1. Thomas1 Hall was probably born in the 1630s in England. He married Margery Claxon on 2 June 1655 in York County, Virginia. She was born about 1634 in York County, the daughter of John Claxon/Claxson/Clackson.

No reliable evidence has been found about when or where Thomas Hall was born. The prevailing view is that he was born in England and arrived in Virginia about 1654. This theory is presented in a biography of a Charlie Lowell Hall, one of his descendants, and has been widely disseminated in other places, notably on the Internet. The accuracy of this assumption is open to debate. . . . the fact that a Thomas Hall appears on (a) land grant issued in 1654 does not mean that he arrived in Virginia in that year; in fact, he probably arrived several years before then. In any case, there is no way of proving that this Thomas Hall was the person who married Margery Claxon.

Another factor is the lack of records. In the early years in Virginia, the Church of England tended to focus on baptisms. Records of marriages and deaths only came later and somewhat selectively, so even if church records still exist they are not always helpful in this regard. A further problem is that many civil records from colonial days have been destroyed in fires. In 1820 the Gloucester County Clerk’s Office burned and records that had been sent to Richmond were lost in the fire of 1865. Thus, Gloucester County and several other counties in eastern Virginia are designated as “burned record counties.” Despite these losses, some records held in private collections have survived and have been published.

John Claxon arrived in Virginia in 1619 aboard the Bona Vista. In the muster (census) taken in the spring of 1624/25 following the Indian massacre of March 1621/22, he is listed as being a hired servant on Mr. Treasurer’s Plantation, headed by George Sands, Esq, In addition to his daughter Margery, he had a son, John Claxon Jr., who apparently never married, and a daughter Deborah, who married John Miers. John Claxon Sr. died 22 February 1658 and John Claxon Jr. died 24 January 1659/60.

The John Claxson Document found in the Filson Historical Society provides a fascinating history of the Hall and Claxon families in the mid 17th century as seen through the eyes of Thomas Hall. At the same time, the unusual spellings and grammar as well as missing text make a strict transcription impractical. The following paragraphs are this researcher’s attempt to provide the gist of the document and, except for dates, the text is not meant to be a definitive resource.

John Claxson Sr. died without a will on 22 February 1658. At the time of his death, Thomas and Margery Hall as well as John Jr. and Deborah Claxon were living on the older John’s estate. After his death, his estate was appraised and sold at outcry to pay his debts “so far as it would.” The family remained on the father’s plantation and land, which land the father received by patent survey from John Harvie Gover on 7 May 1638. John Jr. left for Accomack in August 1658 not knowing there was a problem with his father’s land. Before he left, he wrote a will to give the land he thought he owned to take care of the family and left his sister Deborah in the care of Thomas and Margery until such time as she married. John Jr. returned home in November 1659 and died 24 January 1659/60). Thomas Hall proved the younger Claxson’s will and had a probate granted.

During the March court session, someone tried to take the plantation, but Thomas Hall would not accept the order because he did not know by whose authority the order had been given, whereupon he was arrested. At the next court session he agreed to have a Mr. Bray be his attorney. It was then that John Trott, who had a mortgage from John Claxson Sr.,, received a court order to have the property repossessed by the sheriff. The sheriff duly evicted the family from the house they had newly built and turned the property over to Trott. Thomas Ballard and others persuaded the sheriff and Trott to let Thomas Hall have the house and land again and gave him until 25 March 1662 to pay the debt to Trott or his attorneys, but with the provision that the tobacco had to be a quality that Trott or his attorneys would like. Later Mr. Trott returned to England and left his attorneys to collect the debt. However, these attorneys “liked the land so much” that they would not “like my tobacco.” Thomas Hall made several more trips to court including one in which he took samples of his tobacco, which were judged acceptable by the court.

At this point large sections of the document are missing, so trying to follow events as Thomas Hall documents them becomes impossible. However, court records show that in August 1664 Thomas and Margery Hall and John and Deborah Miers deeded property to John Aderston, who was one of Trott’s lawyers. This transaction apparently cleared the debt and according to the Claxson document, the family was discharged from all debts by the court in May 1666.