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Note: Adolphus Hendrick (by1685 - 1763) He was likely the eldest son, being first mentioned in the deed of gift by his father on 20 February 1705/6.37 Given the timing and wording of this deed, it is
reasonable to theorize that Adolphus may have married at about that time. We can also plausibly
infer that he had reached majority by 1706, for deeds to minors were both rare and generally
unenforceable. Nearly all we know of his early life is from patent records, since King William
records are lost. The few records we have, though, make it clear that he remained in King William
County through at least 1740.
Adolphus clearly had interests further west. On 20 February 1719/20 he patented 490 acres in the
part of King William that later became Caroline County, roughly twenty miles west of his gifted
land.38 However, he seems to have sold this patent almost immediately, certainly within a year.
An adjoining patent of 17 August 1725 to William Bigger refers to Adolphus’s patent as “land he
bought of Dolphus Hendrick.”39 That sale must have taken place by early 1721, for Bigger’s
patent refers to the land as being in St. John’s parish. Yet it had been in St. Margaret’s parish since
1 May 1721. Clearly, the patent’s survey (and therefore the sale by Adolphus) had been made
prior to St. Margaret’s formation.40 Sometime in 1727 or 1728 Adolphus surveyed 1,000 acres in
Spotsylvania (later Orange) County at the same time as two of his brothers.41 The resulting patent,
describing him as a resident of King William, was issued on 28 September 1728.42 The land lay on
the Spotsylvania county line, in the area that became Orange County in 1734. Yet Adolphus
Hendrick appears in no records of either Spotsylvania or Orange counties, other than a few
mentions as an adjoining landowner. There is no indication that either he or a son lived on this
patent, which he sold on 31 October 1740, still as a resident of King William County.43
Adolphus evidently remained for more than three decades near his father’s original plantation in
King William, for he is not mentioned in Caroline County records as a resident.44 A plausible
explanation for this is that his father’s deed of 1706 had created an entail on the land, though
perhaps inadvertently.45 Whether it was his father’s intention or not, the land was gifted to
Adolphus and his male successors in perpetuity. Adolphus, holding only a lifetime interest, could
not sell the land in fee simple. Thus he may have remained on this land until either his own eldest
son could occupy it, or until he could break the entail. The Assembly’s act of 1734 gave him a
means to break the entail and it is likely that he availed himself of this process.46 He evidently still
owned land in King William County in 1742, for a record dated that year shows that Benjamin
Hendrick paid Martin Palmer for quit rents on 100 acres of his brother’s land. [Since only
Benjamin and Adolphus were still in King William as late as 1742, and since Martin Palmer was
the sheriff of King William responsible for collecting rents, this record surely refers to land owned
by Adolphus Hendrick.]
By the late 1730s, several of Adolphus Hendrick’s elder children had left King William to move
west into Amelia County. His son-in-law Benjamin Hubbard was in Amelia by its formation in
1734, and his son William Hendrick, son-in-law John Gillington, and possible son-in-law William
Evans by 1736. His sons John, Benjamin, and Moses, and another son-in-law, appear somewhat
later in Amelia records.
Sometime before 1737, about the time these older children probably left home, Adolphus himself
claimed land further west, staking out 400 acres in Goochland County less than fifteen miles west
of his brothers in Amelia. A patent issued 15 March 1736/7 to William Daniel identifies the
adjoining land as Adolphus Hendrick’s.47 Adolphus’ patent for that tract adjacent Daniel was
issued two years later on 1 February 1738/9.48 He did not immediately move onto this land. He
was still living in King William more than a year later on 19 August 1740 when he purchased
another 400 acres in Goochland from Christopher Hudson, located about three miles east of his
patent.49 He was again described as a resident of King William a few months later when he sold his
Spotsylvania patent on 31 October 1740 (see above), but had moved into Goochland County by
1742 when he recorded his stock mark there.50 In 1746 he appeared on a Goochland tithables list
with two slaves and son-in-law Philemon Childers, his younger sons apparently not yet having
joined him.
His Goochland County lands fell into Cumberland County when it was formed in 1749, being
located in the central part of present Cumberland, where numerous patents and deeds mention one
or the other of his tracts. The records of Southam parish show he was a processioner in 1747 and
that his patent was processioned in 1748 by Benjamin Hendrick and by Adolphus himself in
1755.51 Adolphus may have purchased his second tract for his son Moses or for another of his
sons-in-law who decided not to live on it. He apparently rented out this second tract, for it was not
processioned in his name in 1747 or 1755. He appears in only a few records of Cumberland,
perhaps due to advancing age, though he served on a jury in 1753 and assisted in a processioning in
Halifax County near his son Moses in 1759.52 The genealogically significant citations are
mentioned below, since they relate primarily to his children. His wife’s name never appears in any records, nor is a wife named in his will. His children appear to have been born over a span of at least twenty, and perhaps thirty, years thus raising the possibility of more than one wife.
Adolphus Hendrick’s will was dated 25 January 1758, and recorded on 4 October 1763, in
Cumberland County.53 It identifies his children, and makes bequests to them as noted below.54
Adolphus did not wait for his death to deliver the legacies bequeathed by his will Subsequent to
making his will, Adolphus made deeds of gift to two daughters, Jane Robinson and Jemima
Bradshaw and their husbands, of the slaves which were to be bequeathed by the will.55 He also
disposed of the land devised in the will. He had retained both his 1739 patent of 400 acres and the
400 acres nearby purchased in 1740, devising them respectively in his will to his sons Benjamin
and Moses. On 3 February 1762, he deeded his 400 acre patent to his son Benjamin, being the
same land devised to him by the will and described as the land Benjamin then lived on.56 His son
Moses Hendrick, who had settled in Halifax and aligned himself with his Quaker in-laws, was
effectively cut out of the will by two later transactions. The 400 acres of land he was to have
inherited was sold to Humphrey Keeble on 11 October 1759.57 Then the slave Hagar bequeathed to
Moses by the will was actually gifted in 1759 to Jemima Bradshaw.
It is possible that Adolphus had a son named Robert Hendrick who predeceased him. On 15
August 1734, William Allen testified in Goochland County court that he and nine others had
“ranged each six days in search of Robert Hendrick who was supposed to be killed by the
Indians.”58 This being the only record of anyone else named Hendrick in Virginia, it is tempting to
suppose he might have been a son of Adolphus, or perhaps even another brother.59 At least nine of
the ten persons named in this record were living in a relatively small area just east of the land
Adolphus had staked out in Goochland, later Cumberland, County. Five of the searchers were less
than five miles from that land, the other four a few miles further east.
Finally, I cannot resist pointing out that, despite producing a very large number of grandsons, not a
single one was named Adolphus. One cannot help but wonder at the apparent distance between
Adolphus and the majority of his children. Other than Benjamin, who was obviously close to his
father in his declining years, and the younger daughters, there is a conspicuous absence of records
connecting Adolphus and his children. Adolphus's will 25 Jan 1758 in Cumberland Co. proved 4 Oct. 1763. Son Benjamin Son William Son John Son Moses - 400 acres on Deep Creek and a Negro girl Hagar, etc. Daughter Christiana Evens Daughter Rachel Guillintine Dau. Allice Hubbard Dau Mary Childers - grand daughters Rachel and Sarah Childers Dau. Betty Bostick Dau. Jane Robinson Dau. Jamima Bradshaw Executors: Benjamin and Moses Hendrick; Witnesses Samuel Jones, Samuel Melton and John Chumey 26 Nov 1759 Adolphus sold the land Moses Hendrick was to receive.
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