I descend through at least three distinct lines of Bailey's. I discovered pretty early that there were TONS of Bailey's in the Kanawha Valley. I made it a mission to find a home for every single Bailey in Kanawha County and in Putnam County. This proved to be a pretty difficult undertaking. One of my lines is William Bailey (1753-1837), the Revolutionary War Soldier who died in Kanawha. I'm lucky to have him, he is pretty well documented in records, I mean, he gave his Bible record to the War Office for proof when he applied for his pension. So I had every single child and their date of birth. But even though he listed all of his children there are still "half-baked" genealogists who want to attach him to a certain Lydia E. Smith and her kids from Nelson County Va. So today I'm going to help those genealogist by giving them my research on this "OTHER" Bailey family.
Let me just state this again a little louder. William Bailey, the Rev War Pensioner, did NOT marry Lydia E. Smith and father her children.
Lets talk about that "other" William Bailey.
William Bailey (1782-1853) was the son of Lucy Phillips Bailey. According to a chancery suit in Nelson County in 1841, his mother Lucy Bailey was the sister of Sally Phillips and Elizabeth Phillips Roberts.
Lucy Bailey, according to said chancery suit had three children: William Bailey, Winney Bailey (who later married a William Smith) and Leonard 'Linney' Bailey (who was deformed). The Amherst, Virginia tax records of 1783 and 1784 seem to support this as both list "4 white souls" in her household.
In 1797, Leonard Phillips (father of said Lucy etc died). Lucy was the administrator of his estate. Lucy Phillips Bailey and Sally Phillips went to live with their sister Elizabeth Phillips Roberts on her dower land located on Dutch Creek in present day Nelson, Virginia.
According to the chancery suit, a neighbor stated that he had known the family from about 1798, he gave the names of the children stated above and said that William was probably about the size of a fourteen year old and was not grown at that time.
Sarah Phillips owned a slave girl named Rachel, who had married one of Zachariah Roberts slaves named Henry. They had four known children: Polly, Peggy, Hannah and Chana. All girls and it was these girls that William Bailey claimed he paid for their upkeep in the said 1841 chancery suit.
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| 1810 Nelson County |
In the suit, William Bailey say's that his mother Lucy died about the year 1812 and after her death the slaves went to live on Zachariah Roberts estate but that he paid taxes on them for the next fifteen years. This runs up to the year of his marriage.
It appears that after the death of Lucy Phillips Bailey, Sally Phillips continued to live on the dower land and that William continued to live with her until his marriage to Lydia Smith in 1827.
It is inferred to in the suit that Sally Phillips did not approve of his marriage to Lydia Smith. Sometime after his marriage he built a small cabin on the same land below the "Mansion House". At this time, Sally Phillips seemed to rely on the support of her other nephew Zachariah Roberts (he owned the land they all lived on as it was his mothers dower land).
Maybe Sally Phillips didn't approve of his marriage because his wife already had children. The suit does not say.
William Bailey (1782-1853) married Lydia E. Smith (1794-1883) on November 29, 1827 in Nelson County, Virginia.
By the time of her marriage it appears Lydia Smith already had two children: Edward Smith, who later went by Edward C. Bailey and probably Childress Bailey, who was also likely born a Smith.
Sally Phillips is enumerated by herself in Nelson County in 1830. All of her slaves are enumerated in the household of Zachariah Roberts.
In 1831 Sally Phillips wrote her will, she died in the fall of 1834, and her will was recorded in January 1834. She left orders for her executor Zachariah Roberts to purchase $600 worth of land for her nephew William Bailey's children. She gave him permission to live on the future land for his lifetime. She also left $300 to her niece Winney Smith (nee Bailey). She left a couple of slaves to her great nieces Ann Caroline Roberts and Sophia E. Roberts (daughter's of Zachariah). The remainder of her estate went to nephew Zachariah Roberts.
It seems that Zachariah Roberts didn't buy the land for William Bailey. William states in the chancery suit that in early 1838 he threatened Zachariah Roberts with a suit if he didn't comply with the will of Sally Phillips. Zachariah Roberts supposedly promised William Bailey the the two tracts of land that he had been living on, then he died shortly thereafter without fulfilling the said promise.
Waddy W. Roberts, son of Zachariah, administered his father's estate and once again failed to give William Bailey his legacy. Instead he divided the land amongst the heirs of Zachariah Roberts.
Around this time, in 1840 William Bailey and Lydia Smith deeded all their household goods to their five? children: List appears as follows: Edward Smith. Bailey. Childress Bailey. Isham Bailey. James Wm Bailey. and Andrew J. Bailey. They seem to be getting rid of their property since they likely had to leave their land.
In 1841, William Bailey brought suit against Waddy W. Roberts to try and recover the monies he spent on Sarah Phillips and her slaves upkeep and for the promised land. The evidence given by those who knew him and the Roberts family stated that he was a "poor boy" when Sarah lived with his mother and not old enough to support Sarah Phillips or her slaves. That he is still destitute of property or house and unable to support anyone. That he is basically lazy and has to rely on the kindness of his friends.
William Bailey did finally get his land. In 1842 Waddy W. Roberts, purchased 300 Acres of land for the children of William Bailey.
According to a chancery suit brought by Isham Bailey in 1852 (one of the children of William Bailey and Lydia E. Smith). William Bailey moved to the land purchased for him in 1842 and brought his children namely, Isham Bailey, James Bailey, and Andrew Jackson Bailey. This suit makes no mention of the two older siblings which seems to imply that they were not William Bailey's biological children. Sally Phillips left this legacy "to the children of William Bailey".
In this suit Isham Bailey states that he, his father and two younger brothers (James Bailey and Andrew Jackson Bailey) lived on the land until about 1845, when his father became dissatisfied and abandoned it. That his father is old and decrepit and is living at the poor farm.
In the 1850 Nelson County census, William Bailey age 68 is living at the county poor farm. He died at the poor farm in Nelson County in 1853. This is stated in two sources; Lydia Smith states that her first husband died in Nelson in 1853 and their son Isham Bailey makes this statement in the lawsuit.
In the above chancery suit, Isham Bailey and his two brothers (James Bailey and Andrew J. bailey) agree to sell the land back to Alexander Fitzpatrick and split the profits between them. Once again, it appears that the older two children were Bailey's in name only.
Also in the 1850 Nelson County census, Lydia Bailey is keeping the house of a man named Prettyman Saunders, she is 55 years old.
At this time, her oldest son Edward H. Carson Bailey had moved to Putnam County, West Virginia. He is enumerated in two different households as a laborer. I don't know if it was the Bailey family or the Smith family that enticed his move. There were other Bailey's on Brown's Creek. Henry W. Bailey's descendant's lived there for many generations. Also, his aunt Frances Smith and her husband John Hensley lived in the neighborhood.
(There was another Edward H. C. Bailey in the area at the same time. He is listed in the Kanawha County 1850 census, his occupation was Physician, and he married Margaret F. Shrewsbury in 1851 so he must have lived in Charleston. Relationship, if any, unknown).
Lydia Smith Bailey moved to Putnam County, WV after the death of her husband William Bailey in 1853. On December 17, 1860 her sister Frances Smith Hensley died and on October 23, 1861, Lydia Bailey married her sister's widower John Hensley. A more detailed version, long ago destroyed or lost is in the pension file of John Hensley. She was 65, her parents were listed as Joseph and Patience. She said she had lived in Putnam County for some time prior to her marriage.
John Hensley died February 7, 1870 and Lydia filed for his pension. She moved in with her son Edward Carson Smith Bailey and lived out the rest of her life with him. According to pension records she died February 17, 1883.
At least two more children moved to Putnam; James William Bailey and Andrew Jackson Bailey. Childress C. Bailey moved to Albemarle County and Isham Bailey disappeared after buying James and Andrews share of the land and selling it back to Fitzpatrick in 1853.
Andrew Jackson Bailey married Ann Elizabeth Wheeler, and Edward Carson Bailey married several times; Mary Ann Quarles, Amanda Mary Smith, Martha Jane Gibson, and Regina Neal. Childress C. bailey married Mildred Thomas, James William Bailey married Hannah Smith.
(please don't confuse this Andrew Jackson Bailey with the Andrew Jackson Bailey who married Martha Jane Harris. They lived in the same county and were about the same age).
There are online trees that clain a man named Josephus Bailey was the husband of Lucy Phillips. Josephus was supposedly killed in 1777 during the war. These same genealogist have several children attached to him that were born much earlier and none match what I have found in actual records.
Josephus Bailey being attached to Lucy Phillips is probably just mere conjecture based on her proximity and his date of death because I can find no source record at all for this belief.
The chancery records are here::
http://www.lva.virginia.gov/chancery/case_detail.asp?CFN=125-1841-069
http://www.lva.virginia.gov/chancery/case_detail.asp?CFN=125-1870-038
