#52 Ancestors 2022 Week 38 New to You: 5G Grandfather Nathaniel Austin

 My 3G Grandfather, William Felix Wright, was a well-known lawyer and judge in Georgia.  The son of Littleberry Wright and Henrietta Austin, he was born 20 February 1824 in Lawrenceville, Gwinnett County GA, about 30 miles northeast of Atlanta, just a few years after the town was incorporated. 

Judge Wright died in Alexandria VA 25 April 1887, while on a visit to his daughter (my 2G grandmother Ida Elizabeth Wright Dent) in St. Mary's County MD.  His obituary in the Atlanta Constitution praised him as "a prominent member of the bar," but gave very little personal information about him. 

And that is where I was stuck for many years in trying to trace his lineage further back.  Until recently, when I found another obituary for him, this time from his hometown newspaper, The Gwinnett Herald in Lawrenceville. There I found the clue that opened up several more generations of ancestors. 

The local obituary mentions that Judge Wright was the grandson of Nathaniel Austin, one of the early settlers of Gwinnett County, who lived about two miles outside of Lawrenceville. 

Once I had that name, I found a wealth of information about my 5G grandfather and his ancestors as well.  Prior to this, I had found no information about Henrietta Austin Wright's family and without this mention of her father, I would not have been able to make the connection.

The earliest known Austin in America was Nathaniel Austin Sr., (my 7G grandfather) born in England (possibly York) about 1720, the son of John and Henrietta Austin. (I can now see where GG Henrietta Austin got her name.) Tradition says that he came to Virginia as an agent for the English king about 1750 with his wife, Mary Manning, and three sons: Nathaniel Jr., Walter Manning, and Thomas.  They had two more sons in Virginia: John and Francis Austin.  Mary Austin died about 1753 and Nathaniel married Agnes Dickinson in 1754 at St. Martin's Parish in Virginia.  They had five more sons and a daughter, Mary, who was killed by Indians at age 17. 

Nathaniel Austin and his family lived in Wythe Virginia for about ten years, where he held the position of constable.  In 1769, Nathaniel received a Royal Land Grant for 500 acres near what is now Greenville SC (but then was still Indian territory) and by 1774, he had built a two-story log house called Gilder and moved his family there. Around ten years later, a second house was built to accommodate the growing family.

Described as "a man of commanding personality, bold and adventurous," Austin may have gone to SC as an emissary to the Cherokee Indians and ran a trading post at Gilder. At this time period, immediately before the Revolution, South Carolina was full of British soldiers and those hired by the British to oppose the colonists. 

Nathaniel Austin and his sons chose to join the Patriot cause.  Nathaniel Sr., about 50 years old at the time, was a captain in the South Carolina militia.  He participated in the siege of Charleston and the Battle of Cowpens as well as several other battles in North and South Carolina. 

Battle of Cowpens 1781

According to the Austin family Bible: "13 February 1798. Capt. Nathaniel Austin, founder of Gilder and ancestor of many upstanding citizens down through the years, died in his own home. He is buried on part of his original plantation, where nine generations have continued to live."

Nathaniel Austin Jr., my 6G grandfather, was born in England in 1743 and came to America with his parents about 1750.  He served as a Quartermaster Sgt. in the Little River Regiment of the South Carolina Militia. 

About 1763, Nathaniel Jr. married Sara Ann Anderson in Virginia and had 13 children with her, including my 5G grandfather, Nathaniel Austin III. 

In 1791, Nathaniel Jr. obtained a land grant of 150 acres in the 96th District of South Carolina. In 1820, he drew land in the Cherokee Land Lottery, a system used extensively in Georgia to redistribute land that had essentially been stolen from the Muskogee and Cherokee natives.  The State claimed this system was designed to "strengthen the state and increase the population in order to increase Georgia's power in the House of Representatives." 

Between 1805 and 1833, Georgia held 8 land lotteries distributing native lands that represented more than a third of the total land in Georgia. Thousands of white settlers obtained land in these lotteries. In the early 19th century, more than 60,000 Native Americans were forcibly removed from their land, culminating in the horrific Trail of Tears where tens of thousands died of disease and exposure, one of the most troubling incidents in American history. 

I'm sorry to have to say that my ancestors were part of the system that led to this tragedy. 

In any case, Nathaniel Austin Jr. died about 1832 in Gwinnett County GA on the land he had obtained in the lottery. 

Nathaniel Austin III, my 5G grandfather, was born 8 October 1773 in Greenwood County SC, the Old Ninety Six District, the son of Nathaniel Austin Jr. and Sarah Ann Anderson. He married Nancy Gilbert in 1793 in South Carolina before moving to Georgia about 1820. My 4G grandmother, Henrietta Austin, was the fourth of their eleven children, born in South Carolina in 1799. 

Henrietta's brother, Col. James Austin was a judge in Gwinnett County and was murdered by one of his slaves in 1848. Her brothers William Austin and Sterling Austin were cotton brokers with a business in New Orleans that was basically destroyed by the Union Army in the siege of that city in 1862. Her brother Nat moved to Texas about 1860. 

About 1820, Henrietta Austin married Littleberry Wright, a South Carolina native.  They had four children: Zaida 1821, William Felix (my 3G grandfather) 1824, Gilbert Jefferson 1825, and Mary Henrietta 1830.  Henrietta filed for divorce from Wright in 1835, apparently on grounds of abandonment. Divorce being a somewhat rare event in 19th-century Georgia, the situation must have been pretty bad. 

In 1827 and 1832, Nathaniel Austin III participated in the Georgia Land Lottery and drew land in Gwinnett and Walker counties. From 1830 to his death in 1860, he lived in Gwinnett County. He served at one time as a road commissioner.

I believe that Henrietta and her children lived with her parents in the 1840 Census after her divorce from Littleberry Wright in 1835.  Further, I think that Nathaniel's land in Walker County was given to Henrietta. She and her daughters, Zaida Gray and Mary Gordon, were living there in 1850. Henrietta died there in 1857, at the age of 57, and left her property to her daughter Mary.  

Littleberry Wright was still alive in 1860 and living next door to his son William in Newnan GA.  I do not know anything about his parentage or when he died. (So, still more ancestors to be discovered!)

Nathaniel Austin III died in Gwinnett County GA in late 1860 at the age of 88.  His estate inventory in January 1861 included 17 slaves and a sizeable estate. 

So that is what I have been able to find about my newly-discovered Austin family ancestors, some Revolutionary patriots and some participants in a tragic land grab.