Aaron Benjamin Fontaine

Notes:

AARON BENJAMIN FONTAINE (1811-1880) was born in Jefferson County, Kentucky, on September 4, 1811, the youngest child of Aaron Fontaine and his second wife, Elizabeth Whiting (widow Thruston). He was reared and educated at home on his father's plantation, "Fontaine's Ferry," located just to the west of Louisville and on the south bank of the Ohio River. Aaron was only twelve years of age when his father died, and in accordance with the will, he was placed under the guardianship of two of his Thruston stepbrothers, both of whom were lawyers in Louisville. He and his older brother, Henry, studied law under one or both of his guardians. Aaron was admitted to the bar in 1831 and, almost immediately, married MARY ELLIOTT, the daughter of an Irish immigrant named Edward Elliott. She was born in Ireland in 1818 and brought to America as a small child. Shortly after their marriage, Aaron and Mary moved to Terre Haute, Indiana, where he held land which he had inherited from his father and the Thurston's had various commercial interests. They lived in Terre Haute for ten years while he practiced law and engaged in land speculation. During their sojourn in Indiana, four of their five children were born, In the mid-1840s, the family returned to Louisville, and Aaron became involved both in the practice of law and in diverse business interests. He died in Louisville on August 29, 1880, and Mary died there, more than two decades later, on April 24, 1904. They had five children.

Source: Ancestors and Descendants of Rev. Peter Fontaine (1691-1759) of
Westover Parish, Charles City County, Virginia, by Charles J. Ragland

Aaron married Mary Elliott on 19 Jan 1832 in Morgan County, IL. Mary was born on 25 Feb 1817 in Dublin, IRL; died on 24 Apr 1904 in Louisville, Jefferson County, KY. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: Josephine Spaulding. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Showing an early interest in commerce, Ogden soon gained employment in the cotton trade of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. At the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, he was in New Orleans and immediately enlisted in the Dreux Battalion of New Orleans. Ogden participated in the Peninsula Campaign in Virginia under General Magruder during the period of 1861-1862. When his enlistment ended in 1862, however, he enrolled in the Kentucky Calvary under the command of General John H. Morgan and served in the Kentucky and Tennessee campaigns, and on the Ohio Raid. With the breakup of Morgan's command in 1864, Ogden was assigned to that of General Nathan Bedford Forrest, where he remained until the war's end in 1865. He had entered the Confederate Army as a private but rose to the rank of captain. Ogden was severely wounded three times and was captured once, from which he escaped. Following the war, he worked as a cotton broker representing his brother's firm of Hill & Fontaine Cotton Company in Memphis, Tennessee. In this capacity, Ogden lived for a number of years in Vicksburg and, later on, for several years in Greenville, Mississippi. By the late 1880s, he had moved to Memphis where he settled permanently and resided in his brother's home until his death there around 1900. Ogden never married.

Notes:

Noland's home, the Woodruff-Fontaine House, is a historic home in Memphis.

Noland's will probated in White Co. AR

By the age of twenty-one, and with limited experiences, Noland had developed an acute commercial sense, and became a first-class business opportunist. When war clouds began to gather in 1861, he realized that vast fortunes could be made if one were simply in the right place at the right time. For Noland, Memphis, Tennessee was the right place and 1861 the right time. Memphis was ideally located on the Mississippi River between the cotton-growing South and the Northern Mills, where one could acquire contraband cotton at a reduced price and sell it northward where the price would skyrocket. He arrived in Memphis in April of 1861, the same month in which Fort Sumter was fired upon and the Civil War began. With the backing of a certain Louisville interest, Noland quickly established himself as a cotton buyer and became president of the new firm of Hill, Fontaine & Company. By 1862 the city was occupied by Union troops and became the most important center in the South for shipment of cotton to northern mills. On April 21, 1864, Noland married in Memphis, VIRGINIA E. EANES, who was born in Tennessee in 1845. In the years following the war, he became one of the wealthiest businessmen in Memphis, ................Noland died at his home on September 14, 1912. Virginia continued to live at "Fontaine House" with some of their children until her death on July 27, 1928.

Noland married Virginia Eanes on 21 Apr 1864 in Shelby County, TN. Virginia was born in 1845 in Tennessee; died on 27 Jul 1928 in Memphis, Shelby County, TN; was buried in Elmwood Cemetery, Memphis, Shelby County, TN. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Spent her early years in her father's home. In the mid-1840s, she went with her parents to Louisville, Kentucky, where she grew to womanhood. Emeline married in Louisville on December 17, 1857, JAMES P. ROGERS, a local businessman.

Emeline married James P. Rogers on 17 Dec 1857 in Louisville, Jefferson County, KY. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: W. H. Steward. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]