John Ariss News Today

Ariss was born in Cople Parish, Westmoreland County, about 1729, the youngest of five children of John Ariss and Frances Spencer Ariss. His mother was the granddaughter of Nicholas Spencer, a member of the governor’s Council in the 1680s and a sizable landowner in the parish. Within the space of two months in the winter of 1730, one sibling whose sex is unknown died and the already-widowed father drowned. John Footman became the guardian of the two boys and two girls who had been orphaned and...

Fielding Lewis was born on July 7, 1725, at Warner Hall in Gloucester County, the third of seven children of John Lewis IV (also known as Colonel John Lewis) and Frances Fielding Lewis. His mother died in 1731 from complications related to childbirth, and during the winter of 1734–1735 John Lewis married Priscilla Churchhill Carter, the widow of Robert Carter II and inheritor of £2,500 from his will. Her son, Robert Carter III, spent two years at Warner Hall before attending school. On April...