Short Biography of Joseph G. McNutt

The Virginia and Nova Scotia families of MACNUTT or MCNUTT, as the name is also commonly spelled, traced their ancestry to a Scotch family in Galloway, MACNAUGHT, of Kilqubanitie. The estate of Kilquhanitie had been in their possession from 1480 until about 1667, when the last of its owners, John, left Scotland for Ireland, accompanied by his four sons. The family of MACNAUGHT, of Kilquhanitie thus became extinct in Galloway. The first of the name of MACNUTT, who emigrated from the north of Ireland to America was ALEXANDER, who was b. in 1656. He came over early in the eighteenth century, circa 1720, and was later followed by several of his sons, some of whom settled in Virginia. Alexander died in Palmer, Massachusetts, in 1746 at the age of ninety years, his wife Sarah, having died there in 1744, aged eighty-four. The second ALEXANDER MACNUTT, b. in Ireland, first settled near Hagerstown, Maryland, shortly afterward removing to Augusta County, Virginia, where he lived on land known as the MACNUTT grants, near Lexington. He d. there about 1751, leaving several sons, Alexander, John, William, Robert, James and another, said to have been killed when a lad in an Indian skirmish. There was also a daughter named Jane, who later m. ——– WEIR, of Nova Scotia. The most notable member of the family in the eighteenth century was COL. ALEXANDER MACNUTT, who was b. in Ireland about 1725 and came with his father, Alexander, to Augusta County, Virginia. He accompanied Maj. Andrew LEWIS as a volunteer in the Sandy Creek Expedition against the Shawnee Indians in 1756 and later served on General BRADDOCK'S [p.379] staff in the expedition against Fort Duquesne. In one of his memorials to the Lords of Trade, he mentions having served in upwards of twenty engagements on land and sea, always as a volunteer and without pay. In the spring of 1760, he was in New England and assisted in raising three hundred men for his Majesty's service at Louisbourg. At this time Colonel MACNUTT embarked upon vast and ambitious schemes for the re-colonization of Nova Scotia, depopulated by the expulsion of the French Acadians. The archives of Canada contain voluminous records of his transactions with the British and Colonial authorities, many of which have been published. He visited England several times in the interests of these undertakings, and on his first visit bore letters from Governor DINWIDDIE, which procured him an audience of the King. His Majesty conferred upon him the honorary title of Colonel and presented him with a sword, in recognition of his services. The sword despoiled during the Civil War of its silver mountings, is now (1915) in possession of his gd. niece, Mrs. Alexander GLASGOW, of Rockbridge County, Virginia. He sided with the patriots during the American Revolution and through failure to fulfill his contracts, lost the tracts of land amounting to several hundred thousand acres granted him in Nova Scotia. He died unmarried, at Lexington, Virginia, in 1811.

WILLIAM MACNUTT, gd. son of the first Alexander was b. 25th July, 1733. He accompanied Col. Alexander MACNUTT to Nova Scotia, and became the progenitor of that branch of the family. They explored together the Minos Basin and William obtained a considerable grant near Truro in Onslow County, where he lived and died. He was the architect and builder of the first church erected in Onslow.

I. Mary, b. 9th June, 1765; d. 15th August, 1765; the first person buried in Onslow Cemetery.

II. GIDEON, b. 12th September, 1766, of whom later.

III. William, b. 1769.

IV. Samuel, b. 1770.

V. Abner.

VI. Mary, b. 11th August, 1773.

VII. Rufus.

GIDEON MACNUTT, of Onslow, Nova Scotia; b. there 23d September, 1766; m. (firstly) in 1801, Elizabeth THOMPSON, b. 1773, d. 1802, dau. of Aaron and Sarah THOMPSON; m. (second) 25th December, 1806, Jane LYNDES, b. 1790, d. 1873.

I. JOHN MURRAY UPHAM, b. 6th July, 1802; d. 25th September, 1837, of whom later.

I. Mary, b. 1808.

II. Robert, b. 1810.

III. Jacob, b. 1812.

IV. Jane, b. 1814.

V. Martha, b. 1816.

VI. Abner, b. 1818.

VII. Lemuel, b. 1821.

VIII. Hannah, b. 1828.

IX. Phineas, b. 1825.

X. William, b. 1828.

XI. Aurelia, b. 1831.

JOHN MURRAY UPHAM MACNUTT, Lawyer, of Eaton, Ohio; b. in Onslow, Nova Scotia, 6th July, 1802; d. in Eaton, Ohio, 29th September, 1837. Returned to the United States in 1819 and settled in Eaton, Ohio; served six years in Ohio State Senate; m. in Eaton, 28th October, 1828, Jane C. HAWKINS, b. in Eaton, 18–, d. there 1835, dau. of Joseph C. HAWKINS, son of Col. Samuel HAWKINS, originally of Virginia.

I. JOSEPH GIDEON, only son, b. October, 1833, of whom below.

CAPT. JOSEPH GIDEON MACNUTT, of Eaton, Ohio; b. in Preble County, Ohio, October, 1833; d. in Richmond, Indiana, March 1877; educated at Miami University, Captain 9th Regiment Ohio Volunteers during Civil War; m. in Cincinnati, Ohio, 6th March, 1859, Laetitia Jane SCOTT, b. in Centreville, Indiana, 1841, d. in Richmond, 23d February, 1869, dau. of Andrew Finley SCOTT, of Rockbridge County, Virginia, who m. Martha M'GLATHERY, of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania.

I. Albert Scott, b. 25th May, 1860; d. 1899; graduated at West Point, 1881; served as Second Lieutenant and First Lieutenant 9th U. S. Infantry; m. 20th February, 1884, Helen PATTERSON, dau. of John and Eliza PATTERSON, of Ridgeway, Pennsylvania.

1. Joseph Scott, b. 11th January, 1885, Biologist; graduated at Harvard and later at the Boston School of Technology; Health Officer at Orange, New Jersey.

2. Joseph Jeffreys, b. 7th January, 1887; d. 17th December, 1892.

II. FRANCIS AUGUSTUS, b. 15th February, 1863, the subject of this memoir.

Source: Mackenzie, George Norbury, ed. Colonial Families of the United States of America. New York: 1907. (ancestry.com)

Laetitia married when she was a young girl to Joseph MacNutt, eloping from her school in Oxford, Ohio. She died a week after the birth of her second son, Francis, at the age of 22. After her death, Albert & Francis lived with their maternal grandparents, Andrew F. and Martha Scott.

Source: "A Papal Chamberlain -- The Personal Chronicle of Francis Augustus MacNutt" ⁴⁹