Mullins family cousins include George Washington and Robert E. Lee, with whom we share our Virginia ancestor Col. Augustine Warner (1610-1674). Col. Warner was great great-grandfather to President George Washington, and also to James Philemon Holcombe’s mother, Elizabeth Lucy Grymes (1692-1750). Augustine was George Washington’s great-great-grandfather and Robert E. Lee’s 5th great-grandfather.
Augustine Warner was born in Norwich, England, and came to America at the age of 17 in 1628. He soon started acquiring land and growing tobacco—the most profitable enterprise in colonial Virginia—and may have been our wealthiest ancestor. Augustine was elected to the House of Burgesses in 1652, where he eventually became Speaker of the House and joined the King’s Council in 1659. By the time of his death, Augustine owned thousands of acres of land in Gloucester County, Virginia, on the north bank of the Severn River. The Warner plantation home, “Warner Hall“ survives today as a tourist site.
Warner Hall: A Military Headquarters
Warner Hall involuntarily served as the military base for Bacon’s Rebellion in 1676. That year, farmers in central and northern Virginia asked permission from the Royal Governor William Berkeley to raise a militia to quell Indians who were conducting lethal raids on the settlers. Berkeley refused permission, as the Governor supported a more peaceful, diplomatic approach with the local Indians—an approach supported by the Warner’s. Nathaniel Bacon raised a militia nonetheless and proceeded to rout the raiding Indian tribes. The militia seized Warner Hall as its headquarters.
After defeating the Indians, Bacon went after the Governor. In September 1676, he and his band of several hundred marched to Jamestown (the capital of Virginia at the time), ran Governor Berkeley out of the city, and burned it to the ground. At that time, we had many ancestral families living in Jamestown including the Wilson, Curle, Oldis, and Walker families, so the troublesome Nathaniel Bacon affected many of our ancestors. The rebellion fell apart one month later when Bacon died of cholera.
Augustine’s Children
Augustine’s son, Augustine Warner II (George Washington’s paternal great-grandfather) was also a prominent politician in colonial Virginia. Colonial Virginia. Col. Warner’s daughter, Sarah Warner (1638-1690), is the next in our lineage.
Future Generations
Many years later, our cousin Judge David Walker (1806-1879) married another relative of George Washington, Jane Lewis Washington. Judge Walker was a first cousin of Lucy Hawkins through her paternal aunt Nancy Hawkins (1780-1851). Jane Washington was a direct descendant of George Washington’s grandfather, Captain Lawrence Washington. This is an example of how the land-owning families of the South tended to marry within their own social group. It was not unusual for there to be several marriages between two families, sometimes in different generations.