The Jamestown Colony

Nathaniel Causey was the first of the Causey family to establish presence in America. But surnames Causey and Cawsey were many and widely dispersed in the UK by the 1400s. In the Archives of Great Britain can be found Thomas Causey of Suffolk 1495, John Causey 1498, Robert Causey of Tavistock, Devon, 1552, Hugh Cawsey of Somerset 1536, John Cawsey of Somerset 1523, and John Causey of Worcester in 1509.

However, based on DNA evidence, most members of the Causey lineage in America today descend from ancestors in Scotland and Ireland.  Nathaniel Causey is listed as an ancient planter and gentleman of the Jamestown Colony. Though he may have been of Scotch-Irish descent he was an “old soldier” under Captain John Smith who arrived in Jamestown on the ship Phoenix in 1608. His wife, Thomasine arrived in the ship Lyon in 1609 with 5 servants. The family survived the massacre of 1622 and the “starving time” that followed. Nathaniel Causey and Thomasine received a 200 acre land grant in 1620 and lived at “Causeys Cleare” or “Care,¹” (See Figure 1). On 22 March 1622 began what is known at the “Massacre of 1622”. Chief Powhatan led an uprising killing at least 347 English settlers almost destroying the Jamestown colony. According to Captain John Smith, Nathaniel Causey, “being cruelly wounded and with the Savages about him, with an axe did cleave one of their heads, whereby the rest fled and he escaped.”  Afterward, Causey and his wife took refuge at nearby Jordan’s Journey, Samuel Jordan’s plantation, which was made defensible and maintained, and they were living there on February 16, 1624 when the Muster (census) was conducted. The muster of 1724 provides significant insight into the daily existence of Nathaniel Causey and his household including Thomasine, son John (who must have been a youth), and five servants. They had evacuated their land called Causeys Cleare during the massacre of 1622 to the fort at Jordans Jorney directly across the James River. The muster records show they were in possession of two houses and one boat. At the time of the muster they had stored 50 bushels of corn, a bushel of beans, and about fifty dried fish. Additionally they had a cow, eight pigs, and about fifty chickens. His armory consisted of five pounds of powder, one hundred pounds of lead, (lead was to be molded into musket ball ammunition), three muskets and a set of armor and mail.

Nathaniel Causey became a member of the House of Burgesses in 1623. He probably returned to England in 1627 where he contributed information to Captain John Smith’s General History. In December 1628 (Captain Roger Smith) sued Nathaniel Causey’s estate on behalf of John Moseley’s widow, Anne.² In March 1624 Nathaniel Causey as a burgess for Jordan’s Journey, was among those who sent a petition to England describing the harsh treatment Virginia planters received while the colony was under martial law. Causey stayed on at Jordan’s Journey, where he, wife Thomasine, their children and five servants were living on January 21, 1625, in a house-hold that was relatively well supplied with stored food and defensive weaponry. However, Causey still had legal possession of his own property, Causey’s Care. On January 2, 1625, Nathaniel Causey testified about the relationship between the widowed Cisley Jordan and William Farrar, an unmarried couple living together at Jordan’s Journey. Later in the month, Causey was ordered to take possession of the goods that belonged to the Society of Truelove’s plantation. He also was allowed to take custody of three male servants left with him by William White, overseer of the Truelove Company, as long as he replaced them with three other men. In May 1625 Nathaniel Causey was credited with owning 200 acres of land in the corporation of Charles City. He was summoned to court, where he agreed to pay a debt to Dr. John Pott. A document Causey witnessed on behalf of Jahn Haule (Hall) of Jamestown Island was presented at court in January 1626. On September 5, 1626, he testified on behalf of two men accused of making mutinous statements. Nathaniel Causey and Richard Lowe were made responsible for seeing that the late James Carter’s goods were sent home, and Causey indicated that he had witnessed a deed Carter gave to Lowe. In August 1626 Causey was named a commissioner for the monthly court serving the communities along upper James River.

As overseer of the Truelove Company’s property in Virginia, Nathaniel Causey, on December 6, 1626, asked the General Court’s permission to free one of the Truelove group’s servants, John Brown.  In early December 1628, Nathaniel Causey was fined for going aboard an incoming ship, the William and Thomas, without official authorization: “A Court at James Citty the 9th of December I628 prsent C: ffrancis West Esqr Governor &c Doctor Pott. Capt: Smyth. Mr Secretary. Captaine Smyth delyvered into this Court a bill wherein Nathaniell Causey standeth indebted unto the said Capt: Smyth in the some of one thousand pounds of tobaccoe Wch is for the use of Mr. Anne Moseley, widdowe, late the wife of John Moseley deceased. …It is ordered that Robert Pires and Nathaniell [Causey?] for going aboord the shipp the William and John without Lycence contrary to an order then made shall pay thirty weight of tobaccoe [a] peece for a fine.”³⁷ A year later, his description of Virginia was used in an account written by Captain John Smith.  He died sometime prior to February 7, 1634, at which time his heir, John Causey, disposed of the 200 acre Causey’s Cleare plantation.”³

Nathaniel Causey lived and worked for several years at his home Causeys Cleare. Evidently He was not only an old soldier under Captain John Smith but a local gunsmith. (Based on research done by Bruce J. Larson in his Master’s Thesis An Interpretation of Firearms in the Archaeological Record in Virginia 1607-1625 (2003)³.) In his thesis Mr. Larson documented many finds of numerous and various parts of weapons. Mr. Larson came to the following conclusions, “These last points are important indications of at least one of the possible functions of (Causeys Cleare) was that of firearms repair or modification, case in point is the barrel with the breech-plug removed. Removal of the breech plug is a task undertaken almost certainly by a competent armorer or gunmaker, this is not a task associated with common maintenance of any firearm.”³ This evidence suggests that Nathaniel Causey may have been one of the first if not the first gunsmith in Virginia.

John Causey sold his father Nathaniel’s two hundred acre plantation called Causeys Cleare by bill of sale on February 7th, 1634. John Cawsey (Causey) is listed in the following land patent described in Cavaleers and Pioneers, Patent Book No. 2, pg. 165, “WALTER ASTON, Gent., 1,040 acs. Charles City Co., Aug. 12, 1646, Page 78. 200 acs. near Sherley Hundred, S. upon a cr. formerly called Wattkins Cr., E. upon Hugh Coxe, dec’d. & W. upon land where sd. Aston now lives. 500 acs. upon Wattkins Cr., W. upon Sherlye Hundred & E. upon land formerly belonging to Natha. Causesey, but now in possession of sd. Aston; [Authors NOTE: the preceeding 500 acres of Causeys Care originally belonging to Nathaniel Causey does not seem to have been in the possession of son John Causey but was conveyed in some other fashion to Walter Aston prior to the 7 February sale of 200 acs by John Cawsey, (see figure 5); 250 acs. on the great river, E. on Causeys plantation, S. upon Capt. Epps’ land in the island & N. on land of Robert Partin. 200 acs. by patent dated Dec. 10, 1620 unto Natha. Cassey & due Aston by purchase from John Cassey by bill of sale Feb. 7, 1634; 590 acs. by patent for the per. adv. of himself & his wife Warbowe & trans, of 10 pers.* 250 acs. the residue for trans, of 5 pers.”

Another listing in Cavaleers and Pioneers, Patent Book No. 2, pg. 165, seems to indicate that John Cawsey had been residing in Jamestown area on 200 acres of the original Causey’s Care as he is listed as a Planter, “JOHN CAWSEY, Planter, of Chas. City in Va., unto Walter Auston, Gent, of Causes Cleare, by estimation 200 acs. neare Sherley hundred, S. upon Henry Watkins Cr., N. upon the main land, E. upon the Company land & W. upon land of Robert Brown. Consideration: 1,000 wt. of Tobacco & 1 cowe already to him delivered. Feb. 7, 1634, Page 78. Signed: John Cawsey.  Witnesses: Richard Milton, Daniell LLuellin.” A logical deduction from assessing the foregoing transactions is that either Nathaniel Causey, John Causey or the “Company” had transferred ownership of most of Causey’s Care at some date between 1628 and 1634. (I presume Nathaniel Causey was deceased sometime between 1628 and 1634 when John Causey sold the remaining 200 acres of Causey’s Care to Walter Aston.) We may also assume that John Causey, son of Nathaniel and Thomasine then cut ties with Virginia and moved north to take advantage of new lands and opportunities in Maryland. Lord Baltimore established a new colony there in 1634.

Another possibility is that this John returned to England for a period of time where he married Jane. He, in 1640, found an opportunity to return to America. In the following land grant is mentioned a “Tho. or Jo. Causey as one of the passenger along with his wife Jane. “THOMAS HARVEY, 950 acs. James City Co., July 3, 1640, …For his per. adv. & for trans, of 18 pers: Mary, his wife, John Harvey his son, … Tho. Causey, (this name may be Jo. Causey) Jane his wife, Elizabeth Edwards, Robert Flake,”(Cavaliers and Pioneers, pg. 123). (Note: those who paid the fare to bring additional people to the colony received an additional grant of 50 acres for each person). If this John Causey and wife Jane are Nathaniel and Thomasine’s John returning from England, (I have found no further mention of John Causey in the local Jamestown City area), then John and Jane may have begun their migration across the Chesapeake Bay up through Accomack, into Somerset County, Queen Anns, then Dorchester County, Maryland. This was a primary migration path for new Maryland settlers.

I want at this point to insert research and conclusions by Bowen Causey Dees. Physicist Bowen Causey Dees (1917-2009) worked at the National Science Foundation, 1951-1966, and was an administrator at the University of Arizona, 1966-1970. He was a devoted genealogist and researcher of the Causey family. SOME AMERICAN CAUSEYS by Bowen Causey Dees is an unpublished Treatise forwarded to me (Windle R. Causey author of this essay) in July 2018 by Georgia Causey Saicoe a distant cousin in California. In her note to me Georgia stated, “I have a copy of Bowen Dees’ book “Some American Causey’s” he sent it to me before he disappeared from Arizona. (Dr. Bowen Dees died in 2009).]  According to Bowen Dees, “John Causey whose will was proved in 1698. That John Causey could have been the son or grandson of Nathaniel Causey, and this is not unreasonable in view of the fact that a number of those who first came to Virginia eventually migrated northward to Maryland. In fact there is one record showing the presence of a John Causey in Accomack County (which lies on the usual route from the tidewater area of Virginia to Maryland); about 1640 a John Neale deposed that John Cause said “he would swear that he was never paid by John Dennis for a sow”.”

            John Causey appears in Dorchester County, Maryland in 1678 having served in the Dorchester County Militia in their struggle with the Nantecote Indians.  Here’s what Bowen Dees had to say about this John Causey, “Maryland records show a John Causey there before 1678, for in that year he was granted 600 pounds of tobacco for having fought Indians at some earlier date. This man – or another John Causey made his will in Dorchester County, Maryland. In 1692 his will was proved in 1698.”  If Nathaniel and Thomasine’s son John was born about 1615, this would render his age as about 83, pretty old for that day and age, but not impossible.  More likely however is that a son was born sometime in the early 1640s, whose name was logically, John, Jr.  John Jr. would have reached his majority about 1660 and would very likely have served in the local militia. If John Causey, Jr. is the one who expired in 1698, he would have been in his 60s.  This I believe is a more likely scenario. And because no documents have been discovered linking this John Causey with Nathaniel and Thomasine Causey of Jamestown, we are dealing with something between a possible and a probable lineage.

In the next chapter we will discuss the two known sons of Nathaniel and Thomasine Causey and the migration to the colonial province of Maryland.