Special Agents Reports

Made it to Richmond - I can't have come in on the best side, but I have a meeting set up with Historic Richmond, so I think they will take me to nicer areas. I got in a bit of a panic about the one way system and ended up very much on the wrong side of the tracks down at the very bottom, but fortunately the sat nav thing got me out of the Bonfire of the Vanities set. Not sure if my brain has gone to mush, but I really have no sense of direction without the sat nav - every time it brings me back to Kenwood I go, "oh, great, here we are" with absolutely no idea how I got there. Always a very pleasant surprise.

Anyway, wanted to get cracking on the special agents reports so got the microfilm out after a bit of faffing. Now, I have got these a bit muddled up - what they actually were were reports into the people who Alexander said still owed him money from before the war. So the agents were checking up if they were still alive, if they had any money, if they still lived locally etc etc.

Some agents were stricter than others - there was one who wrote of everyone owing money that he didn't think they had it, so forget it, but there was another one who went behind their backs and found out that they had sold all their cattle for very little money to their mother so that they had no money in their estate etc. Their neighbours reported them as they had wanted to buy their cattle - so they were taken to the Sherriff to get the money etc.

Here are some examples - you have to remember these agents were doing this working in the late 1790s/early 1800s - so quite a long time after the debts most of which were from the 1770s:

Alexander Donald vs Francis Cooper - £25 due 1 September 1776


F Cooper is dead, his estate is in this county and is able to pay all just debts. No defence against this debt


Alexander Donald vs James Cooper - £3 due 1 September 1776


He died before 1783 and his estate is squandered says Mary Smith. 

The Cooper brothers sound like a parable of the good brother and the bad brother.

Alexander Donald vs Thomas Hudson - £2 due 1 September 1776


Was always insolvent, never possessed any kind of property

The next one I don't really think you could argue with:

Alexander Donald vs William Brooker - £2 due 1 September 1776

Died in the service of the United States early in the revolutionary war. Insolvent - Sarah Brooker

A few of them wrote in letters to say that they didn't owe any money and these were included with the Agent's reports, such as William Burton of Henrico County "He says he never owed Thomas and Alexander Donald any money - he was sherriff in Henrico from the year 1772 till 1775 and settled with all the merchants with who he had transactions and he has never, since the year 1783 been requested to pay any money to any British merchant". 


My favourite was at the end - Alexander's partner before 1793 had been Robert Burton until they fell out spectacularly over who's fault it was that they went bust that year. "Several causes combined to bring upon us this misfortune, and none more than the rash and ill judged Speculation of my partner in wheat and flour in the Winter of 89/90."


Anyway, the agents went to Robert Burton to try and get £64 out of him and he was furious:

Alexander Donald vs Robert Burton - £64


Mr Burton denies his is the debtor and if the debt is just, it must be due some other person of the same name.

Love that - "if the debt is just". There was actually another Robert Burton - he died in 1800, owing Dinwiddie and Crawford and Co £23 from 1774, so it wasn't just Alexander being difficult. At least I hope it wasn't!

Looked through the other debts owing to other Donald members - nothing too exciting that leaped out at me. Couldn't see any famous revolutionaries being hassled, but they might bear a second look.