What’s in a name?

The Bailey surname is English in origin, coming from the Anglo-French ‘bailler’ (to deliver). Bailey is an occupational surname used most prevalently to describe a bailiff or steward. Less often, Bailey sometimes could also be attached to those who live near a castle or stronghold.

George Smith lived in the Huguenot community around Manakintowne in the Goochland and Powhatan counties of the Virginia colony. He eventually married into this community and joined the King William Parish. His wife was Ann Perault Bailey, our 5th-great-grandmother.

The Baileys have been in America for a very long time.

Roger Bayley appears to have been the first of this family to set foot on American soil. He was with Sir Walter Raleigh’s Lost Colony in 1587.

The next Bailey to America was William Bailey, who came to Jamestown with the first supply ship for the settlers there in 1608. Under Captain Francis Nelson, he set sail on the ship ‘Phoenix.’ Upon arrival, he found himself mingling with Captain John Smith and Pocahontas.

Like many of our ancestors who have been here a while, some landmarks bear the Bailey name, like Bailey’s Point and Bailey’s Creek. Another William Bayley arrived on the ship ‘Prosperous’ in May of 1611 and was granted a land patent.

From the book The Original Lists of Persons of Quality. Written by John Camden Hotten.

The Prosperous left England May 1611 for Virginia, a fleet of three ships and three caravels under Sir Thomas Gates. She was accompanied by the Starr with Captain Christopher Newport, now vice Admiral of Virginia and pilot John Clark, and the Elizabeth, three hundred people, supplies, horses, kine, goats, besides “coneies, pigeons and pullen.” They reached the Canaries in April, the Dominica West Indies May 9, Porto Rico and anchored at Point Comfort at night, May 22, 1611. The men were listed as “honest, sufficient artificers, carpenters, smiths, coopers, fishermen, tanners, shoemakers, shipwrights, brickmen, gardeners, husbandmen and laboring men of all sorts.” The Prosperous arrived from Virginia November 13, 1611, announcing the arrival of the Spanish ships in Virginia, the “landing of spies.”
 
“Baley, William, 1611 voyage, 41 at muster. Wife Mary was on the George 1617.”

And from the The MUSTER of the Inhabitant’s of West and Sherley Hundred taken the 22th of January 1624.

“WILLIAM BAYLEYS MUSTER WILLIAM BALEY aged 41 yeares in the Prosperous in May 1610 MARY his wife aged 24 yeres in the George 1617 THOMAS his Sonn aged 4 years”

The Bailey family, of which we descend, is still being researched. I know that Ann Perault Bailey (George’s wife) was the daughter of Henry William Bailey, born in 1665 in Goochland of the Virginia Colony. We do not know Ann’s mother’s name. Henry William Bailey was the son of Thomas Bailey and Jane Perrin.

Ann was born on October 19, 1694, in the Henrico area of the Virginia Colony and died on June 17, 1768, in Manakintowne in the Virginia Colony. She was of French descent and part of the Huguenot community that settled there.

The Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles (often abbreviated to The Generall Historie) is a book written by Captain John Smith, first published in 1624.

It mentions “many” of this family with different spellings.

Bailey, Baly, Bayley, Baily, Baylie, Baylye, Baley