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John, was the great grandfather of Marion Francis Baxter. He was born July 23, 1747-49 and died sometime between 1788 and 1790. His marriage to Anne Ridgill produced seven children, the last of which was Francis Marion Baxter (grandfather of M F. Baxter), born in 1782. Anne Baxter died on September 29, 1784, with Francis barely two years old. His father?s second marriage was to May Britton, and from this union two boys were born. John Baxter died sometime between February 1788 (conception of his last son) and the first United States census in 1790. This census listed Mary Baxter as a widow with six children under 16 years of age and eleven slaves.
On November 24, 1809, Francis Marion Baxter and Mary Elizabeth Ervin were married in Georgetown. Two children were born from the marriage - John Hancock Baxter (September 2, 1810) and Anne Marion Baxter (August 24, 1813). Francis Marion Baxter was the publisher of The Georgetown Gazette (issued twice each week), having purchased the newspaper in October, 1806. When he bought the paper Baxter adopted as his masthead motto "The Press is the Cradle of Science, the Nurse of Genius, and the Shield of LibertyAnd apparently his journalistic endeavors reflected these words. In addition to newspaper publishing, Baxtej became one of the first book publishers in the state, hav/ing issued in 1811 John Waldo?s Rudiments of English Grammer.
His son John Hancock Baxter was only six years old when Francis Marion Baxter died April 24, 1817, at the early age of 35. The City Gazette of Charleston reported in its issue of April 28: "Died at Georgetown, on Thursday morning last, in the 35th year of his age, Francis Marion Baxter, proprietor of The Georgetown Gazette, leaving a widow and two children to lament the loss of an affectionate partner and tender parent. He had filled and discharged with honor . . . many public offices."
Soon after her husband?s death, Mrs. Baxter, together with John Hancock and his sister, Anne Marion, moved from Georgetown to Sumterville in the Williamsburg Township northwest of their original home on the coast. Here Mrs. Baxter married in 1824 Samuel Richbourg, a Huguenot. Several years later, still in the Sumter area (the name had been changed from Sumterville), John Hancock Baxter married Sarah C. Flagler, and
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