Eskridge, Charles

Charles Eskridge was born on 27 August 1737 in Cople Parish, Westmoreland County, Virginia. He married Hannah Guley on 20 December 1758, and they had two children. After Hannah died in 1769, Charles married Ann Wilson at some point before 11 July 1771. They also had two children.

Eskridge had several brushes with the law, possibly stemming from financial issues. Though he worked in the Newgate Tavern in Newgate (known today as Centreville) in Fairfax County from the 1780s through the mid-1790s, he appeared in the Loudoun County criminal records for five counts of “selling liquor without a license” between 1790 and 1793. His Newgate landlord William Lane also accused Eskridge of not paying rent for six years. Eskridge appears in the Mason family manuscript account book as the legal adversary of Stevens T. Mason’s client Charles Binns Sr., first clerk of the Loudoun County circuit court.

While there is no known record of Eskridge owning land, he did own human property; in a 1799 deed, Charles Eskridge sold two enslaved men, Frank and Bill, to Carr Wilson Lane. The sale of Eskridge’s enslaved people may provide another glimpse into his troubled finances, as many slaveholders preferred to rent out their workers rather than sell them, earning them more money in the long run.

By the time Eskridge died in 1803, he was in significant debt. In a newspaper advertisement, Carr W. Lane informed individuals who had been willed a bond from Eskridge’s estate “for the sum of twenty-three pounds eleven shillings and three pence” that they would not be paid until Eskridge’s executors, his sons William and Hector, paid off Eskridge’s account with Lane.

By Cecilia Ward