Born in 1802 in Louisiana, Zachariah Magee was the sixth child of William Magee (1762-1837) and Mary Margaret James Magee (1771-1867). He married Elva Davis, who was the sister of Linea Davis, wife of his brother Jeremiah. Residing in an area of relative isolation, it was typical for brothers to marry sisters. The connection of one couple was often how the second couple met. Though mobility increased in the twentieth century, this meeting and courting practice was still in effect in the 1940s, as it is exactly how my mother made the acquaintance of my father. Her sister Gwen had married his brother Wayland. The Davis sisters were the daughters of Zaborn and Ester Bullock Davis who were early settlers in Washington Parish. Elva had been born in 1806 in North Carolina.
By 1850, the U. S. Census revealed that Zachariah was a forty-eight-year-old farmer residing with forty-four-year-old wife Elva.
By this time the couple had four children, all of whom were born in Louisiana: Leroy L., Mary Elizabeth, Zachariah Thomas, and Elva Ellen Magee. Zachariah died in 1852. Both he and Elva died in the Enon community and were buried in the family cemetery, the Zachariah Magee Cemetery located near the old Fred Jenkins place south of Franklinton, near Enon.
Leroy L. Magee (1820-1853) was unmarried and is buried in the Zachariah Magee Cemetery in what was Ward 6 of Washington Parish.
Mary Elizabeth Magee (1833-1869) married Benjamin Thomas Fisher, Sr. Both are buried in the Zachariah Magee Cemetery. They had the following children: Benjamin Thomas Fisher, Jr., who married Amanda Varnado; John Morris Fisher, who married Francis Adrine Brooks; Elizabeth E. Fisher, who married William Penn Knight; George W. Fisher, who married Emma Josephine Richardson; Dr. W. L. Fisher, who married Mary Elma Godwin; Sophronia Fisher, who married W. L. Douglas; and Felder Fisher, who married Nannie Daniel, first, and Nellie Erwin, second.
Zachariah Thomas Magee (1839-1904) married Artemisia "Timmie" Morris, born in 1839 in Pike County, Mississippi to James Bolton Morris and Consetta Dillon Morris. Both Zachariah and Timmie Magee are buried in the Zachariah Magee Cemetery. She died in 1914. The couple had the following children: James Thomas Magee, who married Rosa Ann Corkern, first, Mary E. Hughes, second, and Jeanette R. Garrett, third; Mary Jane Magee, who married Charles Thomas Corkern; Elva Linea Elvalina Magee, who married William Lampton Richardson; Sarah Ellen Magee, who died at age four; Marion Monroe Magee, who married Ella Corkern, first, and Florence Evie Mae Voth, second; Nannie C. Magee, who died unmarried at age fifteen; Eugene Levingston Magee, who married Ella Thigpen, first, a Ms. Stogner, second, Clarinda Pierce, third, and Nancy Whittington, fourth; Joseph Newton Magee I (long time sheriff of Washington Parish), who married Lula Jenkins; and Ida Dora Magee, who married Martin VanBuren Simmons, first, and Dave A. Self, second. Lula Jenkins, sister of my grandmother Emma Elizabeth Jenkins Brumfield, was my great-aunt.
Elva Ellen Magee (1842-1930) married James Knox Polk Morris in the 1860s. Notably, Elva's first husband James, born in Pike County, Mississippi, was the son of James B. Morris and Consetta Dillon Morris, which made him the brother of Elva Ellen's brother Zachariah's wife Timmie Morris Magee - another example of siblings marrying siblings. In her second marriage, Elva Ellen Magee married Orval R. Barber, and the two are buried in the Zachariah Magee Cemetery. The "William Magee and Mary Margaret James and their Descendants 1770 - 1993" book, my primary source for this column, revealed that there is uncertainty as to whether James Knox Polk Morris was a dentist, in Paris, Texas, in 1873, and in El Paso, Texas, in 1916, or whether this dentist was instead the couple's son Eugene. Sources are in conflict. But it is certain that the James Morris household, as reflected in the 1870 Pike County, Mississippi Census, included both Elva Ellen Magee Morris and Eugene Morris. With husband James Knox Polk Morris, Elva Ellen Magee had children Eugene and Ida. It seems to me that if Eugene was born around 1865, as the book states, he would have been too young to have been the fellow in Texas in 1873. No additional information on Eugene is available. Daughter Ida died at about age one. With husband Orval R. Barber, Elva Ellen Magee had Dolphus Leon Barber, who married Louisa Lozane Simmons, and Louis Lanie Barber, who born in 1886 died at age three of mumps.
