Richard Bland - Ancestry and Family Ties

Ancestry and Family Ties

Bland's paternal uncle was the surveyor Theodorick Bland. Other familial connections:

• As a grandson of William Randolph of Turkey Island, Richard's cousins included Peyton Randolph, Thomas Jefferson, and Edmund Randolph (the first United States Attorney General).
• His sister Mary Bland married Col. Henry Lee I and was grandmother of Henry "Light Horse Harry" Lee, who was the father of Confederate General Robert E. Lee.
• His great-grandfather Richard Bennett was the first and only elected Governor of Virginia (1652–1655) before the Revolution. Richard Bennett, for whom Richard Bland was named, was the Puritan governor of Virginia during the English Reformation who worked for religious tolerance in Virginia and Maryland and restored peace with the Native Americans who had been plundered by the former governor appointed by the King.
• His cousin Giles Bland, was a first lieutenant to Nathaniel Bacon in the first American revolution aka Bacon's Rebellion. For his role in the Rebellion, Giles was hung illegally by Governor Berkely, who reportedly held in his pocket the King's pardon for Giles at the time of the hanging. Generations later, cousins of Giles and Nathaniel (neither left direct descendants) would join the two families by the marriage of Peter Randolph Bland (son of Capt. Edward Bland and grandson of Richard Bland II) and Susanna Parke Bacon, who became the parents of, among others, Edward Parke Bland, a physician of St. Louis and St. Clair County, Illinois, and of Colin Bland aka Colin de Bland, a young lawyer who served in the Texas War of Independence and the Lamar government of Texas and who helped settle early Texas (sometimes with his pistol).
• His grand-nephew John Randolph of Roanoke served as U.S. Congressman and as U.S. Senator.
• His great-grandmother Susan Dublere was the daughter of a prominent merchant who was a French Huguenot refugee living in Hamburg, Germany.
• His cousin Theodorick Bland, served as Chancellor of Maryland and United States District Court for the District of Maryland. Chancellor Theodorick Bland was the son of Theodorick Bland the "Tory" (but perhaps a loyal American spy?) and Sarah Fitzhugh, daughter of Henry Fitzhugh and great-granddaughter of William Fitzhugh. These two Theodoricks are descended from Theodorick I's son John, who remained in England after returning there for his education and lived in Scarborough, England.
• His nephew, Col. Theodorick Bland, commanded General George Washington's first Virginia cavalry, the Continental Light Dragoons aka "the Virginia Horse", and was elected to the First United States Congress where he served until his death in 1790, the first member of the new U.S. Congress to die in office.
• His grandfather Theodorick Bland of Westover served as Speaker of the 1660 House of Burgesses session and, in this role, presided over the House during the transition from the Cromwell Protectorate to the restored government of Charles II. Theodorick Bland I was the son-in-law of the Restoration Governor, Richard Bennett (the popular, elected Quaker governor). Theodorick served on the Governor's Council from 1664 until his death in 1671. His son, Theodorick II was the original surveyor of the towns of Williamsburg and Alexandria.
• His great great grandson, John Randolph Bland, founded in 1896 the United States Fidelity and Guaranty Company in Baltimore MD. See Men of Mark in Maryland and Baltimore: Biography by Lewis Historical Publishing Co
• His grandfather's brother Edward Bland, a merchant in early Virginia, explored western Virginia and the Carolinas for possible settlement and development, then published his account The Discovery of New Brittaine in 1651, London. His work is noted for opening the Carolinas to further exploration and archiving details of the Native American tribes he encountered, which is still relied on today to reconstruct Native history in the region. It was reprinted in 1873 and 1966.
• His ancestor William de Blande, "did good service to King Edward III in his wars in France, in the company of John of Gaunt, Earl of Richmond, and had a pardon for the death of John de Vale, dated the 4th of June, in the 34th year of that King's reign, 1361."
• His cousin the Rev John Bland, Vicar of Staple and Adisham, was among the Canterbury Martyrs burned at the stake in 1555 by Bloody Queen Mary. He was accused of heresy, imprisoned, re-arrested, then after ten months in prison was led to the stake which he shared with three others. The Rev Bland had been tutor to Edwin Sandys, Bishop of London and Archbishop of York.
• Another Bland relative documented in family history was a young English merchant in Calais who purportedly was the first to warn Queen Elizabeth I's government of the gathering of the Spanish Armada. This young Bland was eventually freed from a Spanish prison by his friends and made his way home.

Other descendants of Bland include Roger Atkinson Pryor.