John Bolling

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Major John Fairfax Bolling (January 27, 1676 to April 20, 1729) was a colonist, farmer, and politician in the Virginia Colony. He was the second son and only surviving child of Colonel Robert Bolling and Jane (née Rolfe) Bolling. His maternal grandfather was Thomas Rolfe, the son of Pocahontas and John Rolfe.

John Bolling was born at Kippax Plantation, in Charles City County, a site which is now within the corporate limits of the City of Hopewell. He made his home at the Bolling family plantation "Cobbs" just west of Point of Rocks on the north shore of the Appomattox River downstream from present-day Petersburg, Virginia. (Cobbs was located in Henrico County until the area south of the James River was subdivided to form Chesterfield County in 1749).

John Bolling married Mary Kennon, daughter of Richard Kennon and Elizabeth Worsham, in December 29, 1697 at St. John's Church in Richmond, Virginia. They had the following 6 children:

Jane Bolling (1698-1766), married Colonel Richard Randolph.
John Bolling Jr. (1700-1757), married 1. Elizabeth Lewis; 2. Elizabeth Bland Blair.
Elizabeth Bolling (b. 1709), married William Gay.
Mary Bolling (1711-1744), married John Fleming.
Martha Bolling (1713-1737), married Thomas Eldridge.
Anne Bolling (1718-1800), married James Murray.

Major Bolling served in the Virginia House of Burgesses from 1710 until his death. William Byrd II of Westover Plantation is said to have remarked that Major Bolling enjoyed "all the profits of an immense trade with his countrymen, and of one still greater with the Indian."

John and Mary Bolling's descendants are the only American descendants of Pocahontas, and include Edith Bolling Wilson, wife of U. S. President Woodrow Wilson, Percival Lowell, who mathematically discovered Pluto, Harry Flood Byrd and Richard Evelyn Byrd, and the Randolphs of Roanoke.