III John Eaton Fontaine

John married Eleanor Anne Haldeman [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1. Anne Maury Fontaine
2. Martha Winston Fontaine
3. IV John Eaton Fontaine

Other Events and Attributes:

• Census: 1930, Cincinnati, Hamilton County, OH

Notes:

Died:
Allison's Wells, Canton, Madison Co., MS

John married Sydney Hosford Latimer [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

John married Adelle Armenta Stokes about 1888. Adelle (daughter of George Stokes and Charlotte C. Greaves, daughter of John Madison Greaves and Margaret C. Williams) was born on 22 Dec 1844; died on 14 Feb 1923 in Memphis, Shelby County, TN; was buried in Elmwood Cem., Memphis, Shelby County, TN. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Birth:
"Grassdale", Hinds Co., MS

Douglass married Norma Elizabeth Wherry. Norma was buried in Canton Cemetery, Canton, Madison County, MS. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Rev. Edward Fontaine and his wife and John E. Fontaine are buried on Belvedere Plantation, next to Sub Rosa, near Pocahontas, Ms. T7NR1W-Sec 11 or 12 Hinds Co., Ms.

http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/view/FF/ffo4.html

FONTAINE, EDWARD (1814-1884). Edward Fontaine, early minister and amateur naturalist, was born in Greenwood, Virginia, on August 5, 1814, the son of Patrick Henry and Nancy (Dabney) Fontaine and great-grandson of Patrick Henry. He was admitted to the United States Military Academy, West Point, in July 1830 but was discharged in July 1832 because of a deficiency in math. He was admitted to the bar on February 28, 1835. That year he worked in Pontotoc, Mississippi, as a draftsman on the survey of Chickasaw lands acquired by the federal government.

He became active in the Methodist Episcopal Church, was admitted to the ministry in 1838, and served in Texas at Houston and Galveston by 1840, but later that year he relinquished his ministry. He married Mary Ann Swisher in November 1840, and they had three sons. From May to October 1841 he was private secretary to President Mirabeau B. Lamar. There being no clergyman of any denomination in Austin, Fontaine resolved to do what he could for the religious welfare of his fellow citizens. He organized a Sunday school and preached to all comers, black and white, at informal services in the Capitol or outside in an oak grove. When the seat of government was moved away from Austin and Lamar's term had ended, Fontaine taught school in Independence and Gay Hill in 1842-43. He may have participated in the Somervell expedition in the fall of 1842. About 1843 he went to Mississippi, where he entered the Episcopal Church and was ordained to the ministry on May 14, 1848. In 1851 he returned to Austin as rector of the Church of the Epiphany. He supervised the building of a church, completed and consecrated in May 1855, that became part of the present St. David's Church, Austin. Fontaine's wife died in 1855. In 1859 he married Mrs. Susan Taylor Britton. They had several children, but only two lived to maturity. In Austin Fontaine was active as a clergyman, politician, and amateur naturalist. He traveled widely, served as chaplain of the Texas Senate in 1857-58, and advocated establishment of a state university and a geological survey.

The church suffered in antebellum Texas because of a division in the membership on questions of slavery and secession. Fontaine resigned his charge in Austin and moved to Mississippi in 1859. He was captain of Company H, Eighteenth Regiment, Mississippi Volunteers, and chief of ordnance of the Mississippi Army during the Civil War. He served subsequently as rector at St. Mark's, Mississippi, and at Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana. He was a member of the New York Historical Society, the Maryland Academy of Science, and the New Orleans Academy of Science. He delivered addresses and wrote papers about his various scientific interests. His lectures included "How the World Was Peopled" (1872), which contained information on the natural history of Texas, "Winds of the Gulf States" (1873), and "A Lecture on the Peculiarities of the Physical Geography of the Mississippi River and its Delta" (1874). He died at Belvedere, Mississippi, on January 19, 1884.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Austin History Center Files. Edward Fontaine Papers, Barker Texas History Center, University of Texas at Austin. Louis Wiltz Kemp Papers, Barker Texas History Center, University of Texas at Austin. Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Texas Collection, October 1943. Daisy Barrett Tanner, The History and Treasures of St. David's Church (Austin, 1976). Work Projects Administration Writers' Program, St. David's through the Years (Austin: St. David's Episcopal Church, 1942).

DuBose Murphy

The Texas State Historical Association, 1997, 1998, 1999.
Last Updated: February 15, 1999
Comments to: comments@www.tsha.utexas.edu

Edward married Mrs. Susan Catherine Britton in 1859 in Hinds County, Mississippi, USA. Mrs. was born in 1829 in Granville County, North Carolina, USA; died on 28 May 1908 in Belvidere Plantation, Pocahontas, Hinds County, MS. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Census: 1850, Hinds County, MS

George married Charlotte C. Greaves. Charlotte (daughter of Joseph Greaves and Mary B.) was born cal 1812 in South Carolina; died in May 1876 in Clinton, Hinds County, MS. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]