Kizziah Souther Humphries and Her Family (Part 2)

Last week’s column began the story of Kizziah Souther Humphries and her husband John. This couple came to Union County to settle in the mid- to late-1830’s, and remained here until the 1850’s (exact time of departure unknown to this writer). By 1860 the family was recorded in the Monroe County, TN census, and later in Blount County, TN. In their life story, we observe the strong influence of family upon migration patterns. Kizziah’s brother, Joseph, had preceded her family’s move to Union County. Her brothers John, Jesse and Hix would also make the move from North Carolina to the 16th District of Union County. But it seems that Kizziah and John’s move to Tennessee was not precipitated by other family moves prior to theirs that we can pinpoint.

Kizziah was the mother of thirteen children. Part One of their family saga traced her children through the first four, and their marriages, namely Jesse who married Charlotte Duckworth, Jane who married Wiley Dean, Catherine, nicknamed “Katie”, who married John Hix, and Willis who married Mary Johnson. We saw how Humphries had various spellings in official records, mainly with the “H” (so often a silent initial letter) omitted, so that to find these children of Kizziah and John, I had to search not only the “H” section of copied records, but also the “U” section. We can get an approximate date of Kizziah and John Humphries’ move to Union by the births of their children. The first two, Jesse (b. 1833) and Jane (b. 1835) were born in North Carolina; the third, Catherine, was born in Georgia about 1837, which dates their move to Union prior to that date. The last three were born after their move to Tennessee.

Continuing with Kizziah and John’s children (the fifth through the thirteenth) in this Part 2 of their family saga, we will give highlights and where they scattered geographically.

James Humphries (1840-?) married Sarah Ann Alman. They lived in McMinn County, TN, moved to Cherokee County, NC for a period, where Sarah Ann died, and then James returned to McMinn County. When James’s next-to-youngest brother, Joseph, was interviewed in 1931 by Tennessee genealogist Will Parham of Blount County, TN, he told the historian that the family Bible in which Kizziah and John had recorded births and deaths of family members was in possession of his brother James in McMinn County, TN. It would be interesting to know if the family pages of this Bible have been preserved. James and Sarah Ann had children J.Harve, Jesse, Hugh, Georgia, Lillie and Paralee.

Phillip Humphries (1841-?) married Cordie Parker. He had an interesting life to say the least. A soldier (in the Confederate Army) during the Civil War, it is believed that the traumatic experiences there left him nervous and restless. He became an itinerant preacher and went from Arkaquah District in Union County all the way to Texas, returning on the long trek periodically to warn any who would listen along the way to the “coming catastrophe,” the end-times and the hardships to be endured. He was finally placed in a Soldiers’ Home in North Carolina where he died. Known children of Phillip and Cordie Parker Humphries were Joseph, James, Louise and Maggie, and perhaps others whose names were not known by his brother Joseph in 1931.

John Humphries (1843-1862?) remained single. Joseph stated this brother died in 1862. However, Mrs. Don (Ruth) Carroll, wife of one of Nancy Ann Humphries Carroll’s grandchildren who submitted Chapter 10 in Watson Dyer’s “Souther Family History” (1988) stated that she found a record of a John Humphries with wife Mary, and an eleven-month old son, Robert, in the 1870 Blount County, TN census. The age of this John would have about matched the age of Kizziah and John’s son, named for his father. Joseph Humphries was giving the family information when he was 80, and without benefit of written records. There is, therefore, a question about the John Humphries found in that 1870 census, with Joseph’s remembrance of his brother dying in 1862. Mysteries are rampant in the search for family history.

Noah, eighth child of Kizziah and John, (b. 1845) married first to Jane Wilkins and second to Rebecca Wilhoit. Joseph stated in 1931: “Noah’s two boys are working near the Pendergrass Marble Quarry near Knoxville, TN. He had five girls; one lives near Neubert’s Springs in Knox County.” (p. 289, Souther book). However, the Georgia Southers have a little different story. They say Noah went west to Texas and bought land for a farm there. Later, oil was discovered on Noah’s property, thus making him a rich man. He had at least five daughters, names unknown, by his first wife Jane Wilkins, and two sons, John and Benjamin, born to his second wife, Rebecca Wilhoit.

Sarah, ninth child of Kizziah and John, (b. 1847-?) married James Gooden on February 21 in Blount County, TN. They had known children, John, Thomas and Joseph. In the 1880 Blount County census, the Gooden family lived four houses from her brother, Joseph. In 1931 Joseph stated that Sarah and James Gooden moved later to Walker County, Georgia where they remained the rest of their lives.

Mary, known as “Polly” (b. 1848-?) married Tillman Walker Davis on February 14, 1873 in Sevier County, Tn. They had two known children, Theodore and Thomas. They may have moved to Missouri, because her brother Joseph stated in 1931 that Mary’s children lived in that state.

Nancy Ann Humphries (1851-1882) married William Pinkney Willis Carroll on September 17, 1874 in Sevier County, TN. Willis joined the Union Army during the Civil War. After Nancy’s death Willis married again. Nancy Ann and Willis had two sons, William Joseph and John Houston Carroll.

Joseph F. Humphries (1852-1936) married twice. His first bride was Mary Ann Carroll (1849-1910) whom he married January 6, 1872 in Blount County, Tn. He married, second, Rachel Walker. This is the son of Kizziah and John who gave an account of the family in 1931 to Will Parham, genealogist, and to whom we owe much credit for family tree information. With him, he and his descendants changed the spelling of their surname to the more-commonly used form, Humphrey. Joseph and Mary Ann had these eleven children: George, Sarah, John, Jacob Houston, James, Mary Belle, Samuel Henry, Josiah, Richard, William C., and Brown Melton. Joseph or his descendants did a masterful job listing Joseph’s family. Pages 296 through 304 of Dyer’s “Souther Family History” are replete with a listing of Joseph’s descendants.

David Humphries (1854-?) married but did not have children. In Joseph’s account of the thirteen children of his parents, John and Kizziah Souther Humphries, he did not elaborate on this youngest of their large family.

We can only imagine the uncertainties John and Kizziah Humphries faced in their multiple moves from North Carolina to North Georgia to the Monroe and Blount County, Tennessee area, and the hardships of survival, feeding, caring for and schooling a large family during the trying times of the Civil War and its aftermath. We salute them and their hardiness, a tribute to many like them who paved paths through the wilderness in the nineteenth century.

c2011 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published Sept. 1, 2011 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Kizziah Souther Humphries and Her Family

The name Kizziah given to my great, great aunt has fascinated me since I first heard it. Kizziah Souther was born at Old Fort, McDowell County, North Carolina on March 27, 1811. She was the sixth child of fourteen born to Jesse Souther (1774-1858) and Jane Combs Souther (1782-1858). I began to wonder where Jesse and Jane Souther came up with the name “Kizziah” to give to their baby in 1811.

Searching for the name Kizziah, I found that it was a surname, not usually a given name. I thought that perhaps someone in either Jesse or Jane’s family might have had the name Kizziah. My search did not reveal an ancestor with the name, but I did learn that Kizziah seems to be a Tuscarora Indian name, and that there were families in the area of North Carolina where the Southers lived that had the Kizziah surname. My search did not reveal why the name Kizziah for the new baby born to the Southers in 1811, but it sounds pretty, and still holds a fascination even now. Maybe the beauty of the name also fascinated my great, great, great grandparents.

Kizziah Souther married John Humphries (b. 1810) on December 27, 1831 in Burke County, North Carolina. She was 20 and John was 21. He no doubt was a farmer, and perhaps a trapper and timber cutter. Four of the thirteen children who were born to this couple were born before Kizziah’s brothers who had already migrated to Union County in North Georgia enticed John and Kizziah to leave Burke County and find their fortunes on land available in Union County after the exodus of the Cherokees. Her brothers, Joseph and John Souther, had already secured land holdings in District 16 (Choestoe).

By the time of the 1840 Union County census, John and Kizziah Humphries were living in their adopted county. In their household in 1840 were 3 male children under 10 and 2 female children under 10. A next-door neighbor to John and Kizziah were her brother Joseph Souther, and a little farther away, her brother John Souther (my great, great grandfather).

By 1850 we learn in the census the names of the children born to John and Kizziah Humphries, and their ages. Jesse, 17 (named for Kizziah’s father Jesse Souther), Jane, 15 (named for Kizziah’s mother, Jane Combs Souther), Catherine, 14, and Willis, 11, had all been born in North Carolina. Since Willis was born in 1839, this gives us a date of their leaving North Carolina, after Willis’s birth, but before the census enumeration in Union County in 1840. Other children in the Humphries’ household, all born in Georgia, were James, 10; Philip, 9; John, 7; Noah, 5; Sarah 3; and Mary, 2.

Whether the farm in Union County could not yield enough to support his growing family, or whether the desire to go to other more promising places hit John Humphries, sometime before the 1860 census they had departed from Union County. By 1860 John and Kizziah Humphries and the children remaining at home were in Monroe County, Tennessee. Three other children, bringing the total to 13, had been born to Kizziah; these were Nancy Ann, Joseph F. and David.

They moved on from Monroe County to Blount County in Tennessee where some of the family lived. By the 1880 census, Kizziah had died (her death date is unknown to this writer), and her husband John was listed as a widower, living in the household of his next-to-youngest son, Joseph. However, before John Humphries died, he moved to Cherokee County, NC to live with one of his children there, and died in Cherokee County.

We will trace what we know of Kizziah and John Humphries’ thirteen children. The oldest, Jesse (b. 1833, NC) served in the Civil War. He married Charlotte, known as “Lottie” Duckworth. This marriage record is entered for this couple in Union County marriages: Charlotty Duckworth to Jessee Umphris, March 11, 1855, performed by H. J. Scruggs, minister. The 1910 census shows that they were living in Union County then. Later Jesse moved to Walker County, Georgia. He and Lottie had four known children: Rosetta who married a Martin; their marriage is entered, with this spelling in Union records: Roseta Umphas to T.H. Martin, by C. N. Davis, JP, on May 6, 1878. Ellen, their second child, married Juan Jones on November 17, 1882, with A. B. Harkins, JP, performing the ceremony. Her last name in the record was spelled Umphres. The other two children of Jessie and Lottie were Sarah and John E.

Catherine, nicknamed “Katie” Humphries was born in 1837. Katie married John Hix, their ceremony performed by William Pruitt, minister, in Union County on November 2, 1854. In the record, Catherine’s surname was spelled Umphris. As Katie’s next-to-youngest brother, Joseph, recalled his memories of his family and gave information to Tennessee genealogist, Mr. Will Parham, in 1931, he noted that Katie and John Hix moved from Union County to White County, Georgia. They had several children.

John and Kizziah Souther Humphries’ fourth child, Willis, born in 1839 in North Carolina, married May Johnson on October 14, 1866 in Union County, with Thompson Collins, Justice of the Peace, performing the ceremony. By 1870, this young couple had moved to Cherokee County, North Carolina, where they were recorded as having two children, but the children’s ages indicate that Mary may have been married before she and Willis married, and she had two children, Elizabeth, 11 in 1870, and Hugh, 9. They were listed, however, under the last name Humphries. Joseph Humphries in 1931 stated that his brother Willis moved west to Arkansas where he “was killed” (no indication of whether his death was by accident or confrontation). Willis Humphries’ wife and children moved on to Texas after his death and settled there.

We will continue the account of John and Kizziah Humphries’ remaining nine children in a subsequent article. This family provided an example of the migrations that occurred in the mountain regions of North Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee in the 1800’s. Nearly always, moves came because the head-of-household was looking for better opportunities for his family. It is interesting that the surname Humphries (with its various spellings, Humphreys, Humphrey, Humfries, Umphries, Umphres) is Welch in origin and is from “Hun” meaning “bear cub,” plus the suffix “frid” meaning peace. In the 9th century, the Bishop of Therouanne, named Hunfrid, was named a saint, known for his peace-keeping skills. He was very popular among the Norman settlers of England. In 1854, Blanche and Edward Humphries settled in Virginia. They may have been ancestors of John Humphries who married Kizziah Souther in Burke County, NC in 1831. The Humphries coat-of-arms motto is “L’homme vrai aime sons pays,” and, translated, means “The true man loves his country.”

c2011 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published August 25, 2011 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Militia Districts in Union County

The state of Georgia is divided into 159 counties. Within each county are further subdivisions called Militia Districts. Union County is divided into fourteen districts, but only five voting districts. Beginning along the northern border at the North Carolina line and proceeding southward, these militia districts are Dooly, Ivy Log, Gum Log, Lower Young Cane, Blairsville, Upper Young Cane, Coosa, Arkaquah, Owltown, Choestoe, Coopers Creek, Canada and Gaddistown. These names are more for location than for political divisions, as changes have occurred over time to warrant a look at how present election districts have evolved.

Even though there were fourteen districts in 1849 listed for the then seventeen-year old county of Union, those districts were changed through the years due to part of Union being taken into Fannin (formed in 1854) and Towns (formed in 1856). The tax lists of 1849 had the fourteen districts in Union named thus: Hiawassee, Choestoe, Ivy Log, Noontootla, Blairsville, Hemptown, Brasstown, Stevenson, Gaddistown, Arkaquah, Young Cane, Gum Log, Cut Cane and Skinah (Skeenah). You can easily recognize from this listing that only eight of these fourteen remain in Union today, with names the same. As changes in geographical divisions occurred through the county’s history, the districts were realigned accordingly.

Historical records show that a fifteenth district was added in 1851, before the counties of Fannin and Towns were measured off from portions of Union. That new district did not receive a name until 1855, when it was named Young’s District. Later, the Young’s District was split into two and received the names Lower Young Cane and Upper Young Cane. An interesting sideline about districts not only in Union but throughout Georgia is that they were sometimes named for a person prominent in the area, or for families who settled there, especially when several by the same name resided within a given geographical area. Examples of this naming in Union are Young Cane (upper and lower), Coopers Creek and Gaddistown, and although I do not find any named Dooly in the county until the 1850 census, this district name, too, might have been from a family or a remembered family name from a previous place residents lived. The Dooly District was officially added to the tax lists of Union in 1857. Other names were adopted from names the Cherokee had given the place before their exodus on the Trail of Tears. Some of these names are Arkaquah, Choestoe and Coosa.

By 1870, Coosa and Coopers Creek had been added to the tax list districts. And then in 1887 Owltown was formed, taking portions of Choestoe, Arkaquah and Coosa to form the legal entity numbered 1409. In order to get the Owltown District, a petition was presented, with some of the leaders being citizens Thomas Fields, Daniel Mathis and others. The parameters of Owltown were surveyed and recommended by a court-appointed team made up of Quiller F. Reece, John M. Rich, and Milford G. Hamby. The act to form Owltown District took effect on April 4, 1887 when Ordinary William Colwell signed the official document.

Stability remained in the district names for about a hundred years. But even during that time, district lines changed somewhat due to petitions of citizens and surveys that led to resetting some of the district lines by small margins. In 1981, Georgia Code, Chapter 34-7 and 34-701, amended, gave impetus to resetting “election districts” to cut costs in holding elections (not one for each of the fourteen districts), but according to locations, with some of the districts realigned and combined for precincts. Brasstown and Blairsville were combined into Election District 1. Others were combined as follows for precincts: District 2 covered Upper and Lower Young Cane and Coosa. District 3 encompassed Choestoe, Arkaquah and Owltown. District 4 contained Dooly, Ivy Log and Gum Log. And “across the mountain” District 5 combined Coopers Creek, Gaddistown and Canada.

Then in 1983, Representative Carlton Colwell introduced a bill in the state legislature to make the Union County School Districts correspond to the voting districts. Members of the Union County School Board—instead of being from the fourteen districts—would be elected from within the five voting districts. And it was so ordered.

Nowadays, the 14 Militia Districts of the County are remembered from past history and for sentimental reasons. However, we still like to hail from whatever district we or our parents might have claimed. Simplification in government alignment sometimes leads to loss of pride in place. But we still look at the old district lines on a map of Union County and remember “how it used to be.” I look at old marriage records of the county and see names of those important district officers, Justice of the Peace (JP) and Notary Public (NP). They served notably in the capacity they had as legal representatives in their districts. These names appeared frequently on legal documents in the first decades of our county’s history: Jesse Reid, JP; Thompson Collins, JP; Hampton Jones, JP; J Duckworth, JIC (Justice of the Inferior Court); T. M. Hughes, JP; James Bird, JP; M. M. Roberts, JP; John B. Chastian, JP; Enes M. Henry, JP; Posey D. Guthrie, JP; and Bennet Smith, NP, to name a few.

c 2010 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published Aug. 5, 2010 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Through Hardship Came Courage: The Harrison and Nina Mays Collins Family

How our ancestors coped with hard situations they faced in life was told by Vera Lorraine Collins Goodwin in her family story submitted for The Heritage of Union County, 1832-1994. After reading what Vera wrote, I thought how facing hardships really bore out the truth of how courageous our ancestors were as they “made do” with what they had and still lived a victorious life amidst difficult times.

Vera Lorraine Collins was born July 15, 1917. Her parents were James Harrison Collins (4/30/1889 – 12/17/1928) and Nina Mays Collins (2/26/1899 – 3/10/1990). Her parents were married November 30, 1914. Vera had one sibling, an older brother George Blaine Collins (10/28/1915 – 12/28/1975).

Like many of us whose ancestors were early settlers in Union County, Vera traced her lineage back to Thompson Collins (ca. 1785 – ca. 1858) and Celia Self Collins (ca. 1787 – 09/03/1880). These were her 4th great grandparents. Firstborn of Thompson and Celia, Archibald Collins (ca.1811- ?) who married Mary “Polly” Nix (ca. 1818 - ?) were her great, great, great grandparents. Their son, James N., called “Jim Jesse” Collins (1842 - ?) who married Mary Ann Duckworth, were her great, great grandparents. Next in her lineage came their son, William “Bill Posey” Collins who married Margaret Dyer on September 12, 1886 in Union County, her grandparents, parents of her father, James Harrison Collins. Tracing all these roots and their branches can take volumes, and that is not the purpose of this article. We want to look at how the Harrison and Nina Mays Collins family lived courageously through some hard times, typical of many who lived and worked on the small farms of Union County in the early years of the twentieth century before modern conveniences were known and utilized.

In 1923 when Vera Lorraine was six years old, her parents moved to what she called the “Vess Collins Place” at Track Rock (a farm that had belonged to Vester Eugene Collins, who may have “gone west” prior to the Harrison Collins family moving to that farm). Vera recalls that she went to Track Rock School (probably held in the Track Rock Baptist Church building). Her teacher was John Turner. Not too long after the family moved to Track Rock, Vera received a bad cat scratch on her hand. The hand became severely infected and was swollen and very painful. Her parents had no means of transportation to get to the nearest doctor, so a neighbor, Mr. Coker, took Vera and her mother to Young Harris for treatment. Vera remembers that the doctor met them on the steps of his office on the campus of Young Harris College. He took a look at the infected hand, and without benefit of any sort of anesthesia, he lanced the young girl’s hand right there on the steps of his office. We can almost wince at the thought of the pain to this young child. But having the infection released must have eased the pain, for she remembers sleeping all the way back to Track Rock as the mule-drawn wagon rocked along the dirt road toward her home. The hand miraculously healed and she was left with no permanent impairment to it.

Syrup-making was one of the fall activities at Track Rock, and in much of Union County. It was also one of the money crops of mountain farmers. Vera remembers her Uncle Thomas Mays driving a Kissel automobile up from Atlanta to bring her Grandmother Mays to visit them while they lived at Track Rock. He purchased several gallon pails of sorghum syrup to take back to Atlanta with him. Once they were stopped by authorities on the way back across the mountain to Atlanta. The federals were probably searching for contraband moonshine, and seeing that the Kissel was somewhat overloaded in the trunk area, they stopped it. Thomas Mays, however, would not allow “the law” to open his buckets of sorghum until they first got a search warrant to do so. Imagine their disappointment when they found, not moonshine whiskey, but sweet sorghum syrup in the aluminum pails.

From their Track Rock home, the Harrison Collins family next moved to what had been the home of Vera’s great uncle, brother to her grandmother Margaret Dyer Collins. This was the farm home of Narve Dyer who had temporarily gone to Dalton to work at the carpet mills during the Great Depression. At this Choestoe home, Vera Lorraine Collins remembers happily that she attended New Liberty School when Miss Goldie Collins was the teacher, and then Choestoe School where Mrs. Helen Cordelia Collins Twiggs was her teacher.

Vera’s father, Harrison Collins, loved music and was a music teacher by the “shaped note” method. He often used his talent to teach singing schools in some of the churches throughout the area. Then her father became ill. They moved first to Suit, NC to be near Harrison’s brother, Ervin Collins. There her father farmed as long as he was able, but his cancer and Bright’s disease became worse. Neighbors and relatives made up enough money to send Harrison and Nina Mays Collins by train from Ranger, NC to Atlanta for medical treatment. Nina got work at Martel Mills there to help earn a living, for Harrison was no longer able to work. Vera’s Uncle Ervin Collins moved the Harrison Collins’s household goods, and his nephew and niece, Blaine and Vera, by wagon all the way from Ranger to Atlanta, a trip that took several long days. Vera remembers stopping at Choestoe to spend the night with her great aunt Mintie Dyer Souther (and Uncle Jeptha). As they went on, they camped out along the way, and sometimes spent the nights with kind relatives or friendly people in route. The mules pulled the wagon, amidst downtown traffic—much less then, of course—through Five Points in Atlanta to her Grandmother Mays’ boarding house on Bradley Avenue. Then they went on to the mill village house where her parents lived at Hapeville. Her father was so sick, that, while her mother worked, she and Blaine took turns staying with him during the daytime, one going to school one day and the other the next. Her father died there just eight days before Christmas (12/17/1928).

Vera Lorraine Collins married Rev. James Goodwin and they had three children: James Thomas Goodwin, Billy Ray Goodwin, and Nina Lorraine Goodwin. Rev. Goodwin died March 8, 1985 after over fifty years of marriage to Vera Lorraine.

Through the hardships Vera’s parents, Harrison and Nina Mays Collins faced, Vera herself learned much about courage and fortitude and taking the bad with the good in life. “We shall overcome,” was more than a motto; it was a way of life.

c 2010 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published June 17, 2010 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Reece Family in Union County, GA (part 5): The Family of Byron Herbert Reece, Poet and Novelist

Juan Wellborn Reece and Hannah Emma Lou Lance Reece Family, about 1925. On Emma's lap is Emma Jean Reece (b. March 29, 1923). Standing, left to right, are Eva Mae Reece (b. August 25, 1911); Byron Herbert Reece (b. September 14, 1917); Thomas James "T. J." Reece (b. July 30, 1915); Nina Kate Reece (b. June 15, 1914.) The youngest child in the Reece family, Alwayne Reece (May 16, 1908-June 15, 1909) died at age 13 months from miningitis.

(Picture, compliments of Pauline Bryan, Cleveland, GA, widow of Jimmy Bryan, first cousin of the poet. Jimmy was a son of Mrs. Emma Lance Reece's sister, Eula Lance Bryan. This and other valuable Reece family pictures were in Mrs. Eula Bryan's collection, and passed on to her son, Jimmy.)

By brief recapitulation from last week’s column, and continuing the saga of the Reece family in Union County, let me review by listing again the seven known generations in America of poet/novelist Byron Herbert Reece (1917-1958):

(1) William Reece (wife Mary, maiden name unknown)
(2) Valentine (called “Fella”) Reece (wife Christina Harmon Reece)
(3) Jacob Reece (wife Susannah “Hannah” Silvers Reece)
(4) John Reece (wife Mary Anderson Reece)
(5) Simpson Reece (wife Emmaline Sampson Reece)
(6) Juan Wellborn Reece (wife Hannah Emma Lou Lance Reece)
(7) Byron Herbert Reece (poet and novelist, never married)

Since our place of birth and time of birth are out of our hands, we become a “citizen,” (as Byron Herbert Reece liked to refer in his poetry to persons in residence here upon earth) of wherever we are when our earthly parents welcome us into their household. And this baby was born in a log cabin that had been on his maternal side of the family—the Lances—for a long time. The cabin in 1917 stood about in the middle of where Lake Trahlyta at Vogel State Park, in the shadow of Blood Mountain, is now located. The baby’s great grandfather, John Reece, was an early settler of the county and had been listed in the 1834 Union County census.

Byron Herbert Reece was born September 14, 1917 into the household of Juan Wellborn Reece and Emma Lance Reece. Already born into the Reece household were these siblings of the future poet: Sister Alwayne Reece, born May 16, 1908, died of meningitis June 15, 1909 at age thirteen months. Her gravestone in the Old Salem cemetery in Union County reads “Waynie,” her nickname. She was buried near her maternal great grandparents, the Rev. John H. Lance (1834-1888, killed by moonshiners) and his wife, her maternal great grandmother, Caroline T. Lance (1842-1916). So the poet never met this older sister, “Waynie,” who died eight years before he was born.

Sister Eva Mae Reece, born August 25, 1911, grew up to become a teacher; she never married. She lived at home and taught mainly at local schools near the Reece home. She was present to assist poet Reece later in the care of their parents (and the poet himself), all of whom contracted dread tuberculosis, a disease that seemed to plague this particular family of Reeces.

Sister Nina Kate Reece, born June 15, 1914, married in 1934 and moved away to North Carolina. This writer needs to do more research on Kate’s family and learn the name of her husband and children, for I seem to recall that she did have a family. Kate’s family was not listed in the Reece sources I’m using for this series.

The poet’s brother, Thomas James, known by his initials, T. J., was born July 30, 1915 and died November 11, 1989. He married a neighbor young lady, Lorena Duckworth, in 1939. T. J. joined the Civilian Conservation Corps when that work group was formed by then-president Franklin Delano Roosevelt. After T. J. and Lorena married, they lived in various places in the United States as T. J. followed jobs. But then they came back to Union County and settled on Lorena’s family homeplace and reared their family near her aging parents and his aging parents. T. J. and Lorena had four children, Tommy, (named after his father, T. J.), June, Terry and Connie.

Byron Herbert Reece was next in line of the five Reece siblings. When asked if he was named for the famous English poets, Lord Byron and George Herbert, he laughingly told his inquirer that he was named for Byron Mitchell, a hog-trader from Gainesville, Georgia, who stopped by the Reece farm to dicker about hog sales, and for Herbert Tabor, an insurance salesman, who also was an acquaintance of the Reece family.

The youngest of the Reece siblings, the poet’s sister, Emma Jean Reece, was born March 19, 1923. She grew up to be a beauty, and met a young man in the Civilian Conservation Corps who was stationed at the present Goose Creek location when a CCC Camp operated there. His name was Thomas Daniel Rispoli and his home state was New York. Jean and Thomas Daniel were married in a lovely ceremony in New York. He served our country admirably during World War II and lost his life in that conflict. Jean Reece Rispoli and Thomas Daniel Rispoli had one child, Patricia Katherine Rispoli. After Thomas’s death, Jean and her baby, called “Patti,” returned to Blairsville, where they lived. Existing pictures of Juan and Emma Reece welcoming their little granddaughter “Patti,” and her mother, their daughter Jean, after the soldier’s death, are touching, indeed.

Life proceeded as it did in most every farm home in Choestoe as Byron Herbert Reece was growing up. There were not a lot of this world’s goods to enjoy, but the Reece’s well knew how to “make do,” and live frugally on what the narrow patches of their farm along Wolf Creek yielded. Though poor in property and money, they had a super-abundance of love. The five surviving Reece children were tutored from an early age by their mother Emma, even before they were old enough to walk the four miles to nearby Choestoe school where they were instructed in grades Primer through Seventh Grade before going on to Union County High School at Blairsville, the county seat town some ten miles north of the Reece home. Mrs. Emma and Mr. Juan, well-grounded in the Christian faith, had daily devotionals, reading to their children from the King James Version of the Bible. They didn’t have many books in their household, but those they owned, and the local newspaper and “The Progressive Farmer” magazine were read avidly. It is said that young Byron Herbert, by now called “Hub” for short, could read from the Bible and John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress before he entered Choestoe School in the Primer/First Grade class. It was from this home training that he began to fall in love with the rhythms of the English language that he would later use so effectively in his ballads, in particular, and in his sonnets and lyrical poetry.

I grew up Baptist, going to Choestoe Baptist Church. The Reece family was Methodists, members of Salem Methodist Church in the same community. Each of these churches was what we called “part-time.” That is, we only had preaching two Sundays each month, but Sunday School every Sunday. It was our habit for members of one congregation to go to the other church, for in that way, we could attend “preaching” every Sunday. It was at Salem Church that I heard Byron Herbert Reece, an approved lay preacher in the Methodist Church, teach and preach some Sundays if inclement weather prevented his own pastor from getting to Salem. So I was privileged, too, to hear the poet as preacher at times. And I treasure those memories of him as well.

The space for this account does not allow all the remembrances, as a neighbor to the Reece family, that I could recount of his life and times, and of his beloved family. But in the home of this humble, unassuming, hard-working, God-fearing potential poet were established many of the characteristics Reece portrayed in his life and work. He had a strong work ethic, borne of hard times and emulated by him in what he saw in his parents.

His poems began to be published in the 1930’s. Then his book, Ballad of the Bones and Other Poems was released in 1945 by E. P. Dutton, New York. Reviews and news frequently published in “The Atlanta Constitution” that came daily to my house when I was growing up in the same community with Reece, led us, his neighbors (at least in the Dyer household) to be amazed that our neighbor farmer/teacher had turned poet and was recognized on a national level.

When the poet met death at his own hand June 3, 1958, after much illness from tuberculosis and deep depression, I was devastated when I heard the news. For months I thought that if I had been able just to talk with him before the tragedy, perhaps I could have said something to turn the tide of his intentions to take his own life. His death certainly diminished me. I have been his admirer, a student of his inimitable prose and lofty verse, and a pursuer of “all things Reece” since, when I was 15, my teacher, Mrs. Grapelle Mock, took me to interview Reece for a column I wrote then for the school page in the local paper. I began to really aspire to follow in his footsteps as a writer. I had neither the inherent talent, expertise with language, nor ability to capture thoughts “from airy nothingness” as Reece did. But he was then and is, even to this day, my mentor, my literary hero, and my one-time mountain neighbor and friend. And I am richer, much richer, because of this association with Byron Herbert Reece (1917-1958), poet.

c 2010 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published Feb. 11, 2010 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Merchants operating stores in Union Co. in 1881

In last week's column we revisited the store of Mr. John Andrew Wimpey and his wife, Nellie Jane Duckworth Wimpey. I neglected to write that their store, first opened in Choestoe, had the misfortune to burn down. But they rebuilt on the same location on the Town Creek Road and, though suffering considerable financial losses by the fire, did not keep them from the store business. They had a good bit of experience as merchants when they bought out Nellie's Uncle Frank Duckworth in Blairsville and operated the merchandising business there until they retired in the early 1950's.

From census, tax and other records we learn the locations and names of merchants in 1881 in Union County. With no railroad near and no adequate roads, it was difficult to get items for the stores. Depending on the location of the stores, the owners had to go by wagon to Gainesville, Murphy, NC, or some went as far away as Atlanta and Augusta to trade items they had bartered in their stores for merchandise they purchased to stock their businesses. It was not unusual for the trip out to market and return with a load of goods to take a week from Blairsville to Gainesville.

In 1881, the county seat town of Blairsville was blessed with ten merchants. Those operating stores, by name, were John Hudgins, William J. Conley, Thomas Butt, James A. Butt, Eugene Butt, Thomas Hughes, Milford Hamby, William Colwell, Henry Carroll, and John England. I do not know where these places of business were located, or how close together they might have been. Blairsville was second in number of stores of the districts listed.

Ivy Log had the most stores of any of the districts. In fact, Ivy Log was described as "a bustling place" in early records. Those who kept the residents supplied with opportunities to purchase store-bought goods were Ruben Deavers, Isaac, Glazier, Napoleon Bonaparte Hill, L. P. King, William Lance, J. Ledford, Larkin Lewis, Henry McBee, Jasper Owen(s)by, Cannon Stephens, Caleb Thompson and James Reed. These twelve merchants were among the outstanding citizens in that section of the county.

Third in number of mercantile places operating was the Choestoe District. There Archibald Collins, Ruth Collins, James M. Dyer, James Nix, John Combs Hayes Souther, T. M. Swain, Willis Twiggs and Joshua Audern had places of trade. Except for Joshua Audern (whose last name may have been spelled wrong by the census taker), the store keepers had descendants who still live in that district today.

Gaddistown District "across the mountain" at Suches had six merchants in 1881. These were James A. Cavender, Charles Davis, John Davis, Henry Gurley, James Gurley and John A. Thomas. There, as in the other districts, last names of these merchants are familiar among citizens who live there today.

Coosa District had four stores operated by William Ledford, C. Nelson, Arthur Owensby and George W. Cavender. Coosa was noted for its gold mines which opened and operated before the Civil War. An estimate is that over two million dollars in gold ore was extracted from the Coosa Mines. The Coosa settlement vied for the county seat to be located there early in the history of the county, but Blairsville won the bid for the location of the courthouse and county government.

Camp Creek settlement had four stores operated by Jesse Low, Thomas M. Lance, John Davenport and J. J. Cobb.

Young Cane had one store owned by James F. Reed.

All the forty-five merchants in 1881 offered needful products such as salt, sugar, coffee and tea. Many had barrels of staples from which they measured dry beans and rice. The barest essentials were main items in these stores. Far from well-stocked with goods, the community stores were noted nonetheless for hospitality, and places where people could learn the latest news. The pot-bellied stove or open fireplace was a place of warmth in winter inviting everyone in to "sit a spell" and visit.

c 2009 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published April 30, 2009 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

John Andrew Wimpey, farmer and merchant

Many still living may remember going to the John and Nellie Wimpey store located on Highway 129 South in Blairsville across the street from the old United Methodist Church just a block from the old courthouse. As I recall, customers could purchase clothes, shoes, piece goods, staple groceries, and other personal, farm and household needs at the Johnny Wimpey Mercantile Store.

Mr. Wimpey was a small man of stature, quiet and unassuming in nature. But he stood tall as a citizen and a respected gentleman about town and even throughout the county. He and his wife, Nellie Duckworth Wimpey, operated their "town" store in a friendly and helpful manner. Customers would go to trade and leave feeling that they had been treated to the news of the day, warm hospitality and friendly conversation as well as a good deal for the purchases they made at the Wimpey store.

John Andrew Wimpey was born December 7, 1887 in the Choestoe District of Union County. His parents were James A. Wimpey (08-15-1856 - 02-15-1894) and Morena Dyer Wimpey (09-14-1859 - 04-09-1903). On his father's side, his grandparents were Jehu and Mira Jackson Wimpey. On his mother's side, his grandparents were Micajah Clark Dyer and Morena Elizabeth Owenby Dyer.

Readers may recognize his maternal grandfather as being the famous inventor who received a U.S. patent in September, 1874 for his "Apparatus for Navigating the Air." One of John Andrew Wimpey's favorite stories to tell was about seeing his grandfather's flying machine invention. For any who doubted that a plane had been made at Choestoe years before the Wright Brothers' flight in Kitty Hawk, NC in 1903, they referred to Johnny Wimpey's story, and reasoned, "It must have been true; Johnny Wimpey never tells a lie."

Like most boys born in the mountains in the late nineteenth century, Johnny Wimpey did not have an easy childhood. His father, Jim Wimpey, died when Johnny was six years old. His mother, known as Rena Wimpey, died when the lad was fifteen years old. Johnny had two brothers, Bill and Virge. The boys' uncle, Jasper Washington Dyer (1843-1913) and his wife, Emaline E. Lance Dyer (1843-1915) took the Wimpey boys in after their mother died. Johnny worked hard on the farm and leaned to blend with the extended family.

Johnny Wimpey had a notable and dedicated instructor for his elementary education at the one-teacher school at Pine Top. Known as "Bud" Miller, this upright citizen of Choestoe was William Jasper Miller (1848-1919) whose wife was Jane Malinda Collins (1861-1931). Johnny's education was received between obligations on the farm, but he learned to "cipher" well, a skill with numbers that would fit him admirably for his future as a merchant. In fact, his teacher, Mr. Bud Miller, may have influenced the young lad toward the mercantile business, for Mr. Miller operated a country store at his home, farmed, and taught the short-term sessions at Pine Top School.

John Andrew Wimpey and Nellie Jane Duckworth (12-29-1896 - 02-06-1968) were married on December 14, 1911. Nellie was a daughter of John Francis (known as Jack) Duckworth (1869-1910) and Laura Jane Noblet Duckworth (1875-1956). The Duckworth family lived on a farm east of Old Liberty Church in the Choestoe District.

Nellie's father, Jack, died of a gunshot wound on Christmas Day, 1910, from a "friendly" shooting match. Nellie saw her father fall over from the shot, a traumatic event in the life of the then almost fifteen year old. Just weeks before her sixteenth birthday, Nellie married the love of her life, Johnny Wimpey.

At first, Johnny and Nellie Wimpey farmed the land. They continued farming after Johnny opened his first store in 1922 located in the Town Creek section of Union County. Johnny would be gone for days to Gainesville to trade items the couple had taken in for barter in their store. At the wholesale houses, he purchased new merchandise for the store. In the days before the Neel Gap Highway (now GA 129) opened for travel in 1925, Johnny had to go over the Logan Turnpike to Tesnatee Gap at Cleveland and on to Gainesville. The Choestoe store at Town Creek burned in 1922, a blow to the young couple. He kept farming, but one of Nellie's brothers, Frank Duckworth, had a store in Blairsville. He invited Johnny to come to work for him and they formed a partnership.

Then, in 1928, Johnny bought out Frank Duckworth's store and it became known as the Johnny Wimpey Store in Blairsville.

The fact that he bought the store in town just prior to the Great Depression was a venture of faith within itself. Fortunately, he still had farm acreage he could till which produced food for the family in the lean years of the 1930's when people did not have money to buy even what they needed at a store. Barter was again the way of dealing with the shaky economy. The records show that Johnny and Nellie took as barter sorghum syrup for which they allowed 40 cents per gallon in trade; corn was bartered at 50 to 75 cents per bushel; cured pork was traded at 5 to 7 cents per pound. Labor on the farm was no more than 50 cents per day, or, if the farmer did not have to provide the noon meal for workers, the day's hard labor was 75 cents, lunch brought by worker. Johnny would take day labor on his farm as "trade" for items from his store. With diligence to work and kindness to customers, the Wimpeys weathered the storm of the Great Depression and their store stayed open through the years of World War II and beyond until Johnny Wimpey decided it was time for him to retire.

The Wimpeys were active in Old Liberty Baptist Church at Town Creek where he was ordained a deacon and became a Sunday School teacher. When they moved to Blairsville, they joined First Baptist Church and were active there as long as their health permitted attendance.

Four children were born to John Andrew and Nellie Jane Duckworth Wimpey: Ethel (1913) who married Claude Rawlins; Charlie (1914) who married Grapelle Wimpey; Ruby (1917) who married Howard Parks; and Charlene (1930) who married Harold Ash. During our high school years, their daughter Charlene and I were best friends. My visits in the Wimpey home were always met with the motherly care of Nellie who became a surrogate mother for me after my own mother died when I was fourteen. It was a great blow to me when their daughter and my friend Charlene died of a then incurable disease in 1952 at age 22. Ruby Parks is the only one of the four Wimpey children surviving at this writing. She recently celebrated her 90th birthday. She and Ethel had long careers as teachers and Charlie was a farmer and cattleman.

John Andrew Wimpey died March 18, 1980. His wife Nellie preceded him in death on February 6, 1968. Their graves are in the Blairsville Cemetery across from First Baptist Church. Both descended from early settlers of Union County and all, including ancestors, themselves and their children, left a distinctive mark as farmers, merchants, educators, business persons and salt-of-the earth solid citizens.

c 2009 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published April 23, 2009 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Family of War Soldier John Nicholson

Pvt. John Nicholson
Revolutionary War Soldier
Pleasant Grove Baptist Church Cemetery

In this four part series about Revolutionary War Soldier John Nicholson, we have looked, first, at his record in the war to free America from England. We traced his involvement with Old Walton County, the "Orphan Strip" on the Georgia-North Carolina- South Carolina border, and his representing that county in the Georgia Legislature. We saw him move from Buncombe County, NC to Hall, Habersham, Cherokee and finally Union Counties in Georgia and learned that his grave is at the Pleasant Grove Baptist Church Cemetery, Union County, where he was laid to rest.

This column will list what we know of his children and family, although this information has been hard to document. At best, there may be omissions and errors in listing what we have found of his children.

Tradition holds that John Nicholson, Sr., Revolutionary War soldier, was married three times. The name of his first wife has not been found. Neither is it known whether this first wife was the mother of some of his children. According to a marriage record in Warren County, NC, John Nicholson and Nancy Freeman were married there on February 22, 1794. His third marriage (date unknown) was to Susan Brown.

Ten children are listed for John Nicholson, Sr. As nearly as possible from available sources, the children were James, Mary, Walter, Elizabeth, William Harrison, Alfred, a daughter (name unknown), Luvicia (called Vica), John Nicholson, Jr., and Sarah.

It is not know whether James Nicholson remained in North Carolina when other members of the family relocated to Georgia.

Mary Nicholson, called "Polly" (1791-1868) married Rene Chastain (1793-1889) on March 17, 1814. This marriage to the Chastain joined the Nicholson family to the famous Pierre Chastain, first Huguenot immigrant, who was Rene's great grandfather. Rene's grandfather was the famous Rev. John "Ten Shilling Bell" Chastain, Baptist minister and leader in church planting in Virginia and other states. Rene's parents were Edward and Hannah Brown Chastain.

Walter Nicholson (1795- 1850) was born in South Carolina and married Dorcas Hogsed in Buncombe County, NC. This family moved to the Fodder Creek section of old Union County, a portion of the land that became Towns County in 1856. A farmer and orchardist, Walter Nicholson grafted apple trees and produced a variety called the "Watty" apple, using his nickname for the fruit. Walter and Dorcas Nicholson were in Union County, Georgia in the 1840 census. They had four children before moving from Buncombe County: John, Leander, Sarah and Elizabeth. Children with them in Georgia were Easter, Samuel and Logan.

Elizabeth Nicholson, called "Betty" is believed to have married Benjamin Burke.

William Harrison Nicholson (1797-1864) married first Jane Duckworth, a daughter of Jonathan and Kesiah Duckworth. He married, second, Jane Blocker. This family of Nicholsons made their home in the Cathey's Creek section of Transylvania County, NC. Unfortunately, William Harrison lost his life at the hands of bushwhackers during the Civil War.

Alfred Nicholson (April 28, 1799-Jan. 31, 1874) married Mary "Polly" Chastain (July 10, 1797-July 22, 1865). She was a daughter of Edward and Hannah Brown Chastain, a sister of Rene Chastain who had married Alfred's sister, Mary Nicholson. Thus two of the John Nicholson children were linked in marriage to the noted Chastain family. The 1834 census of Union County, Georgia enumerates the family of Alfred Nicholson with five females and eight males. A well-known descendant of this couple is Dr. James M. Nicholson, grandson, and son of Jackson Van Buren Nicholson and Barbara Anne Etris. Dr. Nicholson, better known as "Professor" was principal of Union County High School from 1929 until his retirement in 1943.

A daughter, name unknown, married Porter Owenby. This family moved to Union County, Georgia.

Luvicia ("Vica") married Lewis Akins and they also moved to Union County, Georgia. Vica's father, John Nicholson, was living in her house when he passed away at age 96 on December 20, 1858.

John Nicholson, Jr. (1802- 1884) married Elizabeth Allred. They had settled in Hall County, Georgia by 1830. Later, they relocated to Cherokee County by 1850. The senior John Nicholson lived with this couple for a portion of his years in Georgia.

Sarah Nicholson (1803- 1882) married John Erwin (1801-1885).

Many bearing the surname of Nicholson in Union County and elsewhere are proud to trace their ancestry back to John Nicholson, Sr. (1762-1858), Revolutionary War soldier.

c 2009 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published Mar. 26, 2009 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

James "Jim" Berry, the Last of the True Mountaineers

Visit New Liberty Baptist Church Cemetery in Choestoe, stretched in front of a beautiful white country church house, with Enotah (Brasstown Bald) Mountain lifting its towering peak in the distance, and you find graves of many early settlers to that section of Union County. Today, we will focus on two graves bearing names, not of early settlers but the descendents of some of them.

These graves are of a husband and wife, James "Jim" Berry and Varina "Tib" Souther Berry. The dates tell us Jim lived from August 14, 1896 through June 26, 1982, and Tib lived from May 12, 1887 through October 15, 1963. Many who knew Jim Berry, and who wrote about him, like Charles Roscoe Collins and the roving reporter for The Atlanta Journal, Charles Salter, called him one of the last of the "true mountaineers."

Living in the old log house, somewhat updated from the time his wife Tib's grandfather built it in the mid-1800's, James was a widower from 1963 when his wife died until 1982, when he passed on at age 86. A philosopher of sorts, Jim Berry enjoyed company and was a great talker. His simple lifestyle was often an amazement to the many visitors who dropped by his house just off the Jack's Gap Road to hear him talk and to get his viewpoints on the issues of the day.

Jim Berry was not a Union County native. His wife, Varina, claimed that honor, but not Jim. His grandparents came from Old Gilmer County (a portion that later became Fannin) and from the mining town of Copperhill, Tennessee. Like settlers to that section, his forebears left North Carolina in a general migration and found land on which to carve out a new life in the mountains of North Georgia. The Berry Family moved from their Gilmer County home and got land along Fodder Creek in what became Towns County in 1856. There Jim Berry was born in 1896 to William Berry and Becky Shook Berry. Jim Berry had siblings William Berry, John Berry, Tina Berry McFall, and Martha Berry Chastain.

James Berry spent his childhood and early youth working on the family farm at Fodder Creek. He had little formal schooling because his father was an invalid. It was necessary for Jim Berry to work hard to try to make a living on the hardscrabble farm for his father, mother and siblings. They had cattle and hogs that ranged the mountains and, when rounded up and driven to market in Gainesville, provided a little extra income for the family.

When America got involved in World War I, James Berry served in the US Army. After basic training at Fort Gordon, he was selected to be in the unit that guarded German prisoners of war at Ft. Oglethorpe, Georgia. He remembered those two years of his life as hard. Guarding the prisoners took great vigilance and discipline. When the Armistice was signed in November, 1918, Jim Berry was one of the guards chosen to accompany the 550 German prisoners by train to Charleston, SC, where the captives were loaded on boats and returned to Germany.

Upon his honorable discharge from the army following World War I, James Berry returned to Fodder Creek in Towns County. He purchased 80 acres of mountain land, and there continued the same life of small patch farming in the bottoms along creeks as he had done growing up.

Then another opportunity came for this World War I veteran. The Pfister-Vogel Land Company of Milwaukee, Wisconsin had purchased thousands of acres of mountain land in Towns, Union, Lumpkin and White Counties. They needed workers. Jim Berry signed on, and because of his previous experience as a guard in World War II, he was assigned to the security detail of the company's work force.

Part of the land purchased by the Pfister-Vogel Land Company included the old Brewster holdings along the Jack's Gap Road leading toward Bald Mountain. An aside in the Jim Berry story lets us know that this tract of land had a history. It was sold to the land company by John Brewster. On that land, during the Civil War, Washington Brewster was killed near Jack's Gap by a roving band of Home Guard. The Brewster Place also had other families living there through time. Some were Jesse Spiva, Ben Spiva, Cornelius Spiva (who was killed in Germany during World War I, the first casualty of that war from Union County), Jim Harkins, Van Duckworth, and, finally, James Berry himself. Near the house was an old cemetery where Brookshires, Brewsters and Spivas were buried back in the era when family cemeteries were started near the old homeplace. The Land Company allowed James Berry, one of their important security guards, to live in the old Brewster house.

And that move, from Towns County to Union County, set the stage for the rest of citizen Jim Berry's life and times. Not only did he have work in the outdoors and woodlands he loved, but romance was on the horizon for James Berry. In the sequel to this story, we will learn about the life and times of Varina "Tib" Souther and James Berry. Stay tuned for the remainder of this delightful story.

c 2008 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published September 18, 2008 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Spivey/Spiva and Related Families

Before I launch into today's article, please accept this correction from last week's story about "Some of the Descendants of Leason Spiva." When I make a mistake, I am eager to clear it up, because many of you read this column and if it is on family history, you often add the information to your file.

I heard from Linda Spivey Bjorklund of Baker City, Oregon, regarding her father's siblings and where they were born. As you recall, last week's article was about Claude Raymond Spivey, the 92-year old whose hobby is woodworking. The first six children of Luther Adniram Spivey and Ora Ellis Spivey were born in Monroe County, Tennessee. The seventh, Clyde Spivey, was born in Graham County, NC on July 10, 1927 at the home of Ora Ellis Spiva's aunt, Renie Ellis Blevins near Yellow Creek and the town of Robbinsville. Then in September, 1929, the twelve-day trip in a 1928 Buick took the large family across country to Baker City, Oregon where the last three children were born: Della Lavelle in 1931; James Henry in 1933; and Glenn Duane in 1937. (Note: If you have Geraldine Spiva Elmore's family history book, "Descendants of Adaniram Spiva and Evaline Souther Spiva," Linda Spivey Bjorklund asks you to please make the above corrections to the family of Luther Adniram and Ora Ellis Spivey on page 15.)

For this week's story of a member of the family of Adaniram (1827- 1898) and Eveline Souther Spiva (1826- 1865) we will take a look at their first-born of nine children, John Spiva, who was born in Union County, Georgia on April 25, 1851. John Spiva was only fourteen when his mother died. In the fifteen years his mother and father had been married, she had borne nine children, seven sons and two daughters. There is no information about Nancy Jane except the listing of her name; it is assumed that she died young. John's youngest sibling, Stephen Adrian Spiva, was born November 12, 1865, and was less than a month old when his mother Eveline died on December 4, 1865. You will recall from last week's story that the Souther grandparents, John and Mary Combs Souther, took the infant Stephen and reared him. That still left John Spiva, as the eldest of the children, great responsibility in helping his father Adaniram with the other children until the father married Sarah Haseltine Corn on October 28, 1873.

John Spiva was a blacksmith and a barrel-maker (cooper). In addition to farming his acreage, he used these two trades to help bring in some money at a hard time after the Civil War was over. John Spiva began to court a young lady who lived on Wolf Creek about where Vogel State Park and Lake Trahlyta are now located. John's sweetheart was named Margaret Louise Reece (b. 08/16/1856). They were married earlier in the same year John's father married for the second time. John and Margaret's wedding date was February 13, 1873. Rev. R. M. Hughes performed the marriage ceremony at the home of Margaret's parents, William "Billy" Reece and Mary "Sarry" Daniel Reece. Her parents' wedding date was June 18, 1839 in Union County and their officiant had been Thomas M. Hughes, a Justice of the Inferior Court.

Billy Reece was the son of Jacob Reece and the grandson of William Reece. The earliest Reece settlers in America had migrated from Wales. The name had gone through several spellings: Rays, Rhy, Rys, Reys, Rees, Reese and Reece. Billy Reece's earliest known ancestor was Valentine Reece who was in Watauga County, NC as early as 1790, and came to America from Wales in 1750. Billy and his brother James migrated together from North Carolina to South Carolina, into Habersham County, and finally to Union County before 1837 (they were in the 1840 but not in the 1834 census).

"Sarry" Daniel moved to Union County from Alabama. Her father was Josiah Daniel who came to Union prior to 1837.

John Spiva no doubt learned much from his father-in-law. Billy Reece was an early teacher at Choestoe School, and John may have been one of his students. He was also a farmer and a prospector. Billy found gold deposits in Helton Creek. He would work to get enough gold to take to the mint in Dahlonega, and on Saturdays he would go by horseback to take his findings to be assayed.

John Spiva and Margaret Louise Reece Spiva had ten children, nine of whom lived to adulthood. Their children were: Mary Jane "Mollie" Spiva (12/13/1874-06/05/1962 who married James Asbury Curtis; Eliza E. Spiva (09/08/1876 - ?); Mintie Caroline "Callie" Spiva (06/04/1878-12-06/1974) who married Arlie Knox Waldroop; William Henry Spiva (02/20/1881-12/13/1922) who married Elizabeth Jones; Margaret Emma Spiva (01/28/1883-09/09/1979) who married Joseph Reuben Brown; Frank H. Spiva (01/14/1885-01/18/1880) who married Ada Gertrude Ledford; Jewell Wilburn Spiva (02/16/1887-07/25/195?) who married Grace Mae Swain; Gardner Coke Spiva (12/31/1893-08/18/1988) who married Ethel Susanna McClure; Josiah Haygood Spiva (12/15/1895- 02/08/1988) who married LaFarest McGarity; and Guy Cook Spiva (04/25/1900-03/12/1973) who married Bessie Lee Duckworth.

John Spiva died at age 82 on November 3, 1933. His wife Margaret Louise Reece Spiva lived to age 84, dying June 20, 1941. Both were interred at Shady Grove Methodist Church Cemetery, Union County, Ga.

c 2008 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published Feb. 28, 2008 in The Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Nix connections, Part 6- John Washington Nix

My last column on Nix connections was in the August 23, 2007 "Sentinel." In that article, we saw that six sons of James "Jimmy" Nix and Elizabeth "Betsy" Collins Nix served in the Civil War (Thompson Nix, John Nix, James Bly Nix, Jeffrie Nix, Jasper "Grancer" Nix, and Newton Nix).

Of these six, Thompson, John and Newton died in the War, and possibly Jeffrie, as well, for no further trace of him is found in census records. The father, James Nix, also enlisted and served in the Georgia Militia.

Near the end of the war, Jasper "Grancer" Nix married first to Harriet Carolina "Tina" Duckworth, on April 2, 1865. "Aunt Tina" was a well-known midwife in the mountain area of Choestoe, traveling on horseback in all kinds of weather to assist in birthing and to attend the sick. She often brought very sick or premature babies to her house to tend them. She made them a bed before the fireplace in rocking chairs made by Jasper, and carefully nursed them until they were able to go back to their own mother.

Grancer and "Tina" Nix had twelve children whose names were Mary "Molly", John Washington, Benjamin, James, William "Bill", Martha, Albert, Emma Lena, Alonzo "Lon", Frank, Joseph, and Jerry. Their first son and second child is the subject of this column.

John Washington Nix was born to Jasper "Grancer" and "Tina" Nix on July 19, 1867. He was married three times and had children by his first two wives.

It is an interesting story how John Washington Nix met his first wife, Mary Dover. He was in White County, and suffered an accidental gunshot wound to his shoulder in the late 1880's. He stumbled into the Dover house, suffering greatly from his wound and thinking he would die.

Mary Dover and her mother devised a way to clean the gunshot wound by hanging a water bucket over him as he lay on the bed. They punched a hole in the bucket, and the cool spring water dripped onto the wound, partially numbing the pain. He recovered, and the good Samaritan Mary Dover became the wife of John Washington Nix on August 30, 1887. He moved her to his farm on Choestoe. There were born their three children: William Arzie Nix on July 10, 1888; James Lester Nix on February 13, 1891; and Wilburn, who died young. The cause of Mary Dover Nix's death is not known; it may have been in childbirth when her third child, Wilburn, was born.

John Washington Nix married second to Catherine Clarenda Dyer on December 29, 1895. She was a daughter of Henderson Andrew Dyer and Adeline M. Sullivan Dyer. Her paternal grandparents were Micajah Clark Dyer (inventor of "An Apparatus for Navigating the Air", 1874) and Morena Owenby Dyer. It is reported that Henderson Andrew Dyer, Catherine's father, was the "richest man" in Choestoe, loaning money to many people who migrated west in the late 1800's and early 1900's, as well as helping young couples to get established on a farm or in business. When they married, he gave each of his children acreage for their own farm.

John Washington and Catherine Dyer Nix had eleven children: Harvey (1897-1916) never married; Dora Lou (1899- 1966) married Franklin Hedden Dyer; Magnola "Nola" (1900- 1987) married John Jarrett Turner; Mary Elizabeth (twin, 1902-1904); Martha L. (twin, 1902-1904); Joseph Spencer (1905-1982) married Doris E. Nix and Cathryn Clark Birgel; Roy Walter (1906-1971) married Idell Nelson; Maver Clarenda (1908-1990) married General Pat Harkins and Edward Collins; Howard Benson (1911-1979), married Ellen Erwin; Florida "Flo" Lee (1911-2007) married Carlos Turner; and Cleo Inez Colorado (1917-2003) married Rouse King.

When her youngest child, Cleo, was only ten years old, Catherine Clarinda Dyer Nix died September 7, 1927 and was interred in Old Liberty Cemetery. John Washington Nix married the third time to Maggie Rice on December 25, 1928.

John Washington Nix was known as an excellent blacksmith. He was also quite a musician. He owned a genuine Stradivarious violin, a valued heirloom owned by one of his great grandsons today. To the delight of neighbors, friends and family, the strains of "fiddle" tunes and lilting mountain arias often came from his Stradivarious which he played from his front porch. The old gunshot wound tended by Mary Dover and her mother had left his right arm and hand with limitations, but since it was his "bow" hand, he could still produce excellent music. After a long and eventful life, he died July 14, 1942, and was buried beside his second wife, Catherine, at Old Liberty Baptist Church.

John Washington Nix was noted as an excellent marksman with the gun. A grandson, Eric England, often went with him on hunting trips and learned from his grandfather how to be a sure shot. This knowledge Eric employed as a member of the United States Marine Corps as a scout-sniper and has earned the title of "the greatest marksman in world history."

Resources for this article are "The Nix Family Tree" by Wanda West Gregory, 1980, and Dr. Joseph Blair Turner who answered questions about his great grandfather by e-mail.

(Ethelene Dyer Jones is a native of Union County. She is recovering well from five bypasses heart surgery performed August 30.)

c 2007 by Ethelene Dyer Jones. Published October 4, 2007 in The Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Some Nix connections (part 5 Serving in the War Between the States

Before I launch on this week's topic of Nix men (and boys) who served in the War Between the States, I want to clarify items from last week's article on Aunt Jane Nix Wilson Hood.

Betty Jane Shuler called my attention to the caption under the picture. Thanks to her keen observations, the caption should have identified the picture as taken in 1905 (the year Jane's husband Isaac Thornton Wilson died). The baby Sophronia Jane Nix Wilson holds on her lap is Estelle, last born of her children, not Garnie, who lived only about two years and died in 1900.

Seven children of Jane Nix Wilson and Isaac Thornton Wilson are shown in the picture. The second girl from the left, standing, is a neighbor and friend who was visiting in the Wilson home and wanted to "get in" on the picture (Callie Clark?).

To properly identify the Wilson children in the 1905 photograph, they are Tom (1902), Estelle (1904) in Jane's lap, Benjamin (1894), Granny Evaline Duckworth Nix, James Isaac "Jim" (1896); second row: Verdie (1887), friend (Callie Clark ?), Hattie (1889) and Gertrude (1892). Who would know better how to identify these than history buff Betty Jane Shuler? Sophronia Jane Nix Wilson Hood was her grandmother, and the one for whom she was given her middle name, Jane.

Another item to clarify is the statement about Jane Wilson not joining Union Church when it was constituted in October, 1897, although she gave the land on which the church building was erected. She wished to remain a member of the New Liberty Baptist Church where she was a member from her youth. This was not uncommon in those days, to keep one's membership with relatives and friends in the church where one had grown up.

With those items clarified, we move to today's topic in the Nix saga. We trace briefly six sons of James "Jimmy" Nix and Elizabeth "Betsy" Collins Nix who served in the War Between the States. Five of them enlisted in the 23rd Georgia Regiment, Infantry, enlisting at Camp McDonald. The sixth, Jasper, enlisted in Ben Ledford's Regiment. Their father, James, himself enlisted on December 14, 1863 in the Georgia State Militia, Company 2. Betsy Nix therefore had six sons and a husband to be concerned about as they actively upheld the Confederate cause. What happened to these Nix men?

Jimmy Nix may not have left Union County for his service, as the Georgia Militia was charged with protection of home territory. Not much that I can find was written about his service other than his date of enlistment, December 14, 1863.

The sons, in order of age, served as follows: Thompson Nix was born in 1838 and named for his grandfather, Thompson Collins. He married Mary C. Hix in 1860 and they had one son, James Bly Nix, born June 1, 1861. This son was given the same name as Thompson Nix's brother. Thompson was a private in Company K of the 23rd Regiment, Georgia Infantry, enrolling on November 9, 1861. He became ill with a fever and was hospitalized in the "New Hospital" in Yorktown, Virginia, where he died March 4, 1862. It is reported that his body was returned home to Choestoe by W. L. Howard. I found no gravestone for him listed in the Cemeteries of Union County book.

John Nix, the fourth child of Jimmy and Betsy Collins Nix was born in 1840. He, too, was in the 23rd Georgia Regiment, enlisting August 31, 1861 at Camp McDonald. He was killed in battle at Sharpsburg, Maryland in September, 1862. His father filed for death benefits, but it is not known whether his applications were rewarded.

James Bly Nix was the fifth son and seventh child of Jimmy and Betsy Collins. Born June 2, 1844, he was a twin to Isabella, who may have died as an infant. At the age of 17, James Bly Nix joined Company K, 23 Georgia Regiment on August 31, 1861 at Camp McDonald. He was in the Battle of Frericksburg, VA, where he was wounded. He was treated at the Jackson Hospital in Richmond for a wound in his right leg on October 1, 1864. He saw much action during the war and was captured by the enemy and exchanged for a Union prisoner. James Bly returned from the war and married Millie J. "Polly" Henson on November 5, 1865. He was a farmer in the Owltown District. He also had gold mining rights on Coosa Creek and pursued mining with a passion. He and Mollie had nine children.

Jeffie Nix was born in 1846. It has been hard to trace his history, but it is believed that he also enlisted in Company K when his brothers did. Since he is not shown in subsequent census records after 1860, he may have died in the Civil War.

Jasper "Grancer" Nix, ninth child of Jimmy and Betsy Collins Nix, was born in 1847, a twin to Newton. He departed the tradition his older brothers had set and joined Colonel Ben Ledford's Regiment, John Souther's Company, from September, 1864 through May, 1865. His enlistment and discharge papers are not in the National or Atlanta Archives, but a soldier's pension application was found in the Atlanta Archives. He married Harriet Carolina "Tina" Duckworth and they had twelve children. After "Tina's" death, Jasper married Margaret Ballew.

Newton Nix, twin to Jasper, and tenth child of Jimmy and Betsy Collins Nix, joined Company K, 23rd Georgia Regiment at Camp McDonald on August 31, 1861. At the age of fifteen, he died of erysipelas and fever in Richmond, Virginia.

From the military records of these six sons of Jimmy and Betsy Collins Nix, we can imagine the impact of enlistment practices to get young men to join the Confederacy.

Of the six, we know that Thompson, John, and Newton died in the War. It may be that Jeffrie also lost his life during the war, for no further record has been found of him. Six sons fighting, and four lost is a heavy price to pay for war. What grief that mother bore.

c 2007 by Ethelene Dyer Jones. Published August 23, 2007 in The Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Nix connections (part 4 Aunt Jane Nix Wilson Hood)

Sophronia Jane Nix Wilson

This 1905 picture shows Sophronia Jane Nix Wilson with seven of ther children and Granny Evaline Duckworth Nix.

First row: Tom (1902), Estelle (1904) in jane's lap, benjamin (1894), Granny Nix, James Isaac "Jim" (1896)

Second row: Verdie (1887), friend of family (Callie Clark?), Hattie (1889) and Gertrude (1892)

The determination and bravery of some women could be the subject of a book of virtues. The life of Jane Nix Wilson Hood would fall into this category.

Sophronia Jane Nix was born October 20, 1867 in Union County, Georgia to James "Jimmy" Nix and his second wife, Carolina Elizabeth Duckworth Nix. From past articles in this series, you will remember that Jimmy Nix was a son of William and Susannah Stonecypher Nix. Jimmy married first Elizabeth "Betsy" Collins. They had fifteen children. Betsy died in November of 1859. When the Civil War was raging, Jimmy married Carolina Elizabeth Duckworth, who became a loving stepmother to his children. Jimmy enlisted on December 14, 1863 in Company 2 of the Georgia State Militia. To Carolina and Jimmy, four children were born: Mary Eveline, Nancy, Buddy and Sophronia Jane. She would be the youngest to live of Jimmy's twenty children. Her mother died before 1870 when Sophronia Jane was a little over two years old. Jimmy Nix, Jane's father, married the third time to her aunt, her mother's younger sister, Rebecca Evaline Duckworth, in 1872. Jimmy and Evaline's one child was stillborn.

Now we come to the story of Sophronia Jane Nix, and how she came to incorporate the attributes of a sturdy, determined mountain woman.

The Nix homestead, on which James Nix had settled on the 160 acres of land he had secured in the land lottery when Union County was new, was in the area of Choestoe where the present-day Richard Russell Scenic Highway intersects with Fisher Field Road. Here the Nix children grew up, going to the local one-room school at Hood's Chapel for their education. Being the youngest of nineteen children, Jane would have had as much fellowship growing up with her nieces and nephews, being about their same age, as with her own siblings. That's how life was back in the mountains of that era.

At age 18, three months before she reached her 19th birthday, Sophronia Jane married Isaac Thornton Wilson on July 27, 1886. Isaac and Jane had the following children: Verdie (1887), Hattie (1889), Gertrude (1892), Benjamin (1894), James Isaac (1896), Thomas (1902), Estelle (1904) and Garnie (1898). Garnie died in 1900 at age two. Seven of their children grew to adulthood.

Times were hard and work scarce. Isaac Thornton Wilson sought employment in the Copper Mines of Copperhill and Ducktown, Tennessee. He found a place to board there, and would return to his wife and children on weekends. He was a miner, going deep within the rich veins bearing copper and other ores around Isabella, Ducktown and Copperhill. But as was common, Isaac developed a serious lung condition from his work in the mines. He died of what was commonly called consumption on June 3, 1905. His birthdate was February 22, 1858. He was interred in what is now called the "Upper" Cemetery of Union Baptist Church.

While Isaac Wilson was away working in the mines, his wife, Sophronia Jane, managed their farm. She continued this work after the death of her husband. She added acreage by buying land from some of her brothers who decided to go west.

She had learned much about farming from her father, Jimmy Nix. She had apple trees and the bottom lands along the river yielded good crops. The family survived and managed due to Jane's industriousness. Not only was she a good farmer, she was skilled in the mountain household crafts of spinning, weaving, making quilts and "making do" with whatever was available. She worked with a will.

A family portrait which has survived shows Jane Nix Wilson, seated, with her eight children about her, and "Granny" Rebecca Evaline Duckworth Nix (Jane's aunt and her step-mother), in her bonnet seated on the front with Jane. On her lap Jane holds little Garnie, her last baby, who died very young. Having Granny Nix in her household was a big help to Jane as she adjusted to widowhood and had Granny's help in rearing her children.

Union Baptist Church was constituted on "the fourth Saturday in October, 1897" as stated in the church's constitution. Why Jane Sophronia Nix Wilson was not listed as a charter member is not known, for she gave the land on which the church building was erected. Granny Rebecca Evaline Duckworth Nix was one of the founding members. In the community and in the church, Evaline and Jane were stalwart leaders. The women hosted "quilting bees" in their home, and the ladies of the community would "quilt out" a new quilt for a needy family or a new bride in one day of work, sharing a country mid-day meal, and catching up on news. Though work, the quilting bees were also a common form of entertainment and relief from harder work.

Jane Nix Wilson was determined that her children have the best education she could possibly provide for them. In the wintertime, she would actually move the family to Young Harris, rent a place for them to live there, and put the children in school at the academy or in the college. At crop-planting time, the family moved back to their farm near Union Church in Choestoe and began the work required for the year's crops.

Jane's determination yielded from her children a dedicated homemaker, a nurse, a farmer who moved to Colorado to purchase land and become successful, a mechanic and three teachers. One of her daughters, Gertrude (1892-1980), who married Benjamin Franklin Shuler, better known as Frank (188-1978), was an excellent teacher at Union County High School. In my high school years, I was fortunate to have instruction from this gentle, compassionate lady whose mother, Sophronia Jane Nix Wilson, had worked so hard to see that her children were well-educated. Gertrude's husband, Frank, served as Union County School Superintendent for twenty years during a period of change and challenge in the system's schools.

After several years of widowhood, and after her children were grown, Sophronia Jane Nix Wilson married Enoch Chapman Hood, a widower and a neighbor. The marriage was short-lived, not because of any problems between the two, but due to his death. His tombstone in Union Baptist Church Cemetery shows his birth as September 1, 1855 and his death as April 10, 1932. Jane Nix Wilson Hood died August 15, 1956, and was laid to rest in the Union "Upper" Cemetery beside her first husband, Isaac Thornton Wilson. Dying two months shy of her 89th birthday, this noble mountain lady could well be called a heroine of her time.

c 2007 by Ethelene Dyer Jones. Published August 16, 2007 in The Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Some Nix connections (part 1 in a Series on the Nix Family of Union County, GA and surrounding counties)

In tracing Nix family lines, we find that the last name was spelled Nicks, Knix and Nix (our present day spelling). The origin seems to be from the old English surname Nichollas, Nicoles, and Nichols, meaning "victory of the people." In the United States, the surnames Nixon and Nickson (both meaning "son of Nick" and "victory of the people") was eventually shortened to Nix by some branches of the family.

William Nix was born about 1788 in South Carolina. His parents were John and Sarah Nix. In Franklin County, Georgia, on September 3, 1809, William Nix married Susannah Stonecypher, a daughter of John Henry, Jr. and Nancy Curtis Stonecypher. Susannah's father fought in the American Revolution.

William and Susannah Nix lived in Franklin County, Georgia for a while after their marriage. In 1822 they bought land in Habersham County, When White County was formed, some of the land holdings of William Nix were incorporated into the new county. They made their home near present-day Tesnatee Baptist Church. In the 1860 census of White County, William Nix's worth was listed at $3,000. The Nix cabin was still standing as late as 1990. Known for their hospitality, it has been said that William "Grancer" and Susannah Stonecypher Nix never turned anyone away from their home. They were buried in the Nix Family Cemetery a little south of the old homeplace. In 1985, grave markers were erected by a descendant, Wanda West Gregory.

Of the eleven children born to William and Susannah Nix, four of them married persons with Union County, Georgia roots, and settled here. James Nix married (1) Elizabeth Collins, daughter of Thompson and Celia Self Collins; (2) Carolina Duckworth, daughter of David and Mary Williamson Duckworth; and (3) Rebecca Evaline Duckworth, a sister of Carolina. Mary Nix, known as Polly, married Archibald Collins. Ruthia Nix married Francis Collins. Malinda Nix married William Jesse Souther.

Let us trace first some of the descendants of James Nix, who more often than not was listed as Jimmy Nix. The second-born child of eleven born to William and Susannah Nix, he made his appearance into the world in Franklin County, Georgia in July of 1812 in the farmhouse owned by his parents on Eastanollee Creek. When he was about ten years of age, his family moved to Habersham County. It was there he met and married Elizabeth Collins, lovingly called "Betsy" by her family and by her husband, Jimmy Nix.

She was born in North Carolina on August 24, 1814. She was nineteen when they married on March 12, 1834. To Jimmy and Betsy were born fifteen children as follows: William (1836), Susannah (1837), Thompson (1838), John (1840, died in the Civil War at Sharpsburg, Maryland in 1862), Archibald Carr (1842), Isabella (1844 - twin), James Bly (1844 - twin), Jeffrie (1846), Jasper (known as "Grancer," 1847 - twin), Newton (1847 - twin, died at age 15 in the Civil War in Virginia), Thomas Jefferson (1848 - enlisted in Civil War at age 13), Ivan (1849), Benjamin Stonecypher (1851), Celia (1852), and Sarah, known as "Sally" (1854).

At the young age of 45, after bearing fifteen children and looking after them diligently, Elizabeth Collins Nix died in 1859. She was buried in the Old Choestoe Cemetery.

Jimmy Nix began to look for a good woman who could help him with his many children. He found her in Carolina Elizabeth Duckworth (b. 1815), daughter of David and Mary Williamson Duckworth. They were wed on January 3, 1863 after the Civil War was well under way. Four children were born to this union. Mary Evaline (10-23-1863), Nancy (1864), Buddy (1865), and Sophronia Jane (1867).

Jimmy Nix enlisted in the Georgia State Militia, Company 2, on December 14, 1863, and apparently served with the Militia until the end of the Civil War. The cause of his second wife's death is not known, but she died before the 1870 census.

For his third wife, James "Grancer" Nix courted and married a younger sister of his second wife. Her name was Rebecca Evaline Duckworth (b. 1828). The Duckworth sisters were born in North Carolina near the headwaters of the French Broad River in Henderson County. Their parents migrated to Union County and became prominent early settlers there. Jimmy and Rebecca had one child, stillborn, who was not named.

He and his third wife had ten years together before his death on October 2, 1882. She lived to be 86 and died June 14, 1914. Both were buried in the Old Choestoe Cemetery.

Readers might like to keep this column for reference. Future columns will expand on names of some of the children and grandchildren, descendants of James "Grancer" Nix. There are more stories to tell of these hardy early settlers.

c 2007 by Ethelene Dyer Jones. Published July 26, 2007 in The Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Dyer-Souther Reunion

Saturday, July 14, 2007 marks the date for the annual Dyer-Souther Heritage Association Reunion. Choestoe Baptist Church's Family Life Center will be a-buzz with people, beginning with registration at 11:00 a. m. A bounteous covered dish meal will be enjoyed at noon. The reunion program will begin at 1:00 p. m.

If telephone calls and e-mails are an indication, many new "kin" who are just now finding out about the wonderful reunion are planning to be first-time attendees. My excitement begins to grow weeks before the event.

The reunion honors early settlers to the Choestoe Valley who began coming into the county about the time Union County was formed from the large Cherokee territory. Elisha Dyer, Jr. and his wife, Elizabeth Clark Dyer, and several of their children came from Pendleton District, South Carolina by way of Habersham County where they remained awhile, and then moved on across the mountain to Choestoe, "place where rabbits dance."

The Souther early settlers migrated from the vicinity of Old Fort, NC a few years later, about 1835, with John and Mary Combs Souther settling in the vicinity of present-day New Liberty Baptist Church. Altogether, five Souther siblings had settled in the area by 1850. These were John, Jesse William, Jr., Joseph, Hicks (or Hix), and Kizziah Souther Humphries. Jesse established a mill, with assistance from his brothers John and Joseph. The mill opened in 1848 and ground corn for meal and grains to bolt flour. A sawmill was operated on the site using the water power provided by a head of water passed through a chute to operate the turbines. The grist mill operated for 90 years.

Another family, in the valley by 1832, was Thompson Collins and Celia Self Collins. Her father, Job Self, also settled in Choestoe. Claiming other homesteads were the John and Elizabeth Hunter family. Daniel England married Elizabeth, a daughter of John and Elizabeth Hunter. The oldest house in the county still standing is the Hunter-England cabin, now in bad repair, which can be seen just off Highway 129/19 in the Choestoe District. There were other families: Nix, Jackson, Duckworth, Spiva, Henson, Vandiver, Brown, Townsend, Turner, Reece and more. By the time marriages were performed from one family to another, there soon came a rich fabric of kinship.

Saturday, present for the first time, will be Dan Smith of Raleigh, NC. He descends from Rhoda Lucinda Souther who married John Floyd Edward Vandiver. Dan is a musician. He will sing and will also lead reunion attendees in singing an old, old song.

On April 13, 1868 at New Liberty Baptist Church, Nancy Collins Souther, wife of John Combs Hayes Souther and daughter of Thompson and Celia Self Collins, sat writing the words of a song as the song "heister" lined them out to the congregation. In her own handwriting, these words have been preserved. Set to the tune of "The Good Old Way" found in Southern Harmony # 156, Dan Smith will lead reunion attendees in singing this old church song on Saturday. It is entitled "Come All Ye Righteous Here Below." Nancy Souther wrote nine stanzas of the song. Here are three:

"Come all ye righteous here below,
Oh, Ha-le, ha-le-lu-jah!
Let nothing prove your overthrow,
Oh Ha-le, ha-le-lu-jah!
Chorus:
But call on me both day and night,
Oh Ha-le, ha-le-lu-jah!
And I'll visit you with delight,
Sing glory ha-le-lu-jah!
When the day of judgment doth draw nigh,
Oh Ha-le, ha-le-lu-jah!
Poor sinners will lament and cry,
Oh Ha-le, ha-le-lu-jah!
For the earnest deeds that they have done,
Oh, Ha-le, ha-le-lu-jah!
They will repent in time to come,
Oh, Ha-le, ha-le-lu-jah!

A solemn memorial service will honor those who have moved from this life to the next- a large number since the last reunion.

We will gladly welcome familiar faces, those who return to their roots year after year. We will help those who come for the first time to feel welcome through connections that have been made since July, 2007. And if you would like to come, too, and see what's up with this large family, you will find a warm reception.

In 1989 my cousin, the late Watson B. Dyer, nominated me to take his place as family historian. Without even asking me if I would accept the job, I was suddenly plunged into a task I didn't anticipate. But one of the great pleasures of my life since then has been contacting people throughout America to help them find their roots. I don't always succeed in giving them the right links, but I've made many new friends and have more "cousins" than I thought possible. The Russian writer in his famous novel, Anna Kerenina, wrote: "All happy families resemble one another; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." We're one big happy family and that's a good way to be.

c2007 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published July 12, 2007 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved

Fain brothers - early settlers in Union County

The John Samuel Fain and David Mercer Fain families were listed in the first Union County census taken in 1834, when the county was just two years old. This census, conducted under a special act of the Georgia Legislature passed in 1833, was taken in new counties that had been formed from Cherokee lands. The census was completed March 24, 1834, and listed a total of 903 people in the population of Union County at that time.

Who were these Fain brothers, and what led them to settle in the new Union County?

Both John and David Fain were sons of the famed Revolutionary War soldier, Ebenezer Fain (1762-1842). He served five enlistments as a patriot in the war to free America from British rule. The two Fain men who were residents of Union County in 1832 were sons of Ebenezer Fain, patriot.

David Mercer Fain (1782-1852) was the first-born child of patriot Ebenezer Fain and his wife, Mary Mercer Fain. He was born at Jonesborough, Washington County, North Carolina (now Tennessee). The Fains migrated to 96 District in South Carolina, then back to Buncombe County, NC (now Transylvaina). There David Mercer Fain married Rebecca Moore. But the Fains were by no means through with their migrations.

About 1819 Patriot Ebenezer Fain, with his grown children, David Mercer and John Samuel Fain, and a grown daughter, Elizabeth Fain Trammell and her family, settled in a portion of Habersham County (now White) north of Cleveland in what became known as Captain Fain's Georgia Militia District 427 (now Nacoochee District). By 1821, more of the Fain children had migrated to Habersham County, including their daughter Margaret Fain Witzel Thomas and her family.

Then came the move into the Choestoe District of what would become Union County, Georgia in 1832. John Samuel Fain and his family settled there first. Then John's older brother, David Mercer Fain and his family joined them. They settled near the Indian village of Choestoe (Militia District 834). It is interesting to note that close friends of the Fain brothers, Thompson Collins and his wife Celia Self Collins, migrated with the Fains, also settling in Choestoe District.

The Ebenezer Witzel listed in the 1834 Union Census was a grandson of Patriot Ebenezer Fain, and a son of Margaret Fain Witzel Thomas.

Bearing names of the people who lived there, Fain Creek and Fain Branch Road in Choestoe were named for David and John Fain. But by 1839, David Fain got the wanderlust again. His younger brother, John Samuel, had already secured land along Hot House Creek in Gilmer County (now Fannin). David followed, and the two Fain men, along with other settlers at Hot House, established the Hot House Methodist Episcopal Church. Firm Methodists, and associates of early pastors, the Rev. Francis Bird and the Rev. Jesse Richardson, the Fains had been instrumental in establishing a church at Duke's Creek in what became White County, and one at Hot House in what would become Fannin County.

What other landmarks remain in Union County of the Fain settlers? In the 1840 Union census was listed Ebenezer Fain, grandson of the Patriot Ebenezer Fain, and the first child of David Mercer Fain and Rebecca Moore Fain. He married his second wife, Elizabeth D. Roberts in Union County (evidently his first wife, Eleanor Dalton, had died in Habersham County).

Elizabeth Robert's parents were neighbors of Ebenezer's parents at Choestoe. This Ebenezer Fain was a justice of the peace. But by 1848, Ebenezer Fain (the younger) bought land in Old Gilmer (now Fannin) along Sugar Creek, evidently wanting to be nearer his parents.

Meanwhile, back at Choestoe where the two Fain brothers settled about 1832, these events were taking place on the land they had sold. John W. Duckworth (b. 1821 in Buncombe County, NC) applied to the US Postal Service and was granted permission to open a post office. It was approved and opened July 14, 1884. The post office was set up at the intersection of the present Fain Branch Road and Town Creek School Road. He named it the Duck Post Office, using the first syllable of his last name. On June 14, 1892, Duckworth's son-in-law, John P. Collins, became postmaster. He applied for a name change, and the post office became known as the Fain Post Office to honor the early settler Fain brothers, John and David. The post office was discontinued on March 30, 1907, but that section of Town Creek in Choestoe District is still sometimes referred to as Fain, Georgia.

[Note: I give credit to H. Dean Thomas of Ringgold, GA, a descendant of Patriot Ebenezer Fain, for information relating to the Fain Family, published in his 2004 FTC Genealogy (Fain, Thomas, Curtis), and available at the dedication service for the Patriot Ebenezer Fain memorial marker on October 16, 2004 at Hot House, Fannin County, GA.]

c 2007 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published Apr. 12, 2007 in The Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.