Forehand — From the Forke

In July 1728, Elizabeth Forehand swore to carry out her husband’s will. Cornelius had left her a bed and its furniture, the household goods and movables, and what remained of his estate after the children received their shares. He had also made her sole executor. His provisions were now her responsibility. The oath places Elizabeth before John Solley that summer; it is the last securely identified act we presently have of her.¹

Cornelius had made the will the previous February, while sick and weak in body. He named seven children. The dwelling plantation and fifty acres would go to James; another fifty acres, at the head of the land, would go to the son who bore his father’s name. John received a gun and a cow. Other cattle were divided among the children. Before we know where Cornelius was born, or how he came to North Carolina, we know something of the household he left behind.¹

At the Forke of Pasquotank

To look for that household today, begin in the upper Pasquotank country around South Mills, Pierceville and Joyce Creek. Later deeds placed the inherited land in the fork of Pasquotank. The old wording gives this story its title and a regional setting in present-day Camden County, although the house site remains unproved. In Cornelius’s lifetime these were Pasquotank Precinct records. Camden would not be created until 1777, almost half a century after his death.²

The maps preserve some of the names by which this country was known. Moseley’s 1733 map labels Joys Fork; Price and Strother’s map of 1808 places Joy Creek near New Lebanon. The waterways have since changed through canal construction and the later Turner’s Cut. A modern channel cannot serve unaltered as a colonial boundary. Nor can the northeast side of Pasquotank River, the fork of Pasquotank and the east side of Fork Creek be treated as interchangeable places: each phrase belongs to a particular record.²

Fourteen years before Elizabeth’s oath, William Joy conveyed Cornelius one hundred acres for £6. The date was April 19, 1714, and the parcel lay eastward of Joy’s dwelling plantation. This purchase is Cornelius’s earliest securely verified appearance in the records examined so far. He comes into view as a buyer of land, with no account of the journey that brought him there. Later register copies preserve the full transaction and, after it, the 1739 conveyance by James Forehand, strongly identified with his son.³

On October 20, 1718, Joy conveyed another stated hundred acres for the same price. This instrument expressly calls Cornelius a resident of Pasquotank and connects the land to Joy’s patent of October 16, 1716. It is tempting to put the two acreages together and give Cornelius a two-hundred-acre farm. The instruments do not say that the second purchase was additional. Their relationship—separate ground, overlapping ground or some form of title confirmation—has yet to be resolved.⁴

The 1719 tax return supplies a different sort of description. Beside Cornelius’s name appears “Irishman.” It gives the strongest contemporary support for an Irish connection, but no county of birth, ship or arrival year. It does not tell us whether the writer was describing birthplace or family origin. Gabriel Burnham also appears on this return, and John Hobbs is immediately below Cornelius. These were names in his recorded neighborhood; their proximity on paper does not make them relatives.⁵

By 1723, the colony also knew him as a man to call upon for jury duty. “Cor: Forehand,” number 124, appears on Pasquotank’s statutory list for jury selection. We cannot place him on a particular jury from that list, but his inclusion brings him out of the private business of buying land and into the precinct’s public affairs.⁶

Family Ties

Cornelius’s will, dated February 24, 1727/8, names his wife Elizabeth, five sons—John, Cornelius, James, Thomas and Richard—and two daughters, Elizabeth and the daughter conventionally called Mary. The second daughter’s name is difficult to read; Mary remains the customary reading. Wife and daughter Elizabeth are separate people, and the will does not expressly identify the wife as every child’s mother. Neither spouse’s parents have been established.¹

John received a gun and a cow. Cornelius received fifty acres at the head of the land, beside a line whose name remains uncertain. James received the dwelling plantation and its fifty acres, together with a cow. Thomas received two cows; Richard and daughter Elizabeth received one each. Mary’s clause moves into the next bequest without an identifiable object of gift. Supplying her with a cow would make the pattern neater than the document allows. The gifts establish family relationships, not the children’s ages or birth order.¹

Later land records, strongly associated with two of the sons, carry the story forward. In April 1739, James Forehand assigned fifty acres to Richard Fothergale, specifically the portion on which his house stood. The assignment follows the 1714 Joy deed and conveys land out of that title. The dwelling and acreage strongly identify him with the son named in the will, although the assignment does not call Cornelius his father. That October, Fothergale sold the former James Forehand land to Benjamin Burnham.⁷

In 1750, Cornelius Forehand sold Caleb Burnham fifty acres in the fork, part of Joy’s patent. He is strongly identified with the son who inherited the head-of-land parcel. Once again, the deed’s connection must be made across records: it does not say “my father.” The two inheritance routes lead into Burnham ownership, where the current title research pauses. A later James deed for one hundred acres east of Fork Creek cannot be made their continuation without the missing conveyances.⁷

Thomas is likely the later Newland landholder whose deeds, taxes and estate extend to 1769, though no later instrument directly bridges him to the son in this will. John’s local and later Edgecombe records require similar care. Richard has no securely identified later appearance. His absence from selected records does not prove that he died in childhood. The daughters’ marriages remain unknown, and Elizabeth’s oath does not establish how long she survived afterward. These gaps leave substantial lives beyond the reach of the present family reconstruction.¹⁸

Before the Forke

The surname, or something resembling it, had appeared in the Chesapeake long before Cornelius’s purchase. A Virginia patent issued to William Knott in Surry on November 20, 1653, lists Jno. Forehead among three claimed transportation headrights. Maryland records index Gillian Forehand as transported by 1671. A Henrico patent to Captain John Knowles, dated March 15, 1672 as recorded, includes Tho. Fourehands. Each offers a person to investigate; none supplies Cornelius’s parentage.⁹¹⁰

The land-rights system complicates any journey drawn from those dates. Transportation rights could be assigned, and a patent might be issued long after the journey that generated a claim. The people named did not necessarily sail together or settle on the patented land. Gillian’s records involve rights proved by William Jones, master of the Joseph of Bristol, and later assignments. Those transactions trace land rights more securely than they trace Gillian’s subsequent life.⁹¹⁰

Thomas has another possible appearance. James Crewes’s will of July 23, 1676, names Thomas Forehand as a witness; its later probate record refers to depositions in December 1677 and recording in August 1680. He may be the man named in the Knowles patent, but that identification is unfinished. The will witness is a firmer starting point for a personal history than a headright alone. It still does not make him Cornelius’s father.⁹

Names beyond the known household

Later Forehands also appear outside the securely reconstructed family. Susannah Forehand is named on Joshua Gambling’s 1750 return for the upper district on the northeast side of Pasquotank River. The complete sheet gives no husband, widow designation or numerical poll counts. A woman’s appearance there cannot by itself establish that her husband had died. Nor does Cornelius Fourhand’s appearance on the next year’s list record a household passing from mother to son.¹¹

Prudence Forehand enters through a different record in Currituck. On April 4, 1751, Willis Etheridge gave bond to administer her estate. She was already dead. The administrative return dated December 12, 1754, belongs to the settlement of her affairs, not the end of her life. Neither record identifies a husband or children. Prudence and Susannah deserve places in the history under their own names while their connections remain open.¹²

Josiah appears in Captain Nehemiah Jones’s Pasquotank militia company on a return endorsed 1755. He is not thereby identified with Joseph Forehand in an Edgecombe survey of 1754. Elijah has a closer transaction-level association: he and Isaac Sawyer witnessed Lemuel Forehand’s conveyance to Daniel on October 23, 1772. The conveyance concerned two hundred acres of back land patented by Thomas. Elijah might have been a relative, or a neighbor witnessing their deed; the instrument names no relationship. Neither man can yet be placed among Cornelius’s descendants.¹³¹⁴

Between the Lines

Possibilities, not proven relationships. A Chesapeake route for Cornelius is worth investigating through his associates. Jeremiah Everton, a witness to the 1714 deed, may be the man in an earlier Maryland parish record. A demonstrated connection could explain how people known in one colony came together in another. The alternative remains straightforward: Cornelius could have arrived independently, and the older Forehead, Forehand and Fourehands entries could represent unrelated families. His Irish designation cannot decide between those histories.¹⁵

If Susannah was the widow of one of Cornelius’s sons by 1750, James and Richard are the first candidates to test. James’s 1739 transaction leaves room for a later death, unless his proposed continuation in Edgecombe is established. Richard’s documentary gap leaves room too, without supplying positive evidence of either marriage or death. John remains possible with a separate identity problem around later records. Cornelius’s 1750 sale and Thomas’s much later activity make them weaker candidates under the working identifications. But the premise itself is unproved: Susannah could have had a living husband, borne Forehand as a birth surname or belonged to another branch.¹¹

Prudence has likewise been proposed as Richard’s wife. His unknown later life permits the idea, but her administration bond supplies no connection. A distribution, guardianship or deed naming a spouse or child would matter far more than the empty years in his chronology. The same principle applies to Josiah and Elijah: their own associates and property must lead the search, rather than a vacant space on Cornelius’s tree.¹²¹³¹⁴

The land offers a different kind of unfinished connection. Family tradition locates Cornelius opposite McBride Church on Old Swamp Road, near Muddy Road. An earlier interpretation of Joy’s patent and the Moseley map challenged that placement. The modern church identifies where the tradition points; it does not settle the old title. Following the two Burnham branches, recovering Joy’s patent and tracing later owners could bring the household into sharper geographical focus. Until then, the Forke is a defensible region, not a pin on a particular yard.²⁷

For now, the family’s clearest beginning lies in these small, particular provisions: James’s house and fifty acres, John’s gun, the cattle, and the household goods left to Elizabeth. The later land sales let us follow part of that inheritance beyond Cornelius’s death. Elizabeth’s oath records her undertaking to carry out his wishes. She remains there in the record in July 1728, responsible for settling the household whose descendants we are still trying to trace.¹

A Life in the Records

This chronology separates Cornelius’s recorded acts from later family and title evidence. The earlier Chesapeake names are separate people.