Mary Isham (Randolph) Keith

Born [date unknown] in Tuckahoe, Henrico County, Colony of Virginia [uncertain]

Ancestors

Wife of Arthur Browder — married about 1732 in Colony of Virginia [uncertain]

Wife of James Keith — married about 1733 in Colony of Virginia

Descendants

Died after Aug 1772 in Leeds Parish, Fauquier County, Colony of Virginia

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Mary (Randolph) Keith resided in the Southern Colonies in North America before 1776. Join: US Southern Colonies Project Discuss: southern_colonies

Biography

Mary Isham Randolph is the daughter of Thomas Randolph and Judith Fleming. She is reported to have been born at Tuckahoe, her father's estate in Henrico County^[1], but the presumed birth place and birth date cannot be readily documented because the "Parish of St. James, to which [Tuckahoe] belonged, was not established until 1720, and no Parish Register, containing statistics of births, marriages and deaths, etc., was kept prior to the year 1756..."^[2].

Mary Isham married the Rev James Keith in about 1733, a date inferred from the birth of their first child, James Keith, in 1734^[3]. She bore him eight children, all of whom lived to adulthood. Mary Isham lived decades after Rev James Keith's death in the early 1750s, appearing as late as August 1772 in Prince William County Court ^[4]. There is no documentation of her date of death nor is there documentation for her alleged burial under the chancel of Elk Run Church, Hamilton Parish, where Rev James Keith had served as Minister.

Children

The children of Rev James Keith and Mary Isham Randolph are listed below, as indexed by Robert Isham Randolph^[5] from Index #23, Mary Isham Randolph.

Research Notes

An “Elopement Story” is sometimes included in accounts of Mary Isham Randolph and her early life. The purported elopement made its first published appearance in William McClung Paxton’s 1885 biography of John Marshall. That “Legend of the Randolphs” was expanded in Jean Edward Smith’s 1996 biography to name Enoch Arden as eloper and first husband of the twice-married Mary Isham. An elaboration of the 1885 legend and refutation of “Enoch Arden” as Mary’s first husband can be followed at The Elopement Story^[6].

A more recent interpretation of the legend alleges Arthur Browder as eloper and first husband of Mary Isham. Elaboration of that interpretation and its allegation can be followed at Arthur Browder.

Sources

1. ↑ Jefferson Randolph Anderson, “Tuckahoe and the Tuckahoe Randolphs,” Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 45, No.1 (1937): 70.
2. ↑ Jefferson Randolph Anderson, “Tuckahoe and the Tuckahoe Randolphs,” Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 45, No.1 (1937): 55. It must be noted that Anderson is the very reporter of Mary Isham's birth "at Tuckahoe."
3. ↑ Birth year is inferred from the statement in the obituary of James Keith's death "in the 90th year of his age" (Intelligencer (Lexington, Va.), 30 Oct 1824 Intelligencer (Lexington, Va.), 30 Oct 1824 Obituaries, Henley Index, Library of Virginia). http://www.lva.virginia.gov/).
4. ↑ Where she signed an agreement that, after Rev James Keith's demise, son Thomas Randolph Keith would "support and maintain the said Mary Isham Keith in a decent and Genteel Manner" (Fauquier County Deed Book 5, 1772-1774, p.212).
5. ↑ Robert Isham Randolph, The Randolphs of Virginia — A Compilation of the Descendants of William Randolph of Turkey Island and His Wife Mary Isham of Bermuda Hundred, Chicago: 1936? pp. 77-105.
6. ↑ Acknowledgment: Some of the material presented in the story here first appeared in Gail Raney Fleischaker's "Correcting and Expanding the Record of the Rev. James Keith of Hamilton Parish," Magazine of Virginia Genealogy, Vol. 55, No. 4 (November 2017).