Chapter VIII
LADY HOUSTOUN
WHEN Priscilla Dunbar arrived in Georgia her future husband had been a resident of the colony for nearly two years.
One likes to give full play to the imagination in wondering what could have been the emotional response of the young Scotswoman, Priscilla Dunbar, late of Inverness, to the tide-water country of Georgia as contrasted with her Highland home in Scotland. Throwing in her lot with her brother George when she came with him to Georgia, and then anchoring herself in the colony four years later by her marriage to a fellow countryman, Patrick Houstoun, of the Lowlands of Scotland, she showed herself a woman resolute and firm; and found contentment in a land so totally different from her old home—a country, too, that was only in the making. Dangers threatened everywhere, even though treaties with the native savages kept colonial affairs in Georgia peaceful on the whole. But it took courage to live then, especially for a woman, and the fact that Priscilla reared five useful sons for Georgia proved her worth as a woman of character and her ability to cope with colonial life.
Living on an isolated plantation could have been nothing but real hardship, and although her husband was able to supply her with servants, her need and longing for social contacts were probably seldom satisfied. There was much to do on a plantation. Her duties there, added to the constant care of her growing family, probably made the days pass quickly enough, especially before her husband was called into public life. His obligations no doubt kept him from her often and long. When their life together came to an end, with true Gaelic sturdiness she determined to win the battle of the succeeding years for the sake of her children. Her son Patrick had returned from Scotland before his father died, and was almost grown, and her next son, George, was old enough to be of great help to her. One likes to think that Lady Houstoun, among her other accomplishments, was a good horsewoman, and that when business required a trip to town she could take one easily on horseback, accompanied by one of her slaves. Now and then her name appears in the Colonial Records, or in advertisements in the Georgia Gazette.1 Five months after the newspaper was established, Lady Houstoun decided to offer some of her property for sale. An advertisement appeared in the issue of September 15, 1763, offering one thousand acres described as “the greater part river swamp, well timbered with cypress, the remainder very good high land.” This description warrants the inference that the land advertised for sale was the one thousand acres two miles above Darien granted to Sir Patrick by the Council in 1756. Apparently the advertisement did not produce a buyer. Since would-be purchasers were told to apply to Lady Houstoun in Savannah, she was probably then occupying her house on Broughton Street.2 Lady Houstoun used the columns of the Georgia Gazette again on March 14, 1765, when she advertised a “sorrel Guelding with a small blaze on his forehead, about 14 hands high,” which was found straying around Rosdue. The owner could have his horse by proving his property and paying the cost of the advertisement.
The next month Lady Houstoun applied to Council for some land. Her petition was presented at a meeting of the Council on April 1, 1765.3 She asked for 500 acres on the Little Satilla, and further information stated it was lately ordered purchased by Sir Patrick Houstoun, her son. At a later meeting October 29, the grant was signed by Governor Wright to Dame Priscilla Houstoun of St. Patrick’s Parish, the boundary of which was from the north branch of the Turtle River to the south branch of the Little “St. Ilia.”4
Some conjecture may be made of a few of the friends of Lady Houstoun, among whom were the Stuarts and the Rosses. The names appeared as witnesses on her will and that of her husband. Ann Stuart was left a legacy by Lady Houstoun, and a further proof of friendship was shown by Ann Stuart, probably a contemporary of Lady Houstoun’s children, when she died, a “spinster” in 1812, by making one of Lady Houstoun’s grandsons, John Houstoun McIntosh, an heir and one of her executors.5 Thomas Ross and Hugh Ross were brothers, and John, a witness of Sir Patrick’s will, was the son of Hugh. Hugh Ross’s wife was Ann Stewart, daughter of Daniel Stewart, shipmaster from Inverness, Scotland; and Thomas Ross married the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Henry Parker of Isle of Hope, near Savannah. It is not unlikely that the Stuarts were among the friends who voyaged across the Atlantic with the Highlanders of Scotland to Darien.
As the years passed Lady Houstoun acquired more land, and she then began deeding her property to her children. In May, 1773, she conveyed to her son George, five hundred acres of land in St. David’s Parish, the boundary of that parish being all of the territory between the Altamaha River and the north branch of the Turtle River. The deed was witnessed by her two sons, John and William, and was signed by Thomas Moody, Deputy Secretary, later to be connected with the Houstoun family.6
In the year 1775, shortly before her death, Lady Houstoun disposed of Rosdue and Coffee Bluff, the latter on the Forest River (a branch of the Little Ogeechee) to Joseph Butler.7 Broken health and the perilous times through which the colonies were passing may have made it necessary for her to relinquish all responsibility; and her sons, having property of their own, perhaps influenced her to sell her old plantation. It is possible to imagine the state of mind of the tired widow, and to realize the ache in her heart when she gave up the home to which she had been taken as a bride, where most of her life in Georgia was spent, and where some of her children were born. She did not long survive the relinquishment of her home and its many acres. There are no facts that can be told that can give any idea of Lady Houston’s last days.
Before she died dark clouds were appearing on the horizon of her adopted country, and she knew before she left this earth that war was inevitable. She knew, too, that her sons were eager partisans on both sides of the burning question of the day, and perhaps she was glad to leave it all to fate and join her beloved Patrick in the land beyond. Her heart may have been broken over what she saw was coming to Georgia, but three happy events took place before her death: namely, the marriage of her daughter, Ann Priscilla, to George McIntosh, which occurred in 1772; her son George’s marriage to Ann Moodie in 1774; and the birth of her first grandchild, John Houstoun McIntosh, in 1773, the only child of her daughter.
The end came in February, 1775. When she died she was sixty-four years of age, although the tombstone gives her age as sixty. She was interred by the side of her husband, in the old cemetery on South Broad Street. The Reverend Haddon Smith, Rector of Christ Church, probably performed the burial service. To Sir Patrick’s epitaph were added these words:
LADY HOUSTON HIS WIDOW
Died Feb. 26th, 1775. Aged 60.
Her will was made on June 10, 1772. The first bequest was to her daughter Ann, wife of George McIntosh. To her she left her “negro Girl named Chloe with her son George and any other Child or Children she may have at the time of my Decease, and also my rings and wearing apparel to be delivered to her immediately after my Decease.” To her eldest son Patrick she bequeathed all of her “Silver Plate of whatsoever the same doth or shall consist in full of every claim otherwise than as a Creditor against my Estate he having been already much more proportionately provided for by me.” The next item was the bequest to “Miss Ann Stuart,” to whom she left a suit of mourning and a mourning ring to be purchased at the discretion of her executors. The next item related to her sons James and John. To James she left her Negro boy, Abraham, and to John her “negro wench called Hannah with her son Musan and any other Child or Children she may have at the time of my Decease.” She directed that all of her Negroes then under lease or hire to her son, Sir Patrick, “be immediately upon my Decease or as soon thereafter as may be, delivered up to my Executors. . . .” She next directed that her executors within four months after the receipt of the above should sell and dispose of the same and all the rest and residue of her estate not previously bequeathed, both real and personal, “for the most money that can be got for the same at Public Outcry,” giving her executors full power and authority to make and execute conveyances and deeds. Of the debt of five hundred pounds lawful money of the province incurred by her son Sir Patrick, January 2, 1767, she directed that the principal and interest be paid into the hands of her executors to be looked upon as assets in their hands for payment of debts and legacies.
From the money arising from the sale of her estate she bequeathed the following legacies: to her fifteen-year-old son William, she left the sum of five hundred pounds “to be paid to him upon his attaining his age of twenty-one years or day of marriage which shall first happen”; until then she directed that within fifteen months after her death the five hundred pounds should be put at interest by her executors upon good security to be applied annually to the use and maintenance of her son William, until he should become entitled to the principal. In the event of his death before his marriage or before attaining his majority, the legacy was to be divided among her surviving children, share and share alike. Five hundred pounds she left, each to her son George and to her daughter Ann to be paid to them within sixteen months after her death. All the rest and residue of her estate and any money remaining in the hands of her executors she devised should be given to her sons “James and John beforenamed,” to be equally divided between them share and share alike, and paid to them respectively within eighteen months after her death. She named her sons George and John8 her executors and trustees or guardians of her son William.
Lady Houstoun concluded her will by ordering the payment of £100 to two Charles Town merchants, named Johnston and Simpson, for merchandise provided for her son John while he was in school at Charles Town. She further ordered that in case John should pay that sum that he should be reimbursed out of her estate. Again designating herself as Dame Priscilla Houstoun, she revoked all former wills and stated that she had set her “Hand at the Bottom of the three first of the said Pages.” Her witnesses were Thomas Ross, James Simpson, William Ross, and James Beverley, who signed in the presence of His Excellency, Sir James Wright, Baronet. The will was probated on March 9, 1775, when Thomas Ross appeared as witness and at the same time George and John Houstoun qualified as the estate’s executors.9 Complying with their mother’s request, her executors advertised in the Georgia Gazette, May 17, 1775, that on June 20 next the lands, Negroes, and other articles of the Lady Houstoun estate would be sold at the Vendue House in Savannah.
Lady Houstoun’s estate, however, was not settled for sixteen years after her death at which time her executors applied for their discharge. In the Georgia Gazette of June 23, 1791, James Whitefield, register of grants for the County of Chatham, in the State of Georgia, advertised that Sir George Houstoun and John Houstoun, executors of Lady Houston’s last will and testament, had appealed to him for “letters dimissory,” and requested all creditors to appear before him July 24 to show cause why the executors should not be discharged.
[End Part I]
1. The Georgia Gazette was the first newspaper in the colony and was founded by James Johnston, Sr., April 7, 1763, the year after Sir Patrick Houstoun’s death. James Johnston was the uncle of Colonel James Johnston, Jr., who in 1797 married Lady Houstoun’s granddaughter, Ann Marion Houstoun.
2. Georgia Gazette, August 17, 1774; January 3, 1776.
3. Colonial Records of Georgia, IX, 329, 434.
4. Ibid., 434.
5. Mabel Freeman LaFar and Caroline Price Wilson, Abstracts of Wills Chatham County, Georgia, 1773-1817 (Washington, D. C., 1936), 117, 143.
6. Original deed in possession of the heirs of Mrs. Macartan C. Kollock, Atlanta, and Habersham County, Georgia. Deed recorded in Book D, Folio 94-95, Habersham County Courthouse, Clarkesville, Georgia.
7. From records of the late Victor Schreck, Savannah. At a later date part of the property was acquired by Sir George Houstoun, Bart., the son of Lady Houstoun.
8. Although twice she named her son James before John, in devising their legacies, the fact that she made John one of her executors seemed to point to the conclusion that John was the older of those two sons.
9. The original will is in the Department of Archives and History, Atlanta.