Person:Hammutal Tevis (1)

From Hammutal Tevis and Robert Shipley: A Cautionary Tale by Nany Pearre Lesure

Evidence from land, court, and probate records of Baltimore and Anne Arundel Counties, Md., shows that Hammutal, daughter of Robert and Margaret (surname unknown) Tevis, did not marry John Barnes (of Adam of James) as has been previously supposed, but that she first married Adam Shipley (of Adam of Richard of Adam), that he died before 12 October 1765, and that she then married John Lindsay. This evidence also corrects the accepted birthdate of Robert Shipley, son of Adam and Hammutal, from 1753 to 1763.

The story of Hammutal Tevis and Robert Shipley poses a lesson in documentation and careful reading of sources. From it, three caveats emerge:

1. Don't jump to conclusions from an unusual given name. It may have been locally popular. 2. Don't rely on secondary sources. Recheck original documents if you possibly can, especially if you plan to publish. 3. Don't abstract a document without reading it carefullly all the way through.

The wife of John Barnes of Adam was named as Hamutel Barnes of Baltimore County on 2 March 1797 when she sold her dower rights in Anne Arundel tracts formerly owned by her husband. Published Dorsey and Barnes genealogies have identified her as Hammutal Tevis, whose father Robert Tevis moved from Anne Arundel to Baltimore county before 1752 and on 25 October 1796 wrote a will listing the first names of 12 daughters and 4 sons. The conclusion seems logical: "Hammutal" is unusual, and "Tevis" appears in names of some Barnes descendants. However, researchers interested in the Lindsays of Baltimore County have found that John Lindsay, who died in 1801, only a year after John Barnes died intestate, left a will naming his wife and she too, was Hammutal. We know that "Hammittall" was his wife at least as early as 28 March 1774 when she agreed to his sale of property.

Proof that Hammutal Tevis was indeed the wife of John Lindsay instead of John Barnes lies in the will of Rachel Crow, youngest of the 12 daughters named in Robert Tevis' will and the only one whose married name is given in that document. Written 1 June 1807 and proved 5 February 1808, Rachel's will named as executors her two sisters Hammutal Lindsay and Naomi Brown, both widows by 1807. The Baltimore County censuses for 1810, 1820, and 1830 show that Hammutal Lindsay outlived her husband by many years. In the 1830 census her age was given in the "80-90" column, indicating that she was born about 1740-50.

The first evidence that there is more to Hammutal Tevis' story lies in records of the Prerogative Court in Annapolis for 1765. It was there recorded from Baltimore County on 14 Oct 1765 that Robert Tevis and Thomas Bennett were sureties for Hamutal Shipley's bond in the adminstration of Adam Shipley's estate. This Adam, the son of Adam Shipley or Richard of Adam, had two children, Robert and Ruth. In 1767, a few years after the younger Adam's death, his father wrote a will in Anne Arundel County. Although he was "weak of body: at the time of writing, the will was not proved in court until 4 April 1778. In The Shipleys of Maryland, published in 1938 by the Shipley Family Association and revised in 1968, this will is abstracted to read that land Adam left to his grandson Robert of Adam was to be kept rented "for seven years until grandson Robert came to the age of twenty-one years," the rent for the seven years to go to Robert's sister Ruth. The will was written 19 March 1767; Robert's date of birth was thus "established" as 1753, and it has been recorded as 1753 ever since: too early for him to be considered the child from a first marriage to Hammutal (Tevis) Lindsay, as the 1765 record suggests, although he is said to have had a son named "Robert Tevis Shipley" to whom he in turn willed the land he inherited from his Shipley grandfather.

A closer reading of Adam Shipley's complete will changes the picture considerably. It does provide for the land to be rented until Robert is 21; it specifies, however, that "the rents arrising for seven years of the time I give and bequeath to his sister Ruth, and that the money arrising for the remaining years be for the education and maintenance of my said two grandchildren namely Robert and Ruth Shipley."

Robert Shipley's birth must therefore be placed some years after 1753, and the possibility that he was the son of Hammutal Tevis becomes real. Most of Robert Tevis' children named sons Robert, but there is no "Robert Lindsay" on record, perhaps because Hammutal already had a son named Robert. In marrying Adam Shipley she would have been marrying her first cousin, if it is true that his father's wife, alive in 1767 but not named in the will, was her father's sister Ruth Tevis. A young widow with two babies, Hammutal would undoubtedly have remarried soon. John Lindsay's son John, my ancestor, was born in 1767... He may well have been the first child of John and Hammutal. The order of children listed in John's will and the wording of Rachel Crow's will both suggest that John Lindsay may have had one or two children by a previous marriage when he married the young mother Hammutal.

From Robert Tevis (Tivis), His Parents, His Siblings, and His Progeny by Nancy Pearrer Lesure

Hammutal Tevis married twice. Her first marriage was around 1762 to Adam Shipley Jr., whose father, Adam Shipley of Anne Arundel County, owned a tract in Delaware Hundred called Adam's Garden and whose mother, Ruth Shipley, may have been sister to Robert Tevis Sr. and therefore Hammutal's aunt. Adam Jr. survived for only a few years, leaving Hammutal with two infants, Robert and Ruth Shipley. By 14 Oct 1765 she was involved in the administration of his estate with her father and her brother-in-law Thomas Bennett as sureties.

Her second marriage was to John Lindsay/Lindsey. She waived dower when he sold a tract in 1774; she was named in his will written and proved in 1801; and she was fully identified in the will of her sister Rachel Crow written in 1807.

Hammutal and John Lindsay had at least ten children, including a Margaret Lindsay. His will also lists two older children Mary and Joshua, who may be Hammutal's but are more probably offspring of a previous marriage.

Hammutal Lindsay lived on in Delaware Hundred for many years after the death of her second husband. She is listed in the 1830 census as 80-90 years old.

1. ↑ Maryland Genealogical Society. Maryland Genealogical Society Bulletin. (Quarterly magazine)
   Vol. 31, No. 2, Spring 1990.

   "Hammutal Tevis and Robert Shipley: A Cautionary Tale" by Nany Pearre Lesure, McLean, VA

2. ↑ Maryland Genealogical Society. Maryland Genealogical Society Bulletin. (Quarterly magazine)
   Vol. 35, No. 2 Spring 1994, A Record of Tevis Births, p. 242.