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III.

COMING TO AMERICA: THE JAMES NOURSE FAMILY James Nourse, the father of Joseph Nourse, was born in 1731 in England at Weston Hall,

Herefordshire. Under the tutelage of his father-in-law, Gabriel Fouace, James became a wool merchant in London after he married Sarah Fouace in 1753. While this profession afforded him a comfortable livelihood, he felt there was little possibility for the improvement of his fortune or a secure future for his large family. 24 He first went to America alone to determine the advantages for his family and to examine what could be gained by moving to America. Having seen the opportunities of the New World, James returned from America and declared, “I must go.” In April 1768, he wrote in a diary: I have a comfortable livelihood, a want of no necessaries and the enjoyment of some conveniences of life, but with little improvement of fortune, so as to enable my children to set up for themselves, and if they should, provisions so very dear and trades all so overstocked, that 'tis five to one they succeed…. By removing I expect to be able to purchase land sufficient for their maintenance, if employed with industry, to divide between them all—and as all places we find by history have had their rise and fall—it may be supposed that America (without the gift of prophecy) is a rising, Europe a declining state[.] 25 Just under one year later, on March 16, 1769, James and Sarah Nourse left England on board the ship Liberty with their nine children—Joseph, James, Catherine Burton, Charles, Robert, William, Elizabeth, Susanna, and John—two servants 26, and 116 crates of family possessions, each one individually numbered. A partial inventory of the contents of those crates 27 provides a rare and invaluable record of the household goods, furnishings, and personal effects brought by an immigrant family to America necessary to establish a new household.

Among the contents were: 2 bags, two striped linsey, a bundle blankets, a bundle stockings, 1 ream brown [paper], 2 do. thin folio—1 do. Foolscap, 1 do. White brown, 30 wrought iron nails, porter 5 stampt I.N., seeds, cask, harness, window glass, cart harness, 2 ploughs, chaise, saddler, 2 crates stone ware, 200 lb. schott, ¼ lb. powder, 2 chests of tea, 1 barrel sugar, 3 pier glasses, 3 do., 2 card tables, 2 stools, a dining table, a do., and 3 stools, a box candles, family pictures, an escritoir, a mahogany 24

Sarah Nourse ultimately would give birth to twenty-one children, of whom ten lived to maturity.

Maria Catharine Nourse Lyle, James Nourse and his Descendants (Lexington, KY: Transylvania Printing Company, 1897), pp. 9-10.

26 The servants, Elizabeth Cuminins and Mary Wood, most likely were indentured. In November 1770, James Nourse imported at his sole expense on the Donald under Captain Roberts an additional servant, Mary Hester. The Virginia Genealogist, Vol. 24, No. 1, Jan-Mar, 1980, p. 280.

27 Lyle, p. 10.

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cupboard, a spinet, 2 table clocks and a lanthern, [No’s] 65, 66, 67, 68, two chairs each, a bureau with books, pair of globes, a small cabinet with paper and accounts, a writing table with the paper of accounts, writing desk with do., press wearing apparel, do., do., 4 chairs, 2 chairs, 1 armchair, 1 do., a bedstead, bureau with bed furniture, box cutlery, 22 chairs, 2 stools, press with blankets, etc., a couch, bedstead, bedstead, do., 4 cheeses, a bedstead, do., do., 2 tables, bureau with apparel, a bedstead, cupboard, 2 Jacks, 2 hampers, cyder, raisin wine, do. 28 The family arrived at Hampton, Virginia, on May 10, 1769, nearly two months later.

Once safely in the Colonies, the Nourse family quickly realized that much of the eastern portion of Virginia had already been settled by immigrants who had arrived nearly a generation earlier.

After the family’s residency of one year at the Sheldon house near Hampton, James Nourse purchased property in Berkeley, Virginia (now Berkeley Springs, West Virginia). There, he established a plantation, “Piedmont,” on which the family grew rye, wheat, and vegetables. By 1774, his accounts revealed he owned eighty-four head of “Horn Cattle,” valued at £151.15s, and fifty-six hogs, valued at £26. To work the land and to tend the crops, Nourse utilized the labor of numerous enslaved Africans, ensuring the successful operation of the plantation.

Over the years, James Nourse developed close, personal friendships with several of his neighbors, including General Charles Lee (1731-1782), General Horatio Gates (1727-1806), and Samuel Washington (1734-1781), brother of George Washington. Nourse regularly supervised the operation of Lee’s estate—“Prato Rio”—during Lee’s frequent absences and often visited “Harewood,” the estate of Samuel Washington, brother of George Washington. Nourse later became such a close friend to Samuel Washington that he was asked to serve as guardian to Washington’s two sons, George Steptoe Washington (1773-1808) and Lawrence Augustine Washington (1775-1824), upon Samuel Washington’s death. George Washington wrote James Nourse thanking him “for the trouble you have taken to bring me acquainted with the affairs of my deceased Brother of Berkeley.” 29 No doubt through his personal relationships with these prominent military and political figures, James Nourse became increasingly active in politics. In 1776, he was one of the thirteen

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The Dumbarton House collection has several objects that may have been packed in those crates: a portrait of Sarah and James Nourse, believed to have been painted soon after their marriage; a 1690 bracket clock made by Henry Harper of London; a portrait of Elizabeth Gregory of How Caple, grandmother of James Nourse; and a portrait (on long-term loan from Richard Starkey) of Joseph Burton, Jr., great-uncle, godfather, and namesake of Joseph Nourse.

29 Letter, George Washington to James Nourse, January 22, 1784; Library of Congress, George Washington Papers. http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/gwhtml/gwhome.html

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original trustees for the town of Bath, Morgan County, Virginia (now Berkeley Springs, West Virginia). During the Revolutionary War, James Nourse organized militias from both Berkeley and Frederick counties in Virginia, and was responsible for the disbursal of more than $3,000 to support those militias. In 1778, he represented Berkeley County in the Virginia House of Delegates in Williamsburg, where he served on the “Committee of Propositions and Grievances, and afterward on various special committees.” 30 It is through this work as a Delegate that he obtained a first-printing copy of the Articles of Confederation. His personal copy—one of only ten first-printings known to exist—is archived in the Nourse Manuscript Collection. In 1781, James Nourse was appointed commissioner to settle the claims of Maryland against the United States government. While serving in this capacity, he lived at Acton Place, the home of John Hammond (1735-1784), located on Spa Creek just outside Annapolis. He died on October 10, 1784, living just one month longer than his beloved wife, Sarah.

30

Lyle, p. 16.