excerpts from:
The
Mobleys
and
Their Connections
--By--
William Woodward Dixon
Published
1915
BOOK
I.
EARLY HISTORY.
Encouraged by Charles Fox in the year 1680,
a new sect had arisen in England styling themselves, FRIENDS, but called in
derision by all other religious denominations Quakers. William Penn was one of
these, a nobleman who had been four times imprisoned. He petitioned for a grant
of land in America with the result that history tells. Connected with the first
settlement of Pennsylvania is the love story of the first Moberley, now spelled
Mobley, who came to this country and from whom our family are descended. He came
direct from England with William Penn. It has been thought for a long time that
this Moberley was the son of a baronet. He was descended from a baronet Sir
Edward Moberley in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. This Moberley had three sons,
one succeeded to the title and Estates and became Sir Edward Moberley. He had
one brother who went into the church and became a bishop; the third bought a
commission in the English army. His name was William, went to India, amassed a
fortune, returned and bought an estate near Sheffield. His son Edward purchased
a large estate in Cheshire and was a country gentleman.
WILLIAM MOBLEY I.
On one occasion the father, Edward Moberley, was about to go on a trip to London with one of his dependents, Adam Varnadore. He called his son William to superintend the planting of some apple trees in his absence in a certain field during his stay in London. The son objected to the spot in which he was directed to plant the trees, saying the site selected did not suit-him, and that the trees should be planted elsewhere. The father insisted and enjoined that the trees be put out as he directed while away. With that the elder Moberley and the elder Varnadore went on to London. Adam Varnadore had a son Adam, the companion of young William Moberley. Edward Moberley, the father, and Adam Varnadore, the father, returned from London to find the trees set out against the wishes of Mr. Moberley. In concert both fathers pulled up a sion of the trees with which each whipped his own son soundly. The boys enraged under the lash ran away together. They got into a ship belonging to William Penn, the founder of the colony of Pennsylvania. On board Penn's ship was a beautiful girl, Phoebe Lovejoy, a governess of Penn's household. She was a girl of good family, educated and refined. Phoebe Lovejoy was a Quakeress, and to her must be ascribed the oft repeated statement, that the Mobleys have Quaker blood in their veins. In talks around the family fireside, down from one generation to another, Phoebe is said to have been a relative of Penn or his wife, and that she was as accomplished as she was fair and beautiful, that she was as good as she was lovely. She and William Moberley loved in secret, and upon reaching America were married without the knowledge of Penn, the Proprietor of the province of Pennsylvania, and of course all-powerful. Fearing his displeasure, not to speak of his anger against young Moberley, they fled to the Indians and concealed themselves among them. This is not strange for the Indians lived toward Penn and his people in the spirit of their chief's address to the colonists, "we will live in love with Penn and his children as long as the moon and the sun shall shine. That promise was never broken.
When William Moberley landed in Pennsylvania
he was 18 years old. After the marriage and uncertain life for two years he
moved to a point in Maryland, near what was called a few years ago, Point
Tobacco. He and his wife settled down in that State and raised eight sons. How
many daughters we cannot find out. We cannot ascertain whether there were any
daughters at all. When the youngest son was a boy of 6 years and after the death
of his wife whom he deeply mourned, William Moberley, stricken with loneliness
and sorrow, craved the sight of his father, the old home, and native land. He
returned to England, sad of heart and much changed in physical appearance. He
had left a beardless youth, he returned a bronzed, hardened pioneer of the New
World. So great was the transformation of physique, of manner and expression,
that his father not only did not know him but pronounced him an impostor. The
matter of his identity the father could not for the moment be brought to
believe. He had sought him over a third of a century and as one whom his
enfeebled eyes would never behold again. William Moberley with the tales of his
childhood, of how he had incurred his father's displeasure, about the apple tree
scions, his flogging, his running away with young Adam Varnadore, and at once
going to the window and pointing out the orchard and the very spot he was
whipped, convinced his father that he, indeed, was his long absent boy:
Whereupon it may be imagined a scene of affection and reconciliation. William
Moberley remained but a short time in England and returned to Maryland, died
there, and was the first of our Mobley ancestors whose body given to him in the
Old World returned to its mother Earth in the New.
Chapter II
THE FIRST MOBLEY IN SOUTH CAROLINA
Edward Moberley, son of the first Moberley in America, was the first one of that name to come to South Carolina, some of the family now say as early as 1735, but circumstances and contemporaneous events lead one to believe that it was later, more likely between the years 1758 and 1761, for soon after his arrival he and his sons and one Hans Wagner participated in the troubles and war with the Cherokees. The Cherokees went on the war path, scalped some white settlers, burned their homes and took Fort Loudon. The second William Bull was then the Royal Lieutenant Governor of the Colony. He got together and mobilized a body of up country people with rifles and placed them under the command of Thomas Middleton. Francis Marion was among them. A force of British troops were sent under Colonel Grant to assist the up country people also. The friendship commenced with the Mobleys and Francis Marion in this war lasted as long as the life of General Francis Marion. The Mobleys still bear testimony to that friendship in the Christian names of their descendants.
The first South Carolina Mobley had married Susanah DeRuel and of this union were six sons and six daughters, William, Clement, Benjamin, Edward, John, Samuel, Polly, Susanah, Sallie, Elizabeth, Keziah, and Dorcas. We know this much that Clement married Mary Fox, Ben married the widow Hill, Edward, Susanah, Sallie, Elizabeth, and Keziah all married Meadors. Dorcas married Richard Hill and John married Mary Beam. The youngest son of the first South Carolina Moberley was Samuel, who married Mary Wagner daughter of Hans Wagner, and had four sons and eight daughters to live to maturity. Recurring to an incident of early history, it can be substantiated that the Moberley's came to South Carolina shortly after Braddock's defeat when so many Pennsylvanians, Virginians, and Marylanders settled in the upper part of South Carolina. And it can be said with certitude that when the Patriarch Edward Mobley came, he brought not only his own family, but with him were families of his brothers and sisters and their children.
On the route, on the banks of the Yadkin River, they admitted into the caravan of travelers Hans Wagner, a Hollander. At the time his family consisted of himself and a number of daughters. He joined the Moberleys to immigrate to South Carolina for the better security of his family of daughters, recognizing at the same time that the gentle air of refinement of the Moberley men would be an educative and cultural force upon the lives of his family.
It has been assigned as the reason for the Moberleys leaving Maryland for the Colony of South Carolina, that it grew out on the continual unsettled condition of Maryland politics in respect to property rights, but as no specifications have been given as to just what the older Moberleys meant by that, we are induced to give an incident that more likely caused the migration. It must be remembered that when William Moberley ran away from his father's home in England he took with him young Adam Varnadore who married and continued in his capacity as a dependent worker for the Moberleys. We find the Varnadores with the Moberley in Maryland, and they came on to this State with them. They are here now, and some have confirmed in statements to Miss Marion Durham the family tradition of the run away of the two boys from England to America. The first Edward Moberley it is said left Maryland on account of incidents growing out of a trial in the Courts of that colony. It seems that the Presiding Judge was severe in his rulings and sentence in a case against an indentured to service white man of Edward Mobley's. Either it was a Varnadore or a Varnadore was present, but, this is pretty certain, Mr. Moberley treated the Court with contempt, kicked and otherwise assaulted the Judge in the Court House. This cost him no doubt a, good deal, and afterward, as the Judge had his friends and connections in the colony, there ensued from time to time many fights and difficulties about the matter. After the Moberleys came to South Carolina, being the only Episcopalians in their neighborhood, it is said that whenever religious discussion engendered high feeling in dispute they were taunted with disfigured tales of the reasons why they left Maryland which invariably brought on the lie and a fight.
As stated the first S. Carolina Moberley and his sons and Hans Wagner with the riflemen and British troops went on long marches, engaged the Indians in battle and put them to flight to a large Indian town. The whites followed them, burned their shacks to ashes. The Cherokee Chief, Attakullakulla (Leaning Chief) asked the whites for peace. Afterward he went to Charleston and smoked a pipe of peace with Gov. Bull, among an assembly of people in silence.
The Moberleys settled on what is known as Poplar Ridge, the Eastside of Beaver Creek. Hans Wagner and his family of girls, no boys, near Reedy Branch. Past the meridian of life he was so solicitous of their welfare that be constructed a strong fort of white oak logs, hewn twelve inches square, for their protection, and when there was danger from the Indians, the neighbors would gather there to defend themselves, with Hans Wagner and his girls. By certain means not very creditable to the Hampton's the Moberleys were fretted about their lands for a long while and moved a few miles from the place of their first location further to the East and built another fort, and near it erected later the Moberley Meeting House which we will refer to later. Hans Wagner stood his ground against whatever potent influence the Hamptons had brought to bear on the Moberleys and with his girls held the fort until he got his grant confirmed. The Beams, another family were also harassed in the same way by the Hamptons but held their ground.
Hans Wagner married five times. One of his
wives was a French woman, Marie DeLashmette. She was the mother of our
ancestress, Mary Wagner, who married Samuel Mobley. Another wife of Hans Wagner
was Elizabeth Johnstone. She was the mother of Nancy Agnes Wagner who married
Capt Andrew McLean whose daughter Katie married John Mobley. Therefore it may be
well to note right here that the descendants of John Mobley and his wife Katie
are descended from Hans Wagner through two wives, Marie DeLashmette and
Elizabeth Johnstone. The DeLashmette name in this country has been corrupted to
DeLashmette, and I have seen it written Lashly in information furnished me as to
the wife of Clement Moberley a son of the first South Carolina Moberley. The
first DeLashmette to come to this country, Mr. Wade Brice informed Miss Marion
Durham, was the Marquis DeLashmette, that he was a French nobleman, banished
from France for political offences against the Monarchy of Louis XIV., that he
owned nearly a principality of land, some on the Yadkin River in North Carolina,
that he once owned the lands on which Mr. Brice lived and now owned by his
widow, Mrs. Matilda Brice near Woodward, S. C. The deed is on record here at
Winnsboro. Some have thought the Marquis moved with other DeLashmette's to
Kentucky, but that is an error. He went from South Carolina to Chickahominy,
Mississippi.
CHANGE OF NAME
Great grandmother Mary Robinson became blind; Mrs. Anne Jane Neal, still living came once to see her. Mrs. Neal was born just a year before the battle of Waterloo and celebrated her 101st birthday on May 14th last. On the particular visit we are now alluding to the great grand mother said to her: "The first Mobley that came to South Carolina spelled his name Moberley. He and his oldest son had an idea that they might succeed to property in England and were always careful to spell the name that way, but the neighbors spelled it M-o-b-l-e-y." Another account is from Miss Marion Durham who handed the author a letter from Zebulon Mobley to her, a part of that letter says: "My uncle John Mobley told me our original name was 'Moberley.' Our forefathers came to this country from England. There is a Moberly Parish in England. and a Bishop Moberley wrote a book called Moberley's Forty Days which I have read. Uncle John Mobley told me that within his recollection his grand father Edward Moberley went to Maryland to buy slaves, and that the relatives in Maryland (Frederick, Md.) took a notion that he was a speculator and deemed the business of selling slaves beneath one of their family, and gave to him a cold shoulder and an averted face. That when he returned to South Carolina he called all his relations together and said: "Our relatives did not treat me as we would have treated one of them if he had visited us. In spite of our earnest protests, our neighbor will persist in writing our name "Mobley." I now move we change our name and sign it henceforth as our neighbors write it, Mobley. I am as you know as far above selling slaves as they are." Most of the family present agreed, a few clung to the old name. I remember the altercation as if it were yesterday. I was a lad present and felt sorry about the fuss and the change in the name." Aunt Nannie Nicholson informs me since the above was written that her grandmother told her that her grandfather Sam said the reason he liked the change was it took too much trouble to write it "Moberley" and of one thing we are certain, he went further than the neighbors did.. He signed his will "Sam Mobley." Again when his wife died he chiseled it "Elizabeth Mobley" on her tomb. It is thus on his vault in Fellowship. The now accepted surname is "Mobley".
end of excerpts
Information gathered and posted by: Wanda Bostic Dunlap
August 2008