Thomas George Percy

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Thomas George Percy, Sr. was a 18th century wealthy American planter and settler of Alabama.

Son of Charles (Don Carlos) Percy, (1704-1794), an adventurer from Ireland with pretensions to blood lines of the Dukes of Northumberland, Thomas George Percy, (Princeton 1806) married Maria Pope in 1814 or 1815. His fellow Princetonian John Walker, one of the first two senators from Alabama, married Maria's sister Matilda. The two men built houses on abutting estates in Huntsville, Alabama and named their sons for each other. Through their wealthy planter father, the sisters were related to the English poet Alexander Pope.

Thomas George Percy managed the affairs for his friend John Walker while he was away in Washington. Thomas George’s sons took the leading role in developing the Mississippi Delta, which became the richest cotton producing region in the world. Thomas stayed in Huntsville, enjoying his large library and extended family. It was his youngest son William Alexander (named for Alexander Pope) who became very rich before the War and married a daughter of William Armstrong, an Indian agent, who was the first cousin of George Armstrong Custer, Nana, both cousins being grandchildren of General James “Trooper” Armstrong, a hero of the War of 1812. His son William Armstrong Percy became famous as a confederate colonel and after the War a railroad lawyer and a Redeemer.

[edit] Other Percys

[edit] References

  • Wyatt-Brown, Bertram. The House of Percy: Honor, Melancholy, and Imagination in a Southern Family. Oxford University Press, 1994.
  • Percy, William Alexander. Lanterns on the Levee: Recollections of a Planter's Son. New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1941. (Reprinted with Introduction by Walker Percy, LSU Press, 1973.)