A Long Time Ago/30 Bruton Parish Churchyard

Bruton Parish Churchyard

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: Bruton Parish Churchyard
Page range in the book: 211-216
Chunk order: 30 of 36

This section preserves the church, burial, and memorial context of the allied Virginia families in the book, focusing on Bruton Parish in Williamsburg and Old Donation Church in Lynnhaven Parish.

Tidewater Parish & Churchyard Map

The map below marks Bruton Parish Church in Williamsburg, Old Donation Church in Virginia Beach, and historic family estates:

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Kinship Network of the Lynnhaven Font

The diagram below illustrates the prominent Tidewater families united by marriage and parish rites around the historic baptismal font:

graph TD AT1["Capt. Adam Thorowgood<br/>(1604–1640)"] --- SO["Sarah Offley<br/>(1609–1657)"] AT1 --> AT2["Capt. Adam Thorowgood II"] GY["Sir George Yeardley"] --> FY["Frances Yeardley"] AT2 --- FY MG["Mary Gookin"] --- AL["Lt. Col. Anthony Lawson<br/>(Lawson Hall)"] AT2 --> RT["Rose Thorowgood"] TL["Thomas Lawson"] --- RT AL --> TL TL --> LAW_LINE["Descendant Lawson line"] LAW_LINE --> PSL["Paulina Sue Lawson<br/>(1838–1915)"] PSL --> ATK["Atkins Family Branch"]

Tidewater Parish Families Tree

Cleaned Import

The Bruton Parish Churchyard section functions in the book as part memorial record, part church history, and part reminder that many of the allied families of the Virginia branch lived not only on land but around specific churches, parish grounds, fonts, and burying places.

The Old Churchyard and the Water

The surviving text describes how waters from the bay, driven by an easterly wind, broke through and opened what became the mouth of the Lynnhaven River. In the process, nearly the whole burying ground adjacent to the church was carried away, leaving the church standing on the left bank of the newly formed river.

The chapter says records do not show precisely when the flooding took place, but that the destruction of the churchyard and eventually the earlier church itself seems to have happened over a period of years. Court records still called for repairs to the first church between 1613 and 1689.

Old Donation Church and the Surviving Font

The text then shifts to the construction of the later brick church in Lynnhaven Parish, now remembered as Old Donation Church, located at the intersection of Witchduck Road and Independence Boulevard in the City of Virginia Beach.

One of the most vivid details preserved in the section is the old baptismal font. The book says this was the same font used in the first church founded by Adam Thorowgood. After the earlier church building was destroyed, the font was taken from the waters of the Lynnhaven River and placed in Old Donation Church, where it remained in use.

Families Tied to the Font

The book says that because the Thorowgoods, Lawsons, Gookins, and Moseleys were prominent members of Old Donation and of the earlier Lynnhaven church, there is little doubt that many of their children were baptized from this same font.

Among the children named in the surviving text are:

the children of Captain Adam Thorowgood and Sarah Offley Thorowgood
the children of the later Adam Thorowgood and Frances Yeardley Thorowgood
the children of Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Lawson and Mary Gookin Lawson
the children of Thomas Lawson and Rose Thorowgood Lawson

Why This Section Matters

This chapter matters because it gives the book one of its strongest reminders that family history is not just descent. It is also churchyard ground, parish memory, and the survival of objects like fonts, walls, and graves even when the landscape itself changes.