Stephen Lacy (1780 VA - 1826 GA), one of 12 children of Revolutionary War soldier Rev. Noah Lacy (1750 VA - 1826 GA) and Eliza Mary Wilson from Virginia and Georgia, and grandson of William Lacy and Elizabeth Rice of Virginia, first came to Mississippi Territory with his family and were in the 1810-1813 census and tax lists in Wayne County, MS. This Lacy family goes back to Thomas Lacy who came to Virginia in the early 1600s (great great grandfather of Stephen). Noah and Mary Lacy had twelve children, several of whom came to early Mississippi. They were Elizabeth (m. Richard Banks); Judith (m. John Wise, d. Utica, MS); Sally (m. John Law, then William J. Gordon); Mary (m. John Patterson Wise); Patsey (m. James Freeman); Frances (m. Littleberry Sims, then Mr. Smith); Madgeline (m. Mr. Matthews); Jane (m. Randall Tiller); Jawal (m. Wade Goolsby); William (m. Peggy Wise, then Miss Brooks); John (m. Anna Davis); and Stephen (m. Sally Freeman).

Stephen married Sally Freeman in Georgia in 1803, and they had five children, only three of whom survived to adulthood. Stephen took his family back to Oglethorpe County, Georgia, where both his father Noah and he died in 1826. Before 1830, children Freeman, Martha (m. Mr. Everett), and Mariah (m. Charles Smith), had moved back to Mississippi, and all three families settled in southern Rankin County.

Freeman Lacy (1806 GA-1883), Stephen and Sally’s only son, married Mary Rebecca Ross (1812 NC-1863) in Simpson County, and they had 15 children. Freeman then married widow Pernecie Potter Jones (1836-1909), whose husband had been killed in the Civil War, and they had 7 children (22 total). Freeman Lacy and Charles Smith received numerous land grants, and had extensive farming interests prior to the Civil War. Piney Woods School is built on former Lacy Plantation land, and the Lacy family cemetery is approximately a mile north of that school, far off any public road. The Smith family cemetery is a few miles to the north of the Lacy cemetery, and their relatives the Rosses are buried in the Lacy and Ross cemeteries there and near Campbell Creek in Simpson County. Freeman Lacy’s family Bible “went to Texas”, as many old Bibles did with emigrating family following the Civil War, but granddaughter Ellen Smith Collins of Hinds County, MS, made copies of all records many years later.

First Family descendant member:
 Mary Collins Landin