158. Sarah Fauquier (Emmerson? b. 1804?)

There's a student on the roster of the Mordecai school that I compiled in the early 1990s named Sarah Fauquier. She's listed as being from Norfolk VA, attending for both 1818 sessions, and having William Fauquier as the adult on her account.

There is a Fauquier County in Virginia--but the name is probably still variously spelled in early 19c. sources, including Farquhar, Forker, Falkier, etc. And Sarah might also be Sara or Sally. But we have a parent(?) name and a city, which is a good start. And attending only in 1818 means she's likely born a few years after 1800--looking in the vicinity of 1805 would be best.

A Sarah Fauquier, daughter of William M. Fauquier, married at Benjamin Emmerson at Norfolk on November 10, 1824--that Sarah seems like a very good candidate, age is a good match, everything else lines up.

A William May Fauquier (1773-1827) was a chemist in Norfolk VA, and appears as "William M. Forguher" in his wife's family bible; he married Ann (Nancy) Benthall in 1801. They seem to be the parents of the same Sarah (Sally) Fauquier Emmerson above; that woman, born 1804, named one of her eight children Anna Benthall Emmerson. William May Fauquier was a deacon at the Baptist Church in Norfolk.

Is she the one? Anyone with further useful information, please share in comments.

157. Patsy Farrar

There's a student named Patsy Farrar on the rolls of the Mordecai school that I compiled in the early 1990s.  She was only at the school for one session (the first half of 1810). I don't have a hometown, a parent name, or any other information.

First things:  Patsy was generally a nickname for Martha, not for Patricia, as it often is today. So we can probably assume she was named Martha Farrar. And 1810 was early enough in the school's run that she was probably from NC or VA--not farther afield. Maybe more likely Virginia, because Farrar's Island was an early settlement in the Richmond area (patriarch William Farrar was born in Yorkshire in 1583 and died in Virginia in 1637--that's pretty early for an Englishman in Virginia).

This Martha Farrar (b. 1794) was from Rockingham County, NC. She would have been 16 while she was at the Mordecai school--older than most, but not impossible.

There may be better candidates; no reason to think the Rockingham Martha is definitely the Mordecai student. Anyone know more?

156. Martha Whitmel Falconer Faulcon (1799-?)

There's a student in the Mordecai school rolls named Martha W. Falconer, who attended for both sessions in 1813. (That surname may also appear as Faulkner, Falkener, Falkner, and other variations.) "Alxr. Falconer" appears in the school ledger in July 1813.

Alexander Falconer Jr. (c.1765-1818), born in St. Andrews, Scotland, had about 1000 acres of land in Franklin County, North Carolina, but also had legal training. He attended the Mordecai school's examinations in 1811 and 1812, and was a trustee of the Franklin Academy from at least 1805 to 1815; Moses Mordecai is listed as a witness on Mr. Falconer's will.  In addition to daughter Martha Whitmel Falconer (1799-), he had sons John, Robert, and Alexander, and a daughter Mary Pugh Falconer (c1800-1836).Their mother seems to have been the former Mary (Polly) Harriet Wynne, who also died in the 1810s.

Martha Whitmel Falconer would have turned 14 the year she attended the Mordecai school.  Ten years later, on October 6, 1823, she married Isaac N. Faulcon in Warren County.  They had sons James (1825) Robert (1827), and Jesse (1829). She must have died by 1841, because Isaac married a second time, to a Mrs. Fannie Clanton, that year.  The Faulcons were related by marriage to Alstons, Eatons, Fittses, and other Mordecai families.


A Lucy Faulcon was one of Caroline Mordecai Plunkett's five boarding students in Warrenton in 1828 (Caroline to Ellen, 20 January 1828, Mordecai Family Papers, Southern Historical Collection)--she was no doubt part of the same family as Martha's husband.

Anyone have a deathdate or gravesite for our Martha Falconer Faulcon?

155. Harriet Exum

There was a student at the Mordecai school named Harriet Exum, for five sessions, non-continuous--she was there in 1810, 1811, and 1813.  A "Capt. Exum" is mentioned in 1811 and 1813 in the school ledger, and is presumably the adult on her account.



Exum is a fairly distinctive name, but it's found as a first and a last name in Southern history, and goes back to the seventeenth century in Virginia.  A Col. Benjamin Exum was a Dobbs County delegate to the state convention of North Carolina in 1776; he died about 1788, so Harriet probably wasn't his daughter, but maybe a granddaughter or niece?



Anyway, not having any luck finding a good Harriet candidate out there. She was probably from the Exum family based in Edgecombe County, probably kin to the Revolutionary colonel.  Anyone have leads?

153, 154. Jane Evans and Lydia Anna Evans

Two Evans girls were with the Mordecai school when it opened in 1809: Jane Evans was there from 1809 until mid-1811, and her sister Lydia Anna Evans (sometimes written as Lydianna, which might reflect how it was pronounced) was there until the end of 1810.  They came from Oakland, an estate near Petersburg, Virginia, and had Dr. George Evans as the name attached to their accounts in the school ledger.  The Mordecai family discussed the Evans girls in letters, beginning even before their arrival:

"The house is full of girls and... in a few weeks Lidyanna & Jane Evans will come Mrs. Johnson is now at Oakland and they will return with her." (Ellen to Samuel, 16 April 1809, Jacob Mordecai Papers at Duke)

The family were, obviously from their name, Welsh in ancestry. The girls' father Dr. George Evans (c1755-1822).  He moved South from Pennsylvania to Virginia after the Revolutionary War, in which he served as a surgeon.  Their mother was the former Mary Peyton (d. 1818).  The girls' much older sister Mary Evans married William R. Johnson, a notable Warrenton resident, in 1803. (That's the Mrs. Johnson mentioned above and below.)

The marriage announcement of Governor William Miller and Lydiana Evans
Weekly Raleigh Register (June 7, 1816): 3.
From Newspapers.com

 

Lydia Anna Evans (d. 1818) left the Mordecai school at the end of 1810; she married almost six years later, to William Miller, at Chesterfield, Virginia, in May 1816 (see announcement above). William Miller was a Warrenton man, well known to the Mordecais, but at the time of the wedding he was well-known throughout the state--because he was the Governor of North Carolina from 1814 to 1817. (So a Mordecai girl became the first lady of North Carolina while the school was still running.)  Sadly for Lydia Anna, the glamor was very short-lived: she was soon pregnant, had her son William Jr., and she died in March 1818.  (William Jr. soon joined his mother; he only lived to be five years old.) Her widower Governor Miller died in 1825, traveling through Florida on a diplomatic mission to Guatemala.

The Mordecais commented on Lydia Anna's death, of course: 

"We have just received intelligence of the death of Mrs. Miller (Lydia Anna Evans)--So young, so sweet, & so lovely, who can think without pain of her being this early nipped in her bloom. The last letter from Mrs. Johnson mentioned her being much better, & her husband had come out to prepare for her removal to their intended place of residence. Her last illness must have been short for her had not received intelligence of it, & was still absent, when the final event took place." (Rachel to Samuel, 22 February 1818, Jacob Mordecai Papers at Duke)

"The last visitation on the Evans family is a most melancholy one and you are so prone to feel another's woe, that exclusive of the attachment you had for Mrs. M., your sympathy for them must be strongly excited..." (Samuel to Rachel, 1 March 1818, same as above)

"A letter from Mrs. Johnson to Mary mentions that the amiable deceased had left to her the care of her infant, from this I conclude that she was sensible of her approaching fate." (Rachel to Samuel, 1 March 1818, same as above)

Jane Maria Evans:  No sooner had Lydia Anna died, than her sister Jane Evans, also a Mordecai alumna, followed; the Mordecais shared the news:

"You will unite with me in deep & sincere concern when I acquaint you with the new misfortune of the devoted family of poor Dr. Evans--Jane is no more, she expired on the 12th of this month, Lydia on the 13th of last.  Her health had for some time been delicate, and the shock proved too severe for her to bear. Poor Mrs. Johnson appears, as she must be, overwhelmed with grief. Does it not seem indeed too much for human nature to support? I fear it will be impossible for her poor mother to strugle against such an accumulated load of sorrow. When I think of that family as we knew it a few years ago, so cheerful, so happy, so pleased with one another, the girls so gentle, so lovely, and blooming..." (Rachel to Samuel, 22 March 1818, same as above)

"The succession of misfortune in the Evans' family is enough to excite commiseration even in those who feel less interest in their happiness than we do. I had not heard of Jane's death until you mentioned it." (Samuel to Rachel, 29 March 1818, same as above)

But there was still more tragedy for the Evans family in 1818.  That summer, the mother of Lydia and Jane, Mary Peyton Evans, also died. "The unfortunate old lady had never left her chamber since the death of Jane, but has borne her own severe sufferings with entire patience & resignation. She may indeed be said to have fallen victim of a broken heart." (Rachel to Samuel, 26 July 1818, same as above)

Death dates and circumstances are thus well-established; I still don't know when either student was born, or where they might have been buried (I assume a private family plot near the family home at Oakland?).  Does anyone know?

151, 152. Catharine Williams Epes Green (1802-1887) and Elizabeth Campbell Epes Jones (1803-1880)

There are two girls named "Epes" in the rolls of the Mordecai school.  Catharine/Catherine Epes was at the school for two years, 1813 and 1814; Elizabeth was there for all of 1817.  There's a Thomas Epes associated with Catharine's account, and a William B. Cowan might have been acting as guardian for Elizabeth.  They're from Virginia, from my notes.

Note that the common Virginia surname Epes can also appear as Epps or Eppes.  We've already met one Mordecai girl with the name Eppes as her middle name, Sarah Eppes Doswell Cabell -- so she's a possible school connection to Catherine and Elizabeth Epes too.

So this was maybe easier than I expected:  Catherine Williams Epes Green (1802-1887), daughter of Thomas Epes and Catherine Williams, married William B. Green in 1827.  Catherine's uncle John Epes had daughters Catherine Grace Epes Cowan (who married William Bowie Cowan) and Elizabeth Campbell Epes Jones (1803-1880), who married Richard Jones in 1818.  So Mordecai students Catherine and Elizabeth were first cousins.  Fellow student Sarah Eppes Doswell was another cousin; Sarah and Catherine had their Williams grandparents in common. Elizabeth's mother was John Epes' second wife, so she wasn't truly first cousins to Sarah Doswell, but these families were all very much entangled.  Congressman Sydney Parham Epes (1865-1900) was one of the Epes' girls' distant nephews, and Congressman James F. Epes (1842-1910) seems to be from the same extended family.

How does William B. Cowan come into the story? Elizabeth Epes's father John died in 1816, so it makes sense that her older half-sister's husband, Cowan, paid Elizabeth's accounts at the Mordecai school the following year.

Catherine Epes Green doesn't seem to have had any children in her long life; Elizabeth Epes Jones had about eight children, maybe more.  Both women lived through the Civil War and into old age, and as far as I can tell neither ever lived away from Virginia--except for during their schooldays in North Carolina.

150. Catherine Elliott

There was a student at the Mordecai school named Catherine Elliott.  She attended for two-and-a-half years, from mid-1813 to the end of 1815; I don't have an adult name attached to the account, or a hometown, or any much else to go on, so hmmmm.  Probably not going to find this one out there.  There was a Catherine Elliott born in Orange County NC in 1797, died 1860, so she'd be about the right age, but with no other identification I'm not thinking it's a strong enough match.

149. Elizabeth Elcan (1805-1823)

A student named Elizabeth Elcan is listed in the student rolls for the Mordecai school.  She was there from mid-1815 to September 1818, when she left the school in ill-health.  The adult names attached to her account are Lionel (or Lion) Elcan and Christopher Hunt.  The Elcans and Mordecais were friends even before 10-year-old "Betsey" appeared in Warrenton.  Elizabeth Elcan is also the first Mordecai student whose story reached her present-day kin through me.  In the early 1990s when I was working on my dissertation, Carl Coleman Rosen got in touch by letter (remember, this was before most folks had email).  He had heard of my interest in the school and wondered if I knew anything about Betsey.  I did!  He included a page about her in his family history, 244 Years of Elcan Family History (self-published, 1994).

So here are some details about Betsey Elcan.  She was born in 1805, the daughter of Lion Elcan (1750-1833) and Elizabeth Hooper Elcan.  She was the second-youngest of their nine children, born between 1788 and 1811. Their father was born in Prussia, and the family lived in Buckingham County, Virginia.  When she was ten, she was brought to the Mordecai school by her sister Sally (Ellen to Samuel, 25 June 1815, Mordecai Family Papers at the Southern Historical Collection), where she stayed until she was 13. 

In 1821, Betsey visited the Mordecais at Spring Farm with her sister Sally, Mrs. Christopher Hunt. The report of her health wasn't good:  "Betsey has grown, and is very pretty.  She is in deep decline, and looks almost as delicate as her amiable sister...I never felt anything so touching as her manner on Sunday night.  She had a spasm, and lay perfectly insensible on the bed, and while her hands were forcibly contracted, with a countenance as mild as an angel, in the softest tone of voice, she repeated those lines from the Universal prayer beginning 'teach me to feel'...Betsey came out her and stayed several days, she does not like a city life much..." (Ellen to Caroline, 20 September 1821, Jacob Mordecai Papers at Duke)

Two years later, she died, age 18, after a long illness; four of her siblings also died before age 30, and none of the nine Elcans lived to see age 55 (Their parents lived to be 88 and 68.)  Presumably some of them occupy the unmarked graves at the family's cemetery, at their former estate, Elk Hall.

148. Rebecca Edwards Banks (1797-1869)

There's a student named Rebecca Edwards in the rolls of the Mordecai school that I compiled almost twenty years ago.  She seems to have been at the school for three sessions (mid-1813 to the end of 1814), and the name Benjamin Williamson may be attached to her account. A W. N. Edwards is also mentioned with Rebecca Edwards in the ledgers--sometimes Williamson is paying the Mordecais on behalf of both Edwardses. 

W. N. Edwards looks like he must be Weldon Nathaniel Edwards (1788-1873), a Congressman from Warren County whose papers are in Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill.  He married a Mordecai student, Lucy Norfleet; and from correspondence in his papers between Benjamin Williamson and Mr. Robert Park, we know that he was a student at the Warrenton Academy and so was his brother Isaac.  So, local family. In 1814 W. N. was serving his first term in the North Carolina state legislature, having passed the state bar in 1810. 

Weldon N. Edwards had a younger sister Rebecca Edwards (1797-1869).  As "Mrs. Rebecca E. Banks" she's buried in the family cemetery at Poplar Mount, about twelve miles from Warrenton.   Their parents were Priscilla Williamson and Benjamin Edwards.  She married Edmund Banks in July 1819.  And fifty years later she died.  But I don't have much luck finding anything about her life in between.  If anyone knows her details, leave me a note in the comments.

147. Lucy Edmonds/Edmunds

There's a student named Lucy Edmonds in the rolls of the Mordecai school, attending from mid-1814 to the end of 1816--five sessions, a relatively long stay.  She seems to be from Northampton County, NC, and the adult attached to her tuition payments in the ledger (1814 was named Howel Edmonds.  She must have been ill during her stay; a letter from Rachel to Samuel Mordecai dated 23 January 1816 notes "Miss Edmunds dangerously ill upstairs (she is now convalescing)" among the many "glooms" of the school that winter (letter in the Mordecai Family Papers, Southern Historical Collection, Chapel Hill).

In the later Mordecai correspondence, she turns up in a letter from Caroline to Ellen, April 1822, because some of her younger cousins (Mary and Lucy) are attending Caroline's school in Warrenton that season.  (Caroline Plunkett to Ellen Mordecai, 22 April 1822, Jacob Mordecai Papers at Duke; "little Mary Edmonds" mentioned again in a letter dated 18 January 1823, still a student.) 

One man named Howell Edmunds (with this spelling) is relatively easy to identify:  he was a colonel during the War for Independence, served in the Colonial Assembly, and in the Provincial Congress, and in the North Carolina House of Commons after statehood.  He was also sheriff of Northampton County, North Carolina.  He was born about 1730, married his cousin Lucy Nicholson (1737-1811) in 1757, and died.... in May 1814, just before the student Lucy appeared at the Mordecai school.  (It seems Col. Edmunds had a sister, wife, daughter, a daughter-in-law, and at least one granddaughter all called "Lucy Edmunds," and probably some nieces too.)

The Col. Howell Edmunds seems to be the student Lucy Edmunds' grandfather.  Her father was the Colonel's son, also named Howell Edmunds; her mother was Elizabeth.  She was one of eight children. 

And that's where the trail ends--I can't find a mention of this Lucy Edmunds (or Lucy Edmonds) beyond the 1810s, except the mention in Caroline's 1822 letter.   Anyone know her fate?