Dameron-Damron Family AssociationWritten by Cindora Damron Creasman and delivered by the Reverend Charles Dameron, 2009
We are here today for the dedication of the newly erected monument honoring Lawrence Dameron and his descendants buried here in the Harding Cemetery.
As most of you know, Lawrence Dameron was the first of the family to settle in Northumberland County, Virginia, in the year in which he received a land grant, 6 April 1652. No other documentation about Lawrence exists before this land grant.
Lawrence Dameron was perhaps the son of George Dameron and Joan Ashley. We don’t know exactly when Lawrence was born, but there was a Lawrence baptized in April of 1615 at Saint Clements Parrish, Ipswitch, Suffolk, England. However, there is no documentation that verifies that this is our Lawrence.
We do know that Lawrence died in 1657, because of court record documentation dated 9 March 1657 in Northumberland County naming his widow the relict and executrix of the sd Lawrence Dameron, dec’d. His will was not proven until May of 1660.
His will states “I bequeathe my soule to God my creator, and my body to the earth”. The first Dameron of Virginia was laid to rest in sight of the “manor house” and within sound of the waters whose tides reach unbroken from his own shore acres to the coast lines of county Suffolk where so many Damerons had given their body to the earth.
In the Last Will and Testament of John Hopkins Harding, whose family purchased the Dameron property in the late 1840’s, there is a statement about the Dameron Cemetery or burying ground that reads: “Sixthly… I direct that sixty yards square at the old Dameron Grave yard on my farm with right of egress and ingress to same be kept as a burial ground for myself, my wife, my children and grandchildren. Witness my hand this 16th day of November 1905”
What we know about Lawrence is that he and his wife, Dorothy, brought seven servants to the New World and received a land grant in Northumberland County, Virginia, in 1652 and by other purchases he finally owned about 2,000 acres of land, for the most part in Wicomico Parish at the time of his death.
According to the Church history of the Wicomico Church in Wicomico Parrish, the Church had its beginning about 1647 and all landowners in that Parrish belonged. This was before the separation of Church and State. Records of the Church prior to 1703 have been lost, with the exception of the Church being mentioned in earlier court records.
Wicomico Church was the social center of the county and much of the civil administration was in the hands of the church wardens who ruled firmly and for the most part wisely. Within visiting radius of the Dameron plantation which lay partly along the Dividing Creek were the earlier families that later gave America some of the greatest men. The Damerons prospered and had time to cultivate friendships as well as the soil.
We know some of Lawrence’s children were communicants of Wicomico Church and some served as Vestrymen along with collateral families of the area. Vestrymen were assigned, and their duties included caring for the needy, indigent, and insane, the orphaned and illegitimate children, and, when required, burying the dead, along with other duties. Parishioners could be fined 500 pounds of tobacco, the current of the day, for not attending Church. The minister was also paid with tobacco.
Lawrence was probably of the Loyalists known as Cavaliers, those who fled England during Oliver Cromwells’s rule.
We don’t know what kind of lifestyle he led but assume that he farmed the land at Guarding Point, now known as Dameron Marsh. We don’t know what products he farmed but can assume it was mostly tobacco.
We know that Lawrence had a wife Dorothy, and at least 3 children who were named in his will and probably two more not named, but referred to as not being of age.
We don’t know if Lawrence had other children, maybe some who died in infancy or some children who haven’t been recorded. Earlier researchers have named two other sons.
We know that Lawrence had at least 13 generations of descendants who are scattered all over the US, and probably the world.
We know that sons, Bartholomew and George inherited his land, and son Lawrence Jr., was given land by his mother. And we know that some Dameron descendants still live here on the Northern Neck.