be confused about Nathaniel's date of birth. Since Jonathan's gravestone at Basking Ridge Presbyterian Church provided a record of his date of death, only garbled communication or lack of research could have led to attributing that date and place of death to Nathaniel rather than Jonathan. Treman and Poole's book seems to be the earliest mention of the 12 February 1777 date of death now frequently attributed to Nathaniel Ayres/Ayers of Pittsylvania County, Virginia. The fact that the claimed date of death was given in the same breath with a claimed place of death in Basking Ridge, Somerset County, New Jersey, apparently didn't prevent later genealogy hobbyists from accepting the date and rejecting the place of death--and associating the date of death with a Nathaniel Ayers who died in Pittsylvania County, Virginia, and who didn't have a son named Jonathan. (Some appear to have taken it one step farther by altering the date to 11 February 1777, but I presume that change occurred through a typographical error made by someone who passed the erroneous information along.)If that claim in Treman and Poole's book is what caused people to state that Nathaniel Ayres/Ayers died on 12 February 1777 in Pittsylvania County, Virginia, then it's a very weak basis for making such a statement. Taking one-third of the original claim and dropping the parts about dying in Basking Ridge, New Jersey, and having had a son named Jonathan requires more imagination and creativity than seems appropriate in piecing together a family tree. Keeping the son named Jonathan and speculating about the reason for the absence of his name in the will of Nathaniel Ayers/Ayres involves at least as much inappropriate creativity. At this juncture, it appears that there is no sound evidentiary basis for believing that the Nathaniel Ayers born 4 March 1700/01 in Woodbridge, New Jersey, spent any time in New Jersey after reaching adulthood, much less for believing that he was buried there.It must also be acknowledged that there is no sound evidentiary basis for believing that the Nathaniel Ayers born in Woodbridge, New Jersey, on 4 March 1700/01 was the man who died in Pittsylvania County, Virginia, before 22 May 1777. While it is possible that the baby boy born in Woodbridge spent his adult life in Maryland and Virginia, there is no evidence that I know of to show that he did.Change Date: 6 Feb 2004 at 12:50:57 Marriage 1 Rhoda Bakerb: ABT 1710Married: ABT 1729 in Baltimore County, Maryland 2Children Ruth Ayresb: 2 Feb 1730/1731 in Baltimore County, Maryland John Ayresb: 1 Mar 1731/1732 in Baltimore County, Maryland Thomas Ayresb: 1 Jan 1733/1734 in Baltimore County, Maryland Yannaca Ayresb: AFT 1734 in Baltimore County, Maryland Moses Ayresb: AFT 1734 in Baltimore County, Maryland Daniel Ayresb: AFT 1734 Regimalich Baker Ayres b: AFT 1750Sources:Title: Pittsylvania County, Virginia, Deeds & Wills Book No. 5, pages 435-436Note: The will of Nathaniel Ayres/Ayers was proved on 22 May 1777, showing that he had died before that date. Title: Records of St. Paul's Parish: the Anglican Church Records of Baltimore City and Lower Baltimore CountyAuthor: Bill & Martha ReamyPublication: Westminster, Maryland: Family Line Publications, 1988Page: Volume 1, page 13Note: According to volume 1, page 13 of this transcription of the St. Paul's Parish register, the births of Ruth, John and Thomas Ayers were recorded on page 31 of the first volume of the register. They were stated to be the children of Nathaniel and Rhoda Ayers. Since their first child was born in 1730/31, I presume they were married approximately 1729. Since Nathaniel acquired land in Baltimore County in 1729, I presume they married in Baltimore County, Maryland.