JUDGE WILLIAM WRIGHT SPIVEY

The following bio was taken from page 393 of the book entitled "Rusk County History" compiled and edited and used with permission of the Rusk County Historical Commission.

Transcribed by Claudia Schuster

Submitted by Gloria Briley Mayfield, Rusk County TX Coordinator

The Spivey family from which Judge William Wright Spivey is descended were prominent in early Virginia. Judge Spivey, a handsome lawyer, brilliant statesman, and long-time Rusk County judge, died in Henderson Texas, and is interred in the Old City Cemetery.

His great-great-grandfather, Aaron Spivey, was born in Virginia in 1725 and died in Johnson County, North Carolina in 1803. His six children were John, Edith, Charity, Christian, William, and Aaron, II.

His youngest son, Aaron, II, was born in Norfolk County, Virginia in 1754 and died in Autuaga County, Alabama on September 2, 1835. He was a Methodist minister and a Revolutionary soldier. His first wife, Unity Pierce, was related to Bishop Pierce. He and Unity were the parents of four children: Dixon, Ephriam, William, and Charlotte. His second wife was Charlotte Nixon and they had three children: Mary, Nancy, and Aaron III.

Aaron and Unity’s son Ephriam was born in 1786 and died January 18, 1866 in Coosa County, Alabama. He married Mary Nixon, daughter of John Nixon of North Carolina in 1812. Their children were: Dixon Flemon I, John, Elizabeth, Rebecca, Mary Ann, Nancy, William, Garrison, Ephriam II, Samuel, and Joseph Robert Dawson Spivey.

Their eldest son Dixon Felmon was born in North Carolina in 1814 and died in Coosa County, Alabama in 1847. He married Martha Ann Morris of Raleigh, North Carolina on June 21, 1843, the daughter of Judge Aquilla and Mary Bachellor Morris. Their three children were: Dixon Felmon Spivey, II, born August 7, 1845, in Coosa County, Alabama and died March 25, 1927 in Bonham, Texas, who married Adriana Elizabeth Cumby, daughter of General Cumby of Henderson, Texas on August 16, 1865; Ellen Spivey grand- niece of Judge William Wright Morris, married Judge George Henry Gould; Judge William Wright Spivey, who married Sarah Fleming of Augusta, Georgia.

Judge William and Sarah Spivey’s children were: Dr. Raymond Spivey; Bonnie Belle Spivey, who married Dr. Van Lear; and Josephine Spivey Porter, all deceased. Submitted for the Spivey Family by William B. Bugg