Chapel Hill, NC, United States
In 1837 William Waightstill Avery graduated from the University of North Carolina.
Chapel Hill, NC, United States
In 1837 William Waightstill Avery graduated from the University of North Carolina.
https://www.amazon.com/Delivered-Literary-Societies-University-Carolina/dp/065639899X/?tag=2022091-20
1851
William Waigstill Avery was born on May 25, 1816 in Swan Ponds, North Carolina, in the family of Isaac Thomas Avery, a rich planter of literary tastes, and Harriet Eloise Erwin, a representative of a family long distinguished in local public affairs.
In 1837 William Waightstill Avery graduated from the University of North Carolina.
In 1840, William Waightstill Avery was an unsuccessful candidate for the state legislature, but he was elected to that body in 1842 and served for one term before retiring to his already important law practice. His political convictions were largely those of John C. Calhoun. He was a state legislator in 1850 and 1852. In 1856 and in 1860 he was a state senator, and head of the North Carolina delegation to the National Democratic Convention. On the election of Lincoln as president, he advocated that North Carolina secede immediately.
He was a member of the Confederate Provisional Congress throughout its existence. Having procured authority from Jefferson Davis, he planned in 1862 to recruit a regiment for the Confederate army but gave over this project out of regard for his domestic status and out of regard also for his aged father, three of whose sons were already in military service.
In the summer of 1864, he went with a hastily organized body of citizens in pursuit of an irregular organization of hostile troops that had advanced into North Carolina from Tennessee. A skirmish ensued and William was shot. Brought home, he died of his wounds three days later.
In May 1846, William Waightstill Avery married the daughter of Governor John Motley Morehead, Mary Corinna Morehead Avery, who bore him six children: Annie Harriet Avery Scales, Corinna Iredell Avery Erwin, Adelaide Matilda Avery Hemphill, Waightstill Avery, John Morehead Avery, William Waightstill Avery.
1785-1864
1795-1858
1817-1822
1820-1864
1822-1897
1828-1863
1831-1890
1833-1902
1835-1913
1837-1912
1843-1876
1825-1897
1848-1917
1850-1919
1855-1884
1858-1860
1860-1937
1863-1928
William Waightstill Avery ran for Congress in 1858, but a split among the Democrats led to a victory by Zebulon B. Vance.
