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Major George Michael Bedinger
b.10 Dec 1756 Hanover, York, Pennsylvania, United States
d.7 Dec 1843 Blue Lick Springs, Kentucky, United States
Family tree▼ (edit)
m. Abt 1752
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m. Bef 1793
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Facts and Events
__________________________ [edit] OverviewFrom : GEORGE Michael Bedinger was born of German parents on the 10th of December, 1756. His parents...lived on their plantation in what is now York County, Pennsylvania. He was the third child of Henry Bedinger, and his wife, Magdalene von Schlegel. The oldest son, Henry, was born in 1753. Next came Elizabeth, born in 1755. There were seven other children : Christian and Christina, probably twins, born between the years 1756 and 1760, both of whom died in infancy; Daniel, born in 1761 ; Jacob, born in 1766 ; Sarah, born in 1768, and Solomon, the youngest, born in 1770. ... When Henry Bedinger moved to Shepherdstown he built a stone house a short distance southeast of the village, between two fine springs. The largest of these was, for many years, called "Bedin- ger's Spring." ... When the Bedinger family arrived, the village was a thriving settlement of three hundred persons. Henry Bedinger witnessed a will in Mecklenburg in the year 1758, yet his children always maintained that he did not come to Virginia until 1762, a discrepancy for which I cannot account. It is possible that he witnessed the will when on a visit to the town, and that he did not move his family until 1762. When he did so he sent his three eldest children to an English school, taught by a Scotchman named Robert Cock- burn, who lived to a great age. The boys grew up with the sons of the settlers, and had for companions the Morrows, Lucases, Swearin- gens, Morgans, Shepherds, Lemons, and many more. The county furnished Ohio with four of her governors. These were Governors Worthington, Tiffin, Lucas, and Morrow. ... [Henry Bedinger] died early in the year 1772, leaving a comfortable estate. He owned much property in the town, and several farms in the neighborhood, on both sides of the Potomac. The share of George Michael I was, to quote from Henry's will : "Ten acres I bought of John Newland, and ninety-three acres I bought of Linder." ... When the war broke out the two young Bedinger brothers, Henry and Michael, were prompt to join the rifle company raised by Captain Hugh Stephenson, senior captain of Virginia. This gallant company of one hundred young men was recruited in the short space of a week, and was Composed of young men of the neighborhood, all of them of good character, and of means sufficient to provide their own equipment. Hugh Stephenson had been a captain under Colonel George Washington in the French and Indian wars. He lived on the Bullskin Run in Berkeley County, and was a half brother of the unfortunate Colonel Crawford, who was tortured to death by the Indians some years later. Stephenson was a brave officer, highly esteemed by Washington, who recommended him to Congress with Daniel Morgan as captains of the two companies of riflemen to be raised in Frederick and Berkeley Counties. ... Henry Bedinger [would later write] "Orders came to go out on Dorchester Point and Intrench, two Rifle Companies from Cambridge were ordered here. ... accordingly 2000 men and upwards went and Began the work, and about 1 O'Clock our five Companies of Riflemen Marched on, ... We marched a Little Beyond the Forts and posted ourselves behind a hill Near the water Edge, where we Remained as Silent as possible. Mean Time our Forts Fired shot and Threw Bombs into Boston from Brook- line, from Lichmore's Point and from Cobble Hill. ... The riflemen were posted on Dorchester Point to guard the men at this work, which, as history tells us, made Boston untenable by the British, and caused its abandonment. After they had performed this duty they were ordered to New York, and Stephenson's Company with Captain Rawling's Maryland Rifle Company were stationed on Staten Island. ... [Bedinger continues]...Soon after this ... and a few days before Boston was evacuated, Captain Stephenson's Company was sent to New York City. I think we remained there two or three weeks, from there to Staten Island where we remained in said Stephenson's Rifle Company until I had served out the whole term for which I enlisted in the service, to wit, one year: and was honorably discharged. " ...Though George Michael did not enlist for the term of the war, he volunteered three or four times for short "tours of duty," as they were called. Thus, in his declaration of services, he says : " In the month of January, 1777, I volunteered in a company of Volunteer Riflemen commanded by Captain William Morgan of Berkeley County, Virginia. Edward Lucas, William Lucas, and myself were the Lieutenants, all of the same County, and early in the month we marched from Shepherdstown by Philadelphia, crossed the Delaware at Trenton, and joined the corps commanded by Colonel Charles M. Thruston of Frederick County, Virginia. We were that winter stationed at different places to guard against encroachments, and plundering parties of the British army by opposing them whenever called on. " Early in March, perhaps the first day, we fought the battle of Piscataway, served out our full time of three months, when, at the request of General Washington to stay three days longer, the company, who were under my command, the other officers being absent, I had the men called together and stated to them the necessity and propriety of their complying, when the whole company, with the exception of 3 or 4, agreed to stay, and did stay, and was honorably discharged, and allowed a tour of duty, of three months and three days, the three or four excepted. ...Again," he says, in his written declaration, "a few days after hearing of the defeat of our army at Bran- dywine, Benoni Swearingen and myself left our homes at Shepherdstown, and went to the American army about 18 miles from Germantown, and entered the service of the United States, as Volunteers in the 12th Virginia regiment commanded by Colonel James Wood ( of Frederick County, Va.) ; being in General Scott's Brigade and General Adam Stephen's Division, and remained in service six weeks, when I was honorably discharged. General Wood stated in this discharge that we, B. Swearingen and myself, had distinguished ourselves in the most brave and extraordinary manner on the day of the battle of Germantown on the 4th of October, 1777. From the time we joined the regiment we messed and associated with the officers, with several of whom we had been long and intimately acquainted," [edit] Personal Data
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*Active---Acquired and in Use; Deleted---Acquired, but deleted; Inactive---Acquired, but empty**; Empty---Never Acquired **When someone creates a card for a person, and indicates parents, spouses, or children, space is set aside for additional cards for these persons; If those cards are never opened and edited, they remain "empty", but the space is still dedicated to the person for whom the card was set up. [edit] Bibliography
[edit] About George Michael BedingerThe story of the Bedingers in Kentucky begins with George Michael Bedinger, one of the first white men in Kentucky and about whom much has been written, including the books, George Michael Bedinger, A Kentucky Pioneer; For Brave America, The Bedinger Brothers in War and Peace, 1775-1843 and The Hunters of Kentucky, A Narrative History of America’s First Far West, 1750-1792. George Michael was the son of a German emigrant, Henry Budingen. Henry came to America in 1737 at the age of eight with his parents. Henry's father, Adam Budingen, was from Alsace, a member of an old German family for whom three villages had been named. The Budingens belonged to nobility and had a coat of arms. Adam acquired a large tract of land in Pennsylvania and prospered. He gave each of his sons a farm when they married. Henry married Magdalene von Schlegel, lived first in Pennsylvania and then moved to northern Virginia (which later became West Virginia) in 1762 where he died ten years later, leaving his widow with eight children. Henry owned considerable property in the town of Shepherdstown (about 20 miles south of Pennsylvania) as well as several farms. In addition to the property he left to his widow, which was hers during her lifetime, he willed a farm to each of his five sons and a house in town to each of his three daughters. George Michael and his older brother Henry had to assume considerable responsibility for the family as teen age boys. Although German continued to be spoken in the home, English soon became the language of choice for them as for other emigrants of this time. The Budingens anglicized their name to Bedinger and left the Lutheran Church after a dispute over reading the liturgy in German instead of English. They joined the Episcopal Church, which they called the English Church. George Michael was described as a sturdy six footer with black hair and blue eyes. He was a skilled backwoodsman, fond of hunting, fishing and riding. He became an expert rifleman at a young age, which combined with bravery and patriotism, made him a good soldier. George Michael and a friend, inspired by Patrick Henry's rhetoric, were the first two from Shepherdstown to volunteer in 1775 to participate in an armed resistance to the governor in Virginia, called Lord Dunsmore's War, the prelude to the Revolution. When the Revolution started, George Michael and his brother Henry were among the first recruits to join a Virginia rifle company. The British soon learned to fear the expert Virginia marksmen and George Washington paid them special honor for their skill and heroism. The Revolutionary War was fought by volunteers who served for a limited period of time - usually a set number of months. George Michael fought the British for a period of time, then went home to help his mother with the farms, then fought Indians in Kentucky with Daniel Boone, then fought the British again. He was a brave soldier and natural leader, and was never captured or injured. During the Revolution pioneers began adventuring into Kentucky. Daniel Boone built his fort at Boonesborough in 1775, following the purchase of Kentucky from the Cherokee Indians. In 1779 George Michael joined a party of twelve men from Shepherdstown and arrived at Boonesborough in time to help defend it from fierce Indian attack. He remained there for seven months serving as an Indian spy, scout, hunter, surveyor and soldier. The war with the Indians was another battlefront with the British who incited the Shawnee Indians from north of the Ohio River and supplied them with weapons and soldiers. George Michael wrote: "I have ever considered this service at this place and during this time the most useful to my country, as we were almost constantly surrounded by parties of Indians, who were lying in wait for us... " He participated in raids on Indian villages as far away as Illinois as the pioneers took an offensive position in their battles with the Indians. He returned to the Revolutionary War to take command as captain of a company of militia and served until the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown in 1781. After the War he participated in a partnership in a mill in Virginia for a limited time, then returned to Kentucky as a surveyor and explorer. As he surveyed land for the soldiers of the Revolutionary War, who had been given land grants as payment for their military service, he accumulated a great deal of land for himself. Surveying was dangerous employment due to the perils of wilderness life as well as hostile Indians. He had many adventures and narrow escapes. After being left for dead by his companions he recovered from a long illness and returned home for several years. During this time he bought property in Maryland, built a saw and grist mill, married and had a daughter. Both he and his wife had a serious illness, which she did not survive. When Michael recovered he left his infant daughter with his mother-in-law and returned to his frontier life in Kentucky. Once again he surveyed land for his old comrades in arms, fought with hostile Indians and served on peace-making missions with friendly Indians. He received a commission from President Washington, who appointed him major of a battalion in the war with the Indians. He was chosen for a military promotion by his general, which led to some dissension as another candidate was older and favored by the War Department. Michael elected to remove himself from controversy, resigned from the army, and eloped on horseback with the sixteen-year old daughter of Dr. Henry Clay of Blue Licks, Kentucky. His wife Henrietta Clay was a cousin of the statesman Henry Clay and the emancipationist Cassius Clay. Their marriage had been opposed due to the difference in their ages. At the age of 37, Michael gave up his adventurous life and settled down to a long and happy life on his farm in Blue Licks. He had acquired a great deal of property in different parts of Kentucky, including land, mills, and houses. Nearly all of lower Blue Licks belonged to him. Working shoulder to shoulder with his laborers, he built three houses on The Bedinger Place on the Licking River, first a log cabin, then a stone house, both by the river, and then a large white frame house on the hill which had over 30 rooms including the kitchen wing which housed the slaves, or servants as he called them. He donated two acres of land for the first school and church at Blue Licks. After the end of his military career, George Michael had a political career. He was a member of the convention that wrote the Constitution for Kentucky but was in the minority on the issue of slavery. He wanted Kentucky to be a free state. He was elected to the Kentucky Legislature and served as an elector for the first Governor of Kentucky. He was the first judge of the Court of Quarter Session. He was next elected to the U S Congress where he fought hard to abolish slavery and was successful in getting a bill passed to prevent the importation of new slaves. He was the chairman of the Committee for the Suppression of Slavery. In the Dictionary of American Biography, Vol. II he was described as: "one of the earliest and most bitter opponents of slavery in Kentucky. " His publicly stated views on slavery cost him reelection to Congress when he ran again in his later life. He opposed the famous Embargo and when he learned of a special night session to pass the act he attended and opened his speech with: "What means this gathering in such unseemly haste, under cover of darkness? Is it that you propose that which will not bear the light?" At the end of his scathing speech a fellow congressman said: “I am glad to see there is one honest man in the House." After four years in Congress he declined to run again although he had no opposition. He said: "rotation in office is favorable to liberty." He had progressive ideas about term limits and slavery and strong opinions about trade and taxes. He also opposed the Electoral College and believed the President should be elected by the popular vote. George Michael's views on slavery are a matter of public record and were also expressed in letters to his brothers. When he inherited some slaves from his brother Jacob's estate he wrote the following to his brother Henry: "My mind has long since been made up on the score of slavery. My dear departed brother was well acquainted with my sentiments and with whom I have had severe and long arguments on the subject of slavery as I have always taken the merciful side in favor of freedom". Both his wife and son, Benjamin Franklin, advised him to accept his niece's offer to buy the inherited slaves but George Michael felt he should not trust someone else to free the slaves who had been entrusted to him and bought a sister to these slaves as well so they would not be separated. He freed his own slaves before their 30th birthday and offered to pay their passage to Liberia. Only one chose to return to Africa. He wrote: "Slavery to me is an unhappy thing. " He wrote that he had no other trouble in his life "but if I once own them (slaves) responsibility seems to fasten on me." In another letter he wrote: "I should be quite willing to have sent most of them to Liberia if they were willing. I offered to let six of the oldest of them go and I would have paid their passage but they would rather stay. ... I think I will try to get the boys taught trades. " He never sold any slaves he owned but tried to prepare them for freedom and self support. All of his slaves were well treated and he taught them to "read, write and cipher". He called his slaves servants, paid them wages and built a wing on his house for them to live in. His children all held his views on slavery. His son Daniel left directions in his will that all of his slaves were to be freed at a set age with either their expenses paid to Liberia or land purchased for them. George Michael fathered nine children with his second wife and made certain they all received the best education available - sending the older ones east to school and later the younger ones to Cincinnati. One son went to West Point and another to Surgeon's College in Philadelphia. George Michael owned the only copy of the Encyclopedia Britannica in Kentucky at one time and his daughter Elizabeth, who was a great scholar, read it cover to cover. His children prospered and married sons or daughters of prominent families; many of them stayed in Kentucky. Fifty years after Michael and his brother left home in a company of 97 volunteers to join General Washington in the Revolutionary War they had a reunion, as they had promised, at the spring on the old Bedinger farm. Only five were still living and only Michael and his brother Henry were physically able to make the journey. Michael rode horseback from Kentucky at the age of 69. They were honored at a military ceremony. George Michael outlived all of his brothers and sisters and half of his ten children. He was a soldier, patriot, pioneer, and statesman. A historical marker on Highway 68 across from Blue Licks State Park erected in his honor reads "PATRIOT-PIONEER Site of home and grave of Major George Michael Bedinger over on hilltop. Born PA 1756 Died 1843. Officer War of Revolution. In defense of Boonesborough 1779 and at siege of Yorktown 1781. In 1784 came back to KY. First to survey this area. Indian campaign 1791. KY legislator 1792-94. U S Congress 1803-07. Opposed slavery. Freed his slaves at their age thirty." George Michael Bedinger is buried on his farm in the Bedinger Cemetery, a parcel of land he surrounded with a stone wall and set aside on the Licking River in Blue Licks for the burial of his family and his servants. Buried in this family graveyard are George Michael and members of his family-including his extended family (i.e., former slaves). His descendants are many and as a group are well educated, principled, willing to accept the responsibility of leadership, and known for their wisdom, compassion and spirituality. Many have served their fellowman as doctors, social workers and teachers. Many have served God as ministers and missionaries. Some have served their country with distinguished careers in the military and in government. Others have achieved success in the fields of business, industry, law, library science, engineering, science and journalism. The Kentucky Bedingers were quite tall, most over six feet, and long lived. Source: http://www.boonecountyheritage.org/content/History/SlaveryKentucky.pdf [edit] Footnotes
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