The Last Will & Testament of Bilha of Westtown:
A Brief Account of Her Life & Legacy
Introduction
Section of Henry Nayle's 1726 will. Henry Nayle, Chester County Wills & Administrations (1726), Chester County Archives, file #246.
In June 1726, Henry Nayle of Thornbury Township—a member of St. John’s Anglican Church in nearby Concord Township—died, and his will specified that his “one Negro girl named Bella [Bilha]* be & remain to the use of [his] said wife during her widowhood & no longer...” But should his wife, Deborah Nayle, die or remarry, then Bilha was to “be sold by [his] Executors hereafter named & ye arising from the said sale to be added to my personal Estate and be disposed of as shall be hereafter directed.”
Comment in the 1726 Thornbury Township tax returns. It reads, "Deborah the widdow of Henry Nayle Esq. Lately Deceased has one Negro Woman."
Section of Deborah Nayle's 1750 will. Deborah Nayle, Chester County Wills & Administrations (1750), Chester County Archives, file #1389.
Bilha remained enslaved by Henry’s widow, Deborah Nayle, for the next twenty-four years. Deborah, unlike her husband, was a member of the Society of Friends (Quakers). She belonged to the nearby Birmingham Preparative Meeting where she was likely exposed to the growing antislavery views of her Quaker friends and neighbors. Acting against the wishes of her husband, in October 1750, Deborah wrote in her will, “I give & Bequeath unto my Negro Woman Called Bella After my Decease her freedom from Any person or Persons whatsoever…” Bilha was free.
Community
Site of the Nayle property in Thornbury Township. Also showing the location of the Birmingham Friends Preparative Meetinghouse.
Silhouette representation of Bilha.
For the next eighteen years, Bilha lived her life as a free woman in this Quaker community in the southcentral region of Chester County. Few individuals would have empathized with Bliha and the unique challenges she faced, as Chester County had a relatively small Black population and the local Quaker meetinghouse, where she likely attended worship, would not have accepted her as a full member. Despite this, Bilha continued to call this area home until her death in 1768. It was in this community that she had built a small social network of supportive family and friends she relied on.
Will
On February 18, 1768, Bilha of Westtown communicated her last will and testament which sheds light into her life and her small social network of family and friends. We know she was a single or widowed woman in 1768. When Bilha wrote her will, Pennsylvania law restricted the rights of married women by prohibiting them from probating a will. Furthermore, Bilha likely had no children since her bequests were not left to direct offspring. Bilha specifically mentions three relatives in her will: her brother Jack, cousin Jacob, and Jacob’s wife Sarah. She made a distinction between her brother and cousin, simply referring to her brother as “Negro Jack” and identifying her cousin Jacob as “the said Joseph Hunt’s Negro.” This suggests that Jack was a freedman, and her cousin Jacob was enslaved.
After her emancipation, Bilha relied on her local community, which included a few of her friends and neighbors. She had appointed her “Trusty friends William Hunt & Peter Osborn” as the executors to her estate, and it is reasonable to suggest she formed a special relationship with these two Quaker men because of her proximity to them.
Bilha likely lived in a small cottage on William Hunt’s property. According to her estate file, Bilha resided in Westtown Township at the time of her death. Hunt’s property was situated in Westtown directly north of Thornbury Township where Bilha had previously been enslaved by the Nayle household since at least 1726. Interestingly, Joseph Hunt was the father of Bilha’s “Trusty friend” William Hunt who she had appointed executor. Joseph resided on sixty acres of his son’s property, and since he enslaved Bilha’s cousin Jacob (who probably resided here along with his wife Sarah), it was likely this geographic area in Westtown Township Bilha relocated to after being emancipated in 1750. This also might explain how she developed a relationship with William Hunt if she did, in fact, relocate to his property to be with her relatives, Jacob and Sarah.
Peter Osborn, her other executor, also had connections to this Westtown property. Not only did his father, Samuel Osborn, reside on the adjacent property to the north, but Peter married Joseph Hunt’s daughter Elizabeth Hunt in 1767. Peter visited the Hunt property to court Elizabeth, and it was likely during these visits he came to know Bilha and earned her trust.
The very first people Bilha mentioned in her will were not her brother Jack, cousin Jacob, or cousin-in-law Sarah. Instead, the first two bequests she made were to seven-year-old Deborah Darlington and her eleven-year-old sister Elizabeth Darlington. Bilha had given Deborah her best green grazatt apron, her best pair of silk mittens, and a pair of small silver shoe buckles. Elizabeth received Bilha’s other green grazatt apron and her other pair of silk mittens. Deborah and Elizabeth were both the daughters of John Darlington who resided north in the vicinity of East Bradford and Goshen Townships. The Darlingtons likely knew Bilha through their involvement with the Birmingham Meetinghouse.
Inventory
In April 1768—shortly after Bilha’s death— Thomas Taylor and Thomas Mercer appraised the goods, chattels, and credits she left behind. Most of her items were household goods that reflect her domestic lifestyle. The objects of Bilha’s estate summarize her material possessions that remind us of her humanity—something she was denied most of her life while enslaved.
Objects from the Chester County History Center Museum . While none of these items were owned by Bilha, they represent similar items included in her inventory.
Section of Deborah Nayle's 1750 will. Deborah Nayle, Chester County Wills & Administrations (1750), Chester County Archives, file #1389.
Bilha’s estate inventory lists the objects she acquired throughout the course of her life, and it is interesting to look at the objects she died with compared to those she inherited directly from her former enslaver Deborah Nayle. In her 1750 will, Deborah bequeathed to Bilha £55 and an assortment of household goods and wearing apparel. Bilha held on to some of these items for the remainder of her life, as they appeared in her 1768 estate inventory. Some of those objects included a bed bolster, an old armchair, a chest, a spinning wheel, a clock reel, a round table, and different kitchenware like a tea kettle, tea pot, dough trough, hooks, etc. A few items Deborah left Bilha were not inventoried in 1768 like a looking glass mirror, pestle & motor, a slog bottomed chair, a leather bottomed chair, a bed couch, a bed, and a mare.
Perhaps the most revealing items listed in Bilha’s inventory were six books. This implies she was literate—a skill she likely acquired while enslaved by Deborah Nayle. Two of those books were religious texts that Deborah Nayle bequeathed to Bilha—Strength in Weakness Manifest in the Life, Trials and Christian Testimony of that Faithful Servant and Handmaid of the Lord by Elizabeth Stirredge and The Salutation to the Britons by Ellis Pugh.
Account
The final record in Bilha’s estate file was filed in October 1769 after all the debts and credits of her estate were settled. Her account includes a typical list of the payments coming and going from her estate. Many of these payments are standard and include payments to individuals who assisted with the estate settlement like witnesses, executors, and lawyers. Bilha’s executors also distributed legacies to her beneficiaries and made routine payments for burial expenses like to William Johnson for crafting her coffin and to William Dilworth for digging her grave.
Some of the account entries provide clues into her final moments of life. For example, the estate paid Catherine Pain one pound five shillings for nursing. Bilha’s brother, “Negro Jack,” received ten shillings for the expenses he accrued for four days’ worth of travel to the doctor. These payments suggest Bilha was sick at the time of her death, which explains why she—likely a literate woman—signed her will with a mark and not her signature.
Legacy
On February 18, 176, Bilha of Westtown signed her will with her mark.
Sometime in 1768 around mid-March, friends of the Birmingham Meetinghouse likely gathered near the grave dug by William Dilworth to say a simple farewell to their friend and neighbor Bilha. Without her estate file, Bilha’s history would have been unfairly reduced to a footnote as the “formerly enslaved woman of Henry and Deborah Nayle.” But we know she was more than that. Bilha of Westtown was a free woman who not only survived the hardships posed by enslavement and eighteenth-century colonial life, but she built a life under difficult circumstances. When she wrote her mark between the words “Negro” and “Bilha,” she unknowingly became the first identified person of color in Chester County to have her will probated. Bilha wrote a will to provide for her family and friends. She did not write her will for historians or posterity, but by doing so, she left behind a unique record that offers a remarkably rare glimpse into colonial Chester County history from the perspective of a Black woman.
*Multiple primary sources have anglicized Bilha's name to "Bella." Since "Bilha" was the name used in her will, that likely represents her name most accurately.
