Darky Gothrin: A Relationship to Old Peter?

We know Dorcas (Darky) Gothrin was daughter of Ruth Skaggs Bishop, wife of John Bishop from Darky's marriage record:

1796, February 20 – Owen ODonald and Darkey Gothrin, surety Jacob Bishop; consent of parents John and Ruth Bishop; Jacob Bishop made oath that Darky Gothrin, daughter of Ruth Bishop the wife of John Bishop is of full and lawful age.
(source: Early Adventures on the Western Waters, Vol. II, by Mary Kegley.)

It's possible that Darky could be Ruth's daughter by an Indian if the legend of her Indian captivity is true.  Darky could also be an Indian orphan adopted by Ruth after her release from captivity.  These adoptions did happen after battles with the Shawnee and Cherokee during this time period.  Circumstances surrounding Darky Gothrin could provide a clue of a relationship between her mother, Ruth Scaggs Bishop, and Old Peter Scaggs.

The Mary Thear Myth

It is interesting how myths can develop and take on a life of their own.  For decades Skaggs researchers have been trying to fit a Mary Thear into their genealogies.  Mary Thear was supposedly the mother to a Richard and John Scaggs in Kent County, Maryland in the mid-1700s.  In 1928 a gentleman by the name of Gaius Marcus Brumbaugh published a volume of colonial Maryland records extracted from original sources.  One of these original sources was a list of the status of Maryland land leases in 1766, reported to the Lord Proprietor of Maryland, Lord Baltimore.  The Lord Proprietor owned the colony of Maryland and leased portions of it to Maryland residents.  A “land owner” in Maryland actually owned a lease and paid rent to the Lord Proprietor.  One of these lessees was listed as a Mary Thear by Brumbaugh.  Also listed were a Richard Scago and John Scago.  Many researchers interpreted this record as Mary Thear, mother of Richard and John Scaggs.  However, it appears that Brumbaugh had trouble reading the eighteenth century handwriting.  Robert W. Barnes and F. Edward Wright also read the handwriting and interpreted the record as follows:

Headrights in Virginia

Richard Scaggs entered the Virginia colony on a "headright."  In the seventeenth century headrights were a means for the colony to stimulate immigration to address a chronic labor shortage for the local planters.  Virginia headrights, as described by the Library of Virginia:

In order to encourage immigration into the colony, the Virginia Company, meeting in a Quarter Court held on 18 November 1618, passed a body of laws called Orders and Constitutions which came to be considered "the Great Charter of privileges, orders and laws" of the colony. Among these laws was a provision that any person who settled in Virginia or paid for the transportation expenses of another person who settled in Virginia should be entitled to receive fifty acres of land for each immigrant. The right to receive fifty acres per person, or per head, was called a headright. The practice was continued under the royal government of Virginia after the dissolution of the Virginia Company, and the Privy Council ordered on 22 July 1634 that patents for headrights be issued.

 

Richard Scaggs, Early Colonist

We have a lot of information about Richard Scaggs from the colonial records of Virginia, Maryland and Delaware.  We don’t know when Richard was born, but we do know he died in Kent County, Maryland c. 1725.  He started in Virginia as a “headright” for 50 acres to a Thomas Dyer.  Richard later shows up as a landowner in Maryland and Delaware, even as a partner with a William Merritt in land in Delaware, William Merritt going on later to operate a ferry between Manhattan and Brooklyn and become the mayor of New York City.

The Draper's Meadows Massacre of 1755

The French and Indian War was underway in 1755 with colonial forces attacking the French in Nova Scotia, New York and on the Ohio River.  On the Ohio River, operations were conducted by General Edward Braddock who had arrived earlier in 1755 from England with two regiments of regular British army.  Braddock marched an army of British soldiers and colonial militia to Pennsylvania to attack the French at Fort Duquesne, however, his army was ambushed by the French and Indians and defeated.