Ntes on Marion Phillips and George Granger

repost from When I Was 69, 8/4/13 

 Finding Uncle Marion:

The data on my site didn't have his death date or place.
I had his birth date and the state of Georgia, but no details.

Uncle Marion had lots of background material.  He was the elder brother of my grandmother's grandfather, William Phillips, who died as a Confederate soldier.  (I don't know why Marion Phillips didn't fight in that conflict).  Uncle Marion was old enough that when his mother remarried to Samuel Gainer, he might not have continued to be part of the household.  That is unknown.  But he did stay close to them as they moved into Texas.

I also was looking for details of George Granger's life.  The Grangers were  from Newburyport, MA.  One transcriber had given his mother's maiden name some real twists, which used to be why people weren't connected up with their real life events.  Lucy Pulsifer was changed into Lucy Ressiler.  It's easy for me to read her correct name in the handwritten document.  But if you've never heard of the Pulsifers who surveyed the land originally for Beaumont Texas, I guess anything is possible.  They donated land for the city center, and probably some of their descendents received some profits somehow.  Not my family, however.  I think my grandfather and grandmother went from Houston to Beaumont during some property settlement, but came home empty handed. In case you don't know, Beaumont is the site of oil.

Anyway, Marion Phillips never married. And since he was my grandmother's great uncle, I didn't spent much time looking for information on him.  It's hard enough to find out who's parents are whose...and when they lived, and did they marry the same person according to the various census records they appeared in.  Seriously, I'm in the midst of trying to get George Granger's wife (or wives) birthday straightened out.

But, (you know that was coming, didn't you) Uncle Marion was the recipient of many letters, as well as wrote many, between himself and his sisters and parents and brothers and their children from around the Civil War till afterward.  Uncle George, not so much.

The Phillips/Gainer family moved to Texas, sometime around the beginning of the Civil War.   Uncle Marion lived in Galveston as well as Tyler Texas, and I finally found his grave in Woodville, Texas.

I actually have a picture of the grave marker, so now I know when he died, and where.

I've transcribed many of the Uncle Marion letters that were part of the Rogers family genealogy records.  I'm adding them to his site on Ancestry.com. 

And when I get a minute (more like an hour) I'll tell you more details about the letters, the family, and poor Uncle George Granger.  (The Granger family raised my grandmother's mother and sister when Mary Granger Phillips and her husband William died early.  Remember William was Marion Phillips' brother. And Mary was George Granger's sister.)

OK, confusing, I know, and I look at the family tree all the time.

I'll try to be more coherent next time.






What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the Sunset - Crowfoot, a leader of the Blackfoot nation

Great times 3 Uncle Marion J. Phillips 1823-1907

Introduction: All I had to correct was one line of type which was in the wrong font.

I highlighted the one line, brought the cursor up to the type face choice on blogger at the top of my screen.

And then my stupid computer highlighted the whole blog post, and deleted it when I tried to do a "reverse the last action" with control "z".  All of the post...gone. Yep, it saved it before I could close it even.

Yep, I said ARUGH very loudly.

And either could have quit, or tried to remember all I had found about Uncle Marion Phillips all day long in making that post.  I know I won't.  But there are some new pieces of information, which I just shared onto Ancestry today. So I'm going to dedicate another hour to getting what I remember re-written.





Topic:
Great times 3 Uncle Marion was a life long bachelor, thus I'm using his life for the 52 Ancestors 52 Weeks collection this week.
 
How am I related?
He is my paternal grandmother's mother's father's brother.  Her great Uncle Marion.

Born in Fort Gaines, GA...a cotton port town on the Chatahoochee River before the Civil War.  I wrote about his mother recently, Mary C. Phillips Gainer.

I wrote briefly about his life before, so will not repeat that post.  You may look at it here.

He and his parents, and his brother and family all settled in the Tyler County Texas area.

What is new that I will share are the letters that he had in corresponding with his niece, Ada Pulsifer Phillips Sweet.  I've shared about her and her husband's life Here. 

Summary:
I am going to get new glasses this week, and then will attempt to transcribe these wonderful words.  He is writing about purchasing monuments for his brother's wife, Mary Phillips, and his parents, Mary C. Phillips Gainer, and Samuel Gainer.  They were buried in a private plot, and I now see on ancestry photos of that plot, but not the headstones.

And secondly he writes of also being in the same company in the Confederate Army as his brother William. They served in the commissary apparently.

And the third important information has to do with his own ancestry...giving details of the family and where they lived and when.

I can't wait to be able to figure all of that out.

For the future:
In order to foil the computer that eats blogs (Yes, you know who you are!) I will write other blogs about other letters between Uncle Marion and Aunt Ada Sweet, known as Auntie.

Mary C. Phillips Gainer

Late wishes for Mary C. Phillips Gainer's birthday on Feb. 27, born in 1803.

I know very little about her first husband, William Phillips Sr., born in South Carolina.

And just as I typed this, a William C. Phillips was listed on my ancestry tree for my grandmother's family.  In 1820 this William C. lived in Montgomery County, GA with:

Free White Persons -Males - Under 10	2
- Males - 10 thru 15	1
Males - 26 thru 44	1 (Head)
Females - Under 10	2
- Females - 26 thru 44	1 (wife?)
Free White Persons - Females - 45 and over	1 (mother of head or wife?)
Slaves - Males - 26 thru 44	1
Slaves - Females - Under 14	2
Slaves - Females - 26 thru 44	1
Number of Persons - Engaged in Agriculture	4
Free White Persons - Under 16	5
Free White Persons - Over 25	3
Total Free White Persons	8
Total Slaves	4
Total All Persons - White, Slaves, Colored, Other	12

If William C. Phillips is Mary C.'s husband, he would have been born between 1776-1794.  Mary was not born until 1803, so it's unlikely she was the wife in the 26-44 age bracket. And there's an elder female over 45 as well, another unknown.

The children in the household wouldn't have been Marion born in 1823 and William Phillips Jr. born 1832.  So these 3 boys and 2 girls in the 1820 report don't seem to have existed in later census reports of the family. Conclusion: Not my William Phillips Sr. family (at least not one with Mary C.)

There's a family with William Phillips in Early County, GA in the 1830 census:

Free White Persons - Males - 5 thru 9	1 (Uncle Marion b. 1823?)
Free White Persons - Males - 20 thru 29	1 (Head or?)
Free White Persons - Males - 30 thru 39	1 (Head ?)
Free White Persons - Females - Under 5	1
Free White Persons - Females - 10 thru 14	1
Free White Persons - Females - 20 thru 29	1 (Wife)

And yes, they also had slaves.
Much more likely that this William Phillips is the father of William Jr. who married Mary Hull Granger from Massachusetts when they met in Galveston Texas in 1855...on my Ada Phillips Swasey Rogers family tree.  I blogged about Uncle Marion a few years ago Here,

And I told some of the story of Mary Granger and William Phillips Jr. here.  and here and HERE.  
and Here about some pre-Civil War and post-Civil War correspondence.
And this is my post about William Phillips Jr. during the Civil War.

But back to Mary C. Phillips Gainer.  The C. might stand for her maiden name which is still unknown.

The 1860 census would have her birth year as 1804...which is still possible.

Mary C. Phillips Gainer died Oct 2, 1866, and Samuel Gainer, died June 11, 1867, buried in Spurger Hill Cemetery, Tyler County, Texas. Their daughter-in-law, Mary Granger Phillips who died in 1860, is also buried there. Uncle Marion lived until 1907 and is buried in Magnolia Cemetery in Woodville, Tyler TX.

I just have searched a bit more for info on Ancestry about William Phillips Sr. and found that indeed he died around 1836, and Mary C. Phillips was administrator for his estate probated from 1837-38.  She was very adept at counting the value of everything her husband had left. And since the probate records are in Early County, GA, it is clear that the census of the family in 1830 must be the same one.

In 1841, Jan 5, she is listed on a marriage license to Samuel Gainer.  Their wedding is Jan. 7.  He had been married previously also, in 1838, but doesn't have a female living in his household in the 1840 census.  At that time he lived with 2 young men (20-29) and was probably the elder of the household (40-49).  It also states "Persons Employed in Learned Professional - Engineers 2."

It is listed that Samuel Gainer had been born in North Carolina, in 1896.  I have no further information on his family of origin.  But I do know he was considered a Judge.

In 1850 the Early County Georgia census says (though it transcribed his name as Griner)

Samuel Gainer	54 occupation Lawyer, born NC
May C Gainer	47 born Ga
William Phillips	18
Marion Phillips	27

There is no mention of a daughter...though one appeared to the family and claimed to be William and Marion's sister, Ghidora Phillips, born around 1841, following the Civil War. I have a copy of a letter she wrote asking for aid. That was after Grandpa William Phillips had died about 1836, and before Grandma Mary Phillips married Samuel Gainer in 1841.  Maybe a bit suspicious, eh?

That 1850 census is also the one that led me to understand that the Gainer/Phillips family lived in the town of Fort Gaines, Early County, GA...and I wrote about it HERE. 

By 1860, everyone lived in Woodville, Tyler County, Texas.

W Phillips	27 Farmer (William JR) worth:640 real estate
M H Phillips	27 wife (Mary Hull)
M G Phillips	2 female (daughter named Zulieka Granger Phillips)
Sam Gainer	65 Farmer worth: 5000 real estate
M C Gainer	56 (Mary C)
C A Mills 14 male (?)

So I don't have any further information on Mary C.'s family of origin, nor of William Phillips Sr.  It's one of those branches that doesn't go any further back.  But every time I look, I learn more about the families on my trees.