Jones County, NC - Biography

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AVERY/COLLIER

Abstracted by Sloan Spence Mason        

NOTE: Additional notes on this family as they pertain to Jones and Craven 
Counties, NC will be posted on http://www.carolinacuzins.org/jcncindex.html


Draper Manuscripts
N.C. Series
1743-1874
Series KK V.1
Wisconsin State Historical Society
LDS Film # 0889173

The DRAPER MANUSCRIPTS were a collection of records, letters, family histories 
etc. Lyman C. DRAPER and other DRAPER family members collected concerning the 
Revolutionary War, and Colonial Times. This is a very large collection; it is 
indexed; most of it is. It was donated to the Wisconsin State Historical Society; 
I believe Mr. DRAPER lived and died in Wisconsin. The Manuscript is available on 
microfilm through the LDS family history center; and many large libraries may 
have partial copies. (I will try to clarify what I can on this document, since 
I transcribed it. Research on the families, will prove this letter's contents 
true or false)


p.1-4
Copy of Jn. T. AVERY'S Sketch of Col. Wrightstill AVERY - (letter to Draper)
The letter was written by John T. AVERY to Lyman C. DRAPER, date unknown.

Col. Wrightstill AVERY was the son of Humphrey AVERY, of the county of New 
London, township of Norwich or Groton, Conn. We have no record of his birth, 
supposed to have been born about 1745. He was one of nine brothers who lived to 
manhood, they had one sister who married an AVERY-they removed & settled in 
Tioga Co., N.Y. Of the brothers, 2 were killed at Wyoming and 1 at the storming 
of Ft. Griswold. I believe sometime of twelve of the name fell there.

(He is still talking about Wrightstill AVERY-below)

I - write this a certificate of this trustees at N. Jersey (Princeton College) 
from which it could appear that he was a tutor before he graduated. On leaving 
college he removed to Somerset Co, Maryland, taught a grammar school & studied 
law with Littleton DENNIS, & from there emigrated to N.C. He settled in 
Mecklenburg Co, lived with Hezekiah ALEXANDER. He assisted in founding a 
library and establishing a Classical school in Charlotte-both perhaps, among 
the first in the state.

At the breaking out of the Revolution, he seems to have been occupied with 
business, often Council of Safety. He went to Charleston, and obtained from the 
Council the first powder and lead ever brought into a Province for Revolutionary 
purposes, was sent with orders to Gen. WILLIAMSON, subsequently wrote orders to 
Gen. RUTHERFORD in the Cherokee nation; was appointed by Gov. MARTIN, with Gen. 
LENOIR and MCDOWELL, to hold a treaty with the Indians, which the breaking out 
of hostilities, prevented; he was subsequently appointed with SHARPE & WINSTON 
to hold and did make, the treaty of the Long Islands of the Holston. He was 
subseq. App. Attorney General which he resigned in consequence of ill health.

(Below-Jno. T. AVERY talks about his family)

My maternal grandmother's name was LANE. She lived at Snow Hill, in Maryland; 
mariner the Captain of a Ri--- arrived a vessel, a Welshman names Yelverton 
Peyton PROBART, he had 3 daughters and 1 son. (It was unclear at this point to 
figure out if she married Y. P. PROBART or not) My grandmother while the 
children were young married a Mr. COLLIER of New Bern or its vicinity, & brought 
the family to N.C. (Jno. T. AVERY'S mother married 1)Martin FRANKS; no issue 
2)Wrightstill AVERY in 1778 and resided in New Bern)

My mother married Martin FRANKS & settled at White Rock on the Trent River, ten 
miles from New Bern. Mr. FRANKS died without issue; & my father while a member 
of Legislature at New Bern, became acquainted with mother & married her in 1778, 
resided there; was commissioned as Colonel of Jones Co. by Gov. CASWELL, was a 
short time in service. While he resided in Jones Co. the British took Charlotte, 
and burned his library-about all he had realized by his practice. (Talks about 
library in Mecklenburg Co. above)

My mother's 2 sisters, were married, 1 to a man named CLARKE and another to 
LAVENDER. They were taken prisoners at Brier Creek, carried to Bermuda and died 
there. My father and mother took the LAVENDER children and raised them. Mr. 
COLLIER (Mr. COLLIER, of New Bern had married his grandmother)the CLARKE 
children,(Jno. T. Avery's cousins, by mother's sister) the son PROBART, went to 
England to procure under the laws of primogeniture the estate of one Welsh 
ancestor and found a very pretty estate in the possession of 2 old maids; but he 
had neither the mind nor the means to got to law for it. His Uncle LANE of 
Maryland, died a bachelor, and gave his oldest son William Yelverton PROBART an 
estate worth $100,000 dollars, and it ruined him. He was a good fellow and it 
made him a fool, and he spent it in a very short time.

I know but little of my maternal kindred. There is a family of LANES near 
Wilmington that are relatives, some of the COLLIERS I have seen---- Governor of 
Alabama I believe of that stock.

Of course, I do not expect you to publish any of this, and would not write it 
to any person but you; but believing you to know more about the private history 
and families of that state than any man in it since had a Cameron'? Death?, I 
thought I would add my mind? To the general stock you posses.

Wrightstill AVERY'S children: wife Leah
Mrs. Polly M.? SUMMY? Was born 3 Oct. 1779
Mrs. Eliz. LENOIR, relict of Wm. B. LENOIR, August 1782.
Isaac T. AVERY born 22 Sept. 1785.
Selina Lenoir born Oct. 1788. Selina AVERY married a LENOIR
All living at the last accounts.
Col. Wrightstill AVERY died 16 March 1821.
Mrs. Leah AVERY, consort of W. AVERY, died 20 Jan. 1832, in the 84th year of 
her age.

It was BLANCHARD, a nephew of Martin FRANKS who lived with my mother who was 
taken in the night, with a highly respectable neighbor within a house he was 
spending the night, for mutual safety, as they thought, and they were both shot 
by the Tories within half a mile of the house.

(No date)

(Why John T. AVERY does not list himself and his birth, I do not know.)

p.4-6

(copy)
Burke Co, N.C.-7 July 1833

Dear Sir,

You were kind to favor me with a copy of your address to the Historical Society. 
I believe I mentioned to you that day I had the pleasure to see you in 
Morgantown, that I had the day I read the address, chanced on an old letter from 
Col. James ROBERTSON carrying the personal history of N. Carolina? --- to the 
17th of October, 1777-that letter I enclose.

In looking for ROBERTSON'S letter today, I opened a file of letters from my Uncle 
Sam'l AVERY, extending from 1769 through several years. Chancing to pen one dated 
in April 1775. I was struck with some passages in it, and enclose it to you, to 
see if you take the same view that I do. I had not ---- from ------ my 
publications or subsequent history that the extortions of the Kings clerks or 
magistrates had produced? In the other provinces the same scenes of violence 
bloodshed & had supposed the Regulators were exclusively N. Carolinians. It would 
seem from the expressions alluded to, that except the actual rising in arms, the 
same violence existed at the North, and was even came farther. Isaac T. AVERY 
(written by Isaac T. AVERY, son of Wrightstill AVERY)
(Gov. SWAIN)

(The pages here were military correspondences of Wrightstill AVERY, written during 
the Rev. War concerning supplies, etc.-these were not copied)

P.12
(COPY) (This was a letter of introduction from the College of New Jersey for 
Wrightstill AVERY, which he carried to Mecklenburg Co., N.C.)

Nassau Hall, June 6, 1767

This may certify all and whom it may concern.
That Wrightstill AVERY, the bearer hereof, has been employed in teaching a school 
in the college, from Sept. 1766, til April 1767. The specimen he gave in this 
station of his abilities in governing and instructing youth, together with the 
proficiency he has made in the arts, sciences, and learned languages, and also 
his prudent, discreet and modest behavior and unblemished moral character, induce 
us to join in recommending him as a person well qualified to instruct youth and to 
guide their morals.

Jas. HALSEY
James THOMSON
Jos.? EDWARDS
Tutors of the College of New Jersey

Copied from the original letter loaned me by Mrs. Mary A. CHAMBERS, of 
Morgantown, N.C, grand daughter of W. AVERY. (Mrs. Mary A. CHAMBERS, 
Granddaughter of Wrightstill AVERY)
April 20th, 1880
L.C. DRAPER

p.16-17
North Carolina

Tryon County

Personally appeared before me, the subscriber, one of his Majesty's Justices of 
the Peace for the said County, James HENDERSON, and made oath, that about the 
close of November last, he happened to be at a meeting at the house of Robert 
ALEXANDER, when the said ALEXANDER as a Captain desired of his men to go out 
into S.C. to the assistance of Col. RICHARDSON against the insurgents against 
American Liberty there, when Wm. MOORE, Esq. Came in company, and did all he could 
to dissuade the people from going, and told them that they had not surety for 
their pay; and when he was told that Col. GRAHAM would be obliged to be surety for 
their pay, he replied that said GRAHAM was no Colonel; and that they had no right 
to give commissions that gave him his commission; and that there was no regular 
Congress held at Hillsborough, but that they were a pack of rogues and ruining 
the county, and likewise told the people who would have enlisted as minute men, 
that he could not see how they would count on their pay, as there was no regular 
Committee or Congress, and thereby prevented the people from enlisting and also 
in talking said that Col. MARTIN was a rogue and a fool, and ruining the country 
by virtue of his present proceedings as a Colonel for Liberty; and told the 
people that if they took none of the public money, they would have none of it to 
pay.

Sworn and subscribed before me this 29th day of March 1776

James HENDERSON
David JENKINS

Transcribed from the original among the mis. Papers of Wrightstill AVERY, of N.C.
L.C.D. (Lyman C. DRAPER)

Endorsed:" Arthur GRAHAM, compt.? Vs. Wm. MOORE, Esq.
Tryon Co.
1776

p.43
State of North Carolina
Salisbury Superior Court
September Term 1779
This is to certify that the following persons who were tried at the said Court, 
and capitally convicted of High Treason, were by the several Petit Jurors who 
posed? on their said Trials, humbly ---- --- to Mercy (to wit)

William ADAMS
Moses CHEETWOOD
Shadrick CHEETWOOD
Michael SITES?
Frederick WISE

Test: H. GIFFARD, C.S.C.

Endorsed 
No. 5
Cert'd persons recommended to Mercy by Jurors, Salisbury Co., Sept. Tern, 1779

Copied from original among personal papers of Wrightstill AVERY.
L.C.D. (Lyman C. DRAPER)


End of Papers of Wrightstill AVERY

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