Agee

Lea County Family and History, "Then and Now", Vol I

Transcribed by J Rice 2008

The Agee Family

               By Mr. and Mrs. Raymond C (Monte) Agee

          The name Agee is mentioned in the bible (II Samuel 23.11). However I make no claim to his being my ancestor, although the name is found in all languages in translation ( de Age in Spanish, Deage' in French, Diage in Italian, etc.) The biblical name is associated with King David's great soldiers in 1015 B.C.. It is just possible that he was our ancestor.  The first positive recording we have of our genealogy was in 538 A.D. when Flavius Ardius Ager fled Rome with Alaric, after the conquest of Belisarius, Emperor Justinian's General. He settled close to then present site of Nante's France, then Gaul. The ruins of the Deage's castle still remain at the outskirts of Nantes. We have no record of the family, whose name was now Deage', down to Pierre Jean Deage' who was a count in the court of Roi (king) Louis XIV. He was hairdresser for Madame La Pompadour.

          His third son was Mathieu Deage', who fled France after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, which had guaranteed the French Protestants equal rights with the Catholics. Mathieu was a Huguenot (French Protestant) and was 18 years of age. He enlisted in the army of William of Orange, who was recruiting followers in Holland, where Mathieu had fled. He had helped William to depose Catholic King James of England, and received a generous land grant in Virginia. He migrated to the new world in 1690, married and reared two sons, Anthony and James each of which fathered twelve children, who form the 24 lines of descent.

         Anthony was father of John Agee and Samuel Agee. Mathieu changed the French name to Agee, which is the same as the French Deage' but Agee in English. There are over fifty thousand Agee's in this country, all descend from Mathieu. There are some black Agee's, the descendants of slaves held by the  Agee clan.

         William's son John fathered one son and one daughter, Stafford and Effia Agee. William had incurred the displeasure of the Agee clan by marrying an Italian immigrant's daughter, Serena Tempi. One of the Staffford's sons was Raymond C (Monte) Agee whose descendants were Chester Eugene Agee ( 1922 - 1953) whose son is Eugene Ray Agee, whose son is Erick Agee, and the daughter is Kathleen (nee Agee) Johnston of El Paso. His other son id Howard Lee Agee of Minneapolis. He is father of five children, Marcia Lee, John, Mary Jo, Janet, and James, who all live in Minnesota.  I have a step-son and one step-daughter, but I became their father at 13 and 18. but they became my son and daughter, when I married their mother. I couldn't love them any more if they were my own flesh and blood. In fact, the step-son, who is a captain on Western Air lines, has invariably introduced me as his father many times. He is a father of a son and a daughter, while the step-daughter is mother of three children and lives in Pampa, Texas. Her name is Loretta Dickinson. My other daughter is Norma Adams, CPA and lives in Kansas City, Missouri, as do her two daughters.

        My step-son James Hobson lives in Los Angeles, but is moving to property he has bought in Honolulu, Hawaii.