Mary Catherine Brisbane Hickox 1832 - 1913 wrote a memoir of her childhood, as she explained it "thinking that after I am gone my children may want to know some thing about their relations when there is no one to tell them".   She had two children, but only one grand child and this grand daughter, Zillah Keese Hickox 1892 - 1975, would herself die unmarried.   Mary Catherine's memoir lives on, however, and includes many delightful reminiscences of her kinsfolk including the one below.   Thanks are due to Zillah Keese Hickox who ensured the preservation of the text and to Tom Tucker who brought it to the compiler's attention.

A very sweet girl named Maria Hall [29th August 1769 - 8th April 1831] lived about a mile out of town at her father’s house, called the Grove.   (This place was afterwards owned by Wm Lowndes [possibly William Jones Lowndes 1782 - 1822], and called Lowndes Grove.   There is a picture of it in Wm Ravenal’s life of Wm Lowndes.)     My grandfather Lowndes, it would seem, sometimes grew tired of dancing attendance on the obdurate Kitty Osborne, [and] at least, on one occasion, hearing that a ball was in prospect, he determined [to take Maria Hall to the ball] in question.    But what was his surprise and chagrin to find an earlier visitor at the door, who had not only gained possession of the prize for that evening but soon announced that they were to be partners for life.   That other visitor who married Miss Maria Hall was John Stanyarne Brisbane [1773 – 1850] and they were the parents of my father [William Brisbane  1809 – 1860].

[In other words, had things panned out differently, the writer's maternal grandmother would instead have been married to her paternal grandfather.]

My father’s father was John Stanyarne Brisbane [John Stanyarne Brisbane 1773 – 1850] and his mother, as I have said before, was Maria Hall [1769 - 1831] ,   daughter of the Hon Geo Abbott Hall.   There seem to have been few records kept except in the family bibles of births, marriages and deaths and many of those were probably destroyed during the war, so that all search for them now would, I suppose, be in vain.   As a young person, I do not remember the celebration of a single anniversary in the family or the mention of a date in connection with any event of family interest.   This I consider very reprehensible and a duty neglected.   Within a few years a Mr Plant* of Georgia, a descendant of the Halls, has made a thorough research among the other scattered offshoots of the family and has gathered many dates, a few of which the compiler was kind enough to send me in exchange for information I was able to furnish him, but I have never seen the book.

My father’s mother [Maria Hall 1869 - 1831] died before I can remember, but I know that her children held her in great reverence and spoke of her as one of the best women who ever lived.   I never heard my grandfather [John Stanyarne Brisbane 1773 – 1850] mention her and never heard any of the particulars of their married life;  but he never married again after her death.   In this constancy he did not follow the example of his grandfather [William Brisbane 1709 – 1771], who, tradition says, was married at least half a dozen times.    [Officially he was married only three times, to the present compiler's knowledge!  Any further information on this would. of course, be gratefully received.].  

*   Presumably these researches were those that surfaced in 'House of Plant' by George Sherwood Dickerman, published 1900.   This compilation was commissioned by Robert Hazlehurst Plant 1847 - 1904 who will probably have been Mary Catherine's correspondent mentioned herein.