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The Family of Theodosius Bartow
Theodosius was second generation in America. His grandfather, Thomas Bartow, was a physician in Crediton, Devonshire, England and was descended from a French family that had come to Britain, after the anti-Protestant St. Bartholomew Day's Massacre, in the late 16th century. One of the children of Thomas and his wife Grace was John Bartow, Theodosius' father and Theodosia's grandfather.

John, who came to America, was born around 1673. He was educated by a tutor and then at Christ Church, Cambridge. After graduation he studied for the Church of England ministry and served at Pampisford, Cambridgeshire. The Propagation Society of London, after receiving a request for a minister from the inhabitants of Westchester, New York, chose John Bartow to establish a church there. He agreed, was licensed to officiate in the Province of New York by Henry, Bishop of London, and arrived there in 1702. His parish included Westchester, Eastchester, Yonkers and the Manor of Pelham. That area had a population of about 2,000 persons. The Rev. Bartow was assigned a salary of fifty pounds, given a house and a lot and later a more extended adjoining piece of wilderness property. He, at times, also gave missionary service to a number of places on Long Island and in New Jersey including Amboy, Shrewsbury and Freehold.

At the latter place he met and married Helena Reid (Theodosia's grandmother). She was born at Shanks, Scotland in 1680 and came to America with her parents at age three. Her father, John Reid, like his father and grandfather, studied to be a gardener and landscaper. He was brought up at Niddrew Castle near Edinburgh, gained employment as gardener to Sir George MacKenzie, the Lord Advocate of Scotland, and wrote a book entitled The Scots Gardener. In 1678 at age 23 he married Margaret Miller, had three children and then decided to come to America in 1683. He moved to New Jersey, worked as a surveyor, became one of the first settlers in Freehold, was elected to the New Jersey Assembly, became the Surveyor General of the Province, was named a Judge of the Court of Common Pleas, became President of the Provincial Council, was appointed Commissioner of Highways, and acquired an extensive amount of land for himself and his family.

John Reid also was interested in reading and education. He assembled a personal library of more than 80 books. His children, including Helena, were sent to local schools, and then to Philadelphia for additional learning. Helena married the Rev. John Bartow in 1705 and moved with him to New York. (Anna Bartow Cumyn, The Bartow Family: A Geneology, Privately Printed, Montreal, 1984, 121-4; Jeannette Blair, Freehold Township: The First 300 Years, 4)

Back in Westchester John Bartow built a parish church, purchased a nearby farm, and, through his wife's family, came to own much land in New Jersey. It would be an important part of what he was able to will to his sons. Helena and John had 10 children, all boys, six of whom lived to adulthood. The Rev. John Bartow died in 1725.

It was their third son, Theodosius, who married Ann Stillwell. On his father's death, he inherited an estate in Shrewsbury, New Jersey, the surrounding meadow and an additional tract of land. He moved there, practiced law, married, and died prior to the birth of his only child, Theodosia.

The five adult brothers of Theodosius, born between 1709 and 1720, were Theodosia's uncles. Thomas was well versed in the classics, became a lawyer, inherited 1100 acres in Monmouth County, moved and practiced law in Amboy, New Jersey. Here he also was Clerk of the Supreme Court and for a time Surveyor-General of East Jersey. He lived for a while in Philadelphia and died in Bethlehem, Pa. in 1782. In his will, among his bequests, he wrote, "I give...the sum of one hundred pound...to be paid into the hands of my niece, Theodosia Prevost, for the use of her children." Thomas and his wife had one son also named Thomas.

Then there was Uncle John Bartow who also was a lawyer. He inherited land in Barnegat, East Jersey and in Westchester and decided to live and practice in the latter location. John also taught school, was a Surrogate and was a Clerk of Westchester County. For a time he also ran a mill. John did not marry, and he died in 1802.

Another of Theodosia's Bartow uncles was Anthony. He inherited land in New Jersey and Westchester and lived as a farmer in the latter area near a number of his brothers. Anthony for a time was an Alderman in Westchester. He and his wife Charity had 11 children , 4 sons and 7 daughters. He died in 1790.

Basil, also an uncle of Theodosia, inherited the homestead after his mother died. He was appointed schoolmaster of the Westchester parish by the Propagation Society. He had 6 children by his second wife, Clarina, daughter of Rev. Ebenezer Punderson. Only two lived into adulthood.

Theodosia's remaining Bartow uncle was Theophilus. He inherited a saw mill and 1000 acres in Monmouth County as well as the 250 acre Westchester farm his father purchased in 1722. He chose to remain in Westchester and married Bethseba Pell. She was the daughter of Thomas Pell (1675-1752), the third Lord of Pelham Manor. (Rev. Evelyn Bartow, The Bartow Family, 1886; 21-50)

Theodosia's Bartow and Pell Relatives and the American Revolution:
Among Theodosia's Bartow relatives, mostly located in Westchester County, there seems to have been a limited involvement on the Whig side of the Revolution. There is no known loss of property due to confiscation. Theodosia's uncle Anthony was robbed and beaten by Loyalists. Three of his children, Phoebe, Thomas and William married into families that included Whig officers. A fourth, Mary, married near the end of the War a native of Scotland, John Reid, who came to America as an "overseer of arificers in His Majesty's Engineers." Most of Uncle Anthony's other children and all of Basil's children were too young to serve in the war years.

Thomas, the only son of Uncle Thomas, had moved to Philadelphia from Amboy, became a merchant there, gained considerable wealth, and was able to build a handsome three story home in that city. He married a Moravian woman born in France, and he joined that faith.

Some of the children of Theophilus and Bethseba were more actively Whig. Son Theophilus, was a quartermaster in the first regiment of field officers of Westchester, beginning in October 1775.

Mary married Thomas Pell son of Joseph, the fourth Lord of Pelham Manor. Thomas became a Whig and bought the Pelham Manor after it was lost by his Tory brother Joseph, the fifth and last Lord of the Manor. The building was damaged during the War. Then Mary's brother John Bartow, a Whig who gained considerable wealth and who married Thomas and Joseph Pell's sister Ann Pell, also a Whig, bought the Manor property from Thomas and Mary. John and Ann then built a mansion on the property. Three other children of Theophilus and Bethseba, and thus also cousins of Theodosia about whom less is known, were Euphemia who married D. White a physician, Helen who married E. White, a lawyer, and Theodosius who was first a lay reader and then an ordained Episcopal minister. These were all the partially Native American Bartow-Pell cousins of Theodosia

Among the Pell's, three leading males were active Tories. Bethseba's nephew, Joseph the fifth Lord of Pelham Manor was apprehended as a Tory very early and died in prison in 1776 at age 36. His wife, Mary, and their 8 children and 6 slaves sought refuge under the British on City Island. Joshua, Sr., brother of Bethseba, became a Captain in the Loyalist New York Militia. His son Joshua went to England in 1776 and returned to fight with General Burgoyne at Saratoga. Another nephew of Bethseba, John Pell, was an Ensign in the Queen's Rangers. This Loyalist corp engaged in a number of battles in Westchester. John and Joshua, Sr., died in New York City as did a distant cousin and his children. Before the War ended all these Pells had their properties confiscated.

One less affluent brother of Bethseba, Thomas Pell, had four of his sons in the service of the Revolution. Three joined the Westchester County Militia. The most active was Samuel Pell who first served as a lieutenant in the 4th New York Regiment in Canada in 1775. However, he was passed over in the appointment of officers for the New York regiments by Congress in 1776.

John Jay, with the New York Revolutionary Convention, wrote on July 6 of that year on behalf of a commission for Samuel Pell to John Hancock and the Congress:
He is a fine, spirted, young Gentleman...of an ancient and once oppulent Family in this Colony. His Connections are extensive in the County, and he seems to possess that generous kind of Ambition so essential to the Character of a good officer. What renders his Case the more unfortunate is, that he is almost the only one of his Family, who has discovered any great Degree of Ardor in the American Cause. His Promotion would have contributed as much to increase their Zeal, as his being laid aside may tend to diminish it.

Samuel served through the War in a New York Regiment of the Continental Line and became and attained the rank of Captain.

A distant second cousin, Philip Pell, a graduate of Kings College and a lawyer, a resident of Pelham, was elected a delegate to the Continental Congress, joined the Continental Army in 1776, was elected to the New York State Assembly 1779-81, and then was named Judge Advocate of the Continental Army, 1781-3. His brother, David was a Whig Colonel.

Sarah, the sister of Tory Joseph and Whig Thomas, two owners of the Manor, married William Bayley, a Whig Captain. (Pelliana, 1635-1799, Vol 1. # 1, 1934, 53-59; John Jay to John Hancock, July 6, l776, in Richard Morris, ed., John Jay: The Making of a Revolutionary; Unpublished Papers, 1745-1780, Harper & Row, New York, check date, Vol. I, 292-4; French, Gazetteer of State of New York, 46-53; Saunders, The Pelham Manor Story, 26-31; Bolton, II, 40)

The Pell Family of Westchester
The first Lord of this Manor was Thomas Pell, Sr. who was born in Sussex, England into a family of French ancestry, was a Gentleman of the Bedchamber of King Charles I, came to Connecticut, married Lucy Brewster of New Haven, settled in Fairfield, Conn., and then bought 9,000 acres in Westchester from the Indians in 1654. Before he died in 1669 without issue, he persuaded his nephew John Pell, born in London in 1643 and who was an Ordinary to King Charles II to come to Westchester and to take over his property there as second Lord of Pelham Manor. He married Rachel, daughter of Philip Pinkney, from Fairfield and an early grantee of Westchester land from Thomas Pell. It was John's son, Thomas, born in 1675 who became the Third Lord and who married Ann, an Indian Princess, probably the daughter of Wampage, the Chief of the Westchesters. They had ten children.

One was daughter Bethseba who married Theodosia's uncle Theophilus Bartow. Another was Mary who married Samuel Sands, brother of Theodosia's grandmother, Mercy Sands. Another sister of Bethseba, Ann Pell married Samuel Bradhurst. The latter couple helped their son Samuel establish an estate, Pinehurst in Harlem Heights, and they were the grandparents of Samuel Bradhust III who became a doctor, a Revolutionary War officer and who married Mary Smith, niece of Ann Stillwell and cousin of Theodosia, at the Hermitage in 1778. Bethseba and Theophilus had ten children. At least two of them died as infants. The children in this family were those cousins of Theodosia who were in part of Native American ancestry. (Morgan Seacord, Biographical Sketches and Index of Hugenot Settlers in New Rochelle, 1697-1776, The Huguenot Society of New Rochelle, New Rochelle, 1941; Richard Bolton, History of County of Westchester, N.Y., Alexander Gould, 1848, 144-210; Lockwood Barr, Ancient Town of Pelham, Dietz Press, Richmond, 1946, 2-16; J. H. French, Gazetteer of State of New York, 1860, 46-53; Records of the Town of Eastchester...1666-1835, transcribed 1952, p. 3; James Saunders, The Pelham Manor Story, Village of Pelham Manor, 1991, 21-31; Alex Hurst, "Re, Augustus James Frederick Prevost," Hermitage Archives)