Ancestors

Benjamin Spilman

Benjamin Spilman was a Virginian who carried a large Presbyterian family west in three long moves. A Spilman family genealogy printed in 1965 gives his birth as 6 March 1765 in Culpeper County, Virginia. He died near Hillsboro, Illinois, on 15 September 1851, "aged eighty-six years and seven months."

His father was James Spilman of Culpeper, whom the 1965 genealogy calls "James, the Squatter," because he was twice turned off land he did not hold good title to. His mother is thought to have been named Sarah. James died about 1787. Soon afterward a cousin produced receipts for the quit rents on the land and forced the widow off it. Benjamin, then twenty-three, came with his mother to Mercer County, Kentucky.

A history of Illinois Presbyterianism printed in 1879 calls him the youngest son of James Spilman of Culpeper, and grandson of a Henry Spilman of Westmoreland County "who emigrated from England." There were two James Spilmans in Culpeper. The will of James Spilman Sr. of the Little Fork, written in 1784, names seven sons and no Benjamin. The 1965 genealogy treats that James as a different man and makes Benjamin the son of the other. The Culpeper tithable lists show that James with a son under 21 from 1783 to 1785 and two tithables in 1786, the year Benjamin came of age.

The 1879 history says the Spilmans in Virginia were Church of England people, and that Benjamin was the only one of eight children who did not hold to that church. Early in life he joined the Presbyterians. On 12 September 1790, in Mercer County, he married Nancy R. Rice, whose family had come from Prince Edward County, Virginia. Her family was Presbyterian and produced several ministers.

In January 1794 Nancy's father, James Rice, lay dying in Mercer County. He named Benjamin and his own wife, Polly, as the executors of his spoken will. Charles Spilman, probably Benjamin's cousin from the Little Fork family, was one of the two witnesses. In May 1794 the court gave Benjamin and Mary Rice letters to settle the estate.

Benjamin and Nancy settled in what became Garrard County, about six miles from Danville. Their family grew to thirteen: five sons and eight daughters. The first daughter, born in 1792, was named Mary Rice Spilman, called Polly. The 1879 history credits Nancy with seeing that all five sons were "liberally educated and prepared for professional life." James F. became a physician. Benjamin Franklin, born near Danville on 17 August 1796, and Thomas A. became Presbyterian ministers. Charles H. practised medicine at Harrodsburg. Jonathan E. was a lawyer for fifteen years before he too entered the ministry, at Canton, Mississippi.

In 1806 Benjamin moved the family to Muhlenberg County, in the Green River country of western Kentucky. There in 1812 they heard James McGready, the preacher of the great Kentucky revivals. Benjamin Franklin, then about sixteen, drove a four-horse team for part of those years.

In 1817 Benjamin crossed the Ohio into Illinois Territory. On 6 September 1817 he entered a quarter section in Section 8, Township 6 South, Range 9 East, in White County, and on 14 December 1818 another eighty acres beside it. The family lived first at Golconda, on the Ohio in Pope County. When the Golconda Presbyterian church was organized on 24 October 1819, Benjamin and "his wife, Nancy R.," were among its first members, with John and Margaret Hanna and their grown sons. He was made an elder on 18 March 1820.

His daughter Lucy was married in White County on 12 September 1821 to John C. Hanna, one of the young men of that congregation. His son Benjamin Franklin came home from his theological studies late in 1823 and preached his first sermon in his father's house.

About 1836 Benjamin moved again, to Montgomery County, near Hillsboro, in central Illinois, where his son Thomas A. Spilman was the Presbyterian minister. He sold the White County land on 1 June 1836. He sat as an elder of the Hillsboro church from 1836 into the 1840s, and the session sometimes met at his house. On 25 May 1839 that session received Lucy G. Hannah by certificate and John C. Hannah on profession of faith.

Nancy died on 28 January 1848, aged seventy-five. That September Benjamin made his will. He left one tenth of everything to the missionary and education societies of the church, "domestic and foreign." The rest was to be divided equally among his children, counting what each had already received, except his daughter Nancy Monts, who had been given her full share when the White County land was sold. His sons James F. and Thomas A. Spilman were two of his four executors. He died in September 1851 and the will was proved at Hillsboro in January 1852.

If Benjamin Spilman is in your family, start your own tree.

Cite: Heirology, "Benjamin Spilman (1765-1851)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/benjamin-spilman-1765-1851-077cb7.