Estimated to have been born about 1717, William Gooch Sr. of Albemarle County, Virginia can be traced back in the public records as a resident of Hanover County, Virginia. William is often identified as the son of Claiborne Gooch, who in turn is a son of William & Ursula (Claiborne) Gooch; however, this identification is without any substantive proof or genuine family traditions. Researchers have drawn on circumstantial evidence based on naming patterns which is suggestive of a Gooch-Claiborne family connection, but hardly conclusive in identifying William's parents or lineage.
The primary work on this family was compiled by Frances Gooch (c1876-1968) of Louisville, Kentucky. Recently, this information has been re-examined by Neville Gooch, a relative who has been working with both her final draft of a family genealogy and with her original field notes. Frances' completed work is found unpublished at the Virginia State Library, though the work for some reason has been separated into several items.
Two documents are quoted among researcher of this family in identifying William Gooch and his descendants. One is a Louisa County deed naming William and most importantly his wife Elizabeth and the other is a surviving family letter. I have seen only transcriptions of these document and have not conducted and original research to verify the accuracy of this information. Further information on the son of William Gooch (William Gooch Jr.) is found in an early published history of Albemarle County by Rev. Edgard Woods.
The deed naming William Gooch's wife helps distinguish him from another William Gooch who lived in Hanover county and who married Keziah Hart See Gooches of Caswell. This deed documents that William and his wife Elizabeth entered a deed into the Louisa County Order Book on the 12th of September 1743. The deed names William as "of St. Martin's Parish, Hanover" and records him selling land to Benjamin Spencer. Elizabeth Gooch, his wife relinquishes her right of dower. Other Hanover or Louisa records are difficult to attribute to William with the existence of the other man by the same name living about the same time in this region.
William Gooch left Hanover and bought land in the Blue Mountains in the most western part of Albemarle County and became involved with mining copper [ref: Gooch, Frances; Unpublished Works]. This mining operation proved to be a failure [ref: Notes; Ledocki, Thomas (1993)]. William Sr. then settled in Everttsville township in Albemarle and his last deed is found in Albemarle in September of 1762.
The second document that is used to identify William Goochıs family is a letter written to Mr. Thomas Gooch of Shelby County, Kentucky from his sister Elizabeth Gooch Crease. This letter is dated the 20th of July 1803 and was posted from Springfield, Hampshire County, Virginia; now West Virginia. The letter is transcribed as follows:
Dear Brother,
I have made numberless inquiries after you since you moved to Kentucky; but to no affect. I could never learn in what part of the state you reside till your son John was kind enough to come and see us. His agreeable conversation and easy manners were very pleasing to us all. He gave me very satisfactory information alluding to your present situation in life. It gave me joy to learn you lived a serious and religious life. To serve God in spirit and in truth is a duty indispensability necessary for us to do...
...I have experienced a great deal of affliction since I seen you. My husband also hurt himself with Quicksilver and for many years was incapable of any business, which prevented me from coming to see you when you were living in Henry Co...
I never had but two children - one son and one daughter. My daughter died when near five years old. My son is yet living...
Sister Sarah, I presume, will write to you by John. Sister Ursley lives in Tennessee. I have no word from her for some months. She is a widow with several children.
[re: Legocki, Thomas (1993); from transcription, original owned by Neville Gooch, Louisville, KY].
Francis Gooch is quoted in her notes as stating that Thomas Gooch of Shelby County, Kentucky and the other family members named in the letter are younger siblings of William who had died, twelve years earlier. However, I have not established this as fact.
Thomas Gooch is named in the Kentucky Genealogy and Biography Vol. IV as being born in Charlotte County, Virginia and a descendant of Gov. Gooch of Virginia. Thomas is stated as having settled in Shelby County about 1790. The mere mention of descent from Governor Gooch, causes doubt on the credibility of the accuracy of any distant family history presented in is biography, but it is assumed that the information concerning Thoması own life are probably correct. Ledocki's notes locate Thomas on the first U.S. Census locates in Amherst County, Virginia. However, this listing of Thomas is just as likely to be Thomas Gooch, son of Stephen Gooch of King William and Louisa.
Other than the signature of William Goochıs son as a witness to deeds in Albemarle County, there appears to be source to identify the children of William Sr. and Elizabeth Gooch's; however, researchers have constructed the following family group: Note: Philip Goochıs son Claiborne became Adj. General of the State of Virginia ref: Crews Family History, SLC LDS Library Note: Somewhere in this line may fit, Thomas Gooch (1788 - aft 1860) of McNary Co., TN who married Lucinda Gilletine, daugther of John Gillentine. Thomas was born about 1788 and had issue: John Gillentine; Jessie; Nicholas; Wiliam; Lucinda Margaret; & Mary. Naming patters suggest a link with this line; however, his residency in South Carolina may indicate he is not from any Virginia lines [ref: Lucretia M. Duncan, Oklahoma City, OK (1992)]. William Gooch Jr. is the only clearly identified son of William Sr. and his wife Elizabeth. The younger Gooch is found as a resident of Albemarle County, Virginia between 1751 and 1796; as proven by deeds and by his own will. William Jr. is estimated by researchers to have been born about 1739; married about 1760 to Lucy Fleming, whose parentage is undocumented; and died in 1796. 1704/5 Rent Rolls list a Charles Fleming, as a large absentee landlord in New Kent County with 1700 acres. Frances Gooch's source for William Jr.'s wife, is thorough naming patterns in Thomas Gooch of Amherst County who names a daughter Lucy Fleming Gooch. William Sr.'s children are listed in his will of August 1796, proved in Albemarle County Court and lists: Phillip, Jesse , Martha, Elizabeth, Matthew Moore, William, Susan, Dabney Claiborn, Mary, Nicholas. William Gooch Jr. and his descendants are included in Rev. Edgar Woodsı book History of Albemarle County in Virginia (1900) [ref: pg. 208-210]. Rev. Wood writes: "William Gooch, written in the early records Gouge, came to the county from Hanover. In 1751 he bought land from John Graves in the Everettsville Neighborhood, which nine years after he sold to Benjamin Sneed, and it is believed, removed to Amherst. Another William, who from being denominated Junior, is presumed to be his son, purchased land on the south fork of Hardware in 1764, but in 1770 began buying in the Ragged Mountains south of Ivy Depot, and in that vicinity fixed his residence. His dwelling stood where his son Dabney afterwards lived, and where still later W. O. English taught school. He died in 1796. He and his wife Lucy had ten children, Matthew, Philip, Dabney C., Nicholas L., William, Thomas W., Elizabeth the wife of Nathan Dedman, Martha the wife of William Thurmond, Susan, and Mary the wife of William Moore. Matthew, who was admitted to the Albemarle bar in 1796, and Nicholas removed to Kentucky. Philip removed to Amherst, and to him his father transferred the land which he first bought on the Ragged Mountains, and which somehow acquired the name of Little Egypt, included the present reservoir, and was sold by his son Claiborne to the Houchens and Mayo families that still live on it. Claiborne Gooch removed to Richmond, became Adjutant General of the State, and was associated with Thomas Ritchie in publishing the Richmond Enquirer. The above account of the Gooch family is also intersting in that the family names of Burnley and Sneed are mentioned, both families recalled by Rev. Buckner Sneed in his account the family of William Gooch of Caswell County, NC; who was a contemporary of William Gooch Sr. of Albemarle. The children of William Gooch Jr. settled in various places: Phillip in Amherst, Jesse in Garrard County, Kentucky, Elizabeth Dedman in Woodford County, Kentucky, William in Monroe County, Missouri, Susan and Dabney remained in Albemarle, and Nicholas in Lincoln County, Kentucky. Though researchers of this family have been content to link themselves to Claiborne, the son of William and Ursula (Claiborne) Gooch, there is no evidence for this conclusion, other than the usage of the name Claiborne. Most of the work presented to me by Thomas F. Legocki of Ogden, Utah shows a great deal of knowledge on the Albemarle family, but poor documentation on early Gooch families. Work done from this family is still unable to distinguish between the William Gooch of Hanover/Caswell and the William Gooch of Hanover/Albemarle. Confusion between William & Ursula (Claiborne) Gooch and William & Alice (Thacker) Gough of King and Queen County, are also evident in the Ledocki papers. The son Dabney Claiborne, does denote relations to both family; however, the name appears to belong to their seventh child, suggesting a far more distant connection to the Dabney and Claiborne families than researchers claim. However, a Dabney connection suggest a relationship to one of the Gooch families in Louisa. As is often the case in Virginia research, the lack of good information leads to speculation. This speculation general excludes the families of the wives, whose origins in Virginia society were as of equal importance as their husband's family. Both William Sr. wife, Elizabeth, and William Jr.'s wife, Lucy Fleming, my have descended from either of the Dabney or Claiborne families. It is interesting to note that among the naming patterns of William Jr.'s children, the use of Phillip and Jesse, as names for his eldest children, suggest very different connections than those claimed by this family's researchers. Neither Phillip nor Jesse were that common in this area, for this period of time. Neither Phillip not Jesse are names that appear in any of the other Gooch families of this generation. İ 1999
mahard@jps.net
The Children of William & Elizabeth Gooch
Dabney married Elizabeth the daughter of Rev. William Irvin of the South Garden, and had a daughter Mary, the wife of her cousin, Dr. William F. Gooch. He died in 1844. Thomas W. married Nancy , another daughter of Mr. Irvin and for many years kept a tavern at the D.S. He died in 1838. His children were Alonzo, Edwin, Meade, Angelina, and Elizabeth the wife of John Fray Jr. Alonzo was for some years a merchant in Charolottesville, and a magistrate of the county, and lived on the lot west of the Episcopal Church, now occupied by Capt. H. Robertson. His wife was a daughter of B.F. Porter, of Orange, and died in 1897 in Bluefield W. Va.
Dr. William F. Gooch was a grandson of William Jr., and came to Charlottesville from Ameherst about 1823. The next year he married his cousin Mary, the only daughter of Dabney C. For many years he practiced his profession actively both in town and country. His town residence was the house now occupied by James F. Burnley on High Street. He was appointed a magistrate in 1843. Not long before the war he removed to his farm south of Ivey, where he died at an advance age in 1881. He had two daughters, Maria the wife of Paul H. Goodloe and Elizabeth the wife of W. O. English."