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Another website contains a lengthy account of the ancestry of the Bewley
family (ref. http://www.oregonpioneers.com/family/bewley.htm). It is stated
that George Anthony Bewley (born c. 1745, Philadelphia, Bucks County,
Pennsylvania, died 16 November 1835, Greene County, Tennessee) married Sarah
Phillips, daughter of John Phillips, c. 1767, in Loudoun County, Virginia.
She is referred to as “Sallie” Phillips elsewhere on this website, and on the
Mormon website also. It is further stated that: “Her father was French and
her mother was Scottish or Welsh. ... Sallie was raised a Baptist but later
changed to Methodist.” In 1783, “Anthony Bewley obtained a grant of 100
acres” located a “little below the Lick (Creek) running into the Nolichucky
(River)” at the western tip of Greene County in eastern Tennessee.
This migration route from Bucks County, Pennsylvania to Loudoun County,
Virginia to Greene County, Tennessee is perfectly consistent with DNA
evidence and long established family history. Gabriel Phillips, closely
related to John Phillips (presumably his brother), was married in Bucks
County, Pennsylvania. Both John Phillips and Gabriel Phillips appear in the
list of tithables (tax list) for Loudoun County, Virginia. John Phillips Jr.
and Ezra Phillips, sons of John Phillips, were certainly married in Greene
County, Tennessee; the handwritten marriage listings have survived. “Sallie”
was a common nickname for “Sarah.” John Phillips’ will names his daughter as
“Sarah Buyley,” quite possibly a misspelling of Bewley or Buley. For all of
these reasons, I decided to examine the credibility of the story.
The marriage date of 1767 for Sarah “Sallie” Phillips is quite out of line
with those of her siblings, unless she was a first born child who married
quite young. Loudoun County was formed in 1757 when it was cut off from
Fairfax County; but unfortunately, most of the marriage records prior to 1834
have been lost. Evidence, if any, of the presence of Gabriel Phillips, John
Phillips, Sarah “Sallie” Phillips, or George Anthony Bewley in Loudoun County
must come the land records (which do date back to the formation of the
county), or from “Loudoun County, Virginia Tithables, 1758-1796.”
The story that Sarah “Sallie” Phillips was a French Baptist is problematic.
“Sallie” was a common spelling of the French surname Salle, or La Salle, and
the surname of “Philipps,” as it appears in the records of Tohickon Union
Reformed Church in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, is a common spelling in France
(and in England and Wales). But in France, Baptist missions were not begun
until 1832. In France and in Canada, persecution was severe. Missionaries
were subject to imprisonment. In Virginia, the first Baptist church was
organized in 1720, in Isle of Wight County (in southeastern Virginia).
But in Loudoun County (in northern Virginia), the first Baptist meetings,
beginning about 1756, were in tents; the first wooden church structure was
not built until 1770. If “Sallie” was raised a Baptist, perhaps she was born
in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. The first Baptist church in Pennsylvania was
established in 1682 in Cold Spring, Falls Township, Bucks County.
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