• General Notes

  [grigg.FTW]
  
  Nell Nugent's "Cavaliers and Pioneers" states that Thomas Liggon received a grant of 800 acres of land in Charles City County, VA on Powell's Creek in 1664 for importing sixteen persons to the Virginia Colony.  William Grigg I was one of these persons and arrived in this country from England by 1663, perhaps earlier.
  
  It is assumed that William Grigg I was in his twenties and that he married in Virginia in 1664-65.   He was able to pay his own tranportation and did not need to work it out as an inde4ntured servant.
  
  This William Grigg and his family were the only Griggs in Charles City County - later Prince George County in 1702, and still later Dinwiddie County in 1754.  William's land was south of the James River.
  
  On February 10, 1677, William Grigg I, the Immigrant, purchased 156 acres of land on Baly's Creek from Robert Bolling "for 4,800 pounds of good sound, legal tobacco to be delivered at my new dwelling house upon the 10 day of October next in Charles City County, and 5,800 on 10 October 1679."This would indicated that William I was already a planter growing tobacco.  We know he had 50 actres of land on the Appomattox River in addition to the 156, as county records show William Grigg II was paying quit rent on 206 acres in 1704.  This Baly Creek land was retained in possession of the Grigg family until William Grigg II, son of the Immigrant, sold it  9 November 1725(Charles City County, orders, pp. 281,282.)
  
  As early as 1670 William Grigg I is thought to have been living on the Appomattox River plantation.  Later fifty acres of this land was sold to Lewis Green, Sr., who said that William Grigg was his brother in law when Green gift-deeded the land to his son, Lewis Green, Jr. on 12 March 1722. 
  
  The distance from VArina by the waters of the James River to the William Grigg I plantation was six or eight miles.  "Bermuda Hundred," where horse races were held, was only two or three miles by water from the Grigg plantation, which was known as "The Graces."
  
  It is thought that Susannah Roberts was a sister of William Grigg I.  She was born 1643 and was one of the head rights of Colonet Richard Lee, 5 June 1658.  She was the wife of Bartholomew Roberts and had sons Bartholomew Roberts, born 1662, and William Roberts, born 1666.  In 1685 William Grigg I gave a heifer calf with all increase to William Roberts.  This was undoubtedly a bequest from the will of William Grigg I.  This indicates that William Roberts may have been a nephew and namesake.  This gift had to be acknowledged in Orphan's Court of Henrico County each year until WIlliam Roberts was 21, which was October 12, 1688, when Susannah, wife of Bartholomew Roberts, gave accounting of the increase which was two cows, one cow-calf, one yearling, and a bull-calf.  William I is not again mentioned in the annals of the Virginia Colony.
  
  Bermuda Hundred was a plantation with a landing on the James River eighteen miles south of Richmond.  Over two hundred years later (1860-65) it was a key location in the Civil War.  It was essential for the defense of the South.
  
  On 5 May 1864 a Federal column ten miles long of 200 vessels led by five Ironclads(ships) in command of General Ben Butler debardked there with 30,000 soldiers with the intention of taking Richmond.  After two weeks of confusion the Federals were caged on Bermuda Neck between the James and Appomattox Rivers by the Confederates.
  
  On 13 June 1864 General Lee warned the government of the threat from General Grant's army and moved what was left of his army below White Oak Swamp to block the eastern approach to Richmond.  He could only guess where Grant's 100,000 men were.  Richmond and Petersburg were 20 miles apart, but Lee's entrenchments stretched 37 miles from White Oak Swamp to Chaffin's Bluff on the James River.  By December he had 44,000 thinly clad men astirde the james River between White Oak Swamp and Hatcher's Run.  White Oak Swamp was a wide and dangerous stream to cross, such as 30 May 1862 when Major Huger, with six brigades was trapped in the ooze of the sodden jungle for hours. (Source:  The Civil War, by Shelby Foote.

Details of William's family with ? Burwell