---

Sketch of Col. Wrightstill Avery

---

 

Draper Manuscripts

N.C. Series

1743-1874

Series KK V.1

Wisconsin State Historical Society

LDS Film # 0889173

Transcribed and submitted by Sloan S. Mason

 

p.1-4

Copy of Jn. T. AVERY'S Sketch of Col. Wrightstill AVERY- (letter to Draper)

 

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.

 

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.

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. My grandmother while the children

were young married a Mr. COLLIER of New Bern or its vicinity, & brought the family

to N.C. 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.

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 the CLARKE children, 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:

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.

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)

 

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

(Gov. SWAIN)

 

P.12

(COPY)

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.

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 hat 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.

 

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.

 

 

 

Silas McDOWELL Papers

p.50

 

Return to Biographies on Misc. Page

HOME