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The McGehees and
So Red the Rose
All pictures and information submitted by Vinson Miller
So Red the Rose front cover picture
So Red the Rose author inscription
Glover Bedford,
With every fond wish -
blood is thicker than water ~
Stark Young
1944
Typed letter in the possession of Vinson Miller. From Vinson:
I think that C. Glover Bedford, Sr. wrote this or his sister, Huella McGehee Bedford Thurman (since she was active in the DAR). I do know that it was typed on the back of C.G.B, Sr. "Grandy's" work stationary, with the same kind of typos on a letter I have that he did sign. I'd date it to the late 1940's or perhaps early 1950's. It was clipped into his copy of "So Red the Rose" which was signed in 1944.
**************Please be aware that much of the early ancestry mentioned in the first paragraph of this letter is still not documented. Early DNA studies do not find a relation between McGehee and MacGregor*****************
The first McGehee was really MacGregor, second son of The MacGregor, head of the Clan. His father was married to a daughter of The MacDonald, Earl of Antrim, head of the armies for Charles I. (See Burke's "Peerage.") After the fall of Charles, the MacGregor was outlawed by the taking away of the family name, known as the Clan of the Mist. The second son, who took the name McGehee, came to Virginia about 1845 in a group allowed by Cromwell to emigrate.
After several generations came Micajah McGehee. Meantime, other descendents of the first McGehee married various famous Virginia names. Micajah McGehee married Ann Scott, daughter of Captain James Scott and a Miss Collier, whose father was Thomas Collier [ed. note-I have him as John Collier-ec] of Portobello, Williamsburg, Va. (Lawrence Washington and a Collier went down to the West Indies on a trip. When they returned, Lawrence built a house named for Admiral Vernon--Mt. Vernon--and Collier built a house, naming it for the battle of Porto Bello. Later Lawrence's Half-brother, George Washington, inherited Mt. Vernon and further developed it.)
Micajah McGehee was granted land after the Revolution and went to Georgia in 1783. Micajah had 19 children, three of whom were:
1. Edward McGehee (b.1786), who went to Woodville, Miss, around 1809. Edward is partly the model for Hugh McGehee in So Red the Rose. The picture of Edward and Lucinda McGehee in the flyleaf of So Red the Rose is in reality the picture of Howard and Stella McGehee, grandchildren of this first Edward McGehee, whose descendents now live in Louisiana. Stella is great aunt of wife of James Landis of Harvard.
2. Abner McGehee.
3. Hugh McGehee (1808-1859). Hugh McGehee's wife was a Miss White, descended from Governor John White of the Lost Colony (1580) and from John Page, owner of the site of Williamsburg, who married a Miss Childs. Edward, Hugh and their brother Abner in Alabama built the first railroads in that part of the world. A Confederate bill has a picture of Hugh's engine on it and the train (Illinois Central) still blows when it passes his son Abner's house at Como, Miss.
Hugh McGehee and 9 children, five of whom were:
a. Hugh McGehee, roughly the model for Edward McGehee in the novel.
b. Agnes McGehee, partly the model for Agnes Bedford McGehee in novel.
c. Abner McGehee, who first married a Miss Bullock, sister of Theodore Roosevelt's mother. His second wife was Miss Sarah King of Alabama, who is closely the model for Sallie Tate Bedford in "So Red Rose."[sic] The daughter of Abner and Sarah--Caroline McGehee--is still living in Como, Miss.
d. Sarah McGehee (called "Aunt Puss"), who married Benjamin Watkins Bedford, a leading planter. This Benjamin Bedford is roughly the model for Malcolm Bedford in "So Red the Rose.[sic] Their son, Benjamin, married Grace Gibson, whose children were Huella, Benjamin, Glover and Mildred. Their daughter, Huella, married Cannon Glover, the parents of Janie Glover.
e. Caroline Charlotte, who married Stephen Gilbert Starks from Vermont. Their daughter, Mary Starks, married Alfred Alexander Young, the parents of Stark Young and Julia McGehee Young.
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Miss Mary Cherry in the novel was a real person, but she was not kin to the McGehees nor to the Bedfords.
William Veal was a real person also, but in actuality was a butler of the Stewarts, who were related to the Edward McGehee, son of Micajah. The novel was dedicated to a member of this branch--Louise Stewart--related also to the Stuarts of England and Virginia.
**Handwritten note** See Gilmer's History of Georgia