Background
He was the son of Colonel Robert Bolling and Jane (née Rolfe) Bolling. John Bolling was born at Kippax Plantation, in Charles City County, a site which is now within the corporate limits of the City of Hopewell.
He was the son of Colonel Robert Bolling and Jane (née Rolfe) Bolling. John Bolling was born at Kippax Plantation, in Charles City County, a site which is now within the corporate limits of the City of Hopewell.
He made his home at the Bolling family plantation "Cobbs" just west of Point of Rocks on the north shore of the Appomattox River downstream from present-day St. Petersburg, Virginia. (Cobbs was located in Henrico County until the area south of the James River was subdivided to form Chesterfield County in 1749). Major Bolling served in the Virginia House of Burgesses from 1710 until his death.
In 1722, he opened a tobacco warehouse in what is now the "Pocahontas" neighbourhood of St. Petersburg.
William Byrd II of Westover Plantation is said to have remarked that Major Bolling enjoyed "all the profits of an immense trade with his countrymen, and of one still greater with the Indian."
John and Mary Bolling"s descendants are the only descendants of Pocahontas, and include Edith Bolling Galt Wilson, wife of United States President Woodrow Wilson, Percival Lowell, Harry Flood Byrd and Richard Evelyn Byrd.