Grandfather, Elias Martin
The Martin family was prolific, with many couples having eight or more children. Even after only three generations, there were many descendants of the immigrant John Joseph Martin. We begin the study of the family of our Black Horse Martin brothers with their grandfather Elias Martin and his forbears.[269]
Fauquier County in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century
Our Martin family began its history in Fauquier County early in the Nineteenth century. They became residents of Fauquier County when it was created in 1759, split off from Prince William County and given its current boundaries. The county was part of the Proprietorship of the Northern Neck. Almost all the Fauquier land had been granted by the Proprietors by 1750. Many migrated from Fauquier to the Shenandoah Valley and the Carolinas. A “Carolina Road” ran across the middle of the county. The first settlers arrived in the 1720s and the county grew rapidly. In 1760, based on the count of 1693 tithes, an estimated 3,500 people lived in Fauquier. By 1775, eleven years after Elias Martin was born, the population was about 8,000- 8,500. By the end of the century the population was about 15,000, and reached a peak in the 1830s of about 30,000. This number was not surpassed for over one-hundred years.[270]
John Joseph Martin and His Wife Eve
Elias Martin was the grandson of the immigrant John Joseph Martin and his wife Eve. John Joseph Martin (Johann Jost Merten) was born three years before the College of William and Mary opened in Williamsburg, 24 May 1691 in Mueson, Nassau-Siegen, Germany, and emigrated from Germany in 1713 with the first Germanna colony of 1714. His ancestry goes back to the 1500s. He was the seventh known generation of his family. (See the earlier chapter on Germanna and Germantown.) He was married twice and had about ten children, including Tilman.
Tilman and Elizabeth Martin
Elias was the son of Tilman Martin (born ca 1730-35; died 1779) and his wife Elizabeth. Tilman [recheck.] and Elizabeth had about eight children. Elias had two brothers who were soldiers killed in the Revolutionary War. Elias’ brother Joel married Mary Ann Hitt. He was killed in 1781. Elias’ brother William was also believed killed in 1781. [271] [272] [Check murder of bastard child reference M 8-446, 1787.]
“Fauquier County Court 24th of April 1787. …Ordered that it be certified that ELIAS MARTIN is the Heir at Law of WILLIAM MARTIN, a Soldier who died in the Continental Army, and that ELIZABETH MARTIN is Mother and next of Kin to said WILLIAM MARTIN.”[273]
Elias Martin
Elias Martin was born 15 September 1764 and died 26 November 1832,[274] at age 68. His life spanned a period in our history that began shortly before the Revolutionary War and ended in the month that Andrew Jackson was elected President (who stopped in Warrenton on the way to his inauguration).
Elias is buried in the Martin Family Cemetery. His tombstone is a rude fieldstone with just his initials, age and death date.[275] [276]
[Get photograph of Elias gravestone.]
Two Wives Named Mary
Elias Martin’ first marriage was to Mary Mountjoy in Fauquier County. (See Appendix 5 for details on her family.) Their marriage bond is dated October 12, 1791.[277] He was 27.
Her birth date is unknown, but since she did not require permission from her parents to marry, she was at least 21, therefore born before 1770. We know she was his first wife because we have the death date and age at death of his second wife, also named Mary, from the Elias Martin Family Bible. From this we can compute her birth date. This other Mary would have been only ten-years-old at the marriage of Elias and Mary Mountjoy. She had to be his second wife.Elias’ second wife Mary’s last name is unknown. But, we know she was born
April 1781.[278] If they were married a year or so before the birth of
her first child, Mildred, their marriage would have been about 1804/5. He would have been about 40 and she about 23. There is no marriage record for them in Fauquier County. She lived for twenty years after her husband’s death and at age 71, died 17 September 1852.[279] [280] [281] [282] In the 1850 census[283] at age 69, she was living with her daughter Ann’s family.
Elias’ Will
Elias Martin’s will was dated November 12, 1832, fourteen days before his death, and was probated December 24, 1832.[284] He left his wife Polly (a nickname for Mary) land on Licking Run. He mentions all five of his children in his will.
He had two children by his first wife and three by his second. His children married into families of the Fauquier gentry.
The five children were:[285]
By his first wife Mary Mountjoy:
- William E. Martin who married Nancy Robbins of Tennessee, and who died young.
- John Martin, who married Susan A. Fisher. By his second wife Mary ______:
- Ann Coleman Martin who married William Phillips Ficklin.
- Mildred Waggoner Martin who married Lewis Shumate, Jr.
- George Washington Martin, not married and who died young.
Only John lived past middle age. John and his two sisters had sons in the Black Horse Cavalry.
William E. Martin
William was born 2 December 1794 and at age 38 died 21 November 1833. He married Nancy Robbins of Tennessee in August 1824.[286] We know from his brother George’s will that he had children, but they are not known. There is no record of his marriage, death or will in Fauquier County. Some researchers have confused Elias’s son with another William E. Martin who married Elizabeth W. Brown in Fauquier.[287] [288]
John Martin
John Martin was born 8 October 1796, and died at his farm in Fauquier 25 July 1876[289] [290] [291] aged two months shy of 80. He married his neighbor Susan A. Fisher[292], 12 January 1829. There is no record of a middle name. (See Chapter 4 for details on John Martin’s family.)
Ann Coleman Martin
Ann Coleman Martin was born 7 April 1805 and died 22 February 1854 at age 48.[293] The Reverend George Lemmon married Ann and William Phillips Ficklin, 6 April 1836. (See Appendix 3 for details on this family.)
Mildred Waggoner Martin
Mildred Waggoner Martin was born 22 September 1806. Rev. John Ogilvie, pastor of Upper Goose Creek Baptist church, married Mildred and Lewis Shumate 12 January 1829. Her death date is uncertain. (See Appendix 6 for details on this family.)
George Washington Martin
George Washington Martin was born 3 November 1810. [citation?]At the young age of 26, he died 16 April 1837. He probably did not marry as no wife or children are mentioned in his will. George’s will is dated 6 October 1836,[294] almost three years after his father’s death, and six months before his own death. He mentions his mother Mary Martin; unnamed children of his brother, William E. Martin, now deceased; his now married sister Ann C. Ficklin and his brother John Martin.[295]
They Were Neighbors
In 1850, the U. S. Census shows these families living in close proximity along Meetz Road. Elias is dead, but his second wife Mary is living with her daughter Mildred who married Lewis Shumate. Nearby is her Daughter Ann, married to William Ficklin; and further down the road is the Fisher family of her stepson John Martin’s wife Susan.[296]