PHILLIPS FAMILY.
1. Mary Phillips, born say 1670, was the servant to Mr. Thomas Banks on 16 July 1690 when she confessed in Northumberland County court that she had a child by her master’s “negro” named William Smyth. On 15 August 1694 she bound her “mulatto” son Thomas as an apprentice to Thomas Downing until the age of thirty years by indenture recorded in Northumberland County (Orders 1678-98, pt. 2, 668; 1699-1713, pt. 2, 511, 684). She was probably the mother of William Phillips, a “Mulatto,” who was bound apprentice in Northumberland County in 1710. She was the mother of
1. William, born 16 March 1690, a twenty-year-old “Mulatto” belonging to Mrs. Elizabeth Banks on 19 July 1710 when he was bound to serve her as an apprentice until the age of twenty-four.
2. Thomas, born 16 January 1693/4 (Orders 1678-98, pt. 2, 668)
They may have been the ancestors of
1. John, born say 1750, a taxable “Molato” in Benjamin Ivey’s Bladen County, North Carolina household in 1770. (Byrd, Bladen County Tax List, I:34).
2. Sylvia, head of a Buckingham County household of 18 “other free” in 1810 (VA:799).
3. William, “F.N.” head of a Culpepper County household of 4 “other free” and a white woman in 1810 (VA:66).
4. James, head of a Richmond City household of 4 “other free” in 1810 (VA:369). He was probably the James Phillips who married Jenny, “a dark mulatto” who was emancipated by verdict of the Richmond District Court, by the 29 May 1807 Henrico County bond.
5. B., head of a Brunswick County, North Carolina household of 3 “other free” in 1810 (NC:234
Source: Free African Americans, of North Carolina, Virginia, and South Carolina, From the Colonial Period Until About 1820, Volume II, By Paul Heinegg, published by Genealogical Publishing Co., 2005; Pg. 939
NOTE: Winner: North Carolina Genealogical Society (Award of Excellence in Publishing), and The American Society of Genealogists' (Donald Lines Jacobson Award).
