The following is the famous letter
of Henry P. Guthrie to his daughter along with some additional research. I have
added some of my own thoughts to the matter.
August 20, 1999
Henry Pigg Guthrie stated
in a letter to his daughter, dated March 12th, 1867...
"My dear daughter:
...I am informed by Tradition that my Paternal
great-grandfather Obtained a Grant for a tract of land in America, emigrated
from England sometime in Cromwell’s Rebellion and located his grant on the
North side of York River, in Poropotank Neck, in Stratton Majer Parish, King
and Queen County, Virginia, and that he had four sons, and lived to be old,
that he danced a jigg when he was one hundred and five years old, and that he
lived to be a hundred and ten years old, and at his death he Bequeathed sixty
acres to each of his three sons, and the balance to my Grandfather, and it is
the homestead where I was born. The farm is surrounded on two sides by a branch
of Poropotank Creek. I have often heard my father of being the heir at laws in
this Country and if there should be anything coming from England he would be
the heir...(references to his maternal ancestors)...My father and one brother
enlisted in the Continental Army for three years and was through the New
England States. He was Seargeant and returned in the winter of 1780. was married three times, my mother being his third wife and
I was born in February 23, 1793...”
On April 28, 1691, a John Guthry was granted 200 acres of
land "on the south side of King’s Creek near Porotank"
. This record appears in the records of
From the descriptions given it is evident that the land
in question granted to John Guthrie in 1704, 1714 and the farm Henry P. Guthrie
grew up on is the same land. If in fact the John Guthrie granted the land and
the John Guthrie of York Co. are the same person then this person was 55 years
old at the time of the original grant in 1691. I have no problem with this.
Certainly many people buy and sell land at that age. However John Pollard
Guthrie is supposed to be the son of John the emigrant. This is quite a stretch
of the imagination. If John Pollard Guthrie was born in 1716 and is the son of
John the emigrant, then John the emigrant was 80 years old at the time of the
birth. John Pollard married Elizabeth Hutchenson in 1799. He would have been
83. He then supposedly had three children and sailed off to sea in the
The following makes much more sense. Henry P. Guthrie (b.
1793 d. 1869) was a son of James Guthrie (from the pension records). James and
John Pollard Guthrie were brothers (from the pension records). James and John
served in the Revolutionary War (from the pension records). They were the
James, age 25 and the John , age 16 who served in
Capt. Nathaniel Welch’s Company. James’ and John’s father was James Guthrie.
James was one of the son’s of John Guthrie the emigrant
and resident of York Co., in 1656. This of course means that John Pollard’s
grandfather was the emigrant, not his father. The pension record is wrong or
has been transcribed wrong, or Henry Guthrie was wrong in his letter. It seems
apparent from the time line record that the pension record is incorrect as I
have it.