John Bynum II

(1664/5 - 1715)

John Bynum Jr. first appears in the tithables in his father’s Lawnes Creek parish household in 1681, suggesting he was born sometime in late 1664 or early 1665.  He is listed with his father in 1682 and 1683, then he is listed with a neighbor, Richard Jordan Jr., in 1684.  In 1685 and 1686 he is listed as a tithable of Richard Blow in Southwarke parish.  It appears that he and his brother had both moved from their father’s plantation to live on Richard Blow’s land at Pigeon Creek   His first appearance in other records is his witness to a deed for nearby land on 6 July 1686, using a signature mark significantly different than his father’s.[1]  On 16 January 1687, George Blow Jr. sold him 100 acres on Pigeon Creek, part of Richard Blow’s plantation which he had just recently gifted to his brother George.[2]  He evidently kept this land for the remainder of his life.  John Bynum is listed with George Blow Jr. in the 1687 tithables, alone in 1688, and as head of a household which included Robert Grice in 1689.  Whoever he married, it probably took place about this time.  Thereafter he is listed alone in the Southwarke parish tithables through 1703, the last year they exist. 

He was administrator of his father’s estate in 1691.[3]   During that process, his house apparently burned down.  On 1 September 1691 he “came into court and declared that the appraisement of the said deceds estate was burnt the last night in his house which by some accident with all that he had in it was burnt.”[4]  He eventually produced an inventory on 17 May 1692.[5] 

Like his father, John Bynum Jr. appears in few records.  He appears next as a witness to the will of Elizabeth Simmons in 1695[6], was paid by the county for some service in 1699[7], and served on the first of several juries in 1700.[8]  He appears very infrequently in the court records as a creditor or debtor, though he is more often a creditor for modest sums.  Two references suggest a trade of some sort:  The county owed him modest sums for “mending [the] courthouse” in 1706 and for “mending ye prison” in 1711.[9]  In the next record of interest, on 18 February 1713 he was granted a license to keep an ordinary at Wareneck.[10]  This license was evidently renewed on 19 May 1714.[11]  Whether he was using his own house is unclear, but Ware Neck was not far from his land on Pigeon Creek.

On 20 July 1715, his widow Ann Bynum ws granted administration of his estate, making oath “that the sd Jno. Binum departed this life without making any will…”[12]  John Bynum had died owing two creditors, who sued Ann Bynum to recover from the estate.  One of the debts was nearly £25, a substantial sum, perhaps associated in some way with the tavern.  When the suits were settled in 1716 she owed a total of nearly £30 to two creditors, who were paid out of the estate.[13]  Ann Bynum remarried to Robert Warren by 28 January 1717, when they filed a supplemental inventory.[14]  On 20 May 1719 they filed a final accounting, indicating that the majority of the estate had been used to pay these debts.[15]  

Note that the only mention of Ann Bynum was after her husband’s death, so we can’t be certain that she was the mother of his children.  Her identity is unknown.  A potential clue is Robert Grice’s 1720 will which devised land to his “well beloved couzen John Bynam”, referring to apparently to John Bynum’s nephew, the son of his brother James Bynum.  If “couzen” meant “nephew” (the common meaning at the time, and the only meaning that seems possible) then either Grice had married a sister of John and James Bynum or one of the Bynums married a sister of Robert Grice.  It appears much more likely that the former was the case. Robert Grice had shown up in the Surry tithables quite suddenly in 1689 when he married the widow of Richard Blow, and is the only Grice mentioned in the Surry records – making it quite unlikely that he had a sister in the area.  The alternative, that Grice was married to a Bynum, seems more likely.  The weight of evidence favors the idea that Richard Blow married a sister of John and James Bynum, and after his death she married Robert Grice.  [See also the Grice connection explained in the separate note: Was Richard Blow’s Wife a Bynum?]

John Bynum Jr. had two sons:  John and William.  He surely had at least one daughter, but the records don’t offer us any clues that might identify any daughters.  Since he died intestate, his eldest son would have inherited his land.  William Bynum was evidently the elder son, as a 1728 deed refers to the John Bynum land on Pigeon Swamp as “William Bynum’s” and William Bynum sold that land in 1730.[16] 

1.      William Bynum (c1690 – c1760)  It’s not clear which early references are to him (as opposed to his first cousin of the same name) but the first certain reference is his appearance as a juror on 18 December 1717.[17]   Sometime in late 1724 or early 1725, he married Elizabeth Sugars Fort, the young widow of Elias Fort, who presented a supplemental inventory for Elias Fort on 10 July 1725 as “Elizabeth Bynum”.[18]  She was called “Elizabeth Bynum” in the will of her father John Sugars on 1 December 1726.[19]   On 16 July 1722 he bought 60 acres south of the Blackwater in present Sussex County very near the present line with Southampton[20], and patented 220 acres adjoining on 13 October 1727.[21]  [By this time, his first cousin William Bynum had moved to North Carolina, meaning that subsequent references in Virginia are to this man.]  In early 1729 he sold half that land and in 1736 sold the rest, the latter deed executed jointly by William Bynum of Isle of Wight and his brother John Bynum.[22]   William Bynum had by then moved several miles south into the part of Isle of Wight south of the Nottoway that later became Southampton County, where he died intestate sometime in late 1760.[23]  His wife Elizabeth died in Southampton County leaving a will written on 3 July 1771 and proved on 3 July 1773 naming most of the children.[24]  Her will left slaves to her sons William and Benjamin and to daughter Abigail Williamson, and the residual estate to son Michael Bynum.  Specific bequests of slaves were made to grandson Cordall Norfleet Bynum and to grandson Benne Bynum (with reversion to Milly Bynum).  Abigail Williamson’s three slaves were to revert to grandchildren Colin, Temperance, and Priscilla Whitehead and Robert Mickelberry Williamson upon her death.

1.1.   Drury Bynum (c1725 – 1761)  He predeceased his mother, but two of his children were named in her will.  About 1753 or so Drury Bynum married Jennett Turner, daughter of Simon Turner whose will dated 7 July 1761 mentions “my daughter Jennett Bynum” and “her children Mille, Turner, Benne, and Sugars Bynum”.  It also devised to Turner Bynum the land “on which my daughter Jennett Bynum now lives.”  Drury Bynum was already dead by this date, according to Southampton County court records for April 1761.[25]  His inventory was recorded on 27 July 1761.[26]

1.2.   Benjamin Bynum  (c1725? – c1783)  He married Lucy Williamson (called Lucy Bynum in the 1771 will of her father Benjamin Williamson) on 9 December 1758.  He was already established in Southampton County near his father by then, but by 1764 made the first of several land purchases in the part of Brunswick County that became Greensville County.[27]  He apparently died there about 1783, but Lucy survived until 1797 when she was identified as the mother of their daughter Nancy Bynum for her marriage to Simon Turner.  Their children were Britton Bynum, Drury Bynum (who may have been twins), Henry Bynum, Francis Bynum, Nancy Bynum, Elizabeth Bynum, and Sarah Bynum. 

1.3.   Michael Bynum (c1735? – 1773)  His will, dated 2 August 1773 and proved 14 October 1773, names only one child, “my loving daughter Elizabeth Sugar[s] Bynum”, to whom he devised “the land I purchased of Richard Blow, four slaves, and the residual estate.[28]  If the daughter died, the land was to revert to his brothers and sisters William Bynum, Benjamin Bynum, Abigail Williamson, and “Selah” Bryant.  The will also gave slaves to brother Benjamin Bynum, nephew Turner Bynum, “Collen” Whitehead, and Polly Bryant (with reversion to her sister Ann Bryant), and land to Cordall Norfleet Bynum.

1.4.   William Bynum (c1735? - 1773)  married Mary Crocker by bond dated 13 January 1762 with his brother Benjamin as surety.  He apparently married again to Martha Crafford, daughter of Henry Crafford, by bond dated 10 October 1765.  Henry Crafford’s will of 1771 named his daughter “Martha Bynum”.  William Bynum left a will in Southampton, dated 12 November 1773 and proved 10 January 1774, naming his wife Martha and children Ann, William, and John, all of whom were minors.[29]

1.5.   Abigail Bynum (aft1737 - )  was mentioned in her mother’s will as Abigail Williamson.  She had first married William Whitehead with her father’s consent in Southampton County by bond dated 5 June 1758, probably as his second wife.  The three Whitehead grandchildren named in Elizabeth Bynum’s 1771 will were apparently hers – Colin, Temperance, and Priscilla.  William Whitehead was apparently living in Edgecombe County, later Halifax,  North Carolina, where he left a will dated and proved in 1765 naming his wife “Abba” and nine children, including the above three.[30]  She later married a Williamson, for her son Robert Mickleberry Williamson was also named in the will.  Her bother Michael Bynum’s will also calls her Abigail Williamson. 

1.6.   Celia Bynum was  mentioned in her mother’s will and her brother Michael’s will as Celia Bryant.  The administration of Michael Bynum’ estate shows that Nathan Bryant, presumably her husband, was paid the legacy.  Two of her children, Polly and Ann Bryant, were named in her brother’s will.

1.7.   Ann Bynum was the mother of a bastard son by by Cordall Norfleet, according to a bond he posted on March 1760 as the “father of a bastard child begotten on the body of Ann Bynum.”  The son was presumably Cordall Norfleet Bynum, who is mentioned as a grandson in the 1771 will of Elizabeth Bynum and who was given a large plantation in the will of Cordall Norfleet.

2.      John Bynum (c1695? – 1775)  Since there appear to be two John Bynums, first cousins, it is not clear which references apply to this man.  The first appearance we can be reasonably sure of, based on proximity, is his witness of the will of Elias Fort Sr. on 20 September 1732.[31]  John Bynum does not appear to have owned land in Surry.  On 9 November 1736 William and John Bynum jointly sold land that was actually owned by William Bynum.[32]  John Bynum apparently had been living on that portion of his brother’s land.  They sold the land to William Gray, who resold it eight years later, on 19 January 1745, describing it as the land that John Bynum lately lived on.[33]  He may have continued to live on Gray’s land after William Bynum left the county in 1736, for the Albemarle parish register (for the part of Surry that became Sussex County) contains an entry for the birth of Arthur Bynum, son of John and Mary Bynum, in 1740.  [Three other sons were born before the parish was formed in 1738.]   It is not completely clear whether or not he was the same John Bynum who briefly lived in Northampton County, North Carolina.  A John Bynum of Surry County bought land there in 1740[34] and sold it in 1746.[35]  However, John Bynum must have been a resident of Surry County through early 1749 for a suit was brought there against him and heard as late as January 1749.[36]  By June 1749 he was in Lunenburg County, where he and his son John Jr. were enumerated in the 1749 tithables.  He appears to have moved into the part of western Surry that became successively Brunswick, Lunenburg, Halifax, and Pittsylvania Counties.  He appears several times in the records of Lunenburg, Halifax, and Pittsylvania.  He apparently died intestate, for in August 1775 the Pittsylvania court summoned the heirs of John Bynum to take administration of his estate.[37]  The identity of his wife Mary Bynum, whom he must have married about 1730, is unknown, though a plausible theory is that she was a daughter of one of the Grays of Surry County.  He had four sons who are easily identified, though there were surely daughters as well.    

2.1.   John Bynum (c1732 - ?)  He must have been the eldest, reaching 16 before June 1749.  He appears several times in the records of Halifax and Pittsylvania, and may have administered his father’s estate.  In 1777 he sold land there inherited from his father[38], and apparently moved into North Carolina with his brothers Samuel and Arthur.  There is no indication that he had a family, and no record of his death in North Carolina (that I’m aware of ).   

2.2.   Samuel Bynum (1730s – 1801)  Samuel must have been born prior to the establishment of Albemarle parish in 1738.  The earliest record I found in is a 3 February 1762 deed to him from his father in Halifax County.  Samuel lived in the vicinity of present Danville, Virginia until about 1788 when he bought land in Lincoln County, North Carolina.  His will in Lincoln County, dated November 1801 and proved in January 1802, names children Turner, Gray, William, Dicy, Susannah, Charlotte, and four married daughters Nancy (Gutrey), Elizabeth (Sutton), Polly (Parr), and Patsy (Duncan).  His wife Elizabeth is unidentified. She was married to him as early as 1775[39] and was still alive when he made his will.

2.3.   Gray Bynum (20 December 1737 – 22 February 1814)   Gray Bynum is perhaps the most thoroughly documented of the Bynums of his generation.  His birth and death dates were preserved in a family Bible, along with the names of his children and his marriage to Margaret Hampton on 2 April 1761.  He first appears as the grantee of his father in 1762, but moved across the border into North Carolina by the late 1760s, where he settled in the part of Rowan County that became Surry, then Stokes County.  Gray Bynum served in the north Carolina Assembly and held a number of county offices.  His will, dated 4 December 1813 in Stokes County, named eight children, two of whom had predeceased him:  Mary Hardin (Carmichael, Garner), John, Benjamin, Martha (Blume), Sarah (Fortner), Nancy Ann Wynne (Bowman), Gray, and Hampton .  The Bible gives the names of an additional four children who had died in childhood: William, Dicey, Amelia, and Elizabeth.  His wife, Margaret, was the daughter of Anthony Hampton and Elizabeth Preston and the sister of Revolutionary War General Wade Hampton, all of whose names appear among the descendants of this family.

2.4.   Arthur Bynum (14 June 1740 - 1813) His birth is recorded in the Albemarle parish register to his parents John and Mary Bynum.  He first appears in the Pittsylvania tithables for 1767 and received land from his father the following year.  Sometime in 1777 he moved into the part of Tryon County, North Carolina that later became Lincoln County.  His marriage bond to Mary Williams, daughter of Charles Williams, was dated 19 September 1777 in Tryon County although he was still styling himself a  resident of Pittsylvania when he sold land there two months later.[40]  He was a resident of Lincoln County when he sold his remaining land in early 1780.[41]  His will in Lincoln County, dated 23 April 1813 and proved a few months later, named “my two sons” John and James,  and five daughters:  Emey (Guthery), Nancy (Hager),  Lucy (Hager), Polly, and Barbara.