Popes Creek is a small tidal tributary stream of the Potomac River in Westmoreland County, Virginia. The George Washington Birthplace National Monument lies adjacent to Popes Creek estuary.
Variant names The following variant names for the creek have been listed:
History A patent for was issued on February 24, 1643, to Edward Murfey and John Vaughan. It is said to be the first patent for land that became Westmoreland County. It bounded on the "Easternmost side of Cedar Island Creek." The name is suggestive of the several little islands that dominate the mouth of the creek.
Governor Berkeley's treaty of peace after the end of the 1646 War with Opechancanough prohibited all emigration to the north side of the Rappahannock River. When this restriction was repealed in 1648, immigrants poured in from England, Maryland, New England, and previously settled portions of Virginia.Tyler, 28 Hercules Bridges, Henry Brooks and Nathaniel Pope were the early patentees of the Mattox Neck area (of three creeks, Mattox, Bridges, Popes) destined to become part of Westmoreland County.
The Henry Brooks patent of 1657 (reissued in 1662), included bounded: "on the northwest side to a marked corner hickory with a creeke [unnamed Bridges] that divideth this land and the land now in possession of Daniel Lisson on the northeast side with potomack river on the southeast side with the Creeke [unnamed Popes] dividing this land from the land of Colo. Nathaniel Pope to a marked red oake on the southwest thence with a line of marked trees running west and northwest 60 poles northwest half a point more westerly 310 poles and west northwest somewhat more westerly 140 poles to the aforementioned hiccory and place."
Col. William Underwood had died by 11 Mar 1662/3 when Margaret & Mary Williamson, daughters of James & Ann [Underwood] Williamson, patented 882 A in Old Rappahannock Co VA "between some of the head branches of Pepetick Cr. & head branches of Mr. POPES Cr., beg. nigh Rappa path &c. to the head of land of Silvester Thatcher & Thomas Whitlock, thence NW &c. upon land of Tho. Wright &c. Granted to William Underwood, Gent., 10 Sep 1658 & given to the above named by the last will of said Underwood."Nugent, 429
Henry Brooks toward the end of life (1662) subdivided the patent into smaller tracts. One to Nicholas Saxton mentions the Abbingtons, a key family holding later added to the expanding Washington land: a deed of June 1660 for "Southeast with Popes Creeke beginning at a marked read oak standing on the said creeke side extending by a line of marked trees that parts the forty Acres from the land of David Whitley northwest seventy two poles unto a marked white oak thence southwest 88 poles unto a [unnamed Dancing] swamp that parts the said land from the land of Laurence Abington thence southwest down the said swamp unto the aforementioned Creeke to the place where it began." This area later became known as Duck Hall.Hatch, 18, 19, 20, 23.
The Pope family Nathaniel Pope is first mentioned as one of the twenty-four freeman of the "Grand Inquest" in Maryland in 1637 and in the Assembly afterward. He affixed a mark to his writings, and so was probably illiterate. In 1643 Pope and his nine menial servants were exempted from military service. Governor Leonard Calvert sent Pope as his agent to Kent Island in 1647, where he attempted, to persuade the rebels against the Proprietary there to come and live at Mattox Neck until they should become strong enough to seize the land again.Steiner, p. 68Tyler, 30 After removing from Maryland, Nathaniel Pope, in 1651, patented in Old Northumberland between two large creeks; one would bear his name. At Mattox Creek he built dwellings, warehouses, and docks for the merchant trade with England including the port of Bristol. He shipped beaver, tobacco with caske, and raw materials; and he imported English manufactured goods. He settled the argument between John Washington and shipping partner Edward Prescott by paying off the senior officer in Beaver skins at eight shillings per pound.Hatch, 2 In 1655 Pope was made Lieutenant-Colonel in the militia. His wife was named Luce and they had: 1, Anne, who married John Washington; 2, Margaret, who married William Hardwich; 3, Thomas; 4, Nathaniel.Humphries, 5 The elder Nathaniel was among the county's wealthiest residents at his death in 1660, when he left The Clifts tract to his son Thomas. The Pope and Washington families were bound by more than blood—county documents are filled with their business and legal ties. The will of John Washington bequeaths 1000 pounds sterling to his brother-in-law Thomas Pope.Harland, 31
Thomas Pope, a "planter of Westmoreland" and "merchant of Bristol," died in Bristol, leaving a wife, Joanna, and sons, Thomas, Richard, Charles, John, and Nathaniel. Later, Westmoreland Justice of the Peace Lawrence Washington "refused to give his Judgment" on this estate (Will dated September 3, 1684) because he and his father John were trustees of "said Estate."Hatch, 8 On February 28, 1710, Joanna Pope, of Bristol, authorized Thomas Wills, merchant, and Nathaniel Pope, mariner, to dispose of the plantation known as "the Clifts". The letter of attorney describes her son as "Nathanial Pope of Pope's Creek." This Nathaniel, appeared in the county's records for the first time in 1704 when he married the daughter of a Westmoreland Justice of the Peace, William Peirce (pronounced purse). In 1716, Joanna and son Richard Pope sold the Clifts, including what was referred to in the deed as "the manner house erected on the second"; to Thomas Lee. Even as the Popes and Washingtons had circulated among the members of Westmoreland County's political gentry, Lee's family had made their name known throughout the colony of Virginia for two generations. In the year 1729, Lee lived at his father's plantation on Lower Machodoc Creek, when the dwelling burned down. After that he erected the brick mansion, now known as Stratford Hall, on the Clifts tract about a quarter mile from the original site. Thomas Lee became a member of the Governor's Council and served as acting governor of the colony in 1749 when William Gooch returned to England.
Mary (Lisson) Pope, daughter of Thomas Lisson, gave a calf to her son Nathaniel Pope, alias Bridges, in 1675 (Mary (Lisson) Pope married, in order after her husband Nathaniel Pope died, William Bridges, Lewis Nicholas, and finally David Wyckliffe. Her son Nathaniel Pope would be known thereafter as Nathaniel Pope alias Bridges). As Mary Nicholas, widow of Lewis Nicholas, she made presents in 1677 to her son Nathaniel Pope, alias Bridges, and to her son Lewis Nicholas. She married again, David Wyckliffe (son of David Wyckliffe and who was the first white Protestant child born in Maryland), who promised to keep her children "so farre at school as to write and reade". Mary Nicholas refers to her brother and sister, Captain Daniel Lisson (Liston) and Jane, his wife. The will of John Rosier (will, September–October, 1705) leaves land to Nathaniel Pope, clerk of Stafford and practitioner at law; and the rest of the estate is given to his wife, Mary Rosier, who was Mary Pope, alias Bridges.Tyler, 37
Two Nathaniel Popes lived in the same area around the year 1700, both grandsons of the original patentee. Nathaniel alias Bridges (through the early death of Nathaniel II)Humphries, 6 became an established Westmoreland attorney by 1705, and served as guardian of Nathaniel Washington in 1708. The mariner Nathaniel was first recorded as married in 1704. Furthermore, Nathaniel alias Bridges' son John married his cousin Elizabeth (Peirce) Pope, daughter of the mariner/merchant Nathaniel,Humphries, 8 making the identification by alias significant. A Pope family artifact unearthed at George Washington's birthplace, a wine bottle seal marked "N. Pope 1715," probably belonged to Nathaniel alias Bridges. Jane Brooks (Higdon) Brown was the sister of Lydia Abbington.Hatch, 150 Her daughter Jane married Nathaniel Pope alias Bridges about 1690. The son of Nathaniel and Jane (Brown) Pope is listed as John Pope, "Planter" in 1728 when Augustine Washington purchased his mill "for 60 Pounds current Virginia money two acres with the appurtenances together with the mill thereon erected & built scituate [several miles upstream] at the head of Popes Creek." Augustine added to the property the road called "Lord's rolling road" (the name alludes to rolling hogsheads of tobacco down to the Potomac). The mill remained in the Washington family until after the Civil War.Hatch, 38
The Washington family At least two progenitors of future Presidents of the United States, John Washington and Andrew Monroe, lived in this area during the 17th century. Both became involved in a legal dispute in 1664 between Richard Cole and David Anderson in which "Major Washington [now a member of the Westmoreland Court] did not sitt or vote in this order." "A Jury of the neighbourhood" or "any twelve" of the fifteen listed was seated.Hatch, 25
Unfortunately for researchers, there were two Richard Coles at the same time in what is now Westmoreland County. One was originally from Maryland and migrated to Virginia in the 1650s. He settled on the Washington's Birthplace land on the Potomac between Pope's and Bridges’ creeks and died in 1664.Augusta Fothergill, Wills of Westmoreland County, Virginia, (Appeals Press, 1925) 7. Numerous Maryland documents mentioning him contain references to other landowners in the Pope's Creek area. He was never known as a merchant, as was the Richard Cole of Cole's Point who died in 1674.John Frederick Dorman, Westmoreland County, Virginia, Deeds, Patents, etc., 1665-1677, Part 2, (Washington D.C.: Privately published, 1973), 84 [orig 185]. Equally confusing was the existence both in Northumberland County and Maryland of others named Cole. It was the Cole who died in 1674 who owned the land that later passed to the Carters. Washington may have had vested interests in the property and purchased the court ordered Anderson settlement acreage a few months later.
The aforementioned will of John Washington who died in 1677 gave four thousand weight of tobacco to the rector of the church with orders that a tablet of the Ten Commandments be set up as his memorial stone. John had followed his father's religious upbringing and was elected to the parish vestry in 1661. In May 1664 the name of the parish was changed from Appomattox to Washington in his honor, being bounded from "upper Marchoticke downward to ye foote of ye westernmost side of Mr. Popes Cliffes."Hatch, 3
Augustine Washington moved from his Bridges Creek inheritance to Popes Creek in 1718 according to the February 18 deed of lease that described his new property as: "all that one hundred & fifty acres of land situate in the said County of Westmoreland aforesd and bounded viz. Beginning at a marked hickory on the head of the dancing marsh and so running down the said line to Popes Creek thence up the said Creek to the line of Nathaniel Washington and then up that line to include the aforesd One hundred & fifty acres of land which was given [by Henry Brookes] to Lawrence Abbington & his daughter Lydia together."Hudson, 12