Robert Bolling

Colonel Robert Bolling (December 26, 1646 - July 17, 1709) was a wealthy early American settler. He was the son of John and Mary (Carrie) Bolling.

Robert Bolling was born on Tower Street, All Hallows, Barking Parish, in London. His father was one of the Bollings of Bolling Hall near Bradford, England. Robert could trace his ancestry back to Robert Bolling, Esquire, who died in 1479 and was buried in the family vault in the Church of Bradford. According to Bolling family tradition, the original deBolling family was Norman and came to England with William the Conqueror.

Bolling arrived in the colony of Virginia at the age of fourteen on October 2, 1660. He married, in 1674, Jane Rolfe the daughter of Thomas Rolfe and Jane Poythress. Her paternal grandmother was the Native American Pocahontas. Robert and Jane only had one child who lived to adulthood; John Bolling who was born on January 26, 1676 he married Mary Kennon and died on April 20, 1729. The descendants of John Bolling were termed the "Red Bollings".

After his wife Jane died Robert married Anne Stith the daughter of John Drury Stith and Jane Gregory.

They had the following nine children together.

• Jane Bolling (b. 1682), died young.
• Robert Bolling Jr. (1682-1749), married Anne Mary Cocke. Ancestors of Presidents George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush and Mary Anna Randolph Custis, wife of Robert E. Lee.
• Stith Bolling (1686-1727), married Elizabeth Hartwell.
• Edward Bolling (1687-1720, married Ms. Slaughter.
• Anne Bolling (1690-1750), married Robert Wynne.
• Drury Bolling (1695-1726), married Elizabeth Meriwether.
• Thomas Bolling (1697-1734)
• Agnes Bolling (1700-1762), married Richard Kennon.
• Molly Mary Bolling (b. 1702), died young.

The descendants of his second marriage are often referred to as the "White Bollings".

Robert Bolling died on July 17, 1709, and was buried on his plantation Kippax, in Prince George Co., Virginia, where his tomb still stands.

Archaeologist Donald W. Linebaugh, of the University of Kentucky, located the remains of Col. Bolling's house in Hopewell, Virginia in 2002.

The Archaeological Conservancy is currently trying to buy the site of Kippax Plantation to protect it from development. Thomas Rolfe, the son of Pocahontas and Robert Bolling's father-in-law, is buried there. The Archaeological Conservancy is in the process of raising the $205,000 needed for the purchase.

External links

• UK Archaeologist Locates 17th Century Merchant's House, Plans Excavation with Students, Dan Adkins, March 8, 2002
• Kippax Plantation Contributions

Sources

• American Presidential Families, Hugh Brogan and Charles Mosley, MacMillan Publishing Company, New York, 1993.
• Pocahontas, alias Matoaka, and her descendants : at Jamestown, Virginia, in April, 1614, with John Rolfe, gentleman : including the names of Alfriend, Archer, Bentley, Bernard, Bland, Bolling, Branch, Cabell, Catlett, Cary, Dandridge, Dixon, Douglas, Duval, Eldridge, Ellett, Ferguson, Field, Fleming, Gay, Gordon, Griffin, Grayson, Harrison, Hubard, Lewis, Logan, Markham, Meade, McRae, Murray, Page, Poythress, Randolph, Robertson, Skipwith, Stanard, Tazewell, Walke, West, Whittle, and others : with biographical sketches, Robertson and Wyndham, J. W. Randolph & English, 1887.