Grubb Family Tree

NOTES ON FAMILY HISTORY – TRADITION AND FACT, AS REMEMBERED
BY ADELE M. MAYNARD

My great-grandfather, Gen. Walker Keith Armistead, was one of the first four graduates from “West Point;” an oil portrait of him hangs in the “West Point Military Academy” - I believe in the Library. He fought in the Seminole War in Florida and at the outbreak of the war with Mexico was appointed Gen. In Chief of the U.S. Army in Mexico, but died of a heart attack the day he received the dispatches. Gen. Zachary Taylor was, I believe, appointed in his place. His son, Lewis Armistead (a young lieutenant at that time) distinguished himself at the taking of a fortress at Chapultepec. Afterwards when in command of a small fort on the Indian frontier, a large band of hostile Indians rode up to the fort which was very poorly garrisoned. Lewis Armistead (I believe “Capt.”) walked out of the gate of the fort and up to the chief, took hold of his horse’s forelock and turned him around, motioning for the Indians to leave; the were apparently so surprised that they did so. This was told to my mother by a man (I think County Clerk) here in San Jose who was a soldier in the fort at the time; - Louis Spitzer

During the Civil War as Gen. Lewis Armistead, he led Pickett’s Division at Gettysburg—leading his men up a hill to tak ethe Union batteries; he carried his hate on the point of his sword in order that his men might distinguish him and follow him. He was badly wounded and carried by Union soldiers into the tent of Gen. Hancock (a close friend) where he died. Years before the Civil War, his young wife had died, leaving an infant son. My mother’s father Maj. W. I. Newton was stationed at Fort Washita, Indian Territory (now Oklahoma); with him was his wife and infant daughter (my mother) Elizabeth Stanley; young Capt. Armistead brought his infant son to his sister – my mother’s mother Cornelia Armistead Newton, at Fort Washita, and the baby slept in the same cradle with my mother, a baby of about the same age. This infant was the second Walker Keith Armistead and the father of Lewis A. Armistead who died recently in Boston (1933); he has left a young son “Lewis” --now about 17. (1934). My mother had a brother and a sister—the brother, Armistead Newton, was talented and brilliant, but dissipated and worthless; he disappeared many years (about 50) ago; we have never heard what became of him, but he must be dead. The sister, Cornelia Love Newton, eloped with a wild young man, a Lieut. In the U.S. army, a gambler and a drunkard; she died leaving two sons, Newton and James Gore; Newton is in a Sanitarium in Southern California, the probably victim of his own and his father’s sins; James is in San Francisco (1289 2nd Avenue) he has two sons and a saughter.

My mother married (1864) Pierre Merlin Lusson, of French parentage and born on a sugar and coffee plantation in Cuba; when twelve years of age he was sent to Bordeaux, France, to be educated; returning when 20-21, both of his grandparents being dead, he came to the U.S. and studied medicine, graduating from the Univ. of PA when 24. His grandfather had fled to New Orleans with his family during the insurrection in Haiti and my father’s father was born in New Orleans – I do not know wheather before or after the purchase of Louisiana by the U.S. His father’s mother was a daughter of Pierre Merlin who was Surveyor General in Haiti under Napoleon. The Merlins were distinguished in France for their ability and prominence.

A Merlin was Chancellor to the Queen of Navarre and was reputed to be the true father of Henry IV of France (Henry of Navarre). Merline the astrologer, having, it was supposed, come from the province from which most of the Merlins came, was thought to have been a member of that family. Both the Merlin and Lusson families bore Coats of Arms. Our branch of Lussons were designated (according to a search of records in France) as Lusson de Cheneviere. There were several Lussons distinguished in the army and as discoverers on the American Continent, chiefly in Canada. Alice Prescott Smith writes in her historical romance “Montlivit” of the discoverer “de Lusson” in Canada.

My father’s mother died when he was an infant and his father before he (my father) was six years old, so he was cared for and brought up by his grandparents (his mother’s parents). He remembered his grandmother as very strict and stern, but his grandfather as a very kind and lovable. He had one sister (who lived to womanhood) twelve years his senior, and who was almost a mother to him, and one brother – I think two or three years older than he. This brother, Louis, was the father of Blanche, Louis and Marie – the two first long dead, and the last, the Cousin Marie, with whom I correspond.

To go back again to another early ancestor – Thomas Newton, another great grandfather of mine, was a noted lawyer during the last years of Washington and the early part of the 19th century – he was a member of Congress and Speaker of the Senate. He and his wife (Martha Tucker) were also socially prominent and entertained foreign and American celebrities of the time. It is his portrait (painted by a famous portrait painter of the day ) which is unlawfully held by my mother’s cousin, Victor Newton, in New York City. (This portrait was given by Thomas Newton’s widow to her granddaughter, my mother, who felt that it ought to go with the Newton name and gave it to her uncle, Gen. John Newton, who in turn passed it on to his son Thomas. As not one of Gen. John Newton’s children had a son, the above Thomas wrote to me – I have his letter-- that, although he would like to keep the picture while he lived, he knew it belonged rightfully to me, and would leave instructions for it to be sent ot me upon his death. He died a few months later and his brother Victor took and kept the portrait, which he will not give up –as I have not the money, I cannot make a legal fight for it.)

My great-great grandfather John Wright Stanley, was a wealthy importer of North Carolina, owing many ships and warehouses. At the time of the Revolution he called in his ships (merchant ships), six or seven, and armed and equipped them, turning them over to the American Colonies; he emptied his warehouses turning over the goods to the Colonial army; had his silver melted into coins to pay the American soldiers, and gave his time and personal services to the Colonies. It is recorded that he gave $200,000 to Gen Greene for expenses of the army, and armed and equipped a regiment. His son, John Stanley, was a noted Jurist. (Edmund Ruffin Beckwith, 20 Exchange Place, New York City, is writing a history of the Stanley family.)

All fo the Stanley portraits are scattered among various branches of the family; five, however, are in the possession of Katherine Elizabeth Stanley Treanor (Cousin Bessie) living at 247 Muirfield Rd., Los Angeles.

The Armistead portraits (except that of Gen. Walker Keith Armistead at “West Point”) were destroyed in a fire which burned to the ground the old family home in Virginia, one Christmas night.

To digress a moment –my father’s old grandfather on the Cuban plantation (in the hhills about 30 miles from Santiago) walked over the plantation every day. He always carried seeds in all of his pockets and had a miniature spade on the end of his walking stick; wherever he found a plant or tree missing, he turned up a bit of soil and dropped in a seed of the kind needed and covered it over. When my father was a little boy he had some pet chickens, some of these became afflicted with a disease similar to small-pox or “chicken” pox; father vaccinated those that were well, and saved most of his flock. When he told us about it, he did not remember how he had got the idea.

My mother was born at Fort Washita, Indian Territory (now Oklahoma) on April 16th, when the prairies were covered with wild verbenas all in bloom; the Choctaw Indians had never seen a white baby and flocked to the Fort with gifts for the “White Blossom”. My mother could not remember the Indian name.

My grandfather (Major W.I. Newton - 2nd Dragoons) served through the Mexican War. When the USA entered the City of Mexico, the officers formed a club—the Aztec Club—of which my grandfather was a member. The club still exists in direct descendants of the original Club members.