Talk:Theodorick Bland (judge)

Section removed
The following section has been removed from the article for verifiability concerns. Although I suspect the information is true, most of it cannot be verified with Wikipedia's standards governing reliable sources. I have followed the various citations credited to the Bland Papers, which only point to an introductory page, and am unable to verify the respective assertions that are noted. It would be great if someone more familiar with the Bland family could post specific pages from the Bland Papers or other reliable sources to get this info back into the article. Location (talk) 06:50, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Family and early life
Theodorick Bland was a great-great grandson of Theodorick Bland (burgess) I. Not much is known about his childhood other than the bare facts archived by the family. He was said as an adult never to identify his parents or their ancestry. His parents were Theodorick Bland of Scarborough and London, England, and, later Petersburg, Virginia; and Sarah Battaile Fitzhugh of Stafford County, Virginia. Theodorick Sr. (Sep 21 1746 - 1789) was the son of John Bland and Anne Buck. John Sr. was a merchant of London and Petersburg, Virginia. His son John Jr. managed the Petersburg activities until the disruption of trade and shipping with Britain in the years just before the American Revolutionary War. Sarah was the daughter of Henry Fitzhugh of "Bedford" and Sarah Battaile. She was a great-granddaughter of William Fitzhugh, founder of the Fitzhugh family of Virginia.

Theodorick Sr and Sarah were married in Stafford County in 1772. It appears that Theodorick immigrated to Virginia at the same time, and they lived in the Petersburg area, Dinwiddie Coounty, Virginia until 1784, near his brother John and their cousins, Richard Bland II, Peyton Randolph, Thomas Jefferson, and Col Theodorick Bland (congressman). During the many years of his education in England, Col Theodorick Bland (1741–1790) had remained close to John Bland Sr and his family. He corresponded with them and spent holidays with them in London and Scarborough.

In 1781 during the American Revolutionary War, Theodorick Sr., was forced to flee the Petersburg/Williamsburg area and seek the protection of Lord Cornwallis. He "thought it prudent to seek protection." As English immigrants were not allowed legally to reside in the capital area from the beginning of the Revolution, Bland and his brother John may have managed to avoid arrest up to 1781 by remaining close to their well-known American patriot cousins and in-laws. Theodorick Sr. later became known as "Theodorick Bland, the Tory," one of the "white loyalists of Williamsburg." No evidence documents that he was a British Loyalist or sympathizer. Correspondence of his among the Chancellor's papers tends to lean the other way. Recently the family has speculated that he may have been caught up in one of the periodic uprisings against suspected Tories, sometimes to settle personal grudges, and could not reach safety among his family. He had several cousins and his wife had at least one cousin, William Fitzhugh, who had served or were serving in the Continental Congresses. As Bland fled to the British lines, he left behind his wife, Sarah, and three young children, Theodorick Jr. (about eight years old), Sophia and John. As adults, Theodorick Jr and Sophia later moved to Maryland. John remained in Virginia until his death in 1813.

The residence of Sarah Bland and her children for several years after her husband's departure is not known. The young Theodorick Bland appeared on record in Danville, Virginia at about the age of 21 years, practicing as a lawyer there. It is not known when or where his father died. Reportedly Theodorick Sr.'s requests to reenter Virginia after the Revolutionary War were denied until his reported death in 1786. The Chancellor's papers archived in Maryland contain correspondence from his father dated as late as 1789, suggesting he lived until then.

The Revolutionary-era history may have been the reason for the Chancellor Bland's silence about his parents, the times and places of their deaths, and the source of his education in the law, which he had received before working in Danville. He and his sister Sophie maintained close relationships with their mother's Fitzhugh family, particularly with their uncle Nicholas Batalle Fitzhugh [sic], who preceded his nephew in service as a Federal judge.