Person:Robert Tevis (1)

According to his will, Robert had 12 daughters and 4 sons.

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

Pursuit of eighteenth-century Marylander Robert Tevis through the records of Anne Arundel and Baltimore Counties rapidly becomes an addiction. Planter and patriarch, he overcame a childhood of poverty, acquired land, fathered many children, and lived well into his eighties. If family letters are correct - and dower releases in the records of his land sales indicate that they probably are - he chose but one wife and chose her wisely. He and Margaret (surname unknown) are said to have had as many as 22 children, 17 of whom survived to maturity. Two of the four sons named in his will fought in the Revolution; three of them set their sights westward after the war, migrating to Kentucky with their families and puttind down roots in Mason, Madison, and Shelby Counties. Most of the twelve daughters listed in the will are known to have married, and most had children.

Many of the sons and daughters of this prolific pair honored them by naming children of their own for their parents, and several had double-digit families... at least 110 grandchildren, including 20 males produced by the four Tevis sons, to carry on the Tevis/Tivis name.

Small wonder, then, that much interest has been shown over the years in tracing Tevises. A corollary, however, is that some wrong information has reached the printed page and the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) lineage records. In this paper I will summarize what we know about Robert Tevis, his presumed parents and siblings, and his many children; correct some of the more persistent errors about them; and highlight the major gaps in our knowledge of these three early generations of Tevises.

A detailed, documented three-generation chronology of Tevis data has been sent to the Maryland Historical Society and to other concerned repositories and is available as a research guide. The chronology and this paper were both made possible through the generosity of many correspondents, all of whom freely shared their research and also gave me the benefit of their seperate ways of looking at the data.

Spelling of the surname varies considerably, not only from document to document, but also within single documents. Tevis is the most commonly used, followed by Tivis, then Tives, Teves, and Teviss. The "T" has also been misread as "L" and the name as "Lewis". I will use Tevis except where the cited document consistently varies from that spelling.

The Second Generation: Himself Robert Tevis the planter and patriarch was born about 1709, according to a deposition he made many years later. No contemporary record of his birth or baptism has been found. That he was son of the boatman is presumed on the basis of his name, his age, and the fact that he named his second daughter Susanna. His presumed father's poverty fits well with reminiscences of two great-grandchildren of this second Robert Teviss (for thus he wrote his name) that as a boy he was in indigent circumstances but was aided by a wealthy patron. In later life, the story goes, when his patron became impoverished, he was able to return the favor. The identity of his benefactor is one of several unanswered questions that tease Tevis researchers.

The second Robert Tevis' name begins to appear in land records in October 1720, when he must have been 21. The fact that he is never designated "Jr." suggests that his father died before he came of age; the sequence of land records proves that they all concern the son and not the father. On 20 Oct 1730 the young man obtained a warrant for survey of 100 acres of land in Baltimore County. Tivis's Adventure near the main falls of the Patapsco River was surveyed for him 19 March 1730/1 and patented to him 27 Feb 1732/3. At that time he was styled "of Annarundel County" and he continued to be so styled in public records in 1736, 1739/4, 1740, 1744/5, and 1746. By January 1739/4 he was also identified as "planter."

During these years he seems to have been living in the part of Anne Arundel County known as Elkridge (Elk Ridge) now in Howard County. Thanks to a later Land Commission record, we see him there in Jan 1733/4, "set up a tree" for the Surveyor Henry Ridgely to "cite at" during the survey of Bell's Chance for Peter Bell/Beall. He and Joseph Deavor/Deavour, son of Stephen, were serving as chain carriers. In July of 1736 Robert Tevis' name was twice linked with that of Stephen Dever/Deaver, as joint holders of pew 22 at Christ Church, Queen Caroline Parish, and as sureties for Mathew Mockbee, administrator of the estate of William Mockbee of Prince George's County. Perhaps this relationship is a clue to the identity of his wife, whom he probably married about 173[?].

In Jan 1739/4 he bought Whitaker's Chance, an Elkridge tract of 150 acres, and in September 1740 he sold Tivis's Adventure. The record of his sale gives us the first mention of his wife's name: Margaret relinquished her dower right to the property. She continued to perform this function from time to time for the next 22 years.

While the Tevises lived on Elkridge, at least two of their sons and several of their daughters were born. Then in January 1744/5 Robert once again looked northward to Baltimore County. He obtained a warrant for survey of 80 acres on a ridge near Raven Branch of the Patapsco, north of Tivis's Adventure. This new tract was patented to him later in 1745 as Treadway's Quarter(s), and the following year he traded Whitacre's Chances for 150 acres of Hammond's Fine Soil Forest, a large holding in Baltimore County adjoining Treadway's Quarter. He lived thereafter in Baltimore County, in the part of Soldier's Delight Hundred that after 1755 became Delaware Hundred. In 1751 and 1756 he advertised in the Maryland Gazette that he had found stray mares at his home plantation "in the Fork of Patapsco Falls."

A curious division of Treadway's Quarter made in 1751 may be a clue to relationships that have so far defied discovery. Anthony Musgrove, Jr., setting forth that "by Sundry Measure Conveyances Alienations and Mutations of Possession: he was "Seized in Fee and in" 50 acres of Robert Tevis' 80-acre tract, obtaining a special warrant to resurvey his part and include some bordering vacant land. Addition to Treadways Quarter was patented to him 10 Aug 1753. This 135-acre Addition was sold to neighbor Abel Brown five years later by both men, their wives Margaret and Mary both relinquishing dower rights. The mother of Anthony Musgrove, Jr., it should be added, was Margaret Deavor, possibly a sister of Stephen.

Robert Tevis continued to buy, consolidate, resurvey, patent, and sell Baltimore County land for the next 43 years. His tracts included part of John's Chance, resurveyed as Tevis' Chance, Tivis's Quarter, resurveyed as Victory, and Costly. He transferred equal parts of Tevis's Chance to each of his three older sons for 30 pounds sterling each, perhaps around the time of their marriages, and finally willed his home plantation to the fourth and youngest son.

A responsible and involved member of his community, he served from time to time as overseer of the local road. His children married the children of neighboring landowners, and of fellow parishioners at St. Thomas' parish, Garrison Park, where he served as vestryman from April 1767 to April 1770. In 1771 he was one of the trustees who received land from John Welch for a Chapel-of-Ease to serve Delaware Hundred. In October 1773 he and John Elder were appointed by the vestry of St. Thomas' to spend 50 pounds to put seats and Vestry in this "chapel that stands in the fork of the falls," and in May 1774 they were commissioned to buy a prayer book and Bible for use there. In 1778, with the colonies at war, he and three of his four sons (Peter, Robert, Jr., and Benjamin) took the Oath of Fidelity before Hon. Andrew Buchanan. In September 1779, after three years with no vestry meetings at St. Thomas', Robert Tevis was returned to the vestry in place of Rezin Hammond, who refused to serve, but six months later he was left out in the balloting.

After the war, in June 1783, Robert Tevis, Sr. transferred to Robert Jr. his third of Tevis's Chance, the other two-thirds of which had gone to sons Peter and Nathaniel back in 1762. The price was the same, 30 pounds, but the dower release that appeared in 1762 was missing. Margaret must have died in the intervening years.

Land records involving Robert Tevis Sr. and his sons and neighbors during the 1790s indicate that he was then putting his affairs in order. Some of his children had gone westward, and he was getting old. These transactions finished, on 25 Oct 1796 he wrote his will: a shilling each to sons Peter, Nathaniel, and Robert, and to daughters Anne, Susannah, Elizabeth, Keturah, Mary, Hammutal, Naomi, Sarah, Ruth, Honor, and Cassandra; a Negro girl to daughter Rachel Crow; everything else to son Benjamin. The will was proved in Baltimore County Court 25 Jan 1797. The final account of his executor Benjamin Tevis, filed 22 April, shows an inventory amounting to 385 pounds, 17 shillings 6 pence current money, which Benjamin retained as legatee.

FTM CD #4 "Robert Tevis (Tivis), his parents, his siblings, and his progeny" by Nancy Pearre Lesure, Maryland Genealogical Socity Bulletin, Winter 1994.

1. ↑ Maryland Genealogical Society. Maryland Genealogical Society Bulletin. (Quarterly magazine)
   Vol 35, No. 1, Winter, 1994, p. 32-45.

   "Robert Tevis (Tivis), His Parents, His Siblings, and His Progeny" by Nancy Pearrer Lesure. Vol 35, No. 2, Spring 1994 "A Record of Tevis Births" by Kathleen Field.