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In the search for Lincoln's missing grandfather, the logical beginning point is Griffin Murdock Fauntleroy (1759-1794), the sill-young co-employer of Lucey's father, the Hankses possible landlord, one of the two members of the gentry her father successfully sued, through an attourney, in 1785. A native of Lunenburg Parish, which formed the western half of Richmond County-the part where Landon Carter, Robert Bladen Carter, John Tayloe, and Francis Lightfoot Lee lived-he was one of twelve legitimate children of Colonel William Fauntleroy (1713-1793) of Naylor's Hole. The mansion Griffin's father built by that name contained twelve large rooms besides three "immense" halls where dances were held. There were marble fireplaces and mantels of Carved wood "extending to the ceiling." Colonel William's eldest daughter, Griffin's half-sister, had been courted by George Washington in 1752. The Fauntleroy's were descended from Moore Fauntleroy, the county's earliest planter-settler and biggest landowner.
Griffin's father Colonel William, while respected in the county and serving from time to time as a court justice, was also something of a rascal. At one time, he threw a gate across the public road near his plantation. Of course, he was eventually forced to remove it. he also had, at some time around the year 1780, an extra-marital concubine, a white woman of lower rank named Betsy Fisher. A child, Alexander, was the product of their liaison.
In 1791, the seventy-eigh-year-old Colonel Fauntleroy made his will, addressed:"To all Christian People to whom this present writing shall come." Many of his children recieved legacies, but his bastard son Alexander, still under 18, got the surprisingly large grant of 287 acres-land William had bought from his son Griffin. Another son of Colonel William was appointed guardian of the bastard Alexander. Such was the behavior of this Richmond County, aristocrat, Griffin Fauntleroy's father.
After marrying and moving to North Farnham Parish, Griffin Fauntleroy began serving in various public capacities: Church-of-England parish vestryman, lieutenant in the militia, guardian of two orphans, road surveyor. He enlarged his North Farnham plantation (later called "Mars Hill") in 1782 and 1790. He and his wife Anne (Belfield) later on supported the Baptists. In his rather short life he did not attain any prominence, although descendants knew him as "Cpatain Griffin Fauntleroy." He and Anne had six children-one of whom, Joseph, the only surviving son, sold the plantation in 1810 and eventually joined the utopian colony of Robert Owen at New Harmony, Indiana.
There is no particular reason to suspect that Griffin Murdock Fauntleroy had an extra-marital affair with his employee-and-probable tenant's daughter, Lucey Hanks. But given the concurrent behavior of his own aging father, and the natural opportunities he might have had to manipulate and take advantage of a tenant-employee's daughter, he deserves close scrutiny.
Richard Beale (1759-1819), or course, was Joseph Hanks' other employer, and a neighbor just across Farnham Creek. He was the son of William Beale (d.1778), who was also prominent in the county. Both a brother and a sister of Richard were married to children of Landon Carter of Sabine Hall, an extemely wealthy and powerful figure in the county and one of Virginia's leading patriotic statesmen during the opening years of the Revolution.
Young Richard Beale, who was about seven years older than his neighbor Lucey Hanks, rose quickly in public life. After marrying early to Alice Griffin Colston, he was already, at 23 (on June 3, 1782) sworn in as one of the "gentlemen justices" of the county court, where he served on the bench for many years. In 1783, he conducted the state-mandated census for the eastern part of Richmond County, and was appointed as a tax commisioner. By 1791 he was county sheriff, and in 1795-96 served as a member of the Virginia House of Delegates.
Beale and his wife had just three children. Beale was a highly responsible, success-oriented member of the Richmond County gentry, and as such it seems unlikely that he would have engaged in an extra-marital relationship. But like all of Lucey Hanks' neighbors, as much as possible needs to be uncovered concerning him.
Living a less than three miles south of Lucey Hanks was Colonel William Peachey (1729-1802) of Milden Hall, perhapsthe most prominent personage in the immediate vicinity. Peachey had been associated with George Washington in both the French-and-Indian War, and the war of the American Revolution. A captain in the former war, he served during the Revolution as a colenel in the Fifthe Regiment, and was involved in Washington's surprise attack on the Hessians at Trenton in December, 1776. Later he directed army intelligence communication across the Potomac River. A 1781 letter of his to Virginia governor Thomas Jefferson urged the protection of militia supplies, which he was procuring, from British pirates and their Tory accomplices.
Between 1778 and 1781, Peachey served as a delegate in the Virginia General Assembly. In May of 1782 he succeeded Francis Lightfoot Lee (one of the two Stratford Hall Lee brothers who signed the Declaration of Independence), as a Northern Neck senator in the state senate, where he served a two-year term. He was also a state-appointed revenue collector of the Rappahannock River (1783), and sheriff of Richmond County (1796). He kept a large library at Milden Hall. William Peachey was a quintessential Virginia blueblood.
It can be stated with certainty that Colonel William Peachey knew Joseph Hanks. When, on New Year's eve of 1763 (i.e., December 31, 1762) William Peachey and his brother Leroy Peachey signed a contract entering into a five-year business partnership in the financing of Leroy's operation of a ferry across the Rappahannock from Leroy's home near Suggetts Point, the witnesses to the document were Billington McCarty (who possessed a large plantation nearby) and someone who simply marked the document with and "x"-Joseph Hanks. One wonders what the lowly Joseph Hanks was doing in the presence of theses notables on a New Year's eve. Leroy Peachey, who lived not far away at the plantation later called "Shandy Hall," was a colonel himself-in the county militia-and county clerk 1780-93. He owned land near the Joseph Hanks succeeded him as a road surveyor; and in 1779 Joseph was one of three local men appointed to "view" the route for a new road proposed by him. Leroy Peachey also operated an ordinary (tavern) at his ferry-house, which was located about three miles from the Hanks homestead.
It would seem very unlikely that either Colonel William Peachey or Colonel Leroy Peachey could have taken the teen-age Lucey Hanks for a concubine given their active lives in the county, state and national affairs. But since their peer Colonel William Fauntleroy had such an arrangement, they should not be entirely ignored from further study.
Other planters living in the vicinity should also be studied in the search for the father of Lincoln's mother-individuals such as Thomas Plummer of what was later called Riverdale, and William McCarty of present-day Woodford on Farnham Creek. Unfortunately, the writer has not yet come across any personal papers-journals, account books, letters-that might shed furter light. He hopes some of the readers might become partners in the search for such items. More information could also serve to "clear the names" of some of Lucey Hanks' neighbors from suspicion.
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