A Long Time Ago/28 Cotton
Cotton
This page is part of A Long Time Ago: A History of the Atkins-Paynter and Allied Families, the chunked book edition on the Wally Atkins Family Wiki.
- Book section: Cotton
- Page range in the book: 203-207
- Chunk order: 28 of 36
This section has been lightly cleaned and reconstructed from the transcript seam where the Cotton material begins clearly. It preserves the strongest readable Cotton material relevant to the Paynter and later Atkins branch.
Source note
- Book: A Long Time Ago: A History of the Atkins-Paynter and Allied Families
- Recovered transcript source used: Cotton material visible in `029-bruton.md`
- Editorial note: the nominal Cotton transcript location is unreliable in the local files, so this page is built from the recovered Cotton section where it actually appears
Cleaned import
The Cotton branch matters in this book because it enters the later family line through Agnes Cotton, wife of Richard Paynter, and therefore becomes part of the line leading into the later Paynter and Atkins branch.
Early Cotton background
The chapter begins with William Cotton of Bunbury, England, who married Joane around 1612. Their son, Reverend William Cotton, became minister of Hungars Parish in Accomack County, Virginia.
The book says Reverend William married Ann Graves, daughter of Captain Thomas Graves. He patented land on Hungars Creek in 1637 and called his place Bunbury, after his mother's home in Cheshire.
Ann Cotton and Queen's Creek
After Reverend William Cotton's death, his widow Ann married again. The chapter follows the line through their son John Cotton, who bought land on King's Creek and Queen's Creek in York County.
John married Ann, identified in the chapter as the "famous Ann Cotton of Queen's Creek", remembered as the writer of the History of Bacon's Rebellion. The book notes that land later sold to Nathaniel Bacon passed through this branch.
The line forward
The chapter says John and Ann had at least one son, Thomas, who married Susanna. Their line continued through another Thomas and then through Nathaniel Cotton, born around 1726, who died in 1794.
The key family-relevant point is that Nathaniel Cotton had a daughter, Agnes Cotton, who married Richard Paynter. This is the crucial bridge that brings the Cotton line directly into the Paynter branch.
From there, the line continues through:
- John Paynter
- Thomas Paynter
- Adelia Jackson Paynter
- and ultimately into the later Atkins family through her marriage to Joseph Henry Atkins
Why Cotton matters
The Cotton chapter matters because it is one of the deeper support branches behind the Paynter side of the family. It also ties together several already important lines in the book, especially Graves and Paynter.
Context notes
- Cotton works best when read together with A Long Time Ago/14 Graves and A Long Time Ago/15 Paynter.
- The most important family-relevant figure here is Agnes Cotton, wife of Richard Paynter.
- The chapter also preserves the memorable Queen's Creek / Ann Cotton context, which gives the line more historical texture than a bare pedigree would.
Related pages
- A Long Time Ago/14 Graves
- A Long Time Ago/15 Paynter
- Adelia Jackson Paynter
- Joseph Henry Atkins
- A Long Time Ago: A History of the Atkins-Paynter and Allied Families
