Gc M. L.
929.2
H2423h
1173339
3HNEAUOGY COULECTION
(Jc.
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY .
1833 01283 2959
THE PERSONAL AND FAMILY HISTORY
-OF-
Cfiarles Hooks and Margaret Monk Harris y^-^t
-BY-
JAMES COFFEE HARRIS
— ->+-r-
"From scenes like tiiege old Scotia's grandeur spring
TKat makes kcr loved st Kome, revered abroad:.
Princes and lords arc but tke breatli o^ kmg;.
An lionest man's tkc noijlest work ot God.
Crpyrijrhted 1911 by J. C. Karris
1173339
CONTENTS
Photogravures of immediate family of Charles H.
Harris 1
Children of Charles H. and ^Margaret A. Harris 5
Foreword 7
Diagram of Four Generations 10
The family and i)ersonal history of C. H. and M. A.
Harris 11
Photograviii-es of Ancestors 20
The Wedding Party Picture 33
Letter on Family Affairs Written in 1840 36
Ancestors and Education 39
The Harris Family 41
Ancestry of Charles H. Harris 53
Harris-Alston 5''
CoiTee 59
Coflfee-Cooper 61
Coffee-Heard 62
Hooks 64
Hunter 66
Diagram of Hooks-Hunter 6S
Hooks-Hunter 70
Hooks-Fitzpatrick 71
Hooks-Molton 72
Hooks-Forrest 79
Items in Bi])le of Ann Hooks 80
^lary Slocumb, nee Hooks, Ride to Battleticdd 82
Battle of ^Moore's Creek 88
Life of Mary Slocumh, nee Hooks 92
Duplin County. North Carolina, in 1908 94
Maxwell 98
:\Ionk 98
:\rarriages 102
Births 103
Deaths 107
Record of Family of Ellen Simmons 108
Record of Family of Kate Robeson 110
A FOREWORD.
Applying the known principles of heredity to the human
family we may now safely say that we inherit ourselves.
Our bodies and our powers of mind, our form, color, temper-
ament, capabilities — all that make our natural endowment
—are but resurrections of the qualities of our ancestors. For
instance, when both parents have blue eyes all their children
invariably have blue eyes; when both parents have brown
eyes, three-fourths of their children will have brown eyes ;
when one parent has blue eyes and the other has brown eyes
half the children will have blue eyes and half will have
brown eyes ; but if in both or either one of the parents the
brown iris is from parents both of whom are brown eyed, the
children will all be brown eyed, even though one of the
parents be blue eyed.
As with the eyes so with every feature of body and
mind. Our forefathers endow us with what was inborn to
them, and in our infancy and childhood they nurture us into
the acquirement of the language, ideas, and arts of their
time and country. A man is a product of his nature and
his nurture ; whatever he says or does or thinks is deter-
mined wlioll}^ by these ; and as his nature comes en-
tirely from his ancestors and his nurture almost entirely
from them, a knowledge of these ancestors will give a close
approximation to what the man himself is.
One-half of the characteristics of a man is seen in his
parents. The grandparents furnish qualities that do not
appear in one's parents and yet in him they are numerous
enough to make up one-fourth of all his characteristics. The
remaining one-fourth are qualities that do not appear in
either parents or grandparents, but are drawn from ances-
tors before them. It seems also to be true that full brothers
and sisters hav narly one-half of all their characteristics
precisely the same, while they may, and often do, differ
vastly in their other characteristics, the determinants of
which are drawn from different ancestors.
In 1800, a hundreJ aad ten years ago, there were living
eight persons whose natures were to be eoininingled by
heredity, and in three generations Avere to 'oecome the
writer and liis brotliers and sisters. In 1800 these eight
persons were in the full vigor of young manhood. They
Avere four pairs, mated as follows: AVilliam Harris and
Sarah Colfee, Charles Hooks and Ann Hunter, Jacob
Monk and Sallie AVilkinson, Henry Maxwell and Margaret
Hunter. At that time the.v all lived in the eastern part of
North Carolina, except William Harris, born in New Bern,
X. C, and Sarah Coffee, born in Prince Edward county, Ya.,
who were then living in Middle Georgia. These eight per-
sons, who are the great-grandparents of the writer, produced
four persons, two pairs mated as follows: Peter Coffee
Harris and Xarcissa Ann Hooks, James I>. B. Monk and Ann
Maxwell, Avho are his grandparents. These two pairs pro-
duced two persons, Charles Hooks Harris and 2^1argaret Ann
Hooks, Avho are his parents. Thus eight persons living a
hundred years ago, Harris, Coffee, Hooks. Hunter, Monk,
AVilkinson, ]\Iaxwell, Hunter, contained the natures noAV
living in the writer and his brothers and sisters. The na-
tues of these eight Avere commingled in the four grand-
parents, Avhose natures entered into the persoui Avho be-
came the parents of the Avriter and his brothers and sisters.
If the natures of the fourteen individuals Avho make the
three generations of ancestors to be described in these pages
(•()uld be delineated clearly, all the principles of heredity
would be found in application, and they Avould explain the
personal features and the personal characters of all their
descendants. It is the writer's purpose to portray by
words and photographs the result of his studies of these
fourteen ancestors and their descendants.
It is not possible that he Avill avoid errors and omissions
in this undertaking, Avhich has been to him a labor of Ioa'c,
csficcially of love for his mother and father, of Avhom he
writes most.
Rome, Oa., Januarv, 1011.
[•KEN ANCliSTOHS: THE THREE PKE(EDlX(i GENERAT
AVilliam Harris
Charles Hooks
Ann Hiniti'r
Hoiiry Maxwell
^Margraret lliiiiter
Jacob Monk
.Sallir Wilkii
I'eti-r Cotfi'e Harris
Narcissa Ann Hooks
Charles Hooks Harris
Margaret Ann Monk
.lames B. Monk
Ann Maxwell
.hunrs Coffee Harris
Narcissa Ann Harris
Margaret Prairie Harri
I'eter diaries Harris
William Julius Harris
Seale Harris
Mary A.lella Harris
Sallie Harris
Hiinier Harris
Eli/alieth R.'ek Harris
CHARLES HOOKS HAKRIS.
AVhile Sopliomore at University of Alal)aina.
(Reproduced from Daguerreotype in -wiiirli front of collar
was scratched.)
MARGARET ANN MONK.
At eighteen years of age.
WEDDING PARTY, MAGNOLIA, N. C, 1857.
Charles H. and IMargaret Monk Harris, James B. and ]\Iax-
well Monk, Mrs. Sallie Wood (sister of Charles H.
Harris), Miss Mary Moore, bridesmaid.
mm ' ^m^
r^w
^m^
mmm
*18||
►'5^^^^
?«A
JAiyiES COFFEE HARRIS.
PETER CHARLES HARRIS.
WILLIAM JULIUS HARRIS.
SEALE HARRIS.
HUNTER HARRIS.
Childrea of Dr. Charles H. and Margaret Harris and
their residence, November, 1910.
James Coffee Harris, Master of Arts, Honorary, (University
of Georgia), Superintendent of Public Schools,
of Cedartown 1890-1892, and of Rome, Ga.,
1892-1911, Principal of Marietta Male Academy
1885-1890; residence, Rome, Ga.
Narcissa Ann Harris, wife of Judge Charles G J-.nies, resi-
dence, Cedartown, Ga.
Margaret Prairie Harris; residence, Cedartown, Ga.
Peter Charles Harris, graduate United States Military
Academy, class 1888 ; Honor graduate of U. S.
Infantry and Cavalry School (post graduate
college for officers) at Fort Leavenworth, Kan-
sas, class 1895 ; nominated for brevet for gal-
lant and meritorious conduct in battle of San
Juan Hill, 1898 ; Director War Department
Exhibit Pan American Exposition in 1901 ;
Captain on General Staff since 1907 ; graduate
of Army War College, 1908 ; residence, Wash-
ington, D. C.
William Julius Harris, attended University of Georgia 1888-
1890 ; entered Insurance business 1891 ; Secre-
tary to United States Senator A. S. Clay;
President of Georgia Fire Insurance Company,
President of Farmers and Mechanics Bank at
Cedartown, Ga. ; State Senator from 38th
District of Georgia for term 1911-1913 ; Lieu-
tenant Colonel on staff of Governo'^ Atkinson
of Georgia; President National Home Fire
Insurance Co. ; residence, Cedartown, Ga,
6 CHILDREN OF CHARLES H. HARRIS.
Seale Harris, attended University of Georgia 1891-1892,
graduated M. D., University of Virginia, 1894,
post-graduate course in New York Polyclinic
1901, in Chicago 1903, Johns Hopkins 1905,
University of Vienna, Austria 1906, member
American Medical Association and chairman
section of Medicine, Southern Medical Asso-
ciation 1907-1908, editor-in-chief of Gulf
States Journal of Medicine and Surgery and
Southern Medical Journal, professor of Prac-
tice of Medicine in University of Alabama,
practice limited to internal diseases ; residence.
Mobile, Alabama.
Mary Adela Harris, wife of Prof. W. T. Garret, Griffin, Ga.
Hunter Harris, 1st lieutenant 9th United States Infantry;
residence, Manila, Philippine Islands.
Elizabeth Beck Harris ; residence, Griffin, Ga.
PART I.
THE FAMILY AND PERSONAL HISTORY OF CHARLES
H. AND MARGARET A. HARRIS.
By James Coffee Harris.
The Family and Personal History of Charles Hooks and
Margaret Monk Harris.
John Harris, who lived in New Bern, N. C, died there
October 31, 1801, at the age of 71 years. His son, William
Harris, born June 2, 1774, moved to Hancock county, Geor-
gia, where he married Sarah Coffee. There their son, Peter
Coffee Harris was born May 21, 1807, and on October 18,
1827, he married Narcissa Ann Hooks, the daughter of
Charles Hooks, who had been a member of congress from
North Carolina before his removal from there with his
family to a plantation near Montgomery, where the mar-
riage of his daughter took place. William Harris had
moved from Georgia to Alabama in 1817 and cleared the
land and built his home on the plantation that contained
the springs near Montgomery, now known as Pickett
Springs. Charles Hooks with his family settled on a plan-
tation near there in 1826. In 1827 the Hooks-Harris mar-
riage occurred.
To Peter Coffee Harris and Narcissa Ann Hooks thus
united were born four children, Sarah, William, Charles
and Peter. One of these, Charles Hooks, married Margaret
Ann Monk, of Magnolia, Duplin County, North Carolina, to
whom were born ten children, as follows :
James Coffee Harris, April 28, 1858, at Magnolia, N. C.
Narcissa Ann Harris, February 11, 1860, at Magnolia,
N. C.
Margaret Prairie Harris, September 15, 1862, near Tus-
kegee, Ala.
12 FAMILY AND PERSONAL HISTORY.
Peter Charles Harris, November 10, 1865, near King-
ston, Ga.
William Julius Harris, February 3, 1868, in Cedartown,
Ga.
Seale Harris, March 13 ,1870, in Cedartown, Ga.
Sallie Hooks Harris, February 1, 1872, in Cedartown,
Georgia.
]\Iary Adela Harris, July 21, 1874, in Cedartown, Ga.
Hunter Harris, April 21, 1877, in Cedartown, Ga.
Ga.
Elizabeth Beck Harris, May 18, 1882, in Cedartown, Ga.
Before presenting the grenealogical data of the families
converging in Charles Hooks Harris and Margaret Ann
Monk, for whose descendants these lines are written, it
would be well to make record of a short biography of the
pair to whom these descendants owe their lives and training.
They both came from the same social stratum, the ol^
slave holding planters of the South, whose ancestors had set-
tled the colonies and made th.e laws by which they were gov;
erned. The pair were cousins four times removed from first
cousins, the Hunters of North Carolina being ancestors to
both. The Hunters of North Carolina were kinspeople of R.
M. T. Hunter of Virginia, a very distinguished senator from
his State. Charles Hooks, who was a member of congress
from North Carolina, married Miss Ann Hunter and was the
grandfather of Charles Hooks Harris on his mother's side.
On his father's side his grandmother, Sarah Coffee, was sis-
ter of General John E. Coffee, from whom Coft'ee County,
Georgia, is named as a tribute to his services in the wars
against the Indians. He was a member of congress in 1833
and 1835, dying the day he was elected to a new term. The
other lines converging in the Harris family were Maxwells
and Monks who like the Harrises, Hunters, Hooks and Cof-
fees were entirely from Scotch-Irish-Welsh settlers of Vir-
ginia and North Carolina, there not being any evidence of
an English or other Teutonic strain in their ancestry.
From the mere statement of these facts it is clear that the
FAMILY AND PERSONAL HISTORY. I3
family stock of Charles Hooks Harris and Margaret Monk
was representative of that which made the old South. It is
a typical American family whose language, whose manners,
whose methods of dress, whose forms of cookery, whose tra-
ditions and views of every kind, were bred in the South.
Every man of fighting age in 1861, so far as the writer has
ever heard, known to be connected by blood with this Har-
ris family, did actual field service in the Confederate army
during the Civil War. Charles Hooks Harris was himself a
surgeon in this war, from which he returned in 1865 uni-
formed as a Confederate officer to his family which was
then at Tuskegee, Ala., the very center of the South.
Charles Hooks Harris was born in Tuskegee, Alabama,
February 22, 1835, and there he attended school till prepared
for the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa, which he en-
tered in 1853. He had, however, spent some time at a pre-
paratory school at Chunnenuggee Ridge, where he had ro-
mances and escapades which featured more largely in his
reminiscences than the lessons he learned from books. At
least, he often referred to these former, but rarely to the
Greek and Latin and other studies which made the raison
d'etre of his stay at the academy. To him, as to most boys,
love and fighting seem at sixteen years of age to be quite
human propensities while the Latin and Greek, which are
called "The Humanities," seem to be quite artificial and far
away from his interests.
One incident at this academy was a fight with his room-
mate at the dormitory, and his suspension from school as a
consequence. When Charles returned to his father and told
him the insulting language which his roommate had used,
his father excitedly asked, "Didn't you knock him down?"
Thus an ex parte statement had as usual obtained the verdict
from the father in favor of the child, even though he was
suspended for breaking the good order of the school.
In 1853 Charles went from his home to the State Uni-
versity at Tuscaloosa, where he had a classmate, Hillary
A. Herbert, who became the distinguished secretary of navy.
14 FAMILY AND PERSONAL HISTORY.
His own account of his career there shoAvs it to have been
marred ay an excess of merry making on certain occasions
when the j^ouths on the campus made the welkin ring over
certain practical jokes which the professors thought beyond
the limit of tolerance. They were incidents quite normal to
college boys, but it was the conduct of a classmate that in-
terfered with his hope of graduating at the University of
Alabama. The incidents which led to his withdrawal from
the University are known in the history of that institution
as the "Doby Rebellion." Young Doby was disciplined by
the faculty wrongfully, so the students thought, and the
whole sophomore class declared that they would leave col-
lege if Doby was not reinstated. The faculty declined to do
this, and over forty boys, among them Herbert and other
distinguished men of a later day, left at one time. One; of
these boys was Charles ITooks Harris.
Returning to Tuskegee our youth took up seriously the
study of medicine with Dr. Egbert Johnson, a practicing
physician there, as his tutor. In the autumn of 1855 we find
him wending his way to New York City bent on getting a
diploma from the University of New York state, whose medi-
cal department was then considered the best in America.
His brother William, just four years his senior, had gradu-
ated as a physician from this university two years before
Charles went to take his course there. Letters from his
father show that Charles spent $1,000 a year during his stay
in New York, a fact which makes it clear that he lived
prudently and economically. The further fact that in addi-
tion to the usual diploma at graduation, cum summa laude,
he was given a certificate of special proficiency and was
made assistant demonstrator of anatomy by Dr. Aylett
proves that tlie years in New York City taking his course
in medicine, when he w^as from twenty to twenty-two years
of age, were altogether ennol)ling and honorable. They were
years of earnest enthusiastic study which laid the founda-
tion of a long and useful career as surgeon and physician
and became the means by which he supported a home which
FAMILY AWD PERSONAL HISTORY. 1 5
nurtured and nourished ten children whose standard of liv-
ing was on the best social plane.
Two things in addition to college influences should be
mentioned as important factors in his life during the years
in New York, years which show steady work and clean life
by a youth a thousand miles from parental oversight. These
two things were his attenion to music, in which he took an
elementary course, and his correspondence during all his
time there with Margaret Ann Monk, his fourth cousin, at
Magnolia, N. C, where, at the instance of his mother, he had
stopped on his route to New York. He was twenty and she
eighteen when they first met ,and his letters show that her
expressive dark eyes, her raven black hair, her soulful voice,
and the varied charms of a personality in which loyalty to
all that was right was a matter-of-course took full posses-
sion of him. His letters and conduct after this show that to
win the heart of Margaret Monk and to be worthy of her
love was the most powerful and constant motive of his life.
His letters during those years also show that her heart was
won, was nobly won, and a month before he graduated in
April, 1857, she had consented to become his wife and the
marriage date fixed for June 18th thereafter.
The last year of his college life in New York was cloud-
ed by a grief due to the death of his father whom he had left
in the full vigor of manhood and constructive work as a
citizen of forty-nine years old. His father had built a really
handsome home for his family in Tuskegee, a house that
later went into the possession of the Thompsons. There his
family lived and, though they aifected no splendor, they en-
joyed all the social amenities of Southern life, while he con-
ducted the plantation nine miles away which sustained this
home, its carriages and horses and servants, and paid the ex-
penses at college of the children, each one of whom was sent
oft' to school. This father to whom he bade good-bye in Sep-
tember, 1856, he had left in the full play of his powers. He
was a dark-eyed, light-weight, high-browed man of below
medium stature. He had as a youth in 1825 attended the
l6 FAMILY AND PERSONAL HISTORY
University of Georgia, and was all his life fond of reading.
His industry was such that most days of the year he would
go in the early dawn of the morning horseback to his farm
nine miles away and return the same day, riding in a gallop
most of the distance. Exposure of himself in the care of his
plantation and his slaves to some severe weather in the early
days of November brought on an attack of pneumonia to
which he succumbed November 18th, 1856, being forty-nine
years and six months old.
His death occurred at his home nine miles from Tuske-
gee. His body was carried to Montgomery and laid by the
side of his father, William Harris, in the family burial
ground, which is on a hilltop near Pickett Springs. Mono-
liths of white marble mark the graves there of both William
and Peter Coffee Harris. The farm there had been settled
by William Harris; there Peter Coffee and Julia, children
by his third wife, Sarah Coffee, and Sarah, Mary and Steph-
en W., children by his fourth wife, Mary Alston, lived until
their marriages. After the death of William Harris the
plantation passed into the hands of his daughter, Sarah, who
married Albert Pickett. Tlie Pickett Springs, which now
make a popular resort, reached by the street cars of Mont-
gomery, are on this plantation and are near the home of
William Harris.
Peter Coffee Harris was the only son of William Harris
and Sarah Coffee. He was given an education that included
the years 1825-1826 at the University of Georgia. At
twenty years of age he married Narcissa, the daughter of
Charles Hooks, a very intelligent and wealthy man, who
had removed from North Carolina to Montgomery county,
Alaliama, for the purpose of acquiring some of the rich
alluvial lands then recently made available for settlement
by purchase from the Indians. After their marriage
Peter and Narcissa moved to a plantation near Tallahassee,
Florida, and a few years later to Tuskegee, and there they
built one of the most beautiful homes in the State of
Alabama. There they lived till their removal in 1853 to
their plantation nine miles from Tuskegee, where they
FAMILY AND PERSONAL HISTORY 1 7
built another home which, though not elegant, was in
every way comfortable. It was in this latter home
that Peter Coffee Harris died in 1856. At home with
him at the time of his death were his wife and all his
children, except Charles, who was in New York city.
Peter Coffee Harris was a man, as has been stated, be-
low medium stature, weighed about one hundred and twen-
ty-five pounds, was very careful as to neatness and good
form in dress, and possessed a bearing that evinced cour-
tesy and firmness as qualities plainly prominent in his char-
acter. He never wore mustache or whiskers. His forehead
was unusually high, his hair coal black, his eyes dark brown
and piercingjhis voice deeptoned, hs movements of body
easy and dignified. He was utterly free from ostentation,
and all who knew him trusted him implicitly as a faithful
and considerate man. In a letter written by his mother-in-
laAv in 1840, 13 years after his marriage, is the sentence:
"Peter is a safe man. He and Narcissa are getting along
well." His sister-in-law named her son Marshall Harris
Molton, Harris being in his honor and an unmistakable evi-
dence of the high esteem in which his wife's family held
him. An unusually intelligent negro man who had been his
slave said of him to the writer : ' ' Marse Peter was a good,
kind man, and he was the finest man I ever saw in my life."
From whatever source it comes, all the evidence supports
the view that he was a just and kind and lovable man.
His supreme motive in life seems to have been devotion
to his family with whom he spent a large part of his
time. His love for his sister Julia was such that he
rode on horseback through hundreds of miles of pathless
forest tenanted by Indians in order to visit her at her home
in Mississippi in 1832. His love for his child was such that
wiien his daughter became a widow with five children as her
burden he brought her back from her Texas home and made
her burden his own.
When Charles Hooks Harris returned to his home in
Tuskegee in April, 1857, with his diploma earned and the
promise of Margaret Monk to be his bride, his elation must
1 8 FAMILY AND PERSONAL HISTOHY T>j ':
have been mingled with sorrow, for he was to find his mother
a widow sighing for the arm on which her Life had leaned
in a confidence that was never betrayed ; and he was to find
many other evidences of the need of the vanished form of
him whom he had loved above all men. His mother told him
of her great happiness over his achievements at college and
made plain to him her real delight that Margaret Monk was
to be his bride. Margaret Monk's mother was her second
cousin, tliu grandmother of them both being a Miss Hunter,
and they, the two mothers of the bride and groom to be, had
been girlhood friends when her father Charles Hooks lived
in North Carolina. Indeed, so close and dear were they per-
sonally, these tw^o mothers of the bride and groom to be,
that on the occasion of the marriage at Montgomery of Nar-
cissa Ann Hooks to Peter Coffee Harris in 1827, her cousin,
then Ann Copeland Maxwell, traveled by carriage from Wil-
mington, North Carolina, across three states in order to ber
her first bridesmaid. Thus we see these two cousins, who
were of the same age, both being born in 1803, and being by
consequence twenty-four years of age at this marriage, must
liave loved each other very fondly. They were bosom friends
and up to the twenty-third year of their ages, in 1826, the
date of the removal of the Hooks family from North Caro-
lina, they were constant companions. "Cousin Nancy"
Maxwell, Margaret Monk's mother, had, because of this in-
timacy, been present at her marriage, and now, just thirty
years after that event, her own son, Charles, was to marry
Margaret, the only child of this loved "Cousin Nancy,"
It is interesting to relate that this "Cousin Nancy," who
was red-haired and freckled-faced, and of such brilliancy as
a talker that her sayings were widely quoted in her com-
munity, did not marry till seven years after this marriage
at Montgomery, to which she had traveled such a long dis-
tance, and when she did marry she was thirt)^-one years old
and she chose for her mate a man of twenty-three, James B.
Monk, who was, tlierefore, eight years younger than herself.
It is highly probable that Shakespeare, who was eight years
FAMILY AND PERSONAL HISTORY 1 9
younger than Ann Hathaway, spoke from his own expe-
rience when he said:
"Let still the woman take
An elder than herself; so wears she to him,
So sways she level in her husband's heart."
Our Ann Maxwell disobeyed this advice, but she proved
herself to be a devoted wife and outlived her husband by a
few weeks.
As indicated above, Charles Hooks Harris on his return
from college found his widowed mother quite pleased with
the prospect of his marriage to Margaret Monk, who was
herself lovely as the loveliest on earth, and the only child of
her loved "Cousin Nancy," who owned land and slaves in
plenty in dear old North Carolina. The marriage date had
been fixed for June 18th, thus giving Charles two months
at home where were his mother, his sister Sallie and her
three children, his brother William, four years his senior,
and then practicing medicine in the adjoining county, and
his brother Peter, two years his junior.
To them all, to mother, both brothers and sister, it was
clear that Charles had drawn a great prize in the lottery of
marriage. Margaret Monk's beauty of person and charactei:
were too manifest to be gainsaid and, a thing not usual in
those days for a woman, she too had taken a diploma, her
alma mater being the Clinton Female College. Only this
marred the happiness to grow out of this marriage to the
family at Tuskegee — that as Margaret Monk was the only
child of parents the fondest possible it would be the duty of
Charles to live in North Carolina, so that she might minister
to them in their declining years. In this way it was recog-
nized that when Charles went to Magnolia, N. C, to marry
he also went there to live. However, at his time the railroad
trains, which were unknown in the United States in 1827
when "Cousin Nancy" had taken thirty days to travel by
carriage the five hundred miles which separated Magnolia,
20 FAMILY AND PERSONAL HISTORY
X. C, from ^Montgomery, Ala., were now traversing this
distance in less than two days. The first locomotive rail-
way in America, the South Carolina Railway, was built in
1830, and by 1857, the date at which Charles was leaving
his mother's home, all the leading towns in the South had
been connected by level roadbeds and steel rails. Not only
so, but the telegraph which had frequently been used for
immediate communication between Tuskegee and Magnolia
seemed to wipe out the distance heretofore felt to be so vast
between North Carolina and Alabama, so vast that when
dear ones had once been parted by it it was extremely uncer-
tain if "evermore should meet their mutual eyes." Indeed,
before the days when the railways connected them, the
chances had been against their meeting.
But in 1857 what a differ^nc-e, when a fond 'uother could
with happy heart send her son to live 500 miles away, sure
that steam and electricity could and would keep her in fre-
quent touch with him. It was happening, indeed, to this
mother that two of her sons were about to marry in another
state, for her son, Peter, then twenty years old, was en-
aged to be married to Mollie Woolley, who lived in Kings-
ton, Georgia, two hundred miles away. It was, however,
Peter's purpose to bring his bride in the near future to live
in the home of his mother.
We can readilj-^ see the main features of the hoMi" near
Tuskegee during April and May, 1857. The family had sev-
eral years before given up the elegant home planned and
built by the father who had died November previous, and
they were living on the plantation nine miles from Tuske-
gee in a not pretentious, but entirely comfortable and con\-
modious home. A heavy loss sustained by his reina on the
bond of the sheriff of his county had forced Peter Coffee
Harris to sell his t-own residence and to live on a less ex-
pensive scale. At home on the plantation were now his
widow and their three children. Sallie, Charles, and Peter,
and three grandchildren, Elizabeth, Harris and Powell
Wood. Sallio, the oldest child, was 29 years old and after her
PETER COFFEE HARRIS.
This picture is reproduced from a daguarreotype made about
1850, and now so faded that it is verj'- defective,
especially the lower part of the face.
^
g
^
g
T-
cc
72
K-i
!m
C3
CM
CO
M
CO
S
i-O
OJ
Ph
cc
CD
CO
(M
J>i
be
03
1— (
be
OJ
cC
fe
fn
be
.^
o
h5
ct
'fl!
-S"
H-l
• S'
cC
'72
M
W
^
'o
CS
OT
w
o
(^
a
OJ
o
P^
O
o
m
s
o
TJ
^
W
O
a;
§.
1
O
sl!
5
o
Si
Q
i-j
C
o
MRS. PETER COFl^^EE HARRIS, Born 1803
Mother of Charles H. Harris.
.^''
W:
ANN MAXWELL MONK, Born 1803.
Mother of Margaret Monk, wife of Charles Hooks Harris.
MARY GATLIN HARRIS.
Wife of John Gindrat.
A Sister of the father of Charles H. Harris.
I
MRS. CATHERINE HOOKS MOLTON.
A sister of the mother of Charles H. Harris.
ANN HUNTER HOOKS, Born 1775,
Mother of Mrs. Thomas Molton, Mrs. Peter Coffee Han is,
Mrs. George James Forrest, Marshall H. Hooks,
David I. Hooks.
k^i
y^^l\
•j?*"^
MARSHALL li. HOOKS.
A Brother of the mother of Charles H. Harris.
FAMILY AND PERSONAL HISTORY 21
husband's death she with her children had returned to her
father's care. William, then 26 years old, was practicing
medicine in the prairies twenty miles away, but was a fre-
quent visitor to the home in which he was as the oldes+ son
chief counselor. The slaves that attended the house — always
the most trustworthy on the plantation — were Jackson and
his wife Catherine, Elias and his wife, Anson and his wife
and daughters, Ellen and Massey, Ananias and his wife,
and Lottie, the cook.
Peter, aged 20, was, by the help of a white overseer,
managing the farm and slaves. Charles, age 22, had just
returned from college where he had spent most of his time
for several years. Both of these brothers were now making
preparations for marriage, one for June 18, the other July
14, after which dates they were both to go with their brides
to Catoosa and Montvale Springs, Ga., then fashionable sum-
mer resorts for the people of the South, and there spend the
weeks of their honeymoon. Their brides met for the first
time at Kingston, Ga., where Peter was married. Peter
and Charles were then, as through every day of all the years
afterwards, devoted to each other with a love rarely
matched by brothers. Their mother gave their every plan
in these marriage preparations her sympathy, but in a spe-
cial sense her heart went out to Charles, because matrimony
was separating him from her. She could not keep down the
feeling due to the near approach of his permanent with-
drawal from her fireside.
June 18, 1857, found Charles with his sister, Sallie, in
Magnolia, N. C, where he and Margaret Monk were married
at the home of her parents. In 1858 a son, James, was born
to them and the year was also made happy for them by the
completion of a beautiful house which they entered as their
home. There Narcissa Ann, their daughter, was born in
1860.
All the conditions necessary for happiness in this world
seemed to be in the possession of the young couple. Charles
devoted himself to his profession, doing a good general prac-
22 FAMIl,Y AND PERSONAL HISTORY
tice in the village and on the plantations of Duplin county.
An evidence of the success which he was achieving in his
profession is found in his report to the medical journals of
that day of a case of tracheotomy performed by himself, a
feat then considered advanced surgery. The literature of
this report and of others from him at this stage of Ids career
indicates not only ability as a physician but devotion to his
life's work.
After three years in the village of Magnolia the desire
for larger work led him to make plans to move to the city
of Montgomery, Ala., then one of the most prosperous of
Southern cities and the residence of the Moltons and other
intluential family connections, who would gladly promote
his rise in his profession. He actually leased the house
which was to be his new home, his bosom warm with high
hope of a successful career there, when secession seized the
South in its fell clutch.
He went into the Civil War as assistant surgeon to a
North Carolina regiment and in 1862 directed his wife to
refugee with her parents and two children and slaves to
Tuskegee, Alabama. This they did in March, 1863, and they
remained there until the cruel war was over. While in Vir-
ginia on duty as a surgeon he received a letter from his ever
faithful Margaret telling him of the death of his mother,
which occurred at her home in Tuskeegee, May 27, 186-1.
With her sons in the army she had moved from her planta-
tion into Tuskegee and at her death she was living in a home
there known later as the Cunningham place. Later in the
same year, October, he was in the battle of Cedar Creek,
where Early with 18,000 men drove Sheridan's 31,000 from
the field and obtained a victory which could not last because
the disparity of numbers everlastingly in favor of the North
was here, as everywhere else at this time, so great that Sheri-
dan could collect and did collect his routed army and the
next day drove back the Confederates by the mere bulk of
superior numbers and captured many of them. Among the
captured at this battle was Charles Hooks Harris. There
FAMILY AND PEBSONAI, HISTORY ^3
also lie lost his outfit of surgical instruments, one case of
which, having a metal plate on which was his name, was sent
to him forty years later by a Penusylvanian, who took the
trouble to find his address.
In February, 1865, the war was almost over. Charles
Hooks Harris, recently paroled from prison, made his way
by any means he could find, having to walk part of
the way, to Tuskegee, in the very heart of the Confederacy,
which he saw was now expiring. There he found living on
a farm near town his wife, his three children, his wife 's par-
ents and their slaves, who had been kept together as families
when brought from North Carolina two years before. His
mother's grave in the cemetery at Tuskegee was of more in-
terest to him than the old home place which had during his
absence been sold and was occupied by strangers. The rap-
ture which he felt when he clasped his Margaret in his arms
and heard the voices of his children was enough to dispel
the gloom even of those dark days in the South. It was joy
merely to be with his wife and children, and when in April
the news came that Lee had closed the vain and agonizing
struggle which he knew to be hopeless, he was relieved of
the fear that he would not be able to live a life devoted to
his family.
Above a man's duty to his family are just two things —
defense of his country against invasion and defense of the
principles that rule the individual and the state in ways that
preserve and delevop human life. A man who would not
under test give up his own life for the defense of his country
or the principles of justice, honor and truth is selfish and
mean-spirited. His own wife, if she were like the typical
woman of the South, would despise him in either case, and
she would urge him to do his share in the burden of defend-
ing his state even though the path of his duty led to death
on the battlefield. As a matter of fact, the women of the
South did urge their sons and their husbands to the battle-
fields of 1861 and 1865, and they received the dreaded news
of their deaths at the front in exactly the spirit of the
24 FAMILY AND PERSONAI. HISTORY
Scotch woman, no doubt one of their ancestors, who, when
she heard that all her sons had been killed in the vain effort
to put Prince Charles on the throne, said:
"I once had sons who now have none.
I bred them working sairly ;
And I would bear them all again
And lose them all for Charlie."
A right thinking man knows that he will get the ap-
proval of his wife when he leaves her to defend his country
or when he starves with his family rather than support them
by lying, stealing, or other means which destroy all that
makes life valuable. Charles Hooks Harris had stood
the test which required him to abandon his home that he
might defend his country, and now on his return home he
was facing the other test, for starvation seemed to threaten
those he loved.
Before refugeeing from North Carolina his wife's par-
ents sold in 1862 almost all their lands for Confederate
money which then had purchasing value equal to half that
of gold. They kept together all their slaves who lived by
families and took them to Tuskegee. This procedure proved
to be utterly disastrous, for later events totally destroyed
the values in both Confederate money and slaves. If only
they had sold slaves and converted the money received
therefor into land, they would have found themselves
wealthy at this time. But instead of wealth they found
poverty, actual want, staring them hourly in the face.
Did ever a man face harder conditions than our Charles
Hooks Harris found to be his when he exchanged his uniform
of Confederate gray for the clothes of a civilian in April.
1865? Landless and penniless, he had to provide for a wife
and three children, for his wife's parents now grown de-
pendent on him, and for their slaves who even more than
they were clinging to him and begging that he plan some
wa;r by which they could live under the new conditions
FAMILY AND PERSONAL HISTORY 2^
which had literally cut the ground from under their feet.
His brother, William, had been able to save nothing of his
father's estate from the wreck of the war, and Tuskegee
and Alabama had nothing of value that belonged to him.
What was he to do? What could he do?
What he did — briefly — was this. He made with the ex-
slaves such crop as he could on rented land that was near
Tuskegee, and in the early autumn disposed of it, and
with his wagons and mules, his children, and h's wife's
parents he trekked over the common dirt road a distance of
two hundred miles to Kingston, Georgia, led thither by the
advice of his ever devoted brother, Peter, who lived near
there. There he rented a farm on the Etowah river and
there his wife, who traveled by rail, joined him. There his
son, Peter Charles, was born, November 10, 1865.
All the ex-slaves without exception had come with him
to be "hands" on the farm. These negroes had been to-
gether during the entire war, some of them having been born
as slaves to the family to whom they were attached by love
as well as by law. In 1864, Wilson's raiders, a detachment
of Sherman's army sent by him by way of Montgomerj^ to
destroy cotton, the South 's sinews of war, and then to meet
him at Macon on his "March to the Sea," found in their line
of march near Tuskegee Mrs. Charles H. Harris and her
slaves. Some of the soldiers stopped and offered th ) negro
men opportunity to go with them, but only one, a ninete-n-
year-old boy, Charles, availed himself of this chance for
freedom, but in three days he had grown tired of its hle.ss-
ings and returned to "Miss Margaret;" and when after the
war they found that "Miss Margaret" was going to King-
ston to live, every one of them begged to go and promised
to make "hands" for the farm at whatever wages "Marse
Charley" would be willing to pay. The days of the "recon-
struction" of the South were now on and Georgia was a part
of a military district where soldiers of the U. S. were at-
tempting the vain task of endowing negroes with full citizen-
ship in a government made by and for white people who
26 FAMILY AND PERSOKAL HISTORY
alone understand its forms, its delicate checks and balances,
that establish justice among men; but the negroes on the
farm rented on the p]towah river near Kingston cared far
more for "Miss Margaret" and "^larse Charley" than for
the power which the ballot had placed in their hands, and
they seemed to do their best to make a good crop in this
second year of their "freedom."
The neighbors at Kingston, especially the AVoolleys and
Ropers, who were connected by the marriage of his brother,
Peter, proved to be kind and considerate in everj^ way. The
land yielded poorly, perhaps by reason of lack of skill in its
tillage, but the practice of medicine in and around Kingston
and the catch of the fish traps on river and creek hard by
added to the crops enough to provide food, clothing, and
shelter for the family and all hands on the place. The even-
ings at home there — it was the brick residence on the Bran-
son place a mile from Kingston depot — during the year 1866
atTorded as many evidences of happiness as the writer has
ever seen in any family circle. Love and the play of the chil-
dren and music on piano and violin were daily features in
this family group, which contained old age (Mr. IMonk and
bis wife, who was always called "Cousin Nancy" by her
son-in-law), young manhood (Dr. Charles H. Harris and his
wife, Margaret) and childhood (James and Annie and
Prairie) and infancy (Charlie.) The writer, then a seven-
year-old child, remembers distinctly the essential features of
tlie days of the year at Kingston, and while it must have
])oen true that money was exceedingly scarce, he remembers
nothing that indicated the lack of anything really needful
for health and happiness. It was, he believes, a year of
happy days to all under the roof of that old brick house, and
they are days whose memories are to him as precious as those
of any of the days that are dead. He can recall his mother's
face as it looked that year, her thirtieth year, and he can re-
hear the tones of her voice as she sang lullabies to her baby
(Charlie). He can recall his father searching the fishtraps
before sunrise to get meat for the day, riding horseback to
FAMILY AND PERSONAL HISTORY 2^
some call which he had to make as a physician, and in fine
mood at the fireside after supper. The hardships of that
year were no doubt severe, but they were not of a nature
which a child could see. It is at least true that the writer
does not remember them.
One incident to the family life that year was the coming
to live with them of 'Aunt Sallie,' Mrs. Willis Wood, and her
son, Harris. They seemed to the writer to add very much
to the delight of the home, for he found in his Cousin Harris
a playmate, but it must have been true that their support
added to the financial burdens which were already beyond
the income. They were, however, gladly borne.
The absolute necessity of a larger income led our
Charles Hooks Harris to trek again, this time to separate
from his mother-in-law and father-in-law and their ex-slaves
whom he left at Kingston, and who later moved back to their
old home in North Carolina, while he went to live at Ced i:-
toAvn, Georgia. The day before Christmas, 1866, at dawn
a buggy and two two-horse wagons left the Branson place,
and by sunrise of that clear winter day they had crossed the
ferry on the Etowah at Woolleys and were passing through
that truly magnificent farm on their way to Ced irt » i,
where our Charles H. Harris had determined to enter on the
practice of medicine as his sole means of support In the
buggy were his wife and his baby son, Charlie, and his vdd-
owed sister Sallie. In the wagons, in one of which he roile,
were his three other children and his nephew and his furni-
ture and his outfit as a physician. He had only five dollars
in money, but he was only thirty-two years old, and he be-
lieved that he was going to a Land of Promise where he
would make a success as a physician and provide for those
dependent on him.
The distance was thirty-five miles to Cedartown and the
mules pulled their heavy loads slowly. When the hills were
steep Charles and the children jumped off the wagon and
walked. Thus it resulted from this slow and labored prog-
ress that the party were yet eight miles from their destin-
28 FAMILY AND PERSONAL HISTORY
ation vvlien night fell. The way seemed dreadfully long ; the
mules semed nearly exhausted; the ladies and children were
worn threadbare by the toilsome travel through a stretch of
fifteen miles of what was then a virgin forest of pine trees
in which a recent hurricane had played havoc, uprooting
many of the veteran pines; some of which had fallen across
the road and so made it necessary to make occasional de-
tours around them through the untracked woods. Though
about the shortest day in the year it had seemed a long,
long day in this pine forest with its wail of wood notes, the
weird melancholy sounds that would rise and fall with the
wind soughing through the long leaves of the pines. The
stumps of red clay seen here and there where trees had been
blown down seemed to be gory ghosts. Night came on the
little cavalcade just as it emerged from the colonnade of
pines in which it had been traveling since early morning.
The moon was at its full and was rising behind the wagons
which at that time were going due west and entering Col-
lard Valley, which presented its well-fenced bare fields full
in front. The moon rose higher as the cavalcade trudged on
and as its occupants looked wearily and wistfully at the
lights in the homes on the roadside where blazing fires and
excited voices of children gave evidence that Christmas
merriment was at full tide. The children of this trekking
party had expected that Santa Claus would find them at
Cedartown, but it now looked to them as if they would never
get there.
Having reached a place six miles from Cedartown
where there was a home by the roadside in which every win-
dow was aglow with light, Charles halted his now extremely
tired procession and going up to the house explained to its
owners his sorry plight and begged that the ladies and chil-
dren of his well-nigh exhausted party be permitted to stay
under their roof till morning, but he was informed that so
many relatives had come in to spend Christmas eve that the
house could hold no more. So they trudged on, going at the
rate of less than two miles an hour, so tired had the mules
FAMILY AND PERSONAI, HISTORY 29
become. The moon rose higher, and as it was a cloudless
night its silvery light was quite enough to make the going
safe. In order to keep warm most of the party walked some
of the way after night had brought more chill to the atmos-
phere. The slowness of the mules grew worse and worse.
The buggy which was drawn by a very good horse could not
go on ahead for neither of the ladies knew the road to Cedar-
town, and just as the speed of a fleet cannot be faster than its
slowest ship, the speed of this cavalcade was that of the
poorest mule. Thus under the soft light of a full moon and
the crisp air of a December night the party moved slowly on,
and it was full midnight when they halted at their cottage in
Cedartown, where God had ordained that Charles Hooks
Harris and Margaret, his wife, should spend their lives and
rear their children, six of whom were to be born there.
Christmas morning, 3866, found Cedartown, then a vil-
lage of five hundred souls, with a new physician. He was
thirty-two years old, stocky and well formed, eyes blue,
brown hair, with forehead high and top of his head bald,
his height distinctly below the average, and his weight
135 pounds. He had very agreeable address and his manners
were those connoted by the word — gentleman. He had come
to stay, for he had strength of mind and body and the high
resolve to be a true man, the qualities which enable a man to
stay. January 1, 1867, found him in the saddle visiting the
sick, and a year had not passed before he had acquired a
large practice, which he held for thirty years, held till he
had passed three score years. His wife, Margaret, died in
Cedartown after a residence there of more than thirty-four
years, thirty-four years in which there was not one ignoble
hour, thirty-four years during every day of which her head
and heart made a home for husband and children. She had
the simplicity and self-denial of the Spartan soldier and she
met every hour of these thirty-four years of struggle in a
spirit of hopefulness. She was merry-hearted by nature and
no day was ever so dark that she did not brighten it with a
song of better days coming, with a look towards heights
30 FAMILY AND PERSONAL HISTORY
Avhere slie knew the sun was yet shining. This cheerfulness
that traveled with her to the end of life and a sympathy that
both felt and knew every chord of the human heart and a
judgment tliat was almost unerring made her personality
one of great power; and as she never faltered in her work
for her home nor failed in her duty as friend and neighbor
it came to be literally true that "none knew her but to love
her, none named her but to praise."
The home of Dr. Charles H. Harris in Cedartown was
devoted mainly to the rearing of the ten children born to
him, nine of whom lived to maturity. It was to them the
dearest spot on earth and in it they found that truthfulness
and honesty and intelligent work were the things of greatest
value known to man. No child there ever expected parental
approval of anything that savored of sharp practice that
gave undue advantage or unearned reward. The parents
themselves relied on honest efforts as the only means by
which their ends were attained, and they held it as a matter-
of-course that character was above price. Their children
breathed an atmosphere in which sneaking and lying were
hated and in which pompous airs were ridiculed away. It
was an atmosphere of real values, and there never was a day
when wrongs and sins were not clearly seen to be what they
really were, never a day when the shams and false things in
the family circle were not exposed as hideous things and the
family sense set against them till they were eradicated.
It was a home in which there was Avell nigh perfect free-
dom of the individual to express himself in the lines of Ins
choice, provided only that he hurt no one else. It was a
home in which merriment in all its forms — all games that
were not gambling, songs and dances and jokes — was so ac-
tive as to make it hard for study of books and practice on
musical instruments and domestic arts to find and hold
their proper place ; but the spirit of social service and a
sense of duty were there to show tlie limits of right ami
wrong. Tliis freedom of this home was known to all the citi-
zens of the section, for it kept open doors to rich and poor
FAMILY AND PERSONAI^ HISTORY 3I
alike, and enough came and went there to tell the neighbors
of the cheer it held and of the freedom of the smallest child
to say and do what it pleased even to its mother and father,
who inspired their children with none of that awe and dread
which is supposed to be proper and which those who bold
power in this world usually evoke from those beneath their
sway. This freedom of the child sometimes degenerated
into license to do wrong, and as the free and easy spirit in
this home was in sharp contrast with the austere type that
prevailed in many other homes about it, the neighbors were
often shocked, and they sometimes would hold up their
hands in horror because the children there were growing up
like weeds. These good people could see with great
clearness the wrongs done by the children there, but
they could not see that the wrongs were not sanc-
tioned by the spirit that guided the home which
day by day was nurturing and admonishing them;
these good people could not see the invisible chain that
bound each child there to the hearthstone where love and
truth and noble aspirations burned with a steady glow,
where the discriminating eyes of parents who loved the right
for its own sake read the hearts of their children through
and through, where these children learned attitudes to life
and maxims of conduct that finally made straight their
paths in a world whose ways are devious and deadly, deadly
because they are devious. There they learned such old
Scotch maxims as — "Two wrongs never made a right," and
they learned that labor was an opportunity instead of curse
when they heard their mother's voice singing as a lullaby —
"Cheer, boys, cheer, there's wealth for honest labor." The
value and the power of this hearthstone these children them-
selves could not see as they sat and talked and laughed — ■
sometimes cried — in its glow; but year by year its light Ivd
orbed itself into a star which was to guide their course in
life. The little white clock that so sweetly rung the hours of
their childhood there and the simple furnishings of the bed-
room where the mother and father slept are fixed features in
32 FAMILY AND PBRSONAL^HISTORY
the many home scenes over which their memories will often
fondly brood. The faces and the voices of loved ones there,
the lessons of life learned there — these are the things deep-
est set in the souls of those who were children there.
The home of Charles Hooks Harris does not now exist
except as a memory. Christmas, 1897, the nine sons and
daughters with their own families gathered around the old
hearthstone and ,all unknown to them that it was to be their
last, all gave themselves up to the joys of a family reunion
at which every member was present. The pair in Magnolia
in 1857 had by 1897 grown to have in its circle twenty in-
dividuals, each one held in thrall by his love for the two to
whom they owed so much. Three years later, March 4, 1901,
she whose loyalty and love had made this home what is was
died. The children gathered at the home, but its light
had gone out, its joy had forever fled. It was home no
more. There had i)assed from it the soul of their mother and
to her children it was "The sweetest soul that ever looked
through human eyes."
Her dear dead form was buried at Cedartown. A mes-
sage was received there from her friends in Duplin county,
North Carolina, who had been notified of her death, that
citizens there treasured many memories of her early years
and that the church bell would toll in Magnolia at the hour
of her funeral in Cedartown. Her nine children, then all
adults, paid love's last possible office to their mother and
then repaired to their several homes, some of them in states
far away.
Their father has been eared for by these children in the
years since. Owing to feeble health he had given up his
work as a physician, to which he had devoted nearly fifty
years. As these lines are written (Nov., 1910) he still lives,
but his nearly four score years have brought their inevitable
infirmity, and now he awaits the time when the river of
his life will also wind its way safe to the Eternal Sea.
This is a world in which no individuality endures. All
things that come must go, and the human heart is balanced
THK WEDDING PARTY PICTURE 33
between the gladness due to things coming and the sadness
due to their going, between the warmth of the births and
the chill of the deaths, between the sun and the frost. The
home of Charles Hooks and Margaret Ann Harris had its
day and ceased to be. It came through the sunshine of love ;
it went through the frost of death.
And yet there is nothing on earth destroyed, except the
form of the individual, for that which makes the hearts and
the homes of men lives after them. That which made this
home to be what it was, the embodiment of love and loyalty,
may be found now in the expressions of the faces and the
tones of the voices, in the words and the works of those now
men and women who once were children there. That which
they are now is but seed and fruit of that which was in the
home that was in Cedartown.
The Wedding Party Picture.
Of those whose faces appear in the daguereotype of the
wedding party of Charles H. Harris and Margaret Monk in
1857, only two are living in 1910, fifty-three years later.
Thus
"Time rolls his ceasless course. The race of yore
Who danced our infancy upon their knee,
And told our marveling boyhood legend's store
Of their strange ventures happ'd by land and sea,
How are they blotted from the things that be !
How few, all weak and withered of their force.
Wait on the edge of dark eternity,
Like stranded wrecks, the tide returning hoarse,
To sweep them from our sight. Time rolls his ceasless
course ! ' '
The two now living whose faces and forms appear in
this picture are the bridegroom of the occasion. Dr. C. H,
34 THE WEDDING PARTY PICTURE
Harris, and Mrs. Sarah Eliza Johnstone, nee Herring, now
of Wilmington, N. C, who was then a twelve year old child,
the dim outline of her form to be seen on the right hand side
of the group. In reply to the writer's request to give him
the names of the parties in the picture she writes:
"In the picture besides the bridegroom and the bride
and the bride's parents are Mary Ellen ]\Ioore, daughter of
Daniel Moore, who married Dr. Faison, Mr. Tommie Moore,
Mr. Ben Carroll, (he is the one who induced the citizens of
Strickland to name that village Magnolia for Miss Mag
Monk), Dr. Devane, Mr. Chestnut, and Mrs. Willis Wood, a
sister of the bridegroom, who was considered quite pretty,
and myself."
"I cannot see why so few were taken in the picture as it
was a large party. It must have been several days after the
marriage. I am the only one living that attended the mar-
riage. I asked several old people in Duplin on my recent
visit there. They said they remembered the event, but did
not attend."
"It all seems like a beautiful dream to me when I sit and
recall all the things that happened at the marriage fifty-
three years ago. It was one of the largest marriages that I
ever attended. Everybody loved Miss ]\Iag, as we called her.
I love to look at the picture and I wish it could have had
the whole wedding party. ' '
The bridegroom, now in his 76th year, is the only other
one of the group now living.. In reply to the writer's request
for some reminiscences of the occasion of his marriage he
wrote as follows:
"We were married by Rev. Thomas Tate who was
a great uncle of mine and an uncle of your mother. lie was
in his nineties. His second sight had come to him. I saw
him in a religious service at his home where the neighbors
had congregated, and he read from a small Testament and
without glasses and at focal distance. It strikes me that
Uncle Tate moved from Mecklenburg county early after his
marriage with IMiss Hunter. He was a strong Presbyterian.
He had officiated at the marriage of your grandparents, Mr.
THE WEDDING PARTY PICTURE 35
and Mrs. Monk. Your grandmother, your mother and I
went to see the Tates before our marriage and I told Uncle
Tate that it was settled that he should officiate ; but as I had
heard that he usually consumed two hours in his marriage
ceremony, I said to him, "Now, Uncle Tate, you must be
short. ' '
"All right," he said, and when the service was over the
first thing he said was, "Charles, was that short enough?"
1 said, ' ' Yes. ' ' Uncle Tate presided at the banquet which
was in a long room in the hotel. Mr. Wash Lamb made the
music for the dances that were held. In North Carolina
then wedding festivities were three days and nights going.
Everybody fared sumptuously."
"In the group you will see as brave and fine a lot of men
as you can get in one picture. Behind, leaning on the
paling, is my unsuccessihil rival. Dr. Faison, who afterwards
married Miss Moore whose merry face you see in the group.
Your grandmother Monk who stands next to me in the group
is the strongest character I ever saw, with more grit and
energy than you may meet with in a life-time. Your grand-
father Monk was a strong personality, but he made some
errors which he persisted in after he knew better — as some
of his grandchildren have also done. (Perhaps, my son, you
had better look in a mirror to find such a one). Cousin
William Houston was also there. He was captain in
Ransom's First North Carolina Cavalry and was killed in a
charge in Virginia.
"Your mother was as beautiful as a peri from Paradise.''
36 A LETTER ON FAMILY AFFAIRS
A LETTER ON FAMILY AFFAIRS.
Written in 1840 by Ann Hunter Hooks, Grandmother of
Charles Hooks Harris to Nancy Maxwell Monk,
Mother of Margaret Monk.
Ann Hunter, the daughter of Isaac and Priscilla Hun-
ter, of Goshen, Duplin county, North Carolina, who was the
third wife of Charles Hooks, was a grandmother of Charles
Hooks Harris. She was also an aunt of "Nancy" Maxwell,
the mother of Mrs. Charles Hooks Harris, the Hunters being
ancestors of both Charles Hooks Harris and his wife, J\Iar-
garet Ann Monk.
Ann Hunter was born September 9, 1775, in Duplin
county, where she lived till the removal of her husband to
Montgomery, Ala., in 1826, in her 51st year. In the year
1840, fourteen years after her removal from North Caro-
lina, she wrote a letter still extant to her niece, "Nancy"
Maxwell, who was a young lady of 23 years of age, when she
(Ann Hunter) in her 51st year had left her in Duplin
county. North Carolina. The letter was in reply to one
from Nancy Maxwell, who was then Mrs. J. B. i\Ionk and
the proud mother of a daughter, IMargaret, then three years
old. The letter is entirely on family affairs, but it is re-
markable, as showing not only great love for her niece, but
as giving the status of her family at that time. She trusts
to her niece her intimate views of the family life. Tlic
letter contains four closely written pages, was folded and
sealed with wax, as was the custom, and without envelope it
Avas addressed to Mrs. Ann Monk, Kenansville, Duplin
county. North Carolina. It was dated May 1, 1840. This
letter will prove of interest to the family and a part of it
will be inserted here for preservation. Ann Hunter lived
fourteen years after this letter was written. She died on
the nth day of May, 1854, at the home of her granddaugli-
ter, ]\Trs. W. K. Harris, nee Betsy Jane Hooks, the daughter
of Marshall Hooks. At the time the letter was written
A LETTER ON FAMILY AFFAIRS 37
(1840) her husband, Charles Hooks, was living, his de^th
not having occurred till 1843, his 76th year. Thus she sur-
vived her husband eleven years, dying when she was 78
years old. She was buried in Tuskegee City Cemetery.
Alabama, Montgomery, May 1, 1840.
Dear Nancy:
I received yours a few days after its being mailed. I
was very glad to get a letter from you and to hear all about
you and yours. As long as I live I shall be glad for you to
write to me, and I thought to have written you soon after
but some way or other I do not what I would.
Sarah moved to New Orleans. * * * I like her hus-
band. You say you do not know him. * * * Tabby is
very large. Marshall says he thinks they would go to see
you all if Tabby was not so fat ; but he is a very home man.
Tabby stirs him up. They get along very safe and well.
Mr. M'olton and Kitty are both large. Kitty is larger than
I am and I am thirty pounds heavier than when you saw
me. You know they get along as safe as a rock and Kitty is
a devoted Christian and an active one. I think she is very
much beloved in her neighborhood. Tommy is a still one.
Their children seem promising. Narcissa marled and has a
very good smart child 5 months old. We all like her hus-
band very well. He is a safe man. Peter and Narcissa get
along very well. Sarah Ann, their oldest child, is very well
grown and begins to look like a woman. David, I know
you heard, wasted a great deal, but you know a mother
can find a great many excuses, and I do. He now is mar-
ried. I can't find out how he is doing. He lives a good
way off. I have not seen him in 15 months. *****
Sarah's husband is a very active, industrious man and they
are well off. His business is cramped ,but I don't fear he
will come out, live or die. He is a manager and a good
husband. * * * You may have heard we were broke
(the panic of 1839 was then on), but I feel better off than
ever I did. Our children have what was ours and we have
38 A LETTER ON FAMILY AFFAIRS
enough — as much as I want to plague with. I don't feel
capable to manage what 1 have, though I am healthy. * * *
We have had good revivals in Montgomery. A great many
joined all the churches here about, and people seem more
devoted to serve God than 1 ever saw them. * * *
What shall I tell you to tell my sisters? They don't
write. I should be glad to see them. I wish they would
come to see us. Sister Kitty has a child here. I think she
ought to come. Sister Betsy has stayed at home all her
life, and they could come if they only thought they could.
Traveling is pleasant. Dickson Hooks is doing well and has
his third wife and two young children. * * * We now
live so still to what we ever did. Our nearest child lives
fourteen miles off — that is Kitty, but we nearly all the time
have some one of our grandchildren with us. Two claim
this for their home. It is very seldom more than two weeks
that some of them don't come to see us. I feel that there
could not be children who pay more attention to parents
than ours. It is a pleasure to me — I may say a melancholy
pleasure — to write to my loved ones in North Carolina. I
have felt that I never expect to see them. It is a pity to
transplant old people. It is as hard for them to bear as it
is for trees to bear being transplanted. * * * Your
uncle's health has been bad, but not so as to keep him in-
doors. He is now gone to Marshall's, 32 miles away. In a
few days I expect Sarah to spend the summer. ]\Ir. For-
rest won't come till last of June. He lives 41 miles from
us. Tell Polly Wilkerson I have heard of her offer. Well,
well, well. This world turns and turns.
Your friend and well wisher and affectionate aunt,
ANN HOOKS.
SOME REFLECl'IONS ON ANCESTORS AND EDUCATION 39
SOME REFLECTIONS ON ANCESTORS AND
EDUCATION.
It is now the judgment of specialists that qualities ac-
quired by training, by education, are not inherited by off-
spring. Characteristics due to experience, to teaching, to
social habits, to the pressure of public opinion and other in-
fluences that shape the individual and give opportunities for
the development of his powers have no effect on the inborn
powers of the child of that individual. No amount of train-
ing of a man, in music for instance, will give his child added
tendency or power in music. It is the natural powers, those
received by the parent at his birth, that are transmitted to
his children, his nature and not his education. The educa-
tion is but a veneer due to rubbing against social and phy-
sical conditions and does not change the quality of the
structure beneath. It comes and goes with the individual,
and has no effect on the inborn powers of his children.
Nevertheless, it seems hard to decide whether heredity or
training, nature or discipline, have more weight in determin-
ing the achievements of a man.
Education, the sum total of the social pressures on the
receptive mind and the plastic body of the child, gives to the
individual every word and every idea that ever comes to
him — all his beliefs, all his methods of getting along in the
world, all the arts that he uses at his home or at his shop.
He takes all his ideas from the family and the times and the
country in which he lives just as surely as he gets his color-
ing of skin and temperament of mind and other inborn
features from his ancestors. Education by the home and
state and school and church will make the normal mind be-
lieve any doctrine whatever and do any deed whatever, pro-
vided all those about him think and act in like ways. Edu-
cation can make the normal child an expert in any art what-
ever. A man's ideas and modes of conduct are a product
of the social influences that have held him every hour since
his birth. A given set of social influences will educate the
normal child into a successful and happy manhood ; a given
40 SOME REFLECTIONS ON ANCESTORS AND EDUCATION
set of social influences will educate the normal child into
the shallows and miseries of ignorance and crime. White
children taken as babies by Indians and trained wholly by
them invariably formed the manners, ideas, arts, and reli-
gion of the tribe that reared them ; and per contra we have
seen full-blood Indians educated into the learning and arts
and ideas and behavior of the white race. The average
child will invariably learn superstitious and dogmatic
habits of thinking and acting if reared in a family habitual-
ly superstitious and dogmatic ; he will just as invariably
learn rational habits of thinking and acting if reared in a
family in which careful criticism is freely and habitually
made on all subjects. The home, the school, the church, the
companions, the laws and the customs of the community, the
literature and the music met by the eyes and the ears, of the
youth determine the whole life of the man. Experience
guides him up or down. It seems, however, to th«
writer that a man's power to achieve anything is due funda-
mentally to the quality of his brain and muscles which are
entirely an inheritance from his ancestors. What their
fathers have done they will have the ability and tendency
to do ; what their fathers were, they will tend to become.
The points of heredity in a family are, like the spots of a
leopard, fixed to be the same from generation to generation.
They are often older than the hills on which the families
live.
Though education, the training in its entirety, may be
made to add great good to the individual, the really funda-
mental thing is the inherited brain whose processes are the
mind. No amount of training can make a naturally stupid
child into a bright man. If a man has a good mind it is be-
cause he has a good brain, the substrate of mind. As the
})rain, its size and quality, is the inborn mechanism of
tliought, it would seem that success or failure in life would
be due to this more than to circumstances. Just as the qual-
ity of the steel in a razor determines the fineness and per-
manence of the edge, so the quality of the brain structure de-
termines the power of the mind. This being true, the very
THE HARRIS FAMILY 4I
best possession of any man, a possession to which any earthly
fortune is small by comparison, is ancestors that have lived
prudently and honorably and usefully.
And yet the most that the best human stock can do for
the individual is to give him the ability to become excellent
by dint of hard work. There can never be in any man any
skill or merit of any kind that has not been earned by labor,
any real worth that is apart from honest work. This, how-
ever, does not diminish the value of natural endowment or
dispute the manifest fact that some strains are better ei.
dowed than others.
In this matter of family lineage two things have been
often observed, towit:" Birth from best families is never dis-
paraged except by those who have it not, and it is never
boasted of except by those who have nothing else to be
proud of."
PART II.
The Harris Family.
Widely scattered throughout the United States are the
Harrises. The census returns show that they are surpassed
numerically only by the Joneses, Smiths, Browns, and John-
sons. And yet all the Harrises in the United States seem to
be sprung from a family originally from Wales, some of
whom moved into the northern part of Ireland, and there
by intermarriage, blended with Scotch, who had been in-
duced by James I about 1615 to settle the area which the
generals of Queen Elizabeth had devastated and depopu-
lated in their efforts to subjugate the island to English rule.
It is at least true that all the Harris families in the United
States, known to the writer, trace their lineal descent to fore
fathers who were originally from Wales and most of them
lived in the part of Northeast Ireland, just across the Irish
Sea from Wales. It is, however, also true that this Harris
42 THE HARRIS FAMILY
family in Ireland became so united, soul and body, with the
Scotch who predominated there, that the Harrises in Amer-
ica, who are offshoots of these blended strains, are in reality
far more Scotch than Welsh. The people of Wales and the
people of Scotland were all Protestants and they were,
therefore, like minded religiously. This condition in the
year 1600 accounts for the fact that the area in the United
States, south of the Potomac river, is now made up almost
entirely of Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians and other
Protestants. The early settlers of that area came by thou-
sands from the northern part of Ireland and Scotland and
Wales about the year 1700. The relation of the Harris fam-
ily to this historic fact may be seen in the deeds of land
made to them by the states of Virginia and North Carolina
in the various counties in which they settled. It is also a
fact significant of the characteristics of this family at that
time that Howel Harris, born in Trevecca, Wales, in 1714,
was the founder of the Welsh Calvinistic Methodist Church
and a close companion of John Wesley and George White-
field, who with him stood for what seemed to them a progres-
sive movement. In Glamorgan and Carnarvon «*ounties,
Wales, are the homes of the original Harris family.
Though the name Harris seems to be Welsh and though
most of the families by this name known to the writer in the
United States came from the northern part of Ireland, Har-
rises are to be found both in England and Scotland, where
perhaps a thousand years ago they migrated from Wales.
In English history we find that James Harris, born in
1709 in Salisbury, an eminent classical scholar, took an ac-
tive part in politics, and in 1763 was made a lord of the
Admiralty and a lord of the Treasury. His son, James
Harris, was the first Lord IMalmesbury and was a distin-
guished diplomat. The third Earl of Malmesbury, James
Howard Harris, was Foreign Secretary of England in 1858.
John Harris, an English dissenting minister of note, was
born in Ugborough, England in 1804. Robert Harris, born
in Gloucestershire, which is near Wales, in 1578, was presj-
THE HARRIS FAMII.Y 43
dent of Trinity College, Oxford, and a man of excellent gifts
and graces. William Snow Harris, born at Plymouth in
1792 was an English surgeon of eminence and was also dis-
tinguished by his researches in the physical sciences, espe-
cially in electricity. These facts show the presence of the
Harris family in various shires of England and their
achievements there. Their presence in Scotland at an early
date in her history is manifested by the fact that the largest
of the Hebrides Islands, which are separated from the main-
land of Scotland by the Little Minch, has its lower part di-
vided into two peninsulas. North Harris and South Harris.
These families in England and Scotland may have been,
probably were, descendants from a family in Wales, where
the name seems to have had its origin.
However, the Harris family in the United States has
now only a small admixture of Welsh blood, for the Harrises
in North Ireland and Virginia married for generations into
families from Scotland, the Scotch-Irish, whose blood and
traits are by that fact made predominant in them. They
are now far more Scotch than either Irish or Welsh.
As is well known, Scotland was settled nearly two thou-
sand years ago by the Scots, who lived in Ireland and who
spoke the Gaelic language, a language which differentiated
into Scotch Gaelic and Irish Gaelic after the North Channel
separated the people into two branches. The folk lore
and the hero tales and old poetry are largely the
same. Thus those people who moved to Ireland
from Scotland about 1620 were backtracking to the
land occupied by their own ancestors many centuries before,
but these intervening centuries of life in the High-
lands of Scotland had developed the Scots into the hardiest,
bravest, shrewdest, most far-seeing type of the human race.
Among the differences that apppeared was that the Scotch
had become Protestants while their cousins in Ireland re-
mained steadfastly loyal to the Catholic church. Thus the
northern part of Ireland which was settled in King James'
reign by emigrants from Scotland or England contained only
Presbyterians or Episcopalians. It was with these North
44 THE HARRIS FAMILY
Ireland Scotch immigrants that the Harrises in the United
States came, settling in the interval between 1660 and 1760
mainly in Virginia and North Carolina, Thus is explained
the fact that the Harrises are of the same Celtic type as the
Irish but have the Protestant religion and the mental char-
acteristics of the Scotch. The intermarriage of the Scotch
and Welsh in north Ireland with their Irish neighbors
brought to this Harris family as to many other settlers there
some admixture of the Irish stock which, though small, was
sufficient to manifest itself, its peculiar aptness and humor
of expression, its improvidence and its tendency to a happy-
go-lucky philosophy. The home life of these Scotch-Irish pre-
sents a blend of the characteristics and customs of both
countries from which their ancestors came, and in its best
forms it has social qualities that are the admira-
tion of the world, a charm and courtesy and grace of man-
ner unequaled on earth. Perhaps the happiest, loveliest
family life today is found in homes in the United States
whose occupants are descendants of the Scotch-Irish. It
is a fact, too, that in these homes have been bred the men
who have given our government its distinctive features. It
was Patrick Henry w^iose eloquence so stirred the souls of
the English colonists as to make them fight for their liber-
ties; it was Alexander Hamilton who was the father of the
Constitution of the United States. These were both of Scotch
parentage. It is also true that the soldiers who fought the
battles of the Revolutionary War and the men who have
made our government since those battles were won have been
predominantly Scotch-Irish.
Mainly from the Scotch-Irish, as stated above, came all the
Harrises to be found in the United States. William T. Har-
ris, who was for twenty years Commissioner of Education
ol" tlie United States, was from a family who settled in Con-
necticut, but almost all the Harrises settled in Virginia and
North Carolina. One family that settled in Albemarle Coun-
ty, Virginia, produced Elizabeth Harris, the mother of Wil-
liam Harris Crawford of Georgia, who was recognized as
the ablest man in the U. S. Senate during his term there in
THE HABRI8 FAMII^Y 45
1807-13, who was ambassador to France, and a candidate
for the presidency of the U. S. in 1825, when the election
was thrown into the hands of congress which elected Tack-
son. From another Harris family in Virginia came Ishani G.
Harris, who was governor of Tennessee three terms, officer
in Confederate army, and member of the U. S, Senate for
twenty years. William A. Harris, who represented Kansas
in the U. S. Senate, was born in Virginia, as was the father
of Andrew L. Harris, recently governor of Ohio. Iverson
L, Harris of Georgia, for quite a while a supreme court
judge, was a member of a family of perhaps greater influ-
ence than any other in his State. His family was also from
Virginia. Samuel Harris, Bishop of Michigan, was from
Alabama.
Other Harrises in the United States distinguished by
their achievements are: Samuel Harris (1814-1899), born
in East Machias, Maine ; was president of Bowdoin College
from 1867-1871, and then became professor of systematic
theology in the Yale Divinity School. He was the author of
works on theology and philosophy. Thaddeus William
Harris (1795-1856), born at Dorchester, Mass., was the
:Gounder of the Harvard Natural History Society and the
author of a valuable work on insects. Townsend Harris
(1804-1878), born at Sandy Hill, N. Y., educated at home,
moved to New York city, became president of its Board of
Education and established the Free Academy, which is now
the College of the City of New York. He was appointed by
President Pierce to be the first Consul-General to Japan in
1855. He secured the signature of the Japanese premier to
a treaty which became the model for twenty subsequent
treaties between Japan and other nations. He became
Minister Resident to Japan. Robert Harris, born in Carnar-
vonshire, Wales, in 1849, has spent most of his life in Amer-
ica. He is a great painter, was elected in 1893 president
of the Royal Canadian Academy of Fine Arts and in 1904
was awarded a gold medal at the Louisiana Purchase Ex-
position. William Victor Harris, born in New York in 1869,
4^ THE HARRIS FAMILY
has an established reputation as a musician, publishing com-
positions for piano, organ and chorus. Joel Chandler Har-
ris, of Georgia, born 1848, died 1908, was a journalist and a
writer of fiction. His Uncle Remus, a study in Afro-Amer-
ican folklore, is a volume of world-v/ide popularit3^
These facts show the truthfulness of the initial state-
ment that the Harrises are widely distributed over the
United States, but they are, as stated, relatively far more
numerous in the South than in any other section. It is with
these that our sketch is specially interested.
As stated above, there is a certain Harris family in
Georgia which has probably produced more citizens of com-
manding influence than any other family in the borders of
the state. The following is an account of the lineage of
that family and the names of some of its distinguished sons :
In 1691 Henry Harris, a Baptist preacher from Glamor-
gan in Wales, with others, obtained from William and Mary,
King and Queen of England, a grant of ten miles square of
crown lands on the south bank of James river, some miles
above Richmond. This Henry Harris had one son,
Edward. This Edward had thirteen children, eight sons
and five daughters. The tenth child, Nathan, was born in
1716, and married Catherine Walton, of Brunswick county,
Virginia, in 1737, and had fourteen children, viz. : Walton,
Nathan, Isaac, David, ( Elias, Rowland. Herbert, Gideon,
Howell, John, Henry, Cathrine, Martha, Elizabeth and Ann.
Walton, first child of Nathan Harris, who married Catherine
Walton, was born in Brunswick county, Virginia, in 1739.
He married Rebecca Lanier, a granddaughter of Elizabeth
Washington, a descendant of John Washington ; George
Washington was lier cousin. They had eleven children,
Buckner, Sampson, Joel, Augustine, Edward, Nathan, Sim-
eon, Walton, Elizabeth, Littleton and Jephtha V.
Augustine Harris, the fourth child of Walton and Re-
becca Harris, was the father of Judge Iverson L. Harris, one
of the Supreme Court of Georgia.
Edward Harris, the fifth child of Walton and Rebecca
Harris, had a large family of children. His twelfth child.
THE HARRIS FAMILY 47
West, born in 1782, married Mary Turner and they had
eleven children. One of these, Isham, was the grandfather
of Isham G. Harris, Senator from Tennessee, born Febru-
ary 10, 1818, died July 8, 1897.
Walton Harris, the grandsire and great-grand sire of the
Harris family most influential in Georgia, lived in Greene
county, where he died. He was a soldier in the Revolution
and was made prisoner at the battle of Augusta, where his
brother David was killed.
Young L. G. Harris, of Athens, was a grandson of Wal-
ton Harris. Judge Stephen Willis Harris, who lived and
died in Eatonton, was another grandson. Judge Thomas W.
Harris, brother of the preceding, was also on the bench of
Georgia. Judge William L. Harris, another grandson (son
of Jephtha V., named above, who died in Marietta, Ga.),
moved to Mississippi and was on the Supreme bench of that
state up to the close of the war. Judge Sampson W. Har-
ris, on the Superior Court bench of Georgia, is a great-
grandson of Walton Harris and Rebecca Lanier. The father
of this Sampson W. Harris represented the Wetumpka dis-
trict of Alabama in Congress. General Jephtha Harris, of
Georgia, was his uncle. The secretary of the health board
of Georgia, Dr. H. F. Harris, is the son of Judge Sampson
W. Harris. General Buckner Harris, who was engaged
with Governor John Clark, of Georgia, in fighting Tories
and Indians was a son of Walton and Rebecca Lanier Har-
ris. He was at the siege of Augusta when the fort was held
by the British. He spent the latter part of his life in Jack-
son, Mississippi. His grandson, Judge Wiley Pope Harris,
of Jackson, Miss., acquired a very high reputation as a
judge and was a member of the first congress of Confeder-
ate States held at Montgomery, Ala. At one time in the
Georgia legislature, in 1803, when Louisville was the capi-
tal of the State, four of the sons of Walton Harris, of
Greene county, were serving as representatives from the
four counties in which they lived. This is a fact unparal-
leled in any State or family so far as the writer has ever
heard.
4t THE HARRIS FAMILY
The family of Judge Richard R. Harris, of Rome, Ga.,
are also descendants of Nathan Harris, born 1716, in Biiins-
Avick county, Virginia. Another family of Harrises in Geor-
gia is descended from Captain John Harris, who received
from King George H a grant of land in Mcintosh county,
Georgia, called Harris Neck. The writer knows no ties of
blood that connect this Harris line with descendants of
Nathan Harris, of Virginia. Yet another Harris family of
distinction in Georgia is that of Henry Harris, of Hancock
county, who married Rebecca Sassnett, moved to Merri-
wether county, and was the father of two sons, Henry R.
Harris, who represented his distinct two terms in Congress,
and Colonel William T. Harris, who was killed leading his
regiment at the battle of Gettysburg. If this family is de-
scended from Nathan Harris, of Virgina, the fact is un-
known to the writer.
The records of Albemarle County in Virginia show that
in 1739, William Harris possessed more than two thousand
acres of land and was magistrate of the county the first year
it was organized. He had ten children and from them have
grown perhaps a greater number of families in the U. S.
than from any other stem. His descendants are all strong
citizens, his son, John, who died in 1832, being then the
wealthiest citizen in Albemarle County. Robert Harris also
settled in this same county and possessed nearl}' three thou-
sand acres of its land, his first entry of land being made in
1750. This Robert Harris was the grandfather of William
Harris Crawford, who was the son of his daughter, Eliza
beth. These Albermarle county Harrises are descendants
from the same ancestors as was Nathan Harris, whose fam-
ily is sketched above.
It is probable that there is but one State in the United
States in which there is a family name numerically greater
than that of Smith or Jones. The State is North Carolina
and the name is Harris. Two Harrises, James and Robert,
are signed to the Mecklenburg Declaration of wliich North
Carolina is so justly proud as declaring our independence of
Great Britain more than a year before congress acted July
THE HARRIS FAMILY 49
4, 1776. These, James and Robert, were the sons of John
and Eleanor Harris, who were born in Ballybay, Ireland,
who moved to America in 1756, and who settled permanently
in Mecklenburg County, N. C, in 1768. There was another
John Harris, who settled about the same time near New
Bern in Craven County. His wife's name was Mary. The
John Harris who came over in 1756 and settled in Mecklen-
burg, near Charlotte, N. C, died there in 1808; the other
John Harris at New Bern in Craven County is an ancestor of
Charles Hooks Harris, of Cedartown, Ga., and died near
New Bern in 1801. He was probably from Virginia.
Both the John Harrises were Presbyterians, a church whose
members in Ireland had been much harassed by being made
to take the "Oath of Abjuration," which recognized the
king as the head of the church. They were fined and im-
prisoned on their refusal to take this oath, a fact which help-
ed the members of that church to make up their minds to
emigrate to America. It is interesting to note that John
and Eleanor Harris mentioned above were married in the
jail of Moneghan County, Ireland, where their pastor. Dr.
Thomas Clark was in prison. "With three hundred souls of
his own congregation at Ballybay, Ireland, he came to Amer-
ica in 1764. Many of them settled in the Carolinas. Dr.
Clark died at Abbeville, S. C, where he was pastor of the
Presbyterian Church.
North Carolina was a province granted by the King of
England in 1663 to George Monk and seven others as pro-
prietors or owners. It was at once opened for settlement
by its owners and by 1670 there were four thousand white
people in the province, many of them from Virginia, which
had been in process of settlement for the half century pre-
vious. Very many of the original settlers of North Caro-
lina after 1670 came from Virginia, where the records of
land grants show that many Harris families were living.
Henry Harris, of Glamorgan, Wales, had received a grant
of land from King "William and Queen Mary on the James
River, just above Richmond, to which they moved
in 1691, and other Harris families from Wales and
50 THE HARRIS FAMILY
England and Ireland both before and after 1691 settled
in Virginia. Descendants of these families moved to
North Carolina and from these stocks in Virginia and North
Carolina almost all the Harrises now in the United States
are derived. There are probably not less than fifty thou-
sands of them, and in the judgment of the writer they are,
all, those in England as well as those in the United States,
sprung from one family in Wales. It is also the judgment
of the writer that no family in the United States has fur-
nished more citizens prominent for the part taken by them
in founding and building the "New World."
The Harrises who settled in Virginia have been men-
tioned, and in order to show that this family were also
among the very tirst settlers of North Carolina I will quote
from the "Colonial Records" of that state. On page 312
aiid 313, Vol. 1, we find a copy of an indictment against a
man charged w4th using "traitorous and rebellious" lan-
guage at the house of Thomas Harris, who lived in what
was then Albermarle county, bordering on Virginia, in 1673.
The exact language of the indictment is : " Not having the
feare of God before thine eise, but being stirred and
moved ])y ye instigation of the devell, and out of
rancor and malice of thine heart forethought ani
didst in a re])ellious and trayterous manner at the
house of Thomas Harris, sometime about the month
of November, 1673, say that it was never good times
in England since the King came in, nor never would so long
as there was a King in England." On page 381 of the same
volume John Harris, on November 8, 1691, with several
other citizens is charged with "insinuating that the late
Governor did sett up martial law, thereby the better to
ingross the Indian trade to himself." On page 402 appears
the name of Susannah Harris and her daughter, Sarah, as
parties to a suit before a court which was assembled Novem-
ber 6, 1693.
Iverson L. Harris, who was born in Clark County,
Georgia, in 1805, graduated at the University of Georgia in
1823, elected judge of the Ocmulgee Circuit in 1859, and
THE HARRIS FAMILY Si
elected judge of the Supreme Court in 1865, and a man of the
very best personal character, made a written statement of
his researches as to the Harris family. From his manu-
script I obtain the following :
"We are of Welsh origin, as our name implies. The
word Harris means in the Celtic language ' ' an heir or son. ' '
Our original seat was in Wales, in the town of Harriston.
"During the religious troubles growing out of the dis-
sensions between the Puritans and Presbyterians and the
Established Church in the reign of James I and Charles I,
the Harrises and a number of Welsh Baptists fled from
Glamorgan county, Wales, to Brittany and Navarre. There
they united with the Huguenots and remained until the
reign of Charles II, when they returned.
"They remained in England till after the revocation of
the Edict of Nantes in October, 1685, by Louis XIV.
"The Welsh Baptists cast about after their return to
England as to what course they should pursue. To remain
in England was impracticable, for James II was their secret
enemy and a Catholic at heart. They turned their eyes to
America."
"1691 William and Mary granted to Henry Harris and
John Jourdan ten miles square of crown lands in the county
of Powhattan, Virginia, on the James River — and to their
heirs forever."
"Between that period and 1716 the Huguenots emi-
grated to Virginia. The Harrises brought over with them
the Chastains, the Bondurants, the Glovers, the Ritchies,
Fouches, Maxcey, Laniers, Pettegrews, and others, and all
settled within the grant and called their town 'Manakin
Town.'
"It is from this town we all spring. It was the original
seat of the Harrises on this continent. Benjamin Watkins
Leigh, of Virginia, told me in 1844 that he had in his posses-
sion this original grant or patent to our ancestors."
"From Manakin Town one branch of the Harrises set-
tled in Albermarle County, Virginia, and some went to
52 THE HARRIS FAMILY
Brunswick City, Virginia. We were distinguished thus: —
"The Manakin Town Harrises.
"The Albemarle Harrises.
"The Brunswick Harrises.
"But the Manakin Town is the hive from which we all
spring. A portion of the family moved to North Carolina.
From the Albemarle branch there are a great many of the
family in Kentucky and Missouri."
"I feel gratified to know that so many of us, however
scattered, have risen above the groundlings and the common
level and have occupied prominent positions wherever they
have lived. This is, I think, the result of the surroundings
and a family pride more than intellectual endowments, and
though their apparent hauteur has been the means of many
a withholding, still it has been the secret of our success.
Was there ever such a number of judges, lawyers, etc., in a
family? Never, I believe, on earth."
"John J. Crittenden, late United States Senator from
Kentucky, is the grandson of John Harris. Senator Isham
G. Harris, of Tennessee, was a cousin. AVilliam Harris
Crawford descended from the Albemarle branch."
"The Harrises are descended from the ancient Britons
and are of pure Celtic blood."
"The family crest of the Welsh Harrises, as given by
Mr. Elven in his collection, is —
A hedgehog or porcupine charged with a key on which
is inscribed "A — Z." "Ubique patriam reminisci." It has
also "an arm grasping a dart." See plate 58, No. 22.
"In Bishop Meade's work, "Old Churches and Families
of Virginia, Vol. 1, p. 468, in chapter on Manakin Town, the
Huguenot settlement on James River, he mentions the names
of the settlers, among them the Harrises, and speaks of the
Welsh descent of some of the vsettlers."
ADDENDA.
There is a twilled woolen goods of soft and durable'
(juality made in Seotland that has for centuries been called
the "Harris tweed," probably named for the man that first,
wove it. The residence of a branch of the family in Scot-
land whose descendants are now in the United States is
also made clear by the following quotation from McCall's
History of Georgia, page 7:
"The ]\IcCall, Harris, and Calhoun families passed over
from Scotland in the same ship to the northeast of Ireland,
where they settled and remained two entire generations,
when the three families moved to Pennsylvania. (This was
about 1730). From Pennsylvania the three families moved
to New River in the western part of Virginia. There
James Harris died. James Harris, the son of the latter,
moved to Mecklenburg county, North Carolina. Patrick
Calhoun, the father of John C. Calhoun, moved from New
River, Virginia, to Little River, South Carolina.
In Brown's "Genesis of America" it is recorded that in
the second charter of Virginia, granted in 1609, are the
names of John Harris, Thomas Harris, Christopher Harris,
Arthur Harris and Anthony Hunter, the latter a ]ihysician.
With this charter nine vessels with 500 emigrants sailed for
Jamestown in June, 1609. Thus there were four Han-ises
at the first white settlement made in the United States.
GENEALOGICAL DATA 53
PART III.
Genealogical Data.
ANCESTRY OF DR. CHARLES H. HARRIS. .
Dr. C. H. Harris, born 1835, is the son of Peter Coffee
Harris, born 1807, and Narcissa Ann Hooks born 1803. His
father was the son of William Harris, born 1774, and of
Sarah Coffee, born 1784. This grandfather, William Harris,
was the son of John Harris, born in 1730, who lived at New
Bern, N. C, dying there in 1801.
His mother, Narcissa Ann Hooks, was born 1803, in
Duplin county North Carolina. Her mother was Ann Hun-
ter, and her father was Charles Hooks, member of legisla-
ture from Duplin County, N. C, inl802-3-4, in the senate in
1810-11, and member of Congress 1816-17 and from 1819 to
1825. Charles Hooks moved to Montgomery in 1826, where
his daughter married Peter Coffee Harris in 1827.
The mother of the Peter Coffee Harris just named was
Sarah Coffee, bom in 1784. She was the sister of John E.
Coffee, who was a general in charge of the Georgia militia
in the war against the Creek Indians, 1812-14. He was elect-
ed to congress from Georgia in 1833-35. He died on the day
in which he was elected to the second term in congress. Cof-
fee County, Georgia, is named for him. He was the first
cousin of John Coffee, who was colonel of Tennessee volun-
teers under Andrew Jackson, was with him in all the wars
against the Creek Indians and the Seminole Indians, and
with him at the battle of New Orleans. His wife, Mary
Donelson, was a niece of Andrew Jackson. General John E.
Coffee of Georgia and General John Coffee of Tennessee,
first cousins, were the sons respectively of Peter Coffee and
Joshua Coffee, brothers, who came from Ireland in 1750 and
settled in Prince Edwards County, Virginia. Both were sol-
diers in the Revolutionary War, Joshua being a *' captain
54 (iENKALOGICAL DATA
of mounted gunners" (artillery). The children of Peter
Coffee moved to Georgia, Hancock county, in 1781
Wheeler's History of North Carolina gives this trust-
worthy information:
1, Edward Harris represented the borough oi New
Bern in the House of Commons in 1802-3, and Craven County
in the House in 1807.
3. Stephen Harris was a Craven Senator in 1802, and
a Commoner in 1808.
3. Edward Harris, one of the judges of the Superior
Court, died in Lumberton in 1813.
4, Charles Hooks represented Duplin county in the
House of Commons in 1802-3-4, and in the Senate in J ^ 1 0-11 ;
and served in Congress in 181G, 1817, and 1819-25. The ["art
of Duplin in which he lived was near the Wayne line. '^
removed to Alabama and died there in 1843.
Two Harrises, James and Robert, signed the Mecklen-
burg Declaration, but nothing is said of their lives. All over
North Carolina the name is common. There is a long list
in the University of North Carolina catalogue, among them,
"Stephen Harris, Craven county, 1835-36. Born 1816."
The folio-wing is the family record of John Harris, of
New Bern, N. C. :
(a) Mary Harris, wife of John Harris, died March 11,
1792, aged 47 years, at New Bern, N. C.
(b) John Harris died October 31, 1801, aged 71 years,
at Nhw Bern, N. C.
Children of John and Mary.
(c) Stephen Harris, born May 31, 17G3, died March 10,
1813.
(d) Mary, born October 22, 1769, died March 11, 1792.
(e) Enoch Harris, born August 23, 1771, diod October
20, 1806.
(f) William Harris, born June 2, 1774, died October 12,
1825.
GBHEALOGICAt DATi 55
(g) John Harris, born April 23, 1782, died March 8,
1843.
(h) John Harris married Mary B. Lane, June 20, 1814.
(i) Stephen, son of (h), born 1817, died 1846; married
Mary White in 1843.
Enoch Harris (e) left two children Julia — who married
Lane, died in 1850, mother of W. B. Lane, and Mary Gatlin,
who married Wm, B. Wadsworth, the parents of Enoch
Wadsworth, who now lives in New Bern. Enoch Harris
Lane and W. B. Lane were living in 1902, the children
of Julia, grandchildren of Enoch (e). Of Enoch Harris Lane
two children now live in Florida, and two sons and two
daughters now live in New Berne. Of W. B. Lane four chil-
dren are living: Harris, Wm. G., Richard B., Harriet (mar-
ried Thos. G. Hyman, now a merchant in New Berne.)
Family Record of William Harris.
AVilliam Harris and Julia Fulcher, married August 18,
1799.
William Harris and Julia Morse, married
Julia Morse, wife of William Harris, died March 3,
1801, born in 1754.
William Harris and Sarah Coffee married Aui^ust 25,
1803.
Julia Swepston Harris, born January 2, 1805. Child
of William and Sarah Harris.
Peter Coffee Harris, born May 21, 1807, child of William
and Sarah Harris.
Sarah Coffee Harris, born October 20, 1784, died Novem-
ber 23, 1807.
Stephen Alston Harris, born December 13, 1813, died
November 16, 1836, son of William and Mary Harris.
Mary Drew Alston, born January 12, 1784, died Sep-
tember 21, 1841.
William Harris and Mary Drew Alston married Decem-
ber, 1811.
56 GENEALOGICAL DATA
Mary Drew Alston, fourth wife of William Harris, died
September 21, 1841, aged 57.
Mary, daughter of William and Mary, married John
Gindrat; died .
Sarah, daughter of Wm. and ]\Iary, married Albert
Pickett, died .
Julia S. Field died, age 4-4 years, in Columbus, jMifs.,
April 17, 1849.
Julia S. Harris and Joseph W. Field married J iniuiry
9, 1823.
Sarah Smith Harris, born February 7, 1816, child of
William and ]\Iary Harris.
Sarah Smith Harris and Albert James Pickett married
March 20, 1832.
Stephen A. W. Harris and Elizabeth Fit zpa trick mnr-
ried May 24, 1835.
Mary Gatlin Harris, born January 6, 1820, eliild of
AYilliam and INIary Harris.
Mary G. Harris and John H. Gindrat married Novem-
])er 7, 1837.
Peter Coffee Harris and Narcissa Ann Hooks married
October 18, 1827.
Elden Chalmers Field, born March 30, 1830.
Mary Pickett, born December 22, 1834.
Harris Field, born . 1835.
William Harris married Sarah Coffee, the daughter of
Peter Coffee, and sister of Gen. John E. Coffee of War of
1812, on August 25th, 1803. She died in 1807. Their only
son, Peter Coffee Harris, bom May 21, 1807, in
Hancock county, Georgia, attended the University of
Georgia 1825-6, married Narcissa A. Hooks, of Montgomery,
Alabama, in October, 1827, the daughter of Charles
Hooks, who had been member of Congress from Wihnington
district, North Carolina. William Harris purchased 2,000
acres of LaFayette Grant in Florida, near Tallahassee, and
gave it to Peter and Julia. Peter lived there a few years
and moved to Tuskegee, Ala.
GENEAI.OGICAL DATA 57
Peter Coffee Harris, Mrs. Julia Field, wife of Judge
Joseph W. Field, of Mississippi, Mrs. Sarah Pickett
and Mrs. Gindrat, and Stephen W. Harris, who died when
twenty-three years old, were children of William Har-
ris, who was born in or near New Bern, Craven
county, N. C. William Harris moved to Georgia about ] oOO,
married Sarah Coffee in Hancock County, moved thence to
Montgomery, Ala., about 1817. His son, Peter Coffee, was
born in 1807. William Harris had three brothers. Enoch,
whose daughter married a Mr. Lane (the father of W. 1>.
Lane, Perfection, N. C, living in 1897) ; John, who married
Mary Lane, and Stephen, who married Mrs. Bryan. He also
had one sister, Mary Gatlin. John Harris traveled on
horseback with his nephew. Lane, from New Berne, N. C,
to Montgomery, Alabama, to visit his brother, William, in
1823. Stephen Harris died without children, and willed the
large estate he owned to various relatives. The residence
built by Stephen Harris in 1810 at Perfection, N. C, is now
occupied by W. B. Lane, his grand-nephew. Except the
descendants of his son William, none of the descendants of
John Harris, of New Berne, N. C, who died in 1801, are
named Harris, and these are the children and grandchildren
of Peter Coffee Harris and Narcissa Ann Hooks.
William Harris and his sons, Peter Coffee Harris and
Stephen W. Harris, were buried on the plantation near
Montgomery, Ala., settled by William Harris in 1817.
Each of their graves is marked by marble tombstones, and
they are on an eminence not far from the Pickett Springs.
Harris-Alston.
William Harris married Mary Alston, his fourth wife,
December, 1811, and by her he had one son, Stephen, and
two daughters, Sarah and jMary. The son, Stephen Alston
Harris, born in 1813, married Elizabeth Fitzpatrick in 1835,
and died in 1836, without issue. The youngest daughter of
William Harris and Mary Alston, Mary Gatlin Harris,
married John Gindrat and died in Montgomery, Ala., when
58 GENEALOGICAL DATA
nearly seventy years of age. She, too, died without issue.
The oldest daughter of William Harris by his wife Mary
Alston, Sarah Smith Harris, married March 20, 1832, Albert
Pickett, author of a very valuable history of Alabama. To
her were born twelve children, nine living to adult age.
Mary Pickett, the granddaughter of William Harris, mar-
ried Samuel Smith Harris, who as a minister in the Episco-
pal Church became Bishop of Michigan in 1879, residing
thereafter in Detroit, where he and his wife Mary are now
buried. To Bishop Harris and ]\tary Pickett were born
Sallie P., now wife of Professor Charles Mills Gayley of the
University of California, and Samuel, now a la\\yer practi-
cing in Detroit, and William, a civil engineer, living in
Detroit.
Martha Pickett, granddaughter of William Harris,
married Michael L. Woods. She is dead. Her daughters,
Corinne and Mattie, now reside with their father in ]\Iont-
gomery, Ala.
Alston Harris Pickett, grandson of William Harris,
married Elizabeth Jackson, and now lives in Montgomery,
Ala. He has children,
William Raiford Pickett, grandson of William Harris,
married Laura Holt. He is dead. His widow and children
now reside in Montgomery.
Corinne Pickett, granddaughter of William Harris,
married Edward Brett Randolph. She died without issue.
Her husband lives in Montgomery.
Eliza W. Pickett, granddaughter of William Harris,
married Edwin A Banks. She and her husband are dead.
Their children reside in Montgomery.
Sarah Julia Pickett, granddaughter of William Harris,
married Robert Carter Randolph. Her husband is dead,
and she is living with her children in Montgomery.
Albert James Pickett, grandson of William Harris,
married Eugenia Durden. He is dead. His widow and
children live near Autaugaville.
John Gindrat Pickett, grandson of William Harris, un-
married, and lives at Autaugaville.
GENEALOGICAL DATA 59
COFFEE.
Peter and Joshua Coffee, brothers, came from Ireland
and settled in Prince Edward Co., Va., in 1750. Peter and
Joshua each had a son named John, and both John Coffees
became generals in the wars against the Indians and the
English in 1812-15. One John Coffee lived in Tennessee, the
other in Georgia. The two elder Coffees, Peter and Joshua,
entered the Revolutionary War, Joshua being a captain of
mounted gunners. John Coffee, son of Joshua, moved to
Tennessee, and bcame a comrade of Andrew Jackson, whose
niece, Mary Donelson, he married. He was colonel of Ten-
nessee volunteers, the famous "Hunting Shirt Brigade," and
he was with Andrew Jackson in the Creek War, was with
him in his incursions into Florida, which led to international
trouble, for Florida was then Spanish territory, and was
with Jackson at the Battle of New Orleans. In order to
reach New Orleans in December, 1814, he made with his
troops a forced march of seventy miles a day for several con-
secutive days. It was the sure, steady aim of these trained
riflemen in Coffee's brigade that made the greatest factor
in the battle of New Orleans, in which Jackson with a loss
of eight men killed and thirteen men wounded, caused a loss
in killed, wounded and prisoners of 2,600 British regulars,
a result unparalleled in warfare for disparity of numbers
and made all the more remarkable when it is remembered
that Jackson's total forces included only 5,000 men, while
the British had 8,000.
This John Coffee, the comrade of Jackson, died in Flor-
ence, Ala., in 1831, his descendants, some of them, now liv-
ing there. His son, Andrew Jackson Coffee, was breveted
lieutenant-colonel for bravery exhibited at the battle of
Buena Vista in 1847. He died in 1891. John T. Coffee, of
this same family, had moved from Tennessee to Missouri be-
fore 1861 ,but in the Civil War he was colonel of the 6th
Missouri Cavalry that fought on the Confederate side. John
T. Coffee of Missouri died in 1890. Edward O'Neal, of
6o GENEALOGICAL DATA
Florence, Ala., nephew of Governor O'Neal, is a son of the
granddaughter of John Coffee.
The John Coffee who was uncle of Peter Coffee Harris
was general of the State troops of Georgia. It was in ap-
preciation of his service against the Creek Indians that a
county in Georgia was named for him. He was also in the
Legislature and was elected to congress twice — in 1833 and
in 1835, dying on the day on which he was elected the seC'
ond time . He was the son of Peter Coffee of Virginia, all ot
whose cliildren, two sons and seven daughters, moved to
Georgia in 1781. They were xs follows :
Elizabeth, born December 26, 1775, married (1) C. Dan-
iel, (2) T. Ligon.
Nancy, born August 23, 1778, married (1) Abram
Heard (ancestors of Mrs. Foster, of Urdon Springs, second
child of Thos. and Elizabeth Heard), (2) Jas. Kennedy.
Susannah, born August 30, 1780, married T. Kaudal
(parents Mrs. Mark Cooper.)
John (general in 1812) born December 3, 1782, married
Miss Bryan, of Telfair County, member of congress, re-
elected on day of death.
Sarah, born October 21, 1784, married William Harris.
Joshua, born December 27, 1786, bachelor, lived and
died at Darien, Ga.
Mary, born March 5, 1789, married H. Gibson.
Cynthia, born February 5, 1791, married Thos. Stocks.
Patsy (Martha), born May 9, 1793, married George
Heard (9th child of Thomas and Eliza), born 1785, died
1858).
George Heard and Martha Coffee lived and died at La-
Grange, Ga. Their daughter, Martha Falkner, married Col.
Beall, of Troup Co. They have three children — Martha
Catherine, Julia and Egbert. Peter Abram Heard married
Mary Alford, of LaGrange. Thomas H. Heard married P.
Alford.
Abram Heard and Nancy Coffee had nine children —
Franklin Coffee (Mobile) with seven children j Julia Smith
GEN. JOHN COFFEE
A brother of the mother of Peter Coffee Harris, this picture is
reproduced from oil pamtmg ma
de while a member of
Congress m 153,
GENEALOGICAI, DATA 6 1
Saft'old (Madisou) five children; Thomas Peter (unmar-
ked) ; Abram Augustus (Union Springs) one child, Mrs.
booster; Minerva Ann (Goliad, Texas) four children; John
Joseph (Wilkes county) nine children; George Felix
(Texas) ; Joshua, born 1817 (Mississippi), five children.
The following is a copy of statements dictated by Mark
A. Cooper to his nephew, Judge Joel Branliam :
"The Cofli'ee family and the llandali family came about
the same time the Coopers came from Virginia (about 1780),
and settled in Hancock county, Georgia. The Coffee family
consisted of two brothers and seven sisters, John and
Joshua. John was for many years general of militia in Geor-
gia, and a prominent member of the legislature for many
years. Joshua lived and died a bachelor in Darien. The sis-
ters were Susan, who married Randall and was the mother
of Mrs. Mark A. Cooper and Lackiugton and John S.
Randall. John S. Randall married the sister of Judge
Lucius Q. C. Lamar and Mirabeau Lamar.
Elizabeth Coffee married Daniel, mother of Dr. W^i. C.
Daniel.
Mary Coffee married Gibson.
Cynthia married Thomas Stocks of Green county, for
many years senator from Green and president of senate
from Georgia,
Sallie Coffee married William Harris.
Martha Coffee married George Heard.
Nancy Coffee married Abram Heard.
Susan Coffee died leaving four young children — Lack-
ington, Jno. S., Sophronia and Rosanna Randall. Sopli-
ronia had Abram Heard for guardian, who raised her, and
she was married to Mark A. Cooper.
■. '. '■■■■■•1
Coffee — Cooper.
Sophronia Coffee Randall, who married Mark A.
Cooper, a man of extraordinary ability, and of noble char-
acter, was the mother of Thomas L., John Frederick, Eu-
62 GENEALOGICAL DATA
gene,'Volumina, Antonia, Kosa and Susie. Of these Thomas
L. Cooper bcame a lawyer of unusual power, was solicitor-
general of the Atlanta judicial circuit, was elected colonel
of a Georgia regiment that entered the Confederate Army
in the early days of 1861 and was killed by l)eing thrown
from his horse on one of the battlefields of Virginia in 1862.
Thomas L. Cooper married !I\lary Pope and was the father
of Dr. Hunter, P. Cooper, of Atlanta, and of Thomas L.
Cooper and of Sallie Cooper, who married J. II. Sanders, of
Washington, Ga.
John Frederick Cooper lived in Rome, Ga., married
Harriet Smith, was made captain of a company organized in
Floyd county early in 1861, and died as a result of a wound
received in the first Battle of IManassas. John Frederick
Cooper was the father of John Paul Cooper, born in 1858, of
Walter G. Cooper, and of Frederick C. Cooper. John Paul
Cooper married Alice Allgood. Walter G. Cooper married
Belle Bacon. Frederick C. Cooper married Tennie B.
Lanius.
Volumnia Cooper, daughter of Sophronia Randall and
Mark A. Cooper, married Thomas P. Stovall, of Augusta,
and was the mother of Eflfie, who married T. F. Branch and
of Sophie. Susie Cooper, daughter of Sophronia Randall
and Mark A. Cooper, married William A. Pope, of Wilkes
County, Ga., and was the mother of Mark Cooper Pope.
Mary Lou Pope, who married John J. Hill, of Effie Pope
who maried ISlinter Wimberly, of Macon, and Clarion Pem-
broke Pope, who married Elizabeth Barnett.
Coflfee— Heard.
Stcplicn Heard, ])Oi-n in Irclaiul. o\' Englisli ancestry,
married ]\Tary Falkner and lived in Virginia.
Thomas Heard, son of Stephen and ^lary, born in 1742
in Virginia, moved in 1784 to Green County, Georgia. His
wife was Elizabeth Fitzpatrick. of Virginia.
Abram Heard, son of Thomas and Elizabeth, Imrn 1760,
died 1822, married Nancy Coffee, of Hancock County. They
GENEALOGICAL DATA 63
lived in Morgan County, Georgia and had children: Frank-
lin Coffee Heard, Julia Smith Heard, Abram Augustus
Heard, Minerva Ann Heard, John Joseph Heard.
George Heard, son of Thomas and Elizabeth, born 1785,
married Martha Coffee and died in LaGrange, Ga. Their
children were Antionette, George Coffee, Martha Falkner,
Cynthia Ann, Peter Abram and Henry Thomas. Peter
Abram Heard's family are in LaGrange, Ga.
Franklin Coffee Heard, son of Abram and Nancy, mar-
ried Matilda Bozeman, of Milledgeville, Ga. Their children
were Julia, who married James Elder; Eliza, who married
Douglas Vass ; Ann Bozeman, who married Gary Butt, of
]\Iobile, whose daughter Mary married Thomas Lyon.
Julia Smith Heard, daughter of Abram and Nancy, mar-
ried Seaborn Saffold, of IMadison, Ga. Their children were
Ann Heard, who married Nathaniel Foster; Thomas, who
married, first, Mary Thomas, of Athens, Ga., and second,
Sallie Reed, of Eatonton, Ga. ; William Abram and Isham.
Abram Augustus Heard, son of Abram Heard and Nancy
Coffee, married Harriet McGruder, of Columbia County,
Georgia, and their children were Virginia, who married Dr.
Foster, of Union Springs, Ala., and had children: George
Felix, who married Emily Smith Nailor, and had children;
Joshua Thomas, who married Martha Koger, and had chil-
dren.
Franklin Coffee Heard, of Mobile, Ala., is a descendant
of Abram Heard and Nancy Coffee. He married Ann C.
Hunter and had children : Franklin, James, Marth^, Al-
tona, Thompson and Ann Eliza. Minerva Ann Heard,
daughter of Abram and Nancy, married Pryor Lee, of Texas,
and had children : Abram Heard Lee ; Nannie Coffee Lee,
who married Alfred Winfield, and Cynthia Ellen Lee.
John Joseph Heard, son of Abram Heard and Nancy
Coffee, born in 1809 in Green County, married, first, Cynthia
Beatty, and second, Ann T. Wilkins, of Eatonton in 1851.
His children : Susan Ann, who married Dr. Hunter in 1857 ;
Julia, William, Abram, Cynthia, Nancy Coffee, Sarah,
Franklin, Lucy Harmon. The children of Susan Ann Heard
64 GENEALOGICAL DATA
and Dr. Hunter are Edward, John, Cynthia, Julia, Fannie.
*Vol. 11. Joseph Habersham Historical Collections,
D. A. R.
Hooks.
AVilliain Hooks died in 1746. His will mentions son
William (2), living; grandsons William (3), Thomas (3) and
John 3 ; great grandson John 4 (son of John 3) ; grandson
William 3 (son of John 2, died 1732, as seen by the will),
and grandson William 3 Beale. Charles Hooks 4 was son
of Thomas 3, grandson of John 2, great grandson of William
1. The will of John 2, dated 1732, mentions wife, Ruth, and
chidren — William, Robert, Thomas, John, Elizabeth, Mary,
Sarah. Thomas (son of John 2) was the father of Charles
4. Thus the lineal descent of Charles Hooks Harris from his
Hooks ancestry is —
William Hooks, died in 174G.
II
John Hooks, died in 1732.
Ruth
II
Thomas Hooks, died in 1803.
Anna
II
Charles Hooks, died in 1843.
Anna Hunter, died in 1854.
II
Narcissa Ann Hooks, died in 18G4.
Peter Coffee Harris died in 1856.
II
Charles Hooks Harris.
Margaret Monk, died in 1901.
II
The will of the father of Chnrlos Hooks and :\rary
(called Polly) Slocumb, Thomas Hooks, Avas made 7th day
of November, 1801, and named his son David Hooks and his
GENEALOGICAL DATA 65
son-in-law Ezekiel Sloeumb and his friend William Dickson
as his executors. The records at Kenansville, N. C, show
that the will was duly probated and that the executors
qualified in April, 1803, and divided the estate as directed,
one-half of the property going to the wife, Susanna, the
other half divided equally among the nine children which he
names as follows: William Hooks, Hillary Hooks, Charles
Hooks, Thomas Hooks, David Hooks, Lavina Hooks, Polly
Sloeumb, Fannie Watkins, and Susana McGowen.
It should be noted that the second wife (Susana) of
Thomas Hooks was the widow of John Charles Sloeumb, by
whom she had three children, and that Thomas Hooks him-
self was a widower with three children at the time he mar-
ried the widow of John Charles Sloeumb. Two of the sons
of Mrs. Thomas Hooks by her first marriage married two of
her step-daughters, Mary (called Polly) and Lavinia.
The sister of Charles, Mary, married Ezekiel
Sloeumb, the son of Mrs. John Charles Sloeumb, who be-
came the second wife of Thomas Hooks in 1777. ]\I -r-^
Hooks Sloeumb was born in Bertie county, N. C, about
1760. Her father moved to Duplin county when she was ten
years old. He settled in that part of N. C. called Goshen.
Lieut. Ezekiel Sloeumb lived on a plantation on the Neuse
river in Wayne county, named by Lord Cornwallis Pleasant
Green, which name it still retains. Early in the Revolution
Lieut. Sloeumb raised a troop of light horse, called the
"Rangers," to watch the enemy and punish the Tories.
Charles Hooks, the little brother of Mrs. Sloeumb, was ac-
customed to follow his brother-in-law whenever it was pos-
sible in his movements against the enemy. In Aoril, 1781,
after the battle of Guilford C. H. Gen. Tarleton irai'e his
headquarters at this place. Lieut. Sloeumb, with Charles
Hooks and others, had been in hot pursuit of the Tories, and
returned home, not knowing that Tarleton was in possession
of the place. A faithful slave warned them and although
seen and pursiTed they made good their escape.
After the revolution, Charles Hooks married Mary Ann
Hunter. He went to the legislature from Duplin, N. C,
66 GENEALOGICAL DATA
1802-3-4, and again in 1810-11, and served four terms in con-
gress of the United iStates. Serving in Congress at the
same time with him was his nephew, Jesse Sloeumb, from
the adjoining congressional district of North Carolina. He
moved to Alabama in 1826, died in 1843, and is buried in the
private cemetery of the Molton family on Laurel Hill, four-
teen miles from ^Montgomery.
Hunter.
In the N. C. Historical Register for January, 1?^0, may
be found the will of Isaac Hunter, of Chowan, duv^d April
17, 1752. In t are mentioned children, Elisha, Jacv»b, Jesse,
Isaac, Daniel, Alec, Hannah, Elizabeth, Rachel, Sa'^vh. This
Isaac was the father of Isaac 2, who was the fathei .>f ]\Iary
Ann Hunter Hooks.
Mary Ann Hunter, who married Charles Hook«, w^as the
granddaughter of Isaac Hunter, of Chowan County, North
Carolina, who died there in 1752. The town of Edenton in
this county was originally settled in 1655 by a group of
Presbyterians of Scotch-Irish descent who, suffering some
religious persecution from the Episcopalians in Jamestown,
Virginia, were allowed by the Governor of Virginia, Wil-
liam Berkeley, to form a separate colony in what is now the
northeast corner of North Carolina. The land set apart for
their occupancy was organized into a government of their
own under William Drummond, a Scotch Presbyterian, and
was then called Albennarle Colony. It is now divided into
several counties.
This Presbyterian colony named their town Edenton,
and later when the province of North Carolina was formed
into counties the name of their county was changed from
Albermarle to Chowan. Into this county some of the Hunt-
ers, who were Scotch-Irish, moved from Virginia. In this
way the Hunters of Virginia and North Carolina are from
the same family, a family which had in the very early days
of the Virginia colony emigrated from Ireland. R. M. T.
Hunter, Senator of the United States and Secretary of
GENEALOGICAL DATA 67
State in the Confederate States, is of the Virginia Hunters.
The prominence of this Hunter family in their section of
North Carolina is manifested by the fact that Jacob and
William Hunter represented the district in which Edenton is
located at the Provincial Congress which met at Halifax
April 4 — May 4, 1776 — and that Alexander Hunter was in
command of a North Carolina regiment during the Revolu-
tionary War. It is also true that Thomas Hunter, of Mar-
tin, N. C, was a member of the Provincial Congress, which
met November 12, 1776.
Jacob Hunter, mentioned above as a member of the
Provincial Congress, was a son of Isaac Hunter, and, there-
fore, an uncle of Ann Hunter, who married Charles Hooks.
William Hunter and Colonel Thomas Hunter were no doubt
her near relatives also. The Hunters were residents and
large land owners in Bertie County, which lay next to
Chowan County, North Carolina, and it was in Bertie
County that the Hooks lived before their removal to Duplin
County. Several of the Hunter families also moved from
Bertie County to Duplin, among them being Nicholas
Hunter and Isaac Hunter, the latter being the father of Ann
Hunter, who was the grandmother of Charles Hooks Harris.
Isaac Hunter was also an ancestor of Margaret Monk, the
wife of Charles Hooks Harris. The lineal descent to the
writer and his brothers and sisters may be seen in the fol-
lowing diagram:
68 GENEAIX)GICAL DATA
Mrs. J. C. Slot'umb. (2d wifc.t
^Thomas Hooks
Anna, (Is wife).
£.;
K5
2.P
0= ^a
I I I I I I I
h; 5- 5^ ^-s-
Sarah Harris I'l'tor ('. Harris f'lnirlfs II. Harris William P. Harris
Willis Wood. Molliu Wooley. Marj^aret Monk. Victoria Vann.
r/:r/3
^X 3: Q->5 ?^H;
2.= E;:? P- S s; P =
^2i
o® 5-3 •
53 P I
1 1
1
1
1
1
1 If
2*
i*
35
=1
<i=;
^
1
; =i
c
|5
23
M
C
?i 15 ?-^ S a
it ^1 I I F
ii F F f^
I
2®
I
EGBERT H. ^lOLTON .
First Cousin of Charles H. Harris
:MRS. CATHERINE :\I()LT()X GLOVER.
First Cousin of Charles H. Harris.
GENKALOGICAL DATA
69
Katherine--
Betsy Jane-
Sarah—
Narcissa J-
Robert—
rhos.— I Charles—
' William—
Kate-I Marshall-
' Th09.—
John—
Katherine-
Sarah—
Ann Kate-
Charles R—
Molton H—
9
«-i
n
1
9
2
-1
7
S
g
a
s
s
?s
2_
»
2.
£•
;i
p
Q
"
Sallie-
William-
°o.»
lis-
p. o
70 QKNKALOGICAL DATA
Hooks — Hunter.
Thomas and Anna Hooks of N. C. had three children.
1. Charles married Ann Hunter. Charles, born Feb-
ruary 20, 1768 ,died October 18, 1843 ; served four terms in
congress from N. C.
2. Mary, born 17G0, died March 6, 1830, married Col.
Ezekiel Slocumb (of Revolutionary) ; Mary had two chil-
dren, Mrs. Harriet Battle and Hon. Jesse Slocumb from
Wayne county, N. C, member of 15th and IGth congress.
3. Lavinia married ^lajor AYilliams as her first lius-
band, Slocumb, her second husband.
Charles Hooks, son of Thomas and Anna Hooks, was
born in North Carolina, February 20, 1768, died October 18,
1843, and is buried in the private cemetery of the Molton
family on Laurel Hill, 14 miles from Montgomery. He
was married three times, first to Betsie "Williams, January
1, 1789 ; second to Kitty Dickson, March 29, 1795, and tliird
to Anne Hunter, daughter of Isaac and Priscilla Hunter, of
North Carolina, on November 15, 1796.
By his first marriage it seems from the records that he
had children as follows : James, born March 2, 1799 ; Thomas
on November 16, 1791, and Charles A. September 18, 1793.
By his second marriage it appears that he had but one
child — a son named Dickson, born January 20, 1796.
By his third wife he had children as follows : jNIarshall
H. Hooks, born December, 1797, married Tabbie Fitzpatrick.
They lived in Tuskegee, Alabama, where they died at a ripe
old age.
Eliza Jane, born December 9, 1799, married a Mr.
Hatch, died Octo])er 9, 1820, and was buried on her father's
plantation in Duplin county, North Carolina, in the same
grave with an anfant. The grave is covered with a large
marble slab and was in good condition in 1908.
Catherine Anne, born Octol)er 31, 1801, married Tliomas
Molton, died Septeml)er 27, 1872. Her remains were interr-
ed in a vault in the INIontgomery City Cemetery.
Narcissa A., born May 22, 1803, married Peter Coffee
GENEALOGICAL DATA 7 1
Harris, died May 27, 1864, at her home in Tuskegee, Ala.
She is buried in the Tuskegee City Cemetery.
Amanda Anne, born April 16, 1807, died in childhood.
David I., born November 10, 1812, married and lived on
his plantation near Shreveport, La., % mile east of Green-
wood, La,, till 1859. He then moved twenty miles below
Shreveport on Red River, where he died soon after the Civil
War. He had three daughters, one a Mrs. Meriwether. The
latter lived on Red River twenty miles below Shreveport.
Mrs. Meriwether had one son. He moved from that section
in 1884, and his present address is unknown to the writer.
One daughter of David Hooks was Mrs. Kate Renison.
She had a son, James, who was living in New Jersey inl885.
David L Hooks died in the year 1865, leaving the two
children Ann Hooks and Kate Hooks. Ann who married
Merriwether, first — Bush second, died in 1887. Kate
married Renison as her first husband and Jordan
as her second husband. Jordan after the death of his
wife, Kate Hooks, married his wife's niece, Mary Merri-
wether, and moved to Montgomery, Ala. Ann Hooks' second
husband was Bush and by him she had one son who is
living in Texas.
Sarah Amanda, born April 30, 1817, married George
James Forrest ; she died in the city of New York, January
24, 1854. She had children as follows: Anne Kate Forrest,
who married Rev. George Zabriskie Gray, both now dead;
Charles Robert Forrest, married Harriet Chanler, both liv-
ing in Hartford, Conn. ; Molton Hooks Forrest, married
Emma Louise Safford. He is dead, his wife still living, in
Philadelphia; Sarah Florena Forrest, died while ffLiite
young,
Hooks-Fitzpatrick.
Marshall H. Hooks, son of Charles and Anne Hooks,
born December 18, 1797, married Tabbie Fitzpatrick, sister
of Gov. Fitzpatrick, one of Alabama's Governors before the
Civil War. They had three daughters: Catherine, who
72 GENEALOGICAL DATA
married John Campbell, who had born to them five children,
as follows: Dick, Kate, Lizzie, Sallie and James. Next child
to Marsliall H, and Tabbie Hooks, was Betsy Jane, who mar-
ried Judge ^Villiam K. Harris, of Tuskegee, Alabama, and
by this marriage had children as follows: Willie K., married
A. B. Vandergrift, of Birmingham. Betsy Jane, who mar-
ried, first, Frank L. Wadsworth, second, Charles H. Molton,
and now live in Birmingham. Next child, Mary, who mar-
ried Robert Y. Ware, Jr., and resides with her husband in
Autauga county, Alabama.
Other children who died young were born to this
couple.
Betsy Jane married, second, E. W. Story, by whom she
had no children. Sarah, the next child of Marshall Hooks,
married David Graves Fitzpatrick and they had two sons,
Marshall and Charles, who live in Bessemer, Alabama, and
several children who died when young.
Hooks-Molton.
Catherine Ann Hooks, daughter of Charles and Anne
Hooks, born October 31, 1801, died September 27, 1872.
She married Maj. Thomas Molton in Duplin county, N. C,
from which place they moved to Montgomery county, Ala-
bama, in 1826. Her husband died November 1, 1845, leav-
ing her with a large family, five sons and four daughters,
all of them except one being under age, and the responsi-
bility of raising and educating so large a family rested upon
her. She proved equal to the occasion and conditions sur-
rounding her in every way, surviving her husband 27 years.
Major Thomas Molton was born in North Carolina,
August 1, 1786, and died November 1, 1845, on his planta-
tion in Montgomery (now Elmore) county, Alabama. He
was married twice ; first, to Miss Julia Ward, daughter of
Gen. Charles Ward, of Duplin county. North Carolina, by
which marriage he had two daughters, Sarah and Eliza,
both of whom married Templeton Reed, of Montgomery,
Alabama. His second wife was Miss Catherine, daughter of
Charles and Anne Hooks, a niece of his first wife.
GENEALOGICAL DATA yj
By his second marriage, Thomas Molton had nine chil-
dren, as follows: Narcissa Jane, born December 3, 1821,
died April 3, 1900 ; Charles Hooks, born August 18, 1825,
died October 3, 1871; William Peacock, twin brother of
Charles Hooks, born August 18, 1825, died October 9, 1902 ;
Thomas James, born December 12, 1827, died March 3, 1896 ;
Julia Amanda, born November 24, 1829, died October 5,
1873 ; Robert Hogan, born August, 1831, died August 8,
1895 ; Catherine Anne, born in 1833, died in 1873 ; Marshall
Harris, born December 13, 1835, still living in Birmingham,
Alabama ; Sarah Eliza, born July 26, 1838, died June 29,
1861.
Narcissa Jane Molton, daughter of Thomas and Cath-
erine Anne Molton, born December 3, 1821, in Duplin
county, North Carolina. She moved with her parents to
Montgomery county, Alabama, in 1826; married, first, John
Henley, and by this marriage she bore the following
children :
Thomas Molton, born in Montgomery county, Alabama,
December 3, 1839, died in Bibb county, Alabama,April 4,
1888.
Catherine, born Febi-uary 22, 1841, died September 9,
1842.
John Charles, bom in Montgomery county, Alabama,
September 29, 1842, died in Birmingham, Alabama, May
15, 1909.
Michael H., born March 18, 1844, died May 19, 1854.
Narcissa Jane, born July 28, 1846, died November 12,
1848.
Annie Julia, born March 8, 1848, died July 6, 1849.
Robert Walter, born August 11, 1850, died January 9,
1864.
John Henley, the first husband of Narcissa Jane Molton
was a native of Ireland, born December 12, 1809, died Octo-
ber 10, 1853.
The second husband of Narcissa Jane Molton was
Judge Hugh W. Watson, of Montgomery, Alabama ; by this
marriage there were no children.
74 GENEALOGICAL DATA
Col. Charles Hooks Molton was born in Duplincounty,
North Carolina, August 18, 1825. He died at the old Molton
homestead in Montgomery (now Elmore) county, Alabama,
on October 3, 1871, and was buried in the cemetery in the
city of ^Montgomery. He married Julia Anne Hunter in
1846. To this couple there were born nine children, as
follows: Son, died in infancy, in 1847; Lizzie Whitfield,
born in Montgomery county, Alabama, July 20, 1849, died in
Jefferson county, Alabama, December 31, 1905; Sallie
Collier, born in ^Montgomery county, Alabama, April 24,
1851, died in Birmingham, Alabama, October 21, 1878;
Thomas Hunter, born in ]\Iontgomery county, Alabama,
November 15, 1853, living in Birmingham, Alabama ; Julia,
born in Montgomery county. Alabama, March 24, 1856, died
May 24, 1857 ; Charles Hooks, born in ^Montgomery county,
Alabama, August 9, 1858, living in Birmingham, Alabama ;
Annie Julia, bom in City of Montgomery, Alabama, March
2, 1861, living in Birmingham, Alabama; William Forrest,
born in City of IMontgomcry, xVlabama, June 3, 1863, living
in Birmingham, Alabama; Robert Marshall, born at old
IMolton place, Elmore county, Alabama, on January 20,
1866, living in Birmingham. Alabama.
William Peacock ]Molton was born August 18, 382', a
twin brother of Charles H. IMolton, with whom he resided
until the death of his brother Charles. He never married
and the latter years of his life, lived with his brother
Robert. He died October 9, 1902, anO his reu.ains were
interred in the vault with his mother in the City Cemetery
at Montgomery, Alabama.
Thomas James IMolton was born in ^Tontgomory county,
Alabama, December 12, 1827. died in Montgomery i-ounty,
March 3, 1896, buried in City Cemetery. Montgomery, Ala-
bama. He married ^Mary W., the daughter of Dr. Robert J.
Ware, of ]\Iontgomery county, Alabama. To this marriage
there were born three children as follows: Zennie Ware,
born October 17, 1853, died October 3, 1859 ; Robert Ware,
born in 1855, living in Macon county, Alabama ; Thomas
James, born about 1870, died about 1888.
OENEALOGICAL DATA 75
Julia Amanda ]\Iolton, daughter of Thomas and Cath-
erine Anne Molton, born November 24, 1829, died of yellow
fever at Tuskegee, Alabama, October 5, 1873. She married
Robert Y. Ware, to whom she bore the following children :
Ann, born October 16, 1848, died August 10, 1850 ; Kate,
born about 1850, died of yellow fever in Montgomery, Ala.,
in October, 1873 ; Mary, born December 10, 1852, died Feb-
ruary 6, 1900; Robert James, born August 28, 1853, died
January 9, 1854; Robert Y., born March 30, 1855, living in
Autauga county, Alabama; Julia, born about 1856, died
when ten or twelve years old ; ]\Iolton, born about 1858, died
about 1884; Walter, born about 1860, died when a very
small boy.
Capt. Robert Hogan Molton, son of Thomas and Cath-
erine Anne Molton, was born in Montgomery county, Ala-
bama, August, 1831, died August 8, 1895, He married
Rachael Haywood Moore. Children born to them were as
follows : Mary Lizzie, born February 9, 1850, died June 18.
1863; Kate Haywood, born November 17, 1854, died May
19, 1855 ; Lillie Belle, born August 13, 1856, died March 5,
1873.
This good man, after losing his own children, took into
his home and raised the two youngest orphan boys of his
brother Charles, and the orphan son and daughter of his
sister. Catherine Glover.
Catherine Ann Molton, daughter of Thomas and Cath-
erine Anne Molton, was born in Montgomery county, Ala-
bama, n 1833, died of yellow fever at Tuskegee, Alabama,
October 5, 1873. She married Allen Glover, of Green county,
Alabama, to whom the following children were born: Mol-
ton ; Kate Allena ; Allen Walton, born September 3, 1864,
died June 10, 1903, never married ; IMinnie, born 1867, living
in Montgomery, Alabama; Robert, twin brother to Minnie,
died in infancy.
Marshall Harris Molton, son of Thomas and Catherine
Anne Molton, was born in Montgomery county, Alabama,
December 13, 1835; married Julia Toombs DuBose. They
had but two children. William E., who died at the age of
76 GENEALOGICAL DATA
tive years, and Kate Julia, wife of Joseph R. Smith, Jr.,
born about 1858, and died in Birmingham, August 31, 1907.
Sarah Eliza Molton, daughter of Thomas and Catherine
Anne Molton, born July 26, 1838, died June 29, 1861. She
married Dr. B. F. Blount, of Chambers county, Alabama,
and to them was born only one child, Sallie, who died when
about five years of age.
Dr. Blount was a prominent physician, afterwards the
proprietor of a large drug store in the city of Montgomery,
where he lived for many years. He finally moved to Mem-
phis, Tenn., where he died of yellow fever in 1873.
Thomas Molton Henley, son of John and Narcissa Jane
Henley, was born in Montgomery county, Alabama, Decem-
ber 3, 1839 ; died in Bibb county, Alabama, April 4, 1888.
Married Alcesta Smith, and to them were born the follow-
ing children:
Mary Narcissa, born May 17, 1877 ; living ;
Robert Hector, born February 4, 1879; living;
Annie Olivia, born May 29, 1881 ; living ;
Tettie Jane, born December 27, 1883; living;
Thomas Molton, born April 6, 1886 ; living ;
Malcolm John, born June 23, 1888; died April 29, 1890.
John Charles Henley, son of John and Narcissa Jane
Henley, bom September 29, 1842; died in Birmingham,
Alabama, May 15, 1909. He married Annie Linn ^latthews,
daughter of Charles Linn, and to them were born three
sons : Walter E., born January 30, 1877 ; John C, born
October 9, 1880 ; Courtney S., born December 20, 1889 ; all
are now grown and reside in Birmingham, Alabama.
Lizzie Whitfield Molton, daughter of Charles H. and
Julia A. Molton, born July 20, 1849; died December 31,
1905. She married Andrew J. Terrell, who was born in
Montgomery county, Alabama, and now resides in Jefferson
county, Alabama. No children blessed this union.
Sallie Collier Molton, daughter of Charles H. and Julia
A. Molton, born April 24, 1851 ; died October 21, 1878. She
never married.
Thomas Hunter Molton, son of Charles H. and Julia A.
GKNEALOGICAL DATA 77
Molton, was born November 15, 1853 ; married Lizzie Linn
Scott, daughter of Cliarles Linn, and to them have been
born four children: Ellen Linn, born January 25, 1890;
Kate, born December 24, 1892, died February 23, 1833;
Gertrude, born March 20, 1895; Thomas Hunter, Jr., i. --i
May 20, 1899.
Charles Hooks Molton, son of Charles H. and J alia A.
Molton, born August 9, 1858 ; married Bessie Harris Wads-
worth, daughter of William K. and Betsy Jane Harris.
They reside in Birmingham, Ala. They have no children.
Annie Julia Molton, daughter of Charles H. and Julia
A. Molton, was born March 2, 1861; married Charles J.
Smith, of Birmingham, Alabama, where they now reside.
They have three living children: Hunter Molton Smith,
born November 1, 1883; Leila Jordan Smith, born October
10, 1892 ; Joseph Riley, born June 24, 1898. They lost
several children in infancy and young childhood.
William Forrest Molton, son of Charles H, and Julia
A. Molton, was bom June 3, 1863 ; married on November 8,
1887, to Bettie G. Hurt, daughter of H. H. Hurt, of Marion
Alabama. To this union there have been born the follow-
ing children : Mary England, born January 27, 1889 ; Hay-
wood, born August 20, 1891 ; Annie Julia, born July 5, 1899 ;
William Forrest, born May 13, 1902, died June 28, 1904.
He resides in the city of Birmingham, Alabama.
Robert Marshall Molton, son of Charles H. and Julia
A. Molton, was born January 20, 1866; married Mary
Golson, of Autauga county, Alabama. They have but one
child, Amelia. They reside in Birmingham, Alabama.
Robert Ware Molton, son of Thomas James and Mary
W. Molton, was born in 1855 ; living in Macon county, Ala-
bama. He has never married.
Kate Ware, daughter of Robert Y. and Julia A. Ware,
born about 1850, married Walter E. Sistrunk, of Montgom-
ery, Alabama; died of yellow fever in 1873, leaving twin
babies ouly a few days old, both dying soon after the
mother's death.
Mary Ware, daughter of Robert Y. and Julia A. Ware,
78 GENEALOGICAL DATA
born December 10, 1852, died February 6, 1900. Married,
first, David Whetstone, -who died in December, 1873, in
montgomery, of yellow fever. She had by this marriage
one son, only a few weeks old at tlie time of his father's
death, now a substantial business man of Montgomery, Ala.
The widow, Mary Ware Whetstone, married her brother-in-
law, Walter E. Sistmnk, and to their union were born six
children: Kate, now the wife of Dr. B. J. Baldwin, of
^lontgomery; Roberta, the wife of David J. Buhl, of New
York City ; Jennie, the wife of AVilliam Jordan, of I\Iontgom-
ery ; Dr. Walter E. Sistrunk, a practicing physician of Lake
Charles, La. ; Robert, a young business man of Montgomery,
and :\Iary IMolton, a student in the Sophy Newcomb College
in New Orleans.
Robert Y. Ware, Jr., son of Robert Y. and Julia A.
Ware, born March 30, 1855, married IMary Harris, daugliter
of William K. and Betsy Jane Harris. To this union, their
first born, a boy named Robert, died in his infancy. Other
children came to them as follows : Willie Kirk, wife of
IMurray White, of Birmingham ; Bessie, Mary and Robert
Y., the third. Mr. Ware resides with his family on his
plantation in Autauga county, Alabama.
j\Iinnie Glover Ledyard, daughter of Allen and Cath-
erine A. Glover, born in 1867. married William E. Ledyard.
of Montgomery, now deceased. To this marriage there
were born but one child, a son named Denison, for bis
grandfather on the paternal side. The widow, and her boy,
now fifteen years of age, reside in a comfortable home in the
city of Montgomery.
Kate ]\Iolton Smith, daughter of Marshall IT. and Julia
DuBose Molton, was born ]\Tarch 4, 1850, died August 31,
1907; married to Joseph R. Smith, of Birmingham, Ala.
To this union came the following children: Maggie, married
TTon. TTugh IMorrow, State Senator and prominent lawyer
of Birmingham. She has an interesting family of five girls
and one boy.
Annie, married Calvin Jones, who comes from a prom-
GENEALOGICAL DATA 79
inent family of Selma, Alabama. They have two children,
a boy and a girl.
Joseph Molton, married to Bessie Murphree. They
have one boy and one girl and reside on a splendid farm
near Franklin, Tennessee.
Henley, a young man not yet married, resides with hia
father in Birmingham.
Hooks — Forrest.
George James Forrest, born in New York November 22,
1810, married Sarah Amanda Hooks, born in April 30, 1817,
in Duplin County, North Carolina. The marriage occurred
at Montgomery, Ala. Sarah A. Hooks died in New York
city on January 24, 1854.
The children of George J. Forrest and Sarah A. Hooks
were :
1. Anne Kate Forrest, born September 16, 1841, married
June 19, 1862, to George Zabriskie Gray, who
was born July 14, 1838. Their children are
Sarah Forrest Gray, born March 22, 1872 ; John
Alexander Clinton Gray, born October 11,
1873 ; Arthur Romejm Gray, born December
30, 1876. Sarah Forrest Gray married George
Zabriskie June 14, 1889, and has the following
children: George Gray Zabriskie, born July
30, 1890; Helen Romeyn Zabriskie, born July
tember 7, 1892 ; Reginold Zabriskie, born De-
cember 8, 1894; Alexander Clinton Zabriskie,
born January 21, 1898 ; Margaret Forrest Za-
briskie, born July 13, 1901.
2. Charles Robert Forrest, born January 28, 1843, married
Harriet Chanler, of Connecticut, October,
1868. Their children are George Chanler For-
rest, Helen Forrest, Madeleine Forrest, who
married Edward F. Burke January 10, 1901 ;
Elsie Forrest, Virginia Forrest. Charles Rob-
ert Forrest lives (1910) in Hartford, Connecti-
cut, as do also his son and four daughters,
8o ITBMS RECORDED IN BIBLK OF ANN HOOKS
3. Molton Hooks Forrest, born January 18, 1849, married
Emma Louisa Satt'ord March, 1872. Their chil-
dren were Herbert Molton Forrest and Rich-
ard Earp Forrest. Molton Hooks Forrest died
very suddenly of angina pectoris in 1002. He
lived in Philadelphia, where his widow i.:id two
sons now reside (1910).
George Zabriskie Gray, husband of Anne Kate For-
rest died August 5, 1887. Anne Kate Forrest died ,
1908. Their son, Arthur Romeyn Gray, married Laura
Ferguson, of Alabama March 2, 1898, to whom a child, John
Alexander Clinton, was born February 10, 1902. Arthur
Romeyn Gray is professor in the University of the Soutli
of Episcopal Church at Sewanee, Tenn. Sarah Gray mar-
ried her father's cousin, George Zazriskie, who is a lawyer
in New York city. One son of Kate Gray, George, attended
Columbia University. George died September 12, 1895.
Kate Forrest's husband, George Zabriskie Gray, was a
clergyman of the Episcopal Church and lived in Cambridge,
Massachusetts, where he died August 4, 1887. George James
Forrest, father of Kate Forrest Gray, died also in 1887 just
before the death of her husband.
Items Recorded in Bible of Ann Hooks.
Births.
Charles Hooks, son of Thomas and Anna, born Febru-
ary 20, 1768.
Betsy Williams, daughter of Joseph and Mary, born
March 10, 1769.
James Hooks, son of Charles and Betsy, born March 2,
1790.
Thomas Hooks, son of Charles and Betsy, born Novem-
ber 16, 1791.
Charles A. Hooks, son of Charles and Betsy, born Sep-
tember 15, 1793.
ITEMS RECORDED IN BIBLE OF ANN HOOKS 8 1
Dickson Hooks, son of Charles and Kitty, born January
20, 1796.
Ann Hunter, daughter of Isaac and Priscilla, born Sep-
tember 9, 1775.
Marshall H. Hooks, son of Charles and Ann, born De-
cember 18, 1797.
Betsy Jane Hooks, daughter of Charles and Ann, born
December 9, 1799.
Kitty Hooks, daughter of Charles and Ann, born Oc-
tober 31, 1801.
Narcissa A. Hooks, daughter of Charles and Ann, born
May 22, 1803.
Amanda Ann Hooks, daughter of Charles and Ann, born
April 16, 1807.
David I. Hooks, son of Charles and Ann, born November
10, 1812.
Sarah Amanda Hooks, daughter of Charles and Ann,
born April 30, 1817.
Marriages.
Charles Hooks married to Betsy Williams January 1,
1789.
Charles Hooks married Kitty Dickson March 29, 1795.
Charles Hooks and Ann Hunter married November 15,
1796.
Deaths.
Charles Hooks died October 18, 1843.
Betsy Hooks died October 21, 1794.
Kitty Hooks died March 8, 1796.
Amanda Hooks died February 14, 1811.
Ann Hooks died May 11, 1854.
Sarah Amanda Hooks died in New York January 24,
1854.
82 MARY SLOCUM — NEB HOOKS
Mary Slocumb— nee Hooks.
Wheeler's History of North Carolina, pp. 457 to 459
contains the account of the part taken by the Hooks and
Slocumbs in the Revolutionary War, and it is from this that
the writer has drawn the fpregoing statements. In a work
entitled "The Women of the Kevolution" by E. F. Elliott,
published by Baker and Scribner in 1850, there is in VoL 1,
C'iiui)ter XXiV an account of the part played by Col Ezekiel
Slocumb and liis wife Mary Hooks and her brother Charles
i looks in that hard struggle for liberty by the colonists.
Tlie part taken by them at the battle of Moore s Creek,
iNorth Carolina, was so important that it is noted on the
monument erected by the United [States to the Revolution-
ary soldiers who perished there. More significant than this is
the fact that the United States also inscribed on this monu-
ment a tribute to the memory of Mary Hooks, wife of Colonel
Slocumb. This is, probably, the only monument ever dedi-
cated by the United States to a woman, even in part.
From the volume alluded to above the following para-
graphs are copied :
The first expedition into North Carolina projected by
Lord Cornwallis, was baffled by the fall of Col. Ferguson at
King's Mountain. The disaster at the Cowpens forbade
perseverance in the second attempt, and was followed by the
memorable retreat of Greene. The battle of Guilford took
l)lace in March, 1781 ; and towards the end of April, while
Lord Rawdon encountered Greene at ITobkirk's Hill, Corn-
wallis set out on his march from AVilmington, bent on his
avowed purpose of achieving the eoncpiest of Virginia. On
his march towards Halifax, he encamped for several days
on the river Neuse, in what is now called Wayne county,
North Carolina. His headquarters were at Springbank,
while Col. Tarleton, with his renowned legion, encamped on
the plantation of Lieut. Slocumb. This consisted of level
MARY SLOCUM — NEB HOOKS 83
and extensive fields, which at that season presented a most
inviting view of fresh verdure from the mansion-house.
Lord Cornwallis himself gave it the name of "Pleasant
Green," which it ever afterwards retained. The owner of
this fine estate held a subaltern's commission in the State
line under Col. Washington, and was in command of a troop
of light horse, raised in his own neighborhood, whose general
duty it was to act as Rangers, scouring the country for many
miles around, watching the movements of the enemy, and
punishing the loyalists when detected in their vocation of
pillage and murder. These excursions had been firequent
for two or three years, and often of several weeks' duration.
At the present time Slocumb had returned to the vicinity,
and had been sent with twelve or fifteen recruits to act as
scouts in the neighborhood of the British general. The
morning of the day on which Tarleton took possession of
his plantation, he was near Springbank, and reconnoitered
the encampment of Cornwallis, which he supposed to be his
whole force. He then, with his party, pursued his way
slowly along the south bank of the Neuse, in the direction of
his own house, little dreaming that his deautiful and peace-
ful home, where, sometime before, he had left his wife and
child, was then in possession of the terrible Tarleton.
During these frequent excursions of the Rangers, and
the necessary absence of her husband, the superintendence
of the plantation had always devolved upon Mrs. Slocumb,
nee Mary Hooks. She depended • for protection upon her
slaves, whose fidelity she had proved, and upon her own
fearless and intrepid spirit. The scene of the occupation of
her house, and Tarleton 's residence with her, remained
through life indelibly impressed on her memory, and were
described by her to one who enjoyed the honor of her inti-
mate friendship. I am permitted to give this account, copied
almost verbatim from notes taken at the time the occurences
were related by Mrs. Slocumb.
It was about ten o'clock on a beautiful spring morning,
that a splendidly dressed officer, accompanied by two aids,
and followed at a short distance by a guard of some twenty
84 MARY 8LOCUM — NEE HOOKS
troopers, dashed up to the inazza in front of the ancient
looking mansion. Mrs. Slocumb was sitting there with her
child and a near relative, a young lady, Avho afterwards be-
came the wife of ^laj. Williams. A few house servants were
also on the piazza.
The officer raised his cap, and bowing to his horse's
neck, addressed the lady with the question: "Have I the
pleasure of seeng the lady of this house and plantation?"
"It belongs to my husband."
"Is he at home?" "He is not." "Is he a rebel?"
"No sir He is in the army of his country, and fighting
against our invaders; therefore not a rebel." It is not a
little singular, that although the people of that day gloried
in their rebellion, they always took offence at being called
rebels.
"I fear, madam," said the officer, "we differ in our
opinion. "A friend to his country will be the friend of the
king, our master."
"Slaves only acknowledge masters in this c )unLry,"
replied the lady.
A deep flush crossed the florid cheeks of Tarlton, for he
was the speaker ; and turning to one of his aids, he ordered
him pitch the tents and form the encampment in the orchard
and field on their right. To the other aid his orders were to
detach a quarter ground and station piquets on each road-
Then bowing very low, he added: "Madam, the service of
his Majesty requires the temporary occupation of your prop-
erty ; and if it would not be too great an inconvenience, I
will take up my quarters in your house,"
The tone admitted no controversy. I\lrs. Slocumb
answered: "My family consists of only myself, my sister
and child, and a few negroes. We are your prisoners."
From the piazza where lie seated himselfi, Tarleton com-
manded a view of the ground on wiiich his troops were ar-
ranging their camp. The mansion fronted the east, and an
avenue one hundred and fifty feet wide, and about half a
mile in length, stretched to the eastern side of the plantation,
whece was a highway, with open grounds beyond it, partly
MARY SLOCUM— NE;E HOOKS 85
dry meadow and partly sand barren. This avenue was
lined on the south side by a high fence, and a thick hedge-
row of forest trees. These are now removed, and replaced
by the Pride of India and other ornamental trees. On the
north side extended the common rail fence seven or eight
feet high, such as is usually seen on plantations in the low
country. The encampment of the British troops being on
that part of the plantation lying south of the avenue, it was
completely screened by the fences and hedge-row from the
view of any one approaching from down the country.
While the men were busied, different officers came up
at intervals, making their reports and receiving orders.
Among others, a tory captain, whom Mrs. Slocumb immedi-
ately recognized — for before joining the royal army he had
lived fifteen or twenty miles below — received orders in her
hearing to take his troops and scour the country for two or
three miles around.
In an hour everything was quiet, and the plantation
presented the romantic spectacle of a regular encampment
of some ten or eleven hundred of the choicest of the British
monarch.
(Here follows a description of dinner served to the British
officers.)
At this point the conversation was interrupted by rapid
volleys of firearms, appearing to proceed from the wood a
short distance to the eastward. One of the aids pronounced
it some straggling scout, running from the picket guard ;
but the experience of Col. Tarleton could not be easily de-
ceived.
"There are rifles and muskets," said he, "as well as
pistols ; and too many to pass unnoticed. Order boots and
saddles, and you. Captain, take your troops in the direction
of the firing."
The officer rushed to execute his orders, while the Col.
walked out on the piazza, whither he was immediately fol-
lowed by the anxious ladies. Mrs. Slocumb 's agitation and
alarm may be imagined ; for she guessed but too well the
86
MAKY SLOCUM — NEE HOOKS
cause of the interruption. On the first arrival of the oflfieers
she had been importuned, even with hai*sh threats — not
however, by Tarleton — to tell where her husband, when ab-
sent on duty, was likely to be found ; but after her repeated
and peremptory refusals, had escaped further molestation
on the subject. She feared now that he had returned unex-
pectedly, and might fall into the enemy's hands before he
was aware o£ their presence.
Her sole hope was in a precaution she had adopted soon
after the coming of the unwelcome guests. Having heard
Tarleton give the order to the tory captain as before men-
tioned, to patrol the country, she immediately sent for an
old negro, and gave him directions to take a bag of corn to
the mill about four miles distant, on the road she knew her
husband must travel if he returned that day. "Big George"
was instructed to warn his master of the danger of ap-
proaching his home. With the indolence and curiosity
natural to his race, however, the old fellow remained loiter-
ing about the premises, and was at this time lurking under
the hedge-row, admiring the red coats, dashing plumes, and
shining helmets of the British troopers. The Col. and the
ladies continued on the lookout from the piazza. "May I
be allowed, madam," at length said Tarleton, "without
offence, to inquire if any part of Washington's army is in
this neighborhood?"
"I presume it is known to you, "replied Mrs. Slocumb,
"that the JMarquis and Greene are in this State. And you
would not of course," she added, after a slight pause, "be
surprised at a call from Lee or your old friend Col. Wash-
ington, who, although a perfect gentleman, it is said shook
your hand (pointing to the scar left by Wasliington's sabre)
very rudely wlien you last met."
(Note. — It is said that in a close encounter between
Washington and Tarleton during the battle of Cowpens, the
latter was wounded by a sabre cut on the hand. Col. W.
as is well known figured in some of the skirmishes in Nortli
Carolina.)
This spirited answer inspired Tarleton with apprehen-
HARY S LOCUM — NEE HOOKS St
sions that the skirmish in the woods was only the prelude to
a concerted attack on his camp. His only reply was a loud
order to form the troops on the right ; and springing on his
charger, he dashed down the avenue a few hundred feet, to
a breach in the hedge-row, leaped the fence, and in a mo-
ment was at the head of his regiment, which was already in
line. Meantime, Lieut. Slocumb, with John Howell, a pri-
vate in his band, Henry Williams, and the brother of Mrs.
Slocumb, Charles Hooks, a boy about thirteen years of age,
was leading a hot pursuit of the tory captain who had been
sent to reconnoitre the country, and some of his routed
troops. These were first discerned in the open grounds east
and northeast of the plantation, closely pursued by a body
of American mounted militia ; while a running fight was kept
up with different weapons, in which four or five broad
swords gleamed conspicuous. The foremost of the pursuing
party appeared too busy with the tories to see anything else ;
and they entered the avenue at the same moment with the
party pursued. With what horror and consternation did
Mrs. Slocumb recognize her husband, her brother, and two
of her neighbors, in chase of the tory captain and four of his
tory band, already half way down the avenue, and uncon-
scious that they were rushing into the enemy's midst.
About the middle of the avenue one of the tories fell ;
and the course of the brave and impudent young officers was
suddenly arrested by "Big George," who sprang directly in
front of their horses, crying "Hold on, massa ! de debbil
here ! Look you ! " A glance to the left showed the young
men their danger : they were within pistol shot of a thous-
and men drawn up in order of battle. Wheeling their
horses, they discovered a troop already leaping the fence
into the avenue in their rear. Quick as thought they wheel-
ed their horses, and dashed down the avenue directly to-
wards the house, where stood the quarter-guard to receive
them. On reaching the garden fence — a rude structure
formed of a kind of lath, and called a wattled fence — they
leaped that and the next, and amid a shower of balls from
the guard, cleared the canal at one tremendous leap, and
8S THE BATTLE OF MOORE'S CREEK
scouring across the open field to the northwest, were in the
shelter of the wood before their pursuers could clear the
fences of the enclosure. The whole ground of this adven-
ture may be seen as the traveler passes over the Wilmngton
ralroad, a mile and a half south of Dudley depot.
A platoon had commenced the pursuit ; but the trumpets
sounded the recall before the flying Americans had crossed
the canal. The presence of mind and the lofty language of
the heroic wife, had convinced the British colonel that the
daring men who so fearlessly dashed into his camp were
supported by a formidable force at hand. Had the truth
been known, and the fugitives pursued, nothing could have
prevented the destruction of the rest of the company on the
east side of the plantation.
The Battle of Moore's Creek.
The united regiments of Colonels Lillington and Caswell
encountered McDonald at Moore's Creek, where on the
twenty-Seventh, was fought one of the bloodiest battles of
the Revolution. Col. Slocumb's recollections of this bravely
contested field were too vivid to be dismissed by the lapse of
years. He was accustomed to dwell but lightly on the
gallant part borne by himself in that memorable action; but
he gave abundant praise to his associates ; he would say —
"My wife was there!" She was indeed ; but the story is
best told in her own words :
"The men all left on Sunday morning. More than
eighty went from this house with my husband ; I looked at
them well, and I could see that every man had mischief in
him. I know a coward as soon as I set my eyes upon him.
The tories more than once tried to frighten me, but they al-
ways showed coward at the bare insinuation that our troops
were about.
"Well, they got off in high spirits; every man stepping
high and light. And T slept soundly and quietly that night,
and worked hard all the next day; but T kept thinking
where they had got to — how far, where and how man^ of
THE BAl^TLE OF MOORE'S CREEK 89
the regulars and tories they would meet, and I could not
keep myself from the study. I went to bed at the usual
time, but still continued to study. As I lay — whether
waking or sleeping, I know not — I had a dream ; yet it was
not all a dream. I saw distinctly a body wrapped in my
husband's guard-cloak — bloody — dead; and other dead and
wounded on the ground about him. I saw them plainly
and distinctly. I uttered a cry, and sprang to my feet on
the floor ; and so strong was the impression on my mind that
I rushed in the direction the vision appeared, and came up
against the side of the house. The fire in the room gave
little light, and I gazed in every direction to catch another
glimpse of the scene. I raised the light; everything was
still andquiet. My child was sleeping, but my woman was
awakened by my crying out or jumping on the floor. If ever
I felt fear it was at that moment. Seated on the bed, I re-
flected a few moments, and said aloud, "I must go to him."
I told the woman I could not sleep and would ride down the
road. She appeared in great alarm ; but I merely told her
to lock the door after me, and look after the child. I went
to the stable, saddled my mare — as fleet and easy a nag as
ever traveled ; and in one minute we were tearing down the
road at full speed. The cool night seemed after a mile or
two's gallop to bring reflection with it; and I asked myself
where I was going and for what purpose. Again and again
I was tempted to turn back, but I was soon ten miles from
home, and my mind became stronger every mile I rode. I
should find my husband dying or dead, was as firmly my
presentiment and conviction as any fact in my life. When
day broke I was some thirty miles from home. I knew the
general route our little army expected to take, and had fol-
lowed them without hesitation. About sunrise I came upon
a group of women and children standing and sitting by the
road-side, each one of them showing the same anxiety of
mind I felt. Stopping a few minutes I inquired if the battle
had been fought. They knew nothing, but were assembled
on the road to catch intelligence. They thought Caswell
had taken the right of the Wilmington road and gone to-
90 THB BATTLE OF MOORE'S CREEK
wards the northwest (Cape Fear). Again was I skimming
over the ground through a country thinly settled and very
poor and swampy ; but neither my own spirits nor my beau-
tiful nag's failed in the least. We followed the well marked
trail of the troops. My little brother Charles Hooks, ten
years of age, was my sole companion.
"The sun must have been well up, say eight or nine
o'clock, when I heard a sound like thunder, which I knew
must be cannon. It was the first time I ever heard a cannon.
I stopped still ; when presently the cannon thundered again.
The battle was then fighting. What a fool ! my husband
could not be dead last night, and the battle only fighting
now ! Still I am so near I will go on and see how they come
out. So away we went again, faster than ever, and I soon
found by the noise of guns I was near the fight. Again I
stopped. I could hear muskets, I could hear rifles, I could
hear shouting. I spoke to my mare and dashed on in the
direction of the firing and the shouts, now louder than ever.
The blind path I had been following brought me into the
Wilmngton road leading to Moore's Creek bridge, a few
hundred yards below the bridge. A few yards from the
road, under a cluster of trees were lying perhaps twenty
men. They were the wounded. I knew the spot — the very
trees, and the position of the men I knew as if I had seen
it a thousand times. 1 had seen it all night ! I saw it all at
once ; but in an instant my whole soul was centered in one
spot ; for there, wrapped in his bloody guard-cloak, was my
husband's body! How I passed the few yards from my
saddle to the place I never knew. I remember uncovering
liis head and seeing a face clothed with gore from a dreadful
wound across the temple. T put my liand on the bloody
face ; 'twas warm, and an unknown voice begged for water.
A small camp kettle was lying near, and a stream of water
was close by. I brought it, poured some in his mouth,
washed his face, and beliold it was Frank Cogdell ! He
soon revived and could speak. I was washing the wountd
in his head. Said he, "It is not that; it is that hole in my
leg that is killing me." A puddle of blood was standing on
THE BATTLR OF MOORE S CREEK 9I
the ground about his feet. I took his knife, cut away his
trousers and stocking and found the blood came from a shot
hole through the fleshy part of his leg. I looked about and
could see nothing that looked as if it would do for dressing
wounds but some heart leaves. I gathered a handful and
bound them tight to the hole, and the bleeding stopped. I
then went to the others — Doctor! I dressed the wounds of
many a brave fellow who did good fighting long after that
day! I had not inquired for my husband, but while I was
busy Caswell came up. He appeared very much surprised
to see me, and was with his hat in hand about to pay some
compliment, but I interrupted him by asking — "Where is
my husband?"
"Where he ought to be, madam, in pursuit of the
enemy. But, pray," said he, "how came you here?"
'0, I thought," replied I, "you would need nurses as
well as soldiers. See ! I have already dressed many of
these good fellows; and here is one" — going to Frank and
lifting him up with my arm under hes head so that he could
drink some more water — "would have died before any of
you could have helped him."
"I believe you," said Frank. Just then I looked up, and
my husband, as bloody as a butcher and as muddy as a
ditcher, stood before me.
Note. — It was his company that forded the creek,
and penetrating the swamps, made the furious charge on the
British left and rear, which decided the fate of the day.)
"Why, Mary!" he exclaimed, "what are you doing
there? Hugging Frank Cogdell, the greatest r(^ijrobate in
the army?" "I don't care," I cried, "Frank is a brave
soldier and a true friend to Congress."
"True, true! every word of it!" said Caswell. "You
are right, madam!" with the lowest possible bow.
"I would not tell my husband what brought me there, I
was so happy ; as were all ! It was a glorious victory ; I
came just at the height of the engagement. I knew my hus-
band was surprised, but I could see he was not displeased
with me. It was night again before our excitement had at
git A SHORT SKETCH OF LIFE OF MARY HOOKS
all subsided. Many prisoners were brought in, and among
them some very obnoxious, but the worst of the tories were
not taken prisoners. They were, for the most part, left in
the woods and swamps wherever they were overtaken. I
begged for some of the poor prisoners, and Caswell readily
told me none should be hurt but such as had been guilty of
murder and house-burning. I, in the middle of the night,
again mounted my mare and started for home. Caswell
and my husband wanted me to stay till next morning and
they could send a party with me ; but no ! I wanted to see
my child, and 1 told them they could send no party who
could keep up with me. What a happy ride I had back !
and with what joy did I embrace my child as he ran to
meet me!"
A Short Sketch of Life of Mary Hooks.
In due time for a "course of love," Ezekiel Slocumb and
Mary Hooks were married, both being about eighteen years
of age. The lovely and spirited bride immediately entered
upon her duties at her husband's home on the Neuse ; but
they were not allowed to remain long in untroubled seleuri-
ty. To prevent or punish the frequent depredations of the
tories, the boy husband joined a troop of light horse, who,
acting on their own responsibility, performed the duty of
scouts, scouring the country wherever they had notice of
any necessity for their presence. In these prolonged ab-
sences, Mrs. Slocumb took the entire charge of the planta-
tion, being obliged to perform many of the duties which
usually fall to the lot of the rougher sex. She used to say,
laughingly, that she had done in tlioso perilous times all that
a man ever did, except "mauling rails;" and to take away
even that exception she went out one day and split a few.
She was a graceful and fearless rider ; and Die Vernon her-
self never displayed more skillful horsemanship in scamper-
ing over the hills of Scotland, than did the subject of this
memoir, in her excursions through the wild woods of the
Neuse."
A SHORT SKETCH OF LIFE OF MARY HOOKS 93
The true dignity of an American matron was shown in
Mrs. Slocumb's reception and entertainment of the British
officers, as already related. Her deportment was uniformlly
calm and self-possessed ; her lofty spirit gave to her slender
and fragile form a majesty that secured the respect of all
the officers, and protected her from the slightest approach
towards insolent familiarity. She presided at her table
with dignity and courtesy, extending open hospitality to all
her unbidden guests. Her liberality was acknowledged by
strict orders that no depredations should be committed on
anything belonging to the house or plantation. These or-
ders were in general successfully enforced ; but even military
authority could not save the farm yard poultry or stock
from a hungry soldiery. Not a feather was left, and many
a fine bullock was knocked in the head. But in other things
the protection availed her. On the news of the army's ap-
proach, she had taken the precaution to bury in the edge of
a marsh near at hand her plate and other valuables. The
soldiers suspected the place of deposit, and plunged their
pike-staffs into the ground about the spot until they dis-
covered the treasure. They were compelled to restore it to
the rightful owner.
Mrs. Slocumb 's little son, at this time two or three years
old, became a pet with several of the officers. The little fel-
low was permitted to share with them the pleasure and
pride of prancing about on their splendid chargers. Per-
haps to some of them his childish glee recalled their own
domestic circles, and awakened in their stern hearts the holy
feelings of home. They seemed delighted when the infant
equestrian thus playing dragoon would clap his little hands
and shout in his innocent mirth. This child was the Hon.
Jesse Slocumb, member of Congress, who died full or honors
in early manhood. His remains rest in the Congressional
burial-ground at Washington. The brother of Mrs. Slo-
cumb already mentioned, was at the same time a member
from the Wilmington District.
When the British army broke up their encampment at
the plantation, a sergeant was ordered by Col. Tarleton to
94 A VISIT TO DUPLIN COUNTY, N. C, IN 1908
stand in the door till the last soldier had gone out, to ensure*
protection to the lady whose noble ])earing had inspired
them all with the most profound respect. This order was"
obeyed ; the guard brought up the rear of that army in their
march northward. Mrs. Slocumb saw them depart with
tears of joy, and on her knees gave thanks, with a full heart,
to the Divine Being who had protected her. A day or two
afterwards her husband returned to her arms and a happy
home. They lived together for sixty years in un])roken
harmony, the patriarchs of all that country, and looked up
to with unbounded love and respect.
She died on the 6th of March, 1836. Her venerable
husband survived her about five years. Both now slumber
together near the home where they lived and loved so long.
Pleasant Green has passed into the hands of other owners ;
the noble old oaks that surrounded the mansion and lined
the avenue, have been girdled, and seem to lift their bare
arms in lamentation for their ancient possessors. But the
memory of those who dwelt there is linked with glorious
recollections, which time can never efface from American
hearts.
A Visit to Duplin County, N. C, in 1908.
The present conditions in Duplin County, N. C, and the
locations of the old homesteads of his ancestors there may be
seen from the following letter received by the writer from
Thomas IT. IMolton. of Hii-mingliam, who in IDOS made a visit
there :
"Isaac Hunter and wife, Priscilla, were the mother and
father of John Hunter, the father of my mother. They lived
and died at Kcnansville."
"T met in Dunn, Dr. Faqua Smith, who is a grandson
of my great aunt, Polly (Hooks) Slocumb. He lias a daugh-
ter who is the wife of C. T. Young, cashier of the bn-ik of
Dunn "
'At Mt. Olive we secured a buggy and brovc SVo milss
A VISIT TO DUPLIN COUNTY, N. C, IN I908 95
to the graves of Col. Ezekiel Slocumb and Auat "Polly"
Sloeninb. These graves are side by side, near the road and
also n'jar the railroad. They have been badly neglected, but
the bead and foot pieces in marble are in place and the in-
scriptions very plain. On one is the following :
In memory of Col. Ezekiel Slo( umh
A patriot of the Revoliitio'i
Who departed this life
July 1-, J S40
Aged 80 years and 16 days
The headstone of the other grave is marked as follows :
In memory of
Polly Slocumb
Wife of Ezekiel Slocumb
Who departed this life
March 6, 1836
Aged 86 years and 24 days
"The old Slocumb house was located about 200 yards
east of the graves and across the railroad. The place is now
owned by Mrs. Hattie Hall. It was known as Pleasant Green
when owned by the Slocumbs. It was here that they lived
during the Revolutionary War. She was sister to great-
grandfather, Charles Hooks."
"The ground on which the old house stood is now a
tobacco patch, and the only part of the old house left that I
was able to secure was a brickbat which I brought home
with me."
"Next day about eleven o'clock we made a start from
Faison about six miles to the old home of Col. Charles Hooks,
my great-grandfather, father of my grand mother, Kitty
Hooks I\Iolton. This place is about ten miles from Kenans-
ville, and is now occupied by F. D. Hurst and Robt. D.
Hunter as tenants, John H. Hardy is the present owner. ' '
"Isaac and Priscilla Hunter, the parents of my grand
father Hunter, also had a daughter named Betsy, who mar-
96 A VISIT TO DUPLIN COUNTY, N. C, IN I908
ried Robert Tate. Their grand children live in Pender
county, North Carolina. Isaac Hunter resided in Kenans-
ville, where he was a very large land owner. His daughter
Ann became the wife of Charles Hooks."
"I met at the old Charles Hooks' place William Hogan
Hunter, who lives two miles from the Hooks place."
"At the old Hooks place , about a half mile from the
house, in a pine thicket, 1 saw a large slab over a grave with
the following inscription:
In memory of
Eliza Jane Hatch
and her infant babe, daughter of
Charles and Ann Hooks,
was born
On 9th day of December, 1799,
And departed this life
On 9th day of October, 1820,
Aged 20 years and 10 months.
"O, Eliza, Eliza, My heart bleeds afresh at the sound of thy
name,
And yet, I love to repeat it and dwell upon the sound."
"After partaking of a spl ndid dinner at the old Charles
Hooks place we started again for the home of grandfather
Molton. About three miles from the Hooks place we passed
the former home of Andrew and Kitty Hunter Hurst. It
is a beautiful place with a two-story house, with large shade
trees and very fine farming lands around it."
"From the Molton place on Wednesday morning, July
1, 1908, we left for Kenansville, about three miles distant.
In looking through the old original wills, I found the will of
Tliomas Hooks, dated Nov. 7th, 1801, a copy of which I pro-
cured. It mentions the names of his wife, Susan, son David,
daughter Susan McGowan, daughter Polly Slocumb, daugh-
ter Levina Slocumb, sons Thomas, William, Charles, and
Hilary Hooks. I also saw the original w\]\ of Isaac Hunte.-,
A VISIT TO DUPLIN COUNTY, N, C, IN I908 97
the second, which mentions the names of his wife Patience,
a son Robert John, daughters Priscilla Ann and Mary Eliza.
I also saw the original will of Nicholas Hunter, dated 1791,
which mentions his sons, Hardie, Nicholas, and Edward, and
his daughters Mary and Nancy."
"I neglected to state in the proper place that we passed
between the Hooks and Molton places the old lioiue of
Robert Hunter and Sarah Dunn Hunter. He was a son of
Isaac Hunter, brother of grandfather, John Hunter. The
old home has been destroyed by fire."
"After a pleasant stay of several hours at Kenansville
we started for Warsaw to take the train for Wilmington.
On the way to Warsaw we passed the old Middleton home,
and saw at Warsaw, Fred G. Middleton."
"At Warsaw we caught the train for Wilmington. On
the way we passed Magnolia, where Dr. Charles H. Harris
married 'Mag Monk,' as cousin Rachel Pearsall, my travel-
ing companion, called her. Dr. Charles Harris resided there
after his marriage till they moved to Alabama (1863). The
place where the house stood in which Dr. Charles H. Harris
was married was pointed out to me, and I heard the story
of how much beloved 'Mag Monk' was. At the time of her
death the bell in her old church was tolled upon the hour of
her funeral, which was occuring at Cedartown, Ga., and the
people of Magnolia assembled and held services. Cousin
Rachel Pearsall says that Cousin Mag Monk Harris was
more beloved than any woman who lived in that section of
the country."
"At Willard, about half way between Warsaw and
Wilmington ,was where Aunt Betsy Tate lived. She was a
sister of grandfather Hunter and had two sons, Robert and
Tom. Robert moved to Mississippi, and Tom died, leaving
several children who still live in Pender county, N. C."
' ' My entire trip and visit at each and every point where
I stopped was most interesting, and I shall never forget the
kindness of the relatives whom I was so fortunate as to meet.
I shall remember each and all of these relatives with much
regard and affection."
9^ MAXWKLL
MAXWELL.
This family came over in a colony from Ireland and set-
tled in Duplin county, N. C, at a place known as ' Tiie
Grove," near Kenansville. Archibald Maxwell and his nin.'-
year-old brother, Henry, came over with the colony. Archi-
bald was the teacher of the colony which came protahly
about 1780. Henry married Margaret Hunter, and had two
children, James and Ann Copeland. James married Re-
becca Cliastin. Ann Copeland married J. B .B. Monk, and
was mother of ^Margaret.
James ^Maxwell was born January 1, 1800, and died in
Duplin county, N. C, April 27, 1873. James and Ann, chil-
dren of Henry were orphans and reared by a Mr. Hunter,
their uncle.
James ^Maxwell and Rebecca Chastin had the following
children: Daughters — ^Margaret, Mollie Ann, Genoa, Lucy,
Sallie, Virginia ; sons — Hugh Gillespie, John Henry, James,
Van Buren, David .
James Richard Maxwell and Dr. H. B. Maxwell, sons of
John Henry Maxwell, now, 1910, live in Whiteville, N. C.
James Richard is a druggist, H. B. a physician.
MONK.
Jacol) Monk, father of James Brewster Ballotte Monk,
came from Bertie county to Duplin when a young man. His
ancestors were Irish. His wife, Sallie Wilkinson, came from
Ireland. Tliey had four children, viz.; Sallie, Jacob, John,
James B. B. Sallie married a Merritt, against her
father's will, and was disinherited. Jacob went to a sailor's
life and his future was never known. John \V. died in 184G
without children and left his estate to his neice, Margaret
child of his brother, James. He is buried on his plantation
in Duplin county, near the line of Sampson county.
James B. B. Monk married Ann Copeland Maxwell
September 4, 1834. In the early part of their married life
MoKK gg
they lived at Kenansville, owning land and slaves. In 1850
they moved to a new town on the Wilmington & Weldon R.
R., called Strieklandville, the name afterwards changed to
Magnolia. They reared only one child, Margaret, whom
they educated in North Carolina, being sent first to the
"Grove," near Kenansville, then to Graves & Wilcox college
at Warrenton, then to Clinton, (N. C.) Female College,
where she graduated in 1856, the first graduate of that col-
lege. In March 1863, James B. B. Monk, wife and daughter
refugeed to Tuskegee, Ala., living there till March, 1866,
when with their former slaves they moved to Kingston, Ga. ;
thence they moved in 1870 to their old home at Magnolia,
N. C. There J. B. B. Monk died in 1878, and his wife who
survived him two months then moved to the home of her
daughter, Mrs. Charles H. Harris, at Cedartovv^n, where she
died.
Before the Civil War James B. B. Monk and his wife were
in possession of land and slaves sufficient for them to be con-
sidered wealthy by comparison with the average. They
both had inherited from their parents a nice estate, but a
portion of both their lands and slaves came to them in a
manner so remarkable that it is worth mentioning in the
family records.
About the year 1840 an old man named Smith was
murdered in the lower part of Duplin County, and on inves-
tigation by the court it was found that the murderers were
two of Smith's slaves. The wife of Smith believed that
these negroes had been hired to commit the murder by her
brother, whose motive was to secure possession of the prop-
erty, which consisted of thirteen negroes, a farm and some
money. Mr. and Mrs. Smith had no children and the brother
of the latter would have inherited her property unless she
gave it by will or deed to some one else.
A few years before the murder of Mr. Smith Mrs.
Smith had been attracted by the loveliness of Margaret
Monk, then a five-year-old child, Avho with her mother and
father was passing the Smith place and stopped to get a
drink of water. Mrs. Smith had never met the Monk fam-
lOO DUPLIN COUNTY, N. C, AND THE MONK FAMILY
ily before, but she was manifestly interested in the little
girl. Afer the murder of her husband ^Mrs. Smith called on
Mr. and Mrs. ^lonk at their home, told them of her proofs
that her brother had had her husband killed and she begged
that she might be allowed to live with them and make their
little daughter ]\Iargaret her sole heir, stating that she "did
not wish to leave one cent of her money" to her brother.
After considering the matter, Mr. and ]\Irs. ^lonk acceded
to her wishes and she lived the rest of her life, two years,
in the Monk home and devised everything she had to Mar-
garet.
This rare incident is interesting for many reasons. Oue
thing it certainly proves is that MargaretMonk was a win-
some little girl.
Duplin County, N. C, and the Monk Family.
Duplin, the name of the county in eastern North Caro-
lina, in which J. B. B. Monk lived and died, was named for
Dublin County and city in Ireland. By a law well known
to philologists the consonant (b) in Dublin softened into the
(p) in Duplin. In Dublin County, Ireland, is a town, Monk-
town, named for the Monk family. This county in Ireland,
which sent its quota of emigrants to North Carolina, was the
birthplace of the ancestors of Jacob ^lonk, some of whom
came to North Carolina in the early history of the colony
and settled in Bertie County on the Albermarle Sound.
James B. B Monk, the father of IMargaret Ann Monk, was
born in Bertie County where his ancestors had lived for
generations. His mother was Sallie Wilkinson, born in
Ireland.
George Monk, the first Duke of Albemarle, for whoiii
Albemarle Soiuid Avas named, had as general of the English
Army restored the Stuarts to the tlirone of England and was
given by Charles IT proprietary interest in Carolina in KiG.S.
It was in Bertie County on the Albemarle Sound that tho
Monk family settled. These Monks may have been kinsmen
of the Duke of Albemarle, their settlement during his life on
DUPLIN COUNTY, N. C, AND THE MOWK FAMILY lOI
territory owned by him and on the sound named for him
suggesting the likelihood of this. The writer has so far
been unable to connect by ties of blood the Monk family
who settled in Bertie County with George Monk, the Duke
of Albemarle, to whom Charles II in 1663 had granted the
land on which the family lived. George Monk as one of
eight proprietors owned the entire state of Carolina, and it
is certain that the ancestors of Jacob Monk were among the
early settlers in Bertie County on Albemarle Sound. There
is a tradition of blood relationship to the proprietor and it
may rest on a basis of fact, but it is the duty of the writer
to confess that the family records in his possession are too
incomplete to justify a positive assertion that it does.
James B. B. Monk, as stated above, moved from Bertie
County to Duplin County. The leading families in Duplin
then were the Kenans, Dicksons, Gillespies, Hunters, Hooks,
Maxwells, Moltons, Sprunts, Middletons, Moores, Nicholsons
and others who were the equals in native powers and civic
worth of the best yet known to earth. They gave to social
life in Duplin County a high standard of intelligence and
virtue, and they became the parents of children who took
an active part in the development of the Southern States,
especially of the Carolinas, Tennessee, Georgia and Ala-
bama.
A fact which shows the quality of the early settlers of
Duplin is found in their attention to education. Many of
these settlers were themselves graduates of the universities
at Dublin or Edinburg. The "Grove Academy," near Ken-
ansville was established by them and in 1785 it was incorpo-
rated by the General Assembly of North Carolina. It was
on land purchased from Nicholas Hunter. The Academy
came to be considered one of the best in the land. It
was there that Margaret Monk was prepared for college.
I02 MARRIAGES
MARRIAGES.
William Harris and tSarah Coiiee in Hancock county,
Georgia, August 25, 18U3.
William Harris and Mary Drew Alston, December, 1811.
Julia S. Harris, child of William Harris, and Jos. W.
1^'ield, January 9, 1823.
JSarah Harris, child of William Harris, and Albert Pick-
ett, March 20, 1832.
Mary Gatlin Harris, child of William Harris, and John
Gindrat, November 7, 1837.
Jacob Monk, father of James B. B. Monk, and Sallie
Wilkinson in Bertie county, N. C, circa, 1800.
Henry Maxwell, father of Mrs. J. B. Monk, and Mar-
garet Hunter, in Duplin county, N. C, circa, 1800.
Peter Coffee Harris and Narcissa Ann Hooks, October
18, 1827, at .Montgomery.
James B. B. Monk and Ann C. Maxwell, September 4,
1834, near Kenansville, N. C.
Charles Hooks Harris and Margaret Ann Monk June 18,
1857, at Magnolia, N. C.
Peter Coffee Harris and Mollie A Woolley July 14,
1857, at Kingston, Ga.
William S. Harris and Mattie Edwards December ,
1859, at Tuskegee, Ala.
Willis B. Wood and Sallie A. Harris May 2(i, 1845, at
Tuskegee, Ala.
William S. Harris and Victoria L. Vanu November 17,
1864, at Chunnenuggie Kidge, Ala.
J. C. Harris and Ellen Lloyd Simmons December 2, 1879,
at Cave Springs, Ga.
Charles G. Janes and Narcissa Ann Harris, September
20, 1885, at Cedartown, Ga.
Peter Charles Harris and Mary Guthrie October G, 1894,
at Fort Reno, OkUilioma Territory.
J. C. Harris and Kate Robeson February 4, 1897, at
Rome, Ga.
BIRTHS 103
Seale Harris and Stella Rainer April 28, 1897, at Union
Springs, Ala.
William Thomas Garrett and Delia Harris June 26, 1907,
at Cedartown, Ga.
George Simmons Harris and Minnie Teague May 10,
1904, at Lowell, Mass.
William Akard Blair and Margaret Monk Harris Octo-
ber 12, 1908, at Rome, Ga.
Maxwell Hunter Harris and Lula Allen, February 5,
1908, at San Antonio, Texas.
William J. Harris and Julia Wheeler, July 28, 1905, at
New York City.
Talulah G. Harris and Julius A. Peek, December 24,
1887, at Cedartown, Ga.
Margaret Harris and John Goldsmith, at Cave Springs,
Georgia.
Mary Seale Harris and Oscar Cummings Moore, March
22, 1892, at Union Springs, Ala.
William Harris and Flora Belle Martin, April 30, 1902,
at Union Springs, Ala.
Lewis Harris and Lila Cowan Mclver, May 28, 1906.
J. H. Robeson and Victoria Ward, September 20, 1864,
near Selma, Ala.
Births.
Sarah Coffee, October 20, 1784, in Virginia.
William Harris, June 2, 1774, at New Bern, N. C.
Peter Coffee Harris, May 21, 1807.
Charles Hooks born February 20, 1768, in Bertie county,
North Carolina.
Narcissa Ann Hooks, May 22, 1803.
William Stephen Harris, February 22, 1831.
Sarah Ann Catherine Harris, September 2, 1828.
Charles Hooks Harris February 22, ] 835.
Pet3r Coffee Harris July 24, 1837
James Brewster Ballotte Monk June 18, 1811, in Duplin
cowt^, N. C.
I04 BIRTHS
Ann Copeland Maxwell, July 16, 1803, in Duplin Co.,
Sarah Ann Monk, January 4, 1837.
Margaret Ann Monk, May 19, 1838, in Duplin county,
N. C. . • . ^^?^
Victoria Vann, wife of William Harris, born November
22, 1837.
Children of C. H. and M. A. Harris :
James Coffee Harris, April 28, 1858.
Narcissa Ann Harris, February 11, 1860.
Margaret Prairie Harris, September 15, 1862.
Peter Charles Harris, November 10, 1865.
William Julius Harris, February 3, 1868.
Scale Harris, March 13, 1870.
Sallie Hooks Harris, February 1, 1872.
Mary Adella Harris, July 21, 1874.
Maxwell Hunter Harris, April 21, 1877.
Elizabeth Harris, May 18, 1882.
Children of J. C. and E. L. Harris:
George Simmons Harris, January 16, 1881, at Cedar-
town, Ga.
Agnes Ellen Harris, July 17, 1883, at Cedartown, Ga.
Margaret Monk Harris, July 3, 1890, at Marietta, Ga.
James Coffee Harris, October 10, 1900, child of J. C. and
Kate R. Harris at Rome, Ga.
Ellen Lloyd Simmons, June 22, 1859, at Cave Springs,
wife of J. C. Harris.
Kate Neal Robeson, July 6, 1867, at Selma, Ala., wife of
J. C. Harris.
LaGrange Robeson, March 20. 1870. at Solma. Ala.
John Henry Robeson, March 13, 1838, in North Carolina.
William Henry Robeson, October 14, 1872, at Selma,
Ala.
Mary Thomas Janes, March 22. 1887, child of C. G.
Janes.
Josephine Harris, child of Scale Harris, February 8th,
1899.
BIRTHS 105
Minnie Crunk Moore, December 30, 1892, child of Oscar
Moore.
William Harris Moore, February 12, 1894, son of Oscar
Moore.
Alfred Cummings Moore, October 24, 1896.
Oscar Arnold Moore, September 25, 1903, son of Oscar
Moore.
Lewis McQueen Harris, June 14, 1907, child of Lewis
Harris.
Clara May Harris, January 24, 1909, child of Lewis
Harris.
Children of William S. Harris.
Arnold S. Harris, January 16, 1866.
Mary Scale Harris, February 2, 1867.
William S. Harris, November 3, 1869.
Louis Isbell Harris, November 2, 1871.
Peter Coffee Harris, June 30, 1873.
Victoria S. Harris March 12, 1875.
Narcissa Ann Hooks, March 5, 1877.
Ruby Vann Harris, November 19, 1879.
Marguerite Harris, daughter of W. S. Harris, Jr., May
24, 1903.
William S. Harris 3, son of W. S. Harris, Jr., January
31, 1904.
Victoria Ward, mother of Mrs. J. C. Harris, January 10,
1844, near Selma, Ala.
Gertrude Ellen Harris, child of George S. Harris, April
24, 1905.
Margaret Simmons Harris, child of George S. Harris,
June 20, 1909.
Ellen Simmons Blair, child of W. A. Blair, January 4,
1910.
James Coffee Harris, Jr., child of J. C. Harris, born Oc-
tober 10, 1900.
Francis Harris Janes, child of C. G. Janes, March 5,
1894.
I06 BIRTHS
Bayard Guthrie Harris, child of Peter Charles Harris,
October 8, 1895, at Fort Porter, Buffalo, N. Y.
Charles Dashiell Harris, child of Peter Charles Harris,
January 25, 1897, at Fort Niagara, N. Y.
John Guthrie Harris, son of Peter Charles Harris, June
22, 1898, at Fort Porter, Buffalo, N. Y.
jNIary Guthrie Harris, wife of Peter Charles Harris,
daughter of Major John Brandon Guthrie, 15th United
States Infantry, and Esther Bayard Guthrie, January 28,
1870, at Fort Shaw, ]\Iontana.
Julia Wheeler, wife of W. J. Harris, daughter of Gen.
Joseph Wheeler and Daniella Jones, who was granddaugh-
ter of Gov. Peter Early, of Georgia.
Stella Rainer, wife of Scale Harris, daughter of Capt.
J. H. Rainer, of Union Springs, Ala.
Scale Harris, son of Scale Harris, October 9, 1900.
Julia Wheeler Harris, child of W. J. Harris, February
12, 1909.
Harris Wood, child of Willis Wood, born
Lizzie Ames Wood, child of Willis Wood, born
Eliza Stocks Wood, child of Willis Wood, born-
Willis Eason Wood, child of AVillis Wood, born-
Powell Wood, child of Willis Wood, born
Children of Peter Coffee Harris (2) :
Talulah Gertrude Harris, May, 1858.
Andrew Feastcr Harris, April 26, 1860.
Mattie Harris, April, 1862.
Coffee Harris, March, 1864.
Julius Augustus Harris, IMarch 22, 1866.
Mary Narcissa Harris, IMarch 17, 1868.
Charles Davis Harris, October 9, 1870.
Sarah Grigsby Harris, November 1, 1872.
Eason Harris, 1874.
Margaret Harris, May, 1876.
Peter Harris, 1878.
DKATH8 I07
DEATHS.
William Harris, October 12, 1825, grandfather of C. H.
Harris.
Peter Coffee Harris, Sr., November 18, 1856, father of
C. H. Harris.
Charles Hooks, October 18, 1843, grandfather of C. H.
Harris.
Narcissa Ann Harris, May 27, 1864, mother of C. H,
Harris.
Sarah Coffee Harris, wife of William Harris, November
23, 1807, grandmother of C. H. Harris.
Mattie E. Harris, December 17, 1861, wife of W. S.
Harris.
Sallie Ann Wood, October, 1867, widow of Willis E.
Wood.
James Maxwell, April 27, 1873.
James B. B. Monk, October 23, 1878, in Magnolia, N. C,
father of Mrs. C. H. Harris.
Ann C. Monk December 16, 1878, in Cedartown, Ga.,
mother of Mrs. C. H. Harris.
Sarah Ann Monk, October 28, 1840, sister of Mrs. C. H.
Harris.
Sallie Hooks Harris, child of C. H. Harris, June 19,
1873.
Mollie, wife of Peter C. Harris, June 4, 1889.
Willis Eason Wood, January, 1890.
Marie Thomas Janes, child of C. G. Janes, May 24, 1890.
Ellen Simmons, wife of J. C. Harris, January 8, 1895.
Francis Harris Janes, son of C. G. Janes, June, 1896.
John Guthrie Harris, son of Peter Charles Harris, Sep-
tember 6, 1899.
William S. Harris, brother of C. H. Harris, May 3, 1897.
Mararget Ann Harris, wife of C. H. Harris, March 4,
1901.
Peter C. Harris, brother of C. H. Harris, December, 1905,
I08 DEATHS
Bayard Guthrie Harris, son of Peter Charles Harris,
September 4, 1909.
Agnes A. Simmons, mother of first wife of J. C. Harris,
May 14, 1872.
Joshua R. Simmons, father of first wife of J. C. Harris,
July 17, 1861.
John Henry Robeson, father of second wife of J. C.
Harris, January 24, 1910.
Victoria Ward, mother of second wife of J. C. Harris,
April 7, 1878.
Children of P. C. Harris, Jr. :
Talulah Gertrude Harris, wife of Julius A. Peek, child
of P. C. Harris, August, 1901.
Andrew Feaster Harris, .
Mattie Harris,
Coffee Harris,
Eason Harris,
Margaret Harris, wife of John Goldsmith,
Ruby Vann Harris, child of William S. Harris, July 24,
1880.
AVilliam S. Harris, child of William S. Harris, ]\Iarch
8, 1905.
Record of Family of Ellen Simmons, Wife of J. C. Harris.
Richard Simmons and Frances Smith married in Vir-
iniag, 1798.
Children of Richard Simmons :
Edward Simmons, born May 2, 1799.
Dollie Simmons, born August 21, 18011.
James Simmons, born April 17, 1803.
Sallie Simmons, born March 25, 1807.
William Simmons, born May 22, 1809.
Joshua R. Simmons, born July 14, 1811, father of Mrs.
J. C. Harris.
R. Sheldon Simmons, l)orn April 22, 1814.
Charles R. Simmons, born March 11, 1816.
DEATHS 109
H. Simmons, born December 4, 1820.
J. H. Gill, grandfather of Mrs. J. C. Harris, married in
South Carolina Mary Bradford, November 10, 1817.
Mary Bradford Gill, Grandmother of Mrs. J. C. Harris,
died October 20, 1838.
J. H. Gill married in Georgia Sallie Simmons, October,
1839.
Sallie Simmons, died August, 1855.
Joshua R. Simmons married Agnes A. Gill, January 14,
1836, his sister's stepdaughter.
Calvin H. Simmons born November 19, 1836, died April,
1893.
Rufus R. Simmons, born April 27, 1838, died April 9,
1878.
Mary F. Simmons born June 12, 1840, died April, lri99.
William R. Simmons, born May 8, 1842, died May 29,
1875.
Mattie J. Simmons, born May 6, 1842.
Madge A. Simmons, born July 26, 1848.
Allie A. Simmons, born June 9, 1856.
Ellen Lloyd Simmons, born June 22, 1859.
W. P. Rivers married Mary F. Simmons June 12, Ho J.
R. R. Simmons married Eliza R. Davis January 16, 1868.
Calvin H. Simmons married A. M. Simmons, August 5,
1860.
Mattie J. Simmons married J. S. Davis, 1867.
Madge A. Simmons married J. S. Stubbs, September 15,
1867.
William R. Simmons married S. A. Carter January 4,
1874, died March, 1875.
Ellen L. Simmons married J. C. Harris, December 2,
1879.
Allie A. Simmons married J. C. Nichols January 25,
1881.
J. H. Gill, diea October 10, 1878.
no FAMILY RECORD OF KATE ROBESON
Agnes A. Simmons, mother of Mrs. J. C. Harris, died
May 13, 1877.
Joshua R. Simmons, father of Mrs. J. C. Harris, died
July 16, 1861.
Family Record of Kate Robeson, Second Wife of J. C. Harris
Andrew Robeson
Mary Spencer
Thomas Robeson }
Sarah Singletary )
Moved from Scotland 1665.
Died in Philadelphia 1719.
Graduate Oxford, England ; Judge
Gloucester County, N. J., in 1688-
1692; member N. Y. Council from
1688-1701.
Born 1692 in Philadelphia.
Died 1773 in Bladen County, N. C,
to which he moved 17 — .
Thomas Robeson
Mary Bartram
Born — . Died 1794. (Brother of
Capt. Peter Robeson). Lieut. -Col. of
Bladen Co. Militia, Colonial Records,
Vol. X, p. 207. In command at Bat-
tle of Elizabethtown ; buried Walnut
Grove. Mary Bartram, daughter of
William Bartram and Elizabeth
Lo<}k (Quakers). Wm. Bartram,
born 1706 in Philadelphia, son of Wm.
Bartram and grandson of John Bart-
Bartram, who came with Wm. Penn
in 1682 from Derbyshire, Eng. Bar-
trams were of Norman origin.
Bartram B. Robeson ^ Born 1764. Died 1818 in Bladen
Margaret Raiford \ County, North Carolina.
FAMILY RECORD OF KATB ROBESON
"William Robeson
Ann Coddington
Born 178—. Died 1827
County, North Carolina.
Married 1796.
in Bladen
William Bartram Robeson
Margaret LaGrange Daniel
Born 1806. Died 1847 in
Bladen, North Carolina.
Married 1827.
John Henry Robeson
Sophronia Victoria Ward
Born March 13, 1838, in
Brunswick County, N. C.
Lieut. Com. D. in 8th Ala.
Regiment C. S. A.
Born January 10, 1844. Died
April 7, 1878. Buried Dal-
las, Texas.
Kate Neal Robeson
James C. Harris
Married Feb'y. 4, 1897, Rome, Ga.
Born July 6, 1867, Selma, Ala.
Born April 28, 1858 in Magnolia,
Duplin County, North Carolina.
James Coffee Harris, Jr. I ^^^^^ October 10, 1900, Rome,
) Georgia.
On her mother's side the family record of Kate Robeson
may be taken from the letter written to her by her mother's
brother, W. C. Ward, of Birmingham, Ala., as follows:
In the latter part of the 17th, or the beginning of the
18th century, more than two hundred years ago, three
brothers of the name of Ward came from England and set-
tled in Virginia in what was then called ''The Roanoke
Country," which must have been in the southeast part of
Virginia. In Suffolk, which is in Nansimond County, I
was told many years ago, that the Wards in that place were
so numerous that one might shut his eyes and hit a Ward
with a rock. There are Wards living up in the Piedmont
112 FAMILY RECORD OF KATE ROBESON
country and in Richmond. Your great-grandfather's
father was named John Ward, and your great-grand father
was also named John Ward. Your great-grandfather's wife
was a LaNier and a French woman. In the year 1775 father
and son left Virginia and moved southward through North
Carolna into South Carolina. They w^ere in the battle at the
Widow Moore's Bridge in southeastern North Carolina, not
far from Wilmington, when McLeod was killed. Both
father and son were soldiers in the Revolutionary War, and
1 think a younger son named David was in the seige of
Savannah, say in 1780, where General Lincoln and the
French general in command of the French forces were de-
feated. Your great-granduncle David died of smallpox in
the trenches before Savannah. After the defeat of the
combined forces, father and son, with a neighbor, returned
to their homes in South Carolina. Before reaching home
they had to cross a swollen river, the Edisto, I think. The
whole country was overflowed with water, and after cross-
ing the stream they found their way blockaded by a band of
Tories. The order was given, "Every man take care of
liimself," and the three separated. Your great-grand-
father was the only one to return. His father and the
neighbor were never heard of afterwards and were supposed
to Rave been killed by the Tories. Your great-grandfather
lost an eye by the explosion of a gun in a night ])attle. From
what I could learn, this was the battle of Eutaw Springs.
After the Revolutionary War your great-grandfather, John
Ward, was ^ound settled in Edgefield district, or county,
near the town of Lexington, South Carolina, and there re-
mained until about the year 1819 or 1820, when he and his
family removed to Alabama. In the war of 1812 Uncle
James Ward was a soldier. Your grandfather, my father,
though of age sufficient, was not a soldier and there
was not much occasion for volunteers in the South, the prin-
cipal attack being along the northern boundary of North
Carolina. It was said that when the three brothers came
over from England they covenanted that they would main-
tain their family names. Your great-great-grandfather had
FAMILY RECORD OF KATE ROBESON II3
a number of sons named John, James, David, Daniel, Solo-
mon and Henry. The sons of your great-grandfather were
James, John, David, Henry, Daniel and Emanuel, and there
were three daughters named Feriba, Nancy and Polly.
Henry was killed by lightning when nineteen years of age.
Feriba married a man named John Fox and he lived with
his family in South Carolina, and there his descendants now
live. All the others came to Alabama. The younger sons
of the great-great-grandi^ather drifted around through the
Southern part of Georgia. Some of them settled in Colum-
bus, Ga., and one of hem, Daniel Ward, died at Benton,
Lowndes County, Alabama. Frequently I meet with peo-
ple having these old family names, with whom I cannot
trace any relationship. All of the Wards south, so far as I
can remember, including those that at in Kentucky, are of
Virginia origin, and have substantially the same prominent
physical features. Your grandfather David Ward in early
life settled in Wainsboro, near Augusta, Ga., afterwards re-
moving to Centerville, Bibb County, Alabama. In Center-
ville he engaged in the shoe and grocery business, at the
same time keeping a freight boat on the Cahaba River, run-
ning to Centerville and Mobile, Ala. He made some money
and bought about 640 acres of land on Six Miles Creek, in
Bibb County, where all of his children were born. After
locating this farm in 1824 or 1825, he went to North Caro-
lina and brought back with him a number of negroes, who
constituted the beginning of his negro estate. In 1831 he
married your grandmother, Elizabeth C. A. Carleton, al-
ways called Adezue. She became the mother, I think of
twelve children, seven daughters and five sons. At the time
of his death in 1860 there were eight children living. My
mother died in June 1859 of consumption, and all her daugh-
ters were supposed to have contracted consumption from
her, and she contracted it from a case of hasty consumption
in the oldest daughter Amanda. The names of the children
were Washington LaFayette, Amanda Kathrine, William
Columbus, Araminta V., Sarah Ann Celicia, Cynthia D.,
Victoria S., Augustus Monroe, Euphrasia Claramond, David
114 FAMILV RECORD OF KATK ROBESOH
Whitfield and Eugene Uoke. 1 omitted the name of an un-
named infant girl who died when a month old. i entered
the Univei-bity of Alabama in April, 1856, graduating in
1658 with first nonor. i was immediately elected to the
chair of pure mathematics in Howard College, remaining
there until the latter part of April, 18U1, when i volunteered
as a private soldier in Company G of the 4th Alabama regi-
ment, and with that regiment served in Virginia until after
the battle of Getysburg in July, 18(J3, where 1 was wounded.
...-..^^lu- 111 liR J* ear ibuU married ^iiss Jane Aiaree, the
daughter of W. IS. Marie, near Perryville, Perry County,
Alabama, He was then merchandising at Centerville. After
the war began, he removed from Centerville to the planta-
tion to take care of the farm and the negroes on the plan-
tation. Our sister, Araminta V., a most beautiful and ac-
complished young woman, died in October, 1859. Sarah
died in February, 1860, Cynthia in April, 1862, Monroe died
1875. David Whitfield married Miss Fitzpatrick at New-
burn, Ala., in the year 1879, and now lives on a farm two
miles east of Greensboro. They have three sons and two
daughters.
I married, as you know, Miss Alice Goodhue in Febru-
ary 1868, then living in Selma, where I lived until Decem-
ber, 1885. Since December, 1885, I have lived in Birming-
ham. I need not attempt to give you the history of the
other members of the Ward family. What I have stated is
entirely from memory, having personal knowledge of most
of the things I have writen. In England the earliest Ward
mentioned was during the reign of Charles I. His name
was John Ward, and he was a jeweler to Queen Kathrine.
Because of his service to his mistress, the Queen, he was
ennobled with the title of Earl of Dartmouth. It may be
that we are the descendants of a collateral line, as the title
became extinct in one generation after the first P^arl and
revived then a collateral branch of his family. The next
information I have was that in the 18th century one John
W^ard was convicted of plagiarism. Whether the brothers
that came to America had any estate I have no means of
FAMILY RECORD OF KATE ROBESON II5
knowing. There are certain facial features that distin-
guish the race, however. Your great-great-grandfather was
tall, large boned, heavy underjaw, prominent cheek bones,
with gray eyes. Part of his children took after their
mother, the LaNiers, and have dark brown eyes, stout forms
and are rather good looking — myself, for instance as a sam-
ple, and your mother. You may not know it, but she was
called the most beautiful girl in the Judson when she was
a student there. You and your sister, particularly your
sister, are types of the Ward family, having the French
cast of your features.
Now, I have writen you this long letter which gives you
perhaps as correct a history of your mother's family as
you will get from any source whatever. I have not, how-
ever, mentioned your grandmother's family. As men-
tioned, she was Miss Carleton. Her father, Henry Carle-
ton, died in Monroe County, Ga., about the year 1827. He
was born in Elbert or Clarke County, Georgia, north of
Augusta. His father's name was Robert Carleton, his
grandfather's name was Henry Carleton, and lived between
the Pamunkey and Mataponi rivers, King William County,
Virginia. Your grandmother's grandfather, with his fam-
ily, removed from Virginia to Georgia in 1781. They were
of the same family, it is supposed, of Sir Guy Carleton, who
was of the same family as the Earle of Dorchester, but we
never could trace the genealogy. Sir Guy Carleton went
back in descent to the battle of Hastings in 1066. His an-
cestors went to England with William the Conquerer. From
this ancestor, so far as we know, all of the Carletons were
descended. Carleton Hall, in England, was the leading
domestic establishment, and there was a (de) before the
Carleton. North Georgia, in fact all Georgia, is well sprink-
led with Carletons, and their family connections are of the
best. The Freemans and the Hillyers are proud of their
Carleton descent. I must say that I am prouder of the
Carleton stran in my blood than I am of the Ward. The
family is not only older, but purer in character and descent.
1 have always thought that the superiority of your grand-
Il6 FAMILY RECORD OF KATE ROBESON
father David Ward's children over the children of other
brothers, was due to your grandmother Carleton's connec-
tion and blood.
I am glad to thus show you that you are of honorable
descent on your mother's side, and her family has always
been distinguished for rectitude of character, honesty in
business matters and for a proper family pride. I trust you
may preserve this letter, as you may never again have an
opportunity of obtaining these details.
