52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 39
#52ancestors
Prompt: Should Be a Movie
"James was swimming the river, carrying a log chain, and just before reaching the bank, he sank to rise no more.[1]" In those few minutes his wife, Ann, became a widow and a single mother.
James Maddy, who served under George Washington, drowned near their property in the part of Augusta County that later became part of Rockingham County, Virginia. Ann Morris married James around 1759. He drowned probably in 1783 but certainly before June 1784. They had twelve children, seven who gained adulthood and were the ancestors of a family that spread across the United States. Much of Ann's life can be documented from when and where her children were born but there were many pioneer women who had large families. Ann Morris Maddy aka Granny Parsons was more than just the mother of a large family and her life really should be made into a movie.
Ann was born in Orange County, Virginia in 1740. Family tradition states that her brother was Robert Morris of Revolutionary War fame, who signed the Declaration of Independence and helped finance the war. However, this seems unlikely to me as much as I would like to believe it. Robert Morris was born in England and lived in Pennsylvania. She was not listed in either his will or his Father's will. All the records that have been found for Ann are in Virginia and West Virginia. There has been some indication that her father was John Morris who lived on Goose Creek in what is now southern Loudoun County, near James Maddy when he was a child[2]. But either way, as her biography on Find A Grave[3] states, "we can all be very proud of her for her own sake."
After James' death, Ann immediately moved her family to Monroe Co., West Virginia near old family friends, the Jacob Miller family. Despite the distance, Ann traveled back and forth several times by horseback to settle the estate . Ann was an accomplished rider and very capable of taking care of the estate business. While on a trip back to their previous residence, she traveled alone through the mountains carrying a large amount of money concealed in a belt under her clothing. Being tired she spent the night in the home of a settler in the mountains. "The settler guessed that she had money, and being avaricious and a murder at heart, he determined to have her money. The next morning, he kindly (?) offered to show her a nearer way than the regular trail. She accepted his kind offer and coming to a lonely place over a ravine he told her he knew she had money, that he intended to have it, and that he would throw her oer the cliff, and no one would be the wiser. She descended from her horse, as if accepting her fate and asked that he turn his back as the money was in her clothing. Probably she had a more complicated job to get it than she would today. He obligingly turned away, and she made a dash at him, threw him off his balance and over the cliff[4]". She then proceeded on her way.
In 1785, Ann married George W. Parsons and eventually gained the name "Granny Parsons". She was a well known midwife and practical nurse in the area and was known for riding a big black stallion at all hours of the day and night going to help those who needed it. Often as people heard her gallop past, they would say, "There goes Granny Parsons to help someone in trouble[5]." She was helping people well into what most would consider old age. Depending on which records that you consult, Granny Parsons lived to be 104 to 107. She spent her last days on the Lively farm with her daughter, Sarah Maddy Lively and was buried in the Cottrel Lively Cemetery in Monroe County, West Virginia.
Ann Morris Maddy Parsons lived through the Revolutionary War and certainly had a life worth remembering in
the movies.
[1] Olive Maddy, US Maddys (Oskaloosa, Iowa: Private Printing).
[2] John F.
Vallentine, "The Robert Morris-Ann Morris Maddy Tradition" The American Genealogist 49, no 3 (July
1973): 129-137
[3] "Ann Morris Maddy Parsons", Find A Grave, accessed September 20, 2020, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/5358309/ann-maddy_parsons
[4] Maddy, US Maddys.
[5] Maddy, US Maddys.
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