Dorothy King Waller (1675-1758) My 7th Great Grandmother on My Father’s Side

This home is typical of a residence in King and Queen
County, Virginia in the 1700s where Dorothy was born.
Virginia Colonial Homes website

Dorothy was born in 1675 in King and Queen County, Virginia. While there is a great deal of information about her husband and children online, I have found very little about Dorothy. I know that she married Col. John Waller in about 1697 when she would have been 22.

She and John had six children. The eldest was their only girl named Mary (1702-1765), who married Zachary Lewis. A great deal has been written about Zachary. He was a vestryman in St. George’s Parish of Spotsylvania County. In colonial America, the vestrymen, who were tied to the church, handled the governance of their communities. They collected titles, oversaw land boundaries and surveyed roads, so were important leaders of their communities.

When Dorothy was 17 Puritans in Massachusetts burned
20 witches as part of the Salem Witch Trials. While this
may not have impacted Dorothy directly, it no doubt cast a
shadow over her life.

Dorothy and John had five sons. The eldest was Thomas (1714-1764). Col. William (1714-1760) married Ann Stanard. John Jr. (1715-1776) married Agnus Carr. Benjamin (1716-1786) married Martha Hall, and Edmund, my 6^th great grandfather, married Mary Pendleton. See my post dated June 30, 2018, for more on Edmund and Mary.

The last execution for witchcraft took place in 1712, when
Dorothy was 37.

I have found one land record that mentions Dorothy as the wife of John Waller. It was dated February 9, 1727, and had to do with a 1000 acre tract of land that she and John sold to Richard Fitzwilliam in Williamsburg, for 100 pounds. Dorothy was 52 at this time.

Dorothy was 78 when her husband John died in 1753. She was named in his will as one of his executors but no specific bequests were left to her by her husband.

Dorothy’s will was recorded in deed book B on page 427. Her will was probated on October 1, 1759. It is a very brief document that named her son William Waller as her executor. Her son John Jr. was a witness. Her will also mentioned Dorothy Jemima Waller, daughter of Dorothy’s son Edmund, her son Benjamin and son-in-law Zachary Lewis, but it did not say what each was to receive from her estate.

This is the Governor's mansion built between 1706 and 1710
during Dorothy's lifetime

Dorothy died on October 26, 1758, and is buried in Newport, Spotsylvania, Virginia.

Sources for this post: Rootsweb; Genealogies of Virginia Families by R.M. Glencross, a London Genealogist published in the William and Mary College Quarterly Magazine; FindAGrave; Sons of the American Revolution Application 1889-1970 for Thomas Waller, Natl. No. 60915; State No. 1214 ; History of Henry Co, VA with Biographical Sketches of its Most Prominent Citizens and Genealogical Histories of Half a Hundred of Its Oldest Families by Judith Parks America Hill; Virginia Magazine of History and Bio Vol. 26 by Philip Alexander Bruce editor & William Glover; Virginia County Records Spotsylvania Co. 1721-1800.