Robert Bolling

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Colonel Robert Bolling (December 26, 1646 – July 17, 1709) was a wealthy early American settler and an ancestor of Presidents George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush.

He was born on Tower Street, All Hallows, Barking Parish, in London to John and Mary Bolling. John was one of the Bolings of Bolling Hall, near Bradford, England, who traced his ancestry back to Robert Bolling, Esquire, who died in 1479 and was buried in the family vault in the church of Bradford. According to Bolling Family oral tradition, the original deBolling family was Norman French, and came to Barking Parish with William the Conqueror.

Bolling arrived in the Virginia Coloney at the age of fourteen on October 2, 1660. At the age of twenty-nine he married Jane Rolfe the granddaughter of Pocahontas. They had one child, John Bolling, born on January 26, 1676. His descendants, the only American descendants of Pocahontas, are termed the "Red Bollings". They include Edith Bolling, wife of U. S. President Woodrow Wilson and John Randolph of Roanoke and George Wythe Randolph.

After his wife Jane died, Col. Bolling married his second wife Anne Stith, in 1681, with whom he had many children, termed the "White Bollings" including Robert Bolling, Jr., who was born on 25 January 1682. Both Presidents Bush are descended from Robert Bolling, Jr.

Robert Bolling died on July 17, 1709, and was buried on his plantation Kippax, in Prince George Co., Virginia, where his tomb still stands.

Archaeologist Donald W. Linebaugh, of the University of Kentucky, located the remains of Col. Bolling's house in Hopewell, Virginia in 2002.[1]

The Archaeological Conservancy is currently trying to buy the site of Kippax Plantation to protect it from development. Thomas Rolfe the son of Pocahontas and Robert Bolling's father-in-law, is buried there. The Archaeological Conservancy is in the process of raising the $205,000 needed for the purchase.[2]

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[edit] Sources

  • American Presidential Families, Hugh Brogan and Charles Mosley, MacMillan Publishing Company, New York, 1993.
  • Pocahontas, alias Matoaka, and her descendants : at Jamestown, Virginia, in April, 1614, with John Rolfe, gentleman : including the names of Alfriend, Archer, Bentley, Bernard, Bland, Bolling, Branch, Cabell, Catlett, Cary, Dandridge, Dixon, Douglas, Duval, Eldridge, Ellett, Ferguson, Field, Fleming, Gay, Gordon, Griffin, Grayson, Harrison, Hubard, Lewis, Logan, Markham, Meade, McRae, Murray, Page, Poythress, Randolph, Robertson, Skipwith, Stanard, Tazewell, Walke, West, Whittle, and others : with biographical sketches, Robertson and Wyndham, J. W. Randolph & English, 1887.
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