General Notes

The earliest known Jewell ancestor was Thomas Jewel. All w
e know from documentation of Thomas' early life is that h
e was bound out 9 Aug 1779 when he was about 14 years old t
o one John McFarling by Loudoun County, VA, court order. W
e have no record of his antecedents. Family tradition is th
at his father was murdered by a would-be robber (more later
).
Jewel (or Jewell) is an English name. Georgius Jewell, wh
o died 6 June 1775, is buried in England's Westminster Abbe
y. In Virginia, a Robert Jewell is mentioned in connectio
n with a land transaction in the county of New Norfolk in 1
637, just 30 years after the Jamestown settlement. A John J
ewell is mentioned in an inventory in 1668 in Northhampto
n County. A John Jewell is mentioned in a court case in Wes
tmoreland County in 1703.
The strongest indication of a possible connection with Thom
as is the will of a Mary Jewell in Essex County in 1704 i
n which she names her children, Thomas, William, and Mary
. Presumably it is this Thomas Jewell who is named in the q
uit rolls of Essex County in 1704, and also this Thomas wh
o patented 149 acres in Essex in 1713. In 1715 a Thomas Jew
ell sold 149 acres in Essex. A William Jewell is included i
n the tithables in Westmoreland County in 1776. This coul
d conceivably have been Thomas's father if he moved to Loud
oun by 1779. Lucinda Jewel, a granddaughter of Thomas, thou
ght his father's name was William.
Other early mentions of the Jewel name in Virginia: A Cathe
rine Jewell married Richard Lewis in 1786 in Botetourt Coun
ty, the same county in which Thomas married Elizabeth Graha
m in 1796. A James Jewell married Molly Ringmaiden in 179
2 in Westmoreland County. A William Jewel married a Sarah D
evore in 1792 in Frederick County. A William Jewell marrie
d a Ruth Rea in 1796 in Frederick County. A Mary Jewell mar
ried a Samuel Bailey in 1799 in Augusta County. There ar
e a number of early recordings of the Jewell name in Loudou
n County, among them a Moses Jewell in 1762, an Elisha Jewe
ll and a Jonathan Jewell in 1784 and 1788, an Elisha, a Geo
rge, and a Jonathan Jewell in 1789, and an Alexander Jewel
l in 1795. When some of the family dropped the second lette
r L is not known.
There were early Jewells in New England, some of them becom
ing quite prominent, and there were Jewells in New Jersey a
nd North Carolina. But Eastern Virginia would seem the mor
e likely origin area of Thomas' immediate forbears.
There is a court record of Thomas' marriage to Elizabeth Gr
aham in Botetourt County 18 May 1796. Subsequent to his mar
riage we have quite a bit of documentation on Thomas, inclu
ding the names and spouses of his children, census records
, land transactions, and his probate record. Prior to the r
ecord of his marriage we have only the 1779 Loudoun court r
ecord, " ... ordered that the church warden of Shelbourne P
arish bind John Philips, Thomas Jewell, and Winfred Jewel
l to John McFarling according to law. " On 25 Sept.1780
, a Martha Jewell of the same parish agreed to the bindin
g out of her son, Zachariah, who was to be four years old i
n August 1782. Possibly this Martha was also Thomas' mother
. Although this was during the Revolution, the court stil
l depended on the Episcopal Church to handle these matter
s as it had traditionally done in Colonial times. Loudoun i
s one of Virginia's most northern counties and is today jus
t commuting distance northwest of Washington DC.
In addition to this sparse documentation, there is consider
able family tradition about how Thomas was orphaned. But le
t an experienced genealogist, Iva Jewel Geary, Thomas' grea
t granddaughter and the author's mother, relate this tradit
ion:
" The family story is that Thomas' father was killed as h
e returned from Norfolk where he had gone to collect mone
y from property there. He was shot and killed as he was nea
rly home but the murderer was never known. The mother did n