Philip Spiller of Colonial Virginia

There are at least five distinct men named Philip (or Phillip) Spiller that came from the area around Prince William Co., Stafford Co., and Fauquier Co., Virginia during the Colonial period. This post has taken me a long time to put together as I sort, check, and organize the facts available. Many mistakes have been made regarding men by the name of Philip Spiller; the main error noted is that every record for a Philip Spiller is taken to refer to one man and only a few people entertain the possibility that there was more than one man with the same name.

This post is not an exhaustive look at these men and their families. It is just to point out how many different Philips there were.

Briefly the five Philip’s were:

1) Philip Spiller who first appeared in 1747 on a list of tithables in Dettingen Parish, Prince William Co., Virginia. He died ca. 1760 in Dettingen Parish, leaving at least four children who were mentioned in court and/or parish records: William, George, Daniel and Winney. Who his father was is speculation unless someone out there has some proof of parentage they would like to share.

2) Philip Spiller who was b. ca 1743 in Virginia. This was the Reverend Philip Spiller that died 6 January 1821 in Occoquan, Prince William Co., Virginia. His wife was Diana whose last name is unknown. (Where does the Fontaine come from? Does anybody have a source for this rumor?) He had at least six children, five of whom were mentioned in his will: Sophia Scanland (wife of Fielding Scanland), Samuel, Philip, Amos, Chloe Threlkeld (wife of William Threlkeld), and Elizabeth, who has no marriage record that I have found. Samuel was not mentioned in the will. I believe that this was the Philip Spiller that was a patroller of roads in Fauquier County, Virginia in 1776, along with Jeremiah Spiller.

3) Philip Spiller, son of Jeremiah Spiller. He first showed up on the tithables list of Fauquier Co., Virginia in 1782 with Jeremiah responsible for paying his tax. He was on the list following year as well. It appears that Jeremiah left Fauquier between 1787 and 1789. He is last found on a tax list there in 1787. He is shown delinquent in his taxes in Fauquier the following year and then we find Jeremiah in the court records of Union Co., South Carolina in 1789 and Philip Spiller there as well in 1790. In 1793, a Jeremiah Spiller is in the militia of Hancock Co, Georgia and in 1797, Philip and Jeremiah Spiller are ordered to go into the Creek Nation in Georgia. Was this Jeremiah really the same Jeremiah as the one living Fauquier who was born about 1740 or was this his son? Perhaps it was a nephew? Lest I go off on a tangent, I must remind myself that this is a post about Philip Spiller.

4) There was a Philip Spiller who was in Capt. John Ball’s militia company in 1782. I think that this is the Philip Spiller, Jr. who married Elizabeth Hume on September 9th of the same year. Was this the Philip Spiller who moved to Kentucky and whose widow, Elizabeth, married John Mulberry in 1792? Since Jeremiah’s son, Philip, was listed with him in the year 1782, this does not appear to be him. An additional item to note regarding the tax lists of Fauquier is the fact that in 1782, three separate Philips are mentioned: Philip, listed with Jeremiah; Philip listed with two tithes; and Philip Sr. listed with a slave named Sam.

5) Philip, son of Reverend Philip Spiller. He first appeared on tax lists with his father responsible for paying his tax in 1790. This would have made him between the ages of sixteen and twenty-one, giving his year of birth between 1769 and 1774.

I hope to write about each of these men and what happened to them and their families, or at least what I can uncover about what happened to them, but this will have to do for now. Enjoy, and don’t forget – this is not gospel, just what I can make out from the facts uncovered so far. If you have any corrections, I would love to have them!