Puddledock

The obvious reason is that our tiny pier does not stretch far enough out into the Ware River to reach the water's edge if the tide is unusually low. When I was a child and the pier was shorter, the outer end sat in mud flats and puddles during even the most casual low tide.

But how did that name occur to us? When John Herbert immigrated in the late 1600's to Prince George County, Virginia, near what is now Petersburg, he named his new Virginia home "Puddledock." John was the sixth-great-grandfather of my mother, Martha Parks Feild Brown, so she thought it would be fitting to christen her modest riverside property, with the short dock over the shallow tidal waters, with such an appropriate name chosen by one of her earliest American ancestors.

My parents purchased what is now Puddledock in 1953 (before I was born). John T. DuVal and George P. DeHardit, attorneys on "lawyers' row" near her father's insurance agency on the south side of the Gloucester Court House Circle, each shaved a sliver from their adjoining properties on the Ware River and made a generous deal to a young couple.

From the sand beach and later from the short pier, my father Fred could look across the river to the area in Schley, Virginia, where he was born and raised. To this day, the old Brown homeplace that we all knew as Uncle Jack's is easy to spot across the river.

The property, originally devoid of trees except for the half-dozen large pines along the low bank, was not quite an acre and a half, long and narrow. First came the well and young trees and bushes, then me, then the pier. I barely remember construction of the cottage, which we called the beach house, built as a garage with a half-bath in the corner, a kitchen area along one side, a screened porch, and a shower out back. I well remember construction of "the bachelor's quarters," a.k.a. "the slave's quarters," behind it when I got too old to share the one room. Soon after came the shed for the ride-on lawn-mower (with which I would become very well acquainted -- the mower, not so much the shed).

We would spend most summer days living in the cottage. It was only four miles from our "real" house in the village on Lewis Avenue (which had been my mother's home growing up, on the street named for her uncle) and Dad's office, so it was easy to "go home" to do laundry or get some forgotten item. Mom would begin the day by opening the double garage doors (backed by screen) and sweeping the concrete floor. Once the breakfast dishes were done (we had a hot plate and a Dutch oven), the chores were completed. Dad would have gone to work, I'd read or mow or play catch with neighbor Chris, and who knows what Mom did.

When I taught junior sailing a couple of summers I would take the motor boat or sail boat across the river to work and back.

The weekends would usually see big gatherings of people for a picnic at Brown's Beach (it's original and most commonly used name). Sometimes we would host a sailing regatta, first for Kites and later for Skipjacks. There would be burgers and dogs, motor boat rides and water skiing, swimming, crabbing, and paddling around in my little bateau, the "General." I can remember everyone hauling all the boats across fifty feet of mud flats and up over the bank to where all the cars and trailers were parked.

Finally, in the spring of 1973, my parents took the step of building their home, after constructing what would become Dad's workshop when it was no longer needed to store belongings during the house construction. Dad, Mom, and Hansford Harris were the prime contractors. Hansford and one of his many brothers, cousins, or drinking buddies would show up after work about 5pm and put in 5 or 6 hours on the job, daylight permitting.

And now it's my home and office. The beach house and the bachelor's quarters are still here, but the island that was always straight out in front of our house has eroded and there's barely a trace of it anymore. The road we live off is named for my cousin. I can stand on the dock and look across the river at Uncle Jack's, and drive into the village where my mother's father started his insurance agency in 1928, at the invitation of his brother-in-law who had recently helped start the bank, and where Dad worked as the night telephone operator, movie projectionist, and a gazillion other things (in his youth) and at Bell Motors before taking over Southside Insurance Agency.

Old London

The origin of the "Puddledock" name is likely Puddle Dock, along the north bank of the Thames River in the heart of London in many old London maps.

Puddle Dock was one of the wharfs on the Thames at the start of the 18th century, just east of Blackfriars Bridge and southwest of St. Paul’s. Puddle Dock Hill wound down to the Thames from near the vicinity of St. Paul's and ended at Puddle Dock Stairs at the river bank.

Puddle Dock Hill is shown as St. Andrews Hill on a 1666 map by Wenceslaus Hollar and again later on an 1857 map by James Reynolds. A modern London street map shows both St. Andrews (the upper part of the hill) and Puddle Dock (towards the river).

England

There is a town named Puddledock in Norfolk, England, near Attleborough. Rumor has it there is another in East Sussex and possibly one on the outskirts of London, but I cannot prove it.

John Barth writes, in The Sot-Weed Factor, "Yet his name is writ on the indenture for all to see: 'tis John McEvoy, plain as day, from Puddledock in London."

Virginia, USA

I don't know when John Herbert (b. ca 1659, d. March 17, 1704) emigrated from London to Virginia. Presumably he came from the area around Blackfriars Bridge and St. Paul's, perhaps from Puddle Dock Hill, because we believe he named his property in Prince George County, Virginia, "Puddledock".

(ARMS and CREST.)
Here Lyeth Interred the Body of
IOHN HERBERT1 Son of Iohn Herber(t)
Apothecary and Grandsonn of
Richard Herbert Citizen and Groce(r)
of London who departed this Life
17th day of March 1704 in the
46th year of his Age.

Several Herbert genealogies (of dubious accuracy) can be found on the web, including here and here.

The Claiborne family Bible includes this: "Augustine Claiborne (father of Herbert [Augustine] Claiborne) was born in King Wm County at Sweet Hall - He married Mary Herbert daughter of Buller Herbert of Puddledock Near Petersburg and departed this life on the 3d day of May 1787...."

I do not know if a structure still stands at the Puddledock site or even if it can be precisely located. There is some suggestion that the site is in present-day Dinwiddie County, but today there is a Puddledock Road in Prince George County, easily found on a Petersburg map just north of Petersburg National Battlefield Park and about a mile northeast of Blandford Cemetery.

John Gilliam (b. 2 May 1712, d. 1772 in Prince George County, VA, m. ca 1738 in Norfolk, VA, Elizabeth Poythress b. ca 1715 in Surry, VA) has been referred to as being "of Puddledock." He was most likely born at "Monte Alto," also in Prince George County, and acquired "Puddledock" possibly from Buller Herbert. The Gilliam family may have been familiar with Puddle Dock in London; this John's father, John II (b. ca 1663, d. 1736), the son of John Gilliam (1614-1673) the immigrant from Bristol, England, named several Virginia properties for London landmarks near the Thames. However, it appears that the Puddledock name was in use for the Prince George property prior to its acquistion by the Gilliams.

New Hampshire, USA

The historic Puddledock neighborhood of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, dates back to the 1690's.

The local citizens' rejection in 1765 of the stamp act and their loyalist stamp collector, George Meserve, was memorialized the next year by a liberty pole in the Puddledock neighborhood that featured an elaborately carved shield with an eagle.

Later, Portsmouth, and Puddledock in particular, was an important welcoming point for Jewish immigrants arriving in America.

Farmington, New Hampshire, was known as Puddledock in the 18th century. It is served by the monthly Puddledock Press.

Maine, USA

Old Road vs. New Road Names
By Pauline Sodermark

The road leading from Charleston to Kenduskeag in the eastern part of town was earlier called Hatch Road, later the Farrar Road. This road has now officially been named the Puddledock to the north of Route 43 and Tate Road on the southern end. The discontinued portion of the Tate Road, which now runs from the sharp corner near the Rabbit Path to eventually enter Route 15 just south of Eunice Thompson's place, must have also been part of the Hatch Road/Farrar Road. It is interesting to note that not Tates currently reside on the Tate Road but live on the Puddledock Road. The man I believe is responsible for the "unofficial" naming of the Puddledock Road decades ago actually lived in the Farrar house from whence the road originally got its name, Farrar Road!

The town of Alna, Maine, boasts a Puddledock Village area, home of the early school house (later the town hall), and

In Manchester, Maine, there is a Puddledock Road that predates 1868 when Joseph Fifield purchased property there.

Australia

The village of Puddledock, 18 kilometers north of Armidale in the northern tablelands region of northwest New South Wales, Australia, was founded about 1835 as an outstation. In the 1850-60's, gold was discovered along Puddledock Creek and the village there grew to boast a hall, two pubs, a butcher, baker, and perhaps 600 miners.

There was also a farming settlement named Puddledock on a grant of land in the Castlereagh plain area, but I don't know enough Australian geography to place the outstation, village, and creek at the same location as the settlement (isn't the Castlereagh plain south and west of Armidale, not north?). The settlement also gets its name from a Herbert, albeit a different descendant of the London Herberts than the John Herbert who settled in Virginia (but strengthening the claim that John named the Puddledock in Virginia). The Herbert who settled on a land grant in the early 1800's was the son of John Herbert, who arrived in Australia in 1788 as a first fleet convict (actually there were two John Herberts in the first fleet, one from London (ca. 1767-1846) aboard the Scarborough and one from Exeter (ca. 1761-1832) aboard the Charlotte, plus a Jane Herbert from London; I'm only guessing that the settler at Puddledock was son of the John from London, convicted at Old Bailey for stealing silk handkerchiefs valued at 1 shilling).

This extract from a speech by Professor Ian Jack about the Castlereagh plain near Sydney, Australia, entitled European Occupation at Castlereagh, delivered during the "Castlereagh - Time to Mourn" weekend at Castlereagh Community Hall, describes the situation of Puddledock during its early years. (Click here for the full text.)

[...] Now most of this sort of European influence is common to much of early settled areas of NSW. Castlereagh is special because it is one of only two places which preserve still today the outline and many of the details of their very earliest farmlands. This part of the Nepean is the second track of fertile farmland outside of Sydney and Parramatta which was developed by the positive decision of the early governors. Arthur Phillip had been rightly suspicious of allowing the first colonists the freedom of settling too far from Sydney or Parramatta without adequate supervision.

But in 1794 a group of 30 acre farms were created on the Upper Hawkesbury. These farms were surveyed from the north bank of South Creek under McGrath's Hill and along Pitt Town Bottoms. There on the east bank of the Hawkesbury, the earliest intact farms in Australia still survive today. [...]

The Castlereagh plain was settled 9 to 10 years later than the Hawkesbury; but its no less important, not the least because it is different. It is similar but different. Castlereagh and Pitt Town Bottoms are not clones in either historic terms or heritage terms. The 34 grants on the Castlereagh plain made between May 1803 and August 1804 were predominantly made to recently discharged soldiers; soldiers in the NSW Corps who had become redundant early in 1803 because of a bad outbreak of peace between Napoleonic France and Georgian England in 1803 meant a winding down of military forces not just in Europe but also in the colonies.

So recently discharged soldiers formed a very firm central portion of the group who settled in the Castlereagh in these years. By contrast the Hawkesbury grants of 9 years before were entirely made to recent convicts. Now you can overstate the contrast, there were 24 discharged soldiers on the Castlereagh but some of them were in fact also ex-convicts. There were convicts who had done their service and then become soldiers such as Thomas Cheshire or Donald Kennedy down the road. And there were also non-military settlers on the Castlereagh plain, they were not all soldiers, and among these non-military settlers there were convicts such as Pierce Colletts, or Appledoor and there were also free settlers such as Mary Colletts, Pierce's wife who had the actual grant and he was just her consort; or Christopher Frederick. But having said that there is still a very substantial contrast between the totality of the group of initial grantees on the Hawkesbury in 1794 and those on the Castlereagh in 1803-4. [...]

The less substantial farmers on the plain continued throughout the 19th century to live in single storeyed cottages. The advantage of a slab cottage was that it might flood readily but it was simple and it was cheap to repair or it was to reconstruct and it didn't contain a great many articles of particular value. Far and away the best example of this on the plain is Puddledock which appears to have been resited. I think all the evidence is it was originally sited on the same level as Nepean Park and Hadley Park on the first terrace, but after flood experiences at some period which it is disputed, it was moved up to its present site near the road. It certainly belongs to the family of John Herbert, who was a first fleet convict, although it was built by his 2nd generation of Herberts. The two parts of Puddledock are very significant historical artifacts and very significant examples of a type of construction which is becoming increasingly rare, and it is very good that Daphne Kingston has been recording so many of these slab buildings including Puddledock and as they gradually disappear at least there is substantial record of them. I hope Puddledock does not have to disappear. It is an essential part of the Castlereagh experience. There are other distinguished slab cottages further down Agnes Banks, but Puddledock is rather special. [...]

By the way, there's also a Gloucester in New South Wales. But then there's a Gloucester just about anywhere you can speak English.

Elsewhere, in Gumeracha in the Adelaide Hills region of South Australia, northeast of Adelaide, is Puddledock Farm, a working farm that is open to visitors. The farm takes its name from a childrens' book by Grace Lodge, Puddledock Farm, published by Hutchinson's Books for young people, probably in the 1930's.

In Print

Online

This site, puddledock.net, is a personal web site with information about the local history of Gloucester County, Virginia, and software development.

There used to be puddledock.com out of Ann Arbor, Michigan, another personal web site. It is named as a tribute to the Portsmouth, New Hampshire, neighborhood.