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    • Persons Index
      • (--?--)—to—William Delray Alley
      • James Allinder—to—James Beall
      • James Beall—to—Claudia June Bremser
      • Clive John Bremser—to—Daniel Bushnell
      • Ebenezer Bushnell—to—Baby Claggett
      • Benjamin Franklin Claggett—to—James K Crofut
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      • Lydia Althea (Althia) Dustin—to—Bildad Fowler
      • Catherine Fowler—to—Frederick Eugene Gross I
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      • Asa Loveland—to—Edward Christian McNett
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      • Judy Carol Newsom—to—(--?--) Phelps
      • (--?--) Phelps—to—John Phelps
      • John Phelps—to—Timothy Phelps
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      • Johann Jakob Rieger—to—Betha of Savoy
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      • Ann Spencer—to—John Thompson
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    • Four Generations Tree
  • History of the Phelps Surname
    • Possible Origins of the Family in Germany and Italy
    • Spelling and Origin of the Name
    • Welf and Guelph, Possible Ancestors to the Phelps
    • House of Welf vs. the House of Hohenstaufen
    • Origins in Wales
  • William Phelps 1630 Origins
    • William Phelps First Generations
    • William Phelps of Crewkerne, England
    • William Phelps of Tewkesbury, England
    • William Phelps of Dorchester, Colony of Massachusetts
    • William Phelps 1672 Will
  • George Phelps 1634 Origins
    • George Phelps First Generations
    • The Identity of George Parkhurst
    • George Phelps in New England 1634
    • George Phelps 1687 Will
  • Richard Phelps 1633 Origins
  • James Phelps 1786 Origins
  • Phelps Origins in Europe
    • Phelps Origins in Nether Tyne, Checkley, England
    • Decendants of James Phelps of Nether Tyne, England
    • Decendants of James Phelps of Tewkesbury, England
  • Phelps Towns & Villages
    • Tewkesbury, England
    • Crewkerne, England
    • Checkley, England
    • Simsbury, Connecticut
    • Windsor, Connecticut
  • Colonial Voyages to Connecticut
    • Researching the Mary and John
    • Warrent and Order Detaining Phelps' Ships
    • About the Ship Mary and John
    • Voyage of the Mary and John 1630
    • Voyage of the Mary and John in 1633/34
    • Voyage of the Hercules in 1633/34
    • Voyage of the Recovery in 1633/34
  • Phelps Arrival in America
    • Nathaniel Phelps of Dorchester, Connecticut
    • William Phelps of Northampton, Massachusetts
    • Elnathian Phelps b. c1734
    • First Phelps Family Ancestors
    • The Great Migration to the Colonies
      • King Charles Persecutes Puritans
      • John Phelps Regicide to Charles I
      • Phelps Entries in the Great Migration Begins
  • Phelps of Simsbury and Windsor
    • William Phelps and the First Local Government
    • Founders of Ancient Windsor, Connecticut
    • Estimated Population of American Colonies 1620 to 1780
    • Crime and Punishment in Simsbury
    • Organization of the Church in Windsor
    • The Phelps Homestead in Simsbury
  • Phelps Family Letters
    • Isaac Ensign and Cornelia Phelps
    • Ensign Letters from Simsbury to Forsyth
    • Correspondance of Oliver Roswell Phelps and Georgia Phelps
    • Ensign Family Letters
  • Phelps from New York to Illinois
    • Nehemiah West Leads the Settlers West
    • Hoosiers vs. Yankees: A Slave State or Not?
    • The (Ill-fated) Boat Party
    • Pioneer Architecture: From Log Cabins to Homes
    • Galesburg Grows Amidst the Jackson Panic
    • Founding of the Knox Manual Labor College
    • Household Skills in Pioneer Galesberg
    • Commerce is Established With Colton's Store
    • Food and Clothing in Early Galesburg
  • Family Origins in Illinois
    • Noble Phelps Moves West to Illinois
    • Knox County Pioneer Noble Phelps
    • Noble Phelps' Prize Farm
    • Premium for Phelps Best Farm
    • Seraphina Princess Phelps and George Avery
    • Ronald Aaron Noble Phelps 1881 Bio
    • Avery Company History
  • Phelps Family in California
    • Bart Phelps, Navy Telegrapher Radioman
    • Bart Phelps, Yerba Buena 1916 Radio Operations
    • Bart Phelps, Wailupe 1921 Radio Operations
    • Bart Phelps, Alaska 1924 Radio Operations
    • Annabeth Beasley Phelps
    • Harold Bartle "Bud" Phelps III
    • A Generation Passes
  • Bartle Family
    • Bartle Family Genealogy
    • The Daily Journal of Births and Deaths
    • Bartle First American Ancestors
    • Henry Hart Bartle Obituary
    • Henry Hart Bartle 1858-1929 Biograpahy
    • Nathanial Sanburn 1723, Kingston New Hampshire
    • Francis G. Sanburn 1899, of Knoxville, Illinois
    • William Toy Bartle Ministry
    • Nathanial Sanborn, 1814, of Canandaigua, New York
  • Beasley Family
    • Beasley Family Genealogy
    • First Known American Ancestors
    • The Price of Slaves 1850
    • Luther S. Beasley 1925 Obituary
    • John T. Beasley 1883-1950
    • John Beasley and Lizzie Bremser Marriage
    • John T. Beasley 1950 Obituary
    • Jane Beasley Raph Professional Life
    • Jane Beasley Raph 2001 Obituary
    • Annabeth Beasley Phelps, Mother and Provider
    • Annabeth Beasley Phelps 2001 Obituary
    • Brandy Station in the Civil War
    • T/5 Myron K. Ricketts, WWII Veteran
    • A Hero in Our Midst—Mac Butler's "Battlin' Blue Bastards"
    • Ephraim Beazley 1797 Deeds and Records
    • William Beazley 1824 Court Records and Will
  • Bremser Family
    • Bremser Family Genealogy
    • Finding Heinrich Gottlieb Bremser
    • The Family History
    • Coming to America
    • The Search for Henry Bremser
    • Henry Bremser 1864-1848 Bio
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    • Elizabeth Bremser 1888-1952 Biograhy
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    • Bremsers Origins in Germany
    • Bremser-Familiengeschichte (Deutch)
  • Christy Family
    • Guy Christy Horseshoes Collection
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    • Guy H Christy, Kentucky to California
    • 27th Illinois Infantry Regimental History
    • The Mystery of Harry Haskell
      • The Civil War Medal
      • A Short Biography
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      • Mystery Revealed
  • Claggett Family
    • Claggett Family Genealogy
    • Claggett First Ancestors in America
    • Robert Clagget 1490 in England
    • Edward Clagett 1670 Emigration to America
    • Thomas Claggett 1703 of London and Maryland
    • Thomas Clagett 1732 Will
    • Samuel Claggett 1821, Revolutionary War Surgeon
    • Samuel Claggett 1846 of Virginia
    • Samuel Claggett and Julia F. Sanford Marriage Contract
    • Bernard Johnson Claggett 1919 Bio
    • The Price of Slaves 1850
    • Julia {Sanford} Claggett 1876 Civil War Claims
      • Deposition of Columbia Claggett
      • Commision Standard Interrogitories
      • Deposition of Sgt. Ereastus Weaver
      • Deposition of Lt.Frank Foot
      • Deposition of Julia Claggett
      • Deposition of Thomas Claggett
      • Testimony of Craven King
      • Testimony of William Francis
      • Testimony of Erastus Weaver
      • Map of Clagget Farm
      • Claim Exhibits
      • Battle of Bull Run
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      • 121st NY Volunteers
      • Complete Commission Transcript
    • Claggett Family Move to Illinois from Virginia
    • Sanford Ramey Claggett 1895 Obituary
    • Ann Claggett Beasley 1898 Obituary
    • Rev. Thomas John Claggett 1816, First American Episcopal Bishop
    • Thomas J. Claggett 1901 Obituary
    • Columbia Claggett 1904 Obituary
    • Brice Clagett, Family Genealogist
    • Claggett Coat of Arms
  • Diuguid Family
    • Diuguid Family Genealogy
    • George Christian Diuguid of Kentucky
    • The English Royal Connection
    • Harriet Diuguid's Letter About Her Ancestry
    • Diuguid Origins in America
    • Origin of the Diuguid Name
  • Klein Family
    • Klein Family Genealogy
    • Klein Origins in Germany
    • Klein Visit to 1922 Germany
  • Morgan Family
    • Morgan Family Genealogy
    • Utah Pioneer John Morgan
  • Loveland Family
    • Loveland Family Since 1556
  • Notable Family Members
    • 1600-1699
      • John Phelps, Court Clerk at the Trial of King Charles I
      • Anson Green Phelps, Merchant and Philanthropist
    • 1700-1799
      • Richard Phelps, Bell-founder for English Churches
      • Dr. Francis Phelps, Representative and Senator
      • Judge John Phelps, Publisher, Judge, Merchant, and Entrepreneur
      • Noah Phelps, A Spy at Ticonderoga, A Patriot of 1776
      • Oliver Phelps, Land Speculator, Judge, Congressman
      • William Wines Phelps, Judge, Mormon Publisher and Writer
      • William Wines Phelps Letters to Wife
      • William Wines Phelps Revelation Given
      • William Wines Phelps in Church History
      • William Wines Phelps Letter from Liberty Jail 1834
      • Samuel Shethar Phelps, Jurist, Congressman, and Senator
      • Nathanial Sanborn, Pioneer Settler of Canandaigua, New York
    • 1800-1849 A-M
      • Alfred Aaron Phelps, Wild West Show Rider
      • Austin Phelps, Congregational Minister, Educator
      • Charles Edward Phelps, Congressman, Judge, Author
      • Delos Porter Phelps, Lawyer, U.S. Assistant Treasurer
      • Edward John Phelps, American Lawyer, Diplomat
      • George M. Phelps, Master Telegraph Instrument Maker, Inventor
      • Dr. Guy Rowland Phelps, Founder, Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance Company
      • Judge James Phelps, Judge, Congressman
      • Judge John Jay Phelps, Publisher, Judge, Merchant, Entrepreneur
      • John Smith Phelps, Lawyer, Legislator
      • John Wolcott Phelps, Brigadier General, United States Volunteers
      • Mary Phelps Rich, Pioneer Saint in Tazewell County, Illinois
      • Francis G. Sanburn, Pioneer Resident of Knoxville, Illinois
    • 1800-1849 N-Z
      • Mary Anne Phelps Rich, Mormon Pioneer
      • Rev. Philip Phelps, Founder, First President, Western Theological Seminary
      • John Wesley Phelps, Deputy Sheriff of Hartford County, Connecticut
      • Stephen Sumner Phelps, Illinois Pioneer
      • Thomas Stowell Phelps, Civil War Naval Officer
      • William Walter Phelps, Congressman, Ambassador, Judge
    • 1850-1899
      • Mary Phelps Jacob, Inventor, Publisher
      • William Lyon Phelps, Educator, Literary Critic, Author
    • 1900-2020
      • Chance Russel Phelps, Private, USMC
  • Phelps Family Arms & Crest
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  • Selected Family Wills
    • Thomas and Katherine Phylypp Wills 1556, Over Teyne, Checkeley, England
    • William Phelps 1672 Will, Windsor, Connecticut
    • Anthony Phillipps 1648 Will, Nether Teane, England
    • Francis Phylyppe 1648 Will, Checkley, England
    • Thomas Phylypp 1556 Will, Over Teyne, England
    • George Phelps 1687 Will, Westfield, Massachusetts
    • Timothy Phelps 1639 Will, Windsor, Connecticut
    • Natnaniel Phelps 1702 Will, Northampton, Massachusetts
    • Thomas Clagett 1708 Will, Calvert, Maryland
    • Thomas Clagett 1732 Will, Prince Georges, Maryland
    • Julia F Sanford 1727 Marriage Indenture
    • Ephraim Beazley 1797 Wills & Deeds, Spotsylvania, Virginia
    • Ephraim Beasley 1797 Deed Spotsylvania, Virginia
    • Ephraim Beasley 1798 to Elizabeth Beazley
    • Ephraim Beasley 1798 Will, Spotsylvania County, Virginia
    • Henry Beazley 1804 Indenture, Spotsylvania, Virginia
    • William Beazley 1828 Will, Culpeper, Virginia
    • William Beazley 1824 Court Records and Will
    • William Beazley 1852 Will, Culpeper, Virginia
    • Cornelius Beazley 1834 Will
    • Ephraim Beazley 1833 Mortgage
    • John Loveland 1649 Will
    • Ephraim Beazley 1798 Henry Beazley 1815 Indenture
    • James Phelps of North Caroline 1786 Estate
    • Robert Valentine Phelps 1905 Australia
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George Avery and Seraphina Princess Phelps

Excerpted from 1886 Portrait & Biographical Album of Knox County, Illinois
Courtesy of Foxie Hagerty. Transcribed by Kathy Mills.

George Avery Seraphina Phelps
George Avery Seraphina Phelps

"One of the oldest and most highly esteemed citizens of Knox County is Mr. George Avery, of Galesburg. He was born in Columbia County, N. Y., Dec. 2, 1802. His parents, William Thomas and Phebe (Throop) Avery, were of New England ancestry, although slightly tinged with foreign blood. The former died in the east when our subject was a young man. They had a family of eight.

  1. William Thomas Avery (1764-1820) m Phebe Throop (1771-1844)
    1. Nathan (1792-1846). Nathan was a physician, and married a Miss [Rebecca Jones] Rivers of Tennessee. Both are deceased, leaving one son:
      1. William Tecumsah Avery (1819–1880) Avery was born in Hardeman County, Tennessee on November 11, 1819, the son of Nathan and Rebecca Jones Rivers Avery. He attended the common schools, graduated from old Jackson College near Columbia, Tennessee in Maury County. He studied law and was admitted to the bar. He moved to Memphis, Tennessee in 1840 and engaged in the practice of law. He married Emma Chastelette Jones in December of 1852. They had three children, William Thomas, Harry Edwin, and Emma Blythe.

        In 1843, Avery was a member of the Tennessee House of Representatives. He was elected as a Democrat to the Thirty-fifth and Thirty-sixth Congress. He served from March 4, 1857 to March 3, 1861, but he was not a candidate for renomination in 1860.

        During the Civil War, Avery served as a lieutenant colonel in the Confederate Army. He was a clerk of the criminal court of Shelby County from 1870 to 1874. He resumed the practice of law in Memphis, Tennessee.

        Avery accidentally drowned in Ten Mile Bayou in Crittenden County, Arkansas, opposite Memphis, on May 20, 1880 (age 60 years, 193 days). He is interred at Elmwood Cemetery in Memphis, Tennessee]
    2. Clarissa (1793-1836) m. Silas Churchill and both she and her husband are deceased. They left a family of five children, three boys and two girls. Both Hyde T. and William T. are also deceased, the latter dying in Indiana.
    3. Hyde Throop (1797-1864) Never married.
    4. William Thomas (1800-1856) Never married.
    5. George (1802-1886) m. Seraphina Princess Mary Phelps
    6. (1815-1891).
    7. Deborah (1806-1907). Deborah married John Kendall, the celebrated thermometer-maker of New Lebanon, N. Y., where they now reside; three daughters have been born to them.
    8. John Thomas (1810-1896). John married Sarah Whiting and resides in Cleveland, Ohio, and has a family of five boys and two girls.
    9. Cornelia (1816-1894). Cornelia became the wife of William Ball, and is living in New Lebanon, New York.

"Alternating the duties of a farm life with attendance at the common school, our subject passed his younger life in the vicinity of New Lebanon, N. Y. Early manhood found him possessed of a very fair English education. He was about 34 years of age when he came west, and the year 1836 found him upon the ground now occupied by the city of Galesburg. Indeed he was one of the first members of that society known as the Early Settlers' or Pioneers' Association, the object of which was to found a Christian College. It will be highly proper in this connection to speak of him as one of the most enterprising, industrious and active workers.

"The farm on which he lived up to 1867 was that piece of property which he purchased in the beginning, joining the corporate limits of the village, and he has come as near witnessing every step of the growth of this place as any living man. In the year last named (1867) he turned his farm over to his sons and retired to private life. Through a citizenship of full half a century, mingling daily with people who so rapidly settled around him, transacting business with hundreds, aye, with thousands in the aggregate, it is remarkable that not once in his life has he ever been summoned to court to answer the complaint of any man. He began life a poor boy, and has since inherited nothing except the reward that always eventually descends to the industrious and persevering. He was so fortunate as to add to his possessions a wife of many worthy attributes and a helpmate in its truest sense, one of those women whose price is above rubies. Together they have labored, and age finds him possessed of an ample competency. He was active among the early railway organizations of this place, and in fact all public enterprises of merit ever found in him a substantial friend and a strong advocate.

"When Mr. Avery came to this county, the trip was made by the usual overland route, requiring eight weeks' time to make it. A gentleman by the name of Col. Mills brought a colored boy about 12 years of age with him from New York. Mr. Mills dying, his widow requested Mr. Avery to take charge of the boy, which he did and was compelled to pay taxes upon him the same as he did upon his horses. Mr. Avery, being a strong Abolitionist, wrote back to New York for the boy's free papers, to show that he was not taxable property.

"Mr. Avery's marriage was celebrated Jan. 24, 1839, in Knox County, when he was united in holy matrimonial bonds with Miss Seraphina Princess Mary Phelps, a native of Massachusetts. She was the daughter of Col. Aaron b. and Clarissa (Root) Phelps, natives of Westfield, Mass. The Phelps family is one of the oldest in New England. Two brothers [since disproved -Ed.] landed in America May 30, 1630, coming from England on the ship Mary and John, commanded by Capt. Squibb. Aaron N. Phelps was a colonel with Footes Regiment, Massachusetts Militia in the War of 1812. Mrs. Avery was born Jan. 19, 1815 and was the eldest of a family of three children. The others, who are deceased, were Mrs. Sybelana Kilbourn and Royal A. N. Mrs. Avery came to this county in 1836 with her mother, her father having died six years before. They settled in

"Mr. and Mrs. Avery have had born to them seven children, as follows:

  1. Robert H., President of the Avery Corn-Planter Company of Peoria. Robert H., the eldest son, married Miss Sarah P. Ayers; they are the parents of five children — Minnie E., Fredrick A., Sadie T., Cornelia, and Ellen K. Robert enlisted in Company A, 77th Illiniois Volunteer Infantry in 1862, and served until the close of the war. He was taken prisoner and placed in Andersonville prison, where he remained for about eight months. He is the inventor of the Avery Corn-Planter, as well as other useful implements, and owns a controlling interest in the factory at Peoria.
  2. John T. a farmer of Rio Township, this county. John T. took to wife Mrs. Flora Olmsted. Mary became the wife of Rev. William R. Butcher, and they have five children — Harry E., Mary Z., Etha, William, and Irene,
  3. Mary, now Mrs. Rev. William R. Butcher of Wataga.
  4. Cyrus M. of Avery & Co. of Peoria. Cyrus M. married Miss Minnie E. Bartholomew, and to them have been born three children — Elvira P., George L, and Grace O. George married Miss Ada Wood, and they are the parents of three children; the name of the only one living is Edith L. Cyrus M., who is now Secretary of the Avery Corn-Planter Company, graduated from Knox College, standing No. 1 in his class. A trustee of Knox College (co-rounded by , he built a large house at 640 N. Prairie in 1903, which, some 45 years later, became the official residence for the President of the College.
  5. Phebe T. now living at home.
  6. George, a farmer of Kansas.
  7. Fredrick Arthur died when about three years old.

"Mr. and Mrs. Avery are consistent, sympathetic Christians, and are connected by profession of faith with the First Church of Christ. Mr. Avery is a stanch Republican and Prohibitionist."


* Since proven to be wrong; see Origins of William and George Phelps of Dorchester.

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