See the Photo of Samuel Field Phillips

Notes and Links

• m1. Frances R. Lucas (1831-1883), on Dec. 3, 1849, at Chapel Hill NC.
• Samuel Field and Frances had 10 children, all but the last (Gertrude) were born in Chapel Hill, Orange County, NC:
  • Kate Stone Phillips; b. Jul 5 1851; d. Feb. 16, 1855, probably during a nationwide yellow fever epidemic.
  • Susan Meade Phillips; b Nov 25, 1853; d. Mar 20 1855, probably during a nationwide yellow fever epidemic.
  • Cornelia "Cornie" Phillips; b. Feb 26 1856; d Jul 31 1888. Cornie never married.
  • John Leighton Phillips; b. after 1858. John became a medical doctor, and served in the U.S. Army to help eradicate yellow fever in the Suez Canal. He later became the Head of the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Bethesda MD. Following a debilitating accident and injury, he committed suicide. He is buried in the Arlington National Cemetery. He married and had a daughter, Frances Lucas Phillips (1896-1986), who became an editor for William Morrow and Co., publishers in New York during 1926-1968, and Editor-in-Chief in 1931-57. Frances never married.
  • Elinor "Nora" Swain Phillips; b. May 12 1861; d. Apr 2 1944, bur. in Chapel Hill. She never married.
  • Elizabeth "Lizzie" Phillips (1864-1959), m. William Rivers Maxwell (d. 1929) on Apr 17, 1889, and had one child, a daughter, Virginia Maxwell, who married Andrew Adger Manning and had 4 children: Virginia, Andrew, William, and Sam; all surnamed Manning. Virginia Manning married John Will Moses.
  • Charles Phillips; b. Apr 16 1865; d. Oct 4 1866, bur. Chapel Hill NC.
  • Frances "Fannie" Phillips; b. 1867; m. Lewis D. Pace of New York and lived in Washington DC for a while then later in Silvermine CT. She has two children, daughters: Frances Lenora Pace, and Catherine Pace. Frances L. married Lawrence Warner Clarke and Catherine married Walker White and had a daughter, Barbara White.
  • James Phillips; b. 1868; never married; bur. somewhere in Washington DC.
  • Gertrude "Gertie" Phillips (1870-1945); m. Richard Tevia Daniel (1862-1949) and had 4 children.

• m2. Sarah Maury; on Nov. 6, 1889 at Washington DC. She was born in Leesburg VA, and died in 1902 in Washington DC.
• Samuel and Sarah had no children.

Brief Biography:

He married Frances Lucas in 1848 in Chapel Hill, where 9 of his 10 children were born. Then in the fall of 1867 he moved his family to Raleigh, where he became the NC Supreme Court Reporter. He had never agreed with the idea of succession and became a member of "Holden's Peace Party" which was opposed to prolonging the Civil War. He was a member of the first "Reconstruction Convention", and ultimately joined the Republican Party, much to the consternation of his relatives in old Chapel Hill.

Samuel Field Phillips was elected to the NC House of Representatives in 1871, and shortly thereafter, in 1872 was appointed by President Ulysses S. Grant to the post of Solicitor General of the United States. In his role as Solicitor General, Hon. Samuel Field Phillips was said to be, by Seth P. Waxman, among the most distinguished to have ever served, and he did so in most difficult times. See: In "Presenting the Case of the United States As It Should Be" - The Solicitor General in Historical Context", Seth P. Waxman, is quoted as follows:

"Bristow's successor, Samuel Field Phillips of North Carolina, another accomplished federal civil rights prosecutor, continued in that vein. During the 1873 Term, Phillips' first full Term as Solicitor General, he argued 18 cases before the Supreme Court -- 11 solo and seven in conjunction with the Attorney General. During Phillips' remarkable 12-year tenure as Solicitor General -- under four different Republican Presidents and six Attorneys General -- the number of cases argued by Attorneys General declined. And Phillips's skill as an oral advocate inspires us to this day.

His habit was to discard the minor points of a case, and address himself to the great questions upon which [the Court's] decision ought to rest; and then he was so candid in stating the position of his opponents and the facts appearing in the record, and so lucid and strong in his argument, that he commanded the entire confidence, as well as the respect, of the Court.

The Hon. Samuel Field Phillips was said to have suffered a melancholy retirement with infirmities (probably gout) in Washington DC, prior to his death on Nov 18, 1903.