Death and legacy
Bland died at his Westover plantation in 1671 or 1672 and was buried in the chancel of the original Westover Church (which he had built).
However, his financial affairs were not in order at his death, in part because of the transatlantic nature of the family's business, unresolved debts and his failure to distinguish his own property from that of the company which his brother headed in England. His widow, Ann, contacted his brother John and asked him to help settle the financial affairs. Instead, John Bland sent his son, Giles Bland, who proved sharp-tongued (antagonizing his aunt, Governor Berkeley and many others) and politically inept and was ultimately executed following his participation in Bacon's Rebellion. After John Bland died in 1680, his widow Sarah Bland then sailed to the Virginia colony to obtain redress. This man's widow Ann had powerful political connections, both through her father (a member of the Virginia Governor's Council, which was also the appellate body of the state legislature), as well as through her Utie half brothers. Furthermore, she had married the widower St. Leger Codd, a lawyer and military officer responsible for constructing defenses of the Potomac River area and who had a plantation near the border of Lancaster and Northumberland counties. Codd would briefly represent both counties in the House of Burgesses, but would flee to Maryland with his wife and family because of financial difficulties in Virginia (some probably related to this litigation), but later sat in both houses of the Maryland legislature. Virginia Governor Effingham used Sarah Bland's litigation to limit the judicial powers of the Virginia Governor's Council. Ann Bennett Bland Codd died at Wharton's Creek in Maryland in November, 1687. The "Bland family" became one of the First Families of Virginia, and his son and grandson of the same name would also sit in the Virginia General Assembly.
Pursuant to primogeniture, his eldest son, Theodorick, inherited Westover plantation. With his brother, Richard and a mixture of indentured and enslaved labor, he operated that plantation until 1688. In that year, the brothers sold their 1,200 acres to William Byrd I for £300 and 10,000 pounds of tobacco and casks. A successor Westover Church (built 1730) is on the National Register of Historic Places, although rebuilt outside the Westover plantation grounds. Bland remains buried in the graveyard near Walter Aston and Captain William Perry.
Some of the Bland family's papers are held by the Swem Library of the College of William and Mary. A selection of papers from his son Richard has been published.
