Fenner, Richard

d. ca. 1766

Richard Fenner, lawyer, was born in Dublin, Ireland, probably the son of William Fenner and the grandson of Richard Fenner, both lawyers, and the descendant of a Richard Fenner who had received forfeited estates and interests in Ireland in 1688. In 1757 Fenner was in New Bern, N.C., serving as deputy clerk of council, deputy secretary, and deputy register of the Court of Chancery under Governor Arthur Dobbs. He was appointed in 1760 to the commission of the peace for Carteret County, where he had bought land in 1758. He served the town of New Bern as recorder, was appointed a commissioner to oversee the completion of a courthouse for Craven County (1759), was one of seven trustees of a school to be built for New Bern (1764), and signed a petition to the lieutenant governor for a salary for the teacher. He also represented clients before the Craven County court.

Fenner married, before his emigration to America and probably as his second wife, Ann Coddington, of another Anglo-Irish family of record in County Dublin from the early years of the seventeenth century. In 1768 his widow was living in New Bern on Hancock Street on Lot 89, which he had bought in 1759. Ann Fenner's will, probated in March 1777, was witnessed by James Reed, the first regular rector of Christ Episcopal Church. Her heirs were her three sons, William, Robert, and Richard, all of whom served as officers in the Second Regiment, North Carolina Continental Line, during the Revolutionary War.