XVI. Blevins – Taylor

The mother of Artemisia {Blevins} Shake is fairly easy to identify since she is living near David and Artemisia Shake in Oldham County on the 1830 census. Her name is Lucinda Blevins. Evidently a widow who is 40 to 50 years old, she is the only Blevins in that county that year. When David and Artemisia moved to Sullivan County, Indiana (sometime before 1840), Lucinda probably moved to neighboring Knox County, Indiana; in 1840 she is residing quite near two Blevins relatives. Both of them had patented land in that county, and perhaps she is living on some of this land.¹ Lucinda Blevins, who is now 50 to 60 years of age, has no occupation or profession noted on the census form. She never appears again on the census, so – unless she remarried, and there is no evidence that she did – it seems likely that she died between 1840 and 1850.²

Who was Lucinda's husband? Information contributed to the LDS IGI shows that a Lina Taylor married a Lemuel Blevins in Lincoln County, Kentucky, soon after July 19, 1806, the date the marriage bond was signed. This date is about right if Artemisia was born sometime between 1807 and 1810. Lina is a natural variation or nickname for Lucinda, and it is interesting that when Lucinda is listed near David Shake on the 1830 census there are two men named Taylor just above her. In addition, Lemuel and Lucinda Blevins consented to the marriage of a Taylor female in Lincoln County, Kentucky, in 1814, probably because this woman's father (who was also Lucinda's father) had already gone off to Indiana, where he patented land in that year.

The records that survive help to confirm our thinking here: we can eliminate all but one of the men named Blevins in Indiana and Kentucky. The census of 1820 for Indiana has only one Blevins male (William Blevins, Sr.) with a daughter in his household. This daughter is, however, too young to be Artemisia, who would be listed in the column for females 10 to 16 years of age if she were born sometime in the 1807 to 1809 period. Of the listings in Kentucky for 1820, there are four men named Blevins or a variation in Jefferson County, out of which Oldham County was created before 1830. One (John) has a daughter the right age to be Artemisia, but we know he did not have a daughter with this name. Two others (Samuel and James) do not have daughters in the right age category for Artemisia.

That leaves us with Lemuel Blevins, a farmer 26 to 45 years old in 1820 with a wife in the same age category; they do have a daughter the right age to be Artemisia. Moreover, Lemuel Blevins is not listed in either Kentucky or Indiana after 1820, which is consistent with Lucinda's living there alone in 1830 and 1840. Perhaps the clincher in connecting Artemisia to these parents comes when we learn that one of Artemisia's sons was named Lemuel and one of her daughters was named Lucinda. Other researchers have also reached the conclusion that Lemuel and Lucinda are the correct parents for Artemisia, and one of them states that Lemuel is listed as her father on the marriage bond in 1825. We may say with some assurance, then, that the parents of David Shake's wife Artemisia were LEMUEL BLEVINS and LUCINDA {TAYLOR} BLEVINS.

Judging from his reported ages, Lemuel was born between 1775 and 1784, but because he was old enough to pay taxes in 1800 we can narrow that range to 1775 to 1779. As we shall see, there is good reason to suspect that Lemuel died sometime in late 1829. Using Lucinda's reported ages, we can estimate 1784 to 1790 for Lucinda's year of birth. As we have seen, she evidently died sometime between 1840 and 1850. This age differential, as well as the presence in Lemuel and Lucinda's household in 1810 of two males whose births predated their 1806 marriage, suggests that Lemuel might have been married to another woman before Lucinda. But since Lemuel was born about 1779, certainly the older of the two males in his household in 1810 (16 to 25 years old) cannot be his son, and the younger one (10 to 16 years old) could be Lemuel's son only if he were at the very bottom end of that age range. It seems more likely that the two males in the household of Lemuel Blevins in 1810 are Taylor or Blevins relatives or else unrelated farm workers. The fact that we have found no record of an earlier marriage for Lemuel, although it is not conclusive evidence in itself, should also lead us to doubt that he was married to someone before Lucinda.

I have found no record of Lemuel before he appears on a tax list in Kentucky in 1800, which as we shall see later is consistent with when we estimate he was born. He and Lucinda are found in Garrard County, Kentucky, in 1810. In that year Lemuel is 26 to 45 years old, Lucinda is 16 to 26 years old, and there is one female under 10 years old, who almost certainly is Artemisia. In addition, Lemuel Blevins is listed as a taxpayer in Lincoln County, Kentucky (out of which Garrard County was formed), in July 1800, when he is shown living on Dix River. Three years later he is listed at a place called Hanging Fork in that same county. In 1805 Lemuel is found on Cinch Creek in Pulaski County, which had been formed out of Lincoln County, but the next year he is again listed at Dix River in Lincoln County.³ All of these waterways are interconnected. In most years from 1807 through 1816, Lemuel Blevins is on the tax lists of Garrard County, Kentucky, north of Lincoln and Pulaski Counties.

During the War of 1812, Lemuel is listed as a private in Jonathan Owsley's Company of the 15th Regiment (Slaughter's) of the Kentucky Detached Militia. In fact it would appear he was in uniform only briefly, if at all: Lemuel's military record in the National Archives (lasting the period only from November 10 through December 31 of 1814) has a notation that a substitute, Nicholas Burnett, served for him.⁴

By sometime in 1814 (when Lemuel's name appears on the marriage consent in Lincoln County), many of Lemuel's relatives have moved north to Jefferson County, Kentucky, though as we have seen he is apparently still residing in Lincoln County of that state. Since he does not appear on either county's tax rolls in 1817, he may have moved to Jefferson County during that year.

The extant tax rolls for Jefferson County are incomplete. Lemuel is not listed in 1819 or 1820 (although, as we have seen, the 1820 census shows that he was there), and then in only five of the eight years extending through the 1820s. According to the tax records that do exist, Lemuel owned anywhere from 72 to 92 acres and two to five horses. In 1821 he might have lived on Harrods Creek, and the 1829 record gives us the valuable information that he may have lived on Goose Creek.⁵ That is the last time Lemuel appears on the tax rolls, however, and neither is he on the 1830 census.

It seems likely, in fact, that Lemuel Blevins died not long before December 10, 1829, when an appraisal of his estate seems to have been authorized. We have to hedge here because the county records state that the appraisal is for Samuel Blevins and the document's subsequent two references to the deceased appear to be written as "Lamuel" Blevins. The clerk's confusion is our bad luck, because we cannot be entirely sure that it was Lemuel who died and not his father, who was named Samuel. But when Lemuel is not listed on the 1830 census or any other one thereafter, and when his oldest child (Alfred) and wife Lucinda are listed on the 1830 tax rolls in neighboring Oldham County, Kentucky (where brothers of both Lemuel and Lucinda were living), the circumstantial evidence strongly suggests that Lemuel died in late 1829. As we shall see, this circumstantial evidence includes Samuel's likely death in late 1828, so the clerk's confusion may be understandable.⁶

Lucinda was the daughter of DANIEL TAYLOR. His will, dated June 10, 1835, mentions her – identified as Lucina Blevins in this instance. (Lucinda had recently been widowed by the death of Lemuel Blevins.) We do not know the name of Daniel Taylor's first wife, Lucinda's mother. Two things suggest that Daniel was married twice: he seems to have had two distinctly separate batches of children, and from 1810 to 1830 the census consistently shows his wife to be nearly a decade younger than he is. This woman is Nancy {Black} Taylor, whom Daniel evidently married about 1810.⁷ We do not know the name of Daniel Taylor's first wife, Lucinda's mother. The only clue we have about this woman's family is that she and Daniel named an early son Seaton, which could be her family name, or perhaps the given name of her father – though the name of the first son, Nathan, might be a better guess for that father's given name. These clues are not much to work with, unfortunately.

Daniel Taylor was reportedly born in Virginia about 1760 to 1765 and died in Perry County, Indiana, between June 10, 1835 (the date of his will) and February 11, 1839, when his will was probated.⁸ One researcher states that Daniel was born about 1768 to 1770 and that his full name was John Daniel Taylor. There is no solid documentary evidence to substantiate this statement, but a deed in Perry County does provide possible support for it.⁹ We do not know when Daniel Taylor married his first wife, Lucinda's mother, but the marriage probably would have taken place during the late 1770s or early 1780s.

We have no trouble locating Daniel Taylor in Tobin Township of Perry County, Indiana, in both 1820 (when the census describes him as a farmer)and 1830. He had purchased public land in that county in early 1815.¹⁰ His ages in both years (45 years old or older in 1820 and 60 to 70 years old in 1830) match a birth during the decade between 1760 and 1770. References to him in Perry County include his service on a jury in 1815, a record of his voting in 1818, and his selection as county coroner in 1828.

Turning to Daniel Taylor's life immediately before he moved to Perry County, Indiana, we would expect to find him in Kentucky. Of the four men named Daniel Taylor on the 1810 census for that state, one is too young and two have insufficient children for the large number we know live in the household of the man we are seeking. This leaves us with the Daniel Taylor of Bullitt County, who is not only the right age (45 years of age or older) but has the right number of both male and female children in each age category as the Daniel Taylor who is Lucinda's father. The only complication in this scenario is that we know there is a Daniel Taylor, who according to his application for a Revolutionary War pension was living in Nelson County, Kentucky (from which Bullitt County was formed in 1797) in 1810. It is he, probably, who paid taxes in that county in 1792, 1795, and 1800; in addition, he seems to be there already in 1789-1790, when Lucinda's father is still in Tennessee. Since we have no reason to think that the Blevins family lived in this part of Kentucky, providing an opportunity for Lemuel to meet Lina Taylor, the John Taylor in Nelson County and then Bullitt County is probably someone else.

What then of Daniel Taylor and his movements before 1810? And what about the Taylor line? We know nothing of the former and little more of the latter. It is possible that Daniel and his family resided in Tennessee, where a son is said to have been born in 1790 or 1791, and they may have been living there or possibly in Virginia when Lucinda was born during the late 1780s.¹¹ In view of the fact that some members of the Blevins family were living in the northeast part of what would become Tennessee at about this same time, it is there we should probably look for more evidence about Daniel Taylor during these years. By the mid-1790s, the Blevins family had arrived in Lincoln County, Kentucky, where Lemuel and Lina married in 1806. Here we find a John Taylor, who owned property from at least 1794 onward on Hanging Fork and the Dix River – the very waterways where the Blevins clan settled. He is the right age to be the father not only of Lina (he and his wife¹² were married in 1782) but also the other children named in the will of Daniel Taylor of Perry County, Indiana. John Taylor, however, seems to have remained in this area of Kentucky (the part of Lincoln County that became Garrard in 1796) into the 1820s, when we believe that Lina's father has moved to Perry County, Indiana. Her father and his Kentucky sojourn, therefore, continue to be a puzzle.

Nor can we get far with the Taylor line itself. Some researchers believe the family originated in Lunenburg County, Virginia. If so, it may be descended from a succession of well-known Virginia ministers, some of whom were also named Daniel Taylor: a Reverend Daniel Taylor who lived in Lunenburg County had children whose names were quite similar to those of the well-known Taylors, and the family into which this minister married seems to live near Lucinda's father in Indiana.¹³ Perhaps there is a connection here, therefore, but we are reduced to educated guesses in this instance as we are in so many other places.

One of the best guesses might be a tie to an Argle (Argyle?) and Ann Taylor, who had a daughter named Artemisia in 1778 – potentially Daniel Taylor's sister. What makes this particular Taylor family interesting is its intermarriages with a Linney family, possibly the source of the name or nickname of "Lina" (or "Linney"?) for the woman who became Lemuel Blevins's wife. One can imagine a scenario in which Lina or Linney Taylor was named for her grandmother Mary {Linney} Taylor's family and Artemisia {Blevins} Shake was named for a favorite great aunt, her grandfather Taylor's sister, but much more work is needed on this family before we come to any conclusions.

In my view, the strongest Taylor lead is a Lunenberg County family with a father and son both named Daniel. When the father died in 1781, his will mentions children — to one of whom he leaves some land — without naming them all. But the year before, Daniel Taylor, Sr., and his wife Elizabeth had sold 120 of their 779 acres to Daniel Taylor, Jr. Then, in April 1796, the younger Taylor and his wife, Rebecca, sold the land to his brother, John Taylor. There is no further record (land sales or a will) for Daniel Taylor, Jr., in Lunenberg County, which would be consistent with a move of his young family (Lucinda being younger than 12 years old that year) to Lincoln County, Kentucky, during the spring of 1796. This is not much to go on, but this information is at least consistent with the little we do know about the movements of this somewhat mysterious family.

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Leaving Lucinda and her family's origins behind us, we return to Lemuel Blevins and his line. There are quite a number of Blevins males in Kentucky in 1800; our challenge is connecting Lemuel with one of them. Although we have no specific information about Lemuel himself before he appears on that 1800 tax list in Kentucky, fortunately there is considerable information about the Blevins family. The Blevins males in Kentucky in 1800 include two men who paid taxes in Lincoln County the same time Lemuel did Samuel and John; Berry (in Pulaski County); Elisha (in Cumberland County); Nathan (in Green County); James (in Logan County); and William (also in Pulaski County). Some well-informed Blevins researchers believe that Lemuel's parents were SAMUEL BLEVINS and a woman named Hannah. After reviewing the information that is available, I agree that Samuel was Lemuel's father but cannot be sure about the identity of his mother.

Circumstantial evidence that Samuel was Lemuel's father comes from the census of 1820 for Jefferson County, Kentucky, where as we have seen there are four Blevins males between 26 and 45 years old. Samuel and John live in Middletown Township; James and Lemuel live elsewhere in the county. The listing for Samuel Blevins shows a man 45 years old or older also living in the household. There is good evidence to link two of these four men (John and James) to the Samuel Blevins we are studying here, and the third younger man here is probably Samuel's son, also named Samuel. This circumstantial evidence suggests that the older Samuel is living with his son of the same name and that Lemuel is another of the elder Samuel's sons. We do not know which of the two Samuels the census taker considered the head of this household with the older man in it, but in either case the older Samuel is probably the man in the column for 45 years old or older.)¹⁴ The 1810 and 1820 census tell us only that this Samuel Blevins was born before 1775, but the ages of his children suggest that he was born about 1745.

The identity of Lemuel's mother far from clear: we know that Samuel was married to a Hannah during the 1790s, but we do not know if she was Lemuel's mother. Some Blevins researchers believe that Samuel was also married to a Mary Elizabeth Cox, daughter of David Cox and Margaret Ann {McGowan} Cox, but there is no evidence to confirm this. It is clear that the Cox and Blevins families were closely associated in both Virginia and Kentucky, so it is plausible that Samuel might have married a Cox. Indeed, Hannah's name also may have been Cox, but if it was we can only guess at how she was related to Mary Elizabeth and her parents.

What appears to be a considerable gap in the list of Samuel's known and probable children, between two older ones and Lemuel (who was born not later than 1779), suggests that Samuel may have lost a wife and remarried during the 1770s. Another such gap during the early 1780s suggests, further, that Hannah (from the census listings, a decade or so younger than Samuel) could be in fact a third wife. Thus it is possible that Lemuel was the product of one of Samuel's earlier marriages; for now, the identity and order of Samuel's wives remains speculative. On June 25, 1808, Samuel Blevins married a widow named Mary Garrat or Garrard in Lincoln County, Kentucky, and it is possible this woman was the Mary Elizabeth Cox some researchers refer to.

Finding Samuel Blevins during his earlier years is made easier by the fact that he seems to be the only Blevins male with that given name in Kentucky or Virginia at that time. Finding Samuel Blevins during his earlier years is made easier by the fact that he seems to be the only Blevins male with that given name in Kentucky or Virginia at that time. He first comes to our attention in 1777 and 1778, when a Samuel Blevins swore two loyalty oaths in Henry County, Virginia, where there is a sizeable colony of Blevins families; the next year, 1779, Samuel was a witness to a deed in Henry County. The oaths indicated his switch of allegiance from King George III to the state of Virginia and to the new United States of America. In this connection, it is interesting to observe that in 1775 and 1776, the Fincastle (Virginia) Committee of Safety — one of the proto-governmental groups that sprang up in most of the American counties as the conflict with Britain reached a boil — took notice of James and William Blevins. (Whether or not this James is Samuel's father is unknown.) The two men were probably suspected of disloyalty, and there continue to be hints of the reluctance of Blevins men to support the American Revolution through the 1780s. In fact, despite his oaths in 1781 we find Samuel Blevins himself enrolled as a private in Captain Thomas Hamilton's Loyalist Company in Hillsborough, North Carolina (not far south of Henry County, Virginia). Samuel is described as a deserter on this list, though, so his true allegiance at this time remains in doubt.

The next year, 1782, Samuel Blevins is on the tax list of Montgomery County, Virginia, the home of another colony of Blevins families. Also that year, the sheriff of Henry County took him into custody while his political views were investigated. He must have been judged reliable now, for in 1783 he is shown as a member of Captain Flower Swift's militia list in Montgomery County. Samuel "Blevin" appears on a list of those who received certificates for pay due for service in the Continental forces. These certificates were issued during 1783-1785 and were refunded in 1790. Unfortunately, there is no unit listed for this man, who was owed $59.70, but to have earned this pay he must have seen at least some service on behalf of the American Revolution. Also in 1785, Samuel Blevins was a witness in a court case in Henry County. All this leaves us wondering whether Samuel was a British loyalist (as at least one brother was), an American patriot, someone who took whatever side seemed most advantageous at the moment, a young man who could not make up his mind, or a man who bent to whichever faction was pressuring him to make a commitment.

After the war ended, Samuel Blevins is found on tax lists or the Virginia census in Henry County, Virginia, in 1785, in 1787, on May 28, 1788, and on October 23, 1789. Tax lists and other records for the Blevins males show their properties as being on the Chestnut Meadow, Crooked, and Grassy Creeks, and on the Fox River. This area, generally spoken of as the Mouth of Wilson section of the New River region, was in Botetourt County until 1772, then Fincastle County until 1777, and Montgomery County until 1790. In that year it became the new county of Wythe and in 1793 the new county of Grayson.¹⁵ This area is just above the border with extreme western North Carolina and close to extreme northeast Tennessee, where some Blevins families are also known to have lived at about this time.¹⁶

Soon after 1790, numerous Blevins males – Samuel and Lemuel among them – made the trip over the mountains to Lincoln County, Kentucky, which at that time formed the entire southeast quadrant of the new state of Kentucky. It is possible that their route took them through areas now in northwest North Carolina and northeast Tennessee, where we know some Blevins families lived before Kentucky. By October 1792 Samuel has become a taxpayer in Lincoln County. He repeatedly appears on the tax rolls of first it and then Pulaski County (formed from Lincoln in 1801) from 1792 through 1809, when a four-year gap in the records begins, and again in 1813. In 1809 and 1813 Samuel Blevins is described as exempt from the tax levy, which is consistent with a Pulaski County court order dated May 26, 1806, that excused him from the county levy because of infirmity. During the years when he was taxed, Samuel was living variously on Hanging Fork, Cinch Creek, Dix River, and Brush or Brushy Creek.¹⁷

Samuel Blevins appears on the 1810 census in Lincoln County, Kentucky; here he is 45 years old or older, and a female in his household is in the same age category. By 1814 Samuel has moved to Jefferson County, Kentucky, where he lives in Middletown Township. A Samuel Blevins is found on the tax rolls in that county in 1814 through 1818 but not thereafter; either it took awhile for Samuel to be judged exempt or, more likely, the rolls now begin to list Samuel's son of the same name, who had become 21 years of age in 1814. In that same year, 1818, Samuel Blevins purchased a lot on Main Street in Floydsburg, in Oldham County, which probably explains why he would be omitted from the tax lists in Jefferson after then. The 1820 census is our last glimpse of any kind of Samuel Blevins, and it seems likely that he died sometime during the early 1820s. The fact that Samuel Blevins, Jr., sold the Floydsburg lot in late 1828 might indicate that his father had recently died.¹⁸

Tracing Lemuel's ancestry beyond his presumed father, Samuel, is a challenge that even some very accomplished Blevins researchers, with their larger stake in the outcome, have not yet met. In general, I have elected to follow what most Blevins researchers have concluded, although there is vigorous and often acerbic debate among them. Some of these researchers believe that Samuel's parents were Daniel Blevins and a woman named Sarah, whose family name may have been Belcher. Daniel's life span is said to have been from about 1710 to sometime after September 27, 1771, which makes it unlikely (though not impossible) that he would have fathered Samuel during the 1750s.¹⁹ Other Blevins researchers believe that Samuel was the son of a James Blevins and a woman named Elizabeth Ward. James lived from about the 1730s until 1801. (Still other researchers are not willing to hazard even a guess as to Samuel's parents.)

The close proximity of Samuel to James and the latter's known children makes a strong argument for his being an older son of this man, and I believe we should take it as a working hypothesis that James was Samuel's father. It is possible that James in turn was the son of the Daniel Blevins (about 1710 to after 1771) and Sarah who are mentioned above. We now turn, therefore, to James Blevins and what we know about him and his origins. This search is complicated by the presence in this area of three or more Blevins contemporaries named James, and some errors in our understanding of who was who are likely. The task is complicated by the facts that new counties were being created every few years within this developing section of Virginia — and that Blevins fathers were even more likely than their contemporaries, it seems, to name their sons after their own brothers and uncles.

The James Blevins we are interested in (that is, the one born during the 1730s) is found in 1771 living on the head of Little River, a tributary of Virginia's New River, where, one of his sons said, James lived the remainder of his life among several Blevins kin. This area was Botetourt County until 1772, then Fincastle County until 1777, and Montgomery County until 1790. In that year it became the new county of Wythe and in 1793 the new county of Grayson. James Blevins was a member of Captain William Herbert's militia unit, which saw some Indian fighting in the Holston and Clinch Rivers area and participated in Lord Dunmore's War – although Blevins is not named as an active participant in this war or included on a payroll for it.

In December 1774, James purchased 150 acres in Peach Bottom on Bent Creek, located in the Loyal Company's grant on another tributary of the New River. There is also some question about the political loyalties of James Blevins, for in 1781 he or a son with the same name was, like Samuel Blevins, a private in Captain Hamilton's Loyalist Company. In addition, the county court of Montgomery County, Virginia, charged James and John Blevins with being "disaffected" in August 1779. Our remaining sightings of James Blevins are appearances on tax lists and other documents in Montgomery County and elsewhere in 1782, 1787 through 1789, and 1793 through 1797. He died in 1801.

Do we have any idea about the father of James Blevins? Our attention is drawn to two candidates who lived just to the east of the New River region. They are a James and a Daniel Blevins – possibly brothers, possibly father and son – who first appear in the Leatherwood Creek section of Lunenburg County, Virginia, during the mid-1740's. James Blevins purchased 162 acres on the south side of the Smith River on March 13, 1748, and 88 acres on the north side of the Irwin River on April 5, 1749. He also patented 180 acres on the north side of the latter river near the mouth of Rug Creek in March 1756; he sold this particular property in December 1763, but we do not know exactly where he moved after that. This area became Halifax County in 1752, Pittsylvania County in 1767, and Henry County in 1777. James and Daniel are in Halifax County court records from 1752 through 1768, so we can assume they remained in the same general area — perhaps on the Irwin River during these years.²⁰ James appears on tax or militia lists in Halifax County in 1758 and 1760.

Then, a land survey from 1768 and the movements of another family that was closely associated with and intermarried with the Blevins family indicate that a Daniel Blevins was living on 243 acres on Marrowbone Creek a few miles south of Martinsville (then still in Pittsylvania County), and James undoubtedly is nearby in an area known locally as "Blevins on Leatherwood." James and another Blevins male, possibly brothers and heirs, sold 180 acres here in 1759, and on November 20, 1765, two pieces of property (612 acres in all) on Leatherwood Creek belonging to James Blevins were "transferred," presumably having been sold. There is some suspicion among Blevins researchers that at least some of the Blevins men living in Halifax County had been unsuccessful in securing title to their land (or perhaps were renting or squatting on it) and so decided to move further west at this time, but they could just as easily have been riding the tides of population growth and westward expansion that Virginia was experiencing.

Going back to earlier years to see what we can learn about James Blevins, we find that a man with that name and a John Blevins, presumably a brother, were granted land in Goochland County, Virginia, in 1737 and 1739, respectively. The property of James Blevins was two parcels (400 and 295 acres) on both sides of Little Muddy Creek. This part of Virginia did not evolve into Lunenberg County, so we can conclude that James Blevins must have left this area on Little Muddy Creek sometime during the decade after 1737 for Leatherwood Creek in Lunenberg County. We do not know whether Daniel Blevins accompanied these men, but from other evidence it seems likely that he did. It is interesting to learn that the property of James Blevins in Goochland County adjoined that of a man named Richard Taylor, possibly an ancestor of Daniel Taylor and his daughter, Lucinda, though this is unproven.

Still earlier, in 1733 and 1734, we find two men named Daniel and James Blevins living in Prince George's County, Maryland, at that time the entire western portion of that colony. Each of these men has two taxables, which suggests that they were already middle-aged during the early 1730s. They lived in the Monocacy Hundred on the north side of the Potomac River. (A hundred was a political and taxation unit, carried over from English law, that was smaller than a county and consisted of enough land to raise approximately one hundred fighting men.) The Monocacy Hundred was situated along the Monocacy River where it joins the Potomac River near Poolesville. This then-unorganized area is where Montgomery County and Frederick County, Maryland, come together today. These Blevins men are thought to have lived in Cohasset, New Jersey, and Bucks County, Pennsylvania, before they came to Maryland.

What ties all of this information together is a very significant document from 1771. On July 1 of that year, Daniel Blevins, Sr., his wife Sarah, and Daniel Blevins, Jr., filed a power of attorney in Pittsylvania County, Virginia. This document authorized the sale of 100 acres in Westerly, Washington County, Rhode Island. Either the two Blevins males or the clerk described them as being "from Rhode Island." We can infer from the document that the Blevins family had left their homes there without having sold some ancestral property, and now they were taking steps to facilitate the sale. The power of attorney identified Pittsylvania County as the home of the older Daniel Blevins but Botetourt County, Virginia, as the home of the younger one.

Why are these men identified as being from Rhode Island? It does not necessarily mean that they had just arrived in Virginia directly from Rhode Island, though they might have. Perhaps they had just arrived in this part of Virginia, though, and so were still regarded as newcomers in this area. Perhaps they themselves still thought of themselves as New Englanders even at this late time. Or perhaps they felt the need to identify themselves as being from Rhode Island to establish their credentials for the power of attorney. In any case, it is clear these Blevins males had their ultimate roots in Rhode Island, and we will follow up on this important lead presently.

Thus we can make the case that the Daniel and James Blevins in Maryland in 1733 and 1734 are the same ones who lived first in Goochland and then in Halifax (later Pittsylvania) County, Virginia, from about 1737 onward.²¹ Here both of them probably died, James probably around 1765 when his land was transferred and Daniel sometime after he filed the power of attorney in mid-1771.²² The two (younger) men named James and Daniel who about 1771 moved west to the New River in Botetourt (later Montgomery and then Grayson) County, thus would be the sons of the older Daniel and James. The younger Daniel was clearly the son of the older Daniel, as we know from the 1771 document. Was the younger James his brother, or (as I suspect) the son of the older James? Here we can only guess.

We can construct a plausible scenario that traces James and Samuel's (and thus Lemuel's) roots to Rhode Island, therefore, although there are two other Blevins groups that must also be considered as sources for the particular Blevins clan that we have been studying in this section.

One group originated with a Bartholomew Blevins, who arrived in Maryland during the 1660s and evidently lived on the south side of the Potomac River (an area then claimed by Maryland but not in Virginia). By the 1730s, his descendants might well have been living further up and across the Potomac River on Monocacy Hundred. Some Blevins researchers contend that Daniel Blevins was born in Maryland in 1715, the son of a William Blevins who was born in Maryland about 1690 and grandson of another William Blevins, but I have seen no convincing proof that this is so. It is worth noting that the name Bartholomew is not used in the Blevins family to which Samuel and Lemuel belong.

Another set of Blevins immigrants were Virginians, descendants of a Richard Blevins of Liverpool, England. He, too, was a sea captain (of the Jane and Elizabeth) who was paid in land for bringing new settlers to Virginia. Richard Blevins seems to have operated this service as early as 1711 and as late as 1721 and was a frequent caller at Richmond County in the Northern Neck, on the Rappahannock River. Later Blevins men, including a James, lived in Goochland County in central Virginia during the 1730s and 1740s, and it seems clear that some of them made their way to Henry County and on to Kentucky and Indiana with the Blevins group that included Samuel and Lemuel. It is worth noting, too, that the name Richard does not seem to have been used in the Blevins family we have been looking into.

This leaves us with the Blevins group of Rhode Island. It seems to have originated when Joshua Blevins (a sea captain whose ship was the Polly) and several of his brothers – including James, Edward, John, and perhaps Henry – arrived in Massachusetts sometime before 1650. John and perhaps others among them were Quakers or other dissenters who refused to consent to prevailing religious orthodoxy in New England. John, a resident of Lynn, Massachusetts, was repeatedly fined, whipped, and even imprisoned for being absent from worship services or for working on the Sabbath day. For a time many of these Blevins families lived in Salem, Massachusetts, but ultimately they left there for Rhode Island.

Joshua Blevins had sons named Edward and James. James married Margery Cord and moved to Westerly, Rhode Island, where a large Blevins (sometimes called Blivens) community developed. James and Margery had a son named James, born about 1700. This might be the man who we find in Maryland in 1733 and later in Virginia, and perhaps Daniel (born 1710) was his brother. Many people have sought to make a definite link between these men and the Virginia Blevins families, but no one has been able to do so. The 1771 power of attorney request discussed earlier, however, does enable us to say that the Blevins line we began studying with Artemisia and her father Lemuel almost certainly is tied to this Rhode Island group, whether it is Joshua's descendants or those of one of his several brothers. (And for the record it must be said that the name Joshua does not seem to have been used within Samuel and Lemuel's branch of the Blevins family, either!)

Most Blevins researchers are convinced that all three of these American branches of the Blevins family can be tied to the Blevins families of Formby, England, and beyond that to some Welsh families of the same name. Formby, which is located in Lancashire on the west coast of England between Southport and Liverpool, can be traced back to the 11th century at least and may have started as a Viking outpost. Many of the Blevins clan there were mariners, it would seem. Some Blevins researchers also believe that both the Massachusetts and the Maryland branches can be traced through a James Blethyn born in 1602 to a Welshman named William Blethyn II, born in 1572, and his wife Elizabeth Morgan. William's parents were William I, the bishop of Llandaff Cathedral from 1572 to 1599, and his wife Anne Young. The Blevins surname was used in the area around Denbighshire during the 11th century, and a few adventurous researchers like to wonder if the American Blevins line connects to Bleddyn ap Cynfyn, Prince of Powys (1063-1075).²³ Such speculation is risky business. Until further information comes to light, we probably should be satisfied to have identified the locale in the British Isles where the Blevins immigrants to America originated.

And here we run out of lines for the mother of Charles M. Neal, Mary Ellen {Shake} Neal. These lines have included the Blevins and Shake families, along with such related families as Taylor, Hoke, and Shrader. It is time to return to the line of my grandfather and his father, Thomas Neal.

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rev. 6/19/10

Notes

¹The younger Blevins males patented land in Sections 1, 6, 23, and 24 in Township 5 North and Ranges 8 and 9 West. It is not clear on which part of it Lucinda Blevins could be living in 1840.

²She is not the Lucinda Blevins who was married in 1848 to a man named Philip Owens, as that much younger couple can be found on the 1850 census. There is a possibility, however, that she is the Synthia Blevins who married William Colier in Knox County on January 20, 1841. Neither individual appears on the 1850 or 1860 census, as far as I can tell, and both might have been older persons who died before 1850. I can find no information about any Synthia or Cynthia Blevins who married a man with this name, and so the marriage record may reflect a misreading of Lucinda. Return to text

³For the Dix River (originally called Dick's RIver) and Hanging Fork Creek, see the USGS map for Bryantsville/Kentucky and slides 12952-56, taken in 2008. Return to text

⁴Lemuel's service record states that the substitute was named Nicholas Burnett, but a duty roster apparently states that Lemuel had a substitute named James Doolen. It is possible that Lemuel hired two or more men as substitutes at various times. The regiment, led by Lt. Col. Gabriel Slaughter, rendezvoused at Newport, Kentucky, four days after Lemuel's service began. It was taken down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers by boat to New Orleans, where it played a key role in the Battle of New Orleans in 1815. Return to text

⁵See the USGS map for Jeffersonville/Indiana for the location of Goose Creek. The 1821 entry only says "H. Creek," but Harrods Creek was the largest and most likely creek starting with that letter. Other choices are Hites and Hanging Creeks. See slides 12933-41 (2008) for Goose Creek. Return to text

⁶One researcher has noted that the inventory of the deceased man's possessions seems to be consistent with those of an active farmer in the prime of life (Lemuel, that is), not an elderly man (Samuel Blevins, Sr.) who was probably living with his son (Samuel Blevins, Jr.). It is interesting that Lemuel's cousin named a child Lemuel in July 1829, which hints that the older Lemuel might have recently died. Return to text

⁷Nancy was born in Kentucky (as we know from the 1880 census listing for her son, Hiram) about 1770 to 1775 and died about 1844. Her father may have been Nathanial or Nathaniel Black. Return to text

⁸Daniel Taylor is said to be buried in Hobbs Cemetery, Perry County, Indiana, but no grave marker exists for him there. See slide 12081 for a view of this cemetery in 2006. His will mentions both Lucinda Blevins (whose given name is incorrectly spelled Lucina) and a later daughter born in 1811 whose name was in fact Lucina, which has confused some researchers.

⁹A John Taylor sold land to Daniel Taylor in November 1832, and Daniel sold adjoining land in February 1841, which was after the death of the Daniel Taylor we are researching; both deeds were recorded during the latter month and year. It could be that the elder Daniel Taylor sold property to his son Daniel in 1832, and perhaps he used his formal first name of John at that time. There is no John Taylor on the census in Perry County in 1820, 1830, or 1840. Return to text

¹⁰Daniel Taylor patented the east half of the northwest quarter of Section 32, Township 6 South, Range 1 West (80 acres) and the west half of that same quarter (also 80 acres). He made his purchase on credit on January 6, 1815, at $2.00 per acre. He put the required one-quarter down but then evidently ran into trouble making the remaining three annual payments – no doubt because of the banking crisis associated with the Panic of 1819. Finally, on September 29, 1812, Taylor paid $150 in cash and received a discount of $90, a settlement of his debt authorized under a relief land act passed in 1821. His total purchase price, therefore, was $230. See the USGS map for Rome/Indiana-Kentucky for the location of this property, which is now just inside the area of the Hoosier National Forest, and slides 12082 and 12083 for 2006 views of it. Daniel Taylor's purchase is not in the Bureau of Land Management's database because that database does not yet include the land purchases on credit (paid for over three years) that were permitted until 1820. See Appendix II for a description of how public lands were surveyed and sold by the United States government. Return to text

¹¹The only complication in this scenario is that there is another Daniel Taylor, who according to his application for a Revolutionary War pension was living in Nelson County, Kentucky (from which Bullitt County was formed in 1797) in 1810. Either this man's memory of where he had lived was faulty or the 1810 census missed him. It is this other man, probably, who paid taxes in Nelson County, Kentucky, on October 22, 1792, in 1795, and on August 30, 1800: there is a Daniel Taylor in Nelson County already in 1789-1790, when Lucinda's father is still in Tennessee, so the man of that name who paid taxes in 1792 and 1800 is more likely to be this other man.

¹²Her name was Blanchy {Bucknell} Taylor. Return to text

¹³The Virginia Taylors included Daniel, a minister from 1700 to 1724, and his son Daniel (1704 to 1742). The latter married Alice Littlepage, daughter of Richard Littlepage, and had four sons. One of them, William (1732-1820), was the clerk of Lunenburg County. Note below that the Blevins family evidently lived in Lunenburg County at about this same time. Taylors lived near men named Blevins in Goochland and other Virginia counties during the first half of the 1700s, but we can only speculate about whether the two families had any relationship before Lucinda Taylor married Lemuel Blevins. There is a Daniel Taylor in the Taylor family that produced Sarah {Taylor} Power (a sibling of her direct line), but this man was born during the 1620s, nearly eighty years before the one mentioned in the first sentence; it remains possible that the two Reverend Taylors were related somehow, as both lived in the same general area of Virginia, but of course Taylor is a fairly common name. Return to text

¹⁴It is interesting to learn that Samuel Blevins's estate was inventoried by Jacob Shake, so evidently these two families had known one another well for many years – perhaps were neighbors, in fact – before David and Artemisia were married. The 1820 census shows Samuel Blevins with two male slaves. It also shows that no one in the household was farming and that one person was engaged in commerce, which seems consistent with our knowledge that the younger Samuel was a shoemaker and operated a tavern. Return to text

¹⁵See the USGS map for Mouth of Wilson/North Carolina. In 1787 Samuel Blevins had two horses and four head of cattle.

¹⁶One Blevins, relationship to Lemuel and Samuel unknown, was probably the famous "long hunter" called William Blevins. Several of the Blevins males were long hunters, in fact. (Long hunters ventured far into the unknown western wilderness in search of game and pelts. They got their name for being absent for long periods of time, usually many months.) Return to text

¹⁷See slides 12952-56, taken in 2008, for these locations.Return to text

¹⁸There are two men named Samuel Blevins on the Lincoln County, Kentucky, census in 1810; they have slightly different family profiles, although the ages of Samuel and his wife are the same in both listings. Blevins researchers seem to agree Samuel was probably mistakenly listed twice and that the second listing is the accurate one. Two men named Samuel Blevins are listed on the Jefferson County tax rolls for 1819, but this may be an error. It is interesting that the Samuel Blevins who does appear on the Jefferson County tax rolls in most years after 1817 is listed in Oldham County, Kentucky, instead during 1827 through 1829. This may help to confirm that Samuel Blevins, Jr., inherited his father's lot during the late 1820s. It is also possible that the older Samuel Blevins died in Lincoln or Pulaski County, Kentucky, before his sons moved to Jefferson County, and that the elderly man in the household of Samuel Blevins on the 1820 census is someone else. Return to text

¹⁹Daniel's son of the same name probably was not much older than Samuel, so he is not a likely candidate to be his father. Return to text

²⁰One of the court records is a request by James Blevins to construct a mill, such official permission being required because a new mill would affect the water supply of neighbors and the ability of other millers to make a living. Return to text

²¹Members of the Cox, Walling, Swift, and other families that were over the years closely associated with the Blevins family are also seen in these several locales. Daniel Blevins is not shown owning property in Goochland County, for reasons unknown.

²²In this connection, it should be noted that the James Blevins on the 1767 Pittsylvania tax list is identified as "Jr." Return to text

²³Blevins is a patronymic form of the Welsh name Blevin, from the given name Bleiddyn. Sometimes spelled Bleddn, Blethyn, or Bleddyn, it meant "little wolf" and was often used to designate a hero. In the Welsh language the dd is pronounced like th, which accounts for the later spelling. Return to text

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