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PATRON – Biography: Benjamin Pinckney Worthington born November 19, 1814 – photograph

by Donna R Causey

Worthington, Benjamin PinckneyBENJAMIN PINCKNEY WORTHINGTON

BIOGRAPHY and GENEALOGY

(1814 – 1884)

Jefferson County, Alabama

Benjamin Pinckney “Pink” Worthington was born in Hopkinsville, Kentucky on November 19, 1814 to Benjamin Worthington, Sr. and Judith (Stedman) Worthington of Christian County, Kentucky. He was a pioneer and a plantation owner with his land in present-day Birmingham. His 800-acre farm in what is now the Avondale/Lakeview area of Birmingham.

He married Caroline Mitchell of South Carolina in Jefferson County, Alabama on May 11, 1843. They had eleven children. Known children were:

  1. Virginia Elizabeth Worthington Nabers (1844-1927)
  2. Emily Worthington (1846-1872)
  3. Martha Jane Worthington Byrd (1853-1923)
  4. Margaret Frances Worthington Nance (1856-1932)
  5. Alice Pickney Worthington Nabers (1858 – 1952)
  6. Frank Worthington (1865-1890)
  7. William Henry Worthington (1869-1942)

The Worthington home was a large, eight room structure with high ceilings, a veranda, and six columns at the front. It was equipped with the first water system in the area supplied by springs later submerged under Rushton Park. A portion of land originally purchased by the Elyton Land Company was sometimes called “Pink Worthington’s frog pond”. The house was located where the intersection of 30th and 6th Avenue South meet in Birmingham.

After the Civil War B. P. Worthington intended to move his family to South America, but following a shipwreck off the coast of Cuba and a two-year sojourn in Florida he returned to Jefferson County and to his former home. His oldest daughter Betty married William Nabers and settled on the adjoining Nabers plantation and his daughter Alice married Zachariah Nabers, Jr.

In 1871 he was one of seven people who incorporated the National Bank of Birmingham with a paid-up capital of $50,000. He died on November 19, 1884, he died on his 70th birthday and is buried in Birmingham’s Oak Hill Cemetery.

SOURCES

  1. Birmingham Public Library
  2. Bham Wiki
  3. Find a grave.com #7026864

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6 comments

  1. Cheryl Alexander

    I had a number of ancestors that had Pinckney as their middle names. All were in Alabama.

    1. Kelly Dollar Cranford

      My dad’s mothers name was Henry Pinckney Maudine Epps. Wonder if there was a connection to him and to your family Cheryl Alexander? And she lived in Alabama also.

    2. Cheryl Alexander

      I bet so. Pinckney is an usual name and for it to appear frequently as a middle can not be a coincidence. It was used in male members in my known family members. I know my ancestors were in various parts of Alabama in the early 1800 with sir names of Welch and Hawthorne. In some spellings the e on Hawthorne was dropped. The last relative that was given Pinckney as a middle name died about 2 yrs ago. He was my grandmother’s oldest brother. Most of my family still live in Coffee and Clay Co. Alabama.

  2. Beautiful [photographs] of home of Benjamin P. Worthington, pioneer and a founder of Birmingham, Alabama - Alabama Pioneers

    […] historic photographs take you back in time. Benjamin Pinkney “Pink” Worthington was a pioneer of the area around Avondale/Lakeview area of Birmingham, Alabama. This house was […]

  3. Birmingham, Alabama was born with a tip about a railroad crossing to a group of men in Montgomery [photographs] - Alabama Pioneers

    […] Benjamin Pinckney Worthington […]

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