John Bristow of Clark County, Kentucky
John was the eldest son of James Bristow, Sr. and Margaret Clopton Bristow of Virginia. He was born about 1763, probably in Buckingham County, Virginia, where his father and grandfather, Jedidiah, had moved from New Kent. He was in his twenties when he migrated with his extended family to the Kentucky Bluegrass in 1789, following the Wilderness Road through the Cumberland Gap.1 He married, at a time and place thus far unknown, Sarah Glover (1778?-1831).2
A 1796 Bourbon County tax list shows John charged with 500 acres of 2nd rate land on the Elkhorn in Franklin County, entered surveyed and granted Jno. Bristow, as well as 50 acres of 3rd rate land on the "Kentuck" in Fayette, entered surveyed and granted Henry Bell. But within a decade he had settled near his brothers east of Lexington, where in July 1800 he was recorded on a Clark County tax list.3 As his father's will noted, John lived on 100 acres land next to his brother Archibald.4 The tract on the waters of Strodes Creek was on the Winchester-Paris road, right on the Clark-Bourbon county line.
In 1809, John served on a Clark County trial jury.5 And in 1812, he was appointed as Tax Commissioner of Shropshire's Company of Militia. (Militia companies were handy subdivisions for all sorts of county business.)6
The 1810 census found John in Clark County. He and Sally were in their forties, with two young girls and one boy.7 He was there in 18208 and 1830.9
In March, 1821, John was appointed to serve as a Grand Juror.10
John was an active member of the Stony Point Baptist Church, founded in 1803, which was just up the Paris road, past his brother James' place. He joined from the Bryant's Station congregation and was listed as number 39 (following the founders) on the membership list.11 On 28 Aug 1813, he took over duties as clerk from his brother Archibald, who moved to Todd County in the southwestern part of the state.12 He continued in this job until October, 1829, when the minutes noted, "at request of John Bristow he is discharged from acting as clerk to this Church."13 The meeting at which he resigned was the one in which his brother James was expelled for heresy.14 John remained a congregant until his death, which is noted on the membership list.
In April of 1830, "Congregation voted to receive Lavenia a black woman the property of Bro. John Bristow."15
Although John had no descendants of his own blood, he was fondly remembered by children whom he raised. He took in at least two of his brother Archibald's daughters, possibly three:
Sarah Glover Bristow (1806-1880), married Thomas Thorton Dobyns (1796-1858)16 of nearby Montgomery County and later moved to Morgan County Illinois. Sally named her eldest son John Bristow Dobyns, and he is mentioned as an heir in John's will (see below).
Philadelphia Bristow (1822-1878), married Isaac Stipp (1820-1897) of Clintonville, a few miles west of the Bristow homestead in Bourbon. It is unclear whether another of Archibald's daughters, Caroline Bristow (1810-1894), joined Sally and Kippy (as Philadelphia was known) in John's household, but as a young widow she did return to live nearby.17
Another girl, possibly a niece of his wife's, also joined the family, and named her eldest son for her stepfather: "Richard, the first born [son of Thomas Wornall and Susan Bowen], went to Missouri, locating near Westport Landing, now Kansas City. He married Judith Ann Glover, who had been raised by John Bristow, and she died in Missouri."18 They were married in September 1820.19 Young Judith (who may have been named for an aunt, Judith Glover, wife of Robert Irvin) died in 1849, and was buried in Westport Cemetery.20 (See below for more on the aunt.) In 1850 Richard and John Bristow Wornall were counted alone in Kansas Township of Jackson County.21 John's namesake went on to become an important figure in Kansas City and Missouri history.22
Mrs. Sarah Glover Bristow died 16 July 1831.23
Four years after Sarah's death, John remarried. His bride was Mrs. Judith Glover Irvin, the widow of Robert B. Irvin (1768-1831), and either the sister or cousin of his first wife.24 John's youngest brother, Archibald, performed the ceremony 10 October 1835.25 Judith soon joined her new husband in the Stony Point congregation, being "rec'd by letter Mar 1836."26
Shortly after his second marriage, John felt it necessary to write a (new) will, which he signed on 2 November 1835.27 His first thought was to provide for the welfare of his slaves:
My Negroes to be free and my executor will go to Todd County or that neighborhood and lay out $1800 in good land for that county as soon as he can get the money and move Elijah & his family and Thirsay and her family and divide the land between them and at Thirsay's death her part of the land to go to her children. I give Elijah and Thirsay my wagon and three horses and buy each of them a cow to give them milk in that county. I am in hopes in a few years they will find it their interest to go to Liberia; in that case, the land to be sold and appropriated to that purpose, or to any other colony the United States may provide.
My will is that Stephen have $300 to be loaned out by my executor at the best interest possible and give him the interest annually and keep principal until he shall need it or not able to maintain himself.
$80 dollars to be appropriated to move the above named Negroes and buy them provision I [charge] my executor to give each of my Negroes, old and young, a blanket out of the house.
Before attitudes about "the peculiar institution" hardened toward the middle years of the century, many Kentuckians were troubled by their ownership of slaves and turned to emancipation. John was among those who subscribed to the idea of colonization, in which the former slaves would be resettled in the new African country of Liberia, created by Westerners as a refuge for freedmen.28 John's youngest brother, Archibald, also freed his slaves by testament. Their middle brother, James, did not.29
In accord with John's will, Thirsay and Elijah did settle in Todd County, where they and their families were enumerated through 1880.30 Elijah, who was listed as age 60 in 1850, was born in Virginia. His death from pnemonia in June 1860 was recorded in the mortality schedule of the census. He is most probably the same person named in James Bristow Sr's will, three decades before.31 Whether they entertained dreams of a new life in Liberia is unknown, and their later lives and those of their children have not been traced in detail.
John's will reveals him to have been reasonably prosperous, but nowhere near as well off as his neighbors, the famous Clay family. It also shows him to have been a thoughtful and considerate man.
John and Sally were buried in the family graveyard, just off the Paris-Winchester Pike,32 as were Archibald and his first wife, Philadelphia, as well as a number of others. The land passed out of the family and the graves were neglected. A few stones survived for a century, when descendants found that Archibald's "stone had been taken away [and that] several graves unmarked." A later visit in 1958 found only two broken stones, and all traces have since disappeared.33 Whether this burial ground also served for their brother James' family is not clear.34
Judith Glover Irvin Bristow lived on until 15 December 1852, dying at the age of 74 in Boyle County, where Abraham Irvin was living.35
Notes:
(To return to text click on note number or use 'Back' function.)
1 See my notes on James Bristow, Sr.
2 Her place in the John Glover family of Buckingham and Fayette Counties has not been traced. Sometime before 1813 John Bristow was a legatee of Edmond Glover, acquiring 316 acres of land in Buckingham County, Virginia. (See John Walton, "Politicians and Statesmen: The Bristows in American Government" in Genealogies of Kentucky Families from the Filson Club History Quarterly (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing, 1981), 79. He cites Buckingham Surveyor's Plat Book 1762-1814, 197.)
Some researchers hold that Sally was not a Glover, but a Donaldson. John Donaldson was John and Archibald's neighbor, and the three families did have close connections over the years. I think the weight of the circumstantial evidence points to Sally's being a Glover, but I welcome any additional evidence one way or another.
3 Bourbon County Tax Lists 1787-1799. <http://www.shawhan.com/taxlist.html>. G. Glenn Clift, "Second Census" of Kentucky, 1800 (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing, 1976), 33.
4 Clark Wills 2: 261-263. Recorded 22 June 1807. See my notes on James Bristow, Sr.
5 A. Goff Bedford, History of Clark County, Kentucky: The Proud Land [vol 2] (Mt. Sterling, KY: author, 1983), 197.
6 Bedford, Proud Land, 357.
7 1810 Census, Clark County, Kentucky, 122. Data: 10010-20010-00.
8 1820 Census, Clark County, Kentucky, 87.
9 1830 Census, Clark County, Kentucky, 377.
10 Bedford, Proud Land, 585.
11 Membership list of Stony Point Baptist Church. Transcript. Kentucky Historical Society.
12 June Baldwin Bork, Stony Point Baptist Church Monthly Register, 1802-1850. Photocopy of original, with introduction and index, 52. Transcribed by Neil Allen Bristow, 1998.
13 Bork, Stony Point, 87.
14 See my notes on James Bristow, Jr.
15 Bork, Stony Point, 88.
16 George F. Doyle, Marriage Bonds of Clark County Kentucky, 1792-1850 (Winchester, KY: [author], 1933). Thomas T. Dobyns and Sally G. Bristow. Bond 17 Jan 1823 by John Bristow.
17 Caroline married Hiram W. Ashburn, MD, in 1827. Their daughter, Victoria Ashburn (1838-1916), married Ike Stipp sometime after her aunt Kippy died in 1878 and left him a widower. They are all (except for Hiram) buried in the Clintonville Cemetery.
18 E. Polk Johnson, History of Kentucky and Kentuckians (Lewis Publishing Co., New York & Chicago, 1912). Common version, 3: 1323-1325. "William P. Wornall"
19 Doyle, Clark Bonds. Richard Wornall and Judy A. Glover. Bond 16 Sep 1820 by William Donaldson, guardian of Judy A.. Glover.
20 "Judith A. Wornall, wife of Richard Wornall, and mother of John Bristow Wornall, d: 1849; G. Thomas Wornall, d: 1849." Westport Cemetery, Westport Avenue near Penn Street, Kansas City, Missouri.
<http://www.yourlaunchpad.com/terry/jackson/westportcemetery.htm>, 29 May 2001.
21 1850 Census, Jackson County, Missouri, 239. Kansas Twp, family 167.
22 See, for example, his sketch in History of Northwest Missouri, 1522-1524.
23 Her tombstone read, "In memory of Sarah Bristow died 16 day July 1831 age 53 years." Date confirmed by Bork, Stony Point, 11.
24 Robert Irvin and several of their children were buried in the John Glover Cemetery on the Jacks Creek Pike, 9 miles from Lexington. See Fayette (KY) Genealogical Society Quarterly 11: 90. (Fall 1996). The stones were copied in 1938, and the dates are questionable.
25 Fayette Records 2: 282. Bondsman was her son, Abraham D. Irvin.
26 Stony Point Membership list. Kentucky Historical Society.
27 Clark Wills 9: 437 ff. Since he seems to have been a businesslike sort, he probably had an earlier will, but of course no record of it exists. Read a transcript of the will and its codocils.
28 See Lowell H. Harrison, The Antislavery Movement in Kentucky (Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 1978).
29 Clark Wills 11: 123. Dated 2 Aug 1837, probate Oct 1846.
30 1850 Census, Todd County, Kentucky, 203. District 1, families 121 and 123. Elijah (age 60, born in Virginia) had a teenage boy named John, and two younger girls, Sarah (11) and Lu---ra (5), but no wife. Thirsay, who was recorded by the census taker as Thinza, was 56, with five adult children: James (31), Sylva (29), Holly [Molly?] (27), Milly (25), and Harrisson (21). No sign of Stephen. The family listed between Elijah and Thirsay (number 122) was that of Washington McCoy, a 29-year-old mulatto with five young children, Lavinia (10), Wesley (9), John (4), Martha (4), and Benjamin (1). His absent wife probably died in childbirth. The name of the eldest child recalls the servant who had joined the Stony Point congregation two decades before and hints at a connection. Later enumerations reveal some confusion as to ages and relationships, but the Bristow, McCoy, and Harrison families remained in the area near Elkton. They were joined by another black Bristow family from Viginia, headed by an elderly Michael (or Sherman) Bristow. See 1860 Todd County, Elkton PO, 836 (Family 1161); 1870 Todd County, 328 (Family 12), 329 (27), 354 (398), 462 (341 and 346); 1880 Todd County, ED 72, 156B (57, 59, 60), 158B (89, 97).
31 "I give and bequeath unto my son John Bristow a negro boy, by the name of Elijah, by his giving a clear receipt of all demands against my estate." Clark Wills 2: 261-263. Recorded 22 June 1807. If this Elijah came to Kentucky with the Bristows from Virginia in 1789, he would have been older than the age of 60 given in the 1850 census or the same age given 10 years later in the mortality schedule.
32 The inscription read (in 1944), "In memory of John Bristow who died Feb 27, 1840 age 78 years & 2 mo." Kathryn Owen, Old Graveyards of Clark County, Kentucky (New Orleans: Polyanthos Press, 1975), 10, agrees with the 1944 reading of the birth date, but has 1847 as the year of death, which must be a typo or transcription error, as both probate and church records give 1840. Another visitor, Martha B. Cheek, recorded his age as 75 years and 2 months. (Bristow file, Kentucky Historical Society)
33 Notes by Mary Coombs (Mrs George F.) Eaton in the Bristow Blue Book, Kenton County Library, Covington, quoting Mary H. Dobyns and Delle Shipp.
34 See Mary Beckley Bristow, Diary, 24-25. She describes visiting the burial ground in 1841. James lived just a mile or so northwest of John.
35 Kentucky, Wills and Probate Records, 1774-1989 (Index and images Ancestry.com). Boyle County, KY. Judith Bristow, widow, age 74, born Virginia. Parents John Glover. A. D. Irvine was appointed administrator, 19 Jul 1852. Abraham Irvine's family is in the 1850 census (Boyle County, 376, 2nd district, family 416), and that of John Irvine is not far away (365, family 242); but I have not located Judith at that time.
