My second cousin, Henry Wright Gantt, just couldn't get enough of the Weems women. He married four of them.
Henry Wright Gantt, the son of John Mackall Gantt and Margaret Wright, was born in Prince George's County MD on the 23 of October 1763, the second of their four children. He was baptized the same month at St. John's Parish.
Henry's first marriage took place about 1797 in Prince George's County MD. A newspaper account, written by a descendant in 1905, identifies Henry's first wife as Mary Weems, the niece of Mason Loch Weems, who died shortly after the birth of her only child at about the age of 20. I have done a lot of research on the Weems family, and I cannot find a Mary Weems who would be a niece of Parson Weems who would fit this description, so I think that part is not true. I am not 100 percent sure about Mary's parents, but, by process of elimination, I think she was the daughter of William Loch Weems and Amelia Chapman of Billingsley, Prince George's County. His will in 1783 says that he had three daughters and I know that two of them were Wilhelmina and Sarah Louise. I think that Mary was the third daughter. If she was married in 1797, she would have been born about 1780 and would have been unmarried when her father wrote his will.
In any case, Henry and Mary had a son John Weems Gantt, born in 1798, probably in Prince George's County MD. You would think that this name might give a clue to his grandfather, but I have had no luck in finding a John Weems with a daughter Mary who could have been Henry's wife. However, Mary Weems, above, did have a brother John Weems, so that is still a possibility. John Weems Gantt was educated at Edinboro Medical School and practiced medicine and farmed in Albemarle County VA.
After the death of Mary Weems in 1798, Henry quickly remarried on March 3,1798 in Prince George's County MD. (Someone had to take care of that new baby!) His second wife was Wilhelmina Weems, the daughter of William Loch Weems and Amelia Chapman, another reason why my identification of Mary Weems makes some logical sense. Wilhelmina's brother John confirms this marriage in a court case in 1802 and also indicates that his sister is dead by 1802. Wilhelmina and Henry had no children in their short marriage.
Again, Henry remarried quickly after the death of Wilhelmina, this time to Sarah Howell Weems, the daughter of Richard Weems and Mary Ward. This Sarah was actually a niece of Mason Loch Weems, so perhaps that is where that notion originated in the 1905 story. Henry and Sarah were married in Anne Arundel County MD 17 October 1801, when Sarah was about thirty years old. Henry and Sarah had three children, probably all born in Maryland:
*Mary about 1802, married Alfred Tolson in 1826
*Caesar about 1804, married Rosa Preuss
*Margaret Wilhelmina about 1805, married Dr. James Bonnel Carr Thornton in July 1823 and died a few months later.
Meanwhile in 1813, Henry Wright Gantt purchased 734 acres of land in Albemarle County VA and moved there.
On the 5th of December 1821, Henry bought a Maryland State Lottery Ticket and a week later, he won a prize of $40,000, quite a sizeable fortune. Henry then returned to his old home in Maryland leaving the farm to his oldest son, Dr. John Weems Gantt.
Sarah Weems Gantt must have died sometime before April 1824, when 60-year-old Henry married for the fourth time to 22-year-old Ann Ewell Weems, also known as Nancy, the daughter of Parson Mason Loch Weems and Fanny Ewell. Henry and Nancy had one son: Albert Weems Gantt about 1828. Albert married Mary Elizabeth Moorman Jefferson in 1848 and had six children with her. He served in the Confederate army during the Civil War and died in 1895.
Ann Weems Gantt died in Prince George's County MD in March 1833.
Henry Wright Gantt died in Prince George's County MD in February 1838, having outlived all four of his Weems wives.
Here is a chart showing the relationship between the Weems wives, descendants of the brothers James and David who came to Anne Arundel County in the early 1700's.
So, was Henry just stuck in rut, or were those Weems women just irresistible?
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