Early Ancestors: The Bays Family

So, I'm here again to trace a branch of my family tree back to an ancestor who was living in colonial America. This time it's the Bays family. Again, the oldest ancestors that I have traced in this family lived in Virginia, and then my branch moved on to Kentucky. It turns out that a few of the descendants also moved on to Oklahoma, as my branch did.

Before I started in-depth research on my earliest Bays ancestors, the farthest I had researched to any extent was William Bays, born about 1760. It was a complaint filed by my ancestor, Anna Bays, to the Scott County, Virginia, Chancery Court that created the situation I described in the post, DNA Circles: William Bays and Rachel Barker. Anna, the youngest child of William, thought she had not received an equal share of her father's estate. In her complaint she names her mother Rachel (no maiden name given) and her siblings: Charles, Elizabeth (and her husband, Joel Bays, who many researchers mistake as the sibling rather than the in-law), John, Polly (Cody), Rebecca (Gray), Sarah (Barker), William, and Peter C. Some of the siblings still lived in Scott County, Virginia; others had moved to other locations in Virginia or to Kentucky.

Anna Bays married John Sargent in Scott County, Virginia, in 1820. Their second daughter, Rachel, was my 2nd great-grandmother. Rachel Sargent married Goldman Davidson Castle in 1844, also in Scott County. By 1860 they were living in Morgan County, Kentucky, from which location my grandmother, Fannie Castle, moved to Oklahoma in 1907. She remembered her grandparents well--especially the sometimes contrary nature of her sweets-loving, pipe-smoking grandmother.

Finding some sources and doing some reading about the early Bays family in Virginia has been enlightening and exciting. I definitely found some background that was news to me. This is where I have to stop and say that most of the information that I'm about to share comes from the research of others. Many dedicated researchers over the years have found clues in land records, court cases, and DNA tests, and have been generous enough to share those details on genealogical forums. Where I can attribute information, I will. Where researchers differ in their conclusions, I'll mention that as well.

Peter Bays I

Up until 2008, the earliest Bays ancestor in America was thought to be Peter Bays, born about 1690. Researchers were not sure at that time if he was born in England or Virginia. He is referred to as Peter I, because he starts a long line of descendants with that name. He was in Henrico County, Virginia, by 1709, living north of the James River in an area that became Goochland County in 1728. For this information about Peter Bays I, I am indebted to a Bays family researcher named Jerry Penley, now deceased. His tree and notes about his research can be found at www.penjaccphoto.com/ourgenealogy.htm. 

Mr. Penley and other researchers name the wife of Peter I as Sarah, whose maiden name is usually shown as Bibb/Bybe/Bybee. I don't know if these are possible surnames or different spellings of the same name. I can find no source for this information; however, there were neighbors with the surname Bybe, as you will see below. 

The children of Peter Bays I and his wife Sarah are listed in Peter's will, dated October 31, 1729. The abstract of the will appears in the book, Goochland County Virginia Wills and Deeds by Benjamin B. Weisiger and is available in digital form at Family Search, but there are also transcripts of the will available on Ancestry, attached to Peter I in Bays family trees. The original will is recorded in Book #1, page #169, in the Goochland Circuit Clerk's Office. 

The will reads, in part,

"I give and bequeath my land and plantation I now live upon to my eldest son, Peter Bayes, and his heirs forever after his Mother's decease...now I give to my son, William Bayes, two hundred acres of land joining upon Richard Oglesby's line and Thomas Christian's land. When my son, William Bayes, comes to age of fourteen years to have the free possession of his land to his use..."

Horses and tobacco were willed to daughters Sarah, Elizabeth, Jane, Judith, and Mary. The rest of his estate was to go to his wife Sarah, who was to be the executrix. The will was witnessed by "Eliz'th (E) Bybe, Edw'd White, Jno (I) Bybe." 

The will was proved on the 17th day of February 1729. This brings up an interesting situation, as you notice that the dates suggest the will was proved before it was written. However, a note posted on GenForum in 1999 by Anne Bays (I will mention her again) was attached to one of the will transcripts. Here is her explanation:

"The date for the proving should be listed as 1729/30, which is really 1730, but the old calendars turned over the new year in late March instead of January 1st. This causes a great deal of confusion because folks think that there is a mistake in the dates and the will was proven before it was actually written. This is not the case. The will was written in October 1729 and presented in Goochland Court in Feb. 1730, indicating that Peter Bays died sometime between these two dates."

Guardianship papers, traced through Albemarle and Amelia Counties, helped Mr. Penley and others pinpoint Peter II's date of birth as 1723 and William's as 1728. Peter I must have been young at his death, as his daughters were all unmarried and his sons not yet of age.

Along with the name Peter appearing in multiple generations, William is another Bays name that appears again and again. The same names appearing in different generations and the different spellings of the Bays surname sometimes make connecting the dots difficult. While my branch has consistently spelled the name BAYS, other spellings in documents and used by descendants are BAYES, BASE, BAZE, BAISE, and BAIZE.  

Researcher Mark Baze contributed a post to the Bays forum on Genealogy.com in 2008 that compares the accepted spellings of Bays (descendants of Peter I) with those that refer to other families. His criteria for a legitimate Bays spelling is that it consists of one syllable and a long "a" sound. This eliminates spellings that are pronounced "BAY-see" or "BAY-zee," and those with a short "a" sound, like Bass or Basse, particularly since that unrelated name also occurs in the area where Peter Bays I lived.

Apparently, there is also a consistent tradition among the Bays/Baze/Baize families that the family and surname originated in France. Many also claim a French Huguenot connection. The French Huguenots (French Protestants fleeing religious persecution) were granted land in Virginia by the English government and settled Manakin Town on the James River (very near our Henrico County folks) in 1700. In fact, a Peter Bayes is listed as Ancestor for a registered lineage in The Huguenot Society the Founders of Manakin in the Colony of Virginia. I may be mistaken here--and somebody can correct me, if they know--but I tend to discount the French Huguenot connection as Peter Bays was living in Virginia long before the Huguenots came.

Edward Bays, father of Peter Bays I?

It was also Mark Baze who announced in a Bays forum post on July 24, 2007, that DNA results had connected descendants of Peter Bays I with the varying surname spellings of Bays, Bayes, Baze, and Baize. Eventually, this led to a post dated March 10, 2008, that extended the Bays family in Virginia back a generation to Peter I's father, Edward "Base," and a couple of generations back through his mother, Anne Harris, and her parents. 

It is apparent that some very rigorous research was done by some devoted genealogists, among them Mark Baze, Anne Bays (deceased) that Mark credits, and a Harris researcher (deceased) named Kathryn Wiggins. I am sure that I am simplifying years of work, but what Mark called a "confluence" of research consisted of (1) his discovery that three pieces of property in Henrico County in the time period 1723-1725 were adjacent tracts of land on the north side of the James River owned by Peter Bays I, Richard "Baze," and Edward Bays/Base, and (2) Kathryn Wiggins' discovery at the Library of Virginia of the will of Peter Harris, Sr., dated 1687 and recorded 1689 in Henrico County that left his estate to his son Peter; daughter Mechall; son John; and daughter, Ann "Base."

Kathryn Wiggins produced an amazing amount of historical research in installments she called "The Harris Papers: A Genealogical Notebook." There are 35 volumes, many of them available at Family Search. I'm pretty impressed with not only the amount of Ms. Wiggins' work but also with the way she produced the information for the use of genealogists, particularly those in the Harris line. Working in the 1960's, 1970's and 1980's meant that she did nothing digitally. I know none of this for sure, but it looks like to me that she visited repositories in Virginia and North Carolina, transcribed documents related to the Harris family (and families with a genealogical or geographical connection), typed the resulting abstracts, self-illustrated, then mimeographed and hand-bound her "genealogical notebooks." 

Of course, seeing the originals is always better, but in a time when few people had access to the originals, these abstracts had to have been amazingly helpful. If you had people in colonial America in the following counties of Virginia and North Carolina, I would suggest taking a look at "The Harris Papers." Again, not all the notes refer to Harrises. In browsing several volumes of the "Papers," I found information about the Womacks, ancestors of my deceased husband, and the Toneys, my possible maternal ancestors from Goochland County. I also saw lots of Cockes among the first settlers in Henrico County, making me wonder if they are the earliest of that family in Virginia.

Subjects of volumes of "The Harris Papers"

Getting back to Edward Base/Bays: In Volume 20 of "The Harris Papers" on page 35b is a family tree constructed by Ms. Wiggins. Based on her research, the tree descends from a couple, John and Dorothy (Cawcott) Harris who lived in Charles City County. (In Vol. 1 Wiggins suggests that Peter Harris might be the son of William Harris, first of the Harrises in Virginia. Something must have happened between Vol. 1 and Vol. 20 to change her mind.) Their oldest child, Peter Harris, Sr., mentioned above, was born in 1617 (this is according to his statement in a Henrico County court case, dated 1677, that he was 60 years old.) His wife's given name was Mechall (Michelle? Another French connection?). According to Wiggins, the only Peter Harris of this time period was the one living on Turkey Island in Henrico County. Peter Harris, Sr. died in 1688, and his will was recorded in 1689. Named in the will are his son Peter, daughter Mechall, son John, and daughter Anne "Base." Ms. Wiggins' Harris/Cawcott tree shows Anne married to Edward Base/Bays with children, Peter, Edward, and Jane. Peter would be the right age and in the right geographical location to be our Peter Bays I. The conclusion to be drawn is that Peter I was named for his grandfather, Peter Harris, Sr. or his uncle, Peter Harris, Jr.

You can see by Kathryn Wiggins' hand-drawn map that the West and Shirley Hundred (home of John and Dorothy Cawcott Harris) and Turkey Island (home of Peter Harris, Sr.) were very close to each other, geographically.

 

While Mark Baze noted in his Bays forum post that more investigation needed to be done, he tended to trust Kathryn Wiggins' conclusions. He trusted her because she was a Harris, not a Bays, researcher, and had no reason to force a conclusion. However, he couldn't find the original source of her list of Edward and Anne (Harris) Bays's children, Peter, Edward, and Jane. In the last post that he made to the Bays forum on July 29, 2008, Mark Baze was looking for Vol. 1 (Henrico Co.) of "The Harris Papers," to see if he could find the source of Wiggins' assertion that Anne Harris was married to Edward Bays and had a son named Peter. That was before digitization, and Mark was waiting for a book to be available to check out. In 2020 I'm fortunate to have been able to search a digitized copy of Volume 1 of "The Harris Papers" (plus every other volume that I thought might hold the answer) but unfortunate that it does not reveal the mysterious source. 

So...are Edward and Anne (Harris) Bays the parents of Peter I? I still don't know. If they are, it means that both Peter I and his mother were born in Virginia, not England--or France. 

Peter Bays II

Having gone back a generation to pick up the Edward Base/Bays story, let's go forward now to Peter II, son of Peter I. According to Jerry Penley, Peter II (1723-1801) was living in Albemarle County in 1744 when he returned to Goochland County to sell the piece of land his father had left him. From this, Mr. Penley surmised that Peter II's mother was deceased (since there was no other claim on the land) and that Peter had reached the age of 21, which allowed him to sell the land without the aid of a guardian. 

Before I began this story of the early Bays ancestors, I had gone along with the Ancestry members who named Peter II's wife as Susannah "Hannah" Barker. In fact, when I first read Jerry Penley's account of Peter II's life, I thought he must be mistaken in his insistence that the wife of Peter II was named Sarah. This confusion about wives was one of the reasons that Mr. Penley wrote his account: "There is so much incorrect information about Peter Bays, that I would like to help you to sort out the various generations."

Now that I've seen the evidence, I think Mr. Penley was right. According to him, Peter II must have been married to Sarah in 1744 when he sold the land in Goochland County, but she was not able to accompany him to court at that time. We know this because she appeared in court in Goochland County in 1746 and gave up her dower rights to the land that Peter had sold in 1744. 

In 1749 "Peter II and wife Sarah bought land on Tobacco Row in Albemarle County (present day Amherst County)"; on 14 June 1759 "Peter Bayse of Halifax" and "Sarah wife of Bayse" sell this tract of land to William Gilliam of Albemarle County (Albemarle County Deed Book 2, page 128). 

I think the problem is that some researchers combine the two Sarahs, wives of Peter I and Peter II, and skip right from Peter I to Peter III.

Peter Bays III

Mr. Penley believed that Peter Bays III was born about 1750 because he appeared in court in Halifax County for the first time on 15 October 1772, and he would have had to be 21 to do so. It is this Peter Bays that was married to Susannah, whose last name was "possibly Barker," according to Penley. It was also this Peter who fought with the Henry County militia in 1781 at the Battle of Guilford Court House, in which British Lt. General Charles Cornwallis's troops defeated American troops led by Major General Nathanael Greene. A descendant was accepted into the Sons of the American Revolution (#132436) on the evidence of this Peter's military service. 

Peter II was also living in Henry County in this time period but was too old to serve with the militia. Penley says, "There is also a William Bays living in the same area of Henry County as Peter, Sr. (II) and Peter, Jr. (III). I believe, but have not proven, that this William, who later moves to Washington, Lee, Russell, and Scott Counties, is a son of Peter II and a brother to Peter III." This is my William! According to Penley and the SAR application, Peter III died in Russell County, Virginia, before 24 November 1801.

Recently I found the transcript of a deed (Russell Co. VA Deed Book 3, page 347, executed 25 October 1802, recorded 26 October 1802) originally contributed to Ancestry by EmergedDragon7 in 2012. I believe it may list the children of Peter III. It reads:

"This Indenture made the Twenty fifth day of October in the Year of our Lord One Thousand Eight Hundred and two Between Jacob Crabtree of Lee County & Commonwealth of Virginia and Mary his wife of the one part, and John Bays, William Bays, James Bays, Joel Bays, Peter Bays, Joseph Bays, Mary Bays, and Susanna Bays, heirs at law of Peter Bays deceased of Russell County & Commonwealth aforesaid of the other part."

And then today I found the transcript of the deed when the heirs of Peter Bays sold the land. It's very informative, in that it names the married female heirs with their husbands and the married male heirs with their wives.

"This Indenture made the 16th day of November in the year one thousand eight hundred and fifteen between Susanna Bays Sen'r [Peter III's wife], John Bays & Catharine Bays his wife, William Bays, James Bays & Ruth Bays his wife, Joel Bays, Peter & Margaret Bays his wife, Andrew Martin & Mary Martin his wife, Joseph Bays, and Harrington Little & Susanna Little his wife."

Peter Bays IV

This is no longer my direct line, and we're getting close to the end of the 1700's but not to the end of the Peters. This Peter Bays was born about 1785 and married Margaret Stone in Russell County in 1814. He died 27 October 1849 and is buried in the Bays Cemetery in Floyd County, Kentucky. He also had a son named Peter.

 

Peter Bays IV headstone, Bays Cemetery, Floyd Co. KY
Contributed to Findagrave by Bobby Davis

William Bays

I believe that William Bays was the son of Peter II and brother of Peter III. Most researchers think he was born in 1760. Jerry Penley located William in Henry County, Virginia, in the 1780's, and traced him to Washington, Lee, Russell, and Scott counties. In 1820 he is on the census of Scott County, Virginia. The Kentucky death record for his son, William, names his parents as William and Rachel Bays. William died in Scott County on 6 September 1827. Rachel is shown as head of household, age 60-70, on the 1830 census of Scott County. Some trees give her death date as 1848.

The children of William and Rachel Bays named in the suit brought by their youngest sister Anna Bays Sargent were: Elizabeth, Charles W., John, Mary, Rebecca, Sarah, William, and Peter C. The eldest daughter, Elizabeth, was married to Joel Bays. Many, many researchers have listed Joel as the son of William and Rachel, but if you read the court case carefully, it is Elizabeth that is the daughter of William and Rachel, and Joel is her spouse. I believe Joel Bays (1782-1852) of Scott County, Virginia, was the son of Peter Bays III. If Peter Bays III and William were brothers, then Elizabeth and Joel were first cousins.

Recently a Bays descendant from Scott County, Virginia, Donnie Bays, commented on my post about the Bays family court case. He had been in touch with cousins that descend from Peter C., above, who moved from Virginia to Knox County, Kentucky. Donnie is a descendant of Joel and Elizabeth Bays. He mows the cemetery where they are buried! He wondered if I would like to have a picture of the cemetery. Of course! 

Isn't that a beautiful backdrop? I asked if the mountains were part of the Appalachians, and Donnie explained that they are, but each section has its own name. This is the Clinch Mountain Range, which I should have guessed. 

He also sent along a photo of this marker for William Bays. I asked if William was buried in this cemetery, and Donnie explained that there is a cemetery 2/3 of the way up the mountain. It is located on William's farm which extended from the creek up to the top of the mountain. The cemetery where Joel is buried is on Joel's farm. 

It's beautiful there, but it was a hard life on the mountain, Donnie says. His grandfather was one of 13 kids. "His [grandfather's] father died young, living up in that mountain. When each child got old enough to make it on their own they scattered from VA to the west coast." This is Reuben Frank Bays (1847-1892), Donnie's great-grandfather. We think he bears a strong resemblance to my grandmother's brother, Warner. 

Reuben Frank Bays (1847-1892)

Miscellaneous

***Thanks to Donnie and one of his cousins, the Joel Bays Cemetery is on Findagrave. Here are photos by Dave Pierson of Joel's and Elizabeth's markers.

When I got on Findagrave to see the photos, I also got a map of the area where the cemetery is located.

I had to smile. When my brother and I were watching Ken Burns' Country Music documentary a few months ago, we talked about the Carter family coming from the Clinch Valley, the home of our ancestors. Do you see what's right below the marker for the cemetery?--the A.P. Carter Highway. The Carter Family Fold is about 15 miles from the cemetery by road, and even closer as the crow flies.

***I belong to a Facebook group called Stapleton Connections. I'm not a Stapleton, but a lot of the Stapletons are Castles. Someone recently posted a video of a Castle family reunion that took place many years ago at Bays Mountain. Well, I had never heard of Bays Mountain, so I looked it up. According to their website, "Bays Mountain Park is a 3550 acres nature park and planetarium located on Bays Mountain in Kingsport, Tennessee." According to Wikipedia, "Two Bays brothers settled in Southwest Virginia, Russell and Scott Counties about 1780. Bays Mountain received its name from this family as they were noted as great hunters." The brothers have to be Peter III and William. 

If my brother and I ever get to travel again, Bays Mountain will be on our itinerary.

***As time went on, of course, the Bays families began to move west. Of the seven children of William and Rachel Bays that I could locate on the 1850 or later censuses (there were nine total), five were living in Kentucky. Some stopped in Kentucky, then kept moving west. Some left Virginia and ended up in Oklahoma.

Donnie Bays shared with me that he had Bays cousins living in Tulsa and in Kansas City. He wondered if I knew anyone with the name Baize. It turns out that one of his Scott County uncles, Joel Melvin, son of Reuben, changed the spelling of his last name to Baize and moved out west. On the 1900 census Joel and his wife Fannie are living in Madison County, Arkansas, with their five children, all born in Arkansas. 

In 1901 they moved to Oklahoma, where they lived in several locations before settling in Pottawatomie County. Joel died in Dale, Pottawatomie County, in 1939 and is buried in Prague, Lincoln County. He had two sons, Melvin Henry Baize, who died in 1985 and is buried in Shawnee, Pottawatomie County, Oklahoma, and William McKinley Baize, who died in 1991 in Kansas and is buried at Prague.

I usually take a second look when I see the name Bays. As I told Donnie, that's not a common name here, and when I see it, I always wonder if they are descendants of my Bays family. I would never have taken a second look at a family named Baize. There is a family story contributed by a relative to Geneanet that explains why Joel Melvin made the name change, but it makes me wonder if he reverted to the original spelling of the name when he decided to make the change. 

By 1920 the Baize family had settled in Pottawatomie County about 40 minutes from the Chandler/Davenport (Lincoln County) area where my Castle family lived in 1910.