Category Archives: Brawner Family

The Inns of Port Tobacco

15 Saturday Oct 2016

Posted by in Brawner Family

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Three sons of our 8th great-grandfather Cornelius Maddox (1651-1705) – James, Edward and Walter – ran one of the inns in historic Port Tobacco, Maryland, before the Revolutionary War.  Numerous court records describe them as innkeepers in the town – once a thriving port, but now mostly overlooked by historians.  Port Tobacco had more than one inn, though, and we’ve never been able to pin the brothers to one specific inn.

I had the good luck of bumping into local Port Tobacco historians Anita Gordon and Sheila Smith at the historic Port Tobacco Courthouse today.  Sheila is a walking Charles County encyclopedia.  Anita and her father are responsible for the only collection of sketches of Port Tobacco’s buildings and layout (called “Port Tobacco, Charles County, Maryland, Prior to 1895”), and she’s now in the process of collecting the history of Port Tobacco’s inns.  Anita is trying to understand how many there were before the Revolution, and who ran them.  I was glad to add the Maddox brothers’ names.

We’re eager to know which of the inns that Jim, Edward and Walter might have run, and what dramas might have unfolded there (Port Tobacco attracted Declaration of Independence signers and other luminaries).  We’ve always assumed they ran the St. Charles Inn (a.k.a. Brawner Inn, a.k.a. Chandler Inn), which was closely affiliated with the Brawner family, since the Maddoxes and the Brawners were intermarried at the time.  But there were at least three inns in Port Tobacco at the time  and none of the inns is specifically mentioned in the Maddox records.

barbourmapsmall

A map of Port Tobacco from the sketches in James Barbour and Anita Gordon’s book.  The St. Charles Inn is at the upper left.

Maddox ties to the Luckett and Brawner families in Maryland and South Carolina

13 Wednesday Nov 2013

Posted by in Abbeville, Brawner Family, Luckett Family

≈ 9 Comments

Tags

Benjamin (I)’s will was signed on 23 August 1770 and his estate was appraised in January 1771.  The appraisers were Ignatius Luckett and Benjamin Brawner.  This raises the question about the relationship between these three families.

The Maddoxes were linked to three sons of Ignatius and Jane Notley Hanson Luckett.

  • Benjamin I’s son Walter had a daughter named Eleanor who married John Luckett, one of Ignatius Luckett’s sons.
  • Walter’s son, Cornelius married Susannah Luckett, the widow of William Luckett who was also a son of Ignatius Luckett.  We do not know Susannah’s maiden name.
  • Benjamin I’s son, James, had a son, Notley.  Notley had married Elizabeth (not sure if she was a Cox, Hussey or Martin).  After Notley Maddox died, Samuel Luckett, son of William and Susannah Luckett and grandson of Ignatius, married Notley’s widow.
  • We also know that Henley Maddox, Benjamin (II)’s son, was married to Jinnett Luckett, the daughter of Ignatius and Margret Luckett and granddaughter of Ignatius, and the widow of Pryor Posey.  In her will dated 25 August 1800 and proved 1 December 1800, Margaret Luckett lists Jinnett and her two daughters, Peggy, and Marsha Maddox.

That brings us to the Brawners.  Cornelius had a son named Edward, whose daughter Anne married William Brawner.  Their son, Isaac (1765-1830) married Mary Ann Maddox (1770-1790) but we cannot confirm her maiden name.  After her death, Isaac married Ann Taylor.  Benjamin I had a daughter, Mary Ann of the same age.  We show her as the wife of Rhodum Posey.  Other records show her as also the wife of Thomas Dyson.  Might this be the wife of Isaac Brawner?