AMERICA THE GREAT MELTING POT
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Direct descendant is highlighted in red
| Margaret White |
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| Born: 20 May 1770 | ||
| 13 Feb 1849 Apple Creek, Wayne Co. OH
Buried: Old West Cemetery, Fredericksburg, Wayne Co., OH (beside her daughter-in-law, Harriet.) |
FATHER
MOTHER
Margaret Stull
HUSBAND
Richard Geary
b. 01 Jan 1779
d. 22 Feb 1834
| CHILDREN 1. Edward Ratchford Geary b. 20 Apr 1811 2. John White Geary b. 30 Dec 1819
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The Stulls of "Millsborough" by Chris Harvey Bailey, 2000
7
"Margaret White, daughter of Peter White and Margaret Stull, was born May 20, 1770 in Frederick (present-day Washington) County, MD. She was married May 14, 1809 at Hagerstown, MD to Richard Geary, Jr., the only son of Richard Geary and Martha Ratchford. Richard Jr. was born Jan. 1, 1779 in Chester County, PA, though as a youth his family had settled in Franklin County, PA. The Maryland Herald and Hagers-Town Weekly Advertiser carried the following item on Friday, May 17, 1809:
| Married on Sunday evening last by the Rev. Mr. Bower, Mr. Richard Geary and Miss Margaret White, both of this town. |
Richard and Margaret Geary had four sons, the first two or three born near Boonesboro, MD and the last born in Mt. Pleasant Township, Westmoreland County, PA:
| 1. Isaac Stull Geary, b. abt. 1810. He died in
infancy. 2. Edward Ratchford Geary, b. Apr. 30, 1811. He first married Harriet Rebecca Reed and secondly, Nancy Merrick Woodbridge. 3. Alexander Hamilton Geary, b. abt. 1814. He died in infancy. 4. John White Geary, b. Dec. 30, 1819. He first married Margaret Ann Logan and secondly, Mrs. Mary (Church) Henderson. |
On June 1, 1805 Margaret White received $12.00 as the balance of her share of her mother's personal estate. (57) On Nov 11, 1805 she paid her sister and brother-in-law, John and Sarah Wagoner, $40 for their share of their mother's personal estate. (58)
Richard Geary Jr. attended Dickinson College at Carlisle, PA, but at the death of his father, about 1795, he was employed as a clerk in the store of James Buchanan (59) at Mercersburg, PA (the father of United States President James Buchanan). (60) About 1801 he went to Hagerstown, MD to work for Col. Nathaniel Rochester in the same business. After Col. Rochester moved to upstate New York, Richard Geary manufactured iron in Maryland and Pennsylvnia until financial pressures from a depression in 1816 caused him to go bankrupt. He afterwards opened a select school in Westmoreland County, PA which he ran until his death on Feb. 22, 1834 at New Alexandria, Westmoreland County, PA.
Widow Margaret Geary went to live with her son and after his first wife's death in 1843 helped to raise his children. On May 29, 1840, Rev. Edward R. Geary interviewed his 70 year old mother concerning her ancestry and recorded a number of notes, abstracts of which survive. (61) Rev. Geary wrote the following about his mother. (62)
| 'Mother was a lady who in early life was accustomed to the best society of her day, of courtly mein, and handsome in face and person; a fervent Episcopalian, yet of generous catholicity, and evangelical in faith. After I became a Presbyterian minister and became settled as a pastor, she made her home with me and without change of sentiments, fell in with all the usages and forms of Presbyterianism though unchanged in regard to the church of her ancestors. After the death of my beloved wife, though advanced in years, she had charge of my orphaned daughters -- a mother indeed.' |
About 1846 she sat down with her son Edward Ratchford Geary and gave an account of her ancestry. This testimony can be seen on the page for Mary McCoy, wife of Leonard White, her nephew.
Margaret Geary died Feb. 13, 1849 at Fredericksburg, Wayne County, OH at the age of 78.
Footnotes
(57) Land records of Washington County, MD, Bk. R, p. 213.
(58) Ibid., Bk. R, p. 482.
(59) James Buchanan was born at Ramelton, County Donegal, Ireland about 1761. He emigrated to Pennsylvania in 1783 and was married Apr. 16, 1788 to Elizabeth Speer, daughter of James Speer and Mary Patterson. Elizabeth was born about 1761 in Lancaster County, PA. James Buchanan died June 11, 1821 at Mercersburg, PA. His widow died May 14, 1833 at Greensburg, PA. (American Presidential Families, by Hugh Brogan and Charles Mosley, pp. 427-428).
(60) President James Buchanan was born near Foltz, Franklin County, PA on Apr. 23, 1791. He was the 15th and only bachelor president of the United States, serving 1857-1861. He died June 1, 1868 at his home, 'Wheatland,' at Lancaster, PA.
(61) These notes were published in the Leonard-White Opus, by Edward Miller Geary, Eric Passmore White and Walter Wayne Miller, privately published about 1972, pp. 60-61 with additional ancestral notes compiled by Edward R. Geary after 1849 on pp. 61-64. Margaret (White) Geary's memory was good converning her parents and brothers and sisters, but details of her recollections about her Stull grandparents were incomplete, confused or incorrect. Her recolelctions were used a a guide for research, but not relied upon without other documentatiion.
(62) This statement came from the writings of Rev. Edward Ratchford Geary and quoted paper compiled in Dec. 1914 by John White Geary (1881-1955), grandnephew of Rev. Edward R. Geary. A copy was sent to the compiler by John White Geary's nephew, Edward Millar Geary.