Joe David Bellamy

By Joe David Bellamy

The purpose of this segment from my book on The Bellamys of Early Virginia is to lay out in some detail the preliminary results of my study of the Bellamy/​Bellomy family of Virginia from the original records I have sought out and examined over the last dozen years. Much of the information about the Bellamys on the internet is incorrect or incomplete, and yet I see it repeated over and over by unwitting people who have not gone to the original sources themselves and who apparently take whatever they read on the internet as literally true. There are some others who seem to believe that genealogy is a form of fiction writing. I do not. My hope is that publishing these results with source information might correct some of the errors that have gained currency. I also hope to discover if there are any potential readers for this book, and if so, who they might be. Please see the end for more details about the scope of the book and to express any further interest in it.

(*One effort I would like to commend, however, is that of Bill Bellomy of Garland, TX, who is one of the few researchers to have done serious original research on the Bellamys. So far as I know, Bill Bellomy was the first to have located John Bellamy of Goochland, who is the earliest male ancestor of this Bellamy line in America to have been identified so far. Others whose research has been helpful to me are: Gwyn Barker of Omaha, Nebraska; Al Bellamy of Jasper, Arkansas; George Bellamy of Saint John, IN; Stan Bellamy of Skyforest, California; Jim Brown of Kingsport, Tennessee; Connie Graves of Florida and Kentucky; and Marie Paradiso of Honolulu, Hawaii. Also, I understand that the genealogist Glennis Goldsmith of Sun City, Arizona, was responsible for some of the early important work on this Bellamy/​Bellomy family.)

Indentured Servitude
The particular Bellamys I am writing about here arrived in the New World very early on, certainly no later than 1710 and possibly as early as 1634. It was a time of great upheaval in England, from whence they came, and we do not know expressly why they came. But there are a number of likely reasons. England had two revolutions within fifty years. Two kings were dethroned, and one was beheaded. There was, of course, a terrible war as well. Following the English Civil War and the domination and then sudden death of Oliver Cromwell, England suffered from continuing religious turmoil, governmental instability, aristocratic decadence, miserable economic conditions for the poor and middle classes, and then the Black Plague. For reasons demographers have been unable to explain, the English population expanded very rapidly during the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, and the economy failed to keep pace. As Edmund Morgan has pointed out: “Prices rose steadily, followed at some distance by a rise in rents and a much smaller rise in wages. The price of provisions used by a laborer’s family rose twice as fast as wages. From a quarter to a half of the population lived below the level recognized at the time to constitute poverty. Few of them could count on regular meals at home, and more and more were forced on the road…” (30). "The complexion of the homeland changed so completely and often that we over here got, in our ancestors, a fair representation of all the classes and stocks and sects of England" (viii), according to Coffin and Witherspoon.

The English colonies in America were expanding with the discovery of the economic viability of tobacco cultivation, and there was a new demand for cheap labor—such a demand that over half of the emigrants to the colonies south of New England during this time came as indentured servants. These were white persons who, because they were unable to pay the cost of their own passage to the New World, signed on to become servants for several years—to work off their indentures. Many of them had no idea of the hardships they were taking on nor the length of time they would end up serving—sometimes their whole lives—and many of them were brutally exploited. As Morgan describes it, “A servant in Virginia, as long as his term had not expired, was a machine to make tobacco for somebody else” (129).

Even those who were able to pay for their own transportation sometimes ended up in servitude as well. As Morgan points out, “Even if he came with enough to set himself up independently, a bad harvest, insurmountable debts, or Indian depredations might force him into the service of a bigger operator. This was particularly true after the massacre [of 1622], when it was reported that ordinary men who had made a start on their own were obliged, for fear of the Indians, ‘to forsake their houses (which were very farre scattered) and to joyne themselves to some great man’s plantation’” (116).

Also, according to Abbot Emerson Smith, the practice of “spiriting” was often employed as a method for recruitment. “People of every age and kind were decoyed, deceived, seduced, inveigled, or forcibly kidnapped and carried as servants to the plantations. There were many ordinary individuals of decent substance, and a few even who were entitled by the custom of the time to be called gentlemen” who found themselves trapped in this way (3).

The condition of an indentured servant was not far removed from that of slave. A servant was considered to be the property of his master. He could be bought and sold freely, without his consent. Upon the death of his master, he could be willed to someone else. He could be loaned temporarily by his master so that his services might pay off a debt, or he could be arrested by the sheriff for the satisfaction of his master’s debts. He might even be won or lost in a card game (Smith, 233).

If he misbehaved or misunderstood or showed defiance, he could be beaten, and in many colonies it was provided by law that masters were quite within their rights to whip their servants. Richard Ligon, an English visitor to Barbados in the 1650s gives this account of the treatment of servants he witnessed: If they made any complaint, even in case of sickness, they were likely to be beaten by the Overseer and, if they resisted, their period of indenture very likely doubled: “I have seen an Overseer beat a Servant with a cane about the head, till the blood has followed, for a fault that is not worth the speaking of; and yet he must have patience, or worse will follow. Truly, I have seen such cruelty there done to Servants, as I did not think one Christian could have done to another.”

A servant could not marry without the consent of his master, and marriage was usually discouraged. “The right of free marriage was one which for very obvious reasons would work to the disadvantage and inconvenience of the master, particularly if the marriage was made without his knowledge” (Ballagh, 48). Offenders who secretly married were condemned to serve their masters or the offended master for an additional year over and above their regular term, and the offending maid had her time of service doubled with her master or mistress.

A servant could not vote. He was prohibited from engaging in trade on his own behalf, and there were severe penalties in all colonies for freemen who traded with servants, apparently because of the fear that the latter would steal or embezzle their masters’ goods and dispose of them to unscrupulous freemen. Even a servant’s special abilities, if he had any, were exercised for the benefit of his master. If he earned money in his spare time, it could be taken by his master (Smith, 233-34). If the servant tried to run away, “he was brought back under the auspices of rigorous laws and he suffered heavy penalties” (234).

“The natural desire of the planters to retain their laborers was reinforced, especially in earlier years, by a lively fear that servants would join with Negroes or Indians to overcome the small number of masters. Hence the extraordinary harshness of early laws, the worst being that of Maryland in 1639, which enacted that a servant convicted of running away should be executed…. Legislation on runaways began in Virginia in 1642/​43, when they were condemned to serve double the time they had been absent, after the time of the original indenture would expire. For a second offense they were to be branded on the cheek or shoulder with the letter R, and were to be deemed incorrigible rogues. In 1658/​9 it was provided that the hair of returned runaways should be clipped, for easier identification in case they resumed their wanderings” (Smith, 265).

The likely penalty for any infraction by the servant, in addition to physical abuse, was an extension of the time of the indenture; and it was not unusual to add on time in years for relatively minor failings. It is no accident that “liberty” became the watchword of the American Revolution for so many citizens of that time whose immediate ancestors had been the equivalent of white slaves, sometimes for generations. Liberty was not an abstraction to them—it was a principle worth fighting for.

John Bellamy of Goochland
We know about this John Bellamy from an indenture record, a land transaction, a will, and some unusual and revealing legal difficulties his children experienced after his death. He first appears in the record in this part of Virginia as one of ten persons “imported” by Dorothy Pleasants, who received 463 acres of land in return for bringing the group of ten to Henrico County (later subdivided into Henrico and Goochland), Virginia (Cavaliers and Pioneers, Patent Book No. 10, p. 193). Since John Bellamy purchased 120 acres of land in 1717 from Benjamin Woodson and collected on debts in 1716 and 1717 from the estate of John Woodson, we know that his indenture period was over by that time. Indentures were usually for a period of five to seven years, and since indentured servants were not permitted to carry on private trade during the time of their indentures, therefore John Bellamy must have come under the auspices of Dorothy Cary Pleasants’ indenture as early as 1710 or 1711.

It has been previously assumed by researcher Bill Bellomy and others that this evidence indicates that John Bellamy literally arrived from England about 1710 when his indenture to Dorothy Pleasants commenced, and this may indeed be correct. However, a study of the history of indentured servitude indicates that Bellamy may already have been a resident of the colony for some time previous to 1710. In his seminal monograph White Servitude in the Colony of Virginia, James Curtis Ballagh states: “The servants in Virginia were…usually transported persons, but residents in the colony also sold themselves into servitude for various reasons” (40-41). The need for servants was very high, and the incentives very enticing from the point of view of those able to afford to take them on: five years of service, or more, for the price of feeding and housing the servant, then fifty acres of land for each indenture. On the other hand, many servants upon their release found it difficult to make it on their own. They were, in a sense, in competition with servants still under indenture for income they might have received for their labor. Landowners, in many cases, preferred to profit from the labor of their servants, over whom they had complete control and did not pay a salary, rather than to bring in freelance labor for which they would have to pay wages. If the freed servant had managed to scrape together enough to purchase land at the time of his release, it was still not an easy matter to make enough from his raw land to keep body and soul together. Some of the “freed” servants thus spent their whole lives moving from one indenture to another in order to make ends meet. This is an important point to understand as we search, later on, for the possible origins of John Bellamy of Goochland.

John made a will and died in 1729. The will shows he had three children, a son, John, and two daughters, Mary and Judah. By the time of his death the land he had purchased in 1717 in Henrico County at the head of Indian Graves Creek was in Goochland County, and his original will is still available for perusal at the Goochland County Courthouse. The unusual circumstances revolving around the settlement of John Bellamy’s will were as follows: the widowed Mrs. Bellamy, whose name was Mary, very quickly married a man named Samuel Thompson and became Mary Thompson; and though John Bellamy had made it clear in his will that he wished to bequeath his land to his son John, Samuel Thompson tried to take over the land because the younger John Bellamy was not yet of age (i.e., not yet twenty-one, the age when, legally, there would have been no question about the inheritance). The young John Bellamy went to court and attempted to sue Samuel Thompson for trespassing. A further peculiarity was that both Bellamy daughters chose not to stay with their mother, but went to court and chose a man named Dr. William Cabell as their guardian and were accepted by him. (In John Bellamy’s will of 1729 the clerk misspelled his name as “Belleman,” though the name actually looks like “Bolloman” because of the peculiar way the clerk made his e’s. In the inventory from the will, however, the same clerk spells the name as “Bellamy,” and in the depositions from John’s daughters, their names are correctly spelled as “Bellamy.” The inventory shows that the total value of John’s estate {not counting land} was a little over twenty-two pounds.)

Dr. William Cabell was a physician, a Judge of the Circuit Court, and a man with huge land holdings, thousands of acres in that part of Virginia—probably the most powerful man in that part of the world. Why would he have taken on the responsibility to look after these two young girls whose father had so recently been merely a servant? One clue may be found in the will of John Bellamy. William Cabell’s wife’s maiden name was Elizabeth Burke, and Elizabeth Burke Cabell was one of the witnesses to John Bellamy’s will. Another witness was a man whose name has been mistranslated in abstracted versions of the will as “Richard Kirk.” If one examines the original of the will closely, however, the script in question clearly spells out “Richard Birk.” We know from other sources that Elizabeth Burke Cabell had a brother named Richard, and this Richard Burke who witnessed the will is most likely Elizabeth Burke Cabell’s brother! (Alternate spellings or misspellings of this sort were quite common in 18th-century Virginia.) So why would Elizabeth Burke Cabell, the wife of the most powerful man in that part of the world, and her brother Richard Burke too, agree to serve as witnesses for a dying man who had previously been an indentured servant—and not their indentured servant? Why would the Bellamy daughters refuse to go with their own mother, especially since she had successfully remarried?

I think the reason is that Mary Bellamy, widow, who so quickly became Mary Thompson, was not their real mother. She was most probably their stepmother, and she certainly did not seem to have the interests of the Bellamy children in mind or she would not have permitted her new husband to make a land grab against the wishes of her recently deceased former husband. Furthermore, the interest of the Cabells and Burkes in the outcome of the case indicates that probably the real mother of the Bellamy children was either a Burke or a Burke cousin. Elizabeth Burke Cabell did have one sister, but the evidence seems to be that this sister was not the earlier wife of John Bellamy. So perhaps the mother of the Bellamy children was a Burke cousin, perhaps a Davis, someone who the Burkes felt close to and whose interests they wished to protect. (This Davis family, from the mother of Elizabeth Burke Cabell, later gave rise to Jefferson Davis, the President of the Confederacy, according to Alexander Brown, the Cabells’ biographer.) If the Bellamy children were going to be cared for, it would make sense that a blood relative (or the powerful husband of a blood relative) would step in to do so.

They seem to have done so quite handily because in 1731, the son of John Bellamy dropped his case against Samuel Thompson, and in 1732, when he was certainly of age, John sold the land he had inherited from his father and, most likely, immediately purchased new land in Albemarle County to the west (in an area that eventually became Fluvanna County). We have no way of knowing how young John managed to prevent Samuel Thompson from taking his land, but surely the fact that Dr. William Cabell was at the seat of Justice for the region worked in the equation. Somehow the matter was settled out of court, perhaps because Samuel Thompson could see what might happen if the case was ever presented to this particular judge.

On July 1, 1742, Mary Bellamy married one Samuel Ridgeway, a prosperous landholder from the area, whose father was probably an early colleague of Dr. Cabell’s in England. Samuel Ridgeway acquired a thousand acres of land in Goochland County in 1738, and between 1745 and 1762 he acquired five more parcels containing 1400, 400, 235, 400 and 120 acres, respectively. Mary Bellamy, the daughter of a former indentured servant, seems to have married rather well, though perhaps by the time she reached marriageable age under the tutelage of Elizabeth Burke Cabell, she had become something of a lady.

The fate of John Bellamy’s other daughter, Judah, is not known. A Judith Bellamy marries an Anthony Logan in 1771, more than forty years after John Bellamy’s death, but this may not be the same person as the Judah of John Bellamy’s will; or if it was, Judah would probably have been well beyond child-bearing years. Though we do not know exactly how old Judah Bellamy was when her father died, we know she was old enough to declare in court that she wished to have Dr. William Cabell as her guardian, so she must have been at least eight or ten years old, and probably older. It is my belief that all of the research efforts thus far to connect John’s daughter Judah with the Judith Bellamy of 1771 are without merit. This is particularly true of the bogus Judith Chastain fantasy that has spread like a disease across the internet. It would indeed be a pleasure to find oneself related to such a distinguished family as the Chastains. But if there is any record anywhere of a Bellamy marrying a Chastain, or any valid evidence linking the Bellamys and the Chastains, I have not seen it. The Judith Bellamy who married Anthony Logan is most likely an unidentified daughter of John-II, who may have named one of his daughters after his sister Judah. But, so far as I know, there is no documentary evidence of this. We know that the wife of John-II in the 1740s was named Mary; whether or not John-II had a second or later wife or wives is not known. There is no evidence that Mary or any later wife was a Chastain.

One reason I believe that John Bellamy of Goochland (i.e., John-I) may have been already in Virginia at the time of his acquisition as an indentured servant by Dorothy Pleasants is as follows: If John’s son John-II came of age in about 1731, which we know from Fluvanna County, Virginia, records, that means he would have been born in about 1710, very near the time that John-I began his period of indenture. Thus John-I would have had to be already married in 1710. We know from the indenture record that no woman was among the servants recorded as “imported” by Dorothy Pleasants, and in most cases landowners did not permit servants to marry at all. So if John-I was already married when he began his indenture, he must have been married to someone already present in Virginia, and Dorothy Pleasants must have been willing to employ him even though he was married. Not only that, but if John’s first wife died during his period of indenture, Dorothy Pleasants must have permitted him to marry yet again, though with three underage children to raise, it is understandable that, even from her point of view, that would have been preferable. It is of course possible that the mother of John’s children did not die until during the period between 1717, when his indenture was over, and 1729, when he died. In that case, Dorothy Pleasants would have had nothing to say in the matter.

If it can be shown that some others of the indentured servants of Dorothy Pleasants who “arrived” with John Bellamy were also present in Virginia in or before 1710, then that factor lends more credence to the possibility that John Bellamy himself may have been there earlier as well. In a list of tithables taken in Henrico County in 1679 in the precinct where Mr. John Pleasants, Dorothy Pleasants’ husband or father-in-law (both named John Pleasants), lived, “William Hews” is listed with 1 (i.e. he was tithed only for himself, indicating he was a man with no servants). The name “William Hews” also appears in the list of ten persons newly employed by Dorothy Pleasants in 1710. Also in 1679, Cavaliers and Pioneers (Patent Book #6) reveals that John Pleasants and John Haddellsey received 548 acres for importing eleven persons, including one “Matthew Mock.” Dorothy Pleasants’ list in 1710 includes one “Matthew Mark,” possibly the same man. Finally, The Valentine Papers contain a record for Arthur Jordan in 1673 who received 175 acres for importing three persons, including “John Dixon.” Dorothy Pleasants list also includes a “John Dickson.” (All six of Dorothy Pleasants’ children married Jordans!) It is, of course, impossible to prove beyond doubt that each of these men who was imported earlier is the same as the one listed with Dorothy Pleasants. But they were all in the same location, and they were all listed with members of Dorothy Pleasants’ immediate family. Could the “John Belson” imported with 52 others by Mr. John Pleasants and recorded in 1690 in the same location have been the actual arrival of John Bellamy? (Cavaliers and Pioneers, Patent Book #8.) How many ways can Bellamy/​Bellomy be misspelled by people assisting those who did not know how to spell their own names and who were perhaps only semi-literate themselves?

John-II, His Sons, and Their Descendants
The early days of John-II in what became Fluvanna County are difficult to chart because during the Revolutionary War, British Col. Banastre Tarleton’s raid on Charlottesville in 1781 destroyed all the court order books for Albemarle County, which was the mother county for Fluvanna. Only county records dating from after the mid-1740s escaped destruction. We know that John Bellamy (usually spelled with the -amy ending) was certainly present there in the mid-1740s—because of several small tiffs with neighbors and various witness appearances recorded in the Albemarle records:
“Albemarle County. November 29, 1745. John Bellamy against William Witt. The parties appear who Inform the Court they have mutually agreed all matters in difference between them. Therefore by Consent of Parties and with the Ascent of the Court, this Suit is Ordered to be Dismist.”
“Albemarle County. October 10, 1746. Robert Napier jun. and Mary his wife against John Bellamy and Mary his wife…. By consent of parties and with the ascent of the Court this suit Ordered to be Dismist.”
“Albemarle County, 1745-46. John Bellamy makes Oath he hath Attended this Court five days as an Evidence for John Robertson against Richard Mullins. Ordered the said Robertson to pay the said Bellamy One Hundred & Twenty five pounds of tobacco for his said Attendance.”
“Albemarle County. May 15, 1747. Bellamy’s Attendance. John Bellamy makes oath he hath Attended this Court three days as an Evidence for Linsend Sprouse against William Weaklin. Ordered the said Sprouse to pay the said Bellamy seventy-five pounds of tobacco for his attendance.” Etc.

The first evidence of land acquisition by John Bellamy in Albemarle/​Fluvanna is to be found in the land plats for Albemarle County. (The part of Albemarle County where John Bellamy lived did not become Fluvanna County until 1777.) A tract of land showing John Bellamy’s “186 acres lying on the branches of Bold Branch of Ballenger’s Creek” was surveyed for John Bellamy November 17, 1760 by John Staples, surveyor. The plat shows this land as lying immediately adjacent to a plot owned by Peter Jefferson, Esq, who was the father of Thomas Jefferson. In fact, the same plat book in the Albemarle County Courthouse contains numerous original surveys made by the young Thomas Jefferson himself during this same period of time. It seems inevitable that John Bellamy was acquainted with the Jeffersons, since they were, in a sense, nextdoor neighbors, though Peter Jefferson owned several parcels of land in Albemarle. In 1760, Thomas Jefferson was seventeen years old and who could have predicted then that he would become the author of the Declaration of Independence sixteen years later? Or that such a declaration would be required?

One question that comes to mind regarding this land surveyed for John Bellamy in 1760 is: if this is the John Bellamy who sold the land he inherited from his father in Goochland County, VA, in 1732, where was he between 1732 and 1760? Well, we know he was in this same area in the mid-1740s because of the aforementioned court records, and we will probably never know exactly where he was between 1732 and the mid-1740s because of the destruction of the records by the British. However, one other land plat does give a clue. A land plat surveyed by John Smith, surveyor, in 1755 shows that the land of a John Taylor in Albemarle County is adjacent to the land of John Bellamy. It is described as “lying on the East branches of McCant’s Branch on the north side of the Rivanna River.” So perhaps John-II was in this location next to Taylor before buying the land on Bold Branch of Ballenger’s Creek. Did he move here immediately following his departure from Goochland County? Impossible to say. Do we have conclusive proof that this John Bellamy is the son of the indentured servant John Bellamy who was associated with Dorothy Pleasants and Dr. William Cabell? We have circumstantial evidence but not conclusive proof.

Since so many of the early records for this part of Virginia have been lost or destroyed, we have to consider at least what the absent records might reveal if we could resurrect them. There was another Bellamy in the vicinity who could conceivably be the father (or brother or even son) of John Bellamy of Fluvanna, and he was a very different sort of man than the John Bellamy of Goochland. In his book, The Cabells and Their Kin (1895), author Alexander Brown lists attorneys who could have been involved with Dr. William Cabell in his numerous land cases, including one named William Bellamy, who qualified to practice law in Goochland County, VA, in 1739. I have searched far and wide for more information about this William, including examining Alexander Brown’s papers, which are part of a Special Collections archive at the College of William and Mary. However, so far, the only evidence I have managed to turn up is from an article in the Virginia Magazine of History & Biography, Vol XXX, no. 1 (Jan, 1922). A Lt. William Bellamy is on a list of “gentlemen” commissioned to command forces from Virginia for the Carthagena Expedition in 1740. It seems likely that this is the same William Bellamy referred to by Alexander Brown.

This military expedition to Carthagena, the Spanish stronghold on the north coast of South America, was the first occasion to employ troops from the American colonies outside their own continent in a war between Great Britain and another powerful European nation. According to Tobias Smollett, the novelist, who served as a surgeon’s mate during the Carthagena campaign in one of Admiral Vernon’s ships and wrote an account of it, the suggestion to raise troops in America came from Col. Alexander Spotswood, Lt. Governor of Virginia, a colony that was conspicuous for enthusiasm in answering the call for volunteers.

William Bellamy could have been one of those killed in South America, along with several other Virginians who died there, fighting the Spanish. Nothing further is known of him, but continuing research may reveal new information. So far there is no proof that he is in any way connected to John Bellamy of Fluvanna (i.e., John-II), but this William is certainly in the right place at about the right time to have had some connection to this line of Bellamys in Virginia. It is of some interest to me that both Benjamin and John-III, sons of John-II, named their firstborn sons William, not John.

What is possible to prove, however—from later records in Fluvanna County—is that the John Bellamy of Fluvanna County, who may or may not have been the son of John Bellamy of Goochland (but probably was), had two sons named Benjamin and John. And that is the next part of the story.

Benjamin and John III
(*This seems to have been the first generation whose family members consistently spelled their names as “Bellomy” rather than “Bellamy,” though the original English spelling was “Bellamy.” Among later generations, some families retained the “-omy” ending; others returned to the original “-amy” ending. When my well-meaning Uncle Roy told me in the mid-20th century that “Bellamy” had once been spelled with an “o,” I said, “You mean, ‘O’Bellamy’”? He said, “Yes.” This error led me, for some years, to believe that I was descended from an Irishman named O’Bellamy!)

We know from a Virginia census taken in 1782 that Benjamin Bellomy is listed in Fluvanna County with a family of seven and John Bellomy is listed next to Benjamin with a family of five. Previous researchers have made the assumption that the John in Fluvanna in 1782 is Benjamin’s brother John (i.e. John III). We will see, in a moment, how this error came about, and how additional evidence refutes it.

We now know that the children of Benjamin and Dorothy Bellomy were:

Molly Bellomy, b. abt. 1768.
William Lee Bellomy, b. 1770
Matthew Bellomy, b. 1774
John Bellomy, b. 1775
Elizabeth Bellomy, b. 1779
Frances Bellomy, b. abt. 1781
Dorothy Bellomy, Benjamin’s wife, would have also taken one slot in the census, and this accounts for all seven.

How do we know that the above listed children are the real offspring of Benjamin and Dorothea Bellomy?

We know about Molly Bellomy from a marriage bond filed in Fluvanna County for her marriage to John Moore in 1785. John Moore and Benjamin Bellomy are co-sponsors of the bond, which may still be seen in the Fluvanna County Courthouse. John Moore was a near neighbor of the Bellomys as seen in land records. Later in life, John and Molly Moore follow members of this Bellomy family to northwestern Virginia in an area that became West Virginia.

We know that William Lee Bellomy is the son of Benjamin and Dorothy because of records in Henry Co, VA, and Gallia Co., OH. Benjamin and Dorothy follow William, their eldest son, from Fluvanna County to Henry County and from Henry County to Gallia County, where William and Benjamin are side-by-side in tax records for the year 1812. Benjamin must have died soon after because he drops out of sight after 1812. Also in a deposition that William gave in support of his brother-in-law Martin Amos' petition for a pension for his Revolutionary War service, William says that when he was a boy growing up in Fluvanna County, VA, he remembered seeing Martin Amos ride by with a cockade in his hat, indicating that he was a soldier. When William died in Gallia Co., OH, in 1845, his age was given as 75, indicting that his birth date was 1770.

We know that Matthew Bellomy was the son of Benjamin because of a record in the Fluvanna Co., VA, Courthouse, Order Book 1792-1796, p. 108, for October 17, 1795: "The Petition of Matthew Bellomy, an infant under the age of twenty-one years by Benjamin Bellomy, his father and next friend, against William Appleberry for five pounds said to be owed by account is discontinued, the said Petitioner not further prosecuting the same, and it is ordered that the said Benjamin Bellomy pay unto the Defendant his costs by him about his defense in his behalf expended." (Note: This is a simple filing in order to secure payment of an unpaid debt. It is in no way a “paternity suit,” as has been claimed in some research. Matthew must have been only a few months under the age of twenty-one when this petition was filed, but the term “infant” was legal parlance of the time for anyone too young to file suits or petitions on their own.)

We know that John Bellomy was the son of Benjamin and Dorothy because he is listed as the son of “Benjamin and Dolly Bellamy” in the Wayne County, WVA, Death Records, 1853-1969. Date of death, June 26, 1853, age 80. (Note: Either the 1850 census or his age at death is slightly off. In the 1850 census he is listed as 75.) John is also listed in Fluvanna County in January, 1796, when the marriage bond is filed for John's marriage to Susanna Beckerton (misspelled "Becarton"). The bond is co-sponsored by John and Benjamin Bellomy. The marriage was performed by Rev. William Baskett of Lyles Baptist Church in January, 1796, and recorded in the Clerk's Office in Fluvanna County, VA, July 26, 1796. There are also extensive records of this John Bellomy in Henry County, VA, with Benjamin, Dorothy, and family from 1800 until 1811.

We know that Elizabeth Bellomy is the daughter of Benjamin and Dorothy Bellomy because of her birth record in the Douglas Register. She was born in January 23, 1779, and christened October 20, 1781. Also there are numerous records in Henry Co., VA, indicating that she is a member of Benjamin's family. (Note: the birth record of Elizabeth in the Douglas Register is sometimes given as the marriage date for Benjamin and Dorothy. However, a close reading of the Douglas Register indicates that this is a birth record, not a marriage record. This misconception plus the phrase “my now wife” in regard to Dorothy in various Fluvanna County land transactions has led some researchers to believe that Dorothy was the mother of Elizabeth but not of the earlier of Benjamin’s children. However, “now wife” is a commonly used phrase in 18th century court documents in Virginia and does not necessarily indicate that the person referred to ever had an earlier wife. We know from John’s death record in Wayne County, WVA, that his mother was Dorothy, and John was born much earlier than Elizabeth. There is really no credible evidence that Benjamin ever had any other wife than Dorothy Ham. Incidentally, “Ham” is the usual English spelling, “Hamm” the usual German spelling. In spite of numerous misspellings in records, my study of the Virginia Hams thus far indicates that Dorothy was of English descent, and her name is always spelled “Ham” not “Hamm.”)

We know that Frances Bellomy was a daughter of Benjamin and Dorothy Bellomy because of her presence in numerous Fluvanna and Henry County, VA, records with other members of this Bellomy family and because of her marriage to Martin Amos and the aforementioned pension application.

Four marriage bonds in Fluvanna County are pertinent to our search. They are the bonds for the aforementioned marriages of Molly (1785), John (1796), and of two other Bellomys, James (1799), and Jackson Bellomy (1800). The first two include Benjamin as part of the agreement, the second two, James and Jackson, do not.

The marriage of Molly Bellomy was sponsored by Benjamin Bellomy.

The marriage bond of John Bellomy reads: “Know all men by these presents, that we John Bellomy and Benjamin Bellomy are here and firmly bound to Robert B---, Esq, Governor of Virginia, in the sum of one hundred and fifty pounds, to be paid to the said Governor…. This 20th day of January, 1796. The ? of this obligation is such that whereas there is a marriage shortly to be entered into and solemnized between the above bound John Bellomy and Susanna Becarton. If therefore there is no lawful cause to obstruct this marriage, then this obligation ? to remain in full force and virtue. Sealed and delivered: John Bellomy & Benjamin Bellomy.” Rev. William Baskett solemnized the marriage within a week of this bond and the record was recorded in Fluvanna County Clerk’s office on July 26th, 1796.

The marriage bond of James Bellomy with similar wording is found in December 1799—except for the presence of Benjamin, who is not mentioned. This bond is made by James Bellomy and William Pace, the father of the bride-to-be, Nancy Pace. In December, 1800, Jackson Bellomy m. Susanna Pace, daughter of William Pace. The bond is made by Jackson Bellomy and Lewis Rowe. The presence of Lewis Rowe is significant, as we shall see later. Again no mention of Benjamin Bellomy. In fact, Benjamin and Dorothy Bellomy were already in Henry County by this date, having sold their land in December, 1798.

From the above records, we know that the Paces and Bellomys were likely members of the same church, the Lyles Baptist Church, for whose benefit John Pace had given an acre of land in the early days of the formation of the church and whose pastor during the period of the Bellomy marriages, Rev. Baskett, was, in fact, married to a Pace himself. That John, James, and Jackson Bellomy were living in such close proximity and were members of the same church and were married in nearby years certainly argues that they may have been brothers or, if not brothers, then at least members of the same extended family. However, that they were all sons of Benjamin, which is a theory put forth by Bill Bellomy and others, is difficult to reconcile with the evidence found in Henry County, VA, and Gallia County, OH, the locations where Benjamin and Dorothy Bellomy and several of their children lived following their days in Fluvanna.

There are no records of any sort that show Reuben Rowe, James, Jackson, or Mary Bellomy with Benjamin Bellomy. James and Jackson married in Fluvanna County in 1799 and 1800, respectively, and Benjamin and Dorothy Bellomy had lived in Fluvanna County. But they sold their land in Fluvanna in 1798 and were no longer there at the time of these marriages.

In examining the records for Benjamin’s brother, John Bellomy, researchers have the benefit of John’s will, which was probated in Louisa County, VA, in 1815. In the will, John mentions his children: William R., Jane Bellomy, Lucy Bellomy, and Elizabeth Bellomy. Since the 1782 Virginia census listed the John Bellomy next to Benjamin with a family of five, most researchers looked at the will and looked at the number of dependents at “five” in that 1782 census and concluded that one was for the wife and the other four were, obviously, William R., Jane, Lucy, and Elizabeth. John Bellomy had only four children! Case Closed. However, this is an error!

Since all of the children of Benjamin were not known at that time, several children listed in various records—namely James, Jackson, Reuben Rowe, and Mary—whose parents were not known were often attributed to Benjamin in order to fill out his seven available slots. This is also an error!

The reason for the error is that the John Bellomy listed in Fluvanna County in 1782 with five dependents is actually Benjamin and John’s father John-II, who was still very much alive and kicking in 1782, as I will prove a little later.

Some researchers believe that the records in Fluvanna County, VA, suggest that Benjamin’s brother John Bellomy was still present in Fluvanna as late as 1784. However, we know from various Louisa County, VA, records that John acquired land in Louisa as early as 1780. The following indenture was entered in Book H of the Louisa County records, p. 182: “This indenture made this August 11th day of 1780 between John Harlow of the county of Albemarle of the one part and John Bellomy of Louisa County of the other part. Witnesseth that the said Mr. J. Harlow hath this day Bargained and Sold unto John Bellomy one certain tract or land lying and being in the county of Louisa, one hundred acres by estimation…lying by the Sycamore Fork Creek…Brown line…etc. for the sum of 600 pounds of Virginia Currency, etc. Signed, Sealed, and Delivered in Presents of Th Harlow, John Rowe, Bradley Bellyme.
Recorded and proved April 8, 1782. Deed of Thomas Harlow by oath of John Rowe and by Thomas Wade and Bradley Bellinmy.”

That this deed was settled and recorded by April, 1782, is especially significant because it establishes beyond any doubt that Benjamin’s brother John Bellomy was a resident of Louisa County by October of 1782 when the special Head Count census was conducted. The Virginia Legislature had required all county clerks to take a head count, which was to be delivered by October 20th, 1782. Any family failing to cooperate with this census was to be fined one thousand pounds of tobacco, and any county clerk failing to cooperate and deliver the results in a timely manner was to be fined five thousand pounds of tobacco. This census is important because, unlike so many of the other early censuses, this one asks for the census takers to report the number of dependents as well as the Head of Household. (After the British destroyed the Federal censuses for Virginia for the years 1790, 1800, and 1810 when they burned Washington, DC, in 1814, these Federal censuses were reconstructed from the 1782 head count and other state sources, but the 1782 head count was the only one that listed dependents.)

Those few researchers who have gone looking for the presence of Benjamin’s brother John Bellomy on the 1782 census in Louisa County have searched in vain, which persuaded them even more that the John in Fluvanna must have been John III. The reason John III could not be found in Louisa County is that—as so often happened in those days—his name was misspelled. He is to be found under the name of “John Bellame.” I am quoting here from the Louisa County Census of 1782, Hundred #1, 20 October 1782, taken by Turner Anderson and Henry Garrett, which is published in Louisa County, Virginia Tithables and Census, 1743-1785, edited and compiled by Rosalie Edith Davis. John Bellame is listed with 10 dependents. Also listed in the same “hundred,” which means they lived nearby are: Jno. Row—8, Jesee Row—4, Saml Bunch—6, Saml Bunch Jr—2, Johnson Row—4, James Row—3, Joseph Bunch—3, Molley Bunch—8, Ambrose Flanagan—6, Richard Morris—2. All of these names are associated with the John Bellomy III branch in one way or another. What is most obvious is that when John III left his father and brother behind in Fluvanna, he was moving to a place where he was surrounded by his wife’s kin, the Rowes.

Okay, if John Bellomy III had ten dependents in 1782, who were they? One was his wife, Susan Rowe. (We know that John Bellomy III was married to Susan Rowe because of the research of Jim Brown who quotes from the Bible of Andrew B. Bellamy: “Great Grandparents of Andrew B. Bellamy were John Bellamy and wife Susan Roe.”) The other slots would certainly include Reuben Rowe Bellomy, James Bellomy, and Jackson Bellomy, the sons who have often erroneously been attributed to Benjamin Bellomy. So the revised family of John III would look like this:

Parents: John Bellomy & Susan Rowe (also spelled Roe or Row)

Children:
William Rowe Bellomy (who had sons named Reuben, James & John)
Reuben Rowe Bellomy (who had sons named William R, James, & John)
James Bellomy (who had sons named William, Reuben, & James Reuben)
Jackson Bellomy (who had a son named William)
Mary Bellomy (married Charles Bunch, June 7, 1792)
Jane Bellomy
Lucy Bellomy
Elizabeth Bellomy
One other, perhaps Bradley Bellomy.

If this is the actual configuration of the family of John III, why didn’t John III mention Reuben Rowe, James, and Jackson in his will? Well, these sons were the pioneers of the family. They had left home seeking new land and adventure, and—by 1815—they had been gone a long time. (We know that Reuben Rowe went to Madison Co., KY, and then on to Missouri. We know that James went to Hawkins Co., Tennessee, and to Scott Co., VA, shortly after James’ and Jackson’s marriages to the Pace sisters in 1799 and 1800 respectively.) William Rowe was the one who stayed home and took care of things, so William Rowe was the son who inherited the farm. (We are also speaking of a time when first sons tended to inherit the lion’s share of the wealth in any family regardless of who left or who stayed home.) Reuben, James, and Jackson had either already received their portion, which may have been nothing more than a horse and saddle to help them on their way, or, just as likely, their father might have felt that they had already established themselves faraway and nothing he had to give them was likely to be of use. He was not a wealthy man. He had a finite amount to bequeath, and he preferred to invest it with those who were still at home and those who still needed his support. In addition, in Jackson’s case, although his precise date of death is not known, it is believed to be 1815. So it is quite possible that Jackson died before his father did.

Why didn’t John mention his daughter Mary in his will? Mary had married Charles Bunch in 1792 and therefore her well-being was legally the responsibility of her husband. The daughters he does include were all those who remained unmarried.

This is a similar approach to will writing that John III’s probable brother Samuel took in Bedford County. We know from the 1782 census that Samuel had nine dependents when he was a resident of Powhatan County, but Samuel leaves everything to “his beloved son Benjamin” as a gift May 27, 1811. Samuel’s son Benjamin is under instruction to take care of his mother until her decease and his unmarried sisters until they marry. Then in 1822, when Samuel actually dies, he makes a will and leaves everything remaining to his unmarried daughter Patsey. Others of his children are not mentioned.

Another argument that suggests James, Reuben Rowe, and Jackson were sons of John III rather than Benjamin is in their migration patterns and the migration patterns of their children. William Rowe Bellomy, named in his father’s will in 1815, as we’ve said, stayed at home. But his son James Morris Bellomy left Louisa Co., VA, and immigrated to Hawkins Co., TN, just as his namesake uncle James (who married Nancy Pace) had done earlier. William, the son of Jackson, married Malinda Wininger in Scott Co., VA, and then went on to Alabama. Reuben and his brood also went south and west, through Kentucky on the way to Missouri.

Benjamin Bellomy and all of his children and their descendants went to the tri-state area located in and around what today is Wayne County, West Virginia, but back then was mostly Cabell County, Virginia. As early as 1799, son Matthew Bellomy was the first settler to Kenova, which is on the Big Sandy River near its junction with the Ohio River and literally a mile or so from the intersection of the states of Ohio, Kentucky, and West Virginia. It was a great choice of location for that day and age because it was the equivalent of building your cabin at the intersection of two great Interstate Highways, the Ohio River and the Big Sandy. Matthew’s brother, John, came a little bit later to Wayne, about 1811, after he left Henry County. Old Benjamin himself and his eldest son William went to Gallia County, Ohio, just a short boat ride up the Ohio River from Cabell and Wayne. There Benjamin died between 1812 and 1816, and William died at age 75 in 1845. Benjamin’s two sons John and Matthew were still in Wayne as late as the 1850 census, along with several families of descendants. Even Molly Bellomy Moore and her husband John Moore from Fluvanna County ended up in Wayne. Frances Bellomy Amos and Martin Amos were nearby also, in Gallia County. This was a very close-knit family group. Other descendants and Benjamin’s daughter Elizabeth who married Townley Hannah were in Greenup Co, KY, again not far, just across the Big Sandy River, from Wayne County.

More Fluvanna County Evidence
Additional evidence that the John listed in the 1782 census as next door to Benjamin is “John the father” (i.e. John-II) and not “John the son” (i.e. John III) is to be found in the Fluvanna County Court records. We already know that “John the son” purchased land in Louisa County in 1780 and in the indenture is already referred to as “of Louisa County.” We also know that he is listed in the 1782 census in Louisa County as “John Bellame” with ten dependents. But a 1784 court case in Fluvanna County lends further support to this conclusion. It is the case of “Salley Bellomy, an infant, by John Bellomy, her next friend, against Anthony Ascue and Jemina, his wife.”

The term, “an infant,” is a legalism simply meaning that the Plaintiff is under 21 years of age, and the term “next friend” is given to the person representing them, who is often a relative, and must be someone over 21 years of age. Since she was under 21 years of age, Salley Bellomy could not bring a suit on her own. She may have been as old as twenty years old and would still have been referred to as “an infant” by the court.

Unfortunately for us, the court records do not describe what complaint Salley Bellomy might have had against the Askews, but it must have been something very serious because a panel of arbitrators was convened and the trial lasted for twelve days running, which was a long trial for that place and time. We do know that for the previous several years Benjamin Bellomy and “John Bellomy” had been embroiled in a dispute over the land they held mutually in Fluvanna County, and the Askews were a party to this dispute. Most researchers have assumed that this dispute involved Benjamin and his brother John, and researcher Bill Bellomy has even come up with an imaginative scenario that had Benjamin selling land that was partially John’s while John was away fighting in the Revolutionary War and then John returning to find his land already in possession of the Askews (to whom Benjamin sold it) and then raising hell about it—until Benjamin bought the land back and the brothers reached a mutually satisfactory solution in 1784.

However, in examining the court records, I believe the dispute was actually between Benjamin and his father John. Benjamin’s brother John had already moved to Louisa County, as we’ve seen, long before 1784. Perhaps it is easier to imagine the likelihood of an argument between two brothers over land, especially if it is land they’ve recently inherited, than to imagine an argument between a father and son over that same land. But, to me, the evidence simply seems to favor the latter interpretation.

In the first place, John the father had not yet died. The court case involving Salley Bellomy indicates that it was old John who was Salley’s “next friend.” This also proves that old John had a daughter still at home who was under 21 years of age (and undoubtedly three dependents other than his wife), which would have made him a Head of Household for the purposes of the 1782 head count census, though he was a man in his early seventies. (Most of the male Bellomys of this era lived to be 75-80 years of age. If John was born in about 1710, as we determined earlier, he was about 74 in 1784. If Salley was 20, she would have been born when old John was 54. We do not know the age of old John’s wife Mary, but Salley could be from a second marriage, or Mary could be the mother of Salley if she were younger than her husband by, say, seven or eight years. {I have no doubt that a Bellomy male of 54 could father a child, since there are innumerable examples of Bellomy males in this family who fathered children at ages well beyond that.})

The first relevant early land document in Fluvanna County is as follows:
“This Indenture made this 26th Day of September, 1781, Between Benjamin Bellemy and Dorothy, my now wife, of the County of Fluvanna of the one part, and William Askew of the same county of the other part. Witnesseth that the said Benjamin Bellemy for and in Consideration of Twenty pounds of Good and Lawfull money of Virginia Hath Bargained and Sold unto the said William Askew, his heirs, etc.…one Tract of Land lying in the said County on a Branch of Ballenger’s Creek called the Bold Branch, by estimation one hundred acres more or less and bounded as followeth…concluding at the plantations whereon the said Benjamin and John Bellemy, his Father, now live…. Witnesses: John A. Strange, John Pace, Anthony Askew.” Here we have indisputable evidence that old John is, indeed, Benjamin’s father, and also evidence that they are living on the same piece of land in Fluvanna County.

On April 3, 1782, Anthony Askew of Fluvanna sells to Benjamin Bellemy of Fluvanna for 50 pounds, 100 acres of land “on a branch of Ballenger’s Creek called Ben’s Branch,” bounded by Taylor, a new line agreed on between Askew and Bellemy. This is an additional 100 acres acquired by Benjamin on a different branch of Ballenger’s Creek, possibly adjacent to land he previously owned. This may very well be the land—next to Taylor—described in the land plat book from Albemarle County that was owned by Benjamin’s father John Bellomy in 1755 prior to his acquiring the land on Bold Branch, which is the earliest land record we have for John-II in what became Fluvanna County. This fact may indicate that this tract next to Taylor was Benjamin’s boyhood home.

Then we have the sudden undoing of these two purchases: “This Indenture made this third day of October, 1782, Between William Askew of the County of Fluvanna of the one part and Benjamin Bellomy of the said County of the other part. Witnesseth that the said William Askew for and in consideration of the sum of twenty pounds of good and lawfull money of Virginia in hand paid to the said William Askew before the Sealing and Delivery hereof hath Bargained and Sold unto Benjamin Bellemy, his heirs, etc…all that right which the said William Askew hath invested in him to one Tract or parcel of Land, which the above said Benjamin Bellemy hath of late by a Deed bearing Date 1781 hath conveyed to the said Wm. Askew, his heirs, etc…and the said William Askew will not nor doth not Warrant nor Defend the said land from the claim of any person but the said William Askew, his Heirs, etc. Witnesses: William Oglesby, Daniel Lightfoot, Richard Omahundro.” This is the document where Benjamin buys back the same land he sold to William Askew just a year earlier for exactly the same price, and Askew indicates by the wording of the document that someone has apparently challenged ownership of the land. That person, I believe, was Benjamin’s father.

On the same day, October 3, 1782, Benjamin sells back to Anthony Askew for twenty pounds (a thirty pound loss) the 100 acres he purchased from Askew the previous April, 1782, just six months before, “one tract of land in Fluvanna (including the plantation where said Bellemy now lives) on the branch of Ballenger’s Creek called Ben’s Branch, bounded by Taylor.” Between April and October, Benjamin had apparently moved to the new land, which he might have wanted because it was his boyhood home (and the branch of Ballenger’s Creek was even named “Ben’s Branch”). Yet he sells it in order to return everything, apparently, to the way it was before any of his dealings with the Askews. It seems that Benjamin was willing to go to great lengths to make things right with his father.

What objections old John might have had to these transactions is not known, and what right he had to make the objections is not known. Maybe Benjamin’s move simply placed him farther away from his father, and old John felt insecure because of it and wanted things the way they had been. If old John had originally given or sold the land to Benjamin, perhaps he felt he had an implicit right to say how things ought to be. But if that was the case, no record has been found to substantiate such a transaction. Perhaps old John “gave” Benjamin the land at a time when he was feeling prosperous and then thought better of it as he grew older and less well off. Whatever the cause of friction between father and son, it is evident from this history that old John and his family may have had some grievances against the Askews for their part in the land dealings. It may certainly be relevant to a consideration of Salley Bellomy’s lawsuit against the Askews, as we shall see now.

Pp. 105-106, Fluvanna County Order Book 1783-1791: in the case of Salley Bellomy, an infant by John Bellomy, her next friend, against Anthony Ascue and Jemina his wife: “The Arbitrators to whom the determination of the matter in difference between the parties in this cause was submitted by a Rule of the Court of November last returned their award in these words: ‘In obedience to an order of Fluvanna Court we the subscribers have had under consideration on the suit of Salley Bellomy, Plaintiff, against Anthony Askew and wife and find for the Defendant. Given under our hands this 5th day of August, 1784.’ Signed George Thompson, Samuel Richardson, John Ashlin. In confirmation whereof it is considered by the Court that the Plaintiff take nothing by her bill, but for her false Clamour be in mercy and that the Defendants go hence without delay and recover against John Bellomy, the Prosecutor of this suit as next friend to said Salley as aforesaid, their costs by them about their defense in this behalf expended.”

Further entries about the witnesses are also of considerable interest because of what they tell us about the relationships: “On the motion of John Bellomy, Jun, a witness for John Bellomy against Anthony Askew and wife, it is ordered that the said John Bellomy pay him 840 lbs of tobacco for twelve days attendance at this Court and nine times coming 15 miles from Louisa County and returning, as the Law directs.” This is the only time in any document that old John’s son John is referred to as “John Bellomy, Jr.” and it establishes beyond doubt that the John in Louisa County is the son of John Bellomy of Fluvanna. It further establishes that by 1784 (and undoubtedly sooner than that) John Bellomy, Jr., was living in Louisa County and not in Fluvanna County.

Further witness payments from this trial: “On the motion of William Askew, a witness for Anthony Askew and Jemina his wife at the suit of John Bellomy. It is ordered that the said Anthony and Jemina pay him 600 lbs of tobacco for Eight days attendance at this Court and five times coming twenty miles from Albemarle County and returning, as the law directs.” Apparently, William Askew (either the father, brother, or son of Anthony) had moved to Albemarle by the time of this trial, though he had previously lived in Fluvanna. Presumably, John Bellomy would have had to reimburse Anthony Askew for the 600 lbs of tobacco thus expended because these were partial costs of his defense.

“On the motion of Benjamin Bellomy and Dorotha his wife, it is ordered that Anthony Askew and Jemina his wife pay him 300 lbs of tobacco for Twelve days attendance of the said Dorotha at this Court as a witness for them in the suit of John Bellomy, as the law directs.” The payment is less because Dorothy did not have to travel from a distant county, but old John also owed these 300 lbs to Anthony Askew and wife, since these were additional costs for their defense. Altogether, old John had to pay 840 lbs + 600 lbs + 300 lbs = 1740 lbs of tobacco—for the witnesses alone. Old John must have been livid.

The startling aspect of these entries is that old John’s son Benjamin and daughter-in-law Dorothy Bellomy were aligned against old John and their niece Salley and were testifying in behalf of the Askews. John Jr. was supporting his father and Salley. William Askew was supporting Anthony Askew. Whatever the cause of the suit, the appointed arbitrators listened to the testimony and decided the case was trumped up, and they threw it out and made old John pay the court costs.

What could Benjamin’s wife Dorothy Bellomy have known that would have been crucial to the case? Could she have overheard Salley plotting to “get” the Askews? Could Salley have been working for the Askews in some capacity and have claimed that she was not paid in full for her services? But in that case, how would John Jr.’s testimony have been useful? Apparently the details of the case were so well-known to the participants that the clerk thought it entirely unnecessary to write them down.

In July of 1784, while this case was proceeding, but before it was decided that August, Benjamin and old John came to an agreement about a division of their land. The Court records it as follows: “To all that it may concern. Whereas John Bellomy and Benjamin Bellomy have had for some time past a dispute about the Land whereon each of them lives, they, the above Parties, have this day agreed to divide the Tract of Land that they live on in the following manner. John Bellomy is to have the land belonging to the Tract whereon he lives that lies on the North side of the Road that leads from the Broken Back Church to Lyle’s, that being the side whereon the said John now lives. And Benjamin Bellomy is to have the Land belonging to the Tract that lies on the south side of the said Road, that being the side where the said Benjamin now lives.” We know from previous examination of the records that John Bellomy, Jr., was unquestionably in Louisa County by this date, so the John mentioned here must be Benjamin’s father and not his brother John.

Further proceedings recorded in August, 1784, reveal the following:
In the case of John Bellamy against Benjamin Bellamy: “By agreement of the parties this Cause is dismissed and judgment is granted the Defendant against the Plaintiff for his Costs by him about his defense in his behalf expended.” So old John had some additional court costs to pay, though the amount is not indicated. In the case of Benjamin Bellamy against John Bellamy: “By agreement of the Parties this Cause is dismissed.” No mention of costs is made in the second case.

By May of 1785, old John sells his half of the land to William White for 30 lbs. The description of the land is “Beginning on Bold Branch…whereon the said Bellomy now lives.” It is unquestionably the same land that Benjamin bought back from the Askews and that was, for a time, in dispute between father and son. Where old John took his little family after this transaction is not known—perhaps to be near one of his other sons—but surely he could not have had many more years to live. (No will has been found for John-II.) If the censuses had not been destroyed, we would probably be able to pinpoint his location. It is easy to imagine that he might have left to escape any bad feelings engendered by the disagreements and court cases that had preceded his departure. He might not have been willing to forgive his neighbor Anthony Askew, in particular. But it is also easy to read too much into the cold details of land transactions and court cases. In my experience, Bellamys are sometimes quick to anger, but they are also quick to forgive, especially when it comes to members of their own families. I cannot help believing that—whomever may have been in the wrong—Benjamin and his father John found a way beyond their differences and ended on good terms with one another.

Benjamin and Dolly and their family stayed on the small fifty-acre plot remaining to them on the Bold Branch south of the road leading between the Broken Back Church and Lyle’s for the next thirteen years—until they sold it in 1798 to John Ross for one hundred and twenty dollars and moved with most of their family members to Henry County.


Henry County, Virginia, Records
A number of court cases in which the litigious Bellomys were involved show that Benjamin and Dorothy Bellomy moved to Henry County, VA, after they left Fluvanna County in 1798. Most likely they moved to Henry County because their eldest son, William Lee Bellomy, was already established in Henry County and probably invited them to join him there. As early as 1794 in Henry County, we find that William Bellomy (misspelled Belleman) marries Nelly (or Eleanor) Molin (also Moland or Mullin) with Philip Molin as security and witness. Also, William Bellomy (correctly spelled) shares a marriage bond with his brother-in-law, Hezekiah Moland on March 28, 1797, when Hezekiah marries Susanna Simpson in Henry County.

William signs his own name in a fluent hand on this marriage bond, indicating a certain level of education, which is probably why he was enlisted to represent his father Benjamin in March, 1801, in Henry County in a suit against John Pelphrey for an unpaid debt that Pelphey owed Benjamin. (Benjamin, as we know from other documents, was illiterate and always signed his name with an X.) Pelphrey’s original IOU is also in the records: “I promise to pay or to be paid unto Benjamin Bellomy the just and full sum of four pounds current money of Virginia to be paid unto him or his heirs or assigns on or before the 25th day of December next for value Received of him as witness. My hand this 17th day of March, 1800. Signed John Pelphrey (with an X).” The document is witnessed by Benjamin’s daughter Elizabeth Bellomy and by John Pelphrey Jr. Apparently John Pelphrey Sr. did not pay by Christmas of 1800 and was then taken to court in March, 1801, and there Benjamin (with William’s help) finally got his money.

The records also show that in addition to Benjamin’s son William and his daughter Elizabeth, Benjamin’s son John and his daughter Frances (or Franky) are living in Henry County during this period. (John, you will recall, married Susanna “Becarton” in Fluvanna County, VA, in 1796 with Benjamin providing part of the bond money.) John and Susanna probably accompanied Benjamin and Dorothy to Henry County after the elder Bellomys sold their land in Fluvanna in 1798.

In 1804 in Henry County, VA, we find a marriage bond in which Benjamin’s daughter Elizabeth Bellomy (misspelled as Bellama) is committed to marry one Townley Hannah. The document is signed by Townley Hannah and Elizabeth’s brother, John Bellomy, who served as security and witness.

Incidentally, there are Paces living in Henry County too at this time, just as there were in Fluvanna. In 1804, Samuel Hunter marries Salley Pace, who lists John Pace as her father with Peyton Hunter recorded as security and witness. I do not know whether or not this John Pace is related to the Paces of Fluvanna County, but it would not surprise me if he were.

Another family that appears to have come from Fluvanna to Henry and that later connects to these Bellomys after they left Henry County is that of Martin Amos. Martin Amos married Frances Bellomy, Benjamin and Dolly’s daughter and the sister of William, John, Matthew, Molly, and Elizabeth, in Cabell Co., VA, September 20, 1811. William Lee Bellomy provided a deposition for Martin Amos, as mentioned, when Amos applied for a pension for his Revolutionary War service in the 1830s. William testified that he lived “within about three miles of the residence of the father of Martin Amos in Fluvanna County, Virginia” when he was a boy and that he remembered seeing Martin Amos ride by on his horse wearing a cockade in his hat, which was presumably evidence that Amos had indeed been a soldier. Later, Amos received his pension. (William does not mention in his deposition that he was Martin Amos’ brother-in-law, probably because he knew it might be perceived by the authorities as a conflict of interest.)

Another interesting connection to the Amos family that might be worth further work: William Woodson, the third witness to the will of John Bellamy of Goochland in 1729, was the son of Benjamin Woodson and Sarah Porter. (Benjamin Woodson was the one who originally sold the land at Indian Grave Creek to the first John Bellamy.) The mother of Benjamin Woodson’s wife Sarah Porter was Margaret Amos, the sister of Valentine Amos, who was Martin Amos’ grandfather. So the connections between the Amoses, the Woodsons, and the Bellomys go back a long way. To put this another way: the Woodson family was closely associated with John I. Benjamin Woodson's wife's mother was a sister of Martin Amos's grandfather. Martin Amos married the granddaughter of John II. So both John I and John II had significant connections to this Amos family. This may seem a bit circuitous, but it is one of the few strings of details we have that shows a definite and traceable connection between John I and John-II, further supporting the theory that they were, indeed, father and son.

William Bellomy vs. Bartlett Wade
Without doubt, the biggest and most contentious court fight that the Bellomys undertook in Henry County involved a boundary dispute between Benjamin’s son William and a man named Bartlett Wade. Wade sued William Bellomy for 1000 pounds, claiming that Bellomy had “with saw, hoes, and plows upon the absence of the Plaintiff did enter and then and there did destroy 100 oakes, 100 pines, and 100 poplars,” that were the trees of the Plaintiff, “and did then and there plow up and destroy the land of the Plaintiff” and committed other atrocities against the peace and dignity of the Commonwealth and to the great injury of the Plaintiff Bartlett Wade.

The Henry County court ordered a survey of the disputed boundary, and the surveyor, named Thomas Barton, “tracing the lines by the compass,” found that the problem seemed to be with a fence erected between the two properties. The documentation does not say who built the fence in the first place, but the fence curved back and forth across the actual line (as shown in Barton’s detailed drawing) so that a small part of Bellomy’s land was on Wade’s side of the fence and a small part of Wade’s land was on Bellomy’s side. Precise boundaries were not usually plotted or enforceable in those days but were recorded as imaginary lines between trees and other natural landmarks. The discrepancies on either side of the fence, in this case, were about equal, and the claim that Bellomy had cut 300 trees that should have been Wade’s was ludicrous. Bellomy had probably just cut some trees on what he thought was his own land and then plowed up the ground in preparation for planting. Wade’s suit was thrown out, but apparently Wade was not satisfied.

A few months after Wade took Bellomy to court and lost, Bellomy sued Wade in October, 1800, for $1000 for slander! “William Bellamy complains of Bartlett Wade…to wit that whereas the Plaintiff is a good, true, honest, and faithful citizen of the Commonwealth, and as such hath ever behaved and demeaned himself from notoriety, by which he has obtained the good will and respect of his neighbors, yet the said Defendant, well knowing the principles but envying his happy state and condition, and maliciously intending to bring him, the said Plaintiff, into Disrepute and to subject him to the Punishment inflicted by the Laws of the County on those Guilty of Theft and Dishonesty, of which Crimes he had hitherto lived utterly free, clear, and unsuspected, he, the said Defendant on the 12th Day of January, 1800, at the place of the County aforesaid in the presence and hearing of many of the good Citizens of this Commonwealth, did maliciously utter and speak aloud of and concerning the Plaintiff the false, feigned, scandalous, and opprobrious English words following, to wit, that he (meaning the Plaintiff) was a damned Rogue and had stolen Fodder from Rowland and he could prove it. By outcry of speaking and publishing which false, feigned, scandalous, and opprobrious English words of and concerning the Plaintiff by the said Defendant, the said Plaintiff is greatly injured in his good name, fame, credit, and reputation aforesaid, and was in danger of being prosecuted as a felon guilty of theft and dishonesty, whereby the Plaintiff is injured to the Value of One Thousand Dollars.
Therefore he sues….”

In February, 1801, a duly appointed jury found in favor of William Bellomy, for damages. But 1801 is the last year that William is seen in the court records in this area. February 29, 1801, just a few days after his case is settled, Patrick County (county adjacent to Henry) records show that “William Lee Bellamy of the county of Bedford” sells his seventy acres on Smith’s River in Patrick County to Benjamin Bellamy for eighty pounds, the same amount William had paid for it in August, 1799, when he purchased it from John Dillion. (It is not clear from the description in the indenture if this is the same land where the boundary was in dispute with Wade {probably not}, or whether this is additional land owned by William.) Interestingly, William is described as “of the county of Bedford,” so he has already departed, probably gone to live for a time with his Uncle Samuel in Bedford County, until he could straighten out his affairs, sell his land, and determine the outcome of his court case in Henry County. Benjamin came to the rescue by buying William’s land so that William could put an end to this chapter in his life and move onward. One can imagine that with a neighbor like Wade, and with the local furor caused by their suits and counter-suits, William might have wished for a new beginning in a more benevolent environment. Witnesses for the land sale were: John Bellomy, Frankiaiah Bellomy, and Elizabeth Bellomy.

The next land record of interest is on November 5, 1806, when “Benjamin and Dorritha Bellemy of the county of Patrick” sell the seventy acres on Smith’s River they bought from William in 1801 to Samuel Philpott for fifty pounds. This is probably the time of their departure from Patrick and Henry counties when Benjamin and Dorothy then traveled northwest to join William, who had established himself by then in Gallia County, Ohio. It is interesting that they were willing to take thirty pounds less for the land than they had paid for it in order to move on. Their daughter Elizabeth had married Townley Hannah in 1804 and had probably already left for Greenup County, KY. Their son John remained in Henry County until about 1811, or at least that is the last date when John’s name appears in court records (when he serves as a witness).

William and Benjamin are found on the Gallia County, Ohio, Chattel List in 1812, living side by side as numbers 41 and 42. The Benjamin listed must be William’s father because William L’s son Benjamin was not born until 1816. Some time between 1812 and 1816 old Benjamin probably died, since, by then, he was a man in his mid-seventies approaching eighty, and William L. and Eleanor named their next son born in Ohio in memory of Benjamin.

The 1820 census reveals that William Lee and Eleanor Bellomy had seven sons and three daughters. Not all the sons have been identified, but Eliot, Matthew, Thomas, Joel Francis, and Benjamin are fairly well-established. The daughters were Lucinda, Nelly Emily, and Sina. Sons Benjamin and Thomas moved to Schuyler County, Illinois, though son Benjamin seems to have returned to Ohio later in life. Eliot’s sons (William L’s grandsons), Joshua Benjamin and William, immigrated to Decatur County, Iowa. Grandson William eventually moved on to Missouri. Judging from the volume of land that William L. sold to his sons and others in Gallia County, Ohio, late in life, he must have made excellent use of the one thousand dollars he received in the settlement of his slander case against Bartlett Wade.

One question that comes to mind after reviewing the Henry County records is, “Where was Benjamin and Dorothy’s son Matthew Bellomy while all the rest of his family—his mother and father, brothers and sisters—were in Henry and Patrick counties?” My first thought was that he could have been there too, and simply stayed out of the court records. Another possibility was the “Mathew Bellemy of Bedford County” who buys 138 acres in Patrick County in 1816 from John Ward of Campbell County for 250 dollars. Could Matthew have been living near or with his Uncle Samuel in Bedford County all that time? Then I found part of the answer: West Virginia records show that Mathew (one t) H. Bellomy built his cabin in Kenova in 1799! We know this is the correct Mathew because even as late as the 1850 census he is there in what is now Wayne County, West Virginia, still lists himself as Mathew (one t) Belamy or Belomy (one l) and is still married to the same wife, Nancy West. In 1850 he is living in Wayne County next to his brother John. Mathew must have left Fluvanna to head off into the virgin wilderness of western Virginia just after Benjamin and Dorothy sold their land there and moved to Henry County. In fact, Matthew Bellomy is listed as a witness to the aforementioned land transaction, which was dated December 7, 1798.

However, a Mathew Bellomy shows up in the 1810 census in Campbell County, VA, and a Mathew Bellamy buys 159 acres of land in Campbell and Bedford counties in 1817 (apparently it was one piece of land that straddled the border between the counties). No records have been found of where or when Mathew met and married his wife Nancy West, but we also know from research on the West family that the Wests were residents of Campbell County as well. So it seems likely that Mathew went first to Kenova and built his cabin, but that then he had a period of years living in Bedford and Campbell counties before returning to what is now Wayne County, West Virginia.

Was Samuel Bellamy a Brother of Benjamin and John Bellomy?
The records of Samuel Bellamy’s life in ancient Virginia are less revealing than those for Benjamin and his brother John. But if we examine all the available records for Samuel Bellamy in Virginia, there is certainly a pattern of circumstantial evidence that reveals that Samuel may have been Benjamin and John’s brother.

Samuel’s first appearance is in 1761 when he purchases 170 acres in Chesterfield County; and in 1762, he is listed as one of the tithables in Chesterfield County. From 1768 through 1790, Samuel Bellamy is found in either Powhatan or Cumberland counties. All three of these counties, starting with Cumberland to the west, then Powhatan, then Chesterfield to the east, are in a line just south or just southeast of Goochland and Fluvanna counties. In other words, Samuel was living nearby the other Bellomys we’ve been talking about for all of this time, usually just one county line away.

In 1794, “Samuel Bellima” of Bedford buys 150 acres of land in Bedford County on Turkey Hoe Creek from William Dameron for seventy pounds, and thereafter all of the records for Samuel Bellamy (usually spelled correctly) are in Bedford County. 1794 is the same year that Benjamin’s son William marries in Henry County, which is the county immediately south of Bedford County. Then, you may recall, when William left Henry County and sold some land in adjacent Patrick County in 1801, he was himself described as William Lee Bellomy of Bedford County. My point is that after Samuel moved from the area nearby the other Bellomys when they lived in Goochland or Fluvanna or Louisa counties, he moved to another area where he was nearby Benjamin’s branch of the same family. By 1799 Benjamin himself had moved to Henry County too.

Furthermore, the son to whom Samuel gifted his entire estate in Bedford County in 1811 was the son that he had named “Benjamin.”

Note: *We have recently established through the Bellamy/​Bellomy DNA Project at FamilyTreeDNA.com that a descendant of Samuel Bellamy is a match for descendants of Benjamin and John Bellomy of Fluvanna, which confirms that Samuel was undoubtedly another son of John-II.
(end of section)

Other chapters from The Bellamys of Early Virginia:

The Origins of John Bellamy of Goochland: Four detailed scenarios with research information regarding possible origins of the earliest known Bellamy ancestor of this line in Virginia.

Gone to Parts Unknown: The Difficult Trail from Benjamin Bellomy to Townley Hannah Bellamy.

The Life of Townley Hannah Bellamy (1831-1923), Benjamin Bellomy’s Great Grandson—“The Oldest Man Ever to Die in Oklahoma.”

******The Bellamys of Early Virginia is now available in hard and soft covers. It is a book of 333 + xix pages and includes a name index, appendix, bibliography, photo gallery, and genealogical trees from 1665 to the present. If you are interested in purchasing a copy of this book, please send a check for $32.50 for the hardcover (postpaid) or $22.50 for the paperback edition (postpaid) to: Joe David Bellamy, 5318 Lake Bluff Terrace, Sanford, Fl 32771.******

Go to the "Photos" section for more on the Bellamys by clicking on Photos at the top of this page.

Works Cited:
Ballagh, James Curtis. White Servitude in the Colony of Virginia: A Study of the System of Indentured Labor in the American Colonies. Johnson Reprint Corp, 1973.

Brown, Alexander. The Cabells and Their Kin. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin and Company, 1895.

Coffin, Robert P. Tristram & Witherspoon, Alexander M. Seventeenth-Century Prose and Poetry. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1957.

Ligon, Richard. A True and Exact History of the Island of Barbados, 1659, 1673. Reprinted London: Frank Cass, 1970.

Morgan, Edmund S. American Slavery, American Freedom: The Ordeal of Colonial Virginia. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1975.

Smith, Abbot Emerson. Colonists in Bondage. Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith, 1965.