R252 
Husband: Thomas Wood
Father: Joseph Wood [R002]
Mother: Martha (Epperson) Wood [R002]
Born: 1/5/1780, in Charlotte County Va.
Died: 3/25/1849, in Botetourt County; buried in the Wood Family
Cemetery near Glen Wilton (Fig. R022d)
Wife: Sarah A. (Davis) Wood
Father: Samuel Davis [R268]
Mother: Elizabeth (Spencer) Davis [R268]
Born: 12/11/1792, in Prince Edward County
Died: 11/8/1871, in Botetourt County; buried in the Wood Family
Cemetery near Glen Wilton
Married: 5/8/1816, in Prince Edward County. Surety James M. Wood and Thomas Wood, license Henry P. Davis and James M. Wood, consent by Samuel Davis, father
Children:
Samuel Davis Wood, 1818-1897 [R264]
Elizabeth Wood, b. ~1820, m. 7/14/1838 to William R. Acton
(b. ~1815) in Botetourt County. The 1850 census shows children to be Mary Acton (b. ~1838), Julia Acton (b. ~1840), James Acton (b. ~1843). They are not in the 1870 Botetourt County census. [S025] gives her husband’s name as William R. Austin (b. 1820), and speaks of her father as “Thomas Wood of Bedford County.”
Ann Friend Wood, m. 2/15/1846 to Thomas Acton in Botetourt County, 1850 census in Alleghany County, divorced 1857
Mary S. Wood, m. 1/15/1849 to Claiborne Reynolds. Not in 1850
Botetourt County census
Martha Frances Wood, b. 1826, m. 9/16/1850 to cousin Thomas W.
Malone (s. of Betsy Moore Malone) in Botetourt County; double
wedding with Sarah Stull (d. of Mary Wood Stull [R259]) and Edmund Wingo
Sarah S. Wood, b. 1834, guardian in 1851 was William S. Davis. M.
1/25/1854 in Botetourt County to Thomas D. Walthall
By 1810 Thomas, age 30, had begun acquiring land in Botetourt County. In that year George Humphreys sold him for $32.50 a tract of land “adjoining his own land, John Stull’s land, John Nicewonger’s land, and John Pitzer’s land” (DB30-75). I speculate this was tract T3 in
Fig. R002c; note that he already owned land at that point.
On 10/5/1811 Thomas bought the 275-acre farm adjacent to and NE of his brother Edward’s farm, in Bath County (tract G in Fig. R003a; DB4-214). In 1816 he married Sarah Davis; the 1820 census of Bath County reports for his household 1 boy less than 10 (Samuel Davis), 1 boy 10-15 (?), 1 man 26-44 (Thomas), 1 girl less than 10 (Elizabeth), 2 women 16-25 (? Sarah was 28 by then), 3 male slaves less than 14, 2 female slaves less than 14, and 2 female slaves 14-25. The census enumeration shows the three brothers Thomas, Edward, and Carlos living close together.
When Thomas’s father Joseph [R002] died in 1816 he divided his farm between sons James and Joseph, and named them executors to his will [R900]. Thomas seems to have distanced himself from his father; perhaps literally, by moving to Bath County. Joseph’s will further specified that James and Joseph were to receive “450 acres of mountain land adjoining their other land which Thomas Woods is to make them a right to.”
By 1830 Thomas and his family had moved back to Botetourt County, presumably to a dwelling on the land that he continued to own there. The 1830 census of Botetourt County lists for his household 1 boy 10-15 (Samuel Davis), 1 man 20-30 (?), 1 man 50-60 (Thomas), 2 girls less than 5 (?), 5 girls 5-10 (Elizabeth and ?), 1 woman 30-40 (Sarah), 1 woman 50-60 (?), 5 male slaves less than 10, 4 male slaves 10-24, 3 female slaves 10-24, 2 female slaves 24-36, 1 female slave 36-55. The census enumeration shows Thomas and his brother James living in proximity to one another.
About 6/20/1835 Joseph Wood Jr. sold tracts I2 and J2 in Fig. R002c (his bequest from his father’s will) to Thomas Wood for $6000. In addition, he and his wife relinquished “...all interest in a certain tract of mountain land adjoining the other land in our trust of 225 acres which land Thomas Wood was to make us a right to by the will of Joseph Wood dec’d.” (DB21-417). On 4/11/1836 Thomas sold his Bath County farm to Joseph Jr. for $6000 (Bath County DB9-3). In other words, the two brothers traded farms.
Thomas’s decision in the 1820s to return to Botetourt County may have been motivated by the rise of the local iron industry which occurred at that time (see [S099]). The “mountain land” he owned there may have contained deposits of iron ore. On 5/9/1836 he bought two large tracts from John T. Anderson for $250 (T1 and T2 in Fig. R002c; DB21-498) that certainly contained ore deposits. (To keep things in perspective, though, compare $250 with the $6000 valuations he and Joseph Jr. placed on their farms. It could not be said there was a boom in iron-bearing property.)
I don’t know to what degree Thomas profited from the iron industry. He died 3/25/1849. As part of “putting his affairs in order,” on 2/8/1849 he gave tracts T2 and T3 (Fig. R002c) of his land to his nephew Davis Morton Wood [R255] (DB19-443). Thomas’s will left all his remaining property (tracts T1, I2, J2) to his son, Samuel Davis Wood [R264] (WBG-595). Thomas was buried in the Wood Family Cemetery, which was on his property at that time; his is the oldest stone preserved there (Fig. R022d).
Thomas’s will allowed his widow Sarah to remain for the rest of her life on the property he willed to his son, and effectively to have at her disposal half of the profits their son Samuel Davis made in running the farm. It also stipulated “The tract of land which I own in the Ritch Patch in Alleghany County shall at the death of my wife, be sold, and the proceeds equally divided between my five daughters as above named.” This suggests the ore-bearing Rich Patch property was valuable, and might become a great deal more valuable, and it might be well to hang onto it for a while.
Sarah lived another 22 years, through the Civil War. She died 11/8/1871, and was buried with her husband.