Lillian Kennerly Craig, Reverend John Craig, 1709-1774: His Descendants and Allied Families (1963)

A compiled family history, read in the archive.org full text for the Hatten research. The author draws on family letters “found in our attic and … owned by Dr. Wandless,” which have not been seen; what comes from them is family tradition.

• The will of Margaret Wandless Carlile (pp. 301-302), dated 16 Dec 1806, witnessed by J. Ramsay and Wm. Clayton: “I, Margaret Carlile of Augusta County and State of Virginia, being at present far advanced in years … I leave and bequeath to my granddaughter, Elizabeth Black, as much money as will purchase her a good black gown … The remainder of my estate I wish to be equally divided between my four children Ralph Wandless, Stephen Wandless, Margaret Clayton, wife of John Clayton, and Mary Armstrong, wife of Abel Armstrong … Ralph Wandless is to account for twenty dollars that he received from me.” Executor, Rev. John Montgomery. Chalkley’s abstract of it, as found by full-text search, begins “1807. Granddaughter, Elizabeth Black; granddaughter, Peggy Clayton; daughter, Margaret Clayton.”
• Her story (pp. 299-301), from the letters: “All family records give her maiden name as Adams, a sister of Thomas Adams, except one branch which gives it as Wiley.” She married in England “a Scotsman, Ralph Wandless who was a widower with two children”; they lived near Newcastle upon Tyne; he died after a long illness just as they were to sail for America, and her children were bound out to “Masters” until she got them back; she crossed looking after other men’s children (“They were worse than my own!”) and settled at Deerfield, on Thomas Adams’s land, writing “I have my children alone to myself at last!” “This family came to America in 1772.” She married John Carlile, whose will is dated 15 June 1796 (Chalkley III:209); she sued her stepson (Chalkley II:252). A descendant called her “The Perfect Mother.”
• The Wandless line (pp. 391-392): Ralph Wandless, “born about 1759 in England,” married 20 Sept 1788 “Creassey Nicholes, daughter of Levan Nicholes”; served in the Revolution “under Capt. McCoy in his march to Richmond,” “as a spy at Clover Licks under Capt. Geo. Poage,” and under Capt. Buchanan and Col. Huggard (Chalkley II:498); “living in Bath Co. in 1821”; “It was estimated he was nearly seven feet tall. He was called by the Clayton nephews ‘Uncle Wandless.’” His brother Stephen (b. about 1762) married Catherine Gabhard in 1788; his sisters were Margaret (m. first a Rice, killed at Guilford Court House in 1781, and second John Clayton) and Mary (m. Abel Armstrong).