Oddly enough, it’s a good thing that after young William was caught absconding with Mr Warren’s hat near the Inns of Court area of London that he did not receive “benefit of clergy”. For those not familiar with the term it refers to a little known facet of English law wherein a first-time felony offender was allowed to escape punishment of death by benefit of clergy. Whatever can this mean? Simply put this process usually involved a local reverend or priest or authorized church official to meet with a condemn’d prisoner and determine whether he deserved a measure of clemency. Oftentimes they would ask a prisoner to recite a bible passage or look into any extenuating circumstances which would merit the saving of one’s life. However, there was a handy little catch to this benefits thing: in a T for Texas branding of the iron scenario a thief would receive a hot iron applied to his hand. In the shape of a T no less. If you were a murderer, unlikely as it sounds, you would receive a nice capital M instead. How very understanding. And yet, this branding was not in itself punishment but a warning. A warning to a court that should such a fellow be placed before a judge, you guessed it, there was no tomorrow. In looking at the published facts in Wm Longmire’s case he was handed a death sentence but later reprieved. Note that benefit of clergy was not mentioned. And if you ask me, it was his poignant Newgate Letter that did it … Anyways, you will note the not so judicious use of the word hand in the following paragraphs, though it will be applied handsomely.

Somebody in the back row just said “Explain yourself, Longmire. How do you know he did not get burnt in the hand and it simply wasn’t mentioned”? Ah, Grasshopper, gently cover your mouth with your hand as I handily dispense with logic. First, I will digress and set the scene and later get around to your question several paragraphs down. Now, getting back to regularly scheduled programming … Though William need not have experienced “benefit” he did happen to take full advantage of benefice. And he no doubt had the services of what I lovingly term a “benevolent benefactor”. I will go out on a limb, hopefully a strong enough one, to take the weight of what I am about to impart. That benefactor was most likely Charles Carter. Ah yes, a son of Robert “King” Carter, possibly the wealthiest man in the colony at the time, and who just so happened to be the man who ran the Northern Neck Proprietary Land Office from his home in Lancaster County. As I may have mentioned in a previous post this Charles Carter fellow had returned from schooling in London in 1724 and immediately took up residence outside of a little port town called Urbanna in Middlesex County. This was located across the Rappahannock River from Robert Carter’s grand home, Corotoman. As noted before, and many years ago, I have always felt that Lancaster County played a role in William’s life. I had assumed that while reading a diary entry by Robert Carter in which he casually mentioned writing from Port Rappahannock that it must be where William first came ashore this land of Virginia. However, I now feel it just as likely, even more so, that Port Rappahannock was at Urbanna as it was a port. And it was at Urbanna in which Adam Cockburne – Customs Collector for the Rappahannock Naval District lived and operated out of. Thus, I place it as the location where William was purchased off the ship he arrived in. And, incidentally, where Wiliam’s Landing Certificate was filled out by Cockburn before that piece of documentary history arrived back in London to sit in archives for over 275 years …

Reconciling the anomalous nature of Wm Longmire is like a form of hand to hand combat. There I was, in the trenches of research history, fighting off reference librarians, historians, even an author or two. First, it was you have no proof that a convict worked for the court. Not possible. It would have taken years of training. Convicts could not be paid out of public funds. Nor work for the court. A convict would never be able to work for Lord Fairfax. And then there were the non replies, when writing for clarification of the existing statutes or similar cases, otherwise known as silence. Some of those folks, well, I guess they just couldn’t handle it. In some respects I can’t blame them. The historical applecart has many forces opposing those who wish to tip it. And of those some just go with what was handed them with no regard to changing what the status quo affords. Not an indictment but a curious fact of historical life. As I will show later it is not easy putting two and two together with a negative two tossed in the mix. Almost akin to looking for non-fiction in the fiction aisle. All this said let’s get back to this hidden hand business …

The years 1725 – 1728 were frenetic for the business of acquiring land. After Lady Catherine Culpeper died in 1719 oversight of the Proprietary began to dwindle. Robert Carter, already in the middle of his 2nd stint as Land Agent for the Proprietary, was in the midst of a huge land grab, possibly the largest in Colonial history. Between 1726 and 1727 while the Governor of Virginia had died Robert Carter was handed a most unusual circumstance. As President of the Governor’s Council he was appointed Acting Governor of Virginia. For a year he was not only in charge of the Royal Government but was also chief agent of the Proprietary. Nobody could lay a hand on him, hence his nickname of “King” Carter. Prior to that in 1725 Carter had begun to direct his attention to huge swaths of land in the Piedmont and Blue Ridge Mountains. Thus a speculative frenzy of sorts began to emerge and the need for scribes and copyists became of utmost importance to facilitate this process. Enter one Wm Longmire. Having a scrivener’s training and top rate penmanship prior to his stint in prison William was fortuitously placed amongst this tide of greed. And this is where a hidden hand stepped in, so to speak. As it was the Carters who ran the real estate it was the Carters who swept up William Longmire and tucked him nicely into their fold. And it so happens that as Robert Carter was getting older and befallen of gout, his son, Charles, was spearheading land acquisitions with an inner circle, moving north up the Rappahannock into Stafford and King George Counties and other Northern Neck locales west of the river. And so too did William go north, to follow the trail of his pen … And though his earliest entries in the land books, that I have found thus far, begin with a grant to John Warner, the famous surveyor/mapmaker, in early 1729, his handiwork can be found as early as Nov 1727 on a map surveyed by Warner for Augustine Washington yet drawn and executed by Wm Longmire. Though most of the written grants by William state they were “given at our office in Lancaster County” it is nearly impossible to say exactly where he lived at the time. However, we know that by at least 1730 William was watching the prison in King George County and being paid for it. The fact that he was paid for this side gig indicates that William was definitely a free man from his convict indenture and probably already on the payroll of the Carters. If it is shown that William did indeed draw a third copy map of Fredericksburg ca 1731, which I believe to be the case, then a hidden hand had shown itself once again. And by 1734 when William took over the guardian accounts for the daughter of the former Clerk of the Court this hidden hand was most definitely, and auspiciously, present. Sorry folks, but this is far from the typical narrative of convicts and their downtrodden existence in the colonies. No, it appears that the hand of g-d had intervened.

The year of 1736 has arrived and the hidden hand of a benevolent benefactor has waved yet again. This is the year in which Wm Longmire is personally given the reigns of the books for none other than Lord Fairfax. And a benefactor, probably Charles Carter, was probably just the person who could confidently say to Thomas Lord Fairfax upon his inquiring of the best scrivener in town, “I got a guy”. And in once again stepped Wm Longmire. Folks, from that point on the rest is history. William later became de facto recording secretary for the court by 1744. After Wm Fairfax up and went to Belvoir, leaving William out of a cushy job, he stepped right into double entry accounting for his former court boss, Thomas Turner. And herein lies a huge, and I mean huge, historical problem. It is with a sense of pride I suppose that I can smugly sit here and make claim that William was unparalleled in scrivener history between the years 1650 and 1776. His mastery of cartography, double entry accounting, and his known work at court, a triple crown of sorts, has never been accomplished by any scrivener in the colonies. His is a unique case – former convict or not.

And you in the back row, how do I know that William was not burnt in the hand? Ask yourself how a felon could work for the court and write court entries right out in the open. In public. With the letter T emblazoned on his hand. No, a hidden hand who propelled him along saw fit that William’s past transgressions would not see the light of day.

I have been researching this fellow a good number of years. It is and has been an incredible, almost unbelievable journey. And like a shadow lurking in the dustbins of history, now visible by a spotlight cast upon him, it turns out that William Longmire himself was the hidden hand all along.