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Washington Daniell Pray Ancestry
Generation 1 (starting person)______________________________________________________________________________________________
1	Washington Daniell Pray: Washington was bom February 25, 1847 in Hancock Co., Mississippi. He married Nancy Lorena Butler in Amite Co., Mississippi, January 13, 1869. He married Mary Rachel "Mollie" Wilson in Eastfork, Amite Co., Mississippi, February 18, 1897. Washington died August 31, 1930 in Eastfork, Amite Co., Mississippi, at 83 years of age. He had seven children by Nancy and five children by Mollie. Many of the descendants of ?Wash? Pray still reside in Amite County and elsewhere in southern Mississippi and southeastern Louisiana. We have also been in touch with descendants in Florida, Illinois and Arizona.
Generation 2 (parents)________________________________________________________________________________________________________
2	Rufus Otis Pray: Rufiis was bom June 8, 1824 in Hancock Co., Mississippi. He married Sarah Hamlin Daniell in Hancock Co., Mississippi, October 16, 1842. Rufiis died October 24, 1859 in New Orleans, Louisiana, at 35 years of age.
3	Sarah Hamlin Daniell: Sarah was bom May 24, 1822 in South Carolina. She married Rufus Otis Pray in Hancock Co., Mississippi, October 16, 1842. Sarah died September 21, 1860 in New Orleans, Louisiana, at 38 years of age.
Generation 3 (grandparents)______________________________________________________________________________________________
4	Publius Rutilius Rufus Pray: Publius was born June 17, 1793 in Oxford, Worcester Co., Massachusetts. He married Maria Learned in Livermore, Oxford County, Maine, August 20, 1820. They were cousins. The marriage was performed by Jesse Stone, Justice of the Peace. The record said that he was from "PittskiH" New York, but we are unable to find a town of that name. Perhaps "Peekskill" was meant.
Publius died December 27, 1839 in Pearlington, Hancock Co., Mississippi, at 46 years of age. He was given the name Rufus at birth. As an adult, he added Publius Rutilius. He and Maria Learned had a large number of children, but only four survived. All the rest died young. Rufus had a college education (college unknown) and taught school in Westchester County, New York, before moving to Mississippi and settling in Pearlington as an attorney in the early 1820s. He was one of the incorporators of Pearl.
He represented Hancock County in the state legislature from 1827 to 1829. In 1832 he was chosen to preside over the Mississippi State Constitutional Convention in Jackson, convened to replace the old aristocratic constitution of 1817. The new constituion was hailed as one advanced for its day.
The next year, Judge Pray was authorized to compile a new digest of state laws, and he spent five years working on it. However, the result was deemed too "Roman" and was never adopted. Meanwhile, Pray was elected to the High Court, as the State Supreme Court was then known. He served until he died at the age of forty-five at Bay St. Louis. In some documents he is referred to as ?General? Pray, but we find no evidence of any military experience.
5	Maria Learned: She resided in Pearlington, Mississippi. Maria was bom August 1, 1799 in Livermore, Oxford County, Maine. She married Publius Rutilius Rufus Pray in Livermore, Oxford County, Maine, August 20, 1820. They were cousins. The marriage was performed by Jesse Stone, Justice of the Peace. The record said that Pray was from "PittskiH" New York, but we are unable to find a town of that name. Probably "Peekskill" was meant.
She married Lewis Daniell in probably Hancock Co., Mississippi, after 1839. Maria died 1848 in Hancock Co., Mississippi.
6	Lewis Daniell: ?Judge? Lewis was bom 1783 in Little River, South Carolina. He married Mary Butler in South Carolina, August 24, 1813. He married his daughter?s mother-in-law, Maria Learned in probably Hancock Co., Mississippi, after P.R.R. Pray died in 1839. Lewis died at his plantation on