Rebecca Tasker Addison and Her Daughters
In a letter from Charles Lowe to Benedict Leonard
Calvert in November, 1727, Lowe wrote, “Pray when you wait on the Widow Bowles,
convince her what a Melancholly thing it is to lie alone; Mr. Crow will take
care to provide some Good Wine to push you on." [1] In
1727, a 24-year-old widow, Rebecca Bowles, mother of three daughters, Jane,
Eleanor and Mary, owned over 3,418 acres and 41 enslaved people, on what was to
become known as Sotterley. Rebecca remarried in 1729, an ally of the
Calverts, a lawyer and secretary to the royal governor, George Plater.[2]
Rebecca was well connected to prominent families in
Maryland. Her father was Thomas John Addison of Oxon Hill in Prince Georges,
County, Maryland. Her mother, Elizabeth Tasker, was sister to Governor Benjamin
Tasker of the Maryland colony. Rebecca Tasker Addison became the second wife of
James Bowles c.1719. Rebecca and her three young daughters remained at home
when James traveled to England in 1727, not knowing that this would be the last
they would see of him. Rebecca’s husband had gone to prove his own father’s
Will in England as the only son of Tobias Bowles. James never returned to
Maryland, as he succumbed to illness and was dead within a few weeks of his
arrival.
By marrying Bowles’ widow, Rebecca, in 1729, George
Plater would control the wealth of not only James Bowles with his marriage, but
the fortune of Tobias Bowles as well. Plater, as the secretary to
the governor, had signed the proved Will of James Bowles, and was well aware of
Rebecca’s wealth and status before the marriage. Mary Underdown, sister of
James, worked to ensure that her brother and father’s fortunes would benefit
her three nieces. Taking the matter to court, the decision favored the women.
The three daughters were wealthy and property owners in their own right. Plater
had to buy Sotterley property from his own step-daughters. With this wealth
from the Bowles estate and sale of the land, the sisters were able to bring
large dowries into marriage.
It is difficult to name too many prominent families
in Virginia and Maryland that do not have some connection back to Sotterley through
Rebecca’s three daughters by James Bowles. Mary Bowles, her aunt’s namesake,
married William Armistead c. 1738. The Bowles, Armistead, and the Carter families
of Virginia were already allied by the 17th century. Her “fortune” was reported as upwards
of £6,000 sterling.[3] In today’s money, Mary’s
dowry would be worth close to a million and a half dollars alone, not to
mention all of her family connections that brought value, wealth and power to
her husband and his relatives. Eleanor Bowles, named for Rebecca
Addison Bowles’ sister, Eleanor, married first William Gooch, who died within a
year. In 1746, Eleanor was married to Warner Lewis, sister-in-law to Betty
Lewis (Washington), the sister of President George Washington. Jane Bowles,
named for her father’s sister, Jane, married Ralph Randolph Wormeley of
Virginia by 1742. Wormeley’s mother was also an Armistead.
Rebecca Bowles Plater (Addison) had two daughters by
her second husband. Her daughter, Rebecca Plater, married John Tayloe II of Mt. Airy, Virginia
in 1748. Rebecca’s daughter, Elizabeth Plater, was married to Rodham Kenner of
Virginia, on August 3, 1763. Some accounts refer to her as a “spinster” at age
20. After she is widowed, Rebecca marries the Rev. Thomas Davis. She died in c. 1800 and was buried at Old Christ’s Church cemetery. Her grave marker reads,
“Here lie the remains of Mrs. Elizabeth Davis, the late consort of the Rev.
Thomas Davis, Rector of this Parish. She was related to several of the most
prominent families in Virginia and Maryland. She lived deservedly esteemed by
all the worthy of her acquaintance and died justly lamented on the 9th of May
1800, aged 59."
Click on links below to see their likeness from Virginia Colonial Portraits Database.
J. Pirtle
[1] Yentsch, Anne E.
(1994) A Chesapeake family and their slaves; a study in historical
archaeology. New York: Cambridge University Press, p. 80.
[2] Note: Since
Sotterley was owned by four men all named George Plater, the George Plater that
married the widow Bowles is sometimes labeled by Sotterley as George Plater II
who died in 1755.
[3] The Virginia Gazette.
Sunday, 26 Jan 1738, p. 4. Williamsburg, Virginia.
