The age of Peter, Robert Tevis' eldest son, was given as about 55 when he deposed before a land commission 18 Jun 1788, placing his birth date about 1733; an infant when his father was "set up the tree" on Elkridge. The next public record of him is the deed from his father, acknowledged by his mother and dated 22 Oct 1762, for 112 acres of Tevis's Chance. In the 1763 tax list for St. Thomas' Parish he appears separately from his father, living in Delaware Hundred, and in August of that year he had an Ordinary license for one year. He seems to have been a married man, but the identity of his wife remains a mystery.
In 1764 with his brother Nathaniel he was surety for Thomas Bennett Jr.'s administration bond when Thomas Sr.'s will was recorded, and in 1765 the estate paid him 1 pound 9 shillings 4 pence, presumably as a creditor. In 1769 with Edward Hewitt and John Elder he witnessed the will of Nicholas Dorsey, which he proved in 1780.
In 1770 his father assigned 41 acres of common land warrant to him, resulting in his surveys of Father's Gift, 25 acres, and Reserve, 16 acres, both patented in 1773. In 1771 he and Edward Huet (Hewet) stood bond for Jacob Huet in the purchase of 345 acres of a tract in Baltimore County, Upper Marlborough, from the estate of Robert Gilchrist. When the sale was recorded in April, 1774, Peter Tevis and Edward Huet released their rights to Jacob Huet. In November 1775 Peter sold Reserve with no dower examination recorded, strongly suggesting that his wife had died.
Peter took the Oath of Fidelity in 1778, when he was about 45 years old. There is no record of military service for him. He remarried: Later records indicate that a son, Peter Jr., was born about 1779 and another son, Noah, in 1782. Also in 1782 he witnessed the will of his neighbor, James Brown, son of Abel. In the same year, he replaced Abel Brown Sr. as overseer of a road, in which capacity he continued until replaced by Francis Snowden in 1785.
The Upper Delaware Hundred Tax list for 1783 gives his household as one free male, eleven total white inhabitants. Perhaps feeling the financial burden of so many mouths to feed, in June 1784 he borrowed 74 pounds 10 shillings from his brother Robert Jr., offering Tivis' Chance as collateral. He remained in possession of the tract, so he must have repaid the debt. Six years later, when the 1790 census was taken, his household consisted of two males over 16, three males under 16, and two females.
The following year, 26 Nov 1781, Peter Tivis sold his part of Tevis's Chance and Father's Gift to his brother-in-law Thomas Bennett for 342 pounds 10 shillings. Elisha Bennett and Daniel Tevis, probably sons of the two men, were witnesses, and Peter's wife Catharine, relinquished her dower right. On 30 June 1792 Peter Tevis of Mason Co., Ky., purchased 100 acres of land in that county. From October 1792 through 1801 he lived on Stone Lick Creek, his name appearing in the annual tax records of Mason County. There in 1796 he witnessed the will of another Delaware-Hundred transplant, Samuel Shipley, also known as Simon Shipley, whose family names are sufficiently similar to Peter's to suggest a relationship: wife Violet, children Noah, Reazon, Ann, Susanna, and Peter. Peter Tevis wrote his own will 9 July 1801, naming his wife Catharine, two older sons Peter and Noah; and five younger children; Thomas Snoden, Polly, Isaiah, Rowland and Violet.
Apparently life was not easy for Peter Tevis. In 1800 he and Catharine sold half of their 100-acre tract. Beginning in January 1802, after his death, his underage sons were apprenticed by the Mason County Court under an act "Concerning the Poor." An execution against his estate, brought on 150 acres on which he had a life estate, resulted in a sheriff's sale of the property in 1810. His widow continued to be taxed at Stone Lick Creek. She was listed as the head of household in the 1810 census of Kentucky; and she was probably living with her son Isaiah, still in Mason County, in 1820.
Peter Tevis' will has been a source of confusion to researchers. Only the children of his later marriage are mentioned. He says he has done all he can for his two older sons Peter and Noah, whose birth years we can deduce from Mason County tax records as about 1779 and 1782, indicating that they were not children of his earlier marriage.
Proof that he did indeed have an earlier family lies in the will of his sister Rachel Crow who in 1807 specifically named her niece Margaret, daughter of Peter. The unmarried Margaret Tevis lived on in Baltimore County as part of the household of Elijah Robosson, who was named in Rachel Crow's will as a friend. In his own will written 19 Nov 1840 and proved 3 Mar 1841 Elijah Robosson specified that Margaret Tevis was to "remain at my present residence during her life and to have all the privilidges she has formerly had as one of the family." She was undoubtedly one of the two elderly females listed in his household in the 1840 census, one 60-70 and the other 70-80, quite possibly the older one, and she is said to be buried in the Robosson family graveyard. Perhaps this relationship is a clue to the identity of her unknown mother. Robosson, whose father would have been Peter Tevis' contemporary, was survived by a wife Ann (surname unknown). He was previously married to Mary, daughter of Richard and Sarah (Gaither) Warfield, and he may also have once been married to Mary's cousin Elizabeth Hammond, who is named as a daughter of John and Anne (Gaither) Hammond, and who is said to have died early.
Unpublished Tevis family letters confirm that Peter Tevis also had older sons not mentioned in his will: Robert and Reason, who went to Kentucky too, appearing in Bracken County records, and Daniel, who married in Baltimore in 1792 and stayed in Maryland. An unplaced Agnes Tevis who married Griffith Cadle 8 December 1785 in Baltimore County might well be another daughter of Peter's first marriage.
