On my list of favorite headstones is one in Zion Baptist Church Cemetery in Haywood County, Tennessee. Until this week, I thought it marked the graves of my third great-grandparents, Benjamin Franklin Marbury (1849-1884) and his wife, Margaret “Maggie” Yelverton Marbury (1853-1884).
The problem there is the name.
While working on the Yelverton line, I could not get Margaret’s birth date to match the dates in any of the U.S. censuses in which she appeared. I assumed “Mary,” the name on the tombstone, must have been a nickname for Margaret. But many Ancestry.com family trees note the woman buried there was Mary Wilkins Marbury (1847-1918), with the dates 1847-1918.
A look at the 1860 census shows Margaret Yelverton, daughter of Samuel W. Yelverton (1828-1876), as 7 years old. That would place her birth around 1853, not 1847. That is a pretty big mistake for either the census or the headstone to make.
I could not find anything online or in books that cleared it up, so I figured I was stuck.
Then I remembered that about a year ago, I visited with my cousin Janet Marbury Lewis, who is also from the Marbury line. Janet had some of the research and notebooks of her late aunt, Alice Marbury Cobb (1908-2004), who was working on ancestry long before the internet made it easier. Thankfully, I had taken photos of some of Aunt Alice’s notes.
From the notes of Alice Marbury Cobb.
And there I found the answer. At some point, Alice had figured it out and made a note in one of her notebooks. Maggie Yelverton was Benjamin’s first wife. The “Mary” buried with him was his second wife, Mary Wilkins Marbury.
With all the new online ancestry research tools, the most valuable tool in this case was a note written by a mutual descendant I never got to meet.
The Yelverton Line
Maggie Yelverton was born in Tennessee in 1853 to Samuel W. Yelverton and Annie M. Sherrod Yelverton (1834-1880). I previously had Annie listed as Ann M. Forrest, but later research indicates she was Ann or Annie Sherrod and was likely raised by Samuel W. Forrest (1794-1860) and Zilpha Sherrod Forrest (1797-1870), who had no children of their own.
A few places I have seen it written that Samuel was in the same family group as Nathan Bedford Forrest, but I have not found that to be true. Today, DNA prooves that assertion is most certainly false.
Samuel Forrest moved to Haywood County from Wayne County, North Carolina. By 1850, he and Zilpha were living there with Annie Sherrod and their nephew, Sam Yelverton.
Ten years later, in the 1860 census of Haywood County, Sam and Annie had married and had the first five children in what would become a family of 11. Maggie, their second-oldest child, was 7 at the time.
The Yelvertons were successful farmers. Samuel listed the value of his real estate as $3,200 and his personal property as $3,200. At the time, Sam Yelverton enslaved four people: two 15-year-old females, an 8-year-old female and a 4-year-old boy.
The family farm was near the home of Samuel and Zilpha Forrest, who had helped raise Annie. The Forrest household listed the value of its personal property at $10,660 and had five slave houses, so they were prosperous, especially for that time and place.
On Sept. 20, 1868, Maggie, then about 15, married Benjamin Franklin Marbury in Haywood County.
The Marbury Family
Family researchers trace the Marbury line back through Francis Marbury (about 1663-1734), who immigrated from England to Maryland in the late 1600s. The Marbury family is loaded with interesting characters and, if you are willing to hop back and forth between husbands and wives for a few generations, it appears possible to get all the way back to Alfred the Great.
The one important caveat is that one stretch of the line, around the colonial Maryland Marburys and their earlier English connections, appears likely rather than fully proved. I wrote about that a few months ago.
The people in these tintype photos, shared by Janet Marbury Lewis, are unidentified but are thought to have been passed down from Robert Green Marbury. I wonder if any of them could be Benjamin Franklin Marbury, Maggie Yelverton or Mary Wilkins.
Ben’s father, Robert Green Marbury (1809-1904), moved with his family from North Carolina, first to Middle Tennessee and then, in the 1810s, to Haywood County. He became a well-respected minister in the Primitive Baptist Church and conducted hundreds of marriages and funerals in Haywood County during the mid-1800s.
The family story becomes a little complicated here. Robert may have adopted Ben from another family member or taken responsibility for him and his siblings when their parents could not. In a court document dated Nov. 5, 1860, Robert Marbury, then 51, became the “sole guardian” of John L. Marbury (1841-1868), Robert Green Marbury Jr. (1845-unknown), Ben F. Marbury, Joseph Marbury (1851-unknown) and Rush W. Marbury (1853-1935).
For some reason, Thomas Jefferson Castellaw Jr. (1841-1879), another third great-grandfather on my paternal side, became the guardian of Pleasant H. Marbury (1843-1914), who was a brother of the other children.
Ben and Maggie Marbury
When Ben married 15-year-old Maggie in 1868, he was 19.
Ben would have been quite young during the Civil War, which had ended about three years before his marriage. There was a B. F. Marbury who served in the 11th Tennessee and a Benjamin Marbury who served in the 16th Tennessee. Both were from Tennessee, so it is possible Ben served at a very young age, but I have not confirmed that either soldier was this Benjamin Franklin Marbury. Ben’s second wife does not seem to have applied for a Civil War pension.
Ben and Maggie’s first baby, an infant son (1869-1869), died shortly after birth.
Their family then grew quickly. Their known children included Wiley Marbury (1872-unknown), Hardy Joyner Marbury (1872-1932), Robert Woodson Marbury (1876-1950) and John M. Marbury (1876-1943). Hardy Joyner Marbury would later become the father of my great-grandmother, Allie Ern Marbury Brantley (1898-1995).
Maggie died in 1884 when she was only about 31.
Ben married Mary Wilkins soon after on March 4, 1884. She was in her mid-30s and lived in Haywood County. She quickly became pregnant.
The couple’s only child was born December 27, 1884.
The marriage was short-lived as Ben also died at some point in 1884 before his daughter was even born. According to family stories, he was killed by a train while walking down the tracks between Jones Station and Allen’s Station in Haywood County. I have found no proof to substantiate that claim.
What happened next? Did Mary continue to live on Ben’s farm and help raise his children or did she only raise her daughter? The census records of 1890, that would provide the most help, were destroyed in a fire.
The census of 1900 records Mary living with her daughter who was age 15 and a white male servant named Johnny Williams who was 22. Mary was listed as a farmer who owned her home and property outright. Mary never remarried and died at age 70 in 1918.
Photo: Betsy S. Waddell / Mary Wilkins Marbury
In the census of 1900, the next to youngest son of Ben and Maggie, John W. Marbury, and his uncle Eddie E. Marbury were living as borders with S. T. C. Moody, a housekeeper. Eddie was 22 and John was 23. Another of Ben and Maggie’s sons Robert Woodson Marbury was 25 in 1900 and was living nearby as a boarder with the Cain family.
Photo: Betsy S. Waddell / The sons of Ben and Margaret Yelverton Marbury and the daughter of Ben and Mary Wilkins Marbury. l to r, top row: John W., Rosa and Robert, bottom row: Hardy Joyner Marbury and Wiley.
Where the boys lived between when their parents died in 1884 and the 1900 census is unknown.
Photo: Betsy S. Waddell / Rosa Marbury Thomas
It was most likey her daughter Rosa who selected the headstone for her mother with whom she was raised and the father who died before she was born.
There is certainly a lot more to learn about this story, but I do have one other photo that relates to it.
Photo: Betsy S. Waddell / My great-grandmother, Allie Marbury Brantley, and her daughter, Virginia Brantley Lovelace (1917-2007), my grandmother, visiting Allie’s aunt, Catherine “Rosa” Marbury Thomas, around 1917.
This photograph shows my maternal great-grandmother on a visit with some of her Marbury family including her Aunt Rosa. My mother remembers Rosa being a large woman, so I assume she could be the woman standing directly behind my great-grandmother. Rosa lived until 1956.
May 24, 1956, The Jackson Sun
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