Stamboom Smith/Bais » Audley Hart Gazzam (1801-1893)

Persoonlijke gegevens Audley Hart Gazzam 

• Hij is geboren in het jaar 1801 in United States.
• Hij is overleden op 7 april 1893 in Baltimore, Baltimore, Maryland, hij was toen 92 jaar oud.
• Een kind van William Gazzam en Ann Parker

Gezin van Audley Hart Gazzam

(1) Hij is getrouwd met ??.

Zij zijn getrouwd

(2) Hij is getrouwd met Marguerite de Loche.

Zij zijn getrouwd augustus 1844 te Paris, Ile-de-France, France, hij was toen 43 jaar oud.

Kind(eren):

1. Marquerite de Louche Gazzam  1845-???? 

Notities over Audley Hart Gazzam

Notes




Audley Hart; born in 1801 ; died at Baltimore, Md., April 7, 1893 ; married, at Paris,
France, in August, 1844, Marguerite de Loche. Of this marriage there was issue one
daughter.


Could Audley Hart Gazzam's first name have been "Dudley"?  Found in a
biography of the Gazzam family...he is listed as William's son "Dudley", born
1801.  More research necessary...

/ln

Additional Information:




Found at Ancestry.com, and noted gratefully here this day...

10/27/11

/ln

Audley H. Gazzam

Audley Gazzam was the original owner of the NWª of

21 and later acquired much more Hal's Lake land, by 1840, 4,500 acres.

Audley H. Gazzam, to twist the saying, was to Mobile a little like a mule: we're not too
sure of his past, and we're not too sure of his future, but while he was here he was one
hell of a force.

He seems to have sprung forth full-blown on the Mobile scene in the 1830's, and with
money, at that. He was almost certainly the brother of Charles W. Gazzam, who came
to Mobile later than Audley -- but unlike Audley, lived here until his death at the ripe
old age of 85 in 1882. Assuming that Audley and Charles were brothers, we know from
the obituary of Charles that their father lived in Pittsburgh when they were growing
up. The only "Gazzam" in Pittsburgh in 1800 was William Gazzam, bound to have
been their father. There are conflicting views on him.

The Mobile paper in the 1880's, writing the obituary of Charles Gazzam, took a pretty
elevated tone in describing the father's career back in Pittsburgh. It called him a Whig
journalist of prominence in England during our Revolutionary War, and a sturdy
opponent of Lord North's administration; on the establishment of peace he emigrated
to this country, and was appointed collector of the Port of Pittsburgh, where the
Gazzam boys were raised.

Pittsburgh historians, on the other hand, describe William Gazzam, in less Whiggish
terms, as "an aggressive Irishman, who had been in the country only a few years, but
by dint of perseverance had pressed well forward in politics, perhaps to the detriment
of his business, as he failed early in his career". He and his allies in 1800 or so
encouraged and assisted immigrants to Pittsburgh in becoming citizens, and built them
into an early (mostly Irish) political machine in Pittsburgh in the 1790's - 1800's,
called "clapboard row". "Clapboard row" politicians were against the high-toned
General Fowler in a congressional race. William Gazzam (who had been Brigade
Inspector of the Allegheny County Militia, and Justice of the Peace) engaged with
General Fowler in a public running dispute in the newspapers. Fowler claimed that
under "the cloak of religion" Gazzam was "artfully aiming at offices", and that
Gazzam really wanted to be postmaster and in the General Assembly. Gazzam

responded in the papers that General Fowler had been drunk when he asked Gazzam
for his support, and was ungentlemanly.

The William Gazzam household in Pittsburgh in 1800 was decent-sized, and two of the
boys -- Audley H. Gazzam (married to Letitia) and Charles W. Gazzam (married to
Clementina) -- ultimately moved to Mobile. A third, Joseph P. Gazzam (married to
Elizabeth), stayed in Pittsburgh.

Audley H. Gazzam, however, had already been in Mobile for some time by 1839, and
in fact, it is quite possible that Audley brought Charles here specifically to clean up the
financial mess which Audley had made by 1839.

In the 1830's, remember, cotton production was really soaring in Alabama. The state's
production jumped from 80,000 bales in 1829 to 103,000 in 1830, 113,000 in 1831,
126,000 in 1832, 130,000 in 1833, 150,000 in 1834, about 200,000 in 1835, and by
1838 it had hit 300,000 bales. Somebody had to get those cotton bales down to Mobile
or New Orleans, and a steamboat was just about the only way.

We know that at least by 1832 Audley Gazzam was here, because he owned the
steamboat MOBILE, which ran from Mobile up the Alabama River to Montgomery,
and maybe a little beyond. The MOBILE took on a full hold of cotton bales in
Montgomery in the rain, and headed south. The vessel stopped at Claiborne, where
Messrs. Sampson and Lindsey shipped 27 bales of cotton as deck cargo, bound for
Mobile and consigned to St. John and Leavens in Mobile. The freight was a dollar a
bale. Regrettably, the cotton in the hold caught fire despite a copper sheath around the
ash pans and furnace. The vessel and cargo were lost, and the owner of this part of the
cargo sued Gazzam, who lost at trial and also lost on appeal.

Lost lawsuits make an impression.

The year after loss of the MOBILE, Audley Gazzam was running five river steamboats,
and -- for obvious reasons -- took some pains to let the public know that the vessels
were fireproof. The Mobile Commercial Register & Patriot for November 7, 1833
contained a business "card" (advertisement) which reveals both the scope of his
business and also some of the technical progress being made in boat design. Audley
Gazzam announced that he was running the Sun, Farmer, Courier, Planter, and the
Herald. These were said to be first-class, modern boats and Mr. Gazzam explained that
they were designed to be safer than other boats. He had caused the hulls of his boats to
be sheathed to give them greater strength, and the bow to be protected with false-work
to resist floating obstructions, snags and the like. The steering gear had been improved
to give the pilot better control of the boat and prevent the shearing from side to side so
common in fast-running river boats. Under the boilers there had been placed a thick
stratum of salt, to absorb the heat, and for further protection of the wood-work of the
boats. False chimneys of sheet iron were erected around the real chimneys, and the
false chimneys, being open at top and bottom, caused cooling air to be passed around
the exterior of the chimneys. This kept the adjacent boiler-deck from becoming over-
heated and catching fire. The boiler-deck, as the card explained, was "a place
heretofore much exposed and often burnt".

With five steamboats running the rivers, with freight at a dollar a bale, and with cotton
production skyrocketing, Audley Gazzam must have thought he was printing his own
money. He almost was.

In 1835 he bought sixty acres of land from W. D. Stone (the original patentee) at what
is now Government and Ann in Mobile (site of All Saints Church). He laid out "Ann
Street", quaintly named for his mother, and put up a grand house there, between 1835
and 1838.

Audley was in pretty deep, but he kept getting deeper. He invested extensively in land
in Clarke County, and was an early owner of much of what is now Point Clear, and
parts of Fairhope, and probably Battles Wharf as well.

In 1837 he was a director of the soon-to-be defunct Mobile and Cedar Point R.R.Co.
He even became Alderman for the South Ward in the City Government, under the
Administration of Mayor G.W. Owen, who was also pushing the Mobile & Cedar Point
R.R.Co.

Audley Gazzam was extended about as far as he could be, and shortly after the Panic
of 1837, he started conveying all or virtually all of his substantial assets to Charles W.
Gazzam. He sold the Gazzam House at Government and Ann, with four acres, to
Charles on February 12, 1839, for $17,900. He conveyed 893 acres in the Point Clear
area to Charles on January 24, 1840, and on that same day Audley conveyed to
Charles lands which, in the Hal's Lake area of Clarke County alone, totalled about
4,500 acres. Audley's conveyance of those Clarke County lands to Charles was an
assignment for the benefit of Audley's creditors, with Charles to apply any profits
beyond sale expenses toward payment of Audley's debts, which must have been quite
substantial.

No doubt anticipating at least the litigation which ensued from the collapse of the
Mobile and Cedar Point R.R.Co. for the next decade and a half, Audley Gazzam simply
skipped town, probably in very late 1839. Charles stayed, and by the Civil War was
principal in a large foundry which made steam engines.

In 1844 Joseph P. Gazzam of Pittsburgh, through Charles W. Gazzam as attorney in
fact, sold Battles Wharf lots 1,2,3,4,5,6&7, and also Point Clear lots 1,2,3,4,5,6&7 for
$1,659.75. There is a high likelihood that this was the wind-down of Audley's land
speculation of the Point Clear area, and that title had been run through Joseph in
Pittsburgh to insulate the transaction from creditors.

Audley does not reappear in any locatable later source concerning Mobile, and who
can blame him?

The Gazzam family had a merchant business in New Orleans named Gazzam and
Funk, and perhaps he moved to New Orleans.

There was a W. J. Gazzam in a Louisiana command during the civil war, and a
William Gazzam married in New Orleans in 1895, and was in the New Orleans City
Directory in 1904. Considering the rare name "Gazzam" and the name "William",
there is an excellent chance that these were Audley's son and grandson.

In the light of this trail, and the trail of the related Lemuel Butler family [see Butler
section], chances are excellent that Audley Gazzam ended up in New Orleans, but so
far, no record of that has been located.

One excellent explanation might be that Audley H. Gazzam moved in with the family
of Charles G. [Gazzam?] Butler of LaFayette County, Mississippi, in or near Oxford.
In the 1840 census, his household held an extraordinary number of adult white males
(fourteen), and since microfilms of the original census reports show that he was
himself the census taker, it is unlikely that he simply made a mistake (on the other
hand, he owned a hotel there, and maybe the census takers counted guests).

Maybe somebody, someday, somewhere, can explain this all to us.

rachelkacprzykharveyadded this on 3 Aug 2011

http://www.algw.org/clarke/history/history.htm

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