Betty Jean Fawcett Collection

85 WFCHS

Inventory created by Archives Staff 12/81.  Last revised 03/2018.

ACCESS RESTRICTIONS: Collection is open to all researchers.

USE RESTRICTIONS: Restrictions may apply concerning the use, photoduplication, or publication of items in this collection. Consult a member of the archives staff for information concerning these restrictions. The user assumes all responsibility for identifying and satisfying any claimants of copyright.

EXTENT: 0.42 linear feet

CREATOR: Fawcett, Betty Jean

DATE: 1736-2015

SCOPE AND CONTENT: The Betty Jean Fawcett Collection includes correspondence, land records, family trees, written histories and lineages, news articles, and other memorabilia connected to the Fawcett and Snapp families from approximately 1736 to the late 20^th century. While primarily concerning the Fawcetts of Frederick County, there are also some records of those family members who moved to Ohio and of their descendants in Salem, Ohio. It also includes correspondence, information, and memorabilia about community institutions, particularly the Ft. Loudon Seminary and the Mount Pleasant Quaker Graveyard, as well as other area cemeteries.

BIOGRAPHICAL/HISTORICAL: :  The Fawcett Family came to Pennsylvania from County Ulster, Ireland, and likely had migrated there from Yorkshire, though family tradition has also posited that they descended from French Huguenots. They were Quaker, and Thomas and Lydia Fawcett and their sons (Thomas, John, and Richard) followed a common path of Irish Quaker immigration by going to Chester County, Pennsylvania, and joining the Meeting there in 1736.

Though the son Thomas returned to Ireland, Thomas and Lydia Fawcett, migrated to the Shenandoah Valley in 1742/3, and took up membership in the Hopewell Friends Meeting. They were followed by John and Richard in the following years, and settled near what became known as Fawcett’s Gap near Little North Mountain in Frederick County. The first land grant from Lord Fairfax to a Fawcett was to Richard Fawcett in 1750.

In 1800, the Fawcetts began moving to Ohio, leaving Joseph Fawcett (1786-1864) (great-grandson of Thomas and Lydia, through their son Richard and grandson Thomas) the only Fawcett of his generation to stay in Frederick County. He married Mary Branson, and they had three daughters and one son, Elkanah Fawcett (1820-1900), who lived on the ancestral Fawcett land with his wife, Margaret A. Funkhouser, daughter of Martin Funkhouser. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Fawcett, Thomas Hayes. The Fawcett Family of Frederick County, Virginia. Chesterland, Ohio: Mrs. Katherine Fawcett Kneale, 1973. 

CITE AS: Betty Jean Fawcett Collection, 85 WFCHS, Stewart Bell Jr. Archives, Handley Regional Library, Winchester, VA, USA. 

ORGANIZATION:

BOX 1 -- Community, Fawcett, and Snapp 

Community

Cemetery – Information from Wisecarver Cemetery (1989), St. Jacob’s Lutheran Church (2000), Providence Chapel U.M.C. (2000), 2 pages (connected), typewritten; 2 leaves, typescript

Fort Loudoun Seminary –The Tattler, May 1913, 62 pages, printed

Lutheran – St. Paul Lutheran Church, 1 brochure, 1 photograph (photocopy), news clipping (photocopy)

Quaker – Mount Pleasant Quaker Graveyard, history, records, and correspondence, 6 leaves, printed (photocopies); 6 leaves, typescript; 6 leaves, manuscript; 2 pages, manuscript

Fawcett

Correspondence – Fawcett, Elkanah, 1869-1879, 2 leaves, 1 envelope, manuscript

Correspondence – Fawcett Family, 1972-1989, 15 leaves, manuscript; 8 leaves, typescript; 2 envelopes; 1 page, typescript with manuscript; 2 pages, manuscript

Fawcett Family Histories – compiled by Edith Fawcett Zelley, 1925; compiled by Howard S. Fawcett, 1931; 2 booklets (13 leaves and 11 leaves), typescript

Fawcett Family History – excerpts from published books (all photocopies), 1 leave manuscript, 11 leaves typescript with manuscript

Fawcett Family Reunion Records – records of attendance, 1900-1926, information compiled for the 1957 reunion, 1 notebook , 28 leaves, typescript; 1 folder, 7 leaves, typescript

Fawcett Family Trees and Lineages – family tree, 1736-1957/8; descendants of Fawcett-Mallory family, 1988; copy of family record, 1820-1860; lineage, 1662-1959; page from Branson family register, 1788-1839; record of descendants of Thomas Fawcett and Mary Branson 1748-1990; 8 leaves, manuscript; 3 leaves, typescript

Fawcett Family Wills – Richard Fawcett, 1789, (fragment), Joseph Fawcett, 1851/revised 1862, Margaret A. Fawcett, 1901, 7 leaves, manuscript

Fawcett Individual Summaries – collected 2002, of Thomas Fawcett, Richard Fawcett, Sr., Richard Fawcett, Jr., John Fawcett, Jonathan Fawcett, Armela/Amelia Fawcett, Asa Fawcett, 11 leaves, typescript

Land Records – land grant from G.W. Fairfax to Robert Rutherford, 1752, copy made 181 by Mr. Pendleton, 3 leaves, manuscript, two typewritten transcripts

Land Records – C.T. Fawcett, land tracts and survey notes, 5 leaves (two connected), manuscript

Land Records – Martin Funkhouser, agreement of purchase from Isaac L. [Longaess], 1 page, 1 leaf (connected), manuscript

Land Records – Martin Funkhouser, land survey for his heirs, 1878, by [William Hissinger], 2 leaves (connected), manuscript

Land Records – Indentures and Deeds of Sale, between Henry and Elizabeth Conrad and Frederick Strawfinder, 1777, from William and Ann Branson to Thomas Fawcett, 1794, 4 pages, manuscript

Land Records – land survey notes, undated, unsigned, 2 pages, manuscript

Land Records- M.L. Lovett for Joseph Fawcett, survey of “Pine Hill Tract”, 2 leaves, manuscript with typescript

Land Records – Richard Rigg land survey for Richard Fawcett and John Snapp, 1774, 1 leaf, manuscript

Fawcett, Thomas – taxes paid, 1810, 2 leaves, 1 manuscript, 1 typewritten transcript

Snapp

Snapp Family History – “The Snapp Line,” by a descendant of Catherine Snapp Pittman, 6 leaves, typescript with manuscript

Snapp Family Tree – 1696-1977 (approx.), 1 leaf, typewritten with manuscript

Snapp, Johannes and family – Immigration record, 1733, 1 leaf, photo of manuscript report of records from 1910

Snapp, John (Sr. and Jr.) – Land surveys, survey 1749, map of land divisions, 1961-1869

Snapp Wills – transcriptions of excerpts from Winchester and Woodstock, 1761-1924, 4 leaves, typescript

Snapp/Wisecarver Cemetery – labeled plots by Milton Snapp, 1990, 1 leaf, manuscript (photocopy) 

OVERSIZED 

MAPCASE 1, DRAWER 14

Winchester Evening Star – December 11, 1952, article on Old Snapp Neighborhood, 1 page, printed

Land plats – Elkanah Fawcett, division of land, patents, 1750-1765 for Richard Larson, John Fawcett, Joseph Fawcett, Ashby, Hollingsworth, 2 leaves, manuscript