Permelia R. Bridges
Permelia R. Bridges was born in about 1811. The 1850 census gives her age as thirty nine. Where she was born is not known, and neither are her parents. The clerks spelled her first name many ways: Permelia, Pamela, Permila and Pennelia.
On 3 January 1828 she married Closs T. Jones in Bath County, Kentucky. The minister was John Smith. Ministers sent the county clerk a list of the marriages they had performed, and John Smith's list for 1827 and 1828 survives. Under the heading "In 1828" the first couple is "Closs T. Jones & Permelia Bridgess, Jany 3d". If her census age is right, she was about sixteen.
The couple stayed in Bath County for the next seven years. On 8 September 1835 "Closs I Jones and Pamela his wife of the County of Bath" sold Samuel Jones eighty two acres for $1,000. By about 1841 they had moved into neighbouring Montgomery County, to a farm on Hinkston Creek. Bridges families lived around them there. In 1848 Closs bought land from James and Margaret Bridges, and Hiram Bridges and a Mrs. Bridges owned land next to his. They were probably Permelia's own family, but no record says so.
Seven children grew up in the house. In 1850 the census lists Permelia, thirty nine, with Benjamin F., Spencer F., Emily J., Hiram, Mary W. and Lydia M., the youngest about seven. The eldest daughter, Elizabeth, had married George Washington Dale the year before and lived nearby with her husband and baby.
Permelia was very probably Elizabeth's mother too. No record says so in words, but the evidence points one way. Elizabeth was born in about 1829, a year after the wedding. In 1854 Elizabeth named a daughter Permelia A. Dale. When Closs's land was divided in 1859, Elizabeth's children took a share on exactly the same terms as the other six heirs. No earlier wife of Closs T. Jones is known.
Her youngest daughter's death certificate names her outright. Lydia Margaret Wren died a widow at Mt. Sterling on 16 January 1925, aged eighty. The certificate gives her father as "Closs T. Jones" and her mother's maiden name as "Pamela Bridges". Asked where her mother was born, the informant, J. D. Wren, answered "Do not know."
Closs died early in 1859. His goods were sold at auction on 16 April that year, and Ben T. Jones, Mary Jones and Lydia M. Jones were among the buyers. That autumn the county court ordered her dower laid off. Under Kentucky law a widow's dower was a right, for the rest of her life, to one third of her husband's land. She was given sixty eight acres with the house. The rest of the farm was cut into seven lots, one for each child.
She was still alive eight years later. In 1867 the Montgomery Circuit Court sold a tract of ten and a quarter acres at auction. It "was knocked off to Mrs Permelia R Jones" at $40 an acre, $410 in all. John M. Jones, whose land had adjoined her husband's farm, stood as her surety. When and where she died is not known.
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Cite: Heirology, "Permelia R. Bridges (b. 1811)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/permelia-r-bridges-1811-6e2dc1.