Domestic Problems are Nothing New

 In doing research on the Northen family, most of  the material that  I run across are lists of names and dates, but occasionally something colorful comes along that shows what some of our ancestors were really like.  That is the case with William Northen and his wife Abigail.  William was born in 1719. He and  Abigail were married in 1738 and lived in Richmond County, Virginia.  In 1775 (one year before the Declaration of Independence), Abigail sued her husband. What happened?

Apparently William posted  a note on the courthouse door saying that he was selling four or five hundred acres of land long with all of his cattle, household goods and eleven slaves.  Abigail went to court to stop him.  Why would she want to do that?  Well, they had seventeen children and he had not supported them in any material way for the past two years. Abigail claims he had not even given her linen to make clothes for the kids. 

The truth is, William had not been around for some time.  Six years early he had built another house for himself about a quarter mile away. The reason for the second house originally was that it was a sort of store for him to sell the brandy that he made.  As marital problems increased he began staying away more and more at the second house.

For his part, William claims that one night  he had to stay late at his store. When he climbed into bed with Abigail that night she told him that she was going to cut his throat.  Given the predicament he left her in, it was probably lucky that was the only thing she threatened to cut.  He began sleeping in a different bed but did come home for dinner until according to William one day she said she was going to poison him, so he set down his knife and fork and moved out. William claims his old place had become "a Harbour of horse roges and bastards."

It seems as if the court decided  in favor of Abigail, but eventually William  did sign over his property to one of his sons, Peter (unfortunately, not our direct ancestor) and moved down  to Edgecombe County, North Carolina.  I guess he couldn’t take the heat.  If there's any moral to the story it's probably  that, as much as we may romanticize the past and talk about how great family values were in “the good old days”, they probably had the same basic problems we have today and weren’t coping any better.

An interesting note on the Northen name is that some of the court papers spelled it Northen and some spelled it Northern.  What eventually happened  was that those family members who moved to North Carolina  began spelling it Northern, whereas  those in Virginia (up until mid 1800’s at least) still spelled it Northen.

By the way, William’s son, George, our direct ancestor, was given a hundred dollars and cut out of his father’s will.  He inherited nothing.