The Leverette Brothers

The Leverettes

In our post on the 1860 census and the Collins' of Clinch County, Georgia, their family of five - John, Elizabeth and three Collins boys - owned an 18 year old female slave. Their property was worth $3000.00, and their assets, $2300.00. Their slave was a large part of their worth.

After the war on the 1870 census, John and Elizabeth, two of her sons, her sister, Ellen, her two daughters and Ellen's first grandchild, John Leverette live there. A 'mulatto' seven-year-old boy lived there, too. They had no property value and personal wealth of $400.00.

Ellender (Bryan) Leverett

Ellender Bryan was born in 1827. She had two daughters with William Leverett between 1848 and 1850.

By the 1870 census, she lived with John and Elizabeth Collins, her brother-in-law and sister, in Clinch County, Georgia. So did her daughters, Sarah Elizabeth (known as Betty), 21 years old, and Mary Ann Leverette, 19.

Living with them were two young adult sons of Elizabeth (Bryan-Musgrove) Collins; Charles, 20, and James Musgrove, 18 years old One-year-old John Leverett, and a seven-year-old 'mulatto' Collins boy lived there, too. One Leverett descendant jokingly called it "The cat-house in Clinch County."

John Leverett

John Leverett, born in 1869, is the child of twenty-one-year-old Elizabeth, known as Betty Leverett  The daughter of Ellen (Bryan) Leverett, Betty was epileptic when seizures were thought to be a mental disorder. 

Her son,  John Leverett, also suffered from attacks. Barred by law because of her condition, she never married. Nevertheless, she went on to have two more sons and a daughter. The girl died in childhood.

John and Lucy
(Williams) Leverette

John Leverett, one-year-old on the 1870 census, would marry my great-great grandmother * (see relationship notes), Lucy Williams  Her daughter, Macy, would marry my great-grandfather, Ed Musgrove. This marriage leads a Leverett family researcher to a discovery.

Sam Leverett

Samuel Leverett

Samuel Leverett was born in Clinch County, Georgia, on December 25, 1873. He was the brother of John and the second child of Elizabeth Leverett.

One of his descendants researched her family history. She wrote a Leverette book and submitted Samuel Leverett's biography to the Folks Huxford Genealogy Society.

Her version of Samuel Leverett's story is in Folks Huxford's "Pioneers of Wiregrass" series,  Volume Nine.

Folks Huxford "Pioneers of Wiregrass"

Folks Huxford's "Pioneers of Wiregrass"
Volume IX, page 292

"Judge (Folks) Huxford was a historian, author, and Clinch County Probate Judge. From early childhood, he had a keen interest in the pioneer families of South Georgia and spent much of his time going from home to home talking to these old pioneers and collecting their family histories. He kept copious notes on handwritten cards that formed the nucleus for his seven volumes of Pioneers of Wiregrass Georgia as well as the additional four volumes published after his death."

Huxford Genealogical Society, Inc

Folks Huxford
Genealogist - Jurist - Historian - Baptist Minister
Lawyer - Public Servant - Journalist - Musician

Folks Huxford is buried in Clinch County, Georgia, where he'd served as a probate judge   Our research on Clinch County and our ancestors there draws heavily on his History of Clinch County, Georgia, published in 1916 and his "Pioneers of Wiregrass, Georgia" series.

Samuel Levrett's biography, submitted by his granddaughter, Mary McCray, reveals the father of the Leverett boys was an unknown Musgrove boarding in a house their mother lived.

Charlie Leverett

Charlie Leverett was born on March 1, 1881, in Pierce County, Georgia. Four years earlier, his mother gave birth to a girl she named Ida, but the child died young  Charlie married Dolly Strickland; they had two sons, and one daughter  His wife died in childbirth at 26 years old  Aunt Louise remembers her mother, Macy (Williams) Musgrove, caring for Charlie's infant while he was at work.

Dolly (Strickland) and
Charlie Leverett with baby Marie

Betty Leverette

Betty Leverett's seizures worsened, aggravated
by increasing alcohol consumption. After Charlie was born, she was committed to the Georgia State Mental Hospital in Milledgeville, Georgia. She died there.

The Leverett family historian's research is at this link.

Note: Relationships are expressed from the perspective of the grandchildren of Willis Edgar and Carrie (known as) Mae (Merritt) Musgrove. 

*Terms of relationship - grandmother, uncle, aunt, cousin, etc.  - are used here generically to include relatives such as fourth great-grandfathers, great grand uncles, second cousins twice removed, etc.