WARREN COUNTY
MISSISSIPPI
MSGENWEB PROJECT
EARLY FAMILIES OF WARREN COUNTY
Emma Harrison Balfour – Born January 3, 1818 – Died February 25,
1887.
A noted diarist of the Siege
of Vicksburg, she lived at Balfour House (built in mid-1830s), the site
the arrival of the Federal fleet.
Following surrender on
See also Emma Balfour, and Civil War
Diaries
Biedenharn, Joseph – founder of candy company
(Offsite link)
Captain John Bobb - Born in Kentucky in 1794, moved to
Natchez in 1820 and then moved to Warrenton in 1823.
to the newly platted city of
Vicksburg. He later purchased
Headquarters during the siege of
Vicksburg. He was a machinist, builder, riverboat pilot, and brick
maker. He built
President Franklin Pierce to
be Superintendent of that facility in
Captain Bobb was
appointed by President James Buchanan to be the Collector of Customs for the
District of Vicksburg
Jefferson Davis and his son, John Bobb,
Jr., served under Davis in
(Co F, 10th
Infantry) during the Civil War. A cousin named John H.
Bobb, purchased McRaven in 1849. He built the
help in the early 1850's.
John H.
Bobb was murdered by Union troops in 1864 when he threw a brickbat at
them for trampling his newly planted
all intermarried and most lived in the
Porters Chapel area.
Information
furnished by Bill
Bobbs
Jefferson Finis Davis - Jefferson
Davis was the youngest of the ten children of Samuel Emory Davis of
Philadelphia, Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania (1756 – July 4, 1824)
and Jane
Cook Davis of Christian County, (later Todd County), Kentucky (1759 – October
3, 1845). Jane was the daughter of William and Sarah Simpson
Cook, daughter of
Samuel
Simpson (1706 – 1791) and wife Hannah (b. 1710).
Jefferson’s grandfather was
Evan Davis of Cardiff, County Glamorgan, (1729 – 1758), who emigrated from
Wales and had once lived in Virginia and Maryland. He married
Lydia Emory.
During Davis's youth, the family moved
twice; in 1811 to St. Mary Parish, Louisiana, and in 1812 to Rosemont
Plantation in Wilkinson County, Mississippi near the town of
Woodville. In 1813, Davis began his education, together with his sister Mary,
attending a log cabin school known as the Wilkinson Academy a mile from their
home in Woodville.
Two years later, Davis entered the Catholic school of Saint Thomas at St. Rose
Priory, a school operated by the Dominican Order in Washington County,
Kentucky. At the time,
he was the only Protestant student.
Davis went on to Jefferson College at
Washington, Mississippi, in 1818, and to Transylvania University at Lexington,
Kentucky, in 1821. In 1824, Davis entered the United States
Military Academy (West Point). He completed his four-year term as a West Point
cadet and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in June 1828 following
graduation.
Davis fell in love with Zachary Taylor's
daughter, Sarah Knox Taylor. Davis resigned his commission, and they married on
June 17, 1835, at the house of her aunt near Louisville,
Kentucky.
While visiting his oldest sister, Anna
Davis Smith, at Locust Grove Plantation, near St. Francisville, Louisiana,
both newlyweds contracted malaria, and Sarah died on September 15,
1835. She was buried in the family cemetery there. In 1836, he moved to
Brierfield Plantation at Davis Bend south of Vicksburg in Warren County,
Mississippi. For the next eight
years, Davis was a recluse, studying government and history, and engaging in
private political discussions with his brother Joseph.
Brierfield Plantation -Destroyed by war, flood, and fire.
In 1844 Davis was elected to the United
States House of Representatives, taking office on March 4, 1845. On
February 26, 1845, Davis married Varina Howell, the granddaughter of New
Jersey Governor Richard Howell. He had met her the year before, at
her home in Natchez, Mississippi.
Jefferson and Varina Howell Davis had 6
children, but only one child survived young adulthood and married:
·
Samuel Emory Davis, b. July 30, 1852; d. June 13, 1854
·
Margaret Howell Davis, b. February 25, 1855; d. July 18, 1909; married Joel
Addison Hayes Jr. (1848–1919) 5 children
·
Jefferson Davis, Jr., b. January 16, 1857; d. October 16, 1878; Never
married
·
Joseph Evan Davis, b. April 18, 1859; d. April 30, 1864
·
William Howell Davis, b. December 6, 1861; d. October 16, 1872
·
Varina Anne "Winnie" Davis, b. June 27, 1864; d. September 18,
1898; Never married.
Joseph E. Davis - The older brother of Jefferson Davis, Joseph
was born December 10, 1784. He
married Eliza Van Benthuysen Davis in 1827. He
owned Hurricane Plantation located on Davis Island.
in the Mississippi River. The house was burned
by Federal troops in 1862. Joseph later
lived at Anchuca in Vicksburg and was living there at
the time of his death on September 18, 1870.
Tobias Gibson – Gibson
was known as the father of Methodism in Mississippi. He was born in 1776 in
south of
Vicksburg’s future location. His grave was moved to the grounds of
Crawford
Basil
Gordon Kiger - Kiger was born about 1817 in Virginia
and married Caroline J. Gwin (ba 1827 TN) on October 15, 1846 in Warren County
(MS Marriages 1776-1935). They are
listed
in the 1850-1900 census of Warren County. Their children were
William Gwin Kiger, Basil Gordon Kiger, Jr. and Mary Bell
Kiger. Neither son had any children. Mary Bell Kiger
married John
Armistead Conway and had four children.
Kiger built Buena Vista Plantation at
Eagle Bend around 1842. It was made of locally harvested cypress
wood and most of the nails were made by the plantation blacksmith. The picture
below
is of the house after it was completely
restored in 2007.
Lanier, Needham Burch - Born 24 November 1815 in Virginia, the son of Thomas
Lanier and Mary Katherine Peeples.
Eliza Ann Jordan. Her maiden name is believed to
The 1860 Warren County census
lists N. B. and Eliza Lanier with children A. Jordan age 10, May Jordan age 5,
Frank
census they are listed with children
John Lanier
From "The Lanier, Breland
and Clark Families in Mississippi" by Ethel Breland Lanier, January
1976: "Needham Burch
wife and children." This article also quotes Mary
Lanier
of Needham Burch Lanier of
Brunswick County, Va. who went to Warren County, Miss. where his plantations
'Yucatan'
the center of social life during the antebellum years.
siege of
Vicksburg. My great-grandfather Needham
otherwise trashed,
and his slave colony set free by Yankee invaders. Not all of the slaves wished
to be self-
spinning wheel are
still displayed behind
Yankees after the Civil War. However, the old wrought
iron fencing still stands.”
Source: Sam Ewing's
autobiography
Isaiah T. Montgomery –Isaiah T. Montgomery
was born on May 21, 1847, on Hurricane Plantation, Davis Island, Warren County,
Mississippi. He was a slave of Joseph E. Davis, the elder brother of
Confederate
president Jefferson
Davis. Isaiah's father, Ben Montgomery, was afforded the opportunity to educate
himself at the Davis plantation, and he made sure that each of his children had
the same opportunity, including Isaiah.
on Vicksburg, Montgomery was employed by
Admiral David Porter as a Union gunboat porter. He was also present at the
battle of Grand Gulf and the surrender of Vicksburg.
Isaiah T. Montgomery later owned and operated his own cotton mill and
manufacturing company.
Montgomery later resigned due to allegations of financial mismanagement. He
served as a commissioner of the Atlanta Exposition in 1895. Montgomery and
Booker T. Washington organized the National Negro
Business League in 1900. He was also a land agent for the Yazoo and Mississippi
Valley Railroad. Montgomery established the town of Mound Bayou in Bolivar
County, Mississippi. He died on March 7, 1924.
Vick
Family
William Vick (born in Lower Parish, Isle
of Wight Co., Virginia) and Martha Boykin Vick had 9 children. Two of their
sons, Burwell Vick and Newit Hartwell Vick migrated to Mississippi
in the early 1800’s. See the will of William Vick, Sr.
Major Burwell Vick – born May 14, 1761 and died about
1844. He was buried on Nitta Yuma Plantation which was owned by his
son, Henry. Burwell served in the Revolutionary War and
moved to the Vicksburg area in 1812
acquiring vast land grants between Vicksburg and Memphis. He was
actually the first Vick in Warren County. Burwell married Sween
Hobson and
their 4 children were:
1. Major Willis B. Vick, died 1830. Served in the War of 1812
under the command of Colonel William
Willis.
2. Gray Jenkins Vick died about 1848.
3. Martha Patience Vick married Colonel William Willis (served
in the War of 1812) on May 22, 1816 and
they had one child, John
Willis. William Willis served as a state senator and died in 1823 at
Washington,
MS. Martha and John moved to
a home on Crawford Street and Burwell Vick later lived in the home
with them. John married Annie Ricks and
they had a daughter, Frances
Vick “Fanny” Willis born about
1855. William and Martha’s
wedding gifts included a house on Cherry Street and Panther Burn Plantation.
Fannie Vick Willis married Junius Ward
Johnson and they had no children.
4. Col. Henry William Vick, b. 1795, m. Sarah Pearce on February
14, 1832. She was the daughter of James
Anderson and Ann Clark Pearce.
“In 1839, Colonel Henry W. Vick of
Vicksburg, Mississippi, U.S., experimented with
various cotton
seeds and in the 1840s developed “One Hundred Seed.” He was
described on page 122 of the 1868 book
“Cotton Culture” by Joseph Lyman as
follows: “the most persevering and the
most successful of all the Mississippi planters
in the art of perfecting cotton.”
From the website: Vick
One-Name Study
Henry W. and Sarah Vick’s daughter, Mary
Bullock Vick married Alonzo Jefferson Phelps, M.D., B.A. on
October 18, 1865 in Louisville,
KY. They moved to Nitta Yuma Plantation in 1877. He
died there on
September 28, 1897 and Mary died on
February 5, 1901. At Mary’s death he was exhumed and both
buried in Cave Hill Cemetery in
Louisville, KY. Their children were Nannie W. Phelps who married
Peter
George of Dunformline, Scotland, Henry
Vick Phelps, Mary Pearce Phelps who married Count Renato
Piola-Caselli, of Rome, Italy, and Ellen
Bodley Vick Phelps who married Dr. Robert Poe Crump of Nitta
Yuma.
From: Mississippi: Contemporary
biography edited by Dunbar Rowland:
Rev. Newit Hartwell Vick – born March 17, 1766 in
Southampton County, VA and died August 5, 1819 in Open
Woods, Warren County, MS. He
married Elizabeth Clark (born April 16, 1772 in Virginia) in 1791 in Virginia.
They settled in Warren County in 1814,
bought 1,180 acres of land where the old downtown area of Vicksburg
is
now located and established a Methodist church. He and
Elizabeth had 13 children and died of yellow fever
within
a few minutes of each other in 1819.
Walker, Peter F. Vicksburg: A People at
War, 1860-1865. Wilmington, N.C.: Boardfoot Publishing Company,
1987 p. 5.
"When Newitt Vick came to the Old
Southwest some time before 1812, no city crowned the hills; there were only
the vestigial remains of a Spanish fort.
Soon after the turn of the century this Methodist parson, farmer, and father
of thirteen children, left settled Virginia
society, moved to North Carolina, and then came to the bleakness
of the Mississippi Territory. On a
flatboat, he and his family floated down the Tennessee and Mississippi rivers
and
landed a few miles below the confluence
of the Yazoo and the Mississippi… In 1819 he died and left a portion
of
his estate to be divided into plots
of land for the founding of a city."
Vicksburg was incorporated in 1825 and
named Vicksburg in his honor by his brother Burwell and son
Hartwell Vick.
…………………………………………………………
Children of Newitt and Elizabeth Vick:
Hartwell W. Vick, born 5 March 1792, married Sylvia Clark Cook and
died in April 1833 in MS.
Sarah Clark “Sally” Vick, born 22 Jan 1794, married Rev. John Masselon Lane on 27 Oct.
1819. Their children
were Dr. Edward Lane who married Laura Lum on 13 July 1847 in
Warren County and had 3 children: Sarah,
Laura, and a son: Newitt Vick Lane who married #1 Kitty Hamilton
(one daughter, Kitty) and #2 Eunice J. Orr;
Eugenia Lane who married Dr. J. W. King; and John Masselon Lane,
Jr. who died at age 24 and never married.
Rev. Lane died on 10 Oct 1855 of yellow fever.
Ann A. Vick born
9 Dec 1794(?) and married Dr. Robert Anderson Irion, the son of John Poindexter
and Maacah
White Irion of NC.
Mary Tirzah Vick, born 3 Oct 1797, married John Henderson on September
18, 1820 in Vicksburg. She died
November 10, 1836 in Vicksburg.
Children of John Henderson and Mary Vick are:
-Elizabeth Clark Henderson
b. January 1, 1822, Vicksburg and died November 29,
1836,
Vicksburg, MS
-Mary Henderson, born
February 5, 1824, Vicksburg and died November 1825, Vicksburg.
-Robert Henderson, born
January 1, 1826, Vicksburg, and died August 1829, Vicksburg.
-John
Henderson born February 18, 1827, Vicksburg and died. February 25,
1827, Vicksburg,.
-Francis Vick Henderson,
born April 26, 1828, Claiborne Co., MS and died January 2, 1877,
Monticello,
AR.
-Emily Mary Henderson, born
May 16, 1830 and died June 5, 1849 Vicksburg. She married
Archibald
McGehee, Jr., on April 11, 1848 in Bolivar Co., MS.
-William Vick Henderson,
born July 9, 1832, on Plantation 'Just Neur(?)", near New
Orleans,
La. and died October 6, 1907, San Antonio, TX.
Martha Vick born
20 Feb 1800 and died 7 September 1851 in Warren County, MS. She never
married. Below is a picture of her house in Vicksburg which is
available for tours.
“This mini-mansion, built for the unmarried daughter of
Vicksburg's founder, Newit Vick, has been
carefully restored and furnished as a "fine but
comfortable" home. Elegant 18th and early 19th
century antiques and a large collection of fine French paintings
are displayed in every room.”
Eliza White Vick born 10 Dec 1801 in Hertford Co., NC and married Col.
Henry Alexander Morse.
on 10 March 1822 in Vicksburg, MS. She died March 31,
1890. Their children were Rev. Henderson
Anthony Morse, Emily Vick Morse, Alexander Gallatin Morse,
Lucinda Morse and Eliza Hulda
Morse who was born in 1827 in Vicksburg. Eliza married John
Greenway Parham on 27 Nov 1844
in Vicksburg. Their children were James Greenway
Parham, Henry Greenway Parham, Rosa Morse
Parham, Linus Parker Parham, Lucinda Morse Parham, John Greenway
Parham, III, and Junius G.
Parham born 28 Nov 1852 in New Orleans, LA.
Lucy Watkins Vick born 30 Sept 1803, married Col. John Lawson Irwin on
December 26, 1831. She died 26 April 1882 in Ocean
Springs, Jackson County, MS and
is buried in Vicksburg, MS. Children: Jane
S. Irwin, Lucy Vick Irwin, Alice Irwin and
John Irwin.
John Wesley Vick born 1 March 1806 in Jefferson County, MS and
married three times:
1. Ann
Marie Brabston on May 8, 1828 in Washington, Adams, MS. She was born March
31, 1812 in Adams County, MS and died January 1, 1835 in Warren
County, MS.
John Wesley built Linden Plantation in 1827 for
her. It burned in 1956.
2. Frances
Letitia Booker on October 22, 1839. She was born 30 Aug 1819 in Washington
Co, KY, the daughter of Paul Jones Booker and Eliza A. Reed
Booker of Prince Edward
County, VA. They had one child: Letitia Frances
Booker Vick born 24 Sep 1840 in
Washington Co, KY. She married #1 James Robinson
Downs on 14 Jul 1859 in Vicksburg
and #2 John Cowan after 1862. Letitia died in April 1880.
3. Catherine
Ann Barbour on October 7, 1845 in Danville, Boyle Col, KY. She was
born
18 Feb 1818 in Boyle Co., KY and died 29 Sep 1867 in
Lexington, Fayette, KY, the daughter
of James and Letitia Green Barbour. They had two children: John
Wesley Vick and Amanda
Vick born 12 Oct 1855 and married Samuel Davis Robbins on
20 Jan 1880 in Vicksburg.
She died 18 Oct 1907 in Russellville, Logan,
KY. Children: Mildred, Nathaniel, Kate and
Amanda. (All born in Vicksburg, MS)
John Wesley Vick died in March 1888 in Warren County, MS and is
buried in Cedar Hill
Cemetery in Vicksburg.
William F. “General” Vick, born 22 Dec. 1807 in Jefferson County, MS and died on
24 December 1859 at his plantation on Lake Bolivar in Bolivar
County, MS. He’s
buried in Cedar Hill Cemetery in Vicksburg, MS. He
served one term in the state
Legislature when he was 25, but did not run for
reelection. He lived in Vicksburg
until 1836 when he moved to Bolivar County. He was a
general in the state militia.
His plantation was burned by Federal troops during the Civil
War.
He never married, but he along with his sister Martha, helped
raise the children of
their sisters, Matilda and Mary, after their deaths.
Matilda Louisa Vick, born 16 March 1810, married Dr. Samuel D. McCray.
Child: William Vick McCray born 1832.
Amanda Maria Vick, b. 12 June 1812 in MS married Rev. Charles Kimball
Marshall on
December 21, 1836 in Vicksburg, MS. She died in
February 1904.
Emily Franklin Vick, born 1815, married 1st Malachi B. Hamer on 27 Jan
1841 in
Vicksburg, and married 2nd Hiram O. Anderson. She
died 9 Aug 1899 in
Vicksburg.
Newit Holmes Vick, born 11 June 1819 at Open Roads, Warren County, MS.
and
died on 24 Oct. 1855 on his plantation in Yazoo County, MS. He
never married.
After the death of Newit and Elizabeth
in 1819, their oldest daughter Sarah,
and her husband, Rev. John Lane, took
over raising her sisters and brothers.
See the Will
of Newit Vick contained in the landmark Supreme Court case
allowing daughters to inherit from
fathers:
From the J. B. Cain Archives of Mississippi Methodism:
The Rev. Newet (sic) Vick Memorial was established in 1984 by
Crawford Street United Methodist
Church with assistance by the City of Vicksburg, Warren County,
and individual citizens. The burial
site includes Rev. Vick (1766-1819), his wife Elizabeth
(1772-1819) and other family members:
Hartwell Vick, (1792-1833), Theolonia Hartwell Vick (17 months,
17 days old) 1830, Martha Virginia
(1831-1836), Martha Vick (1800-1851).
The memorial is in a rural setting northeast of
Vicksburg: Drive north on Hwy 61 from I 20 1.5 miles
to Culkin. Exit east on Culkin. About 1.5 miles east is a fork
in the road, with Oak Ridge Rd. on the left.
Drive on Oak Ridge about 2.3 miles. The site is on the right,
partially hidden by an embankment. The
stone monument can be seen through the driveway.”
Information on the Vick family was compiled from many resources
on the Internet and is not
guaranteed to be error free.