Miss Mullis and Miss Judy
The Tench/Gray Connection
Elijah Linch' wife, Jeanette Tench and her sister, Martha Elvira Tench, who married Elijah's brother, Captain William Linch's wife earned nicknames when they were children.
The Tench girls were the daughters of John Henry Tench ( b April 23,
1807 in Abbeville District, SC ) and Martha Eleanor Gray ( b October 18, 1815
). They were married April 5, 1832. They are both buried in the Tench family
cemetery in Coweta County, GA.
John Henry Tench was the son of John Henry
Tench, Sr. and Margaret Creagh. He was the grandson of William Tench and an
unknown wife and the great-grandson of Thomas Creagh and Meziah Bevans.
She was the daughter of th Hon. Henry Gray
( a Captain in the War of 1812 ) and Elvira Flanagan Gray, the sister of
Confederate Army General
Henry Gray, and the granddaughter of Captain Fredrick Gray ( a Revolutionary War Patriot and
Officer ) and Chloretta Dawkins Gray.
The Tench girls had several brothers who
served in the Confederate Army - James Andrew ( KIA ), Sgt. Rubin Montmornci (
both are buried in the Tench Cemetery ), and Major John Walter Tench (
he is buried in Gainesville, FL ). They also had a sister named Elizabeth Susan
Emily and another brother, Henry Gray Tench.
The two Tench girls were placed under the
charge of two slave ( the Tench's had 400 slaves before the War ) girls named
Mullis and Judy. Somehow the Tench girls ended up being called Miss Mullis and
Miss Judy.
Miss Mullis' ( Jeanette Tench ) mother, Martha Elvira Gray Tench, felt the
learning to read and write was important. She taught every slave child to read
and write in her home. A cousin, Mary McKnight, wrote about her grandmother Tench.
The name, Ms Mullis, was still used in
Jeanette's obituary. She is buried in the Elder-Linch
Cemetery near Turin, GA, along with her husband Elijah O Linch.