Gray, Edwin, 1743-

The Nottaway Indians moved to Southampton County, Va., in 1694, and were restricted by a 1705 legislative act to two large tracts in the area.

Burdened with debt, the Nottaways first petitioned the Virginia legislature in 1734 for the right to sell their property. In 1772 the legislature, responding to another Nottaway petition, passed "An act to enable the Nottoway Indians to lease certain lands ...." This act provided for the appointment of Henry Taylor and Edwin Gray, both Southampton County burgesses, and John Thomas Blow and Thomas Blunt, also of Southampton County, as trustees to oversee the lease of tribal lands on the south side of the Nottoway River. The act also instructed the trustees to account with the county court every January and to direct the proceeds in "such manner as they ... shall think most advantageous to the said Indians."

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