JPT Bio 8 10

JAMES PETER TREZEVANT (1815-1860) A Brief Biographical Sketch by Robert Warren Trezevant--August 2010 --------- James P. Trezevant’s private life--1815-1835--birth through college ---------- Sources for this private life narrative (before and after the Texas Revolution): The Trezevant Family in the United States by John Timothee Trezevant (The State Co., Columbia, S.C., 1914); History of the Gignilliat Family of Switzerland and South Carolina by Robert Gignilliat Kenan (Southern Historical Press, Easley, S.C., 1977); Sketch of the Life of Mrs. Charlotte Trezevant Gignilliat, 1819-1910 [JPT’s sister], Written by Herself at the Request of Her Children and Grandchildren, (in 1905-6, edited by R. Read Gignilliat and Robert Deas Gignilliat IV, 2009); Family Stories and Reminiscences of Ante Bellum Days Told by Margaret Gignilliat Holmes (1847-1920) [Charlotte’s daughter, JPT’s niece}, written 1918; tombstones in the Masonic cemetery, Delhi, La.; and personal reports from family historian Richard Allen [Additional sources for the Texas Revolution period will be included in that section.] ---------- As we know from the two genealogy books and his tombstone, James Peter Trezevant was born in Charleston, S.C., on 23 Nov. 1815. He seems to have grown up in a fairly well-off family whose origins were French Huguenot (arriving in Charleston in 1685). His father, John Farquhar Trezevant (1791-1821), was the oldest surviving son of Peter Trezevant (1768-1854) and his wife, Elizabeth Willoughby Farquhar (1772-1845). She was the only child of Robert Farquhar of Charleston, S.C., whose brother John was a Scottish merchant who had made a fortune manufacturing gunpowder in India. When John died in 1826, Elizabeth inherited one-seventh of his huge estate, and she and her husband Peter moved to England, where they both died. Meanwhile, John Farquhar Trezevant had married Margaret Pepper Gignilliat (1791-1862), from another prominent South Carolina family. [Portraits of her parents, James Gignilliat (1746-1794) and Charlotte Pepper Gignilliat (1748-1803), done by Henry Benbridge, are now owned by Colonial Williamsburg and have previously been on display in the Refusal Room at Carter’s Grove Mansion.] John Trezevant and Margaret Gignialliat were married on 13 May 1813. John was a lawyer in Charleston. He died at age 29 at Coosawatchie, S.C. They had six children: Charles Simons Trezevant (1814-1870), twins--John Edward Trezevant (1815-died in infancy) and James Peter Trezevant (1815-1860), Elizabeth Willoughby Trezevant (1817-1885), Charlotte Gignilliat Trezevant (1819-1910), and George Warren Cross Trezevant (1820-1893). When John Trezevant died on 23 Aug. 1821 of “bilious fever,” he left five living children, his son James being only 5 years old. His widow, Margaret, and the children remained in Charleston for a year. Meanwhile, the wife and several children of her youngest brother Henry Gignilliat (1786-1854) had died by 1819. Margaret and the five children went to live with him at plantation “Contentment” in McIntosh county, Ga. John Trezevant’s younger brother, Daniel Heyward Trezevant, M.D., (1796-1862) had married in 1820 and lived in Columbia, S.C. As of 1821 they had not yet had children, and he persuaded his sister-in-law Margaret to let them take care of her two oldest children, Charles and James. He claimed they could have a better education in the city than on a plantation. The boys stayed in Columbia until 1824 with their uncle and were then sent to boarding school in Darien, Ga. At some point Henry Gignilliat lost his plantation and had to move to Glynn county, so Margaret moved her entire family to Darien about 1826. During this time the Trezevant family’s fortunes changed for the better. In 1826 John Farquhar, the uncle of James’ paternal grandmother, Elizabeth Willoughby Farquhar, died in England. He had amassed a fortune in India, but his only survivors were seven nephews and nieces, of whom Elizabeth was one. (The other six were the children of John Farquhar’s two sisters in Bilbo, Scotland). Elizabeth Farquhar’s mother, Elizabeth Fagan Farquhar (1747-1773), had died when her only child was just one year old. Her father Robert Farquhar (1743-1784) had died in an accident when she was twelve years of age, and she had been left in the care of family friends in Charleston until her marriage. With her inheritance she and her husband Peter moved to England with their unmarried children. From England they continuously sent gifts and money to their married children in the States, including their widowed daughter-in-law, Margaret, and her children. With that money Margaret could send her children to school (the Academy in Darien) and (in James’ case) to prep school and South Carolina College (in Columbia, S.C., later the University of S.C.). Charles finished grammar school but refused to prepare himself for college. At age 17 (about 1831) he began clerking in a store. He later spent time at sea, ending up in England with his grandparents, who sent him back to Darien. His brother James, however, did continue his formal education. He went to a preparatory school in Columbia, S.C., and attended South Carolina College there for a couple of years or so. (South Carolina College was founded in 1805 and became the University of S.C. in 1906.) He would have been 19 years old at the end of the spring term and into the fall of 1835. ---------- James P. Trezevant’s military experience in the Texas Revolution--1835-1836 When I decided to apply to join the Sons of the Republic of Texas in 1974, I had only a few pieces of evidence to use. One was my genealogical connection to James P. Trezevant (I’m a great-great-grandson.) as shown in the family genealogy book of 1914. The other was the inscription on his tombstone in the Masonic cemetery in Delhi, La. Sacred to the Memory of Major James P. Trezevant Born in Charleston, S.C. Nov. 23, 1815 Rose from Private in the ranks of the revolutionary army of Texas, to Major in command, at the age of 21 years. Died at Lucknow, Franklin Parish La. Nov. 2, 1860 In the 45th year of his age. (Masonic cemetery in Delhi, La.) My sister, Carolyn Louise Trezevant, a reference librarian at East Texas State University (now Texas A&M--Commerce), supplied me with more formal and specific documentation. One listed “Trezevant, James P.” in “Left Colonel Ward’s command, on Guadalupe, on night of March 21 and escaped” from The Presidio La Bahia del Espritu Santo de Zuniga 1721-1846 by Katherine Stone O’Conner, p. 149. The other was a copy of two paragraphs in Bounty and Donation Land Grants of Texas 1835-1888 by Thomas Lloyd Miller.. The one on p. 645 reads: “Trezevant, James P. Received Bty Wnt 306 for 960 acres from CC on 3 Nov 1860 for ‘service to 19 Nov 1836.’ Dup Wnt 33/1 was issued by CGLO on 5 Nov 1874. 640 acres and 320 acres in Dimmit Cty were ptd to him on 17 Apr 1875. Pat 114 Vol 15 and Pat 130 Vol 15 Abst 708-709 GLO Files Bexar Bty 1632 and 1635.” The one on p. 858 reads: “Received Don Cert 125 for 640 acres from CC on 13 Nov. 1860 for having ‘participated in battle of Mission Refugio.’ 640 acres in Dimmit Cty were paid to him on 3 May 1875. Pat 619 Vol 3 Abst 710 GLO File Bexar Don 1634. This file contains a copy of the original cert made by the Commissioner of the General Land Office on 28 Sept 1874.” On the basis of the above evidence I was accepted as a Son of the Republic of Texas in January 1975. ---------- Essentially, then, as of 1975 I knew only a few things about James P. Trezevant himself and his connection to the Texas Revolution But thirty-five years later in 2010 I had the great good fortune of being contacted through ancestry.com by a distant cousin from Georgia, Richard Allen, a descendent of James’ brother, Charles. Rick, an avid researcher and family historian, had documents that provided information about James far beyond what I knew. Rick Allen had utilized the memoirs of Charlotte Trezevant Gignilliat (James’s younger sister) and her daughter Margaret Gignilliat Holmes (James’s niece), and he connected me to Read Gignialliat, who sent me copies. Both writers connect James to San Jacinto. Charlotte’s narrative described what happened to him after college: “The boys got at play one evening on the campus, making considerable noise[;] one of the professors to identify them was creeping from tree to tree to get up before they scattered. My brother was in his room looking out of one of the windows and saw it. He called out[,] ‘Boys, Lehr is upon you[.]’ Of course, they scattered but Professor Lehr called to my brother, saying[,] ‘Trezevant[,] I hold you responsible[.]’ My brother thought that he would be expelled, so without saying a word to uncle Heyward Trezevant, he left that night for Augusta [Ga.] He had just got the money to pay the next term in advance so he had that to start with. He stopt [sic] in Augusta to see a young lady he was in love with, then went to New Orleans. Forest a celebrated actor was playing there at that time. He went to the St. Charles Hotel, where Forest was boarding, but he was out. My brother met Capt. Ward, just from Georgia with a company he had raised to go to Texas. My brother, a boy of nineteen [actually 20 after 23 Nov.

Load more