John Benger

SPOTSWOOD, JOHN, Spotsylvania Co., d. May 6, 1756, p. Dec. 5, 1758. Wit. Jane Somerville; Dorothea Benger; Lucy Dixon; John Taylor, Junr; Jno. Carter; Joseph Steward, James Taylor. Ex. wife, Mary Spotswood, John Robinson, Esq., Col. Bernard Moore; Col. John Champe; Mr. Edmund Pendleton; Mr. Roger Dixon; Mr. Nicholas Seward. Leg. wife, Mary, use of mansion house, and my coach and six, with coachman and postilion and household goods, etc.; to my daughter Ann, £l,000 sterling; to my daughter Mary £1,000 sterling, in compliance with the authority given me in the will of my deced. father, Alexander Spotswood, Esq. Whereas my father, by his last will, did give to his son, Robert Spotswood £3,000 sterling,—to his daughter Anna Catherina £2,000 sterling, and to his daughter Dorothea £2,000 sterling, to be raised by the sale or mortgage of his lands, and I finding it necessary, in order to raise the said fortunes, to sell divers parcels of land, among the rest I sold and conveyed to Col. John Thornton, 7 tracts containing in the whole 9,048 acres, and afterwards I purchased the said 7 tracts of land of the said Col. John Thornton, I give the said 9,048 acres of land to my son, John Spotswood, also to him that tract of land which I bought of Ambrose Grayson, also all my part of the estate in England which will descend to me and my cousin, John Benger after the death of my mother and her three sisters. To my son, Alexander Spotswood to inherit the property left to Mary Spotswood at her death, or second marriage. Codicil to the aforegoing, dated May 6, 1756, with the same witnesses as to the will, directs that all his children be maintained and educated out of the growing rents and profits of his estate, until they arrive at the age of twenty-one years, or day of marriage. To his goddaughter, Mildred Dixon, daughter of Roger Dixon, £100 sterling. (Page 389)