Our third Richard Chichester married twice—with Anne Gordon, in Lancaster
Co, Virginia, on 9 Jun 1759, and with Sarah McCarty, sometime after 1765.
Richard’s first wife was born in 1743 to James and Millicent
(Conway) Gordon. Irish-born James Gordon was a wealthy Scotch-Irish merchant with numerous ties to the Lancaster Co Tapscotts.
According to his Lancaster Co journal, on 23 June 1761 James Gordon
spent the night with “Mr. Tapscot” (Capt. Henry Tapscott, son of Henry the Immigrant).
The next day, Gordon recorded that, “Mr. T. went with me to Mr. Chichester’s
before breakfast.” “Mr. Chichester” was Richard (“Hard”) Chichester. Following James Gordon’s
death in 1768, Capt. Henry Tapscott was one of those chosen to divide the
estate.
Richard’s second wife, Sarah, was a daughter of Daniel McCarty, a
Revolutionary War soldier, and Sinah Ball. Like her mother-in-law, Ellen (Ball) Chichester,
Sarah was related to George Washington. Sarah McCarty’s grandmother Sarah Ball,
Daniel McCarty’s mother, was Washington’s second cousin. In fact Sarah McCarty was the grandniece of
her mother-in-law, Ellen Ball. Multiple relationships were common among the Balls.
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Mount Air Plantation House c1960, where Richard lived and died, suffered fires over the years and is no longer extant. (Edith
Moore Sprouse, Mount Air.) |
Richard and his second wife settled in Fairfax Co, Virginia,
living in the Mount Air plantation house, which had been owned by the McCarty
family for generations. Richard’s 1793 Fairfax Co will listed his six
multiply-named (Southern-style) children—Sarah McCarty, Richard McCarty, Daniel
McCarty, Sinah Ellen, Mary Syms, and Doddridge Pitt—three daughters and three sons.
Richard Chichester presented a
fabricated appearance of respectability. It was said that
[He had] acquired the reputation of
an accomplished hypocrite, owing to his extra airs of piety. . He was even
accused of that species of gallantry technically called “flirting with a
wench.” He had long been known among his equals as St. Richard and among the
vulgar by the less euphonious, but not less expressive, sobriquet of Pious
Dick.
But these odious behaviors were nothing compared to Richard’s malicious
attributes. Richard had a reputation for treating his slaves badly. He is said
to have placed an ad in an Alexandria paper for a runaway weaver named “Immanuel,”
who was described by “His back and arms much scarred with the whip, proceeding
from his uncommon villainy.” But any “uncommon villainy” was Richard’s.
A codicil to Richard Chichester’s will states
Whereas it occurs to my mind, that it may so happen that
some of the slaves I have in my will bequeathed, or devised unto my beloved
wife, Sarah Chichester may be induced to run away from her service, in order to
perplex and distress my said wife – Therefore to prevent such an evil I Do then
in that Case give and bequeath unto my said beloved wife, full and complete
power and absolute authority to sell and dispose of any, and every one of said
slaves, that shall violate the laws of the land and their duty
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Find
a Grave. |
Richard’s nickname “Hard,” given by many biographers may be due
to his cruel treatment of slaves. On the other hand, Richard’s gravestone in
the Chichester Family Cemetery in Lorton, Virginia, is broken and the “RIC” is
missing from his name. The stone reads “SACRED To the memory of …HARD
CHICHESTER.” Which came first, the nickname or the broken stone?
Richard died a wealthy man. In his will, he bequeathed over three
thousand acres in Fairfax and Fauquier counties to his heirs, along with
livestock, plantation equipment, and 126 slaves. He even had some property back
in old England, in Colchester, and a copy of his will was filed with the Prerogative
Court of Canterbury, England.
Two of Richard’s children ended up with Tapscott descendants—Richard
McCarty and Doddridge Pitt. We will take a look at the descendants of each, though
the Doddridge Pitt line produced the greater number of Tapscott descendants, primarily
due to Doddridge’s grandson, William Doddridge Chichester, who did his best to increase
Virginia’s population on his own.