Person:Moses Parris (1)

Information on Moses Parris

From Ancestry.com post:

MOSES PARRIS HISTORICAL OUTLINE

1794 Moses Parris was born about 1794, and was the son of George Parris. mother was Katy or Hanna Baldridge, grandson of Richard Pearis and Pratchey (s/b Sara).

George Parris was sometimes called â "Indian George".

In the Summer of 1813, War breaks out within the Creek, Redsticks versus the current leadership. The Cherokees raise a group of volunteers to fight the Redsticks. 12/25/1817 Moses and his father, George, and others wrote a letter to the Presbyterian missionaries Ard Hoyt and Daniel Butrick to request a school in the general vicinity of Blackburn's and Hickory Log Town. "We have agreed for you to teach school for us Natives here in this settlement we want you to commence as quick as possible we want our children to Learn. We want you to pick out the place to set your School house." (Ard Hoyt to Samuel Worcester, January 6, 1818 - ABC, reel 738, frame 99). The Presbyterians wrote back that since the Baptists preached in that area, they should contact them. This would be the reason why the Parris' went from being Presbyterians (George Pearis, Sr. and Richard Pearis' faith) to Baptists in 1825.

1822 Moses Parris and "others" from "Chattahoochy" signed a petition requesting that a hatter be allowed to settle among them. (Petition to R. J. Meigs, 12/26/1822)

1822/23 A Private school had been set up, under no auspices of any church - the Parris' families along with others hired an instructor from Georgia. This was to be the case until Duncan O'Bryant appeared on the scene in 1829 with his school. (Cherokee and Baptists in Georgia, p. 54)

1824 Moses Parris is mentioned as being a member of the Presbyterian church at the American Board's Carmel mission station. At that time "Major" George Parries was mentioned as an inquirer there.

1825 Ard Hoyt notes that Two of our members (most likely George and Moses Parris) have joined the Baptists at Hightower because it was most convenient to attend meeting at the Baptist mission, immediately in the neighborhood where they reside." (Cherokee and Baptists in Georgia, p.62)

Late Fall/1825 Tinsawattee Baptist Church founded by Duncan O'Bryant. It had approximately 30 members, of which Moses Parris was the only known Deacon. Fall 1827 Moses is a delegate to the Cherokee Constitutional Convention representing the Hickory Log District (p.52, History of the Cherokee Indians)

1827 Moses Parris appears to have been Duncan O'Bryant's right hand man. "One (member) is an excellent Interpreter. It is said he can, (and often does) get up after a sermon delivered at length in English, and give it almost entire to his countrymen, in their native tongue, very impressively." (Jesse Mercer to Lucius Bolles, September 24, 1827) O'Bryant spoke of him several times. When O'Bryant was too sick to speak, "brother Parris (our deacon) exhorted in Cherokee. . ." On another occasion, after O'Bryant had preached, "Bro. Parris spoke in Cherokee. . ." (Cherokees and Baptists in Georgia, p. 71)

1830 Federal Census of 1830 in Gwinnett County Georgia, p. 377 includes a "M. Parris" as a white man living among Indians. His family is shown as consisting of a male and female, each aged thirty to forty years, two daughters fifteen years of age or under, and four sons ten years of age or under. He is not shown to have owned any slaves at that time.

1828/29/30 Member of the Cherokee National Council

Moses spoke at a funeral. ""Bro Meeks preached ... at Mr. R. on a funeral occasion A goodly number attended this meeting and were very much affected in the close of the sermon, Bro. (Moses) Parris followed and spoke in Cherokee". (Duncan O'Bryant, Journal, November 14, 1830)

Moses Parris has this letter published in the Cherokee Phoenix, "1 understand that some person has taken the unwarrantable liberty of putting my name down as one willing to take a reservation and come under the laws of Georgia. I hereby inform the public that I have never put my name down for such a purpose, nor authorized any person to do it." (Moses Parris to Elias Boudinot, 12/2211829, Cherokee Phoenix, January 22, 1831, p. 3)

August, 1831 Duncan O'Bryant is given permission to accompany the Cherokees to the Indian Territory.

9,25 1831 Moses Parris and his family (his wife, two female children and three male children) voluntarily enroll for emigration to the Indian Territory (Cherokee Emigration Rolls, pp. 26, 41)

Fall 1831 Moses is hired by Benjamin Currey as an interpreter and assistant issuing commissary for the removal Cherokees. Naturally, he was not popular among the majority and was "insulted and abused ... in consequence of his being in the employ of the United States" while conducting business at Pine Log. (Cherokee and Baptists in Georgia, p. 81).

Moses signs a petition formalizing the request to have Duncan O'Bryant accompany them. (Agent Currey, 11/1/1831, Cherokee and Baptists in Georgia, p. 81)

1831/32 Benjamin Currey, the supervising agent for Cherokee removal noted that Parris was "a Baptist minister" and devout Christian and minister of the Gospel". Fall 1832 Moses and the other Cherokees signed up for removal left the area in November. After pausing for an undetermined time at the Cherokee Agency near Calhoun , Tennessee; where O'Bryant joined them, they became part of a larger group of 382 persons departing by boat late in March 1832.

March 1832 Moses and other heads of families received guns, blankets, kettles and tobacco as emigrant payments. Curry had to build cheap shelters at the agency to provide protection from the weather.

Removal Agent Curry finally got the removal party underway. (The Cherokee Nation, p. 135)

The emigrant group departs from Florence, Alabama in nine flatboats. They then embarked on the steamboat Tom Yeatman and went down the Tennessee, Ohio, Mississippi and Arkansas rivers. (The Cherokee Nation, pp. 135-136)

May 1832 The emigration group arrived in Arkansas at Fort Smith and within a month moved to Piney, Adair County, Oklahoma. The emigrants had been expected to be paid upon their arrival, but the western agent, George Vashon, knew nothing about this. Curry had also miscalculated the amount of provisions needed for the emigrants, because he counted the slaves as property and not as people to be feed. (The Cherokee Nation, p. 136)

July 12, 1839 Moses represented the Western Cherokees at the Illinois Campground during the National Convention to sign the "Act of Union between the Eastern and Western Cherokees". (p. 122, History of the Cherokee Indians).

September 1839 Moses signed the Constitution of the Cherokee Nation. 1841 Moses Parris and Aaron Price were elected senators from the Illinois District (p.269, History of the Cherokee Indians)

1844 Moses Parris was appointed Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the Cherokee Nation (p. 292, History of the Cherokee Nation)

1846 Moses was vice-president of the Cherokee Bible Society

1849 Moses Parris was appointed Circuit Judge, Southern Circuit (p. 294, History of the Cherokee Indians)

1853 Moses was elected Councilor from the Illinois District

1860 "Deacon Moses Parris" was elected clerk of the newly organized Convention of Churches in the Cherokee Nation, representing the New Echota Baptist Church, probably located in Adair County

1868 Moses died near Tahlequah, Oklahoma.

My mother's name was Susan Hubbard. She was a sister to Wilkerson Hubbard and to Matilda Parris. John Langley, a son of John and Sally Langley, was born May-9-1792 in North or South Carolina and died in 1869 in Lumpkin or Gilmer County. He was twice married to Cherokee mixed Bloods: First to Sarah Jane "Sallie" Parris, daughter of Robert Parris and Penny Langley. Second wife. Mrs. Susannah Douqhertv (McClure.) John Langley first appears on the 1830 census of County West of the Chattahoochee. By 1850 he had moved his family to Gilmer County, with this census enumeration: John Langley married first to Sarah Jane "Sallie" Parris B: 1800 D: Aft 1835.