New Information regarding family of Elisha Meredith and Elizabeth Cocke

This post is meant for Ann ...

I have enjoyed looking at your Rootsweb site which was from a few years back. It was entitled, basically, "Meredith, Chafin, Buster, Morrison ...". 

There must be a will from Hanover County, VA that gives information about a daughter of Elisha Meredith who married a man named Thomas Blackwell. (I would love to see that will, by the way!) At any rate, I believe this daughter was named ELIZABETH, as I have just discovered a relationship to the Meredith family through my very limited knowledge of this couple's daughter and granddaughter.

On June 12, 1804, ELIZABETH, the widow of Thomas Blackwell, signed articles of agreement with "the distributees of the estate of Thomas Blackwell, deceased" -- one of whom was their daughter, Mary M. [Blackwell] Winfrey. 

I hope you will allow me the opportunity to tell you how I ever came to decide that theMeredith family must also be mine, and why & how Thomas Blackwell has anything to do with it  ...

The granddaughter of Thomas Blackwell and his wife ELIZABETH has been known by Ruffin family researchers as "Margaret Boswell Dugar" (born 1797). She married William Ruffin in King William County, VA about 1816. They eventually moved to Fayette County, Tennessee. There has been nothing known beyond this woman's name until about a year ago. At that time, a booklet put together by June Banks Evans entitled "The Blackwells of Blackwell's Neck" clearly convinced me that Margaret Boswell Dugar was only known by the name of "Dugar" ..., her birth name was Margaret Boswell WINFREY, the daughter of Mary M. Blackwell and an Unknown Winfrey.

Mary M. Blackwell Winfrey went on to remarry twice more. Her third husband was FLEMING DUGAR. She made a marriage arrangement with him in King William in 1810 concerning personal property. One part of the agreement stipulated that Mary's daughter Peggy B(oswell) Winfrey might reside with her mother without paying board until the time of her marriage. This Margaret "Peggy" and her husband William Ruffin are my fourth great grandparents.

About four days ago, I "googled" the two names of "Boswell" and "Winfrey" together with quotes and got a hit in King William County records from 1798 (about 1 year following the birth of Margaret Boswell Winfrey). It was a deed to John Hill by DRURY BOSWELL WINFREY and his wife, MARY MEREDITH. This is when a bunch of lights began going off in my mind ... regarding a possible connection between the Merediths and the Blackwells ... which seems to be confirmed by the information at your site.

I believe Mary M. Blackwell's middle name was MEREDITH and that she was the wife of this Drury Boswell Winfrey. I am led to that conclusion, not simply because I WANT to believe it, but also because of the name of the Ruffin son who was born to Margaret and her husband, William Ruffin, in 1817. This son was named "JAMES DRURY RUFFIN". No one in my Ruffin line was named DRURY. As a matter of fact, it has been thought that the name "Drury" came from a friend of William Ruffin with whom he fought at the Battle of New Orleans. It makes perfect sense now that the first son of Margaret and William Ruffin would be named after the GRANDFATHER on the mother's side! (The "James" was the name of the grandfather on the Father's side).

If my conjectures are true (and they seem to be backed by records, though scanty), then this "find" is pretty significant for the following lines ... Meredith, Winfrey, Blackwell, and Ruffin!

I hope you will write me back and help me by letting me see the will of Elisha Meredith from Hanover County, VA. If that is where the assumption has come from that a daughter of his married a man named Thomas Blackwell, then I believe we have stumbled upon something very significant!

Please let me know if you believe there are other ways to prove the "inferential genealogy" I have set up above ... Thanks so much!

Pat Iverson