Manuscript Location

Duke University, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library

Place of Origin

United States ➔ North Carolina

Date of Composition

circa 1850

Description

Margaret Lane Mordecai (1824-1910) was the daughter of Moses Mordecai (1785-1824) and his second wife, Ann Willis Lane Mordecai (1794-1854). Her father, who died six weeks before her birth, was a wealthy attorney and planter of Raleigh, North Carolina, and was born an Orthodox Jew. Margaret married John Devereux Jr. (1819-1893) in 1842. The young couple divided their time between the Devereux plantation of Runiroi, near Palmyra in Bertie County, N.C., and Wills Forest, a Lane family home near Raleigh. They had eight children. One of their sons served as a courier in the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. Margaret Devereux's recipe book seems to have been mostly compiled around 1850. It is found in Box 3 of the library's Devereux papers.