Notes on Thomas Sealock

Parents are not Noah Arnold Sealock and Sarah Francis Willis, as documented in Source297 . http://users.erols.com/freelanm/willis.htm documents a Sarah Frances Willis b 22 Mar 1914 Warren Co VA who married a Noah A. Sealock b 26 Apr 1910 VA; m 7 nov 1931 Warren Co VA.



297

_The Sealock Story_, by Ken Jackson and Joan Hackett (1996), documents the family of Thomas Sealock, the immigrant, in the United States. According to this work, there are a number of legends regarding the origin of the Sealock name:

1. An orphan child was discovered on a ship that was docking in America with a load of immigrants. The child could not be identified, so the captain of the ship took him in and named him Sealock, which means "Child of the Sea."

2. A child was found abandoned near some canal locks. The couple that found him named him Sealock, since the canal locks were near the sea.

3. After a shipwreck, the child without a name was found floating on a raft and was given the name Sealock.

4. There is supposedly a small village in Scotland or England named Sealock. A young man arrived from this village in America without a surname, and was given the name of the village from which he emigrated.

Thomas Sealock, the immigrant, first appears on the tax rolls of Newton Township, Chester County, Pennsylvania in 1762. The following year he married Susannah Cooper, daughter of John Cooper of Newton Township. Thomas and Susannah moved to Marple Township in Chester County, where they lived until 1771. Thomas was a cordwainer (leather worker) during this time.

Thomas and Susannah moved with their family to Loudon County, Virginia by 1774. Their names appear with that of their son, James, on a 1780 lease from Bryan Fairfax. The Sealock family later moved into Fauquier County, Virginia and settled at Black Rock near Chester Gap in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Thomas and Susannah died sometime after 1820.

Thomas' son, William Sealock, was born in Pennsylvania and moved with his family to Loudon County, Virginia. His name appears in the military records of Loudon County in 1798 and 1799. In 1798, William married Martha Moore, daughter of Nathan Moore, in Fauquier County. He and his descendants settled finally in Warren County, Virginia. 302

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