Augustus McPherson (abt. 1730)

Born about 1730 in Alabama

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Biography

Birth Date is a guess based on the birthday of his daughter Sehoy III. If you have any documentation as to his actual birth date please update this record.

Augustus McPherson married Sehoy II Marchand.

Research Notes

Thomas Woodward identifies the first husband of Sehoy II Marchand (and grandfather of David Tate) as Malcolm McPherson. Woodward alleges that McPherson gave Lachlan McGillivray his start in business. (However, it is currently accepted that Lachlan McGillivray was sponsored by the South Carolina trading house of his McGillivray kin.)

The passage also repeats the commonly accepted story that John Tate (who also allegedly first accompanied Lachlan into the Creek nation) married Sehoy III and was the father of David Tate. As summarized on the Tate/McPherson pages, Amos J. Wright has raised serious questions about the existence of John Tate. For example, Woodward's story of Tate's death is too similar to that of David Tait's aborted Savannah expedition in 1779/1780 to be dismissed as coincidence. The confusion is disconcerting, to say the least.

Wright argues that Sehoy II's first husband was Augustus or Angus McPherson and that Malcolm, the chief of the Hickory Ground who died 1 Jul 1799, was their son. As to the former, Wright identifies August as the only licensed Creek trader by that name who was active in the nation at the time. As to the latter, Wright maintains this is corroborated by the mention of various contemporaries (including Alexander himself) that Alexander McGillivray had a half-brother named McPherson.

Children

1. Sehoy III McPherson
2. Malcolm McPherson

Sources

• Southern Anthology Project - Families on the Frontiers of the Old South

• "Woodward's Reminiscences of the Creek or Muscogee Indians" p59 by Thomas S. Woodward & published in 1859 by Barrett and Wimbush of Montgomery, Alabama

• "McGillivray and McIntosh Traders on the Old Southwest Frontier 1716-1815" p190-194 by Amos J. Wright, Jr. & published in 2001 by NewSouth Books of Montgomery, Alabama