Ancestors

Benedict Greenwell

1790-1875 · Maryland → Payneville KY
Born 1790, Maryland
Died 1875
Children include Andrew, Matilda

Benedict Greenwell was born in Maryland about 1790. The Greenwells were one of the Catholic families of southern Maryland that moved to Kentucky in the generation after the Revolution, and Benedict's life ran its course in the river precincts of what became Meade County, among Goughs, Mills, Browns and a small nation of other Greenwells. A deed recital places land in his hands from Richard Stephens as early as the 1820s.

His wife was Mariah, born in Kentucky about 1799. The account compiled at his son Andrew's grave credits Benedict with eleven children, and his will provides for eleven: Andrew J., Susan, Cordelia who married a Burch, Sarilda C., Ann Malissa, Thomas S., Matilda C., Stephen F., Isabella J. and William B., with one item too damaged to read. The censuses of 1850 and 1860 also list a Robert and a Catharine in the house. In 1860 his household held his daughter Matilda and her new husband, John Henry Brown, whose son Horace would marry Benedict's granddaughter Julia in 1882.

In his old age he distributed the farm himself: four hundred dollars' worth of land to Andrew in 1867, and a larger tract to William B. in 1871 for twelve hundred dollars in twelve annual notes. His will, made 13 May 1875 when he was 'weak of body but of sound mind,' was proved in the Meade County Court that year on the oaths of Richard Brown and W. T. Parr.

Sources

Meade County will and court order books, read in the FamilySearch full text corpus (the will at image ark 3:1:33S7-9PQ5-9JC, the probate order at 3:1:3QHV-F3ZR-N76T); Meade County deed books; the 1850 and 1860 federal censuses

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Cite: Heirology, "Benedict Greenwell (1790-1875)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/benedict-greenwell-1790-1875-5f7f58.