A Manx Family in the New World?

A.W. Moore published the tradition in Manx Worthies in the 1880s, drawing on correspondence from Judge Joseph Christian of the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals. The claim is that brothers William and Jonathan Christian left the Isle of Man for Virginia around 1655, accompanied by the Cottier family of Lezayre. The tradition is attractive. The Christian surname is distinctively Manx. And the timing fits: the execution of Illiam Dhone in 1663 and the upheaval of the 1650s gave Manx families reason to leave.

But no primary source has been found connecting any Virginia Christian to the Island. The tradition rests on family memory passed down across two centuries, published at a time when American families were enthusiastically constructing genealogies. The research assembled here lays out what the records do and do not show.

How Manx People Reached the Colonies

Getting from the Isle of Man to Virginia in the seventeenth century was neither simple nor cheap. The passage cost between five and six pounds, roughly a year’s wages for a labourer. Most emigrants could not pay it outright. Understanding the systems that made the crossing possible is essential to reading the colonial records.

The headright system granted fifty acres of land to anyone who paid the cost of transporting an emigrant. A settler who paid his own passage received one headright; a planter who paid for labourers or servants received fifty acres per person transported. This is why names appear in the records as headrights rather than as independent settlers.

Indentured servitude was the other route. The emigrant contracted to work for four to seven years in exchange for passage, food, shelter, and clothing. At the end of the term, they received freedom dues and could acquire land of their own.

The routes from Mann are poorly documented. No passenger manifests survive, and the Manx pass system made unofficial departure risky. A Manx person could take passage from Douglas or Ramsey to Liverpool or Whitehaven and board an Atlantic vessel, or cross to Ireland first and embark from Dublin or Belfast.

The Cottier Connection

The tradition holds that the Cottier family of Lezayre accompanied the Christians to Virginia around 1655, and that two Cottier daughters married the two Christian brothers before departure. The primary evidence rests on entries in Nugent’s Cavaliers and Pioneers: a “Jno. Codier” appearing as a headright alongside Anne Christian in a 1658 Potomac patent, and a “Jno. Cotier” in a 1662 Lancaster County patent. Both names are traditionally read as Cottier, a distinctively Manx surname. The connection is suggestive but not conclusive.

The Virginia Dynasty

Whatever their origins, the Virginia Christians became a family of consequence. Robert Christian of Cedar Grove became Chief Magistrate of New Kent County. His family established a plantation that would anchor the Christian name in Virginia society for generations.

Colonel William Christian of the next generation married Anne Henry, sister of the revolutionary patriot Patrick Henry. He chaired the committee that produced the Fincastle Resolutions of January 1775, rejecting Parliament’s authority over the colonies. He served as a Colonel in the Revolution, leading campaigns against the Cherokee, and was killed on the frontier in 1786.

Robert Christian’s granddaughter Letitia Christian married John Tyler, who became the tenth President of the United States. She served as First Lady from 1841 until her death in 1842.

By 1888, four Christians served simultaneously as judges in Virginia: Joseph Christian on the Supreme Court of Appeals, George L. Christian on the Husting Court of Richmond, and two others on county courts. The Deemsters of Mann had been adjudicators for centuries. Whether the instinct to sit in judgment came from a Manx bench or developed independently in Virginia is a question the evidence does not settle.

The Dollin Christian Discovery

Separate from the Cedar Grove tradition, a 1751 Manx Consistory Court bond records Dollin Christian, son of the Reverend John Christian, vicar of Jurby, dying “on the coast of Virginia” around 1745. His uncle Robert was in Ireland by 1699. The hypothesis that Israel Christian of Augusta County, who appears in the records from around 1749, was Dollin’s son is plausible but unproven. If it were established, it would connect Colonel William Christian of the Fincastle Resolutions directly to the Isle of Man through a documented chain. For now, the link remains circumstantial.

All Virginia Research

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