Once upon a time Adam came over to see us. Being the history major that he was and the genealogy buff that he is, he has traced his ancestors migration to the new world.
He is descended from Richard Mynatt, who came over to the colonies from England in 1749. Mynatt, the son of a sailor, was a 20-year-old cook who signed a four-year agreement of servitude with Thomas Lee. He would go to Virginia and become the head cook of Stratford Hall, the birthplace of Robert E. Lee. (Thomas was his grandfather.)
When Thomas Lee died, Mynatt’s contract was passed to Philip Ludwell Lee. When Mynatt’s servitude was up, he asked for his freedom and the money he was owed. Philip said no, so Mynatt went to court. He became the first indentured servant in America to win his freedom in court.
Philip would serve in the House of Burgesses, but died before the Revolution. Two of his brothers, Richard Henry and Francis Lighthorse, signed the Declaration of Independence. Stands to reason that Mynatt knew them.
Now, Adam has been to Stratford Hall. He’s climbed into the attic space where Mynatt lived for four years. Some of his recipes are said to still be on file there.
But that might be about the only thing Mynatt left behind. He moved a few counties to the north when he gained his freedom in 1754. He started a family and later worked as a courier for George Washington, serving two tours of duty, in the Revolutionary War. Richard’s eldest son, William, is also on Revolutionary War rosters.
In 1787 Mynatt sold his Virginia land and moved the family to east Tennessee, where he bought several hundred acres of farmland. He worked as a doorkeeper for the Southwest Territorial House of Representatives.
He died in 1823 in Union, Tennessee and is buried there, in a family cemetery. He was 96 or 100 years old, depending on which record you like. He and his wife, Sarah, had 10 children.
Adam has been to the Mynatt cemetery. But he’s never been to where the ancestral roots began. Adam has found the document that showed Mynatt’s immigration and servitude. It lists the road where Richard Mynatt lived in England, in London.
Let’s find it on a map, we said, when he came to visit.
As these things do, one search led to a neighborhood, which led to looking over every street in the area and there it was. Billiter Lane is now Billiter Street. And it was very close to where we were.
So we went for a visit.
It is a small little road, and of course it looks nothing like mid-18th century London.
This is the oldest building on Billiter, and it is from the 1860s. No one Richard Mynatt knew when he left for the colonies would have ever seen this place. Nor would their grandkids. What I’m saying is, it has been some long time since Mynatt left.
It is a small little road. This is a photo taken while standing on one end of the modern Billiter. You can see the other end from here.
It was cool to see where it all started. A young man who left for reasons lost to history, worked hard and turned himself into a free man, a successful land owner in the new world. He worked on the edges of history and raised a family. And here’s one of his great-great-greats now, wondering where on this street an English sailor raised a future American cook.
And that’s the story of Billiter Street.
