Current address reference New Highway 96 & Founders Pointe BL Franklin, TN
Circa late 1790s. Dogtrot cabin to small house to larger home
Abraham "Abram" Poindexter Maury (1766-1825) and Martha Branch Maury Worsham (1775-1844) came to Williamson Co. in TN from Virginia. They wed in 1793. They purchased 640 acres from Maj. Anthony Sharpe. They built the original home on the current New Highway 98 and Founders Pointe BL and called it Poplar Grove. The property was east of Gentry's Farm on Hwy 96.
In 1798, Maury reserved a square of 109 acres of the land and plotted the future town of Franklin, TN. He desired to call it Marthasville for his wife, but she declined. So, Maury named the town in honor of Ben Franklin. Maury was a successful planter, surveyor and state senator. Eighteen-eleven found him helping to establish Harpeth Academy, a boy's school, nearby on Del Rio Pike. Poplar Grove was primarily a tobacco plantation.
After Martha passed, the farm was inherited by their son Abram Poindexter Maury (1801-1848) and Mary Eliza Tennessee Claiborne Maury (1806-1852). They wed in 1826. Mary was the niece of the first non-colonial governor of Louisiana, William C.C. Claiborne. In addition, Elizabeth "Betsy" Branch Maury Reid resided there as well with her husband Maj. John Reid. Maj. Reid had been in the army, but resigned before his wedding and became a farmer on Poplar Grove as well as a lawyer. Later, after rejoining the army through relationship with Thomas Hart Benton, Reid became aide-de-camp to Andrew Jackson during the War of 1812.
Their daughter Sarah Claiborne Maury Reid (1829-1912) was the second wife of Dr. William Steptoe Reid. His parents were Major John Reid and Elizabeth Branch Maury Reid. William Reid inherited Tree Lawn. Dr. William Steptoe Reid (1813-1899) returned to Tree Lawn to begin his medical practice. He had tried to attend West Point (roommate was Edgar Allen Poe) but it didn't work out, and he went to medical school. After medical school, he opened a practice in Holly Springs, MS and married first wife Agnes. After she died, he returned to TN.
His second wife was Sarah Claiborne Maury Reid (1829-1912). At her passing, he wed a third time to his cousin and Sarah's sister, Mary Maury Thorpe Reid. She was a granddaughter of the Maury family. Maj. Reid purchased The Clarion and renamed it the Nashville Republican. After father A.P. Maury died, it is likely the plantation was renamed Tree Lawn. They were the last Maury descendants to farm the land. One of their daughters Martha Thomas Maury Perkins wed Nicholas Edwin Perkins, of the wealthy Perkins clan, and lived at Meeting of the Waters.
Dr. Reid and his family left to go to Memphis and entered the cotton brokerage business. By 1938, their son Maury Thrope Reid (1871-1947) sold Tree Lawn. He was married to Bernie Jones Reid (1877-1967)(m.1923) and was the last to leave the homestead - he passed away in Memphis about a decade later. Also in the extended Maury family was Matthew Fontaine Maury who earned the nickname "Pathfinder of the Seas" - he is known as the father of modern oceanography. He wrote a full description of the Gulf Stream and wrote the Physical Geography of the Sea.
In 1948, Will Reese owned the property. He was a farmer and banker. In the 1990s, a development company built Founders Point - giving a big nod to Maury family history with the area. Past ownership is remembered with Abram Ct., Poplar Grove Elem. School, and Fontaine Dr. See also Meeting of the Waters
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