My Genealogy Hound

Phillip H. Marbury, planter, was born in Buncombe County, N. C. April 24, 1810. He is the son of Benjamin and Mary (Hoodenpyl) Marbury, of English and Dutch descent respectively. The father was born in North Carolina in 1784 and died of small-pox in Arkansas in 1836; the mother was born in Warm Springs, N. C., in 1795, died in Arkansas about 1840. They were married in Grenville, Tenn., about 1808. The father, a successful farmer, and Democrat, was a personal friend of Andrew Jackson. Both parents were Baptists. Our subject, the oldest child, with exception of the time from 1820 to 1827 in Rhea County has since six years of age lived in Warren County. After completing his academic education he studied medicine one year under Dr. Hill, but abandoned it and in January, 1829, began a four years’ clerkship for John Cain; then for twenty years after the spring of 1833 he was in partnership with Alexander Black as merchant at McMinnville. In 1852 Mr. Marbury was elected president of a railway stock company to build a road to McMinnville, and the road was built under his financial management, and as it was destroyed during the war, he, with the assistance of others, secured a grant of $400,000 in bonds and rebuilt the road. In 1844 he became a planter near McMinnville and now owns 700 acres of good land and 400 under cultivation. Before the war he was connected with the bank of Sparta. He has been married three times: first in September, 1833, to Rebecca Mercer, a descendant of Gen. Fenton Mercer; second, to Mrs. Mary E. Scott, whose maiden name was Grundy, a granddaughter of Felix Grundy of State farm; third, to Mrs. Liley T. Garner, whose maiden name was Estell, a descendant of ex-Gov. Thomas of Maryland. Mr. Marbury was an old line Whig before the war, but has since been a Democrat, and always a liberal public worker. He is a member of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church.