Ebenezer Witzel Family in Union County by 1834

The Ebenezer Witzel family was in the 1834 census of Union County, Georgia, a special listing of citizens called for by Act of the Georgia Legislature in 1833 and completed on March 24, 1834. Of the population of 903 in the county in 1834, the Witzel household numbered five.

Ebenezer Witzel was the only male in his household, with his wife (whose name we do not learn until 1860 as Minerva) and three female children. They were still in Union in 1840, and had grown to five children, all females under the ages of fifteen.

We do not know what happened to the Ebenezer Witzel family in 1850. Maybe the census taker missed going by that family’s dwelling. But by 1860 and thereafter, the Ebenezer Witzel family was recorded in the new Fannin County (formed in 1854 from parts of Union and Gilmer).

Maybe I should call these early settlers whose names are listed in the 1834 census of Union County as “First Families.” In a sense, they were the first families to take up residence and carve out a living amidst the hills, valleys and ridges of Union.

Witzel is an unusual last name, one that catches the eye in a list like a county census. It is listed Witzel, Wetzel, Whitzell and other similar spellings. German in origin, it means a descendant from “Wizo”, a sort of slang name for “Wild Forest.” Could it mean, then, that the original Witzel immigrants to America came from the Black Forest of Germany? It is known that Johannes Geog Wetzel settled in Pennsylvania in the 1700s and his descendants migrated from there to various states.

According to the 1860 census of Fannin County (where we find the Union County Ebenezer Witzel of the 1834 Union census) he was a farmer, owned his own land evaluated at $2, 500 and his monetary assets were $1,000.

He had been born, according to the 1860 census, in North Carolina, and his wife, Minerva, had been born in South Carolina. He was 53 years of age and she was 41. They had two children remaining at home in 1860—John, age 14, and Hulda (Oregon?), age 10.

Did the Witzel family move from Union County to Fannin County? Probably not. It is possible that they lived on the same land they owned in Union in the 1834 and 1840 census listings. Why they were not “found” in the 1850 census is a matter of speculation. In 1860 they were in Fannin, possibly on the farm they had occupied in Union.

Ebenezer and Minerva Witzel, one of the “first families” of Union lived in a section of the new Fannin County called Sugar Creek. There Ebenezer had established the first iron forge to operate in the new Fannin County. This writer does not know the date of the iron forge’s opening, but it is very likely that it was in operation first in Union County before Fannin was founded in 1854. The iron mill was a large trip-hammer forge weighing several hundred pounds. It was operated by water power from a dam Ebenezer had built on Sugar Creek.

There this enterprising man also established a sawmill, likewise operated by water power. The sawmill was of the old type called a sash saw and worked in a vertical up-and-down motion.

To show how the Civil War adversely affected private business, the 1870 census shows that Ebenezer Witzel’s property evaluation had gone down to $1,000 and his monetary assets to $800. The reduction was probably from several factors like the actual cessation of iron manufacture (his forge did not operate during the Civil War) and his saw mill, from the poor economy after the war, and from Witzel’s deeding portions of his farm to his children as they married and established their own homes.

By 1870, Margaret Witzel, Ebenezer’s mother, had come to live with Ebenezer and Minerva. It is interesting to note that this 83-year old lady, born in North Carolina, had her occupation listed as “knitting socks.” Making socks from wool in 1870 was an important element of in-home production.

Ebenezer Witzel, born in North Carolina in 1807, died in Fannin County in 1871. His body was laid to rest on his own land. His was the first burial in what is known today as the Curtis Family Cemetery just off Curtis Road in Fannin County. There his wife, Minerva, was also laid to rest when she died October 4, 1904. It is believed that an unmarked grave in the old Curtis Cemetery may be that of Ebenezer’s mother, Margaret Witzel. The Witzel property was bought by Richard Ivy Byrd Curtis and became known in later years as the Curtis homeplace and Curtis Cemetery.

I did not find any Witzel marriages listed in early Union County marriage records. Next door in Fannin County, however, some thirteen Witzel and Wetzel marriages are listed between the years of 1854 and 1901. These marriages are of descendants, children and grandchildren, of the early settlers Ebenezer and Minerva Witzel who made their way to Union before 1834.

c 2009 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published Sept. 10, 2009 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

About Patriot Ebenezer Fain

Setting the record straight is very important to me. Therefore, I admit that I made a mistake in names in last week's column (April 12 edition) concerning one of the two Fain brothers who settled in the Choestoe District of Union County and were listed in the county's first census taken in 1834.

Please note that the name of the older brother should be David M. Fain. I erroneously concluded that the M. was for "Mercer," his mother's maiden name. In family record studies, one should never "jump" to conclusions. Each time I listed David Fain's name in last week's column, it should have been David M. (not Mercer). There is no record available thus far to show what the M. stood for in David's name. The third child of Ebenezer and Mary Mercer Fain was, indeed, named Mercer Fain. I apologize for the error. To clarify, and for those interested, I will list here the names of their children.

Children of Ebenezer and Mary Mercer Fain:

David M. Fain (1782-1852)
Margaret Kathryn Fain-Witzel-Thomas (1786-ca.1870)
Mercer Fain (1789-ca.1872)
Elizabeth Fain-Trammell (1791-1870)
Mary Ann Fain (1794-1881)
Sarah M. Fain-Howard (1796-1877)
John Samuel Fain (1797- 1873)
Rebecca Fain-Hughes (1801- ca.1875)
Polly Ann Fain-Harwell (1804-1877)

To correct dates when the Fains moved to Habersham County, Georgia, I owe another apology. Quoting my source, Dean Thomas, he states: "About 1819 the four families of Ebenezer Fain, his sons Mercer and John Fain and his daughter Elizabeth Fain Trammell were among the first pioneers to move from Buncombe County into the 3rd Land District of Habersham (now White) County. The Fains settled in the Duke's Creek Valley in the vicinity of the present towns of Robertstown and Nacoochee, about seven miles northeast of Cleveland, Georgia. Ebenezer Fain's home was in that part of Captain Fain's Georgia Militia District 427 (now Nacoochee District, which became Tesnatee Georgia Militia District 558 in 1830) [p. 10, FTC Genealogy]. Then, David M. Fain moved to Habersham in 1821 and Margaret Fain-Witzel-Thomas moved there in 1824.

Their proximity to the new Union County saw John Samuel Fain and David M. Fain settling there about 1832, and when they moved on in 1839 to Old Gilmer in what would become Fannin in 1854, they left behind the Fain name on a creek, a road and later a post office in Union (that part of last week's article was correct!)

Now, with corrections made, to use flashback, let us review some pertinent information about Patriot Ebenezer Fain (08.27.1762-12.29.1842). He was born in Chester County, Pennsylvania to Nicholas Fain and Elizabeth Taylor Fain. His parents immigrated from Ireland about 1749. Nicholas Fain was a peddler and about 1772, when Ebenezer was a boy of ten, the Fains moved on the Great Valley Road and settled on the South Fork of the Holston River at a place called Abingdon. That area is near the present location of Bristol (Tennessee/Virginia).

For descendants of Ebenezer Fain, it is interesting to trace his patriotic service.

At age fourteen in 1776, he enlisted in the Virginia Militia. His job was to help quell an uprising of the Cherokee against the settlers whom the British termed "unruly western frontier whites." This enlistment was for three months, June through August. Fain's service then involved two victorious battles against the Cherokee.

In 1778, Nicholas and Elizabeth Taylor Fain moved again, that time to Jonesborough, Washington County, North Carolina (now Tennessee). Ebenezer Fain served four more enlistments with the militia. In June, 1780, he was enlisted as a "light horseman" and showed extreme bravery in several confrontations from July 14 through August 8 of 1780.

His third enlistment began in September, 1780. Among other encounters, he was at the famed battle of King's Mountain where he received a wound in the leg.

In December, 1780, Ebenezer Fain enlisted for the fourth time, serving under the famed Colonel John Sevier. Their raids against the Cherokee (who were in alliance with the Tories and the British) burned towns, captured horses, destroyed crops and killed Indians. Ebenezer's fourth enlistment ended in March, 1781.

His fifth and final enlistment began on April 1, 1781. For six months he was a mounted ranger, helping to guard the frontier in Washington County against Tories and Indians. It was during this enlistment that Ebenezer Fain and John Nicholson became close friends (note that John Nicholson migrated to Union County, Georgia after the war and was buried in the Pleasant Grove Cemetery, Blairsville). These two men served in the Georgia Legislature from the old Walton County, which Georgia claimed for awhile, along the contested North Carolina- Georgia line. But that is a story for another time.

The Fains loved the mountains and followed the ridges from Pennsylvania down through the Cumberlands to Virginia, to North Carolina (now Tennessee), to Habersham, some to Union County, Georgia, and then to Old Gilmer (now Fannin). With the peaceful fields of his son John Samuel Fain clustered along rushing Hot House Creek, and the ridges towering above the plantation, Patriot Ebenezer Fain died peacefully on December 29, 1842.

c 2007 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published Apr 19, 2007 in The 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.