A Brief Introduction to Eastern Shore Justice. Grab Your Popcorn.

Last night as I was reading through Warren Billings's The Old Dominion in the Seventeenth Century, I came across a couple of county court records that I just had to share.

In the chapter on Self-Government, Billings offers textbook cases on various matters of civil justice. The bawdy indignity of these records is a reassuring reminder that our ancestors were no better behaved than we (in some cases, worse), and that people and things never really change. Well, no, I take that back. Some things do change, and for the better. For instance, we no longer drag people from the sterns of canoes (between cow pens, in shark-infested waters, no less) as retribution for mild insults, and only rarely do we require them stand on up-turned buckets in church aisles, wrapped in sheets and holding aloft "white wands" while repeating whatever demeaning phrases the local preacher might have scripted for them.

The players in these dramas would have been known, at least in passing, to our Henderson, Bishop and Barnaby relatives of the lower Delmarva Peninsula. So dim the lights, grab your popcorn, sit back and enjoy the appalling spectacle of 17th-century justice.

CHARACTER DEFAMATION, 1634 (Pages 95-96)

Northampton County Order Book, 1632-1640, fol. 34
At this Court Edward Drew preferred a petition against Joane Butler for caling of his wife common C*nted hoare and upon due examination, and the Deposition of John Halloway* and William Basely who affirmeath the same [on] oath to be true that the syd Joane Butler used those words. Upon due examination it is thought fit by this board that the syd Joane Butler shal be drawen over the Kings Creeke at the starne of a boat or kanew from one kow pen to the other, or else the next Sabath day in the tyme of the devyne servis betwext the first and second lesson present her selfe befor the minister and say after him as followeth, I Joane Butler doe acknowledge to have called Marie Drew hoare, and thereby I confesse I have done her manefest wronge, wherefore I desire before this congregation, that the syd Marie Drew will forgive me, and alsoe that this congregation will joyne, and praye with me, that God may for give me.

So what do you think? A good dragging from the stern of a canoe? Or a public mea culpa in church? I don't know about you, but I'm thinking the water is looking might-y fine, cow manure notwithstanding.

The second record is from across the Bay in Lower Norfolk County where we find early settler and justice Adam Thoroughgood (whose descendants would marry into connected Keeling and Woodhouse families) being brashly dismissed by the wife of William Fowler. In this case there was a single insult, but "several witnesses" gave oath that it did indeed happen as described, and the testimony of two witnesses is recorded (I only relate that of the first).

A JUSTICE SLANDERED (Page 96)

Lower Norfolk County Order Book, 1637-1646 (transcript), 1-2.
The deposition of Gilbert Guy, age 28 years or thereabouts Sworn and Examined, Sayeth That being at the house of William Fowler, discoursing with him concerning [a] certain cask found by the Servant of Capt. Adam Thorougood [one of the justices of the peace] by the Seaside, but afterwards being seized and fetched away by the aforesaid William Fowler, the aforesaid deponent told him it would vex him to have the said casks taken away from him, Thereupon the wife of the said William Fowler asked who would take them from him? The deponent answered Capt. Thorougood, upon which she, the said Anne Fowler, answered, "Let Capt. Thorougood Kiss my arse."... [William Tanner, a second witness, then affirms the conversation as related by Guy] ... Whereas it doth appear to this court by the oaths of several witnesses that Anne Fowler the wife of William Fowler of Linhaven, planter, did in a shameful uncomely and irreverent manner, bid Capt. Adam Thorougood Kiss her arse, with the assignation of many unusual terms, It is therefore ordered that the said Anne Fowler shall, for hir offense, receive twenty Stripes upon the bare shoulders and ask for forgiveness of the said Capt. Thorougood here now in Court and also the ensuing Sunday at Linhaven.

Although it's a little hard to follow, it looks like Thoroughgood's servant found a cask washed up onshore, and William Fowler took it from him (you have to wonder how that played out). Gilbert Guy fully expected that Thoroughgood would demand the return of the property found by his servant, but when he suggest that likely outcome to the Fowlers, Anne Fowler bid the good Captain (in absentia) to kiss her posterior -- and apparently unsatisfied to leave it at that, did so "with the assignation of many unusual terms." Good stuff. I expect she was wishing she could just kiss the Captain's "arse" and call it even by the time they were on about the 5th stripe.

In another case, the text of which I will not relate, Thomas Tooker (Tucker?) and Elizabeth Hauntine, also from the den of iniquity that was Lower Norfolk County, were in 1641 accused of "the foul crime of fornication" and ordered to do penance in the chapel of ease. On the next sabbath the guilty couple were to "...[stand] in the middle alley of the said church upon a stool in a white sheet and a white wand in their hands, all the time of Divine Service and shall say after the Minister such words as he shall deliver unto them before the Congregation there present..." And also to pay court costs.

Things didn't go quite according to plan. Elizabeth refused to play her assigned role when the minister "admonished hir to be sorry for hir foul crime" and then she went totally off script. "Like a most obstinate and graceless person, [she did] cut and mangle the sheet wherein she did penance."

Twenty stripes for her as well. I guess she could bandage herself up with that mangled sheet.

Ahhhh. Don't you wish we could go back to "the good old days?"

*John Holloway was an early Eastern Shore planter and physician. In 1640 James and Sarah Barnaby were listed as headrights for Holloway's Hungars Creek patent of 640a. James Barnaby was mentioned several times in Holloway's will.

Passages are taken from court records as transcribed in: Billings, Warren M. The Old Dominion in the Seventeenth Century: A Documentary History of Virginia, 1606-1700. Rev. ed. Chapel Hill: Published for the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, Williamsburg, Virginia, by the University of North Carolina Press, 2007.