Fairfax Harrison in his Proprietors of the Northern Neck wrote
that on 19 October 1759, the Virginia Gazette announced that
"Yesterday arrived in town the Rt. Hon. Thos. Lord Fairfax." The
news was read with interest by a young clergyman, the Reverend Andrew
Burnaby, then visiting in Williamsburg, Virginia, at the beginning of a
tour "through the middle settlements in North America." His
imagination was captured by the idea of a peer1 living aloof in
the wilderness of a vast proprietary, the Northern Neck of Virginia. A few
days later, as Burnaby records, he had the opportunity of meeting Thomas
Lord Fairfax, 16w, at "The Palace" in Williamsburg on the
occasion of a reception given by Governor Fauquier. There he accepted an
invitation from Lord Fairfax to call on him at Greenway Court, in
Frederick Country, (a good 200 miles west of Williamsburg) during his
intended journey across the Blue Ridge the following spring. The result of
this meeting was a lively sketch that has afforded subsequent historians
of American colonial life a welcome detail of local color, and has made
the proprietors of the Northern Neck favorites of Virginia Historical
romance.2
Lord Fairfax could look back on no less than four generations of his
Culpepper ancestors, who, during more than a century, had successively
maintained interests and risks in the Virginia Commonwealth. They were all
Culpeppers, for no Fairfax was a member of the Virginia Company.
The major concern of this genealogical study has been for the evidence
of the Culpeppers in England and their descendants into Virginia and the
Carolinas. It emerges that it was no accident that sent Lord Fairfax to
reside in Virginia. It was no accident which sent his grandfather, Lord
Thomas Culpepper, 14w, to Virginia as Governor, while he was the owner of
a vast tract of land in northern Virginia, which stretched from the
Atlantic Ocean westward to the Pennsylvania state line, and from the
Potomac River south to the Rappahannock River. Later, he was the sole
owner of the entire state. Nor was it an accident that Lord Fairfax's
great grandfather, Lord John Culpepper, 13w, had been an active member of
the Virginia Company to colonize and trade in America, and his great,
great grandfather, Thomas Culpepper, 12w, one of the adventurers named in
the Kings original grants of 1609 and 1610. It was no accident on the part
of the Culpeppers but good business and astute politics that they later
sent the solid families of Brents, Byrds, Codds, Clarkes, Darrells, Diggs,
Fleets, Honeywoods, Lovelaces, Norwoods, Spencers, and the others to the
colony.
As a family, the Culpeppers afford a minor illustration of the
historical fact that the continuity of social life in England was rudely
shaken by the English civil wars of the seventeenth century. From the time
of the Angevin Kings3 until the "Troubles"4
of King Charles I, the Culpeppers recorded the details of their pedigrees
as convincingly as any Englishman did. Generation after generation, they
preserved their land deeds, wills, title documents, coats of arms,
furnishings, and monument inscriptions, within the confines of a few small
and safe conservative parishes. But in the twilight of the eighteenth
century, the branch of the Culpepper family, with which we are here
concerned, abandoned the tradition of marriage among hereditary neighbors,
and as a consequence many of their descendants were born, lived and died
beyond their ancestral boundaries. In this characteristically modern
practice they failed to assemble their vital statistics, and disappeared
from the historical scene before genealogy was recognized to be a handmaid
of history.
The lack of such readily available documentation for the Wigsell
Culpeppers, as the seventeenth century heralds recorded for most of the
long established families of Kent and Sussex, is a curious consequence of
their family history. They do not appear in the 1619 Visitations of Kent,
(Harleian Society vol. xlii) because they were then of Sussex. They also
do not appear in the 1633-34 Visitation of Sussex, (ibid. vol. liv)
because they had not then reestablished the territorial relations that had
been uprooted by the civil wars.
Therefore, when the pedigree of the Wigsell Culpeppers became of
practical importance to all the old landholders within the Northern Neck
of Virginia, the post-revolutionary Virginia lawyers looked in vain for
evidence in interpreting land documents which came into their hands.
For all these considerations it seems fitting to array the generations
of the Culpepper proprietors of the Northern Neck, not in mere glittering
heraldry, nor yet, in the contemptuous phrase of the post - revolutionary
historians, as "unworthy favorites of a profligate king," but to
prove their title to be included in the honorable company which Alexander
Brown listed as the Founders of America.
Note. For ease in reading this work on the Culpeppers, first note
the long list of the ruling monarchs of
England that the Culpeppers were closely affiliated with, then study the pedigree
chart before reading on. In reading the following chapters, the reader
will finds a number and letter following each male Culpepper name. The
number indicates the generation of descent from Baron, Sir Thomas
