135. and 136. Edwin and Joseph Drake

I've mentioned already that sometimes, especially early in the school's era, local boys were enrolled at the Mordecai school.  Two boys, Edwin and Joseph Drake, were there a little later:  Edwin was a student at the school from 1813 to mid-1815, five sessions; Joseph was there for all of 1815.  Caswell Drake might be an adult associated with their account in the school ledger.  Caroline Mordecai Plunkett mentions "Joe Drake" in a list of Warrenton friends in an 1829 letter (Caroline to Ellen, 5 April 1829, Jacob Mordecai Papers, Duke).

Drake's a common name, of course, but Caswell stands out as a first name, and we know the family will be Warren County residents (because boys didn't board at the school).  That makes it fairly easy to find this pair of students:  Edwin and Joseph Drake were two of the sons of Rev. Caswell Drake (1776-1860), a Methodist minister in town, who also served as Warren County Clerk of Court (1819-1833).  Their mother was Mourning Drake (1772-1841) (she was a Drake by birth and by marriage); their older brother Matthew Mann Drake married another Mordecai student, Winnifred Fitts (more on her when we get to the Fs).

Joseph J. Drake was born around 1805. Looks like he might have become a physician and married Harriott (Harriet) Eliza Sessums (born around 1815).  They don't seem to have had children together, but in middle age, the couple raised a niece, Lucy Sills Sessums (aka Lucy Drake), whose mother died soon after her birth in Mississippi.  They turn up in the 1850 census living with her father, Dr. Isaac Sessums, in Nash County--maybe Joseph and Isaac practiced medicine together?

Edwin D. Drake (not that Edwin Drake) was apparently also born around 1805, and married Rebecca Edwards (1797-1869), and stayed in Warren County, where he was also Clerk of Court, after his father. They had sons Joseph and Francis born in the 1830s.   He may have been a North Carolina state senator during the Civil War.

Both men kept their names, kept local, and were fairly prominent--but I can't find a death date or gravestone for either one.  They must be out there; if you know, leave a comment.

128. Catherine Gabrielle DeRosset Kennedy (1800-1889)

There was a student named Catherine DeRosset at the Mordecai school, enrolled for two sessions, in 1811; Dr. A. J. DeRosset was the adult on her account.  As it happens, Catherine DeRosset was from a prominent Wilmington family, and became a friend to Rachel Mordecai after the school years.  Rachel Mordecai even named one of her daughters partly for Catherine (her daughter Mary Catherine Lazarus, born 1828; naming story from a letter, from Mary Orme to Ellen Mordecai, 26 September 1828, Mordecai Family Papers, SHC).  So we know a good deal about her family and how her life turned out. 

(Note:  For a very long time, I remember that she was listed as Catherine Prosser in my draft versions of the school rolls, even while the name DeRosset was familiar in other Mordecai-related contexts.  So there's a reminder that handwriting can be a major cause of error.)

Armand John DeRosset (1767-1859) was a doctor of Huguenot ancestry, like his father and grandfather before him.  Catherine Gabrielle DeRosset was the eldest child of her father's second marriage, to Catherine Fullerton (1773-1737).  Catherine had three younger sisters, and a younger brother Armand Jr., as well as an older half-brother (who was also her cousin--their mothers were sisters), named Moses.  Catherine was ten years old when she went to the Mordecai school (turned 11 there).  She may well have attended school with cousins; her paternal aunt was Mrs. Henry Toomer, her maternal grandmother's maiden name was Toomer, and there was a Sarah Toomer at the school during the same sessions as Catherine was there.

Catherine married a Methodist pastor, Rev. William Magee Kennedy (1783-1840) in 1835, becoming stepmother to his children; they moved to Columbia, South Carolina.  Catherine was forty the year she was widowed, after just five years wed; she and her ten-year-old stepdaughter Cattie moved back to Wilmington at that juncture.  Catherine and Cattie were close; here's one of Cattie's letters to Catherine, from during the Civil War.  (Many years later, Cattie would marry Catherine's younger brother, Armand Jr.)  In Wilmington as a youngish widow, Catherine was a co-founder and first president of the Ladies' Benevolent Society, and founder of a home for elderly women, opened as Old Ladies' Rest.   She also worked briefly as a nurse at a wartime hospital in Petersburg, Virginia, in 1861 (letter, Cate Kennedy to her sister Liz, 1 November 1861, DeRosset Family Papers, SHC).


Catherine DeRosset Kennedy died on Christmas Eve, 1889, age 89.  Old Ladies' Rest was renamed the Catherine Kennedy Home in her memory, and retained that name until it closed in 2000, considered at the time the oldest "home for the aged" in the US.  The Catherine Kennedy Home Foundation remains a granting entity, supporting causes that help senior citizens.

(Image:  State historical marker for the Catherine Kennedy Home in Wilmington.  Reads:  "Catherine Kennedy Home / For the elderly.  Grew from Ladies Benevolent Society. founded 1845.  First home, 1879, stood four blocks east.")

One website calls Catherine DeRosset Kennedy a "driving force"; compared to most of her Mordecai classmates, she certainly took a more public role in pursuing her interests.  She's even the subject of a recent master's thesis, "Catherine Kennedy DeRosset's Independence:  A Modern Historian's Analysis of a Nineteenth-Century Southern Woman" (MA, Georgia State University 2003) by Angela H. Gilleland. 

69. and 70. Maria Burt and William Burt

Two student named Burt were at the school for both sessions of 1810, Maria and William Burt. Maria stayed longer, through the end of 1814, one of the school's longest-running students. They were probably local kids--most boy students were--and the adult name attached to the account was William Burt.

William Burt appears throughout the school's ledger during Maria's school years, including a notation in February 1814 that she was taking music lessons as an add-on to her tuition. Oddly, for local students who stayed a while, there's very little else about the Burt children in the surviving Mordecai correspondence.

There were a lot of Burts in the vicinity of the Warrenton, and a lot of them were named William, so this took a little detangling, but.... This William Burt of Halifax NC married Martha Elizabeth Eelbank Bond (d. c. 1814), in 1797, and they had children William S. Burt, Harriet Burt (Mrs. Richard Eppes), and Maria Louisa Burt, according to various wills. Maria Louisa Burt married Henry Garrett before 1823. Her brother William became a doctor, married Priscilla M. Williams, and moved to Tennessee in 1833. (There was Mordecai student named Priscilla Williamson--hmmmm. I know from my own patronym that people add/subtract the "son" from such names very casually, maybe especially in the South, so that could be the same person.)

However! A different William Burt (1782-1848), also local, married another Mordecai student, Susan Sims, in 1812. He'd be too old to be a student at the school, but I mention him to illustrate the trickiness of all this. It'll be a while before Priscilla Williams or Susan Sims get their own entries at this blog, but when they do I'll link back to this.

63. Mary Ann Elizabeth B. Bryan Isler (c1805-1860)

There was a student named Mary Eliza Bryan at the Mordecai school for two-and-a-half years, mid-1815 to the end of 1817. She may have been from Franklin Co., NC, and the adult attached to her account is called "Genl. Bryan." A William Burlingham also left money for M. Bryan, according to the school's ledger for October 1815. "M. Bryan" was among the students who used the services of a dentist in January 1816.

Looking to the online family history sources: Mary Ann Eliza B. Bryan was the oldest child of Joseph Hunter Bryan Jr. (1782-1839) and Sarah Burlingham; William Burlingham seems to have been her grandfather. Mary Eliza's father was in the War of 1812, and served in the North Carolina legislature, as a trustee at UNC, and finally as a Congressman from North Carolina. (His brother Henry was a congressman from Tennessee.) Joseph died in Tennessee.

Mary Eliza was born before 1808 in North Carolina, and died 13 February 1860 in St. Louis, Missouri. She had two much younger brothers, Joseph (b. c1815) and Elisha (b. c1824). Was she sent to the Mordecai school because there was (or would soon be) a new baby in the house in 1815? Mary Eliza married Dr. Jesse Isler (c1796-1865) in 1821 (she would have been about sixteen years old), in Granville County, NC, and they had at least five children, the last born in Tennessee.

57. James G. S. Brehon, aka James Somerville

There was a student named James G. S. Brehon at the Mordecai school for one session, the second half of 1811. He was a local boy in Warrenton.

Wait, what? Yes, boys attended the Mordecai school. They were usually young local boys, probably filling seats when enrollment dipped, or sitting in with a sister.

James G. S. Brehon was apparently kin the town's Irish-born doctor, James Gloster Brehon (1740-1819; the Gloster in his name is a simplified spelling of "Gloucester"). Dr. Brehon was a trustee of the Warrenton Academy when it was founded in 1786, and donated the land for its building in 1805. (Jacob Mordecai had worked briefly as steward at the Warrenton Academy, before opening his own school.) But who was he, exactly? Well.... he seems to have been a nephew, James Somerville, who was not actually called by the name Brehon as a boy, except after 1819, when childless(?) widower Dr. Brehon required the name change in a will, for James to inherit land. (Solomon Mordecai to his sisters, 11 April 1819, letter in the Mordecai papers at Duke University)

This makes him a cousin to the Gloster children, Arthur and Elizabeth, who were also at the school (more on them when we get to the Gs). The existence of several Brehons and Glosters in Warrenton, including the name-changing nephew, leads to some confusion in local histories.

A letter by Ellen Mordecai written in 1820 intimated that James was a heavy drinker (of his grandfather's whiskey, left to him as part of his inheritance), and " it is generally thought he will become deranged." But he seems to have become a doctor, married and become the father of a daughter, Rebecca Brehon (Mrs. Thomas Crossan).