Theodorick Bland was born in Virginia on March 21, 1742, and received much of his education in Great Britain, where he received a medical degree from the University of Edinburgh in 1763. He returned to Virginia a year later, and practiced medicine, but retired from medicine in the late 1860s, and became a planter and major slaveholder. Despite his connection with Great Britain, he was sympathetic to the revolutionary cause, and on June 24, 1775, he assisted several prominent figures in looting the governor's house. In 1776, he became captain of the regiment that was later called the First Regiment of Continental Light Dragoons, and he served in the Continental Army until November 1779, when he resigned his commission. In 1780, he joined the Continental Congress, and he served as a representative from Virginia until 1783, when he returned to his plantation and continued an intermittent political career as an Anti-Federalist member of the state assembly and the U.S. House of Representatives. He and his wife, Martha Daingerfield, had no children. He died on June 1, 1790.
From the guide to the Bland family papers, 1665-1912, 1778-1834, (William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan)
