Abraham Maury

1731 - 1784  (52 years)

• Name	Abraham Maury
  Birth	18 Mar 1731	Lunenburg, King William, Virginia, USA   [1]
  Gender	Male
  Death	22 Jan 1784	Cumberland Parish, Lunenburg, Lunenburg County, VA   [1]
  Person ID	I24736	Bob Juch's Tree
  Last Modified	31 Dec 2022

  
  

  Father	Matthew Maury,   b. 18 Sep 1686, Castlemauron-sur-lot, Agenois, Gascony, France d. 1752, Charles City County, Virginia, USA (Age 65 years)
  Relationship	natural
  Mother	Mary Anne Fontaine,   b. 12 Apr 1690, Taunton, Taunton Deane Borough, Somerset, England d. 30 Dec 1755, Westover Parish, Charles City County, Virginia, USA (Age 65 years)
  Relationship	natural
  Marriage	20 Oct 1716	Dublin, Ireland
  Family ID	F9330	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

  Family	Susanna Poindexter,   b. 1742, Fluvanna County, VA d. 22 Jan 1801, Franklin County, TN (Age 59 years)
  Marriage	2 Sep 1759	Rector Cumberland Parish, Lunenburg, Lunenburg County, VA
  Children	1. Abraham Poindexter Maury,   b. 17 Feb 1766, Lunenburg County, VA d. 2 Jan 1825, Williamson County, TN (Age 58 years)  [natural]
  Family ID	F9335	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
  Last Modified	31 Dec 2022

  
  

• Notes

  Saunders, James Edmonds. Early Settlers of Alabama. L. Grahm & Son. New Orleans. 1899, p 304-309: Colonel Abraham Maury was the younger son of Mr. Matthew Maury, who married Mary Anne Fontaine. He was born in King William county, Va., in 1731. His widowed mother said of him: "He is a youth of happy temper, very dutiful, chaste, and hearkening to good counsel." His uncle, Peter Fontaine, gave the same account of him. This was a happy presage of his success in life. I know that with many the impression prevails that these dare-devil boys are the boys that make their mark in life, especially in the military line. This is a grand mistake. General Henry Lee said of his son when he was a youth: "Robert was always a good boy." When he was at West Point he never received a demerit. The good boy was a good young officer; and became in due time the good commander-in-chief.-- (Cook's Life of General R. E. Lee). A dashing, rude boy may become an effective subaltern, but for high office a man must not only be brave, but thoughtful. He must have "men so equa in arduis." Arduous indeed were the duties which devolved on Colonel Maury, and well did he perform them. A summary of his life is given in the Danville (Va.) Times, consisting of extracts of a letter, and headed, "Who Colonel Maury of the Old Trunk Was." EVERHOPE, NEAR GREENSBORO, N. C., December 25, 1871. MR. P. BOULDIN--DEAR SIR: I have received your letter making inquiries as to who Colonel Maury was, mentioned in a letter found in your old trunk, dated 18th April, 1758, and addressed to Captain (afterward) Colonel Bouldin, from Clement Reid. I can think of but two children Mr. Matthew Maury had, besides the Rev. James Maury, rector of Fredericksville. One was a daughter, Mary, who married Daniel Claiborne, of an old and honorable family of Tidewater, Va.--the other a son, Abraham, born in 1731. He was a man of good character, great decision of mind, and possessed of excellent education. He was a graduate of William and Mary College; for it was a cardinal principle of the Fontaines and Maurys, of those days, to educate their children thoroughly. Abraham had the confidence of John Blair, "President and Commander-in-Chief of this Dominion," as he is called in the Acts of the General Assembly of that period. You may observe that Clement Reid in his postscript says to Captain Bouldin: "You must cause your lieutenant to keep an exact journal of your marches, and of the different routes you take, and of all your transactions relating thereto; that it may be returned to the president at Williamsburg, according to order." John Blair was that president. Abraham Maury had formed his acquaintance whilst a student of William and Mary, and that great and virtuous man had full confidence in the intellectual, but modest and retiring student, and probably it was owing to this that Abraham Maury obtained the high and honorable distinction, in those days, of being made Colonel of Halifax county, at so youthful an age, for he is the "Colonel Maury of the old trunk." In 1758 he was but 27 years of age, but he had been appointed colonel at least two years previously! In 1752 Halifax was formed from Lunenburg. Peter Fontaine and Clement Reid were appointed receivers of the county debt. After that, Peter Fontaine was appointed Surveyor of Halifax county, being a frontier county; Abraham, who had a military turn, was made Colonel, and was very active in resisting all attacks from the various tribes of Indians, beyond the mountains, and in North Carolina. History (or at least none that I recollect to have seen), has not recorded his humble yet useful efforts; yet I remember, when a child, seeing aged men in the county of Henry who used to speak of Colonel Maury, and the way he used to keep the Indians down. * * * Very truly yours, WM. S. FONTAINE." The period during which young Maury was Colonel of Halifax county was the most disastrous of our colonial times. General Braddock had been defeated. The French and Indians had encroached on our frontiers until the settlers were driven back in some places 150 miles. Colonel Washington was thoroughly discouraged. In the agony of his great soul, in one of his dispatches to the Governor, he exclaims: "The supplicating tears of the women and the moving petitions of the men melt me into such a deadly sorrow that I solemnly declare, if I know my own mind, I could offer myself a willing sacrifice to the butchering enemy, provided that would contribute to the peoples' ease!" In the central counties of Virginia the incursions of the savages had become alarming. In the county of Louisa alone sixty persons were massacred. When the people were called together to form volunteer regiments, the drum and fife excited no military fervor, for every man felt a reluctance to leave his home, when on his return he might find it a heap of ruins and his wife and daughters captives in the hands of the a ruthless enemy. It required the sanctions of religion to rouse the people to the performance of their duty. The eloquent and patriotic Dr. Davis when there was an effort to be made was nearly always in requisition. In one of his appeals he concludes by saying: "In short our frontiers have been drenched with the blood of our fellow-subjects through the length of a thousand miles, and new wounds are still opening. Now while I am still speaking, perhaps the savage shouts and whoops of Indians, and the screams and groans of some butchered family may be mingling their horrors and circulating their tremendous echoes among the rocks and mountains. But it was all of no avail; a defensive policy was adopted of dividing a small appropriation amongst the frontier counties to purchase arms and ammunition, and leaving it to the colonels of each frontier county to repel the sudden incursions of the savages--and Washington, worn out with his fruitless efforts to unite the people, retired in disgust to Mount Vernon. My readers, after this retrospect of the history of that gloomy period, can form some idea of what was then meant by being a colonel of a frontier county. Many of these colonels, in attempting to rescue the captives, were shot down by the savage in his ambush and scalped, and left where he fell, for his bones to decay, "unburied, unhonored and unsung." Others, in scouting by day and unceasing vigil by night, were broken in constitution. This was the case, I presume, with Colonel Maury, for he died before he became an old man. Mr. Fontaine says he has seen no history which records the deeds of these colonels of the frontier counties. No! the genius of history, horrorstruck, in profound gloom, sought the deepest shade, and "hung her harp upon the willows." What sorrows did our ancestors incur in winning this fair domain for us from the wilderness and the savage! In the far East there is a nation of people who worship their ancestors; and if in view of all which ours have suffered and achieved for us, we should drop into this heresy, it is hoped that "the recording angel while he writes it down, may let fall a tear and blot it out forever." Col. Abraham Maury married Susanna Poindexter, a blood relation of Senator Poindexter of Mississippi. He was a prosperous merchant but built some county flouring mills, which were washed away by a freshet and this broke him. When he went again to Baltimore he frankly told his merchant his condition; but, knowing his integrity, the goods were sold him. On his return home he was attacked with small-pox contracted on the streets of Baltimore. Knowing that he must die, he ordered the return of the goods. The October preceding, his eldest son, Matthew Fontaine, had died from the effect of wounds received at the battle of Guilford Court House.(Dr. W. S. Ried.) Col. Abraham Maury died on the 22nd January, 1784. He had seven children. 1. Matthew Fontaine, above mentioned, who married W. Tabb. 2. Elizabeth, who married W. Dowsing. 3. Susan, who married Joel Parish, Sr. 4. Abram T., who married M. Worsham. 5. Mary, who married Metcalf DeGraffenried. 6. Philip, who married C. Cunningham. 7. Martha, who married Chapman White. Except Elizabeth and her husband, W. Dowsing, (who moved to Columbus, Miss.,) all moved to Williamson county, Tenn. Richard Maury (the father of the Commodore) went with them; and, together, they formed a large colony of the best people that ever crossed the border of that State. I knew them personally, and was reared among them. Many of their descendants were among the early settlers of our county of Lawrence, in Alabama. 1. Matthew Fontaine Maury, the eldest child, was born in 1760; entered the army when a mere youth, was wounded at Guilford, C. H., and died in 1783 from the effect of his wound. He left two sons--Thomas and Abram. Their mother married a second time a man of property, named Stewart, who (the sons thought) mistreated them. They ran away, and sought the protection of their uncle, Major Abram Maury, and came with him to Tennessee. The two boys were prosperous, but died of consumption, unmarried. Col. Thomas Maury was a man of ability, and represented Williamson county (when quite young) in the Legislature. 2. Elizabeth Maury, born in 1762, who married W. Dowsing. They moved first from Virginia to Georgia, and thence to Columbus, Miss. He was the Registrar of the Land Office--a good officer and a good man. His descendants bear the names of Dowsing, Thompson, Bassey, Ware and Turner. 3. Susan Maury was born in 1764, and married Joel Parrish, Sr. He died before my recollection, but I knew her very well. She was a kind, indulgent mother. Her boys were old enough (Matthew Fontaine and Joel) to make fine soldiers under Jackson. Her eldest child, Caroline (the only daughter), was of queenly beauty, and married Hinchea Petway, one of the wealthiest merchants of Franklin. A man of fine sense and very genial disposition. He had a mortal aversion to onions, and when some friend would slip one into his coat pocket, as soon as he detected the nauseous scent he would take out his pen-knife, cut off his pocket and throw both away together. He was a man of great sagacity, and I don't know of his being mistaken but once, and that was when Bennett was hung for murder. An ambitious young physician conceived the idea of resuscitating him, and as he was cut down, he was taken and placed in a carry-all and carried away rapidly. Hundreds of people crowded around the office. When the young doctor found all efforts to bring the body to life futile, he fixed his galvanic points, and when everything was ready called in Petway and another merchant, and applied the points. The dead body opened its eyes, gave a ghastly stare at the two merchants, and stuck out one leg--and the merchants broke and ran, and reported that "Bennett was alive." In a short time it was reported that Sheriff Hunt had been bribed, and Bennett had been hung in stirrups, and there was great excitement, until his body was exhumed from its secret grave, in the woods, and exposed openly in the court house. I am mistaken; for there was another instance in which Petway's sagacity was at fault. He built a costly brick house right across the south end of main street in Franklin, which had to be torn down. A man can not make a greater mistake than to fix limits to a young American town, located in a fertile country. When cotton rose to 25 cents per pound, and the county of Lawrence in Alabama was settled, Mr. Petway bought and opened up, a large plantation on the west bank of Town creek, where the brick house now stands. After residing there for a while, he sold out and bought a home in the vicinity of Nashville, where he died. He had one son, Ferdinand Petway, who was an itinerant Methodist preacher. He was a man of education and taste, and a good speaker, and a singer of unusually fine voice. He died in the Memphis Conference. The descendants of Mr. Petway are to be found in Davidson county, Tennessee. See Fontaine Chart. Col. Joel Parrish (a son of Susan Maury, who married Joel Parrish, Sr.,) married Sophia Saunders, eldest daughter of Rev. Turner Saunders (and sister of the writer.) Colonel Parrish and his wife lived in Nashville, and both died there before they attained middle age, leaving a family of young children who were brought to Lawrence county, Alabama, and reared by members of her family. Two daughters of this family married sons of Col. Benjamin Sherrod, and are mentioned ante. A son, Joel Parrish, married a Miss Bodie, and died in Lauderdale county without issue. A daughter, Sophie, married Mr. Alfred Gibson. She is a widow living in Mississippi, and has one daughter, Mary, and two sons, Joel and Willis. The youngest son of the Parrish family in Tennessee was David Winston. He was about my age, and we were schoolmates. Our path to the Academy led through his mother's orchard, where the mellow Father Abraham apples lay, in profusion, on beds of Nimble Will grass. It then wound along through the shadiest places of the beech and poplar grove, and along side of Mr. McKey's orchard; and we had to do some skilful engineering to make it hit both orchards. David Winston Parrish, when grown, moved to Mississippi, and married Mary, daughter of Solomon Clark, of Pontotoc, one of the best men I ever knew. They had two children. One of them, Susan, married Judge Locke Houston, of Aberdeen, "a first-rate man, and one of the best lawyers in the State." They have four or five children, one of whom is a young lawyer, and another, Mrs. Mary Gillespie, a wonderful singer, and, now (1888) postmistress at Aberdeen. The second daughter of David Winston Parrish, is Sallie, unmarried. His widow married Judge Stephen Adams, then Circuit Judge, an excellent man of fair ability, who served two terms in Congress. They had two children, Edward, a very intellectual young man, who is connected with the cotton business in Mobile, and Belle Adams (Mrs. Professor Wills) principal of the Aberdeen Female College. "Belle was one of the prettiest and sweetest girls we ever had at Aberdeen (says my informant). Mrs. Wills is a wonderful woman (for her size) as teacher, mother, and domestic manager. She has several children, all bigger than herself," and now lives in Auburn, Ala. (1896). 4. Major Abram Maury, son of Colonel Abraham Maury, whose history we sketched in our last, was born in 1766 in Lunenburg County, Virginia, and married M. Worsham, and his two oldest children were born in Virginia. At a very early time he emigrated to Williamson County, Tenn., with all his brothers and sisters, except Mrs. Dowsing. He had fortunately become the owner of a fine tract of land. He laid off the town of Franklin on one end, and was mainly instrumental in having Harpeth Academy erected on the other. When the latter was built I can not ascertain, but from the fact that the shingles were put on with wooden nails, I infer that it was before General William Carroll erected his nail factory at Nashville, and Mr. Clem another at Franklin. He was a man of fine person, good manners and of fair education and a leader in his county. All the Maurys were very much respected, but he was the wealthiest and had the means to foster public enterprises and of dispensing wide hospitality. Major John Reid, who married his eldest daughter, had been a member of General Jackson's staff and his confidential secretary through all his campaigns. This brought about an intimacy between the General and Major Maury, which (as you will see), had much to do with the fortunes of the Maury family. After the war with England closed I have often seen the General on his way to Major Maury's house with a small staff, all in neat undress uniform and with bear skin holsters. This was while he was Major-General in the United States army, charged with the special duty of making treaties with the Indians for the cession of their lands. The red man when defeated by the general conceived a high respect for him; but when he beat the British at New Orleans it ripened into awe, and when "Captain Jackson" (as they called him) insisted on accession of their lands they were very apt to comply. It was General Jackson who procured a commission for young Matthew F. Maury in the navy. If this had not occurred, what would have been the consequences? Would the "Geography of the Sea" have been as little understood now as it was early in the century? After General Jackson's election to the presidency, Cary A. Harris, a son-in-law of Major Maury, was invested with the lucrative office of Public Printer at Washington City. And now we will briefly notice the descendants of Maj. Abram Maury: (A) Elizabeth Branch married Major John Reid, above mentioned. He was of remarkably clear intellect, of much decision, and strong nerve. He dispatched business, under all circumstances, promptly, and enjoyed the confidence and friendship of General Jackson to such a degree that he requested him to write his life. He had written the first four chapters, when he sickened and died. The papers Major Reid had collected were then handed over, at General Jackson's request, to Major John H. Eaton, who finished the book. Dr. William J. Reid is a son of this marriage. His wife is Sarah Claiborne Maury. They live at the old homestead of Major Abram Maury. Their eldest daughter, Mary Maury, married Andrew J. Puryear, who died about four years ago. She has four children, two sons and two daughters. A son of Dr. Reid, John William, married Maud C. Perkins, and the younger son of Dr. Reid, is Maury Thorpe, a youth of fifteen years. (B) Matthew Fontaine, who died at twelve years of age. (C) Daniel Worsham, when grown, made a venture in the mercantile line in Courtland, in this county. He did not succeed well, and I think went back to Tennessee. He never married. (D) Hon. Abraham Poindexter Maury had a brilliant career. He was born at Franklin 26th December, 1801, and early showed a decided literary taste. He was taught grammar by that accurate teacher, Rev. Lewis Garrett, and was for some time at Harpeth Academy under Dr. Blackburn. At about the age of seventeen years he was invited by the citizens of Franklin to deliver a Fourth of July speech. When quite young, at the instance of Hon. Thomas H. Benton, who had lived at Franklin and known him well, he went to St. Louis to edit a newspaper. After a year's stay he returned to Tennessee and went as a cadet to West Point. As he had more taste for literature and politics than mathematics, he returned to Tennessee, settled in Nashville and edited a paper entitled the Nashville Republican. Here he made a reputation as a journalist. He married Mary Eliza Tennessee Claiborne (a lady of great beauty and fine fortune), the daughter of Dr. Thomas Augustine Claiborne, and his wife, Sally Lewis, the daughter of William T. Lewis, of Nashville. Dr. Claiborne was a brother of Wm. C. C. Claiborne, first Territorial Governor of Louisiana, and subsequently elected to the office by the people for thirteen years. Dr. Claiborne, father of Mrs. Maury, after the death of his wife, became a surgeon in the United States Navy and died young. Hon. Abram P. Maury, after his marriage, bought out the interests of his brothers and sisters in his father's farm at Franklin. Served in both branches of the Legislature, and then in Congress for two terms, commencing with 1885. He was the father of nine children: (1) His eldest daughter, Martha Thomas, is still living, the widow of Nicholas Edwin Perkins, whose father, Nicholas T. Perkins, captured the famous Aaron Burr. She had three children--Edwin Maury, unmarried; Leighla Octavia, married to Dr. Harden T. Cochrane, of Birmingham, Ala., and Maud Claiborne, married to John William Reid, above mentioned. (2) The second daughter of Hon. Abram P. Maury. Sarah Claiborne, was married to Dr. Wm. S. Reid, as we have mentioned above. The third, fourth and fifth died unmarried. (6) Abram P. married, before he was of age, the daughter of Wm. O'Neal Perkins, of Franklin, and died quite a young man, leaving a son, Wm. Perkins Maury, now superintendent of the public schools at Fort Smith, Ark., and a daughter, Martha Slaughter, who is married to Mr. Benjamin Mann, of Haywood county, Tennessee. (7) Septima died at the age of twenty-six. (8) Octavia died early. (9) Ferdinand Claiborne, the youngest member of the family, is a lawyer in Nashville, and was married some years since to Mrs. Ida Rains, the widow of General Rains of the Confederate service, who was killed at the battle of Murfreesboro. (E) James Philip, another son of Maj. Abram Maury, was an excellent man. Never married. (F) William Henry, lived and died in Fayette county. His descendants are to be found there. (G) Martha Fontaine, married Cary A. Harris. He was made Public Printer by General Jackson as stated above. They had several children set down in the Fontaine chart. (H) The youngest of Maj. Abram Maury's children was Zebulon M. Pike. He married Virginia Ashlen, a lady of Williamson county and died while being unjustly detained as a prisoner at Sandusky, Ohio, during the late war. His youngest son was drowned a few years ago, and one of his sons, James Henry, married Helen Deas Ross, daughter of Mr. Wm. H. Ross, of Mobile, and is a prosperous merchant in the city of Paris, France. (1887.) He afterwards returned to the United States, and to New Orleans, to live.

  
  

• Sources

  [S577] Edmund West, comp., Family Data Collection - Individual Records, (Name: Provo, UT: Ancestry.com, 2000.;).