Biography of James Augustus Lawrence

(See Grant, Adair and Go-sa­du-i-sga)—Sarah Jane Adair, born March 10, 1875 at Saline; educated in the Cherokee National schools; Female Seminary, from which she graduated June 23, 1892, and Howard Payne College, Fayette, Missouri June 9, 1896. She married December 29, 1899, James Augustus Lawrence, born Oct. 18, 1856 in Texas.

They are the parents of two sons: Augustus Adair, born April 21,1901 and Gilbert Shelton, born Nov. 3, 1903.

Mr. Lawrence is the principal merchant of Tahlequah, and they have a beautiful home just east of the city.

Mrs. Lawrence is a descendant of the Martin family of Virginia. William Martin, the first known member of this family was a wealthy merchant of Bristol, England. He was the father of three children: George, Nannie and Joseph.

He furnished Joseph with a ship, the Brice, and sent him to Virginia in the first quarter of the eighteenth century to keep him from contracting a marriage in England to which the father objected. Joseph married in Virginia, Susannah Childs, a member of a prominent Colonial family. They settled near Charlotteville, Albermarle County in that state where their third son Joseph Jr., was born in 1740. Joseph Jr. became a fur trader and planter, amassing a great deal of wealth. He was elected Captain of the Transylvania Militia in 1776, became Major February 17, 1779, Lieutenant Colonel in March 1781. His activities were directed against the loyalist (Tory) English, Cherokees and others of the allies in the country west of the Alleghany Mountains, they having been stirred to violence by a letter of May 9, 1776, from the British Superintendent of Southern Indian Affairs, calling on them for concerted action in killing men, women and children of the Revolutionists and their sympathizers. The South had been practically subjugated by the summer of 1780, and it was only by the efforts of such transmountain patriots as Colonel Joseph Martin that it was possible for a part of the soldiers to strike and destroy Ferguson at Kings Mountain October 7, 1780 and thereby turn the tide in favor of the Americans. Colonel Martin was not at King’s Mountain, as he was busy holding the British allies of the West at bay. He was elected Brigadier General of the North Carolina Militia by legislature on December 15, 1787 and was commissioned Brigadier General of the Twentieth Brigade of Virginia Militia by Governor Henry Lee of Virginia, December 11, 1793.

Martinsville, county seat of Henry county Virginia, and the place of his residence was named for him. He visited the Cherokee Nation in 1808, shortly’ after his visit and return home died on December 18, 1808, and was buried with military and Masonic honors. His brother Brice, named for his father’s ship, was a Major in the Creek War. His nephew Brice Hammack was a resident of Warren county, Missouri.

General Joseph Martin married Susannah Fields, nee Emory, and their children were: John, born October 20,1781, first Treasurer of the Cherokee Nation 1819, and the first Supreme Judge 1821. His wives Nellie and Lucy McDaniel were sisters. John Martin was elected Town Site Commissioner of New Echota November 12, 1825. He was a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1827 from Coosweescoowee District. He came west in the spring of 1838 and located on Grand River, near the Grand Saline. He died October 17, 1840 and is buried at Ft. Gibson. Nancy Martin, second child of General Joseph and Susannah Martin, married Jeter Lynch, and Sabra, the third daughter of General and Mrs. Martin married Daniel Davis who was born in 1785 in North Carolina, and he died in June 1866.

Judge John, and Nellie (McDaniel) Martin’s oldest child was Martha, called “Patsy” born April 7, 1815, married June 25, 1829 George Washington Adair, born December 11, 1806. He was one of the leaders of the Treaty party and died April 22, 1862. Mrs. Martha Adair died January 24, 1825. George Washington and Martha Adair were the parents of: William Penn, born April 15, 1 830; Brice Martin, named for his maternal uncle, born November 5, 1830; Dr. Walter Thompson, born March 13, 1838, married Rev. Joseph Franklin Thompson; Benjamin Franklin, born September 22, 1842, served four years in the Confederate service, mar­ried April 4, 1869 Mary Delilah McNair, died April 1885; Benjamin Franklin Adair died September 21, 1894; Rachael Jane, born December 20, 1845 and married Milton Howard McCullough; Cherokee Cornelia Adair, horn June 16, 1848, married Jesse Bushyhead Mayes.
Benjamin Franklin and Mary Delilah (McNair) Adair were the parents of: Brice Martin, born February’ 17, 1870, and died May 27, 1898; Sarah Jane (Bluie) and Cherokee Cornelia, born January 11, 1881; graduated from the Female Seminary, 1899, graduated from Howard Payne College, Fayette, Mo., 1901. Married Junius Brutus Moore, January 10, 1904.


Surnames:
Lawrence,

Collection:
Starr, Emmett. History of the Cherokee Indians and Their Legends and Folk Lore. Oklahoma City, Oklahoma: The Warden Company. 1921

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