Averett, Charles

The Averetts of Frost, Livingston Parish and East Feliciana Parishes, La.

With connections to Ascension and St. Helena Parishes
Written and submitted by Claude B. Slaton, Baker, La.

The westward migration from the original thirteen colonies began as a trickle in the mid-1770s when the colonies declared their independence from Great Britain. This brought on the American Revolution and, as all wars do, displaced may residents of the eastern part of the newly-formed United States. The trickle increased to a flood through the years from 1776 to 1812 when Patriots and Tories alike populated the areas now comprising the Florida Parishes of Louisiana and the southwestern counties of Mississippi.

Amite County, Mississippi, became the final destination for many of these people. It can be said that, for the most part, these settlers were English-speaking people, with a small but distinct number of Spanish, Indian, German and French.

Several important points about this area should be made to lay the groundwork for the introduction of our ancestors. The boundary line that today separates southwestern Mississippi from the Florida Parishes of Louisiana had been run by surveyors (such as Ira Kneeland) but many newcomers did not know (or particularly care) exactly where the Mississippi Territory (acquired by the U.S. by treaty of 1795) ended and the Spanish territory began. A few were very careful to set up homesteading on American land due to their unwillingness to live under Spanish rule, however weak that rule was in the remote regions.

Some, such as the Kemper brothers Sam, Nathan, and Reuben, actively harassed the Spanish (and their sympathizers) and did everything they could to see them banished from what they considered American land by virtue of the Louisiana Purchase of 1803.

This unsettled and potentially dangerous country was the destination of our progenitor, Charles Averett. The name was spelled "Everett" in most of the older records, but by the decade of the 1850s our branch of the family had settled on "Averett". Charles' first cousin, Robert Furlow, traveled with him to Amite County from Houston County, Georgia. They left Georgia in January, 1810, and arrived in the Mississippi Territory in early summer. Charles left behind his brother, James Everett, in Houston County, a wealthy cotton plantation owner. Robert Furlow's name appears in land records as much as three years before this, so he may have been the "family scout".

On August 23, 1810, Charles Averett was married to Catherine Rentz, known as "Caty" to her family and friends. She was the daughter of John and Sarah Rentz. John Rentz was a Revolutionary War veteran, and later a veteran of the West Florida Rebellion and the War of 1812. Charles and Caty were living in the southern part of present-day Amite County, not far from the Spanish (Louisiana) border, when resentment against the Spanish flared into the West Florida Rebellion, resulting in the military capture of the Spanish fort at Baton Rouge. Among the hastily-assembled troops that captured the fort were a group of cavalry under the leadership of a prominent resident of St.

Francisville, Llewellyn Coleville Griffith. His troop of "Mounted Riflemen" contained Charles Averett, his father-in-law John Rentz, and his brothers-in-law, Lewis Harrell and his brothers and their father, Hezikiah Harrell. The Harrells were another family originally from South Carolina who settled first in Georgia and then in Amite County. They later moved to East Feliciana Parish, La.

The leader of Griffith's Riflemen was Llewellyn Coleville Griffith. He recruited men from all over the area to ride to Baton Rouge under the command of Gen. Philemon Thomas and free the Florida Parishes from Spanish ownership and create the short-lived Republic of West Florida. They consisted of about 78 riders. Charles apparently returned home to Caty and farmed after his adventure, but several years later Griffith's Mounted Riflemen were again called upon to defend their homes, this time from the British invasion of New Orleans at the end of the War of 1812.

Capt. Griffith and his men were at Chalmette with Gen. Andrew Jackson during the Battle of New Orleans. They served from October 29, 1814, until March 24, 1815, and saw action several times, the most intense during the night battle of December 23, 1814, when they were in advance of Hind's Battalion and the 44th U.S. Infantry.

Charles and Caty Averett had three children that I have been able to identify in available records. The oldest, Turner A.

Averett, was born between 1811 and 1820. He married, about 1840, to Lewis Harrell's sister, Mary Harrell, and they had Jared, Aislee, and Turner C. Averett. Of these three children of Turner and Mary, I have only been able to locate records on only one--Aislee Averett, who married Langdon T. Methvin in St.

Helena Parish on December 28, 1858. Turner A. Averett died prior to January 19, 1852. Turner A. Averett's widow, Mary Harrell Averett, later move to Livingston Parish and was one of the three wives of Andrew Wells of Bayou Barbary.

The next oldest child was Virlinda Averett. Virlinda was married to Lewis Harrell in East Feliciana Parish on July 28, 1836. The third child of Charles and Caty Averett was born about 1825 in Amite County and was named for his father's cavalry commander, Capt. (later Judge) Llewellyn C. Griffith.

Llewellyn Griffith Averett was a young child when his father Charles died (between 1825 and 1830). After Charles' death, his widow Catherine and their children, along with Lewis and Virlinda Harrell, moved from their homes and settled on the bank of Colyell Bay in Livingston Parish, La., between 1836 and 1840, near where the Colyell Baptist Church stands today, and not far from the little community of Frost.

Living near them on Colyell Bay was an immigrant from Lawrence County, Mississippi, named Clarkston Edwards, and his wife Celia. Clarkston was born about 1791 in South Carolina, and had also served in the War of 1812 in Capt. Peter Barnett's Company of Mississippi Territory Militia, commanded by Lt. Col. Peter Perkins. They had nine children born between 1824 and 1840, one of whom was a girl, the second oldest child, named Mary C.

Edwards. Llewellyn Averett and Mary C. Edwards were married in Livingston Parish about 1846. Their son, John Rentz Averett (named for his great-grandfather) was born November 22, 1852, and married a daughter of Andrew Wells and Margany Sides, Martha Jane Wells. Llewellyn and Mary's marriage record was lost in the Livingston Courthouse fire of 1875.

When Llewellyn Averett's brother, Turner A. Averett, died about 1852, Llewellyn made a trip up to Clinton to try to help settle his estate. Turner left his widow, Mary Harrell, and their three small children in poor circumstances, unable to support themselves. He petitioned the court to make him administrator of his brother's estate, but objections were raised by two of Mary's brothers, Samuel and Benjamin F. Harrell. Llewellyn was trying to see to it that his brother's children would receive their fair portion of the estate of James Averett, Llewellyn and Turner's uncle in Houston County, Ga., who had died about this time and had left Turner and his children $5,000. After some legal jousting, the matter was finally settled to everyone's satisfaction, and it was probably at this time that Mary Harrell Averett came to Livingston Parish and later married Andrew Wells. Several miles away from the Colyell Bay community was another group of settlers trying to make a living cutting cypress trees out of the swamps around Port Vincent and French Settlement.

Four brothers and a sister named Wells had floated down the Tennessee, Ohio, and Mississippi Rivers about 1847 from Jackson County, Alabama, and made their home on the east bank of Bayou Barbary. Elevated slightly above the swamp surrounding it, their homestead was called Wells Island. Andrew, George, Jeremiah, Asa Perry, and Mary Wells carved a home out of the swampy country.

This kind of life was apparently not to the liking of all of them, however, because later Asa and Jeremiah moved back to Alabama. Their wanderlust never completely left them, though, because Asa later moved to Texas and Jeremiah to Missouri. Their sister Mary became sick and died unmarried about 1850. George and Andrew remained, and before long Andrew met and fell in love with the widow of Turner Averett, Mary Harrell. I have not found any evidence of children of this marriage, and Mary died not long afterward. George Wells remarried about 1850 to another daughter of Clarkston Edwards, Sarah, and had three children.

Andrew remarried September 17, 1854, to Margany Ann Sides Sweeney, the daughter of Mary Elizabeth Nordon and her murdered husband, James Sides. Margany was the widow of Hampton Sweeney, by whom she only had one child, a daughter Elizabeth Sweeney.

Andrew and Margany had six children of their own (the third oldest, as mentioned before, was Martha Jane Wells, who married January 10, 1878, to John Rentz Averett), and raised the three children of Andrew's brother George Wells after the death of Sarah Edwards Wells in 1860, and George's death in 1865.

Tradition in the Wells family is that Andrew and George participated in a defense of Donaldsonville from an attack by Yankee soldiers during the War Between the States. George is said to have been wounded in the leg and died on a plantation in Ascension Parish.

After Mary Harrell Averett Wells died, it is believed that Turner A. Averett's three children went to live with their Harrell cousins in East Feliciana or St. Helena Parish.

Sources for this story:

(1) Incomplete photocopy of a monograph entitled Ira Cook Kneeland 17??-1812 given to the author by Mr. Robert N. Neyland, 3474 Conley Ave., Baton Rouge, La. 70805, in 1982

(2) Stanley Clisby Arthur, The Story of the West Florida Rebellion (Pub. originally in the St. Francisville Democrat, 1935; reprinted 1975, Baton Rouge, La., by Claitor's Publishing Division).

(3) Stanley Clisby Arthur, The Story of the Kemper Brothers (Pub. as series in the St. Francisville Democrat, issues July 8, 15, 22, 29, 1933).

(4) Will of James A. Averett, Houston County, Ga., Will Book "A"

(1827-1855), pp. 220-229. Photocopy in possession of the author obtained from the Georgia Department of Archives and History.

(5) Mary Givens Bryan, Passports Issued by Governors of Georgia, 1810 to 1820, Index of Persons Receiving Passports, 1785 to 1820 by Wm. H. Dumont, ed., reprinted from the National Genealogical Society Quarterly, Washington, D.C., 1964.

(6) Computer Indexed Marriage Records, Amite County, Miss., published by Nicholas Murray, Hunting for Bears, P.O. Box 278, Hammond, La., 70404, p. 26. Certified copy of the marriage record of Charles Everettt and Caty Rentz in possession of the author obtained from the Amite County Courthouse, Liberty, Miss.

(7) Powell A. Casey, Louisiana Soldiers in the War of 1812 (Baton Rouge: Claitor's Publishing, 1963).

(8) Mercy Cambre, The 1840 Census of Livingston Parish, La.

(1976: Baton Rouge, La.)

(9) Edward Livingston Historical Association, The 1850 Census of Livingston Parish, La. (1979: Baton Rouge, La.)

(10) Marriage record of Langdon T. Methvin and Asilee Everett, St. Helena Parish Clerk of Court's Office, Greensburg, La., photocopy in possession of the author.

(11) Records of the succession of Turner A. Everett, East Feliciana Parish, La., Clerk of Court's Office, Clinton, La.

Photocopies in possession of the author.

(12) Computer Indexed Marriage Records, East Feliciana Parish, La., published by Nicholas Murray, Hunting for Bears, P.O. Box 278, Hammond, La., 70404.

(13) U.S. Geological Survey map, Denham Springs Quadrangle, showing the Colyell and Bayou Barbary areas.

(14) U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1830 Census of Lawrence County, Miss.

(15) Maxie Ruth Hedgepath, Lawrence County, Miss., Marriages 1818-1879 (1979: published by Norman E. Gillis, Shereveport, La.)

(16) Edward Livingston Historical Association, The 1860 Census of Livingston Parish, La. (1977: Baton Rouge, La.)

(17) Military service records obtained from the GSA, Washington, D.C., by the author on the following persons: Charles Averett, Clarkston Edwards, Lewis Harrell, John Rentz.

(18) Family Bible of "Mary Averett", handwritten copy made by the author from the original in possession of Mrs. Myrtle Edwards, Frost, La., 1973. Also the "Averett Family Bible", same source.

(19) Family records of the Asa Perry Wells family sent to the author by Mrs. Elaine Ramsten Wells, P.O. Drawer 220, Grand View, TX 76050, September, 1979.

(20) Succession records of Andrew Wells and Llewellyn G.

Averett, Livingston Parish, La., photocopies in possession of the author.

(21) East Baton Rouge Parish Clerk of Court's office, Marriage Records.