Person Page 908

Sarah Winston^1,2,3,4

Facts and Notes

• Name:⁵
• Birth: Between 1590 and 1595; EnglandBGO^1,2,6
• Marriage: 1619; John Woodson; EnglandBGO^1,7
• Arrival: April 1619; Jamestown, James County, Virginia, USABGO^3,7
• Residence: Before February 1623; Flowerdew Hundred, Prince George County, Virginia, USABG; Dr. John and Sara Woodson located at Fleur de Hundred, or, as it was sometimes called, Piersey's Hundred, some thirty miles above Jamestown on the south side of James River in what is now Prince George county^5,7
• Anecdote: 1644; See person note below^7,8
• Death: 17 January 1659; Prince George County, Virginia, USABGO^2,6

• Note: Sarah and Dr. John Woodson settled at Flowerdew Hundred, or, as it was sometimes called, Piersey's Hundred, on the south side of James River, some thirty miles from Jamestown. On the 18th day of April 1644, the Indians made a sudden attack upon the settlement and killed about three hundred of the colonists before they were repulsed. At this time, Dr. John Woodson's two sons, John and Robert, were respectively twelve and ten years of age.
  
  There is a cherished family tradition that, on the day of this second massacre, Dr. John Woodson, while returning from visiting a patient, was killed by the Indians in sight of his home. The Indians then attacked the house, which was barred against them and defended by his wife Sarah and a man named Ligon (a shoemaker, according to the Historical Genealogy of the Woodson, or Thomas Ligon, a Lt. Col. of militia, according to the Virginia Museum of History and Culture) who happened to be there on a visit. Their only weapon was an old-time gun, which Ligon handled with deadly effect. At the first fire, he killed three Indians and two at the second shot. In the meantime, two Indians entered through the chimney. Sarah grabbed a pot of boiling water which stood on the fire and scalded one of them to death. She then seized an iron roasting spit with both hands and brained the other Indian, killing him instantly.
  
  The howling mob on the outside took fright and fled, but Ligon fired the third time and killed two more, making nine in all.
  
  Sarah hid her two boys when the attack first started. She hid her oldest, John, under a large washtub and the other, Robert, in a hole where they stored potatoes during the winter. Since that day, the descendants of the boys have affectionately been referred to as Washtub or Potato-Hole Woodsons.

• Related Pages: Ancestors of Marianna Woodson (#1); Ancestors of Marianna Woodson (#2); Notable People

Citations

1. [S367] Yates Publishing, U.S. and International Marriage Records, 1560-1900, http://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=WorldMarr_ga&h=1358326&indiv=try, Source number: 210.000; Source type: Electronic Database; Number of Pages: 1; Submitter Code: TSJ, Record for John Woodson
2. [S448] Ancestry.com, U.S., Find A Grave Index, 1600s-Current, http://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=FindAGraveUS&h=118325719&indiv=try, Record for Sarah Woodson
3. [S488] Ancestry.com, U.S. and Canada, Passenger and Immigration Lists Index, 1500s-1900s, http://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=pili354&h=4034680&indiv=try, Place: Virginia; Year: 1619; Page Number: 21, Record for Sarah Woodson
4. [S461] Edmund West, comp., Family Data Collection - Births, http://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=genepoolb&h=4992012&indiv=try, Record for Col Robert Woodson
5. [S492] Ancestry.com, Virginia, Compiled Census and Census Substitutes Index, 1607-1890, http://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=vacen&h=32871533&indiv=try, Record for Sarah Woodson
6. [S362] Online database, Find A Grave, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/67994638/sarah-isabelle-woodson, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com : accessed 02 October 2018), memorial page for Sarah Isabelle Winston Woodson (1595–17 Jan 1659), Find A Grave Memorial no. 67994638, ; Maintained by Bette Keene Scavone (contributor 46920917) Unknown.
7. [S454] Woodson, Henry Morton, Historical Genealogy of the Woodsons and Their Connections, Woodson, Henry Morton. Historical Genealogy of the Woodsons and Their Connections. Memphis, Tennessee: H.M. Woodson, 1915.
   
   A copy of this book is available on Ancestry.com (see http://search.ancestry.com/search/db.aspx?dbid=15304), openlibrary.org (see https://openlibrary.org/books/OL1758627M/Historical_genealogy_of_the_Woodsons_and_their_connections), and Google Books (see http://books.google.com/books/about/Historical_genealogy_of_the_Woodsons_and.html?id=GuhfAAAAMAAJ)., Page 20-22
8. [S846] Virginia Museum of History and Culture, https://virginiahistory.org/exhibitions/taking-aim, Taking Aim (Longterm display exhibition), 24 August 2023.