The Bone Family
1
INTRODUCTION
C H A P T E R
1
THE BONE FAMILY IN AMERICA
AND THEIR FOREBEARERS
The name Bone appears in the records of colonial America a number of times in
the seventeenth century. One of these was a Scot who settled in Chester County,
Pennsylvania, around 1692. This Scot was William Bone I, said to be a son of John of
Ulster, who was in the woolen trade in Northern Ireland. John's ancestors had gone
from Ayrshire in Scotland to the northern part of Ireland in 1610 when the English had
invited a large number of these rugged individuals to settle on the land they had
recently taken from the rebellious Irish. Between 1689 and 1720 large numbers of these
Scots from Northern Ireland left there for economic as well as religious reasons and
settled in the new colonies in North America. Most of them migrated to Pennsylvania,
Virginia, and North Carolina.
One of these colonists was William Bone, the ancestor of thousands of American Bones
about whom and for some of whom this brief history is written. Accustomed to
hardships and difficult times in Ireland, they turned into capable pioneers. They settled
in the wild timbered land between the Atlantic and the Appalachians. These ScotchIrish were often younger sons of poor or middle class families; they came as indentured
servants and as colonizers willing to work; they sought their own land and the right to
think, to speak, and to meet when and as they wished. They were a part of the
developing colonial history; they moved about from time to time and participated
actively as rebels in the American Revolution. As the United States developed, grew,
and expanded westward, the descendants of William Bone took an active part. They
were among those pioneers who moved across the Appalachian Mountains into the
frontiers of Tennessee, Kentucky, as well as Ohio in the 1780s and 90s. Among the
settlers who moved into the virgin areas toward the West in the early nineteenth
century were quite a few of William Bone's descendants. In fact, between 1800 and 1850
many of them found their way into the newly opened states and territories of Indiana,
Illinois, Alabama, Mississippi, Missouri, Iowa, Arkansas, and Texas. It is of these
specific frontiersman--these pioneer men and women--that this volume is written.
The Scotch-Irish Bones, a clannish group, tried to keep track of one another in the
The Bone Family
2
days before "the mails went through," and passed down bits of history, stories and
legends. The Scottish Bones were said to be descended from the le Bons of Scotland and
the de Bohuns of England, a prominent family whose recorded history goes back to the
tenth century. While the sources for the transition from Bohun to Bon to Bone are
"shadowy" and still being researched1, persistent family stories and occasional records
have given credence to the Norman, English, and Scottish ancestry of William Bone I;
and the concluding portion of this volume will concern itself with the Bone ancestors in
the Old Country and with some of the allied families of the de Bohuns as well as the
early American Bones.
1
After months of research and checking by the officials of the Magna Charta Barons, I was sent a letter on March
20, 1972, signed by the Hon. Richard D. Ziesing, Grand Marshal, stating that my line of descent from a Magna
Charta baron had been checkeed and that I would be recommended for membership as a "baron." The descent
is from Henry, 4th Baron de Bohun, Earl of Hereford, and from Saire de Quincey, Earl of Winchester, both
signers of the Magna Charta and named Sureties of it. My enrollment certificate, signed by the Herald, the
Marshal and the Registrar, was dated April 10, 1972. (See App. III E, p. 268.)
The Bone Family
S E C T I O N
3
1
THE BONE FAMILY IN AMERICA
FROM 1692 TO 1850
The title of this section might more accurately be "The Descendants of William
Bone I in America between 1692 and 1850." However, we have a record of a David Bone
who was granted certain rights in the colony of Virginia in 1623-24 documents.
Furthermore, there were numerous other men by the name of Bone recorded in
seventeenth century America. For instance, George Bone, a great uncle of William Bone,
was transported as an indentured servant to the colony of Virginia in 1652. The history
of this book, however, concerns itself with William Bone, who is said to have left Ulster
in Northern Ireland around 1692. While the earliest years of this family are in legend
and family stories, there is evidence concerning three of his sons who spent their early
years in Chester County, Pennsylvania; and our knowledge and records of William's
grandchildren are sufficient to develop the actual history of this branch of the Bone
family in America.
This section is divided into three chapters. The first presents a brief history of the
family between 1700 and 1781-- from the earliest land ownership by a Bone in America
to the end of the American Revolution. The second chapter follows the Bone families as
they participated as pioneers in the beginning days of the new republic. And the third
chapter follows them as they became a part of the early historic Westward Movement.
The Bone Family
C H A P T E R
4
2
THE BONE FAMILY IN COLONIAL
AMERICA, 1692 -1782
1.
The surname of Bone is found in the British colonies a few times during the
seventeenth century. The Scotch-Irish William Bone I, the son of John of Ulster (16491720) and the common ancestor of the American Bones of this brief history, migrated1 to
Pennsylvania around 1692. However, there are earlier records of other Bones in the
colonies prior to that time. Two of William's great uncles, Tom and George, had settled
in the western hemisphere in 1651-52. Tom Bone, who for a time sailed on a vessel
which plied the Atlantic, settled in 1651 on the island of Antigua.2 His brother George
"was transported" to Virginia as an indentured servant by Thomas Todd.3 A large
percent of the early colonists came to the colonies as indentured servants. While the
early settlers found plenty of land, it was largely timbered along the seacoast and it
took an immense amount of hard labor to prepare these wild regions for homes and
cultivation. It took hardy men using primitive implements. Obtaining sufficient
numbers of men was not easy. The result was the "headright system" and the
"indentured servant." In general, fifty to one hundred acres of land was given to any
land owner who would import a laborer and pay for his transportation; then maintain
him for five to seven years. At the end of the period, he was a free man. Land owners,
ship captains, and colonial agents sought sturdy people, in fact any live adult, to
transport. Occasionally persons imprisoned for petty misdemeanors were sent over and
a few persons were actually kidnapped. It is estimated that by the late seventeenth
century 1500 people a year sailed to Virginia4 and that three-fourths of them were
younger sons of large families seeking a better future. After five to seven years, one
might become the owner of land--a very important criteria for social and economic
status in western European culture. This is the way in which a number of Bones got to
America. In referring again to the Scotch-lrish George Bone, it is recorded, "A Thomas
1
See fn. (footnot) #11 below and App. (Appendix) I A 1 and II B
2
Record Office, Londonderry, Ireland (1625-75)
3
The Virginia Magazine of History and Bilgraphy, op. cit., XXIV, p. 426.
4
The American Colonies, 1492-1750, M. W. Jernegan, New York 1930, pp. 85-86.
The Bone Family
5
Todd, August 18, 1631, claimed 250 acres of land on the eastern branch of the Elizabeth
River in New Norfolk County for transporting his wife, Elizabeth, Mary Whitemoore,
William Whitledge, and James Bleese into the colony. ... Thomas Todd, October 27,
1652, patented 150 acres on the eastern side of Easternmost River in Mockjack (sic.
Mobjack) Bay adjoining the land of William Humphrey and Phil Hemley for the
transportation of George Bone and Hewett Gepperson. "5 Tom, George, andWilliam I
were evidently the only members of the Scotch-Irish family who migrated prior to 1700,
but a fe~ of their English cousins6 had already settled in the colonies. The first mention
of Bone in the colonies is recorded in the November 1623May 1624 Session Records of
the Royal Court when the king "granted further enlargement . . . of privileges and
liberties to David Bone . . . " in Virginia. 7 There are records of Degery Bone,
transported by Christopher Lanson in Northampton County in 1638; William Bone,
transported by Richard Kemp, Esq. in James City Colmty in 1~43, and Ch~istopher
Bone, transp~rted by Richard Hamlet in James City County in 1655. 8
The remaining pages of this brief section are given to descendants of Willi~m Bone I
(1670-1728) from the time of his settlement in Pennsylvania until 1850. William's great
grandfather was a Robert Bone9 who in 1610 was one of the Scots who jclined a large
number of his ~ountrymen in going to Northern Ireland where King James I had
displaced some unruly Irish and off~red the land to Scot~men. A brief family chart
S~lOWS
ROBERT BONE or Scotland
(d. 160")
Henry Bone John Bone
in Scot.
Robert Bone
to No. Ire. 1610
ln Scot.
I~
William
(d. 1674)
No. Ire.
son
Ire.
John Bone
or Ulster
(1649-1720)
Humphrey WILLIAM I
(1668-97)
to Pa., '92
5
son Thomas
Georg9
Ire. to Wegt Ind. to Va.
1651 in 1652
Henry Bone
(d, Va.)
John
Henry son Bona
to Pa. to Pa. (1680-95)
(Va.)
The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, op. cit., XXIV, p. 426-7.
Henry
Thom
to E
I
The Bone Family
Ire.
6
Cheslter Co. to Ire. to Va. Ire.
I
I
I
I
Susan
John Bone Alexarlder Bone William Bone II Amadiah
Pa. N.C.
Pa.
Bone, Va.
5The Vir~inia Ma~a2ine or HistDry and Bio~ra~hy, OD. cit., XXIV, pp. 426-7.
6Descendants of John Bone (d. 1547), #13 in ligt or Chapter IX, who moved rrom
Scotland to the Enr.~lish Midlandg shortly before 1549.
7P~ecords Or the Vir~rinia Com,Pany or London, Vol, IV, Document II, p. 365.
~1960, p. 37.
8Earlv Vir~inia In~u~rantg, 1623-1666, George C. Greer,
9See explanation for gource under fn. #2 in Chapter IX; also App. IIT D4.
The Bone Family
In Colonial America
7
19
John of Ulster had a business connected with the wool industry. 10 His eldes son,
Humphrey, became a partner in the business, as was customary in families. The other
sons would help in the business or seek their fortune elsewhere. It is said that William,
the second son, was considering migrating to Virginia where his great uncle George
had gone. According to family legend, two items decided his final move. The Glorious
Revolution of 1689 resulted in great unrest in Ireland and a serious economic
depression which greatly affected the wool industry. The second was a colonization
brochure which William read concerning the new colony of Pennsylvania. In 1682
Charles II, King of England, had granted a large area in the new world as a fief or
feudal principality to William Penn. While the latter was the absolute proprietor, he
was a Quaker and established some very humane and tolerant policies for those who
settled on his fief. In order to encourage colonizing, he offered each master of a family
two hundred acres at a rental of one penny an acre and an additional fifty acres for each
able-bodied "head. " Most of th~ land was not on the basis of free tenure, but was
leased, and as long as the land was improved and maintained, a family, by paying quit
rent annually, could keep the property in perpetuity.
It is said that William Bone decided to go to Pennsylvania and acquire land by going as
the "head of a family" and by '~ransporting" two younger brothers (John, aged 18, and
Henry, aged 15).1l Humphrey, John of Ulster's eldest son, and the youngest son, aged
12, remained in Ireland. William and "his f~lnily" sailed around 1692 and landed in the
new world during the first decade~ of Penn's settlements. They passed thl ough the
port-village of Philadelphia ~nd selected some timbered land north of the village in that
part of Chester County which became Lancaster County in 1729. William Bone married
Jane, daughter of the Rev. John McWilliams,l2 a Scot who !lad migrated to
~?ennsylvania.
ONotes or David M. Bone from data of the Publio
Record orrice~ Londonderry, Ireland.
The author has not ag yet located the souroe stating
nhen or the msnner in which William Bone I
cquired lar.d in Chester County, Permgylvania. (To date,
very little detailed research has been done in
~i.J 'nestdr and Lsnoagter counties area.) Dave's notes
intimate that William arrived with two brothers
;3 clair~d land shortly bafore 1700, probably around 1692.
Inasmuch a9 no record has yet been found
.atad pr-ior to 1697, there is the possibility that they ¢ame
under the Headrignt system or as indentured
~rvPntS~ thus could not be rree to acquire land for five
The Bone Family
8
years. A few Bone genealogists, who had never
s~n 'ule mgterial Or Robert S. or David M. at the time they
prepared material on the early Bones in
;~c~rica~ state they had come to the oolonies prior to 1700.
l2The early data or David Bone llsted the birth Or
Alexandqr in c1695 in Chester County and that
c~ lliam in c1697, but state~ "John bo. about 1692-93." For
some years, Bone genealogists have 3tated
l
i;at John, the gon or William and Jane McWilliams Bone,nas
born in Northern Ireland. There is a question
-°:-Grning the exact date and place or the marriage Or
William and Jane (See App. I A 1). From a publica,- cr 1867, it ig gtated that William married a dau6hter cr
the Rev. John McWilliams. ~he latter was a
~-,Yho came to the colonies about thfl timecthat William
came. Ar; unsolved question (2) is--Did
'llams come directly from Scotland to Penn9ylvanla or did
he come via Northern Ireland; did his
-ni~ter Jene .~arry William in Ireland, on board ship, or in
the colonies? It is fairly certain that
~
-ilir son, .lohn, was born about 1693. More research is being
oonducted on this question. (Also see
t
Id nnd Labora Or Rev. Robert Donnell, D. Lowery and S. 0.
Grosman, Alton, Illinois, 1867, pp. 313-25,
~
pp. I ~r-l, as noted a~ove.)
~f
The Bone Family
In Colonial America
9
21
The Bones built a home and each year cleared more land for cultivation. They la~ored
hard and long and became a part of the leveling, invigorating uiolleer spirit which
produced the freedom loving land owning, cooperative citizens of the new world. In
1697 a ship from Northern Ireland brought some newS that greatly changed the lives of
the B~nes. John of Ulster wrote that wanted one of his three sons to return to Ireland.
Humphrey, the eldest ~nd the partner of John Bone, had died suc;denly and the
your.ger son who had r emained at home had died two years earlier, when he was
fifteen. The ~lepression was over and John needed and wanted help.
i he Pennsylvania land was in William's name; furthermore, he had two children with a
third one on the way. Consequently, it was decided that John ~ould return to Ireland.
Howe~er, when John returned to Ireland, brother ~lenry, then twenty, went along. John
remained in Ulsterl3 and became his ~ther's partner; in fact, the full owner upon the
death of John of Ulster in 1720. Henry, however, returned to the colonies around 1701,
landed in Virginia. and went to New Kent County to visit his cousins. He found the
rranddaughter-in-law of George, who had landed in 1651, trying to run the t~lrm and
to rear her child, Sarah Amadiah (?) who was about four. 14 Henry r emained in
Virginia and it is said that later Virginia ~ones iIl and around ~ew Kent County were
descendants of Henry, William I's brother, rather th~ s)f Ge~rge Bone.
I~s mentioned above, this historv of the ~3ones in ~merica refers almost entirely to the
descendallts of William I alld Jane McWilliams Bone. They had three SOIlS who grew to
maturity and about whom we have some data. The ~ldest, John I, was born about 1793
15 It is said that Alexander was born in Chester County in 1695 and William II in 1697.
In 1714 the two elder sons, for some reason, returrled to Ulster to visit the grandparents
and relatives. John married and had two cllildren in Irelarld, a son Jolln II ~171~-81)
and a ci~ughter. The four of them returned to Chester County in 1720.16 There is IlO
further record of the daughter or of other children. There were other children, but the
only one about whom we have much data is Jo~m II. During typhoid epidemlic in 176061, Jolm I died as did a nulllber of his children, ~ralldchildren, and in-laws, including
JO~L~ II'S wife. There are records con~erning a few of his grandchildx en after th~
epidemic years. Some midineteentil century notes would indicate that John II h~d seven
chiidren; the
David M, Bone has a record of ~ore eones stili living in Northern Ireland in 1870 and
atated
.a~ h3 thought they wsrq de~candantg of Jorm cr U1:3-ter.
4P~ri sh 9irth Record3, Ken-t CountYl Vlrginis. State 11i storical Library, ~ichmond,
Virginia; also
. iet.P.rs rar~Loh ?le~ter~ e,, ~:en~ ar.d Je.r~ Citv Co:~ntie~, Vircinia (l684-l786), qd. C,
The Bone Family
C, Chalr,ber~re, Rlchlr.ond Virginia, 193 7, Vol, I, p. .i42,
Shbout lc92 in Iroland or aro~nd lG93 in Penn~ylvania. See fn, h~ll and ,/~ll2 abovq,
9andAll and Allied Fali~ lies, Frark ~andall, Chi--ag-), 1943. p. 496.
10
The Bone Family
11
22 The Bone Family
names of the four who were living in 1762-63 are known. When a large
caravan of reiatives and neighkors left Chester-Lancaster-York counties
for North Carolina in I765, John II and his nineteen year old son, John
Crawford were among the group. They all settled in Rowan County.
William I's son, Alexander, also returned to the colonies, landing in North Carolina in
1721. There is a record of a land purchasel7 in Chowan County on April 22, 1722. While
the first English settlement in America occurred on Roanoke Island, off Carolina, in
August 1585, it disappeared and there
were very few settlements in the Carolinas prior to 1713. Consequently,
Alex Bone was one of the early colonists in the area. He had grandchildren living in
both Carolinas~8 and Geor~ia in the 1790's.
William Bone II spent all of his life in Chester-Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. He
improved his land, paid his quit rent and joined with the ~cotchIrish residents in
resisting increased rent and taxes. About 1721 he married a daughter of John Houston,
19 who had migrated to Pennsylvania frorn Scotland. John's three eldest children
married in Chester County and a few years later, John 's widow and the rest of his
family moved south into
Virginia.20 William Bone II and his wife, nee Houston, had seven
children. Inasmuch as the remainder of this history is about the de~cendants of five of
these children and a cousin, John Bone II, each descendant ar.d his
line will be referred to by an index-letter, as noted in the chart below:
WILLIAM BONE I, son or John or Ulster
mar JANE, daugPter Or J~hn McWilliams
(from Mo. Ireland to Penn~ylvania, ol692)
JOHN BONE I
I
ALEXL~DER BONE
(1693-1760)
Pa (Ire.) Pa.
(1695-17xx)
Pa. (Ire.) N.C.
JOHN II
b. 1715
daugnter
b. 1724
WILLIAM III
HENRY
b. ~722
JOHN A., Sr.
b. 1727
JAMES
THOI~S
b.
1725
The Bone Family
12
b. 1730
ICHART Al
~
b. 1734
~~R
l7Land Records. 1713-45, State Higtorical Library, Raleigh, N. C.; North Carolina
Historical P~n~ Genealogical ~ ster, Paloi~h, N. C., 1901, Vol. 2, p. 143.
13u. S. Censug for 1790: N~rth Carolln~, South Carolina; algo sue speoial note "**~ p.
27.
l95ee App. I A 2 ror Houstor. Fan~ly illgtory.
20ibid.
-