Notes and Links

• m. Charles Phillips* (1822-1889), Dec. 8 1847 in Chapel Hill NC.
• Children:
  • Julia Vermeule Phillips, b. Dec. 9, 1848, Chapel Hill; d. Dec. 9, 1850, Chapel Hill.
  • Charles Battle Phillips, b. Dec. 1, 1850, Chapel Hill; d. Nov. 14, 1851, Raleigh NC.
  • Mary Catherine Phillips* (1852-1938)
    • m. John Samuel Verner*(1849-1912)
  • James Phillips (1855-___?).
    • m. Ruth Elizabeth Crosland (1859-1929)
  • William Battle Phillips (1857-1918).
    • m1. Minerva Ruffin McNeill
    • m2. Angie Isabel Miller
  • Alexander Lacy Phillips (1859-1915).
    • m. Susan Ida Moseley (1859-___?)
  • Lucy Plummer Phillips (1862-1963)
    • m. Moses Harris Russell (1842-1917)
  • Susan "Susie" Rowena McKee Phillips, b. Mar. 23, 1868, d. 1891, married Dr. Robert Drane Jewett, on Oct. 22, 1890 in Columbia SC, but she died less than a year later of a ruptured appendix.

Brief Biography:

Laura was born near Rocky Mount NC where her father owned and operated one of the earliest and largest cotton mills in the state. She was highly educated for her time. She went to a private school in Pittsboro NC kept by Miss Charlotte Jones, then to another private school in Raleigh NC.

Finally, she completed her education at Madame Murat's Select School for Young Ladies at Bordentown, NJ. Madame Murat was a French Princess, daughter of Lucien Charles Murat, of Ponte Corvo, a cousin of Napoleon Bonaparte, who was exiled to America at Baltimore in 1825. He was recognized by Napoleon III as a royal Prince, when he returned to Europe in 1848.

Her older brother, Judge William Horn Battle, was a professor of law at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and she probably met and married Rev. Charles Phillips* through this connection. There is much information about her, including many letters written by her, in Old Days in Chapel Hill by Hope Summerell Chamberlain.

References

• Old Days in Chapel Hill by Hope Summerell Chamberlain. UNC Press 1927.
• The Battle Book, by Herbert Bremerton Battle, 1923, Table 62, page 534.
• Southern Women and Their Families in the 19th Century