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This article is from the Dictionary of North Carolina Biography, 6 volumes, edited by William S. Powell. Copyright ©1979-1996 by the University of North Carolina Press. Used by permission of the publisher. For personal use and not for further distribution. Please submit permission requests for other use directly to the publisher.

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Ormond, Wyriot(t), Jr.

by Jerry Cotten, 1991; Revised by SLNC Government and Heritage Library, March 2024

d. 1773

See also: Ormond, Wyriot (or Wyriott), Sr.

Wyriot(t) Ormond Jr. was a colonial official, a resident of Beaufort County, and a representative in the Colonial Assembly. He succeeded his father, Wyriot Ormond, Sr., He had two brothers, Henry and Roger.

In 1762, he was elected to the Assembly as the borough representative from Bath; his election was contested but resolved in his favor. During this term and again in 1764, he served on the propositions and grievances committee. In 1766 Ormond was appointed a port commissioner for Bath, and two years later he became receiver of duties on spirituous liquors for the town. In 1770 he sat on a committee that drafted a bill establishing inferior courts of pleas and quarter sessions. The following year he was licensed to practice law by the court of Bertie County and was a member of the commission that laid out the town of Martinsborough (later renamed Greenville). In 1772 he was clerk of Beaufort County.

Wyriot Jr. married twice during his lifetime. He first married Sarah Watkin. Their marriage was bonded on November 13, 1759 in Hyde County, NC. According to family Bible Records, Sarah and Wyriott had at least one daughter, Nancy, on March 20, 1763. Sometime after his marriage to Sarah ended, Wyriot married Elizabeth Penelope Eelbeck. According to his will, proved on December 1, 1773, Wyriot's family included his second wife, Elizabeth; his first marriage's daughter, Nancy; and a new daughter, Sarah. In the will, he left the bulk of his estate, including the six people they enslaved, to his wife and young daughters. The names of the people enslaved in Ormond's will were "Stephen, Ben, Lankeshire, Sam, Linda, Mariah." He left firm instructions concerning the daughters' education. There is evidence that Ormond died young and probably after an illness of a few months.

References:

John L. Cheney, Jr., ed., North Carolina Government, 1585–1979 (1981).

Cheeseman, Bruce S. “The Survival of the Cupola House: ‘A Venerable Old Mansion.’” The North Carolina Historical Review 63, no. 1 (1986): 40–73. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23518610 (accessed March 14, 2024).

Walter Clark, ed., State Records of North Carolina, vols. 23–24 (1904–5).

J. Bryan Grimes, ed., Abstract of North Carolina Wills (1910) and North Carolina Wills and Inventories (1912).

William L. Saunders, ed., Colonial Records of North Carolina, vols. 8–9 (1890). https://docsouth.unc.edu/csr/index.html/volumes (accessed July 14, 2014).

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