Come to Virginia in the 18th century and meet one family of Daltons who either landed at a port, took a small boat from another place in the colonies, or sprung up like mushrooms somewhere on this planet. None of this Dalton family line can be found in the premier work of Nell Marion Nugent: Cavaliers and Pioneers, multiple volumes of lists covering men who applied for Virginia land patents from credits they received for paying the passage of uncountable other people who were migrating to Virginia. 

Instantly or eventually one Dalton appeared in the records of Hanover County, Virginia: a Timothy Dalton who always used “X” in place of a signature.  The year was 1726, not the first year that witnessed a Dalton stepping onto Virginia soil but the first Dalton who established a place where other Daltons—his family?—settled a few years later or perhaps even at the same time.  And the other Daltons, who were invisible in 1726, established family lines which live on today, nearly four hundred years later.

We then begin with Timothy.  By 1732 Timothy was a landowner, buying 400 acres in then-Hanover County (later Louisa County and ultimately Albemarle County).  The land was on Machunk Creek.  

Only two years later, 1734, a Samuel Dalton bought the same amount of land, in Louisa County. One of the witnesses for the purchase was Nicholas Meriwether.  And in 1738 a third Dalton, also named Timothy, who join” the other two by buying another two pieces of land, each 400 acres. He was called Timothy, but he marked his documents with a “T”.   Both of Timothy “T”’s properties were listed on Priddes Creek which today is in the northern part of Albemarle County almost on the Orange County boundary line.  By 1744, these various properties and Dalton men were in Albemarle County.  And in 1744, Samuel Dalton was listed as a proprietor in a large processioning party in the same county.

The next Dalton appearance can be found in a listing of male tithables.  John Key was a surveyor for a highway in the vicinity of his own mill, and those named to assist him, local tithables, included Robert Dalton.  Robert married John’s daughter, Mary Key, and lived several miles south of the other Daltons.  Among these settlers, one more Dalton can be named:  John Dalton who married a woman named Patience.  Her maiden name remains unknown and undocumented even to this day.  John and Patience had clues which aided us in following them:  they had two blind children named Samuel and Mary.  The local parish supported families with disabilities, and so the names of John Dalton and his blind children appeared in parish records both in Albemarle County and later in Pittsylvania County, Virginia.  That link is the most obvious connection for these four Dalton men who all migrated later to Southside Virginia.  Some put down deep roots there, and some put down only shallow roots.  This story will include both.