PIATT-L Archives

Archiver > PIATT > 2001-12 > 1007502750


From: Marianne Pyeatt <>
Subject: Re: William Peepyat [Piatt] -- Hampshire County, VA
Date: Tue, 4 Dec 2001 13:52:30 -0800 (PST)


John,
Do you still have the records which you referenced (tax lists, etc.)
pulled - so that you could give us the exact abstracts by year with original
spelling, etc? Thanks, Marianne


On Tue, 20 Nov 2001 23:00:32 -0800, wrote:

> HAPPY THANKSGIVING
>
> (1) Piatts, Pyatts, Pyeatts, and Peyatts everywhere, as well as other
> descendants of Rene Piat, may want to give thanks that one of the
> most unusual spellings of the surname did not endure -- Peepyat.
>
> In its list of land grants in Hampshire County, VA, Sims Index to
> Land Grants in West Virginia shows the following entry:
>
> NAME OF GRANTEE / ACRES / LOCAL DESCRIPTION / YEAR / BOOK / PAGE
>
> -->> Peepyat, William / 50 / Mill Creek / 1796 / 9 / 119
>
> Source: http://www.rootsweb.com/~wvminera/sims29.htm
>
> Maybe the recorder misheard a name that was really William P. Piatt.
> Or maybe Peepyat was some sort of nickname. Or maybe someone in the
> transaction had a stutter. In any case, once it had been entered in
> the record books, the Peepyat spelling was repeated several times by
> the recorder(s) in records pertaining to this land grant.
>
> William Peepyat's 50-acre tract was surveyed in 1794 and the grant
> was issued in 1796. The record of the survey conducted by John
> Mitchell Jr. reads in part,
> "December 2nd, 1794. By virtue of part of a land office Treasury
> Warrant No. 415 dated April 28th, 1794, and entered August 6th, 1794,
> I have surveyed for William Peepyat assignee of William Fox a tract
> of land in Hampshire County on the middle ridge adjoining Thomas
> Lazenby on the drains of Mill Creek. . . ."
>
> This William Peepyat survey document was witnessed by Cornelius Peepyat
> and Wm. Lazenby. A summary and scanned images of the survey record
> can be viewed at the following Web pages:
> http://eagle.vsla.edu/cgi-bin/lonn.gateway?bib=0145-03160&conf=010000
> http://image.vtls.com/LONN/NN-1/315/315_0289.tif - [begins]
> http://image.vtls.com/LONN/NN-1/315/315_0290.tif - [continues]
>
> The record of the 1796 grant issued to William Peepyat by Robert
> Brooke, Esquire, Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia, can be
> viewed at the following Web page:
> http://image.vtls.com/LONN/NN-3/303/303_0524.tif
>
> William Peepyat's survey is mentioned again in an adjoining 1795
> survey and 1799 land grant issued to Frederick Finks (Fink).
> http://eagle.vsla.edu/cgi-bin/lonn.gateway?bib=0138-65460&conf=010000
> http://image.vtls.com/LONN/NN-1/315/315_0499.tif - [survey]
> http://image.vtls.com/LONN/NN-3/304/304_0050.tif - [grant]
>
> Immediately following the Finks survey (on page 499) is the record
> for a 1795 survey for William Fox, presumably the same man who
> had assigned William Peepyat his Mill Creek tract.
>
> Study of the land descriptions in these documents might disclose
> the physical configuration of the parcels of William Peepyat and
> his neighbors. To conduct additional online search of Virginia
> Land Office Patents and Grants, go to the following Web page:
> http://eagle.vsla.edu/lonn/virtua-basic.html
>
> -----
>
> (2) William Peepyat was apparently William Piatt, who appeared on the
> tax records of Hampshire County from 1797 through 1813 as William
> Peyatt, Peayatt, and Peatt. William Peatt appeared on the 1810
> Hampshire County census, page 24. In that census record he apparently
> lived with his (first?) wife, whose name is unknown, and three children
> less than 10 years old. (The son was Benjamin F. Piatt, born 1808, who
> later married Ann Carter. The daughters were Mary Elizabeth Piatt,
> born about 1805, who later married John C. Ward, and perhaps Rachel
> Piatt, who married George Bowman in 1827.) Subsequently, William Piatt
> and his wife (or wives) apparently had 12 or 13 more children. His
> widow appeared on the 1850 census for Nicholas County, VA, as Margaret
> Piatt, age 58; if Margaret's age was correct, she was on the verge of
> being too young to have borne William's oldest children.
>
> (In 1814 in Augusta County, VA, a William Peatt married Mary Smith,
> the daughter of Martin Smith, and in 1815 William Peat was listed on
> the Augusta County tax records. Piatt genealogists have supposed that
> this was William of Hampshire County marrying Mary as his second wife.
> However, this conclusion has not yet been proven. The only real
> evidence for this supposition is the 1864 Mason County WV marriage
> record of John S. Piatt, born about 1841, who supposedly said his
> parents were "William and Mary". However, at the age of 8 this same
> John had appeared on the 1850 census of Nicholas County, VA, with his
> mother, Margaret Piatt (recorded as Poatte). (See page 384a, lines 5-9,
> family number 573, at the following Web page:
>
ftp://ftp.us-census.org/pub/usgenweb/census/wv/nicholas/1850/pg0382b.txt
> I wonder if an inspection of John's original marriage record might
> disclose that his parents were actually identified as "William and
Marg".)
>
> (An alternative possible identity for the William who married in 1814
> is William Piatt/Pyatt the basketmaker, who was born about 1790 in VA,
> migrated to Ohio prior to 1820, and later lived in IN, TN, and MO.
> This William's first child Benjamin is said to have been born about
> 1813. This William's first wife has been thought to have been
> Catherine Glass, but without any confirming evidence, as far as I know.
> Is it possible that the 1814 William and Mary moved to Ohio, perhaps
> with relatives, while the older William remained in Hampshire County?)
>
> -----
>
> (3) William Peepyat/Piatt who received the Hampshire County land grant
> was born about 1770-1775, probably in Hunterdon County, New Jersey.
> The identity of William's parents is uncertain.
>
> William was undoubtedly related to Cornelius Piatt, who had acquired 50
> acres of land on Beaver Run in Hampshire County in 1792 and who witnessed
> the 1794 Peepyat survey. In the Hampshire County tax records for 1795
> and 1796, two males over 16 were listed in Cornelius's household; one
> of them was presumably William Peepyat. Only one male over 16 had been
> charged to Cornelius in 1792 and 1794, and once William started appearing
> on the tax list in 1797, Cornelius again was charged with only one male
> over 16 in 1797 and 1798.
>
> How was William related to Cornelius? He might have been a son, in
> which case the unidentified female over 45 in Williams's household
> in 1810 might have been his widowed mother. But alternatively, William
> could have been brother, cousin, or nephew to Cornelius. It is possible
> that William's father was James Piatt, born before 1765, who was listed
> near William on the 1810 Hampshire County census, page 23 (recorded as
> James Peate, and sometimes transcribed at James Peale).
>
> I believe Piatt genealogists have studied the surviving tax records
> of Hampshire County. But there are land records for Hampshire County
> that have not been thoroughly researched. Further research in these
> records might disclose more about the relationships of William,
> Cornelius, and James.
>
>
> -- John F. Keilch
> Berkeley, California
>
>
> ==== PIATT Mailing List ====
> The PIATT mailing list archives can be searched at
> http://archiver.rootsweb.com/PIATT-L/
>
>
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