The LW&T of Samuel Martin s/o S. & Frances Yeamans
Vincent Summers
is full of subtleties, but I do not want to read too much into it.
First, I would like to present it to you, and then suggest some
possibilities of what could be deduced from it, and then I ask that
you please evaluate what you think of both my deductions, and of what
you evaluate from it. Thanks. It is from VL Oliver's H. of Antigua.
Vince
+++++
The Last Will and Testament, from V.L. Oliver's History of Antigua:
Samuel Martin of Pall Mall, St. James's Parish. Will dated 23 May,
proved P.C.C. 25 Nov. 1788 by Henry Martin and William Byam Martin,
Esquires, the brothers, and Ralph Willett, Esq. (551 Calvert.) My
brothers Henry & Wm Byam M. & my friend Ralph Willett, Esq., to be
Ex'ors, & L50 each. To my brother Henry my picture of Mr Willett &
book of engravings of his library at Merly, also all my plantation
necessaries going for Antigua, or to my successor under my father's
will, & to his wife my vol. of Hogarth's prints given me by the author.
My long service with the late Princess Dowager of Wales. A gold medal
of His Majty which was presented to all M.P.'s. I have already given
my brother W.B.M. the picture of myself by Hogarth, & I give him my
dogs & horses, & to his wife an emerald ring. To my nephew Fitzgerald
my gun & pistols. My special gun to my nephew Henry M., now of Oxford.
My neph. Samuel M. my watch. To my servant Francis Freeman L200 & to
Cha. Crowe my linen & L120. To the clergiman of Sandridge parish 100
guineas for the poor. My small real estate at Marshalswick near
St Albans to be sold to Earl Spencer. L30 a year to Mrs Smith of the
Isle of Wight. All residue to the 3 children of my late sister
Fitzgerald & the 4 children of my late brother Gov. Martin, Alice &
her brother Josiah Henry Martin. Mr John Yeates, manager of my
plantation in Antigua, L20. Witnessed by Thomas Oliver, William
Craggs, James Drummond, clerk to Messrs. Drummond.
1st Codicil dated 24 May 1787. No. 84 Pall Mall. (Letter to Sam.
Martin, Esq., Collector of the Port of St John's.) By agreement
between you & my late father you were to pay annuities of L100 to
Dr Malcolm, L50 to Mrs Logan, L60 to Mary Ann Fitzgerald, L60 to
Caroline Fitzgerald, & L130 to Tho. Fitzgerald while you held your
office. Dr. Malcolm is dead. My father's Cod. was dat. 5 Mar.
1775. I desire you to pay L110 a year to my nephew Tho. Fitzgerald &
to each of his sisters L150.
2nd Codicil dated 20 Oct. 1788. Marshalswick. I hope to see
provision made for my brother Gov. Martin's children by the Minister
in pursuance of his conversation with Earl Cornwallis. L50 towards
the workhouse at Sandridge. Witnessed by J. Langford, Surgeon and
Apothecary at St. Albans.
3rd Codicil. Re estate to be offered to Earl Spencer.
4th Codicil 5 Nov. 1788. 84 Pall Mall. Mr Yeates L80 more. My
servant Chas. Crowe L80 & Francis Freeman L100 more. 25 guineas for
opening my body. Sworn 24 Nov. 1788 by the 2 last named. On 1 Sep.
1806 adm'on of the estate left unadministered by Henry Martin and
William Byam Martin and Ralph Wilett, all deceased, granted to Frances
Caroline Fonblanque, wife of John Fonblanque, Esq., the dau. of
Henrietta Fitzgerald, widow, deceased, the sister of testator. William
Byam Martin having survived the other Ex'ors but died intestate.
+++++
I note that this will shows this Samuel's considerateness. His father
had left his 3 grandchildren, Thomas, Mary Ann, and Caroline
Fitzgerald monies, but way out of balance to Thomas. I note that he
did not leave anything to his grandson John Austin Jr Fitzgerald.
The Samuel of this will, however, changed that. He reduced the monies
to Thomas and increased them to the sisters by a large margin. It
makes me wonder why this Samuel did not leave anything, either, to
John Austin Jr Fitzgerald. I think this one had already married and
moved to Philadelphia. Would this be cause? Enmity? Or maybe I am
getting all of this mixed up, and John Jr was not mine, but had
died?
Here is, what I list as the tree:
Samuel & Frances Yeamans Martin
1. Henrietta Martin m. John Austin Sr Fitzgerald
2. Samuel (of this will) who remained single
John Austin Sr and Henrietta Martin FITZGERALD
1. John Jr.
2. Thomas
3. Mary Ann
4. Frances Caroline (who married Fonblanque)
Please, what do you see in this?
Vince Summers
Chris Codrington
Good questions, but there is little explicitly answered by the text of the
will. Grandsons rarely received great goodies if the father was a major heir
named in the will, so that does not imply anything per se.
I think you'll need to build up more of a contextual base and relate all
back to the will, reading it over again till you see what nuance it may
contain in regard to the family. But real hostility was often spoken of in
these wills, so resist temptation to interpret too subjectively. Also not
all gifts or dispersals to family will be found in a will. A man may have
"set up" a relative with land or new mills or 20 slaves or whatever prior to
his death with the understanding less would be forthcoming later. So you
need to circle around the subject as much as you can and collect divergent
info wherever you can find it.
It would help if you could assemble the wills of the others named including
the executors(I know that's tough, but join the club) then you might have
some indications from comparative study.
Remember annuities were rarely paid as given. Especially where they were
charged on a particular property as they usually were. In fact in your text
(one of the codicils) you have an example of where an annuity was charged
via a second party and the heir of the assignee has tried to adjust and
redirect payments of that (or those) annuity(s). I promise you that all
ended up in chancery or PCC. A lot of them did and more often than not
beneficiaries accepted settlements. The settlements were nearly always much
less in value than the real value of an annuity granted for life. Most
plantations in the West Indies became loaded with this sort of debt and
eventually in order to clean them up and restore them to profitability, the
settlements were proposed, or claims questioned or re-assigned to another
person owing a debt etc. Example: My father's will obligates the estate to
pay 1,000 per year to Joe. Ten years later I and my accountant take a look
at the accounts and see that this and several other annuities are choking
the estate and in fact render it in the red(at least in terms of real cash
flow) We offer a one time settlement of x dollars for a release from further
obligation to the Estate(a "quit claim"actually, since the term is still
used in real estate) if we have the money and are owed no debts, we may
offer cash or some equivalent.
If we do not have a lot of ready cash(and remember cash was relatively rare
in plantation economy)but have many accounts receivable or people owing us
money from loans etc then we might assign the settlement as a graduated
payment to someone else who owed us money. ETC
Anyway that is not your main concern but that issue is definitely apparent
in the will. Problem with a lot of these solutions worked out on death-beds
is that they were not always legal or securely formed. So people litigated
like crazy (and still do!)
Anyway, not enough here to clearly sense any relative issues between family.
Grandfather may have been more oriented toward the old primo-genture ways
and so the heavy inheritance to the son etc. Style definitely plays a part
as do regional laws, custom, and pre-mortem piety(often larger than the bank
account don't ya know)
Good luck and thanks for that one it was interesting!
Cod
C.M. Codrington("american version # 1952)
Editor: Carib GenWeb "Historic Antigua and Barbuda" web-site
Member: Barbados Museum Historical Society,
Museum of Antigua and Barbuda Historical and Archaeological Society.
Vincent Summers
PCC. What does that stand for, please?
Vince
monsanto
the tree?
William was married as well, because he leaves something to his wife. And
you left out his brother's children Henry M. and Samuel M. and where are
the children Alice and Josiah of his (other) brother?
Perhaps the children of the sister were already born, while the father made
his codicile by name, he could not mention other children, because they
were not born yet. It could also be that one of the children was of a
second marriage, therefore he wanted to provide especially to these
children,
while the rest of the family was provided for in the testament. The
grandson named in the codicile and provided for by name, was perhaps his
only grandson at the time, or he was studying abroad or some other reason.
Christel Monsanto - mons...@interneeds.net
Chris Codrington
There is a good guide to Wills and deeds at the PRO and another on Chancery.
The Chancery bit gets abit complicated due to the methods of classifying and
storing documents(a case was not stored in one place but in sections related
to the stages of proceeding).
I have a similar sort of research task Which involves studying all court
cases involving the Cod estates between 1698 and 1742 to find a "Bill in
Chancery" related to a claim to an annuity and lump payment due to a boy
reaching maturity(probably other matters) There are hundreds of cases
involving these people during that period, and many are not where they
"should" be. Despite all you will read, there were ways that contentious
cases could be "placed" so as to present the greatest difficulty for the
claimant to pursue the case in court and thus encourage settlement on the
prevailing family head's terms.
This may not be relevant to your study, but it doesn't hurt to be aware
anyway.
There are actually many "cases" of various stripe hidden amongst other
classes of documents in the PRO and it is my impression part of this due to
the fact some issues were pursued via channels of influence either
"official" or based simply on the basis of calling in a favor from someone
who owed. Anyway sorry this vague but still learning about this stuff.
C.M. Codrington("american version # 1952)
Editor: Carib GenWeb "Historic Antigua and Barbuda" web-site
Member: Barbados Museum Historical Society,
Museum of Antigua and Barbuda Historical and Archaeological Society.
-----Original Message-----
From: Vincent Summers [mailto:vsum...@nrao.edu]
