Blow Family of Surry County, Virginia

See Chronology of Blow Records for transcripts of the citations and much more detailed explanations of the referenced records below.

1.      George Blow (? – c1666/7)

We don’t know when he arrived in Virginia, or when he was born, though he may have been the same person as either of two headrights claimed by persons patenting land within several miles of where we first find him.[1]  By early 1661 he seems to have been established in the northeastern part of Surry County.  On 2 May 1661 George Blow “of Surry County”, was given security for a bond.[2]  A few months later, again as a resident of Surry, he bought and then promptly sold a small piece of land in the area of Lower Chipoakes Creek.[3]  He obtained a patent in 1663 for 600 acres just off Green Swamp, a few miles southwest of the area in which he was first found, using several headrights that had already been used nearly thirty years earlier by a neighbor.[4]  He sold parts of that patent to John Bynum and to Rowland Hudson and William Hancock almost immediately[5], but retained a portion of it on which he evidently lived until his death.  His wife Margaret [Margery] relinquished dower in both sales and George Blow signed his name to both deeds.   He then obtained a second patent, which is unrecorded but referenced later, for an additional 635 acres a few miles southwest.[6]  He was evidently the guardian for an orphan, possibly John Phipps, in 1662 but appear to have been replaced by 1667.[7]  He evidently died in the late 1660s, a period for which no probate records survive.

He is mentioned in the Surry records seven times in the three-year period from mid-1661 to mid-1664, but is not mentioned again after August 1664 (though his land is mentioned in a few patents).  He may have died as early as 1665.  He almost certainly died prior to June 1668, as he does not appear among the Surry tithables for 1668, 1669,  or 1670.   A 1675 record, calling Richard Smith the father-in-law of Richard Blow, is the only record that George Blow’s widow Margaret had remarried to Richard Smith, though she probably had done so several years earlier.  Margaret was dead by late 1678, when Richard Smith remarried to the widow of John Twyford.[8]  It is possible she was dead by 1675, because there is no record that her dower share of the estate was withheld from her sons.  Sometime during that second marriage, she had a daughter named Elizabeth by her second husband.  The three sons of Richard Smith are clearly by his next wife.[9] 

Richard, the eldest Blow son, appears as a tithable of Richard Smith from 1673-75, and again in 1680, 1681, and in 1683.  From 1677 through 1679 he had his own household.  From records in 1675 it is clear that Richard Smith had been the guardian of both Blow sons prior to that year.  Since George Blow likely died intestate, his land was inherited by the eldest son Richard, and his estate (the personal property) was split between the two sons. 

Little is known of Margaret Blow.  She appears in only two records, in 1663 and 1664, though her remarriage to Richard Smith is inferred from a later record, as is he daughter Elizabeth by that marriage.  Note that the 10-year gap between the births of the two sons suggests the possibility that either they had different mothers or there were other children who did not survive. 

1.1.   Richard Blow (1654 - 1687)  He was clearly the eldest son by several years.  Richard Blow was living with Richard Smith in the tithables of 1673-1675.[10]  He apparently reached majority 4 by October 1675 when, as “son and heir of George Blow” he renewed his father’s 1664 patent for 635 acres.[11]  A month later (at the next available court on 2 November 1675), he petitioned the court to have his “father in law” Richard Smith deliver to him his share of his deceased father’s estate.[12]  Oddly, though, he did not acknowledge receipt for nearly two years, doing so in September 1677.[13]   On 7 May 1678 he sold the entire 635 acre repatented tract.[14]   From 1677 through 1679 he appears alone in the tithables lists, apparently living on the remaining portion of his father’s 1663 patent and enumerated in Lawnes Creek parish.  In early 1680 he sold 100 acres remaining from that original 1663 patent to Nicholas Sessums.[15]  Later that year, evidently landless, he again appears in Richard Smith’s household in the 1680 tithables.  He bought land on Pidgeon Swamp in early 1681[16], but was still in Richard Smith’s household in 1681 and in1683 - he appears with William Edwards in 1682.  On 20 April 1684, Richard Blow patented 210 acres on Pidgeon Swamp adjacent Richard Smith and his own land.[17]  By early 1685 his younger brother George Blow had turned 21, and on 2 November 1685 Richard Blow and his wife Elizabeth gifted George Blow the 100 acres he had bought in 1681.[18]  Richard appeared in the 1684 tithables by himself, and in 1685 and 1686 with John Bynum Jr. in his household.

Richard Blow was alive for the June 1686 tithables, but  was dead by 3 May 1687 when his widow Elizabeth Blow was granted administration of his estate.[19]  Richard Blow died childless, for his brother George inherited his land, declaring himself to be “the only brother and heir of Richard Blow” when he sold part of that land on 3 March 1688.[20]  The widow Elizabeth was still “Elizabeth Blow” when she released her dower interest in that sale.[21]  But by 2 July 1689 she had remarried to Robert Grice, when they sued George Blow for her dower interest in her late husband’s land.  Elizabeth, who apparently had several children by Robert Grice, may have been the sister of John and James Bynum.  [See Bynum Note for a more complete review of the evidence.]

1.2.   George Blow II (c1664 - 1717)  When his brother Richard reached 21 in 1675 and obtained his share of their father’s personal property, Richard Smith posted a new bond for the guardianship of George Blow alone.[22]  A prior bond was voided at the same time, showing that Smith had been the guardian at some earlier date.  George Blow appears in the tithables for the first time in 1681 and declared himself to have reached 21 on 3 March 1685 when he requested that Richard Smith pay him his share of his father’s estate.[23]  Prior to reaching majority, he appears in the tithables of 1681-1684 twice by himself and twice as a tithable of Mathew Swann.

At the same court at which he requested his share of his father’s estate, George Blow and his wife Elizabeth were granted administration of the estate of her former husband, Thomas Barrow.[24]  Thomas Barrow had first appeared in Surry in 1680 buying the land that George Blow Sr. had sold years earlier to Hancock and Hudson.  He was still alive on 4 November 1684 but George Blow had married his widow by 3 March 1685, only four months later.  Thomas Barrow left his widow with two small sons, Edward (c1675) and Thomas Jr. (c1679) who later appear as tithables of George Blow.

In a two week period in the fall of 1685, George Blow gifted a cow to “my loving sister Elizabeth Smith” (see below) and was in turn gifted with 100 acres by his brother Richard Blow.[25]  In early 1687 he sold that 100 acres to John Bynum[26] who was listed with him in the 1687 tithables.  As the “only brother and heir of Richard Blow decd” he sold a portion of his brother’s patent in early 1688[27] and the remainder in 1690.[28]  Between the two sale, when Richard Blow’s widow remarried Robert Grice, they successfully sued George Blow over Elizabeth’s dower interest in the land.[29] 

This marked the first of many lawsuits against George Blow.  A year later, his securities sued him over his failure to account for the estate of Thomas Barrow.[30]  The following year, he unsuccessfully sued Robert Randall for calling him a “rogue” and accusing him of killing a steer. “Rogue” may have been a fair description, for George was sued more or less constantly for the remainder of his life.  In 1694 he was convicted of selling trash tobacco, a fairly serious offense at the time.[31]  Over the last twenty-five years of his life, nearly every mention of him in the records is a debt suit.[32]  His many creditors sued him on a regular basis for debts he clearly was unable to pay.  His creditors took some drastic steps, including several seizures of his property and demands for special bail, and he eventually died virtually penniless and still in debt. 

He moved south of the Blackwater, onto Seacock Swamp, sometime after 1701 when that area was opened for settlement.  He probably lived on a patent there which he obtained in 1702.[33]  On 1 March 1709 a bridge was ordered “over the Seacock by George Blow’s plantation.”[34] And on 18 February 1713 his son Richard Blow was appointed overseer of the highways “from the bridge over the Seacock Swamp near George Blow’s...”

George Blow died in 1717, at roughly the age of 53.  On 18 September 1717 administration of his estate was given to Benjamen Chapman, his greatest creditor.[35]  That is a sure sign that his debts exceeded his estate.  His land, of course, was safe from creditors under the law of the time, and was inherited by his son Richard Blow.

1.2.1.    Richard Blow (1687-9 - 1762)  He does not appear in any tithables through 1703, the last year they survive.  That would seem to place his date of birth after June of 1687, otherwise he should have been taxable in 1703.   He appears first on 7 April 1700 when his father made him a gift of a cow and calf – probably George Blow’s attempt to place his dwindling property beyond the reach of his creditors.[36]  He next appears as a witness in a suit on 4 November 1707 (for which majority was not required).[37]  The first certain indication that he had reached majority was his jury service on 7 November 1710.[38]  Although he was also frequently sued, at least during his father’s lifetime, Richard Blow reached a degree of status and wealth well beyond his father’s.  He was one of the first churchwardens of Albemarle parish, and owned a significant amount of land south of the Blackwater.  He appears to have lived in the same area of Seacock Swamp where his father had died, an area that became Sussex County in 1754.  He died in Sussex County, where his will was dated 3 September 1761 and proved 18 February 1762.  The will names a deceased son Richard Blow and living sons Henry Blow, Michael Blow, Samuel Blow, John Blow, and Nicholas Blow; daughters Jane Exum, Rebecca Maget, Mary Thomas, Elizabeth Edwards, and Ann Blount.  His children did quite well for themselves, most becoming moderately wealthy and serving in a variety of public offices.  Richard Blow’s wife is given in several deeds as Elizabeth, maiden name unknown.

There is no evidence that there was a daughter named Rosamond Blow.  This is a theory that appears to ignore the evidence. See Rosamond Bynum a Blow? for a complete analysis of the evidence for and against this theory.