Sidney Lanier | Page 7

their musical genius had come to him
through heredity, for it confirmed his opinion that "if a man made
himself an expert in any particular branch of human activity there

would result the strong tendency that a peculiar aptitude towards the
same branch would be found among some of his descendants."
Another Lanier in whom he was interested was Sir John Lanier, the
story of whose bravery at the battle of the Boyne, in 1690, he first read
in Macaulay's "History of England". Lanier's hope and belief that the
family would some day be able to fill the intervals satisfactorily
connecting Sir John Lanier with the musicians of the court have not
been realized, nor has any satisfactory study been made of the coming
of the Laniers to America. The best evidence of the connection between
the two families is found in a deed recorded in Prince County, Va.,
May 14, 1728, from Nicholas Lanier to Holmes Boisseau -- the name
Nicholas being significant. It is certain that Thomas Lanier, along with
a large number of other Huguenots, settled in Virginia in the early years
of the eighteenth century at Manakin-town, some twenty miles from
Richmond. Some of these Huguenots, notably the Moncures, the
Maurys, the Latanes, and the Flournoys, became connected with
historic families of Virginia. There was a tradition in the Lanier family
as well as in the Washington family, that Thomas Lanier married an
aunt of George Washington, but this has been proved to be untrue.*
The Laniers were related by marriage to the Washingtons of Surry
County. They established themselves in the middle of the eighteenth
century in Brunswick and Lunenburg counties of Virginia, as
prosperous planters; they did not, however, rank either in dignity or in
wealth with the older gentry of Virginia. In a letter written in 1877
Lanier gives in full the various branches of the Lanier family as they
separated from this point and went into all parts of the United States.
One branch joined the pioneers who went up through Tennessee into
Kentucky and thence to Indiana. The most famous of these was Mr. J. F.
D. Lanier, who played a prominent part in the development of the
railroad system of the West, and at the time of the Civil War had
become one of the leading bankers in New York city. He was a
financial adviser of President Lincoln, and represented the government
abroad in some important transactions. He was of genuine help to
Sidney Lanier at critical times in the latter's life. His son, Mr. Charles
Lanier, now a banker of New York, was a close friend of the poet, and
after his death presented busts of him to Johns Hopkins University and

the public library of Macon.
-- * `William and Mary Quarterly', iii, 71-74, 1895 (article by Horace
Edwin Hayden); iii, 137-139, October, 1894 (by Moncure D. Conway,
with editorial comment); iv, 35-36, July, 1895 (by the editor, Lyon G.
Tyler). --
The branch of the Lanier family with which Sidney was connected,
moved from Virginia into Rockingham County, N.C. Sampson Lanier
was a well-to-do farmer -- a country gentleman, "fond of good horses
and fox hounds." Several of his sons went to the newer States of
Georgia and Alabama. Of these was Sterling Lanier, the grandfather of
the poet, who lived for a while in Athens, Ga., and was afterwards a
hotel-keeper in Macon and Montgomery. By the time of the Civil War
he had amassed a considerable fortune. In a letter written in 1844 from
Macon we learn that he was an ardent Methodist. His daughters were
being educated in the Wesleyan Female College in that city, his son
Sidney had sailed recently from Charleston to France, and expected to
travel through Sicily, Italy, and other parts of Europe on account of his
health. He was giving his younger sons the best education then
attainable in Georgia.
His son Robert Sampson Lanier had four years before returned from
Randolph-Macon College, Virginia, and was at the time the letter was
written beginning the practice of law. He never became a lawyer of the
first rank, but he was universally esteemed for his "fine presence", his
"social gentleness", and his "persistent habit of methodical industry".
"During all of his long and active professional life," says the late
Washington Dessau, "he never allowed anything to interfere with his
devotion to his calling as a lawyer. No desire for office attracted him;
no other business of profit or honor ever diminished for a moment his
devotion for his professional duties. In the year 1850 he was admitted
to the bar by the Supreme Court of Georgia, and from that period down
to the time of his death the name of his firm appears in nearly every
volume of the reports, indicating