Frances Scott was the older sister of my 3x great-grandfather Jesse M. Scott. In the early years of the Nineteenth Century, the Scotts farmed land in Caswell County, North Carolina. A young man named Samuel Groom began courting Frances and on 20 July 1824, he applied for a license to marry her.

Samuel’s bondsmen were John C. Harvey and William Russell. William’s surname was written with the long-s followed by a short-s per the orthographic tradition at the time — Ruſsell. To an untrained eye, it might appear to read Rupell. Indeed, that is how it was transcribed at Ancestry.com.

Gabriel Holmes was the twenty-first governor of North Carolina. This marriage bond was issued in the final year of his term. He was elected to the United States House of Representatives the following year.

“… in the full sum of Five Hundred Pounds, current money…” Having once been a British Colony, North Carolina naturally based their currency on the British Pound. Following the Revolutionary War, the state issued its own currency, the North Carolina Pound. The States were supposed to stop printing their own currency with the passage of the Federal Coinage Act of 1792, but notice that the pre-printed date on this form begins with 182. The 1820s were nearly thirty years after the Coinage Act created the United States dollar and the form still referred to pounds!

“… 20th day of July, Anno Domini, 1824.” It was a Tuesday. This is the date the bond was issued. It might also be Samuel and Frances’ marriage date, since couples were often married the same day that bonds were issued. Anno Domini is Medieval Latin and means ”in the year of the Lord.”

At the bottom left of the form appears the signature of the deputy clerk of Caswell County, Thomas William Graves. To the right appears the names of the groom and his two bondsmen. Between Samuel’s first and last names is an X surrounded by the words ”his mark.” This indicates that Samuel could not write and the X served as his legal signature.

Bibliography

Ancestry.com, North Carolina, Marriage Records, 1741-2011 (Provo, UT, USA, Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2015), Ancestry.com, http://www.Ancestry.com, Record for Samuel Groom. https://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=60548&h=6794385&indiv=try.

Wikipedia contributors, “Long s,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Long_s&oldid=935395475 (accessed January 22, 2022).

Wikipedia contributors, “Gabriel Holmes,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gabriel_Holmes&oldid=1021186754 (accessed January 22, 2022).

Wikipedia contributors, “North Carolina pound,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=North_Carolina_pound&oldid=929626137 (accessed January 22, 2022)

Wikipedia contributors, “Coinage Act of 1792,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Coinage_Act_of_1792&oldid=936651036 (accessed January 22, 2022)

Wikipedia contributors, “Anno Domini,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Anno_Domini&oldid=1063339023 (accessed January 23, 2022).