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mcc-jrr_511-018
Jordan - Lanier Cemetery, 51-1 Summary Report, page 18
Another of William Lanier's daughters (Matilda) married James Wilburn Allen, who was a Methodist preacher of the Limestone Circuit, including Lebanon Methodist Church. In 1847 James and Matilda (Lanier) Allen bought the Carroll-French house (built about 1818) that was approximately a mile southeast of the town of Athens, on the old stage road to Huntsville. James Wilburn Allen was a son of Benjamin and Mary (Wilburn) Allen. He was born January 10, 1801, and he died on October 11, 1858. His wife Matilda died in 1852, and James sold the house and remarried after two years to Eliza Freeman Cox, widow of Bartley Cox of Limestone County. No matter the denomination, the William Lanier of Madison County, original owner of the land where the family cemetery is located, was often mentioned in various records as an ordained minister. Still, in his will of 1834 one of the “items” grants permission to his wife Nancy “. to remove my dwelling house Gin and Gin I louse....” He also had a number of slaves, so he apparently was making his own gin with slave labor, unless the reference was to a cotton gin. It is not clear how he would have a “dwelling house gin” if that meant having a cotton gin in his house. Since the removal was granted only after his death, and for the purpose “. for the better preservation of the health of the family”, it is considered more likely related to the alcoholic beverage. Reverend William Lanier of Madison County was born in Brunswick County, VA, in 1765. He moved with his parents and siblings to Anson County, NC, as a child. There he served in the House of Commons in 1786 and in 1802, according to some papers written in 1902 and now found in the Family Files at the Heritage Room. He apparently married twice in North Carolina. His first wife was a Miss Hill, who bore him a son named Asa and two daughters. Asa moved to Texas early in life and had a large family there. The older of the two daughters, Elizabeth, married twice. Her first husband was a Mr. Fraser. Her second husband was a Mr. Horton. (For the Horton connection on arsenal lands, see Deed Book P, pages 260-2.) In 1902 a grand daughter of William Lanier, Mrs. Lucy Jordan, was living in Madison County and provided inputs to the 1902 manuscript found in the Heritage Room of the library. The second wife of Rev. William Lanier was given as Miss Ann Dickson in the 1902 manuscript, but in his will she is named as Nancy. She must have been Nancy Ann Dickson, because it is not at all plausible that William had a third wife. His wife “Ann Dickson” is reported in the 1902 document as 18 - (2037)