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Bucks County, Pennsylvania, married Sarah “Sallie” Phillips in Loudoun County,
Virginia, and settled at the western tip of Greene County, Tennessee, near the
confluence of Lick Creek and the Nolichucky River. This migration route from
Bucks County, Pennsylvania to Loudoun County, Virginia to Greene County, Tennessee
is consistent with DNA evidence and long established family history. Gabriel
Phillips, closely related to John Phillips (probably his brother), was married in
Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Both John Phillips and Gabriel Phillips appear in the
List of Tithables for Loudoun County, Virginia. John Phillips Jr. and Ezra
Phillips, sons of John, were both married in Greene County, Tennessee. There is
no way that the two migration routes could match unless the story is correct.
On the Bewley family website it is further said of Sarah “Sallie” Phillips that
“Her father was French and her mother was Scottish or Welsh. ... Sallie was raised
a Baptist but later changed to Methodist.” 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, about seven years before Sallie's marriage. If she 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.
DEBUNKING THE MYTHS
Much disinformation about this family has been circulated widely on the internet.
It began with the Founding Families website (http://www.heritageregistry.net),
which posted “bible records” from the Joseph Phillips family bible, listing as
grandchildren of Joseph Phillips and Mary Pendleton the same fifteen children who
are named in the will of John Phillips (dated 8 November 1800, Rowan County, North
Carolina). It is then claimed that the Joseph Phillips bible “certainly leads
descendants back to Joseph Phillips and his wife Mary. Thousands of descendants
and related cousins and researchers are much indebted.” To the contrary, we have
been misled. John Phillips of Rowan County was not descended from this line.
I have spoken at length with the person who provided these Bible records to the
Founding Families website. He states emphatically that the Bible does not list
the children claimed. It does state that John Phillips, son of Joseph and Mary
Phillips, “was born May 28 1742.” And it states that on “February 15 1763 –
John Phillips and Avery Phillips was maryed.” But it does not list their children.
The names on the website are lifted directly from the will of John Phillips,
complete with the name “Buyley” – a misspelling of his daughter's married name.
The purpose of this fraud, perpetrated by Richard Ripley, a “professional
genealogist,” is stated well by Nancy Kiser of the Phillips DNA project:
Mr. Ripley's stock in trade is to tie every Phillips in the New World
back to the Picton Castle Phillips of Wales. I have contacted the
Picton Castle Trust and obtained a booklet of the Phillips descendants.
The family is unaware of any Phillips who ever migrated to the New
World an none are listed in the booklet.
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