If you have read my earlier post about qualifying for DAR membership, you know that my gateway ancestor is Captain Benjamin Clement of Virginia. With America 250 arriving this July, I have been sitting with his story more than usual. This post goes deeper than what I shared before. It is the piece I wish had existed when I started tracing this line.

Who Was Benjamin Clement?

Captain Benjamin Clement was born around 1700 in King William County, Virginia, the son of William Clement. He married Susannah Hill around 1731, and in 1748 the family moved southwest to what was then Lunenburg County and would become Pittsylvania County. He called the place he built there Clement Hill. That name is still on the maps.

He was a man of standing in his community before the Revolution began. By 1751 he was serving as Justice of the Peace in Halifax County. By 1755 he was leading a local militia ranger company organized to protect the frontier. He accumulated land in the Staunton River Valley, planted tobacco on the south bank, and worked to build a water-powered grist mill in the area.

None of that is what makes him a DAR Patriot Ancestor.

The Gunpowder Mill

What qualifies Benjamin Clement as a patriot under DAR standards is his direct contribution to the Revolutionary War effort. In partnership with a man named Charles Lynch, he built the area’s first gunpowder mill. That mill supplied gunpowder to the Continental Army.

Think about what that means practically. The Continental Army was chronically short of ammunition. Local manufacturing operations like this one were not peripheral to the war effort. They were essential to it. By 1775, Clement and Lynch were already producing fifty pounds of gunpowder per day. Benjamin Clement was not a man who fired a musket on a battlefield. He was a man who made sure others had powder for theirs.

He is recognized by the DAR as Patriot Ancestor #A022963.

Susannah Hill Clement

His wife, Susannah Hill, holds her own DAR patriot number: #A023018.

Susannah was the daughter of Colonel Isaac Hill of King and Queen County. She married Benjamin around 1731 and outlived him by several years. Her patriot service was of a different kind: she furnished food and supplies to the troops. That contribution is documented in Virginia Revolutionary Public Claims records (Abercrombie and Slatten, Vol. 3, Page 769).

Two patriot ancestors. One household. The same Clement Hill in Pittsylvania County.

I descend from Susannah through the same line as Benjamin. Her patriot record stands on its own, and it is worth knowing about whether or not you pursue a formal application.

Both Benjamin and Susannah are buried at Clement Hill Cemetery in what is now Hurt, Virginia.

The Will and What It Tells Us

Benjamin’s will is dated March 30, 1780. He died that same year.

The will does something that wills often do better than any other record type: it gives us the shape of a family. Three of his daughters had already died by the time he wrote it, and he directed their shares of the estate to their children rather than their widowers. A son named James had also predeceased him. The estate was valued at more than 27,000 pounds, which by any measure represents a man of significant means.

A family bible discovered in 1929 adds names the will alone does not fully account for. Between the two documents, researchers have identified children including Stephen, Isaac, Benjamin II, David, Adam, John Francis, James, Daniel, Rachel, Jane Lucretia, Jeriah, Elizabeth, Susannah, and others. That is a large family, which means a lot of descendants, which means a lot of potential researchers all tracing different branches of the same tree.

One note on spelling: if you are searching for this family in historical records, you will encounter Clement, Clements, Clemens, Clemmons, and Clemans. Transcription varied by who was doing the writing and what they heard. Do not let the spelling stop you.

Why This Matters in 2026

America 250 lands on July 4, 2026. Two hundred and fifty years since the Declaration was signed, the colonies became a nation, and people like Benjamin Clement decided which side of history they were standing on.

I think about him differently than I think about the more famous names of the Revolution. He was not a general or a founder. He was a Virginia landowner with a gunpowder mill and a large family and a will that reflects a man who planned carefully for his children’s futures even as the war was still going. He made a practical contribution and then he died that same year, before he could see how it turned out.

That is most of the Revolution, actually. Not the famous names. The people who made the powder.

If You Are Also Tracing This Line

There is a DNA project for Benjamin Clement descendants. If you are researching this family, testing and linking your results can help confirm lineage in lines where the paper trail gets thin. I will have more on that in a future post.

If you have found something in your own research on the Clement, Hill, or allied families in Pittsylvania County, King William County, or King and Queen County, I would genuinely like to hear about it. This community does better research together.

The DAR’s Genealogical Research System at dar.org is searchable and free. Benjamin Clement’s record and Susannah Hill’s record are both in the ancestor database. If you are wondering whether you might qualify for membership through this line, that is your starting point.

We are marking America 250 this summer at the booth with a patriotic collection. More on that in the shop. But this post is about the ancestor. The rest is just wood, leather and acrylic.