Fourth Generation – William Pettypool
(m. Mary Caldwell)

circa 1720 – 1774

Lunenburg County, Virginia

William Pettypool, son of William and Frances, was born by 1720, presumably in Prince George County, Virginia and died before 10 November 1774 in Lunenburg County, Virginia.2 He married Mary, daughter of Edward Caldwell, likely as early as 1741, as William and Mary’s eldest sons, Caldwell (Colwell) and William, were transacting legal business in the Lunenburg County courts by the early 1760s.3 William and Mary lived along Couches Creek in Lunenburg County on tracts of land including 400 acres gifted them in 1748 by Mary’s father.4

Children

William did not leave a written will, instead signaling his intentions regarding distribution of his personal property with a nuncupative or “deathbed” will.5 Unfortunately, he did not name his heirs, making mention only of the need to provide for his “three youngest Sons” in the event of his wife’s remarriage. Tithes charged to the widowed Mary Pettypool on extant Lunenburg County tax lists assist somewhat in the reconstruction of William and Mary Pettypool’s family.6 Children who can be identified by name, order not certain, include:

For more information...

Please see The William Pettypool Family of Southside Virginia: Lineage Reconstruction Based on Current Review of Evidence, The Virginia Genealogist, Vol. 4, No. 1 (January-March, 2003) for more information about this family. The complete text of the article is available for download here.


1. Lunenburg County, Va., tax lists, 1806 and 1807.

2. Lunenburg Co., Va., Order Bk. 13, 1769-77, 444.

3. Lunenburg Co., Va., Deed Bk. 9, 162.

4. Ibid.

5. Lunenburg Co., Va., Will Bk. 2, 416.

6. Landon C. Bell, Sunlight on the Southside, Lists of Tithes, Lunenburg County, Virginia 1748-1783 (Philadelphia, 1931), 353, 396.