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.

My Great Uncle, William Brisbane [William Brisbane 1759 – 1821]  , after whom my father was called, fled with his father, James Brisbane [James Brisbane 1735 – 1794]  , to Bermuda [sic – she probably means Bahamas] and was brought up, educated and married there.   His wife, Mary Ash, was the daughter of a West Indian cotton planter.   Later he brought his family to Charleston and settled there, becoming a very successful planter both of rice and cotton, and owning a large estate on the Ashley River called Milton Lodge.   The place is in a fair state of preservation at the present time [ca.1910].   I read of its beauties in a New York paper not a month ago, in connection with the Decoration Day exercises of the South..

 My great Aunt, Mrs Brisbane, benefiting by her father’s experience as a cotton planter, was of great assistance to her husband in helping to teach the Negroes to separate the cotton boles from the seeds and used often to direct the work herself.   This was possibly about 1800 and before the birth of the famous Spinning Ginny, invented by Eli Witney in ?

 This great Aunt and uncle [William Brisbane 1759 – 1821] adopted my father  [William Brisbane 1809 – 1860] in 1812 when he was three years old, as his certificate of baptism shows, and they were his sponsors.   My great uncle died before I can remember but my aunt lived until I was perhaps ten.   I was old enough to remember her very well, at any rate.   Besides my father, this couple adopted another nephew, William Henry [William Henry Brisbane 1806 – 1878], also a namesake but called Henry.   He was the son of Adam Brisbane [Adam Fowler Brisbane 1783 – 1830], another brother.   This Henry [William Henry Brisbane 1806 – 1878] married a Miss Lawton [Anne Lawton about 1806 – 1888] and had many sons and daughters [I make it seven].   He and my father were brought up like brothers, were near the same age and were educated equally well.

 Henry [William Henry Brisbane 1806 – 1878] after a time became an abolitionist and emancipated his Negroes and moved with his family first to the North and then to the West.   In a miniature edition of the first Springfield Republican, printed at the celebration of its fiftieth anniversary in 1874, there was an account of this emancipation of his Negroes by Mr Brisbane, extolling his act with characteristic northern enthusiasm.   The fact remains, however, that he lost his entire fortune and went steadily down in the world from the time that he left Charleston.   His endeavour to support his Negroes after freeing them was philanthropic (and idiotic).

 My father remained in Charleston and the adopted brothers lost sight of each other to meet by accident, many years later, when my father went to the West.   My father called his adopted parents “Father” and “Mother” and we called Mrs Brisbane “Grandma”.   She lived alone except for the servant in the house in Meeting Street.   We lived in the same street and very near her.   I was called Mary after her and Catherine after Grandma Lowndes [Catherine Osborne , Mrs James Lowndes 1775 – 1832].   She was quite blind and I suppose she was led about by one of her servants.   At any rate I do not remember ever seeing her walk or enter a room, she was always sitting in a rocking chair and bent over so that she leaned on her elbows which rested on her knees most of the time.   Her eyes were always closed.

 She often went out to drive and took me with her sometimes but I have no recollection of how she got in or out of the carriage.   Our coaches in those days were great big things with a high coachman’s box and footman’s seat behind.   It had wide, high doors on each side which opened and let down a pair of iron, carpeted steps, by which we ascended and descended.   The steps were then refolded and the door latched upon us.   These coaches held four people, were very commodious and comfortable but unwieldy and must have been very heavy for the horses.  

 The roads in the city were paved but in the country were very sandy;  being almost free from hills, however, they were not so hard and were comparatively easy to keep in order.   The coach was covered with rich broadcloth of some dark colour trimmed with heavy wide fringe.   The attendants were generally in livery of the same colour as the hammer cloth (our livery was green and black) and the family arms were painted on the doors, the whole making a very imposing equipage, especially when four horses were attached.   In my day, two horses were ordinarily used except when travelling long distances.   When equipped for real journeys these coaches had a huge box, called an imperial, which fitted over the roof of the carriage, outside, from eight inches to a foot deep, into which a whole family’s wardrobe might be packed.   When thus burdened, they lumbered along at the rate of about five or six miles an hour.   Mr & Mrs William Brisbane [William Brisbane 1759 – 1821] who adopted my father, travelled in one of those coaches to the north, making a trip through New England.   Mr Brisbane kept a diary during this journey, which is preserved in the family and extracts from it were printed in the Century Magazine of the late 80s or early 90s.   [If anyone knows where a copy of these writings could be obtained, Charles A Hillman would love to hear from you!]   He also went to Europe and spoke in his diary of seeing Napoleon Bonaparte.   Travelling was a great undertaking in those days and that my great uncle and aunt should have accomplished such a tour was quite unusual.