The Bobbitt Family In America

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William Bobbitt was born in 1761 and was the youngest son of John Richard Bobbitt. The sale of this 200 acres of land would leave the land holdings of John Richard Bobbitt at about 375 acres.

If John Bobbitt purchased land for any of his sons other than those previously mentioned, he must have furnished only the money. There are no recorded transactions of land purchased of which he was a part of the deed.

In 1789 John Richard Bobbitt wrote his will. The will was probated in 1791 and John Bobbitt is said to have died that year. In his will John Bobbitt wrote:

"I give and bequeath to my son Randolph Bobbitt, all that tract of land I live on .............. supposed to be about three hundred acres, and about fifty acres of pine woods."

It is remarkable that the records from 1743 through 1786 recorded in Edgecombe, Halifax, Granville, Bute, and Warren Counties could end with a mathematical balance of land so close to the amount of land mentioned in the will of John Bobbitt.

It has taken many years of research and study to properly place John Bobbitt in the history of the family in North Carolina. For a long time it was difficult to know whether John Richard Bobbitt was a member of the family of Lewis Bobbitt or of John Bobbitt of Chowan.

Lewis Bobbitt and William Bobbitt Senior were double first cousins. The parents of Lewis Bobbitt were William Bobbitt Junior and Mary Green of Prince George County, Virginia. The parents of William Bobbitt Senior were John Bobbitt of Chowan and Sarah Green.

There is no evidence that Lewis Bobbitt had any legal actions with John Richard Bobbitt. There is no reason for him to have any legal transactions with Lewis Bobbitt. They were first cousins once removed. They lived near to each other. Their children were certainly friends and had knowledge of the relationship. By 1810 the drifting apart of the two families is evident in the records. By 1850 few members of the family in North Carolina could explain the relationships between the families of Lewis Bobbitt and the families of John Richard Bobbitt.

The difficult family study from this colonial period is the family of William Bobbitt Junior who was a brother of John Richard Bobbitt. The two families did not have many connections and they lived in different areas.