By Staff
There are two more children of John and Isabelle Brewton we have not discussed. They were Benjamin Brewton and Cecelia Brewton.
Benjamin Brewton (abt 1769) married Jemima Johnson. Benjamin was born in North Carolina. He moved to South Carolina and then to Georgia, where he was living by 1790 ( as were other family members). On Feb 2, 1791, Benjamin was granted 214 acres on Rocky Comfort. He was also granted an additional tract of land there on Dec. 13, 1802. The remaining 200 acres of Rocky Comfort were owned by Robert Gray.
Benjamin was married to Jemima Johnson Fontaine sometime before late 1799. Jemima (born in 1755) was the widow of Francis Fontaine, III, who is believed to have been murdered in 1783 by Tories in Georgia. He had served in the Continental Militia in South Carolina during the Revolutionary War and also supplied corn and beef to the Army. Jemima participated in the Revolutionary War, providing supplies to the Continental Army. (A number of descendants have joined the DAR based on Jemima's Revolutionary War service.)
Each of Francis' son-in-laws, John Goza, Joshua Goza and Nathan Jackson Brewton, Sr., inherited a portion of his estate. The three signed a receipt to Benjamin and Jemima Bruton, administrators of the estate, for their shares of the estate, referring to themselves as "heirs by marriage." This document was witnessed by Sarah Fontaine (Francis' niece) and Edward Matthews, and was probated on Oct. 4, 1799.
Benjamin served as a Justice of the Peace in Montgomery County, Ga. He moved to southern Alabama by 1816, where his brother Joseph and his first cousin, Benjamin, also settled. He and Jemima were known to have sold 514 acres of their land in Rocky Comfort (Georgia) on March 3, 1803, to William Simples of Warren County. The bill of sale was witnessed by John Smith and Benjamin Upton. Because Benjamin does not appear in records again until 1816, when he appears on a tax list in Alabama, it has not been determined when, between 1803 and 1816, he moved to Alabama. It also has not been determined if Jemima moved to Alabama with him. It is known that she died sometime after 1809.
Benjamin married a second time in Alabama to a woman named Mary, but he had no children from either marriage. He worked as a wagon master and owned his own wagon train, which hauled supplies from the Alabama River to Fort Crawford. After the closing of the fort, he hauled hardwood from southern Alabama to a furniture factory in Milledgeville, Ga. Aside from operating his wagon train, Benjamin also owned and operated a large plantation in Sparta, Ala., using slaves as his work force.
Because he had no children, Benjamin's nieces and nephews inherited his considerable fortune when he died in October 1863.
Cecelia Brewton was the seventh child of John and Isabelle.
This gets us through the children of John and Isabelle. Next week, I want to get into later generations.