The Bobbitt Family In America

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The names found in the list of tithables in Pittsylvania County are much the same names that can be found in the tax lists and census records of Amherst, Montgomery, Grayson, and Greenbrier counties in Virginia.

"Virginia being an English colony the Church of England was established by law as the form of worship for the people of the colony. Parishes were laid out co-extensive with the counties, which were later divided and sub-divided as settlement increased. The administration of the affairs of each parish was in control of a local body of men known as the vestry which was composed of the foremost men residing in the parish. As first gentlemen in the county, apart from the prestige they derived from being the principal guardians of the public morals, they were looked up to as the models of all that was most polished and cultured in their respective parishes.

"It was the duty of the vestry to care for the poor, collect taxes and mark the boundary lines of land.

"The life of the church in this section of Virginia began with the organization in 1746 of Lunenburg County and Cumberland Parish, extending westward to the Blue Ridge Mountains. Halifax County and Antrim Parish was organized in 1752.

In 1767 Pittsylvania County and Camden Parish were organized and at the first meeting of the vestry, held on June 21, 1767 at the courthouse there were present the following vestrymen. John Donelson, John Pigg, Hugh Innes, George Rowland, Crispen Shelton, John Wilson, Peter Perkins, Abram Shelton Theophilus Lacy, Robert Chandler, and William Witcher. Benjamin Lankford was appointed Clerk. Hugh Innes was friend of James Bobbitt and was named as one of the executors of his will.

At a vestry meeting held in November 1768 for the purpose of appointing processioners. (The custom of "processioning" was an old one brought over from England and was carried out every four years. The vestry of each Parish divided the parish into so many precincts for the neighbors to join and all with each other marked the trees of every man's land. The expression came from the act of the people going in a procession to see the boundary trees re-cut.) At this meeting Thomas Bennett, William Bobbit, William Lawson, and William Justice were appointed to Procession all the Patented land from the mouth of Pigg River on both sides to the mouth of Snow Creek and on to the ridges.