Fifth Generation

Catherine Magruder is my fourth great grandmother. She is the daughter of Joseph Magruder and Catherine Fleming. he was obviously named for her mother. She was born in 1781 in Montgomery County, Maryland in an area which I believe is now part of Washington DC. She had three older half sisters and four older half brothers. She also had one older sister, Ann and three younger brothers, John Burgess Magruder, Greenberry Magruder, Robert White Magruder. I know she went to a Presbyterian church around there. When she was 17, on April 6, 1798, she married the 28 year old Thomas Spencer Watkins, who was from Ann Arundel county. He was known as Tommie Watkins and moved to Catherine’s family’s lands in the Rock Creek area. They had four sons, Wilson Lee Watkins (1802-1861), Joseph Magruder Watkins (1806-1884), Greenberry Watkins (1808-1896), and White Watkins. Catherine Magruder Watkins died young at the age of 30 in 1811. Tommie Watkins remarried her cousin, Mary Magruder and had a son Samuel Brewer Watkins. Most of Catherine’s descendants moved to Tennessee. They are talked about in the previous post about my roots in Rutherford County, Tennessee.

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As you saw before in the previous post, the children of Ann Magruder, Catherine’s sister, moved to Rutherford County, Tennessee. The Wades were among the first to settle there. William Wade who was James Wade’s brother went first and later settled in Gibson County and had 15 children! James Wade left Maryland around 1819 and set up a farm near Murfreesboro, TN. The Watkins cousins, sons of Catherine also settled around Murfreesboro. My mother has done extensive research on these Rutherford County ancestors. She has more information than I have.

Levi and Samuel Magruder Wade, sons of Ann Magruder and James Wade moved to Rutherford County with their father in 1819. Levi became a successful businessman, banker, and even politician and Samuel, a Harvard graduate, became a doctor.

This is Joseph Magruder Watkins my third great grandfather and father of Annie Elizabeth Watkins. He married first Lavinia Penn and second my third great grandmother, Margaret Linster the daughter of Thomas Wells Linster and Mary Campbell. He is a cousin of Levi and Samuel Wade.

This is Annie Elizabeth Watkins, Joseph Watkins’ daughter. This is the only picture I could find of her. She moved her brothers to Lauderdale County, Tennessee after marrying William Tucker and building Tucker Hill.

This is Joseph Watkins’ half brother and Annie’s uncle Samuel Brewer Watkins. His mother was Mary Magruder. He also moved to Rutherford County and married Mary Ann Wade who is related to his aunt Ann Wade’s husband’s family.

Joseph had other brothers, Wilson Lee Watkins whose family went to Gibson County, Tennessee. He married Carolina Wade daughter of William Wade and Cassandra Jones of Gibson County, Tennessee.

Green lived in Maryland and worked with his father, Thomas Watkins. Green and Samuel Brewer were very close. White died before 1858 in Maryland unmarried. Green took care of his father in his old year got most of Thomas Watkins estate in Maryland. I do not know if Green ever left and what happened to him.

Thomas S. Linster is not related to the Magruders, Watkins, or Wades. He was from North Carolina and moved to Rutherford County, Tennessee after the death of his father, Moses Linster. Thomas soon married Mary Campbell, the daughter of Samuel Campbell and Nancy Mann and they had two daughters, Ann and Margaret. Thomas died when Margaret was one year old and Mary had to raise two young girls by herself. She never remarried. Ann Linster married Edwin Slater when she was 22 years old. Her daughters were known for their beautiful singing voices and talent for learning languages. Margaret stayed with her mother and even traveled with her to visit her North Carolina Linster relatives. She was 26 when she married the 45 year old widower Joseph Watkins. She had four children, Annie, Harry,Wilson Lee, and Elizabeth who must have died very young. Annie went to school in Murfreesboro and became a teacher. She got a job in Ripley, Tennessee where she met the young Virginian, William Tucker. Her mother and brothers soon joined her in Ripley.

 

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I am still working on the Magruders. Luckily there has been a lot of work done. I was doing the descendants of Samuel Magruder, but that got too confusing, so I am beginning with my earliest male Magruder ancestor, Joseph Magruder.

Joseph Magruder was the father of Catherine Magruder who married Thomas Watkins, known as Tommie Watkins. He was born on October 16, 1742 in Montgomery County, Maryland and is the son of Samuel Magruder and Margaret Beall Jackson. Sometime around 1764 he married Mary Jackson, cousin somehow. I don’t have a lot of information about her. They had seven children together: Ruth, Samuel Jackson, Joseph, Margaret, Phillip, Basie, and Elizabeth. Mary died sometime before 1778. On June 15, 1778, he married Catherine Fleming. She had: Ann, Catherine (my direct ancestor), John Burgess, Greenbury, and Robert White. We have al of the dates of their births because we have a copy of Catherine Fleming Magruder’s bible in a book, Our Families, by Virginia Tucker Oliver. Joseph Magruder died in 1793 and was a veteran of the Revolutionary War.

I have a lot of information on the descendants of Catherine Magruder who died young in 1811. My great great grandmother, Annie Watkins, named her son for Catherine’s father, Joseph Magruder. My brother is also named Joseph for this ancestor.

I, so far, have only done the line of Joseph Magruder Jr, whose family settled in Missouri, mainly in Lincoln County. One of his descendants has done a lot of work and has posted most of this work in Family Search of which I am thankful.

Joseph Magruder Jr was the half brother of Catherine Magruder. He was born about 1766 in Maryland. He is mentioned in his father’s will and later in his father in law’s will. He married Mary Belt. The had three children: Carlton, Lloyd and a daughter who died as an infant. At some time, the family went west to Kentucky and then later to Missouri. There is a family story that Carlton was kidnapped and killed by Indians at the age of thirteen. Lloyd Belt married Ann Overall in Kentucky and then settled in Lincoln County, Missouri. I looked up Lincoln County on USGENWEB but was unable to find much about the Magruder family. Lloyd’s granddaughter, Susan Elizabeth Killam Christian joined the American Clan Gregor Society and is mentioned in the 1916 Yearbook. They are described as being Baptists. Most of the information I found on this line is on Family Search and is well documented and organized so someone did a great job! I am still working on Joseph’s Magruder line and will soon move on to the other lines. I wish I had some pictures and more stories on this line of Magruders that are a little bit more closely related than the previous lines I was working on. I am impressed of the work done on this line of Missouri Magruders!

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She was born in October of 1852 in Rutherford County, Tennessee near Murfreesboro, TN. Her parents were Jospeh Magruder Watkins and Margaret Linster. Her father came from Montgomery County, Maryland and settled in Tennessee. He first married Lavinia Penn and had five children with her. She died and then he married Margaret Linster. Margaret had Annie, Harry, Lee, and another daughter.They were supposed to be a musical family and a cousin was known to speak several languages and sing opera. A distant relative sang opera in New York and the household was known to have a piano.

Annie was well educated and came from a very old southern family. She was described as tall and elegant. Unfortunately, there are no pictures of her that I know of.  She went to a girl’s school in Murfreesboro and after graduation became a teacher. She got a job to teach in Ripley, TN along with another of her friends. THey lived in a boarding house where a young Virginian man named William Tucker lived. They ate at the same table together as boarders and began to talk and get to know each other. They fell in love and were married in 1873 when she was 20 years old. They lived on a friend’s property as her husband became more prosperous. He eventually bought and built Tucker Hill for his wife whom he loved dearly. She had seven children. Her brothers and her mother Margaret Linster, joined Annie in Ripley. After the last child, (John Randolph) she became ill. I do not know the nature of the illness. The only picture I have seen of her is from a distance where you cannot see her face and she is holding a cane. She was unable to care for her large family. Her daughters helped her care for the younger children. She was still in charge of her children. According to my grandmother, she wanted her sons to be gentlemen and wanted them to attend college. My great grandfather Joe Magruder Tucker was sent to college at Bethel. Her children were well educated and groomed to be leaders of their community. Her son Joe ended up being mayor of the town of Ripley. I believe that a lot of the success of the Tuckers is due to her. After meeting her, for example, her husband’s life improved greatly. After her daughters got married she lived with them. In her old age, she lived with Daisy Tucker in St. Louis, Missouri where she died in 1917. She was buried in Ripley, Tennessee.

I would have really loved to get to know her. She seems well read and interesting contrasting every stereotype of the stiff woman of the Victorian age who can’t even read newspapers. (I think Ida Majors might have been raised in this way as she was described as “sheltered”) I know she named her son Aubre after a character in a Romance novel! I would love to see a picture of her (she was described as being elegant and graceful) and would like to know what illness she has that kept her in bed for so long.  After I have babies my pelvic bones split making it difficult to walk. I wonder if she had the same problem. The cane is a big clue.  Right now I am focusing on her grandmother’s, Catherine Magruder, family.

  This is the only picture of her that I know of. She is standing in front of her home, Tucker Hill.

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