194. Mary R. Gee (might be Mary A. Gee)

 There is a student named Mary R. Gee in the list I made for my dissertation's appendix in 1996. She was from Halifax County NC, attended the Mordecai school for four sessions, from early 1816 to the end of 1817, and the named Neville Gee is associated with her account.

Let's see what the online sources can tell me about this student now. Okay, this one is easier than Virginia Gaulejean(?). I think? Not 100% sure, but this is what I think I've pieced together, mostly on Ancestry:

Neville Gee (1773-1828) of Halifax County NC married Elizabeth Harwell, and had eight children, including Mary. Elizabeth Harwell Gee died sometime in the 1810s. Mary Gee was sent to the Mordecai school in 1816 and 1817; sometimes school enrollment was a way to manage the children of a grieving household.  Or maybe her father was making social connections; the Alston family had several daughters at the Mordecai school over the years, and he was remarried to Elizabeth M. Alston in October 1817. 

Mary Gee married Hutchins B. Mitchell in 1821. In 1828, her father died in Wilcox, Alabama. Did she also move to Alabama? I lose track of her after 1821. Do you know her fate? Leave me a comment.

176, 177, 178. Charlotte Fort (Gorman), Mary Ann Fort (Mason), and Martha Fort (Andrews)

 There are three girls named Fort in the rolls of the Mordecai school that I assembled in the early 1990s:

Charlotte Fort attended the school in both sessions of 1811.

Mary Ann Fort attended the school for three years, from early 1816 until the end of 1818. She was from Hicksford (now Emporia), Virginia, with Lewis Fort as the adult name on her account. She married in 1821.

Martha (or Patsy) Fort attended the school for two years, from early 1810 to the end of 1811.

Mary Ann Fort Mason (1803-1870) I was able to learn about in the early 1990s, because she married someone fairly prominent, and because she was at the school long enough to be mentioned in the Mordecai letters. Rachel Mordecai called her parents (Lewis Fort and Eliza Harris Coleman Fort)  "quite diverting people" and noted that her mother wrote "droll letters". Her planter family held slaves. At age 18, in 1821, she married John Young Mason, whose sister was a Mordecai student. They had at least eight children together, and her husband became a congressman, and an ambassador, and Secretary of the Navy, and Attorney General of the United States--so she was a busy political wife, until he died in 1859, in Paris. At least one of her sons (Simon Blount Mason) served in the Confederate army during the Civil War. She died in 1870, in Virginia.

Now what can some online searching reveal about the other two Fort girls?  Charlotte Ann Fort married John S. Gorman in Wake County, North Carolina in 1818--the age/timing is exactly right for that to be the Mordecai student. AND she had a sister Martha Fort. Aha! So we have them.

Charlotte Ann Fort Gorman (1802-1883), daughter of James Fort and Chloe Powell Fort, married John Spear Gorman in Wake County in 1818. They had at least one child, Annie, in 1832. Charlotte was widowed when J. S. Gorman died in 1836. She died in 1883, aged 81 years.

Martha W. Fort Andrews (1797-1876) was Charlotte's older sister. She married Cullen Andrews Jr. in Wake County in 1816, and they had ten children born between 1817 and 1837. The Andrews family lived in Tennessee, Mississippi and Alabama. Her husband died in Texas in 1857. Martha Fort Andrews died in 1876, aged 79, in Columbus, Mississippi.

All three Fort girls were Southern widows in their 60s when they lived through the American Civil War.

174. and 175. Ann (Nancy) and Eliza Foote

Hello again! Okay, yes, it has been three years. I'm pretty active on Wikipedia, writing biographies of women, and most days that takes all my keyboard time, but I DO want to return to the blogs too. I no longer have a searchable version of my notes from the Mordecai papers (originally typed into MacWrite II in the early 1990s, so... yeah). But maybe I can still do this. Let's see.

After the big clump of students named Fitts, there are two girls named Foote: Ann (or Nancy) and Eliza, both attached to the adult name "Adam Foote". Here's what I had about them in my dissertation appendix in 1996:

    Ann (Nancy) Foote of Warren County, NC attended the Mordecai School in 1815, 1817, and 1818, for  a total of three non-consecutive sessions. She married in 1831, and died in 1892.

    Eliza Foote was at the Mordecai School from 1814 to mid-1815, for three consecutive sessions.

Not much. And their names aren't so distinctive, but let's give it a go.

Looks like Nancy Foote Brame (c1805 - February 1892), was the daughter of Henry Alexander Foote Jr. and Mary Moss Foote. She married Marcus G. Brame, and lived in Marengo County, Alabama. She was married in 1831, had six children, and was widowed by 1845. In the 1850 United States Census, she was listed head of her household, and owner of seven slaves, in Perry County, Alabama. Ten years later, in the 1860 census, she appears as owner of twelve slaves, living in Lowndes County, Mississippi (just over the border from Alabama).  If that death date of 1892 is correct, she was probably one of the last living Mordecai students.

She doesn't seem to have had a sister named Eliza, but there were a lot of Footes in Warren County, including historian William Henry Foote; there's even an abandoned Foote Cemetery in Warren County.

Next up: the Forts.

166.-173. The Fitts Family (Caroline, Elizabeth, John, Mary, Susan, Susan, Tempe, Winnefred)

Hello, it's been a while! Maybe I was intimidated to return, knowing the Fitts family was next alphabetically. Well I'm feeling ready to face them now. There are eight students named Fitts in the rolls of the Mordecai school that I compiled over twenty years ago. They were the children of Henry Fitts (1778-1847) and Oliver Fitts (1771-1816), Warrenton residents. Oliver Fitts, who served in the NC legislature, sold his house to Jacob Mordecai to use for the school in mid-1811, so several of these children attended school in a building that was once their father's property. Here they are, set in their sibling groups:

Henry and Sarah (Sallie) Duke Fitts' children:
Caroline Fitts (1803-1846), attended the school in 1812
Elizabeth Fitts (1805-1884), attended the school in 1812
Mary Parham Fitts (1799-1856), attended the school 1809-1812
Susan Fitts (1800-?), attended the school 1809-1811
Winnefred Fitts (1802-1870), attended the school in 1812

Oliver and Sarah Harris Fitts' children:
Susan Brown Fitts (1798-1887), attended the school 1809-1812
Temperance Winnefred Fitts (1802-1870), attended the school 1809-1815

There's also a boy named John Fitts (1804-1882), attended the school 1809-1813; might be a cousin?

(Yes, two Susans and two Winnefreds. Temperance Winnefred went by the nickname "Tempe.")

Now, let's get to know more about these students using some online resources:

Caroline Fitts Palmer (1803-1846) married Horace Palmer (1801-1882) in 1838, as his second wife; they had children Sarah (1840-1929) and William (1844-1909) together; Horace Palmer also had four sons from his first marriage. Caroline died in 1846, aged 42 years, in Warren County NC.

Elizabeth Fitts Milam (1805-1884) married Nathan Milam (1802-1870) in 1827.  They had a son Henry Duke Milam (born 1831). They stayed in Warren County, where Elizabeth was widowed in 1870 and died in 1884.

Mary Parham (Polly) Fitts Rogers (1799-1856) married Zachariah Milam in 1819, and married Colonel George Rogers in 1823. With Rogers she had four children, Emily (1823), Thomas (1824), George (1826), and Adeline (1830). They lived in Mecklenburg County VA. She died in 1856, aged 57 years.

Susan Fitts Twitty (1800-after 1854) married John Eldredge Twitty. They had children together: Henry (1822), William (1825), Mary Ann (1827), Caroline (1829), Sallie (1831). Susan Fitts Twitty founded the Sunday School at Hebron Methodist Church in Oakville NC in 1854.

Winnefred Fitts Drake (1802-1870) married Matthew Mann Drake. They had children together: Henry (1828), Mary Ann (1830), William (1832), Sallie (1835), and John Oliver (1837). She died in 1870, aged 68 years, in Warren County. Her son Maj. William Caswell Drake, a Confederate Army veteran, became superintendent of schools in Warren County in 1885. Her daughter Sallie Duke Drake Twitty (1835-1923) was a Civil War widow and a longtime teacher and school principal.

Susan Brown Fitts Ripley Comegys (1798-1887) moved to Alabama in 1816; in 1818 she married Daniel B. Ripley. They had two children together, FitzHenry Ripley and Sarah Ripley. Sarah died and in 1823 Susan was widowed. She visited her former inlaws in Boston in 1826, with FitzHenry in tow.  In 1834 she married again, to Edward Freeman Comegys (1797-1875), a bank officer. They had two sons together, William and Edward. Susan was widowed again in 1875. She died in 1887, aged 88 years, in the home of her only surviving son, Edward, in Denton TX.

Temperance Winnefred Fitts Crawford (1802-1870) was one of the Mordecai's first and longest-running students, attended their school from ages 7 to 13. In 1819 she married William Crawford (1784-1849), a bank president and judge 18 years her senior. They lived in Alabama and had two daughters together, Susan (1821-1863) and Caroline (1823-1841). When she visited Emma Mordecai Myers in 1850 she was a recent widow. She outlived both of her daughters, too, by the time she died in 1867, aged 65 years.

Nearly all of these sisters and cousins had children who married the children of others on this list.

163, 164. Eliza and Harriet Field (and maybe 165. Another Eliza Field?)

Two students named Field are in the rolls of the Mordecai school, both from Mecklenburg, Virginia, both among the first students when the school opened in 1809. Eliza Field and Harriet Field were both at the school for six sessions, on and off between 1809 and 1813 for Harriet, 1814 for Eliza.

These might be Harriet and Eliza Field, the daughters of judge Hume Riggs Field (1772-1831) and his first wife Millicine (or Mildred) Young Field (1782-1827), of Mecklenburg Virginia.  The dates might not work out, though: Harriet H. Field was born in 1800--so she was nine the year the school opened, that makes sense. Eliza, however, was younger--born in 1806--maybe too much younger to be a Mordecai student in 1809.

If Harriet's sister Eliza was the Eliza Field at the Mordecai school in 1809, she would have been three years old, and the youngest known student. So I suspect she was the Eliza who attended after 1812; but a different Eliza Field, maybe a cousin, might have been there in 1809 and early 1810. The name isn't so unusual, anyway. Assuming the daughters of Hume and Millicine Field attended the Mordecai school...

Harriet H. Field (1800-1850) married Charles Perkins in about 1821, and they had at least one child, Marietta. She was widowed around 1828, and died in Tennessee in 1850, aged 50 years.

Eliza Mildred Field (1806-?) married Charles Perkins' brother, Constantine Perkins (1792-1836) in about 1824, and they had at least three children, Constantine, Ann Eliza, and Virginia in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Her husband served in the Alabama legislature, and as the state's attorney general.

142, 143, 144, 145, 146: The Eatons (Eliza, Julia, Rebecca, Temperance, and Thomas)

There are five students named Eaton in the Mordecai school rolls I compiled in the early 1990s:

Eliza Eaton was at the school in 1813, both sessions.
Julia Eaton was at the school from early 1814 to the end of 1815.
Rebecca Eaton was at the school in 1815, both sessions.
Temperance B. (Tempy) Eaton was at the school from early 1812 the end of 1813.
And Thomas Eaton was there for one session, early 1813.

The presence of a male student named Eaton is a clue that this is a local family.  Or families.... there were a lot of Eatons in Warren County!

William A. Eaton shows up in the ledger paying for Temperance Eaton in 1812 and 1813, so that's a good set of names to start with:
 
Temperance B. Eaton (b. 1803) has the most distinctive name of the bunch, and she turns out to be relatively easy to find online:  She was the daughter of William Allen Eaton (d. 1818) and Mary Williams, and turned 10 the year she was at Warrenton.  Temperance B. Eaton married a lawyer named Lunsford Long Alsobrook in Alabama in 1826, and had one son, Jacob Eaton Alsobrook, born the following year.   She probably died by 1834, when her husband married his second wife, Dorothea Stone.  The Mordecais mentioned her marriage to Alsobrook, in a letter from Caroline to Ellen (29 October 1826, in the Jacob Mordecai Papers at Duke): "Mr. Alsobrook came the father of the one that married Tempy Eaton, he came for Peggy & you never saw anyone more reluctant to go than she was"--so apparently a younger in-law of Tempy's was sent to Caroline's school, too.

The other Eatons are probably not all sisters to Temperance. Julia Eaton's bills were paid by a Thomas Jenkins at the end of her time there, in December 1815.  The next month, John Rust Eaton was paying the bill for Miss Dortch (Betty Dortch, we met her already).   Temperance B. had an older sister Rebecca C. Eaton (1797-1840)--but she would have been 18 during her year at the school, and would it make sense to send the older sister to school after the younger one, without any overlap?  So I don't think this is the right Rebecca Eaton.  But it's not impossible.  (But just in case she's our student, she married in 1820 to John Howson Fenner (1798-1871), and had two children, and died at forty-three, in Halifax NC.)

And Tom Eaton was nobody's sister, of course.  Definitely local, he turns up in Caroline Plunkett's reports from Warrenton after the rest of the family has moved away, in the last 1820s; "Did I tell you Tom Eaton has left his father's again he has been in town several weeks I heard he was exceedingly disrespectful to Mrs. Eaton," she tells Ellen in 1828.  In another 1828 letter (Ellen to Caroline), there's mention of Tom Eaton's poor health, but that might be another Thomas Eaton?

There were a lot of Eatons in Warren County.  But I'm really not having much luck finding the one specific ones who attended the Mordecai school, except Temperance.  Hmmmm.

126. and 127. Ann and Mary Dawson

Two girls named Dawson --Ann Dawson and Mary Dawson-- attended the Mordecai school in the same five sessions (latter half of 1816 to the end of 1818), both from Georgia.  Safe to assume they were kin, and probably sisters.  "Richard Blunt for the Misses Dawson" is an item in the school ledger for December 1816, and Richard Blunt is also mentioned paying for "Miss A Dawson" and "Miss M Dawson" in the ledger for February 1818; so they may be related to the local Blunts.  Other than those mentions, there's nothing in the Mordecai letters about these two girls.

Probably the place to start is Richard Blunt, because we've already encountered a Richard Blount who was sending students to the Mordecai school.  And that Richard Augustus Blount (1774-1849) lived in Georgia.  And... his wife was born Mary Dawson.  Her brother, John Edmonds Dawson, died in 1811, leaving five young children, including Ann B. Dawson and Mary F. Dawson, with Richard A. Blount as their guardian.  (Here's their brother, Rev. Dr. John E. Dawson (1805-60), "a prince among men." This is a biography that their younger sister Annabella wrote about John.  Annabella also wrote an extremely successful cookbook that's been in print for many decades.)  Their mother was born Annabelle Burwell, which also links the Dawson girls to the Burwell families who also sent children to the Mordecai school (Lucy Burwell, for example, was at the school during the Dawson girls' time).  Annabelle Burwell Dawson may have married a second husband after 1811.

So here's what we can find, from that connection:

Ann Burwell Dawson (c1804-1841) married Fortunatus Sidney Cook in December 1820, and had six children (Algernon, Anna, Mary Frances, Monimia, Barclay, and John). Ann was widowed in 1837, and died at Wetumpka, Alabama in 1841, age 37, at the home of her brother-in-law Henry Cook (see below).  Here's her obituary.  Her eldest son Algernon Marcus Cook became blind, possible in consequence of his service in the Mexican War.  Daughter Monimia married the Isaac Taylor Tichenor, who later (years after she died) became the president of the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Alabama (now called Auburn University).

UPDATE 11/15:  More about Ann's daughter Mary Frances Cook Noble (d. 1913) in the comments, from a descendant. Thank you, Lisa Slack!

Mary Frances Dawson (c1807-), Ann's younger sister, married Col. Henry H. Cook in December 1821, and had two daughters (Cordelia and Mary).  She died in Troup County, Georgia, but I can't find a death date.

So.... from being the barest of sketches on the rolls in my dissertation appendix, Ann and Mary Dawson have become connected into the broad network of cousins who attended the school, and have their lives drawn in a bit more.  Calling this entry a success!  But if you know more about the Dawson girls, I'd love to hear about it.

112. Arnette S. Craig

A student named Arnette Craig is on the rolls for the Mordecai school; she was there three sessions, mid-1817 to the end of 1818 (and maybe past, because there were some students who stayed past the sale).  I have her as a student from Richmond VA, with a Samuel Paine as the adult name attached to her account, along with a Mrs. Craig, suggesting that Mr. Craig died before mid-1817.

Her unusual first name helps find mentions...except that it's spelled so many different ways. 

"Papa received a letter from Mr. Saml. Paine, the gentleman who conversed with you respecting the school requesting admission for Miss Craig.  She cannot be received this session, but if they wish it will have a place reserved for her next," Rachel Mordecai wrote to Solomon Mordecai in the summer before Arnette came to Warrenton (27 July 1817).  She seems to have shared a ride to school with another student, Harriet Marx, who was kin to the Mordecais (18 January and 17 February 1818); Rachel reported the scene on Arnette's arrival at school, "I have just heard an alarm sounded of 'Arnett Craig is come' but as she has not made her appearance I cannot vouch for it being well grounded" (15 February 1818).  The next year we find Rachel reporting from outside Richmond, "Mrs. Payne, Arnot Craig's mother, died suddenly a few days since..." (6 December 1819).

Okay, turning to the genealogical information online:  Arnette S. Craig (1805-1873) was the younger daughter of Adam and Mary Mallory Craig, of Virginia.  This is the Adam Craig house in Richmond (here's the marker).  Adam died while his daughters were young; Mary Mallory Craig remarried to Samuel Paine in 1817.  In 1822, Arnette Craig married Philip Whitehead Claiborne (b 1801, also in Virginia).  At some point around 1830, the Claibornes move to Florence, Lauderdale County, Alabama, where they were still living in 1860.  They're listed with at least eight children; this is the grave of one of Arnette's granddaughters, Mary Claiborne Porter (1859-1939).



Arnette must not have minded her unusual first name, because she named one of her own daughters Philapella (1843-1871).

83., 84., 85. Esther, Mary, and Winnefred Carr

I have three girls named Carr in my records for the Mordecai school:

Esther Carr of Pitt County, NC, attended the school from early 1813 to mid 1814 (so, three sessions). Elias Carr was the adult associated with her account.

Mary Carr attended the school in early 1815, and then for all of 1817 (so, again, three sessions, but these weren't consecutive).

Winnefred Carr attended the school for two sessions, early 1814 and early 1815 (two non-consecutive sessions). She was also from Pitt County with Elias Carr as the adult on her account.

Elias Carr appears in several places in the school ledger, including a mention in January 1814 of him paying tuition for his "daughters"--so that establishes the relationship between Elias, Esther, and Winnefred Carr, at minimum. He also appears making a payment in January 1817, so he may also be the parent or relative of Mary Carr. (But he's in the ledger again in April 1818, when none of the girls above was enrolled, so I won't assume that. Still, it's a start.) He's clearly not this Elias Carr, though there must be a relationship there, and thus to the girls at the Mordecai school.

And there is. The Governor Elias Carr had among his aunties a Winnefred Carr and an Esther Johnston Carr, and yes, a Mary Carr. Their father was Elias Carr (1775-1822) and their mother was Cecelia (or Celia) Johnston. (Winnefred was named for Elias's mother, and Esther was named for Cecelia's mother.)

Esther Johnston Carr (1798-1864), then, was 15 when she arrived as a student at the Mordecai school, and she stayed till she was 16 in 1814. In 1816, she married a local man, Allen Blount (1789-1828), at her father's house. The couple had six children between 1817 and 1827, five boys and a girl. Esther was widowed in her early 30s, and died in 1864, in the same county where she was born. Here's her tombstone.

Winnefred "Winnie" Williams Carr (1800-1855) followed her older sister to the Mordecai school in 1814, when she was 13. In 1822 she married a Dr. John Thomas Eason (1796-1864). They had ten children together, born between 1822 and 1843. The couple moved to Sumter County, Alabama, before the last two children were born (so, probably in the late 1830s), and Winnefred died there at age 54, having survived at least two of her children (William died at age 17 in 1842, and Elizabeth died at age 20 in 1853).

Mary Carr (1802-1822?) followed her two older sisters to the Mordecai school in 1815, overlapping with Winnefred for one session. She was about 13 when she arrived there. and 15 when she left. In early 1822, she married Josiah E. Fowle (1791-1822?) of Massachusetts, but apparently (according to family tradition) faced her father's "violent opposition" to the marriage, and was disinherited. The story continues that Josiah was killed in September 1822 when he was captured by pirates in the West Indies, while returning from the couple's honeymoon there. She may also have been "lost at sea" in the same incident, as some accounts tell their tale. If so, she was just 20 years old at her death. She doesn't always turn up in lists of Elias Carr's descendants, perhaps because she had no children in her short life, thus no descendants.

(Note that both Winnefred and Mary married in the year their father died.)

Three Mordecai students, solid identifications on all of them. Only the fate of Mary seems even slightly uncertain.