Peter Mallett (1744 - 1805)

Born 13 Nov 1744 in New Rochelle, Westchester, New York

Ancestors

Husband of Sarah (Mumford) Mallet — married 24 Nov 1780 in New London, New London Co, Connecticut

Descendants

Died 2 Feb 1805 at age 60 in Fayetteville, Cumberland, North Carolina, United States

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Biography

Colonel Peter Mallett performed Patriotic Service in North Carolina in the American Revolution.

Peter Mallett is a DAR Patriot Ancestor, A073215.

Peter Mallett is an NSSAR Patriot Ancestor.
NSSAR Ancestor #: P-240910
Rank: Commissary

Born in New York, Col Peter Mallett moved to North Carolina where he served during the American Revolution. He was Commissary of the 5th Regiment; a juror in Cumberland County in 1778; safety Comte in New Hanover County in 1775.

From Sons of American Revolution membership application:

• Member of Committee of Safely, July to October 1775
• Commissary, 5th regiment, NC troops in the Continental Line, 1776 (Wheeler's History of North Carolina, Vol. 1, p. 79)
• Commissary, 6th regiment, NC troops in the Continental line, Oct. 1776
• Militia, April 23, 1776
• Commissary General of NC (see certified copy of autobiography now in the hands of the General Society of D.A.R.)
• Member of the North Carolina legislature 1778
• Resigned office as Commissary General to the State and to General Gates as Commissary to his division at the General Assembly in Hillsboro, 1789, September
• Was wounded at Ft. George 1759 - ball partly through calf of leg - horse shot from under him at Halfway Brook, above Ft. Edward 1758, in 1777 wounded in ankle. *Received wound in 1780, shot entering left side and remaining for many years.

Notes

Council Hall Eutaw Springs - 1789 To know and fully understand the history of the colonial house known today as the Rogers house, one must go back to the middle of the seventeenth century to La Rochelle, France, where we find David Mallett holding the position of commissary in the army of the French King, and along with him were his four sons in the French army. After the revocation of the Edict of Nantes by Louis XIV in 1685, which caused such distress to the Huguenots of France, numbers of them escaped from their fatherland. Persecutions were severe, especially to Christians; it was at this time that David Mallett and his sons fled the country. David went to England where one of his sons was established at Yorkshire as a physician; one son went to Germany; one son was broken at the wheel, and another son, John, carne to America. John was a man of substantial wealth, judging from the way he came in his three ships with many of his relatives and others who managed to escape, and many of his household effects and valuables. He landed on the Santee River in South Carolina where some of the family remained, but John continued on to the state of New York and there he settled, developing a little town which he called New Roehelle for his home back in France. John was born in 1678 and died in 1745. His son Peter was born in 1712, and his son Peter, in 1744. This son was 16 years old when his father died, being the eldest it fell his lot to settle his father's estate which amounted to 30,000 pounds. His father was a commissary for British troops in New York and Canada. After his death, Peter and his brother Daniel came to North Carolina. Peter, after a colorful and exciting series of voyages back and forth to England and the West Indies, met Judge Maurice Moore who urged him to move to Wilmington and go in business with him as a merchant and shipping agent. This he did, and during a successful partnership, Peter acquired lands in various parts of the state and in what is now Tennessee. As early as 1767 Peter and Daniel owned land in Cumberland County. By 1776 both boys were in the army. Daniel was Commissary in the Fifth Regiment of North Carolina troops, and Peter was with the Fourth Regiment of North Carolina troops as Commissary. Peter's home in New Hanover county was called "Peter Point," and it was here that his will was written (1804). In it the stated that "I want to be buried near my mill in Fayetteville, among my children, in a frugal manner, etc." Peter became a general in the Revolutionary War and he served on the State Commissary as well as serving General Gates as Division Commissary. He was on the Committee of Safety for the Wilmington Area and was member of the House of Commons from Cumberland in 1778. There were several land grants to Peter Mallett and as time went on he accumulated much more land. He bought "Council Hall" and the land surrounding it from his brother Daniel, who had bought it from J. Council of Bladen County: it was patented in 1785 and the transfer was in 1789. In a letter written by Peter he has this to say of this early period: "I removed to my plantation Council Hall near Campbellton where during the winter I was in large trade at Wilmington, Cross Creek, and Peedee, and had a large value in goods - About the last of March the engagement at Guilford Court House happened between Lord Cornwallis and General Greene, the latter rather had the best; the former then moved toward the nearest shipping, say Wilmington. A few days after, a Mr. Swain, with about 40 men, for the third or fourth time, attacked me at Council Hall, under pretense of being on the side of the English, wanted provisions as they said, laid up for Lord Cornwallis' army. I refused them admittance. "As it happened my men were all out except one blackman, Johnny. After an hour or two parley, they forced into the lower part of the house, and my wife, myself, Johnny and a Negro woman defended ourselves with arms; not only forced them from the stairway, but out of the house. One gun only was fired. My wife and servant Hannah were noble soldiers. A few days later Lord Cornwallis' army came along. A great many of his officers were old acquaintances of mine; some had been tent mates with me in the Canada war. I went over the river out of the way, and not the least idea of joining them; but after a day or two, a Mrs. Sutherland and Miss Coit, an aunt of my wife's, sent me word to come in, that Cornwallis and a number of his officers had been at the house, that I should have all of my goods at Wilmington, but my goods had all been sold and distributed among the soldiers and officers, with other prized goods. I was then pressed to go with Lord Cornwallis, as his Commissary, to Virginia This I absolutely refused, having been for years in the American army, I could not think of acting against them, that principle I felt for." After many years service in the army and business in Wilmington, Peter settled in Fayetteville. He married Eunice Curtis the first time and after her death in 1776 he married Sarah Mumford, whose father was a seafaring man who removed to North Carolina from New London, Connecticut, in 1779. This marriage took place in November 1780, and to Council Hall he took his bride. Here he raised his large family of thirteen and one daughter by his first wife. The Fayetteville Mill is believed by his descendants to have been a cotton mill of some type and, in addition, he built the third flour mill in Fayetteville; the first was built by Robert Cochran and the second by Andrew Broadfoot. All flour mills were on Cross Creek. The cotton mill was on Mallett's pond on Blount's Creek. Here, by the mill, was Council Hall. After coming to Fayetteville, Peter Mallett was a great leader in the civic, church and fraternal life of the town. An Episcopalian, he was a Mason and a Justice by appointment, along with Robert Rowan and Robert Cochran, because "he was a gentleman of probity and integrity and formerly in the Commission." He signed the petition to regulate the Village of Cross Creek and town of Campbellton, which was then changed to Fayetteville (1788) and was appointed along with others to lay off streets and alleys in 1778; was on the commission to design, contract for, and cause to be built and furnished a sufficient court house, gaol, pillory and stocks for Cumberland County in 1790. Sarah Mumford Mallett was sixteen years old when she married and was one of two Episcopalians living in Fayetteville at that time and had her own prayer book. Many of the occasional services of the church, which could be enjoyed in those days were held in her house. The handsome silver goblets used for communion services were dedicated for this purpose and not used for any other purpose. In 1817, after St. John's Episcopal Church was built, she gave these, along with silver given by other women of the church, to be melted down and made into the silver communion service in use in the church today. She gave one of the three lots purchased for the present church building. The sons and daughters of Peter and Sarah Mallett carried on the same devotion to their church. Charles Peter and his son, Charles Beatty, were both vestrymen and Charles Beatty was a senior warden at the time of his death. A son, General Edward Jones Mallett of Providence Rhode Island, in 1858 accepted an appointment as United States Consul General to Italy, and upon his return to America was appointed by President Lincoln paymaster in the United States Army. Sarah Mallett was considered very beautiful by all who knew her and was affectionately called "Pretty Sally" by those who knew her well. Peter and "Pretty Sally" lie side by side in a nest little graveyard, surrounded by a brick wall, on the site by the old mill and the home, Council Hall, on Blounts Creek, where the N.C. State Highway offices and Prison Division are now located, and the graves are kept green by the prison department. Before Peter's death in 1804, he either willed or gave Council Hall to his son, Charles Peter, and he continued his father's efforts in the manufacture of cotton, but he called his mill the Merchants Mill. He extended his interests and about 1836 he moved the mill six miles from Fayetteville to a mill seat that has endured until just recently, on Little Rockfish Creek, where in later years it was known as Hope Mills No.I The mill, torn down this year, was of brick and believed to have been built after 1865. This mill owned by Mallett was known as Rockfish Manufacturing Co., and in 1852 was worth around $131,000. Charles Beatty Mallett, the son of Charles Peter, followed in his father's footsteps in textiles. He was educated at Kenyon College in Gamber, Ohio, in engineering and upon graduation was associated with his father in the manufacture of cotton goods. But in addition he had many other interests. From 1856-1870 he was president of the Western Railroad, in 1895 known as the Cape Fear and Yadkin Railroad, operating between Fayetteville and Egypt Station to Chatham County. He attained state-wide prominence through his interest in the development of railroads; was engaged in the transportation of coal and other freight by steamer and barge between Fayetteville and Wilmington; was engaged in the manufacturing of railroad car wheels and kerosene as by products of the coal mining enterprise. However, in 1865, Sherman brought to Charles Beatty a blow that few could overcome. All cotton mills were burned, river steamers, barges, iron foundries, his home, in fact everything he owned. But this did not end the textile business, for some of the Union men who burned his mills saw what possibility this industry could become and after the war came back south and built mills on the same sites. In 1825 Charles Peter bought land from Dr. Hiram Robinson, and more from Archibald McKay in 1838. It was a beautiful location on the Western Plank Road, with springs and virgin pines and ancient oaks, and much reason to think there were some minerals in the rolling hills. It was called Eutaw Springs, an Indian name meaning "place with pine trees." Charles decided to move Council Hall out to Eutaw Springs. So he bad all weather boarding taken off and numbered, and the house was dismantled except for the frame. It was placed on logs and a wide road was cut along which the house was rolled up the hill to this beautiful spot. This move took place some time around 1830 and until 1857 the Malletts lived here. After Charles Peter, his son, Charles Beatty, lived here. It was here that John Wright, Charles Peter, William Anderson, Caroline Green, Margaret Anderson, Alice Hazelton were born. In the year 1857, Charles Beatty decided to build another home in the vicinity of Veterans Hospital. He ordered fine materials from England, planted trees of various kinds from all over the world, and his home was known as a magnificent country place called "Woodside" until Sherman and his "Bummers" came in 1865, and the house was burned. The silver was stolen, the furnishings destroyed, and only the jewels were saved as they were sewed in the hems of the ladies' dresses. Meat was also saved, for in the effort to save things, flour was spilled on the meat, and the soldiers thought it poisoned, and such food remained. It seems ironical that this should have happened to Peter Mallett's grandson, for it was in 1781 that David Fanning, with his horsemen, came and pillaged and burned many valuable items, belonging to Peter Mallett, among which was the handsomely bound book written in French, given to him by his grandmother. In giving the book to him, his grandmother told him that "it was his great grandfather's and grandfather's journal and highly worth his notice and attention." At this time, he was about 19 years old, but in 1781 he had it carefully "laid up at Cross Creek." Would that this family journal had been saved. Charles Beatty sold Council Hall at Eutaw to James Marley Smith, who lived there until 1919, when he sold it to Dr. J.V. McGougan who used it as a summer home. Eutaw became a favorite place to entertain at outdoor parties, and many distinguished personages have been entertained there, among them General Pershing and General A.J. Bowley. In 1923, Mrs. Florence Rogers purchased the property, and in 1951 the Eutaw Development Corporation was formed. Today it is a large residential area and a popular shopping district. The house, occupied by Mrs. Rogers until her recent death, has had many additions, but as Mrs. Rogers said herself, "I have taken all pains to keep the lines of the house intact so that the additions could be removed and I would look as it did back in the 1700s." This was told to Mrs. S.W. Tillinghast, whose father was John Wright Mallett, the son of Charles Beatty Mallett. Mrs. Tillinghast lived and reared her family here, but now makes her home with a daughter, Mrs. Howard Blount, in Petersburg, Virginia. Another daughter, Mrs. Milton Hoover, lives in Orangeburg, South Carolina, and her son, Mercer, lives in Detroit, Michigan. The house is of pure colonial architecture with a story and a half, the long sweeping lines of the gabled roof framing the dormer windows, and it has a beautiful early period chimney. The flooring is of wide pine boards and its one mantel is a gem, carved of pine by hand with a medallion, making it extremely beautiful. The mahogany staircase is gracefully curved and carved. An avenue of stately magnolia trees formerly led from the house to the road, some of which remain. There are boxwoods of different ages and sizes and many trees surrounding the house as it sits serenely on one of the headwaters of Cross Creek. The house was recognized by the late E.W. Reinecke as a masterpiece worth copying, and he did so at Cottonade some years ago.

Sources

• Mallett, Anna Smith, 1895. John Mallet, the Huguenot, and his descendants, 1694-1894. Harrisburg Publishing Co., Harrison, PA. page 46
• Curtiss, Frederic Haines, 1903. A Genealogy of the Curtiss Family, being a Record of the Descendants of Widow Elizabeth Curtiss, who settled in Stratford, Conn., 1639-40. Rockwell & Churchill Press, Boston, page 43
• Web: North Carolina, Find A Grave Index, 1716-2012
• History of the town of Catherine, Schuyler County, NY, The
• Daughters of the American Revolution Lineage Book of the Charter Members of the DAR Vol 006, pg 289
• Sons of American Revolution membership application
• Heads of fams. at the first U.S. census. NC. By U.S. Bureau of the Census. Washington, 1908. (292p.):193
• Dictionary of North Carolina Biography. Volume 4, L-O. Edited by William S. Powell. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1991. (DcNCBi 4)
• 1800 United States Federal Census, North Carolina
• Connecticut, U.S., Wills and Probate Records, 1609-1999 (father's)
• Early Connecticut Marriages (Eunice Curtis)
• North Carolina, U.S., Wills and Probate Records, 1665-1998
• Mayflower Society Application Database: "Community Trees," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/2:2:QVQT-GWS : accessed 19 December 2021), entry for Peter Mallett, cites sources; "Mayflower Pilgrim Genealogies" file (2:2:2:MMXD-DP8), submitted 24 February 2020 by FamilySearch.

Acknowledgements

• This person was created through the import of rfedele.ged on 22 September 2010.