Tying the Marriage Knot

Ahh…Marriage. That blissful step taken by couples to unite their lives as one. This month that we embrace currently, June, has proven historically to be the most popular month to tie the knot. Between folklore and superstitions, correctly spacing the ceremony after Lent, practical concerns of bride giving birth the following spring before the fall harvest, and when the best flowers were available for the ceremony seem to all have played a part in June becoming the favorite month for nuptials in the western world.

Page eleven of the Christ Church Parish Register lists the very first marriages in Middlesex County, Virginia to be in the year of our Lord 1660. William

Baldwin and Margret Cook married December 19^th, 1660. Robert Thompson and Marg’ Welch widow of Jno Welch February 19^th, 1660. Richard Howell and Ann Wilburton married April 12^th, 1662. Thomas Cordwell and Elizabeth Collyer were recorded, but with no date. Robert Taylor and Elizabeth Welch April 11^th, 1662. And lastly, John Blewford and Elizabeth Parrat are also recorded but also without a date.

In the earliest days in the Colony of Virginia, the groom had to appear before the clerk of the county court to obtain a marriage license. Our courthouse marriage record books have pages and pages of grooms listed with their intended brides’ names as they followed protocol and planned for their futures together. 

By the 1850s, 190 years later, they are requesting much more information about the couples and their families and such. Certificates were filled out to obtain a marriage license in the clerk of the court’s office. By then they were collecting the couples’ full names, the age of each of the parties, whether they are single or widowed, place of birth and current residence, the names of the parents, and the occupation of the husband.

Research gathered from a trip to the clerk’s office of our county; we find William Curtis Bristow (34) and Maria Adeline Bristow (25) both from Middlesex who were both single. (Maybe cousins based on their names and their listed parents’ names.) They married on the 5^th of January 1859. He listed his occupation as mail contractor. (Utilizing more of our county’s historical records, we find that this union was fruitful, they had five children and Curtis died some 40 years later in 1904.)

In celebration of love across time in Middlesex, a new exhibit is opening at the Middlesex County Museum called “Tying the Knot.” It looks back across centuries of weddings in our county. Included in the exhibit are 1800s marriage announcements, 1900s wedding invitations, multiple marriage licenses, two wedding gowns, flower girl dresses, bridal portraits and wedding photo albums. We have also included bridal gifts with family heirlooms that have been passed down through families from bride to bride.

Please stop by the museum to look at our historical record of love in Middlesex County.