A HISTORY OF THE FAMILY
John Sidney Davenport Jr &
Louise Marguerite Warwick
SEARCH THE ARCHIVE
JUNE 2026 · NEW HAVEN · RICHMOND · ONE FAMILY
Compiled by Maria Byrd Davenport
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INTRODUCTION
Two Families. One Reunion.
On February 3, 1904, two extraordinary American legacies converged in Richmond, Virginia.
John came from New England, carrying the full weight of the Puritan intellectual tradition. His was a family whose documented roots stretch back across many generations to the founding of New Haven Colony in 1638, with ancestors who studied at Yale, served in Connecticut courts, and helped shape regional civic and religious life over nearly three centuries.
Marguerite carried the deep history of Virginia's Tidewater gentry. Her family connected through the Warwick, Byrd, Carter, and Randolph lines to the founding of Richmond itself, to Westover Plantation, and to the earliest English settlements on this continent.
Together they built a family in Richmond. Their five sons, each named to honor a different branch of their combined heritage, embodied everything their parents carried. Every person reading this is part of that story.
THE STORY
Four Centuries in History
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The Virginia side connects to six founding English colonial families.
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THE PATRILINEAL LINES
Two Families, Nine Generations.
From medieval Cheshire to colonial Connecticut, from the Rappahannock to Hollywood Cemetery, the family spanned X years and X miles.
NEW ENGLAND
The Davenports
Cheshire · Coventry · New Haven
Rev. John Davenport co-founded New Haven Colony in 1638 and envisioned the college that would become Yale. The line that followed produced nine consecutive generations of Yale men, Connecticut legislators, jurists, and one Continental Army major who welcomed Lafayette to Stamford in 1824.
NEW ENGLAND
The Warwicks
Thomas Warwick patented 200 acres on the Rappahannock in 1664. Six generations later, Corbin Warwick led the Richmond tobacco trade and lost two sons to the Civil War. Through the Byrd, Carter, Randolph, and Bradfute lines, the family connects to the First Families of Virginia and the founding of Richmond itself.
Middlesex County · Lynchburg · Richmond
THE MATRILINEAL LINES
The Bradfutes, the Burrows,
and the Rintouls
Margaret Elizabeth Bradfute’s son's name became a thread carried five more generations. Ida Louise Burrows brought a New England-rooted line through Albion, NY into the Warwick family. Mary Elizabeth Rintoul, the Scottish burgher daughter whose name has been carried unbroken for five generations.
MOMENTS IN HISTORY
Three moments that define this family
Across both lines, ancestors who looked at the world they had inherited and pushed back against it, at real personal cost.
I.
The Dark Day
May 19, 1780 · Connecticut
When the sky turned black at noon and legislators moved to adjourn, Abraham Davenport rose: "I am against adjournment. If it is the day of judgment, I choose to be found doing my duty. I wish candles may be brought."
II.
Samuel Sewall's Apology
January 14, 1697 · Boston
The only Salem judge who ever publicly accepted personal blame. He later wrote The Selling of Joseph, one of the first anti-slavery pamphlets published in America, and was ridiculed for it.
III.
The Deed of Gift
August 1, 1791 · Virginia
Robert Carter III, grandson of "King" Carter, quietly filed the largest single act of private manumission in American history before the Civil War — 452 people freed. Virginia society shunned him for it.
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Religious, Secular, and Military Leadership
From Rev. John Davenport's New Haven theocracy to the Great Awakening to nine generations in Yale's classrooms.
Theologians & Religious Figures
From Puritan New England to the Great Awakening
Short blurb here
FAMILY LEGACIES
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Governors & Civic Leaders
Four centuries of legislators, judges, statesmen
Short blurb here
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Military Service & Leadership
Service across nearly every American war
Short blurb here
RECOLLECTIONS & MEMORIES
The family in its own voice
Personal essays, wartime narratives, memoirs, and the places that hold them — what survives in handwriting, photographs, and the things people kept.
I.
The Civil War
Two brothers, one sash, three winters of mourning
Bradfute Warwick · Confederate service material
Barksdale Warwick · Confederate service material
The Garibaldi sash · story & photographs
Gaines' Mill · the 1983 battlefield expedition
The Wise Brigade · references & correspondence
Margaret Elizabeth Bradfute Warwick · materials
Memorial language & obituaries
II.
Family Recollections
Memoirs & essays across four generations
6118 · by Stephen Rintoul Davenport
Betty Davenport · memoir & recollections
Grandpa's Photo Album
L. Marguerite Davenport · memoir
Marguerite Davenport · memoir
Raps and Taps Byrd…
Picture for Memories · scrapbook & photographs
III.
Places & People
The Hollow, Roswell, and the women who held it together
Davenport Hollow · the place & its history
Memories of Davenport Hollow
Memories of Roswell
Imogen & Ida · companion materials
FEATURED PROJECT
A Byrd’s Eye View
Family history is often preserved through the records men leave behind: military service, public office, church registers, obituaries, property, institutions. But reading through the letters and stories surrounding Bradfute and Barksdale Warwick spurred questions about the woman who outlived them both.
Dive into the story the stories about the same family loss from two different vantage points.