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.