Pedigree page: Mary Ann FitzSimons and Donald McKay Allston, with photographs and clippings

A composite album page with a manuscript pedigree across the top, four photographs down the left and lower centre, a printed engraved wedding announcement at centre-right, a child’s portrait at lower centre, and a long newspaper clipping pasted along the far right edge.

Top — manuscript pedigree in ink, three generations

Mary Ann Fitz Simons. B. Sept. 30th 1899 — M. Nov. 5th 1920 — Christ Church — Adams Run S.C. — m — Donald McKay Allston. Aug. 7th 1889

1. Amy Perry. B. Aug. 22nd 1921 — M. May 16th 1946 — Henry Burnett Fishbourne at Willtown Bluff Plantation

   1. Henry Burnett Fishbourne 2nd — B. May 6th 1948
   2. Donald Allston Fishbourne — B. Aug. 1st 1951

2. Aramintha Theodora. B. Nov. 21st 1923 — M — Robert Hale McEwan — Dec. 8th 1943 — St. Phillips Church, Charleston, S.C.

   1. Robert Hale McEwan 2nd — B. July 13th 1947 — Orlando, Fla.
   2. Amy Allston McEwan — B. March 16th 1949 — Orlando, Fla.

3. Donald McKay 2nd. B. Feb. 21st 1925 — M. Margarita Consuelo Fitz Simons — June 21st 1947 — Hendersonville, N.C.

   1. Donald McKay Allston III. B. Oct. 25th 1948
   2. Margarita Consuelo Allston B. Aug. 10th 1951
   3. Mary Ann Allston — B. Jan 4th 1957 — D. Aug. 21, 1962
   4. Samuel Fitz Simons Allston — B. July 8th 1965

[Mary Annie Perry FitzSimons (1899–1980) — the compiler’s sister — was the mother of three Allston children; her son Donald McKay Allston Jr. (the “2nd” in the chart) married a FitzSimons cousin, Margarita Consuelo FitzSimons of Hendersonville, N.C. The pedigree is in the compiler’s hand. “Burnett” appears on the engraved invitation as “Burton” in some other family documents — both forms appear in the archive.]

Centre-right — printed engraved wedding announcement (cream card, folded)

Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Gaillard Fitz Simons request the honor of your presence at the marriage of their daughter Mary Anne to Mr. Donald McKay Allston on Wednesday, the third of November nineteen hundred and twenty at twelve o’clock noon Christ Church, Wilton Adams Run, South Carolina

[The engraved card commemorates the 1920 marriage of the compiler’s sister Mary Annie (“Minnie”) to Donald McKay Allston Sr. The bride’s parents — the senders of the invitation — are Samuel Gaillard FitzSimons Sr. and his wife Minnie Perry FitzSimons, the compiler’s parents. “Christ Church, Wilton” is the historic Anglican parish at Adams Run; the date on the engraved card (Wednesday Nov. 3, 1920) differs by two days from the cursive pedigree’s “Nov. 5th 1920” — possibly an engraved-vs-cursive transcription drift, or a date change the invitation pre-dated.]

Photographs (clockwise from upper left)

A small sepia head-and-shoulders portrait of a curly-haired toddler in a white frock:

Amy Allston

Beside that, larger snapshot of a girl in a long white dress (early 1920s), partly trimmed at right:

Amy P[erry] [caption partly trimmed]

Below those, a small black-and-white photograph of a single-storey low house among trees (no caption — likely a plantation house, possibly Willtown Bluff).

Below, a sepia bust portrait of a small child in a striped jumper:

Aramintha Allston

To the right, a larger sepia photograph of three small children in white — a girl standing left, a small boy seated centre, a girl standing right. Pencil caption beneath:

[A]my Donald Amarinthia

[The three Allston children — Amy Perry, Donald McKay 2nd, and Aramintha Theodora — photographed together c. 1926–28.]

Below the group photograph, a small full-length snapshot of a person (back to the camera, in coat and hat) standing beside a fence. Pencil caption:

M.A.F.S. during training in Sav., Ga.

[M.A.F.S. = Mary Ann Fitz Simons, i.e., the compiler’s sister “Minnie” before her 1920 marriage. The reference to “training in Savannah, Ga.” suggests her wartime nursing or service training in the 1918–19 period; cf. p350’s three-girl group photograph, and the Savannah Red Cross / military hospital activity of the period.]

Lower centre — head-and-shoulders portrait of a young girl with blond plaits, pencil caption beneath

Mary Ann Allston, 1961

[Mary Ann Allston, daughter of Donald McKay Allston Jr. and Margarita Consuelo FitzSimons, was born Jan. 4, 1957 and died Aug. 21, 1962 — this portrait was taken roughly a year before her death at age five.]

Far right — long narrow newspaper clipping

Ancestral Home Given Mrs. Allston By Whitney Widow

Mrs. Minnie FitzSimons Allston has been given back her ancestral home on the South Edisto river, on the Willtown road, by Mrs. Arthur Whitney, who with her husband, the late Arthur Whitney, for many years maintained their winter home there according to a deed filed yesterday in the office of Julius E. Cogswell, register of mesne conveyance. The deed includes all furniture and furnishings in the house.

Recorded at the same time was a conveyance from Mr. Whitney, individually and as executrix of the estate of Arthur Whitney, for $44,000 the 1,773.1 acres included in Mount Hope and Wilton, the Grove, Mount Hope, Pineland and Oakhurst plantations, with all improvements and personal property, to Henry A. McKinnon and C. E. Beman, as trustees for M. L. McLeod and others. The same interests recently acquired the holdings of the late Franklyn L. Hutton, which adjoin the Whitney properties, for $112,500.

The gift to Mrs. Allston includes 33.5 acres in tracts of 17.5 and sixteen acres, respectively. In deeding the property, Mrs. Whitney says that as the house had been for many years the plantation home of the late Samuel G. FitzSimons, the father of Mrs. Allston, and as “it is my desire and wish, and I am sure it would have been the wish of my late husband, Arthur Whitney, to give the real estate hereinafter described, together with the plantation home situate thereon, to our friend, Minnie FitzSimons Allston,” she is granting the property to Mrs. Allston.

The original churchyard and parsonage is included in the larger tract. The house is on the site of the settlement at Willtown, Wilton, or New London, and is thought to have been built by Colonel Lewis Morris, of Morrisiana, N.Y., after he came here on the staff of General Nathaniel Greene.

The building is believed to have been built about 1807. Mr. FitzSimons bought the property in the late 1890’s or early 1900’s. It was bought by William Harmon, who remodeled the house and put in extensive repairs, and sold it to the Whitneys in the early 1930s.

Of interest to architects is the large octagonal center room, with squared wings on each side. To the left of the entrance hall are a bedroom and bath. To the right are the dining room and kitchens and a staircase leading to the second floor. This contains three or four bedrooms and baths.

The house includes a large outdoor living room, built on the bluff overlooking the Edisto river. [Marginal ink: “TD”] is a part of a boathouse and is used by the former owners in the afternoon.