Dumas
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Benjamin Dumas
of Virginia and North Carolina 


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         Estate of Benjamin Dumas



 Dumas Family 

Benjamin Dumas died in 1763.  See Dumas Estate.

        The following information  was researched, written, and sent to me by Lou Poole who has graciously shared his work with us.  Please note that although Lou has not edited these comments that Edmund's middle name was Fleming, it surely was not.  None of the children of this Lilly generation in Virginia had middle names.  There is absolutely no contemporary evidence that he had any middle name, much less one of Fleming. Please remove it from your records.  

        Edmund Lilly was married [first] to Sarah Dumas, daughter of Benjamin Dumas.  The disownment for marriage out of unity in July of 1750 proves that they had married before that.  The disownment might have been several months or even a year after the actual marriage.  The proof that Edmund married Sarah Dumas is in the 1753 deed in which Benjamin Dumas sold land to Edmund and Sarah Lilly for "fatherly affection." See Edmund Lilly II Records. We just don't know when or where the marriage took place.  The first record found so far of Benjamin purchasing land in North Carolina is in 1748.  But he sold land after that in Virginia.  So it appears that he went to North Carolina in 1748 to purchase land. Then he went home and sold his holdings in Cumberland County and Louisa County, Virginia. The last of these land sales was in 1751 so the entire family, including Edmund Lilly II,  probably went to North Carolina shortly after that.
1745-1751 Dumas Records in Virginia

       Many people on the Internet have assumed that Benjamin Dumas Sr. was, himself, a Quaker, but a thorough check of Hinshaw’s Encyclopedia of American Quaker Genealogy does not include any Dumas names among the extant Quaker records. That, of course, does not prove he was not a Quaker. And, indeed, he was at least a part time Quaker because of the following record in which he is labeled as a Quaker: [Note: Benjamin Harris was brother-in-law of Benjamin Dumas, having married Benjamin’s sister, Sarah Dumas.  The David Dumas in this record is probably Benjamin’s son, who married a Moorman.]

“Louisa County Court Orders 1744-1747, p. ??” – Sparacio, Ruth & Sam, Virginia County Court Records, Louisa County, Virginia Orders 1744-1747, p. 43.
Louisa County Court 24th of September 1745 … A Writing said to be the Last Will and Testament of Lancelot Armstrong deced. was presented into last Court and this day being appointed to confess the proof of the said Will and thereupon Benjamin Dumas, Benjamin Harris and David Dumas, Quakers, came into Court and declared that they saw Lancelot Armstrong sign seal and publish the said Writing as his Last Will and Testament and that they believe he was in perfect sence and memory which is admitted to Record, and Sarah Armstrong, the Executrix therein named, having performed what is usual in such cases, Certificate is granted her for obtaining a Probate thereof in due form.”

        I tend to think, however, that he was only a part-time Quaker since there is no other evidence to suggest he acted within the tenets of the Quaker faith, but he did live among Quakers (a number of whom appear to have moved to North Carolina about the same time, e.g., Moorman, and others). If Benjamin Dumas was not a Quaker in 1750, then that would explain why Edmund Lilly was disowned when he married Sarah Dumas.

The following deed is very important because it is the last time that his wife, Francis Dumas, is found in a record.  The deeds he signed in 1753, have no wife and if he had been married her signature should have been included.  In 1756, he signs with a different wife, Martha. So Francis appears to have died between 1751 and 1753.  It is also the last deed Benjamin signed in Virginia.  The next record we find for him is six months later in North Carolina.
“Louisa County Deed Book A, pp. 416-417” – Davis, Rosalie Edith, Louisa County, Virginia Deed Books A and B, 1742-1759, p. 62. [Note the pecularities of the dating system. This was actually in the first half of 1751 because the year did not start in January.]
            “23 Feb 1750/1   Benjamin Dumas and Frances, his wife, of Louisa Co., to James Goodwin of York Co.  £400 currt. money.  601 acres, together with a Water Mill … on east side of the River below the Mill … Samuel Goodman’s corner … Bickley’s line … Robert Garland’s corner … Bickley’s line … Garland’s line … up the south and main fork of the River to Edward Bullock’s corner … Bullock’s Plantation … Thomas Poindexter’s corner … on Poindexter’s and Robert Yancey, dec’d., line … to the Little River on the west side.     
       Benja. Dumas
                                                                                                                Frances (X) Dumas
Wit: Robert Harris, Thos. Poindexter, Nathan Glen.
25 Mar 1751 acknowledged by Benjamin Dumas.  Frances, his wife, declared her consent.”

Chisholm, Claudia Anderson, and Lillie, Ellen Gray, Old Home Places of Louisa County, p. 93.
        “Oaksby, ancestral home of the Goodwins since colonial days, is located off Route 609, on the south side of Little River near Swift’s Mill.  The house stands on land which Benjamin Dumas conveyed in 1751 to James Goodwin of York.  Six years later, Robert Goodwin, James’ son by his second wife, Elizabeth Chapman Chisman Goodwin, inherited a portion of this land and moved to Louisa.  Robert married Barbara Garland Tulloch, daughter of Thomas and Barbara Garland Tulloch, in 1766.  A soldier in the Revolutionary War, Robert and his wife made their first home at Oasby, later moving to Goodwin House shortly before his death in 1789.  He left his old home place, Oaksby, to his son, John Chapman Goodwin…”

      The following article explains the Chisholm situation.  
Swift’s Mill, by Claudia A. Chisholm and Ellen G. Little, of Mineral, Virginia
 
        “One of the two remaining water grist mills in Louisa County today, and probably the older of the two, Swift’s Mill is a true monument to the past.  It is located in an idyllic setting, nestled among the trees on the south bank of the gently flowing waters of Little River, on the west side of State Route 609.  The original mill house, which stood on the north side of the river, was erected, prior to the formation of Louisa County, on a portion of the 285 acres of land which Edward Garland, Jr., of Hanover County patented on 22 June 1722.  The land was described as being on the north side of Little River near John Garland, Abraham Cook, and the Harrises.[i]

        “Between 1722 and 1744 the mill property changed hands several times, being owned in turn by John Henson, Charles Yancey, William Noble, and Samuel Goodman.[ii]  Although we don’t know which of these men was responsible for its initial erection, it was during this twenty-two year period that Swift’s Mill came into existence.  It is interesting to speculate that Charles Yancey was the original builder. [Note: Charles Yancey was the father of Robert Yancey. Robert Yancey married Temperance Dumas, sister of Benjamin Dumas.  The Yanceys were noted as millers, and the only other remaining mill in the county, Yancey’s Mill near Yanceyville, is believed to have been built by a later member of the same family.]

        “At any rate, Swift’s Mill as already standing by 1744 when Samuel Goodman sold to Benjamin Dumas for 25 pounds current money of Virginia, ‘all that tract or parcel of land with a mill and houses thereon containing one acre be the same more or less and lying and being on the North side of the Little River in the parish of Saint Martins.’[iii]

        “Benjamin Dumas and his wife, Frances, owned other land on Little River.  In 1742 Dumas purchased of Peter Garland Jr. of Hanover and Robert Garland of Louisa 100 acres of land on the north side of Little River, part of a greater tract granted to John Garland, late of Hanover, by patent on 20 February 1719, and which by his will he directed to be divided between his sons, Peter and Robert Garland.[iv]  Dumas also owned some 500 acres of land on the south side of Little River, which he probably acquired before the county was formed.  In 1750 he sold for 400 pounds what appears to have been his entire landed estate in the county, 601 acres of land, ‘with one water mill,’ to James Goodwin of York County, Virginia.[v]  For many years thereafter, the mill would be known as ‘Goodwin’s Mill.’

        “James Goodwin, Sr., never resided in Louisa County.  Born around 1708 in Hampton Parish, York County, he married first Diana Chisman, who died on 30 November 1735, at the age of twenty.  He married secondly Mrs. Elizabeth Chapman Chisman, widow of Edmund Chisman.  At his death on 8 November 1757, James Goodwin, Sr., left his land and mill in Louisa County to be equally divided between two of his sons by this second marriage, Robert and James Goodwin, Jr.[vi]

        “Robert Goodwin, who was born in 1739, moved after his father’s death to Louisa County, where on 1 December 1766, he married Jane Tulloch, daughter of Thomas and Barbara Garland Tulloch.[vii]  They established heir home at ‘Oaksby Plantation,’ on the land which he inherited from his father on the south side of Little River.  It was probably at this time that the original mill house, which was located on the north side of the river, was moved to its present site on the south side where it would have been much more accessible to the ‘Oaksby’ property…”[viii]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[i]         “Harris, Malcolm H., A History of Louisa County Virginia, Dietz Press, Richmond, Virginia, 1936, p. 6” – ‘Swift’s Mill” by Claudia A. Chisholm and Ellen G. Lillie, Louisa County Historical Society, Louisa County Historical Magazine, Vol. 11, No. 1, Summer 1979, p. 3.

[ii]        “Louisa County Deed Book A, p. 176” – ‘Swift’s Mill” by Claudia A. Chisholm and Ellen G. Lillie, Louisa County Historical Society, Louisa County Historical Magazine, Vol. 11, No. 1, Summer 1979, p. 3.

[iii]        “Louisa County Deed Book A, p. 176” – ‘Swift’s Mill” by Claudia A. Chisholm and Ellen G. Lillie, Louisa County Historical Society, Louisa County Historical Magazine, Vol. 11, No. 1, Summer 1979, p. 3.

[iv]        “Louisa County Deed Book A, pp. 44-47” – ‘Swift’s Mill” by Claudia A. Chisholm and Ellen G. Lillie, Louisa County Historical Society, Louisa County Historical Magazine, Vol. 11, No. 1, Summer 1979, p. 3.

[v]        “Louisa County Deed Book A, p. 416” – ‘Swift’s Mill” by Claudia A. Chisholm and Ellen G. Lillie, Louisa County Historical Society, Louisa County Historical Magazine, Vol. 11, No. 1, Summer 1979, p. 3.

[vi]        “Goodwin Families in America, Part I, 1897, pp. 14-16” – ‘Swift’s Mill” by Claudia A. Chisholm and Ellen G. Lillie, Louisa County Historical Society, Louisa County Historical Magazine, Vol. 11, No. 1, Summer 1979, p. 4.

[vii]       “Harris, p. 36” – ‘Swift’s Mill” by Claudia A. Chisholm and Ellen G. Lillie, Louisa County Historical Society, Louisa County Historical Magazine, Vol. 11, No. 1, Summer 1979, p. 4.

[viii]      ‘Swift’s Mill” by Claudia A. Chisholm and Ellen G. Lillie, Louisa County Historical Society, Louisa County Historical Magazine, Vol. 11, No. 1, Summer 1979, pp. 3-4.

This is Oaksby.
Oaksby

        This is the map which shows its location.  The 1751 deed refers to a Water Mill.  There is an article in the Louisa County Historical Magazine that confirms that "Swift's Mill" is the same mill that Benjamin Dumas bought and sold.

map


From Cumberland County we find the only deed that mentions Edmund Lilly, Jr., prior to his arrival in North Carolina:
“Cumberland County Deed Book 1, p. 307” — T.L.C. Genealogy, Cumberland County, Virginia, Deeds, 1749-1752, p. 27.
“Dec 11, 1750 from Benjamin Dumas of Louisa County, planter, to John Smith, lately of Westmoreland County, planter, the lease for 10 years of 3 tracts of 1250 acres of land in C. This lease allows Smith to seat a plantation on every 200 acres where there is not already any, with the liberty of getting timber for the use of the plantation. Dumas is not to disturb Smith, under penalty of 100 £. Smith will make no waste of timber, and will plant on each plantation, and leave on each plantation at least 200 [fruit] bearing peach trees and 50 [fruit] bearing apple trees, and is to leave the several plantations in good and sufficient tenantable order. If Smith fails in any of the above arti-cles, he shall forfeit and pay Dumas 100 £, and the lease becomes void. Signed – Benjamin Dumas, John (I his mark) Smith. Wit. – Edmund Lilley, Philip Timberlake, William Dickerson, William Terrell, William Dillin. Recorded at Mar Court, 1751.”

       Benjamin Dumas is on the Processioning list for Southampton Parish in 1748 and 1751. Note Ralph Flipping who is believed to be the uncle of Edmund Lilly II, is in the same record.  Ann Flippen, who is believed to be the grandmother of Edmund Lilly II, was still alive at this time. That may have been how Edmund met Sarah Dumas.  Processioning was peculiar to the colonies in which metes and bounds were used to describe the location of tracts of land.  A group of the parishioners [the processioners] went along the boundaries of the land and testified as to the boundary lines.  I don't know what the failure means in reference to Benjamin Dumas, but he may have been in North Carolina purchasing land and thus absent from the area at that time.  
For more on the subject see: http://www.genfiles.com/legal/Processioning.htm

Blomquist, Ann K., Southam Parish Land Processioning, 1747-1784, Goochland, Cumberland, and Powhatan Counties, Virginia, p. 5.
“Precinct #19 [dated 1748]
Boundaries:...... Begin at Muddy Creek Bridge, up the River Road to the Widow Dillon’s Path, by Salmon’s to Ham Chapel, by the new Chapel Road near Mr. Scott to Muddy Creek, down the said creek to the beginning.
Processioners:.. Thomas Walton, John Creasy, William Palmer
Landowners:.... no list of owners returned, only failures; John Blevins, Bowler Cocke, Nicholas Davies, Benjamin Dumas, Rachel Ferris, Benjamin Harrison, Toliac Powers, William Willis.”

Blomquist, Ann K., Southam Parish Land Processioning, 1747-1784, Goochland, Cumberland, and Powhatan Counties, Virginia, p. 14.
“Precinct #19 [dated 1751]

Boundaries:...... All the lands between Muddy Creek, the River Road, the Path from Widow Dillion by Thomas Potter and John Salmon to Ham Chapel and the Chapel Road.
Processioners:.. Ralph Flipping, William Terrell, Orlando Hughes
Return:. ‘we have processioned the lands and marked the lines except John Salmon, Rachel Farris, Nicholas Davies, Benjamin Harrison, John Blevins, John Rowland, Michael Rowland, Benjamin Dumas, Stephen Hughes.”

         District #19 stayed the same for both 1748 and 1751.  If you look closely at this map there appear to be two district 19’s, but if you look even more closely one of those is 17 – north of 19. District 19 is where I had marked Ralph Flippen’s location. Note that the wavy border on the right is the James River between Goochland and Cumberland County.  The map is labeled Goochland County because Cumberland County was not formed until 1749.  

Map
Lou sent the following information on Quakers:
        Reverend Edmund Lilly married Sarah Dumas, daughter of Benjamin Dumas. Benjamin Dumas was probably not a Quaker because his name is not to be found in Hinshaw’s “Encyclopedia,” and Edmund was disowned for marrying Sarah. But there is a record in which Benjamin Dumas and his son were described as Quakers while still living in Louisa County.  It is also a fact that one of Benjamin Dumas’ sons married a Moorman, who are known to have been strong Quakers, and that a number of the families that accompanied Benjamin Dumas to Anson County, NC were Quakers.  What this all means, is that there were likely a number of Quaker Meetings stretching from around Caroline County, Virginia, (where the Meador family flirted with Quakerism), down to around Cumberland County, etc., and whose records have been lost so are not found in Hinshaw's Encyclopedia.  

        Lou says that Quakers often joined the Primitive Baptists when they dropped out of the Quakers.  Reverend Edmund Lilly was a renowned Separatist (or Fundamental) Baptist in Anson & Montgomery counties, NC.
        There was a heavy concentration of Puritans and Quakers south of the James River in what are now Norfolk and Isle of Wight counties from the early 1600s.  During the English Civil Wars, one of the early governors of Virginia was even a Puritan.  But after the English Civil Wars, when William Berkeley was appointed as Governor, a severe persecution of “dissenters” took place throughout Berkeley’s rule.  Many of the Puritans and Quakers fled Virginia during this time to go to Maryland, and if you get into Quaker history there, you will find that most of the Puritans converted to Quakers.

Dumas Records in North Carolina sent by Lou Poole.
 
       Clearly, Dumas was in North Carolina by 1748.  However, since he was busy selling land in Virginia after that, he must have gone back to Virginia for that purpose. His wife, Francis, and his son in law, Edmund Lilly, left signatures in Virginia between 1748 and 1751.  So I tend to think that they whole group moved to North Carolina shortly after 1751.

“Volume A, pp. 45-46” – Holcomb, Brent H., Anson County, North Carolina, Deed Abstracts, 1749-1766, Abstracts of Wills & Estates, 1749-1795, p. 4.
“29 Oct 1748, John Clark of Anson Co., to Benjamin Dumas of Louisa Co., Va., for £200 proc. money … land in Bladen Co. on S. side of Great Pee Dee called Buffaloe Island, granted 20 June 1746 … John Clark (Seal), Wit: Joseph White, John Coleman, Saml. French, David P.”

“Volume A, pp. 97-98” – Holcomb, Brent H., Anson County, North Carolina, Deed Abstracts, 1749-1766, Abstracts of Wills & Estates, 1749-1795, p. 7.
“29 Oct 1748, John Clark of Anson Co., to Benjamin Dumas of Louisa Co., Va., for £50 proc. money … land granted 4 Oct 1748 … 250 A on N side Great Pee Dee, adj. Clarks corner, Widow Herringtons line … John Clark (Seal), Wit: Joseph White, Saml. French, David Provender.”

“Volume A, pp. 104-105” – Holcomb, Brent H., Anson County, North Carolina, Deed Abstracts, 1749-1766, Abstracts of Wills & Estates, 1749-1795, p. 7.
“29 Oct 1748, John Clark of Anson Co., to Benjamin Dumas of Louisa Co., Va., for £100 Proc. money … 500 A on N side Great Pee Dee … corner of Solomon News … corner of Philip Hensons … granted 4 Oct 1748 … including an island … John Clark (Seal), Wit: Joseph White, Saml. French, John Coleman, David Provender.”

Pruitt, Dr. A. B., Colonial Petitions for Land Resurveys, Some Land Warrants 1753-1774, Caveats of Land Warrants 1767-1773, in North Carolina, p. 73.
“Warrant #230 Benja Dumas for 400 ac in Anson Co on 1 Oct 1751; grant on 10 Apr [1753]; paid J M.”
“Warrant #231 Benja Dumas for 400 ac in Anson Co on 1 Oct 1751; grant for 360 ac on 10 Apr [1753]; paid J. M.”[ii]
“Warrant #232 Edmd Lilly for 400 ac in Anson Co on 7 Apr 1752; grant for 236 ac on 10 Apr [1753]; paid J. M.”[iii]

        The Dumas family left a lot more records in Anson County.  Many of them are on: Edmund Lilly Land and Court Records   The estate records for Benjamin Dumas junior are on John Lilly of North Carolina, because John Lilly married Eleanor Dumas, the daughter of Benjamin Dumas junior.  

“Volume 1, pp. 153-154” – Holcomb, Brent H., Anson County, North Carolina, Deed Abstracts, 1749-1766, Abstracts of Wills & Estates, 1749-1795, p. 11.
“22 Apr 1756, Benjamin Dumas of Anson Co., to John Collson of same, for £50 ... on S side Great Pee Dee, adj. John Hall, granted 27 Feb 1756 ... Benjamin Dumas (seal), Martha Dumasa (X) (seal), Wit: Jeremiah Dumas, Zechariah Smith, Edmund Lilly.”(28) [Note: Martha was the second wife of Benjamin.]

        The Martha Dumas who put her mark on the 1756 sale of land was the second wife of Benjamin Dumas Sr. His first (some say 2nd) wife was Frances Clark, who was the mother of all his children. According to Virginia Lee Hutcheson Davis’s Tidewater Virginia Families: Generations Beyond, p. 155, his second wife was Martha McClendon. However, her will suggests she was apparently the widow of a Culpepper. [Note: She was probably the widow of Joseph Culpepper when she married Benjamin Dumas Sr.; her maiden name might have been McClendon, but I now strongly doubt that possibility.]

See Dumas Estate  
[Information compiled by David H. Robertson, of Stone Mountain, GA, 21 April 1987, and found on web site http://gen.culpepper.com/ss/p3210.html]
      “A Petition of Equity was filed by Joseph Culpepper and John Culpepper, executors of the estate of Martha Dumas against David Dumas, administrator of the estate of Benjamin Dumas in the Superior Court of Rowan County, North Carolina in September 1764 … The Petition was a suit by the children of Martha Dumas by her first husband, Joseph Culpepper, claiming the dower property should pass to them under Martha’s last will and testament rather than to revert to Benjamin Dumas’s children, by operation of law …The Petition establishes the following:

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