Robert Bolling

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Colonel Robert Bolling (December 26, 1646 – July 17, 1709) was a wealthy early American settler. He was the son of John Bolling and Mary Carrie.

He was born on Tower Street, All Hallows, Barking Parish, in London. John was one of the Bollings of Bolling Hall, near Bradford, England. Robert could trace 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 colony of Virginia at the age of fourteen on October 2, 1660. In 1674, he married Jane Rolfe, the daughter of Thomas Rolfe and Jane Poythress. Her paternal grandmother was Pocahontas. They had only one surviving child.

In 1681, after his first wife died, Col. Bolling married his second wife Anne Stith, daughter of John Drury Stith and Jane Gregory. They had the following nine children together.

  • Jane Bolling (b. 1682), died young.
  • Robert Bolling Jr. (1682-1749), married Anne Mary Cocke. Ancestors of Presidents George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush and Mary Anna Randolph Custis, wife of Robert E. Lee.
  • Stith Bolling (1686-1727), married Elizabeth Hartwell.
  • Edward Bolling (1687-1720, married Ms. Slaughter.
  • Anne Bolling (1690-1750), married Robert Wynne.
  • Drury Bolling (1695-1726), married Elizabeth Meriwether.
  • Thomas Bolling (1697-1734).
  • Agnes Bolling (1700-1762), married Richard Kennon.
  • Molly Mary Bolling (b. 1702), died young.

The descendents of Robert Bolling's first marriage are termed "Red Bollings" and the descendents of his second marriage are termed the "White Bollings".

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]

[edit] References

  1. ^ UK Archaeologist Locates 17th Century Merchant's House, Plans Excavation with Students, Dan Adkins, March 8, 2002
  2. ^ The Archaeological Conservancy

[edit] External links

[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.