Richard Thompson

AUDITED 28 Sep 2026 - WHERE HE WAS TAXED, 1796-1818: WESTMORELAND UNTIL 1813, FAUQUIER BY 1817. No record read so far names his parents. The county personal property tax lists place him year by year and test whether the Westmoreland taxpayer and this man are one person. WESTMORELAND COUNTY, VIRGINIA. Personal property tax lists (Library of Virginia originals; FamilySearch DGS 7856354 and 8360228), read on the page images 28 Sep 2026, every T section head to foot. In every year read that names him (1796 and 1798-1801, 1813), the county carries one Richard Thompson and only one, always in Washington Parish (the Upper District). 1796: "Thompson Richard", named as a white male tithable above twenty-one, 1 horse. 1798: "Thompson Richd", 1 slave over 16, 2 horses. 1799: "Thompson Richard", 1 slave over 16, 2 horses. 1800: 1 white male aged 16-21 and 3 slaves over 16 in his household, 2 horses. 1801: 1 white male aged 16-21, 2 slaves over 16, 2 horses. 1813: 4 slaves over 12, 2 horses, a gig valued at $80, tax $3.18. Both parishes were read for 1798, 1799, 1801 and 1815. He is on neither 1815 list and not on the 1816 Washington Parish list. The 1814 Washington Parish page with the T names was never filmed, and 1802-1812 have not been read. Registers K874, K875, K876. FAUQUIER COUNTY, VIRGINIA. Personal property tax lists 1809-1819 (FamilySearch DGS 7849109), read on the page images 28 Sep 2026. In the 1817 list of Andrew Turner, commissioner, "Thompson Richard" was received 27 May: 1 white male over 16, 2 slaves over 16, no horses, entered next to a William Thompson. Turner's 1818 list has him again: 1 white male over 16, 1 slave over 16, 1 slave aged 12-16. He is not in the county's two other 1817 lists or in the one 1816 list on the film; Turner's own 1815 and 1816 lists are not on it, so his first Fauquier year is unknown. Register K877. WHAT THIS SHOWS: the Westmoreland taxpayer leaves the rolls between 1813 and 1815, and a Richard Thompson is taxed in Fauquier by May 1817, the spring his son Richard R. Thompson was born at Warrenton (13 Mar 1817, History of Howard and Cooper Counties, 1883, p. 930). That is the move the family accounts describe: Eliza Ann born in Westmoreland in 1806, married at Warrenton in 1829. It is timing, not identity. No list names a wife, a child or a former county, and a Fauquier Richard Thompson of another family has not been ruled out. A Fauquier deed describing him as of Westmoreland would settle it. HIS PARENTS ARE NOT KNOWN. In Westmoreland a William Thompson is taxed beside him in 1796, 1799 and 1800. The 1785 will of William Thompson of Washington Parish names children Richard, Betsey Lovel, Maria, William and Mary (LVA chancery cause 193-1801-002, register K527). That puts two men of those names in the testator's parish; it does not record their relationship, and no parent is entered. A second Richard Thompson married Jane Nelson in Westmoreland in 1796, and no tax list read shows a second taxable Richard there. CONFLICT: the 1796 list counts him among white male tithables over twenty-one, a year or two before the birth date of 17 Jul 1776 given in the 1883 sketch allows.