Person:Mary Taliaferro (1)

Notes for Mary Taliaferro: William and Mary College Quarterly Historical Magazine, 2nd, Ser., Vol. 1, No. 3. (Jul., 1921), pp. 145-166.

Snow Creek flows into the Rappahannock river a short distance below Fredericksburg. When John Taliaferro and Francis Thornton settled there, that section belonged to Essex Co. and they were near neighbors and brothers- in-law, the latter having married the former's sister, Mary. The act creating Spotsylvania Co. (1720), specified Snow Creek as its Southern boundary. This threw John Taliaferro into the new county and left Francis Thornton in the old. According to the Westover Papers, John Taliaferro settled at Snow Creek in 1707.

John Taliaferro of "Snow Creek" was the son of John Taliaferro (the first to bear the name of John in Va.) and the grandson of Robert Taliaferro the immigrant.

Mary Thornton (1731-1757), wife of Capt. Nicholas Battaile, was the daughter of the second Francis Thornton and Mary Taliaferro, his wife. He was the son of Francis Thornton and Alice Savage and grandson of William Thornton, the immigrant. (16) Col. John Thornton, the infant's maternal great-uncle. His wife was Mildred Gregory, one of the three Gregory sisters, who married Thornton brothers. They were the daughters of Roger Gregory and Mildred Washington, aunt and Godmother to the President.

Col. John Thornton and his wife, Mildred (Gregory), were sponsors for the next child, Warner Lewis, 1755; and for Samuel, another son, the sponsors were Rev. Musgrove Dawson and wife (Notes 24 and 32), and Mr. Joseph Jones and wife, the latter another daughter of Mrs. Mary (Catlett) Taliaferro, the daughter, Mary, mentioned in the will of her father, 1744. For the son, Lawrence, 1767, one of the sponsors was Mr. Francis Thornton; another Francis Thornton was a fellow sponsor with Col. Charles Washington and Betty Lewis at the christening of her grandson, Samuel, in 1780.

Most of the sponsors here mentioned were closely related to the parents of Nicholas Taliaferro by blood or marriage, or both. As has been noted elsewhere the wives of the three Thornton brothers were sisters, and first cousins of Betty Washington Lewis.

In passing it is interesting to note that one of the Excrs to the elder Charles Taliaferro's will was Francis Thornton, whose wife was Mary, the sister of John Taliaferro of Snow Creek and a niece of the decedent; one of the witnesses to the will was Thomas Slaughter, whose wife was Sarah, Francis Thornton's daughter. The grouping of these people in this connection may give a hint as to the identity of Sarah Taliaferro, the daughter-in-law. She was probably a Slaughter. "Bishop Meade says that Col. George Taylor had fourteen sons of whom seven served in the Rev. Army and that thirteen held office under the Government at one time. Mr. Stanard says that Col. Geo. Taylor was Burgess from Orange co. 1748-58, Member Orange Co. Committee, 1774, and of the Va. Convention, 1775." (Hayden, p. 673). (27) Erasmus Taylor was the brother of Col. George. He married Jane Moore. Their daughter, Milly, married Wm. Morton. Jane Moore was the daughter of John and Rebecca (Catlett) Moore, who was the widow of the first Francis Conway and whose daughter, Nelly Conway, half-sister to Jane Moore, married Col. James Madison. They were the parents of the President. Col. Frank Taylor, in his diary, quoted by Dr. Slaughter, records, "July 19, 1794, died, Erasmus Taylor, eighty three years old." (28) She was Sarah Thornton, the infant's great aunt, and sister of Col. John, Reuben and Francis Thornton 3d. Her husband was Thomas Slaughter, the witness to the will of Charles Taliaferro, of which her father, Francis Thornton 2d, was an Eexc'r. Thomas Slaughter4 (Robt.3, Francis2, Francis1) was the great-grandson of the first Francis Slaughter and Elizabeth Under- wood, who married, 2d, the first Col. John Catlett. He was a vestryman in St. Mark's. (29) Not able to identify; presumably a daughter of Thomas and Sarah.

Nicholas Merriwether was the son of Thomas and Elizabeth (Thornton) Merriwether and grandson of Francis and Mary (Taliaferro) Thornton. 58) It is somewhat remarkable that Nicholas Taliaferro had not earlier introduced the name of Washington among his children, for his kinship with that family was close. His three great-uncles, Thornton brothers, had married the three Gregory sisters who were Washington's first cousins, and their children, who, in turn, had married Washingtons, were his mother's own cousins; these were Mildred (of Francis) who m. Charles Washington, Mildred (of Col. John) who m. Col. Sam'l Washington, and John (of Francis) who m. Jane Washington -- the President's two brothers and niece. In addition, Elizabeth Thornton (of Col. John) had m. Col. John Taliaferro, of "Dissington", the brother of Ann, his wife, whose maternal aunt, Jane Champe, had been the first wife of Col. Sam'l Washington and whose maternal uncle, Wm. Champe, had m. Mary Thornton (of Francis), the sister of Mildred and John who had married Charles and Jane W., and own cousin of Mildred (of Col. John), the 2d wife of Col. Sam'l W. A blood relationship so often repeated and so involved, could not well be forgotten. Another link connecting the two families (Note 18) was the marriage of Lucy Taliaferro, the aunt of Nicholas, with Col. Charles Lewis, brother to Fielding Lewis, who had married into the Washington family twice.

9. Thornton, Francis - Here lies the body of Francis Thornton who departed this life the seventh of April Anno Dom One Thousand Seven Hundred and Forty Nine in the thirty eighth year of his age. (Stone renewed August 1881) [Oldest marked grave in cemetery]

10. One obelisk marker for the following four individuals: Forbes, David Sterling. February 3, 1835 December 24, 1908 Thornton, Delia Smith Forbes. July 6, 1818 1881 Forbes, Sally Innes Thornton. January 11, 1799 1885 Bastable, Katherine Marshall Forbes. July 25, 1822 Oct 1896

11. Thornton, Francis - To our Father. Here Lie the Remains of Francis Thornton of Fall Hill. Born at the Falls 11th June 1767. Died at the White Sulphur Springs, VA 15 July 1836. Married 2nd June 1792 Sally daughter of Judge Harry Innes and Elizabeth Callaway, who bore him four sons and four daughters and Died 2nd May 1807 in Frankfort, KY. (note: This is the grandson of the other Francis Thornton buried here.) 18. Next to these is a plaque for Mary Walker placed here in 1970. Mary Thornton Walker Beloved wife of Groom Ware Walker 1869-1927 and a descendent of Augustine Washington 1694-1743 Father of Gen'l G. Washington M. 1st 1715 Jane Butler Augustine Washington, Jr. 1720-1762 M. Anne Aylett Jane Augusta Washington 1756-1833 M. 1784 John Thornton Lieut. Col. 3rd Virginia. RGT. C.L. (Her cousin) Frances Gregory Thornton 1792-1828 (C) M. 1806 Dr. George Alexander Thornton (Her cousin) Alfred Augustine Thornton 1810-1869 M. 1834 Delia Smith Forbes (His cousin) George Alexander Thornton 1837-1887 Lieut. Of Artillery C.S.A. M. 1863 Ella Spencer Roberts Mary Thornton 1871-1943 M. 1889 Groom Ware Walker Reinterred 1970

I won't try to give a description or genealogy of all those interred here, but will give a few highlights about Francis Thornton and his family. Francis' father, also Francis Thornton, patented this land in 1720. It covered the area from the cemetery, upstream to just about where the Embrey Dam is located. He built a grist mill just above where the Falmouth bridge is today located (a sign marks its location on River Road). In 1736, his son, Francis married Frances Gregory and built his home next to the current cemetery (site of what is now known as the George Washington Executive Center). Frances was the daughter of Mildred Washington Gregory Willis making her a cousin to George Washington and a step-daughter to the town's first entrepreneur, Henry Willis. Additionally, Francis and Frances' daughter, Mildred, and their niece, Mildred (daughter of Francis' brother John), both married brothers of George Washington; Charles and Samuel, respectively. Francis and his two brothers, John and Reuben, married three Gregory sisters and were active in the town's early history. John purchased the Long Ordinary from Henry Willis' estate. Francis was elected to the Spotsylvania county court and to St. George's vestry in 1734, headed the county militia from 1742 until his death, and was elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses in 1744 (John also served there from 1753-55).

Additionally, the Thornton family had ties to several other prominent families of the area including: Taliaferro, Fitzhugh, Lewis, Woodford, Strother, Conway, Taylor, and Madison. (Yes, THAT Madison.) Many people ask why the east side of the cemetery wall juts out around the grave of William Storke. The last family owner of "The Falls" was Mrs. Elizabeth A. (Thornton) Fitzgerald, the great-granddaughter of Francis Thornton. Her neighbors were the Storkes who lived at the other great estate at that end of town, "Bunker Hill", located approximately 100 years to the south of the cemetery. Since Mr. Storke was a Washington (and a distant cousin of Mrs. Fitzgerald) and they were neighbors of the Thorntons/Fitzgeralds, it was naturally assumed that they would also be interred into the family cemetery. So when they died in 1847, they were interred. The Fitzgeralds were in Europe at the time. Upon their return, Mrs. Fitzgerald was quite unhappy, and following her husband's death in 1852, she had a wall erected around the cemetery going right through the grave of her cousin William Storke. She is noted to have said, "I'll put the Washington side of him in the cemetery and the Storke side of him on the outside." The wall remained until the 1970s when the cemetery had fallen into great disrepair. In 1977 the city of Fredericksburg formally assumed responsibility for upkeep of the cemetery and the wall was repaired as an Eagle Scout project. Today it is a well maintained "attraction" honoring the pioneers of the area.