1669 Recr p. Rich. Awborne
Jan: ye 7th 1668”
Richard Awborne was clerk of the Virginia Council, and this letter was evidently recorded for young Whitby’s benefit.
The other paper is entitled “Resolutions for the settlemt of Comerce to and from all his Majties Plantations in America, and other places to the port of New York & the rest of his Royall Highnes his Territoryes not p’hibited by act of Parliamt” and concludes “Given undr my hand at ffort James in New York on Manhatans Island the 18th day of November 1668
Fran: Lovelace”
This also had been copied into the Virginia records and attested by Awborne.
In the present discussion this last paper is valuable as proving that the writer of the letter to Berkeley was certainly Governor Lovelace of New York.
The chain of evidence which appears to contradict the commonly accepted statement in regard to Governor Lovelace’s family begins with the pedigree of a family of Gorsuch in the Visitation of London, 1633–4. (Harleian Society, p. 327.) In this pedigree it is stated that John Gorsuch, rector of Walkhome, Hertfordshire, 1633, married Anne, daughter of Sir William Lovelace, of Kent, Knight, and had the following children at the time of the visitation: 1. Daniel “about 4ao 1633”; 2. John; 3. William; 4. Cathrin.
On April 1st, 1657, Richard, Robert and Charles Gorsuch, sons and co-heirs of John Gorsuch, “P’fessor in Divinity,” petitioned the Court of Lancaster County, Va., that their sister Katherine Whitby might be their guardian for “such estate as doth in any ways belong to them in England,” and that Francis Moryson [afterwards governor of Virginia] be their guardian for Virginia. Shortly afterwards all of these boys removed to the Eastern Shore of Maryland. The records of that colony not only make notice of them, but also show that they had another brother Lovelace Gorsuch, and a sister Anne, who married Thomas Todd, of Mockjack (now Mobjack) Bay, Gloucester County, Va.
The Quaker records of West River, Maryland, contain the records of the marriage, in 1690, of Charles Gorsuch, “son of John and Anne Gorsuch, of the Kingdom of England, deceased,” and Anne Hawkins. In 1669, Charles and Lovelace Gorsuch confirmed title to certain land which had been granted to Lovelace Gorsuch in 1661. On Jan. 13, 1676–7, Mrs. Anne Todd made a deed to her children and appointed her brother, Chas. Gorsuch, trustee. It seems certain that that John Gorsuch, the “P’fessor in Divinity,” was identical with Rev. John Gorsuch of Walkhome, who married Anne, daughter of Sir William Lovelace, of Kent, and that one of his daughters, Ruth, married William Whitby, of Virginia, while another, Anne, married Thomas Todd, of the same colony. This explains at once why Thomas Todd was appointed, as stated by Governor Lovelace, guardian to William Whitby, Jr. Young Whitby was the nephew of Todd’s wife.