Essentials
Born: 10 or 16 May 1791; Greenville, North Carolina
Married: James MORRIS; 8 September 1811; Elbert, Georgia
Died: 15 May 1856; Bledsoe County, Tennessee

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One-minute history

BY DARYL JAMES
JANUARY 2002
     Lucy Parham was born 10 or 16 May 1791 in Greenville, N.C., to John and Mary Parham. The will of her father, dated 2 Aug. 1804, when Lucy would have been 13, lists 11 siblings: Elizabeth Bennett, Cannon Parham, John Parham, Isam Parham, Nancy Sargent, Mary Upshaw, Thomas Parham, Holeberry Hicks, Mildred Parham, Dickson Parham and Frances Parham. Assuming the will lists these children by age, then Lucy would have been the youngest.
     At this time Lucy lived with her family on "one small tract of land on the water" of Doves Creek, Elbert County, Georgia. This propetry included six slaves, which John Parham lists in his will. Elbert County, established in 1790, came from land ceded by the Cherokee and Creek Indians in a treaty signed 1 July 1773. The first permanent white settlements appeared in the last two decades of the 18th century after the American Revolutionary War, which means Lucy's parents would have been among the first whites to settle in the area.
     On 8 Sept. 1811, when Lucy was 20, she married 16-year-old James Morris in Elbert County. By this time the county had a wagon works, two gunpowder mills and three bark mills in addition to the normal blacksmith shops, distilleries and grist mills. Between 1812 and 1830, Lucy and James had five sons and three daughters. The book, In a Pear Tree, by Marjorie P. Hailey, says Lucy and James moved to Bledsoe County, Tennessee, about 1813. However, the births of their children are listed in Pendleton, Anderson County, South Carolina; Wilkes County, Georgia; Mississippi; and Franklin County, Georgia. Hailey writes: "Family tradition is that James abandoned Lucy and the children and that her brother, Jack, built a home for her on the creek not far from his home. By 1850 she was living with daughter, Elizabeth, and her husband, Simeon Selby."
     The will of Lucy's father, however, does not indicate that Lucy had a brother named Jack, unless this was a brother-in-law married to one of Lucy's sisters. Her brothers were Cannon, John, Thomas and Dickson.
     Lucy died 15 May 1856, at age 65, before the Civil War swept through the South. She is buried at Tollett (or Tollette) Cemetery, 15 miles north of Pikeville, Tenn., in Bledsoe County.
-- Sources: 1. Information provided by Robin Marble, a great-great-great grandson of Lucy Parham.

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Cicero MORRIS
Gad MORRIS
Norma MORRIS
Lucy PARHAM
John PARHAM

CHILDREN WITH JAMES MORRIS