Fifth Generation

I went to Annapolis last Tuesday and had a wonderful time! Annapolis is a beautiful city on the Chesapeake Bay. It also has a lot of history, including my family history. My Watkins side comes from that area. I am related to the Gassaways, Chews, Burgesses, Watkins, Ridgely’s, and maybe the Howards. I see their names everywhere. I went to St. Paul’s church and found a few gravestones. Some of those buried were related through marriage. There was one Gassaway, but at this time we can’t find a connection. He was a Nicholas Gassaway, son of Captain Nicholas Gassaway who died in 1699. We cannot find this Nicholas Gassaway. I have also seen it transcribed as Thomas Gassaway.

Annapolis is the home of one of my brick walls. My 4th great grandfather was Thomas Spencer Watkins. We know his parents were Joseph Watkins and Ann Brown. We don’t know who Ann Brown’s parents are. She was orphaned as a small child and a Rev. Archibald Spencer took care of her. When he died Ann Brown inherited most of his estate. So was Ann Brown’s mother’s maiden name Spencer? She named her sons Thomas Spencer Watkins and another Archibald Washington Watkins. Thomas Spencer Watkins was born in 1769 in Anne Arundel County Maryland. Archibald Washington Watkins was born in 1778. Their other children were Margaret (1765), named for her paternal grandmother Margaret Lamb, John Watkins (1767), Martha Ann (1771), Joseph (1776), Gassaway (1781), and Richard (1797). There is ancestor John Lamb and John Watkins who married Ann Gassaway.  There are no Richards. Is Richard from the maternal line? There is a Thomas Spencer and a William Brown mentioned in several documents in Ann Arundel County. It is still a mystery.

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My sister-in-law shared a story about a lady who married one of her distant cousins who haunts an inn in Essex, England. The story is cool and I would love to visit there.

We have a couple of ghosts too in our family. We are related to the Grey Lady of Maidstone. She is the daughter of my ancestor’s brother Samuel Chew. “Honorable witnesses have soberly given credibility to the story that there is indeed a ghost, believed to be a later Ann Chew, who in 1724 married Philip Thomas (a forebear of Whitall Thomas Clevenger who now lives in another famous old house in the county.) The wedding was a Quaker ceremony, held at Maidstone, and the marriage certificate was signed by all the witnesses. No one knows what event left the spirit of the “grey lady” unable to rest, but during the last thirty years, Maidstone’s corporal residents and their little grey lady have co-habited tranquilly, neither disturbing the other. ” Ann Chew is the niece of my ancestor Sarah Chew who married Edward Burgess of Maryland. She is the ancestor of Catherine Fleming, the great grandmother of Annie Elizabeth Watkins.

A distant cousin, George Allen Pendleton, also had a house in San Diego, CA that was supposed to be haunted.

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Most of the family of Captain Joseph Magruder lived in St. Paul’s Parish in what used to be Prince George’s Parish. Joseph Magruder’s father was a vestryman in this parish. There is now a beautiful cemetery there in Rock Creek Cemetery, but I don’t think any of my people are buried there. That is a subject of more research. Joseph Magruder and his first wife, Mary Jackson, baptized their son Samuel Jackson Magruder there. Later many of his children converted to other faiths one of his sons becoming a Methodist minister. His son-in-law later did some preaching for the Methodist Church. The church is
located:

St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Rock Creek Parish
Rock Creek Church Road & Webster Street, NW
Washington, DC 2001

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Robert White Magruder was born in 1788 in Montgomery County, Maryland. He is the youngest child of Catherine Fleming and Captain Joseph Magruder. He married Catherine Jane Offutt in 1809 in Maryland and had a son also named Robert White Magruder. He was a judge and moved the family to Missouri near his older half brother Joseph Magruder II’s family. I need to do more research on this line. One of his descendants was Kitty Colma Magruder Trescott of Missouri.

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Greenbury Magruder was born in 1784 in Montgomery County, Maryland and is the younger brother of my fourth great grandmother, Catherine Magruder Watkins. In 1804, he married  Jane Scott in Montgomery County, Maryland. It is not known if he had any children. According to his mother’s bible he was lost at sea in 1810. I don’t know if he was ever found again. I would have to read this case in the chancery courts:

Date: 1822/02/23
12028: Thomas Watkins vs. Willson Magruder, Greenbury Magruder, and Robert White Magruder. MO. Estate of Joseph Magruder - Finish of Trouble Enough, Bedford Shecanor. Recorded (Chancery Record) 120, p. 145.
Accession No.: 17,898-12028-1/5 MSA S512-15-11849 Location: 1/39/4/

I think this had to do with the freeing of all of Catherine Magruder’s slaves, but I am not sure. I need to do some more research.

The Bukey family claims to be descended from Greenbury Magruder. There is a Greenbury Magruder who marries Elizabeth Hurley, but that Greenbury Magruder is from Virginia and was born in 1813. Is it possible that he is Greenbury Magruder’s son? The Greenbury Magruder line is very confusing. Despite the unusual sounding name, there are other Greenbury Magruders all of them too young to be the son of Captain Joseph Magruder. The Bukeys used this line to join the Sons of the American Revolution. I hope to figure it all out. Maybe a descendent of Greenbury Magruder will see this post and help me out! When I get the chance I would like to go to the DAR library in DC and look this information up. The 1946 Yearbook of the American Clan Gregor Society also has some information on this line. I hope I can solve this confusion soon.

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