Andrew William Jackson

At times we read accounts of early settlers in Union County and learn of their subsequent adventures. We wonder how they lived through some of their exploits. Truth often looms larger than fiction. The story of Andrew William Jackson and his wife Margaret Minerva Goforth Jackson falls into the category of "truth stranger than fiction." I am grateful to Watson Benjamin Dyer and Belle Jackson Maury (she was a granddaughter of Andrew William Jackson) for this account of Andrew William Jackson. I have edited the account for structure, chronology and flow, but have kept to the facts as presented by Belle Jackson Maury.

Andrew William Jackson was born in 1835 in Choestoe District, Union County. His father was William Jackson (b. abt. 1798 in NC, died July 27, 1859, Choestoe, GA) and Nancy Owenby Stanley Jackson (b. ca 1793 in NC, died 1861, Choestoe, GA). They were in Union County when it was formed in 1832.

Andrew was the youngest of eight known children. The others were Rebecca who married Jonathan Cook; Armelia who married William Neely; Johile who married Jane Duckworth; Susan who married John W. Duckworth; Kimsey who married Lucinda Thomas; Mira who married Jehu Wimpey; and William Marion who married Minerva Goforth.

William and Nancy Jackson moved from Rutherford County, NC where they were married December 14, 1814. From there they went to Habersham County, Georgia and then to Union County near Bald Mountain. William and Nancy Jackson were early members--perhaps charter members--of Choestoe Baptist Church. Seeing the list of their children and their spouses indicates that there is a rich family history in each of the children and their descendants, many of whom still live in the vicinity. But the focus of this article will be upon Andrew William Jackson, the youngest of the children.

When the Jacksons were settling onto their Choestoe acres, there was much unrest in the nation. The majority of settlers in Union County were not slave holders and they did not want to participate in the Civil War. Many had Union leanings and went to Tennessee to join the U. S. (Northern) Army. Among these were Marion Jackson (Andrew's brother) and John Hunter, a Choestoe neighbor. Some in opposition to the South hid out in the mountains evading conscription. In the daytime deep caves were their hiding places. They ventured out at night and by the light of the moon worked their crops. Times were hard and fear was rampant.

Andrew William Jackson and Margaret Minerva Goforth were married on November 9, 1855, with the Rev. William Pruitt, Minister of the Gospel, performing the ceremony. When the war was declared, Andrew was in the vicinity of Atlanta. He was conscripted for the Confederate Army but did not like it and deserted.

The story is told that at one time when his pursuers were looking for him, he climbed up into the chimney of their home to hide. Minerva and her little children tried to be calm while the search went on. The men left the home and Andrew stayed several hours in the chimney before he came down. He and sixteen other deserters were captured and sent to a jail in Birmingham, Alabama.

Evidently Andrew found a way to get a message to Minerva. He asked her to visit him at the Birmingham jail and to bring the horses, hiding them out near the jail. The men planned to escape that night. Imagine the bravery of this young woman (about 23 at the time--she was born in 1840) to go across the mountains of Georgia into Alabama to a Confederate prison to assist her husband to escape.

One of the men imprisoned with Andrew Jackson had lost a leg and walked with a wooden leg. Andrew asked him for his wooden leg so he could fashion a key to unlock the jail. The man, at first reluctant, said, "If I don't have my leg, I can't walk out."

The story goes that Andrew Jackson told him, "It's either your wooden leg or we'll be shot to death in the morning." How he had that knowledge is an untold part of the story. Andrew did take the wooden leg and carved a sort of key that worked to open the lock. Evidently the guards were asleep or not aware of what was going on within the jail. Andrew was successful with springing the lock and the men walked out. They set fire to the stockade and burned it down, escaping through the woods.

There in the woods was Minerva with the two horses and their children, waiting for her husband. They made their way from Birmingham northward to the old Jackson homeplace in Choestoe. Minerva and the children rode the horses and Andrew walked in the woods, trying to keep himself hidden. They miraculously made the long trip to Choestoe safely.

Just what year Andrew and Minerva and their by then four children decided to leave Choestoe is not certain. But evidently the unrest of the war years was still upon the land. They packed up their meager belongings and set out with their young family heading west. They had great difficulties along the way. Andrew still had to hide out because he was wanted for having escaped the Confederate jail. When they crossed the Mississippi River and arrived in Kansas, they felt safer because they were again among Union sympathizers who helped the young family to find food and provisions and temporary work for Andrew.

It was a sad journey. The two middle children died on the journey and were buried along the route. Their names are unknown to this writer. Milton Bert and Dicie survived the trip. The Jackson family arrived at the San Louis Obispo Valley, sometimes called the Creasy Plains, of California, and there they began farming. They were ready for a new life and gave themselves to it with a passion. There Minnie Matilda, their last child, was born on August 7, 1879.

Milton Bert was given the responsibility of herding sheep. He took the sheep to open range on the mountains near where they lived. The lad was only fourteen when he began this herdsman's job. Andrew went every week to take Bert food and to check on him. The lad did a good job of warding off wild animals and caring for the sheep.

Andrew liked seclusion. When other settlers began to move onto the Creasy Plains and get too close, Andrew would stake out another claim in a less-populated area. He did not like to talk of his Civil War experiences or of the hardships the family endured. One day Bert saw a large scar on his father's side and asked how he got it. Andrew told his son, "It's none of your business."

One day a group of men with winded, exhausted horses rode onto the Jackson ranch. They asked Andrew for his horses, as theirs were spent. He knew they would take them by force if he did not let them go willingly. They promised to send his horses back in a few days and quickly rode away.

Soon afterward, a sheriff's posse came by looking for the men. Noticing the many horse tracks near Andrew's barn, they wanted to know why. Ever the man of few words, Andrew told the sheriff that a lot of riding had been going on there the last few days. The sheriff explained that the Dalton Gang had robbed the bank the day before and the posse was trailing them.

A few days later, Andrew's tired horses reappeared at the ranch. He took off their saddles, and there under the blanket were fastened several $50 gold pieces. Whether Andrew kept the gold or turned it over to the authorities is unknown. Maybe he went by the old adage, "Finders, keepers."

Andrew and Minerva Goforth Jackson did not return to Georgia. They remained in California where their last place of residence was at Cholame. Andrew died there in 1917 and Minerva died in 1915. They were buried at San Louis Obisbo. Their adventures bespeak the independent spirit and work ethic so tightly woven into the character of early Union County, Georgia people.

c2004 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published March 25, 2004 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Union County’s Claim to Governor Joseph Emerson Brown

Joseph Emerson Brown (1821-1894) 27th Governor of Georgia

Driving along Georgia Highway 60 near Woody Gap School, you see a Georgia Historical Marker announcing “Homesite of Joseph Emerson Brown.” Stopping to read it, you find that Joseph Emerson Brown, four-time governor of Georgia, lived with his parents at about the same location where the school is today.

We like to take pride in claiming that famous people lived here—or, for that matter, “slept here.” Once a citizen of Union County, Brown sat in the state’s highest seat from 1857 through 1865 when Georgia’s capitol was located at Milledgeville, Georgia. He served as governor during the turbulent years of secession and the Civil War.

What can we learn about this tall, lanky man whose pictures remind us somewhat of Abraham Lincoln, except that Brown’s beard was white?

He was not born in Union County, Georgia. Instead, his birth state was South Carolina, in the Pickens District, where he was born April 15, 1821. His parents were Mackey and Sally Brown. As with most who left one area and went to another in those years, the Browns moved to what we know as Suches, Georgia and settled at Woody Gap. There the family farmed. Few educational opportunities existed there for the young Brown beyond the one-teacher school that was held for a few months a year. We can imagine, with his bent for learning, he longed to have a better education.

That opportunity came when Joseph Emerson Brown was nineteen. In 1840, his father gave him two oxen that evidently had been yoked together and trained for work on the farm. Brown took the oxen and his meager belongings and left, dressed in a suit his mother made for him from wool from the Brown’s own sheep. He made his way over the mountains to South Carolina where he sold the oxen to gain money for room and board. He entered Camden Academy. The administrator must have seen promise in the young Brown, for he went to school there on credit, promising to repay the loan after graduation.

When he finished at Camden, he must have returned to visit with his parents at Suches. But soon he made his way to Canton, Georgia where he got a job teaching school. In whatever time he could spare, he studied law (it was called “reading law” then). He passed the Georgia bar examination in 1845.

Then came the next lap in his educational journey. He went to Yale University School of Law, graduating in 1846 with a Bachelor of Law degree. He had borrowed money to attend Yale from a friend and physician in Canton whom Brown would later appoint to the Georgia-owned railroad, the Western and Atlantic.

He opened his law practice in Canton and soon began earning a sizeable annual salary for 1846—up to $3,000 per year. He also served as a tutor to certain young men whom he encouraged. A shrewd businessman as well as a lawyer, he was able to make investments that later would make him one of the wealthiest men in Georgia.

His courtship with Elizabeth Grisham began. She was a daughter of a Baptist minister. They were married in 1847. To them were born eight children: Julius, Mary, Joseph, Franklin, Elijah, Charles, Sally and George. Their son, Joseph Mackey Brown, would later follow in his father’s footsteps and serve as Governor of Georgia (1909-1911 and 1912-1913).

Joseph Emerson Brown’s political career began actively when he was elected to the Georgia senate from his district in 1849. In the 1852 national election, he was the presidential elector on the Democratic ticket of Pierce and King. He was appointed as judge of the Blue Ridge Judicial Circuit in 1855.

His next big political move came when he was elected governor of Georgia in 1857. His opponents among the landed large plantation owners called him “The Ploughboy.” They sought to discredit him because he had grown up on a poor mountain farm in North Georgia. The man who had taken his education and career into his own hands was not to be dismissed with such an epithet. His political leanings up until 1865 were more like those of President Andrew Jackson. In fact, he was labeled by historians as a “Jacksonian Democrat.” He held firmly to states’ rights. He appealed to and upheld the common man. As Georgia’s 27th governor, and elected for four terms (1857, 1859, 1861, and 1863), he served during one of Georgia’s most turbulent periods.

Vital to the economy prior to the Civil War and essential to the war effort during the conflict, the railroad was one of Governor Brown’s chief projects. He replaced top management positions in the Western & Atlantic Railroad as well as minor officials. Many who received railroad jobs were his staunch supporters. He advised the superintendent to “cut all unnecessary expenses, but to keep the railroad in good repair.” He also wanted unnecessary employees dismissed and to pay salaries commensurate to those paid by other railroads. Intoxicating beverages were not allowed. Strict obedience to the rules concerning operation of the railroad was to be followed. The rules were printed, posted and also delivered to all employees.

Next: More on Governor Brown and on his post-war political career.

c2004 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published March 11, 2004 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

John Nicholson, Revolutionary War Soldier (Part 2)

In October, 2000, the Blue Ridge Mountains Chapter, Sons of the American Revolution, held a ceremony at the Pleasant Grove Cemetery in memory of John Nicholson, Sr., Revolutionary patriot. Last week’s column recounted his four terms of Revolutionary service, each of three months, making a total time of one year as a soldier.

Patriot John Nicholson had an interesting life after his Revolutionary War experiences.

An article by historian Robert S. Davis, a descendant of Patriot Nicholson, recounts incidents involving John Nicholson, Sr. that took place in a disputed area sometimes known as Old Walton County. He, along with some other settlers, took out a land grant and settled in the area of the French Broad River Valley in Cherokee Indian Territory sometime before 1786. The land grant was possibly a reward for service in the Revolution.

The frontiersmen believed these were western lands belonging to South Carolina. However, that state had the grants annulled and withdrew claims to these “western” settlements. The grantees petitioned Congress for annexation to South Carolina. When their appeals failed, the settlers formed their own government in 1793. The area– much like the State of Franklin in Tennessee that John Sevier had settled–became known as “The Orphan Strip” because it was not claimed by South or North Carolina or Georgia.

In 1798, the Federal Government secured The Orphan Strip officially from the Cherokees, and, believing it to be below the boundary of the 35th parallel separating North Carolina from Georgia, ceded it to Georgia in 1802.

Settlers in The Orphan Strip had kept minutes of their official meetings. These were signed and submitted to Governor John Milledge of Georgia, together with a petition that their settlement be recognized. The Georgia Legislature acted on the Governor’s recommendation, and on December 10, 1803, the “Orphan Strip” became Walton County, named for George Walton who was then the last one living of Georgia’s signers of the Declaration of Independence, had been a Congressman, and was a former Georgia Governor.

This “old’ Walton County is not to be confused with the present-day Walton County, with Monroe as its capital, founded from a portion of Jackson County on December 15, 1818. The “Old Walton” was right along the North Carolina and Georgia border, and extended over to the South Carolina line.

Elected to represent Walton County in the Georgia Legislature were two citizens, John Nicholson, Sr. and John Akins. The county was described as very mountainous and “inhabited by an orderly and industrious people” numbering about 800. In the state census soon after Walton County was formed, the John Nicholson family was listed with eleven whites in the household.

We may not have read about “The Walton War” in the history books, but it was fought because of the confusion over who owned the Orphan Strip--North Carolina or Georgia. The two states could not agree with reports of the surveying team. Buncombe County claimed the land. The “bandittery” of the area had “taken arms” and were committing “depredations on the honest civil citizens of the county.” The citizens retaliated, and several skirmishes ensued.

John Nicholson himself was taken prisoner and put in jail in the Morgan District. When he came to trial, charges against him were that he refused to accept North Carolina’s claim to the contested Walton County.

In 1807, both the North Carolina and the Georgia Legislatures agreed to a new survey. That team found that Walton County was well above the 35th parallel. But Georgia did not want to relinquish claim so easily and so in 1811 hired a nationally-known surveyor, Andrew Ellicott, to run the disputed line. He found that the line extended even farther south than the 1807 team had determined. John Nicholson, who had served in the Georgia Legislature from Old Walton County in 1806, 1808 and 1809 had to give up his political representation by virtue of finding himself again a citizen of Buncombe County, NC. The “Orphan Strip” became a part of both Buncombe and Transylvania Counties in North Carolina.

In 1820, John Nicholson was enumerated in Buncombe County with his wife (both he and she above 45 years of age), and one son and one daughter, each between 10 and 16.

His next move evidently was to Habersham County, Georgia, where, in 1833, he sold 468 acres of his Buncombe County, NC land for $600 to Benjamin Wilson. A witness to the deed was John Erwin who married Nicholson’s daughter Sarah in 1823.

By 1830, John Nicholson, Sr. was in Hall County, Georgia with his son, John, Jr. (1802-1884). It was while in Hall County he applied for and received a Revolutionary War pension of $40 per year.

As an old man, he moved to Union County, Georgia, although, as we saw in last week’s account, he already owned land and paid taxes in Union in 1850. On March 26, 1855, records show that he applied for bounty lands in Union County available to Revolutionary War veterans. He was then living in the home of his son, Alfred Nicholson (1799-1874, who had married Mary “Polly” Chastain), in the Harmony Grove community, Arkaquah District. From there he went to live with his daughter, Vica Nicholson Akins, near Pleasant Grove, where he died December 10, 1858.

A landed gentleman, a patriot, a legislator, a farmer, a mover-and-shaker of his time, this 96-year old man had lived through almost a century of upheaval and change in America.

So far as is known , his children were: (1) James Nicholson; (2) Mary “Polly” Nicholson (1791-1868) who married Rene Chastain; (3) Walter Nicholson (1795-1859) who married Dorcas Hogsed; (4) Elizabeth “Betty” Nicholson who married Benjamin Burke; (5) William Harrison Nicholson (1797-1864) who married Jane Duckworth and Jane Blocker; (6) Alfred Nicholson (1799-1874) who married Mary “Polly” Chastain; (7) Daughter who married Porter Owenby and moved to Union County; (8) Luvicia Nicholson (1802-?), who married Lewis Akins; (9) John Nicholson, Jr. (1802-1884), who married Elizabeth Allred; and (10) Sarah Nicholson (1803-1882), who married John Erwin.

Genealogists who puzzle over how some of Nicholson’s children were listed on census records as having been born in Georgia and others in South Carolina or North Carolina can now know that it hinged on that Old Walton County dispute as to which state owned the “Orphan Strip.”

c2004 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published Mar. 4, 2004 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

John Nicholson, Revolutionary War Soldier (Part 1)

Last week we looked at the life and service of Revolutionary War soldier, Michael Tanner, who was buried in the Old Choestoe Cemetery.

Another Revolutionary War soldier’s grave is that of John Nicholson who was buried at the Pleasant Grove Baptist Church Cemetery in Coosa District. To access the cemetery and see this grave marker, travel from the square in Blairsville west on (old) Highway 76 for about 7.8 miles. The church was founded in 1842. Although the old gravestone shows neither a birth date nor a death date for John Nicholson, family records attest to his birth being on May 1, 1762 or 1763 in Old Bute County, NC (present-day Warren County). Family history also indicates that John Nicholson died December 20, 1858 at age 96. If he did live to this ripe old age, his birth date then would have been in the year 1762.

John Nicholson had moved from Hall County, Georgia to Union County, Georgia to live with his son Alfred whose farm was in the Harmony Grove section of Arkaquah District. Another son, Walter, lived in the Fodder Creek section of Towns County, Georgia. In 1858, John Nicholson was at the home of his daughter, Mrs. Lewis Akins in the Coosa District near Pleasant Grove Church. This daughter’s name was Luvicia, b. 1802 and called Vica. The family buried their father in the nearby church cemetery. Travel arrangements were not conducive then to transporting the body to Hall or Habersham County where one of his spouses had been buried in the many moves of the family.

John Nicholson (May 1, 1762 or 1763-December 20, 1858), was a son of William Nicholson. The Nicholsons had first settled in Virginia prior to the Revolution and had large land holdings there. The family migrated to North Carolina prior to the Revolution. It was in Bute County (later named Warren County), N. C. where John was born.

John Nicholson, Sr. enlisted in the Revolution from Bute County, NC. His first term of enlistment began in 1780 and lasted for three months. He was under the command of Captain John White and in Colonel Eaton’s North Carolina Regiment, with General Caswell. This Regiment was at the Battle of Camden when General Gates was defeated. This first three-month term was as a substitute for someone else. He mustered out on the Adkin River.

His second enlistment of three months was in 1781 as a private under General Greene, in the N. C. Regiment commanded by Captains Flewallen and Norsworthy. The Regiment was in the Battle of Guilford Courthouse. After this three-month service, he was discharged at Ramey’s Mill.

His third three-month enlistment was under Colonel Linton in the North Carolina Troops. He was discharged at Tarborough.

For the fourth enlistment, again of three months in 1782, he served in Captain Cox’s Company of the North Carolina Regiment under Colonel Sevier. His honorable discharge came on the Tennessee River in North Carolina. Altogether, Private Nicholson served a year during the Revolution.

John Nicholson made application for a Revolutionary War pension on November 2, 1832. He was then a resident of Hall County, Georgia. He had been counted in the 1830 census of Hall County, along with his son, John Nicholson, Jr. (1802-1884). The pension was granted and Private John Nicholson received $40.00 per year until his death for his Revolutionary War service. By the 1850 census, John, Sr. was living in Cherokee County, Georgia in the household of his youngest son, John Nicholson, Jr. who had married Elizabeth Allred in 1827. That same year, 1850, John Nicholson, Sr. paid taxes in Union County, Georgia on land he owned, with his son-in-law, Lewis Akin, making the tax payment for him.

From the records, it would seem that John Nicholson, Sr. traveled about a lot. The aged soldier was probably moved from one child’s home to another to be cared for by them in his dotage. Reaching age 96 in those years was an accomplishment within itself. We can imagine that he had colorful stories to tell his children and grandchildren as he re-lived his four-term enlistment in the Revolution. The battles of Camden and Guilford Courthouse no doubt loomed large in his memory as he recalled the North Carolina farmers mustered out to protect their freedom and to win independence.

[Next week: More on the life and times of John Nicholson, Sr.]

c2004 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published Feb. 26, 2004 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Private Michael Tanner, Revolutionary War Soldier

The marker for a Revolutionary War soldier, Private Michael Tanner, stands about in the middle of the Old Choestoe Cemetery. This simple marble monument, typical of war memorials dotting old cemeteries in various locations, is unpretentious. One might pass it by, not recognizing its significance or the contribution the soldier made to the freedom of America.

The Blue Ridge Mountains Chapter, Sons of the American Revolution, seeking to make a more lasting memorial, held a commemoration service at Private Michael Tanner’s grave on November 3, 2001. As a member of the Old Unicoi Trail Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, I was invited, along with other members of my chapter. It was a distinct privilege, toward the end of the memorial service, for fellow chapter member Carole Thompson and me to place a wreath to honor the service of Private Michael Tanner.

Dr. J. Allen Henson, a descendant of Private Tanner, gave a brief biography of his great, great great grandfather. It is to Dr. Henson I am indebted for the following information.

Michael Tanner was born December 4, 1759 in York County, Pennsylvania. Tanner is a trade name, deriving from those who followed the profession of tanning animal hides for fine leather. The earliest-known progenitors of Michael Tanner seem to have originated in Germany, moved to Holland, and then migrated to America in 1721, settling in Pennsylvania.

When Michael Tanner was eighteen, in 1777, he enlisted in the Continental Army in Shenandoah County, Virginia. His first encounters were against the Indians of the area to protect settlers from raids. He then engaged in skirmishes with the Tories who were faithful to the British crown.

When the Revolutionary War officially began, he was ready to bear arms for his country. At first he served as a volunteer, but was drafted when fighting accelerated. He served at first under the command of Captain Raider, General Hand and Captain Mason.

His unit journeyed to Fort Wallin on the Ohio River, the first assignment after he was drafted. Then he moved with his unit to the South Branch of the Potomac River where he was under the command of Captain George Huston and Colonel Simms. From there he fought in Rockingham County, Virginia under Captain John Rush in the Virginia Regiment headed by Colonel Harris.

The highlight of Private Michael Tanner’s military service occurred at Yorktown, Virginia, when General George Washington engineered the surrender of the British Field Commander, Charles, Earl of Cornwallis. At full strength, the American allied forces brought together 8,000 Continental Army troops and 3,000 militiamen at Yorktown, augmented by 15,000 French sailors who blocked Cornwallis’ escape and prevented British reinforcements from arriving by sea. It was a tense confrontation and much hinged on General Washington’s maneuvers, with Alexander Hamilton commanding the light infantry.

Cornwallis, realizing the precarious position of the British forces, began negotiations with General Washington. On October 19, 1781 the American Revolution ended and American independence was secured. Did Private Michael Tanner hear the strains of “The World Turned Upside Down” played from the British ship in the harbor? If he did, its strains must have reverberated in his memory for years to come.

We can only imagine the relief and happiness of soldiers like Private Michael Tanner who had done their part to bring about the surrender. Although it took two more years for hostilities to completely cease, statesmen like Benjamin Franklin, John Jay and John Adams kept negotiating for terms of peace. Questions of what would become of British loyalists (Tories) after the war and the bounds of U. S. territory to extend to the Mississippi River were argued. The Treaty of Paris was signed September 3, 1783.

Private Michael Tanner returned to Virginia following Cornwallis’ surrender at Yorktown. In Rockingham County, Virginia on July 14, 1782 Tanner married Catherine Butt. They migrated from the more settled area of Virginia to the frontier counties of Rutherford and Buncombe in North Carolina. There they reared their family and he earned his living from the soil. Known children of Michael and Catherine were Michael (Jr.), Mollie Tanner Ross, Elizabeth Tanner Ellison, George Tanner, Sally Tanner, Catherine Tanner Harkins and sons Jacob, Adam and Abraham.

When Michael Tanner made application for a war pension, he used his father’s German Bible with family records to establish his birth date as December 4, 1759. From the pension application Dr. Henson learned of the war record of Private Tanner. He was still in Buncombe County, North Carolina, when he received a Revolutionary War pension in April, 1833.

By 1838, Michael and Catherine Butt Tanner had settled in the Choestoe District of Union County, Georgia, moving there to be near some of their children who had migrated before them. Catherine Butt Tanner preceded her husband in death, dying April 12, 1842. Her grave was marked by a fieldstone in Old Choestoe Cemetery. Seven years later, on August 25, 1849, Michael Tanner was laid to rest by his beloved Catherine. In 1989, one hundred and forty years later, Dr. J. Allen Henson had a military marker erected for his ancestor.

The memorial service held on November 3, 2001 was a solemn, dignified and uplifting ceremony. The strains of patriotic music from fife, drum and bagpipe echoed through the trees and hills around Old Choestoe Cemetery where this Pennsylvania-born, Virginia-bred, Yorktown patriot found his final resting place. The honor guard dressed in military regalia gave a proper twenty-one gun salute. It was a worthy tribute to an humble soldier-farmer whose ancestors had come to the shores of America in 1721 seeking freedom.

c2004 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published Feb. 19, 2004 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Happenings Along the Famous Logan Turnpike

Charles Roscoe Collins, who himself traveled with his father as a lad, and made his first solo trip on the Logan Turnpike at age 17, points to the site where two Runyon brothers were hanged by Confederate Home Guards during the Civil War. Mr. Collins shared many stories of happenings along the Logan Turnpike.

Mr. Charles Roscoe Collins was my guide in 1992 for a delightful day back into history as he pointed out where the Logan Turnpike was located and told me significant happenings along the famed toll road. I couldn’t have had a better mentor, for he himself had traveled the road as a lad with his father, James Johnson Collins. Then as a responsible teenager of 17, he was trusted to take his first wagon load of produce to Gainesville and return with goods to be sold in the Collins store.

“This is the place the Runyon boys were hanged from a strong limb of a large chestnut tree during the Civil War,” Collins stated as he pointed to the site. We could still see the old Logan Turnpike roadbed, but the chestnut tree had long since disappeared, hit by the blight that took those once-productive trees from the mountain soil.

“I used to be afraid when my father and I passed by here,” he said. “I was afraid the ghosts of the Runyon boys would come out of the woods to haunt us.”

He explained that the Runyon brothers met their deaths at the hands of the Home Guard, self-appointed vigilantes who hunted down and often disposed of those who hid out in the mountains to escape conscription into the Confederate Army. Mr. Collins also noted that many in the mountain region were pro-Union, siding with the North in “the late unpleasantness” as the Civil War was sometimes called.

I looked at the spot where the chestnut tree once stood and had a gruesome picture in my mind of a sad chapter in the area’s history as the young men met their deaths in such a cruel, untimely fashion.

“I’ll have to tell you about Jack Shuler and his boys and how they were hired to keep the north stretch of the Logan Turnpike passable,” Mr. Collins stated.

“Jack Shuler operated his farm and the Ponder Post Office near the present-day Union Baptist Church. Mr. Shuler received seventy-five cents per day for his labor to keep rocks, limbs and debris out of the road and to fill in the ruts after a gully-washer rain. When his strong sons worked, they received ten cents a day for their labor, even after they had grown nearly to manhood.” He pointed out rocks piled alongside the old roadbed, saying that, no doubt, they were some Mr. Shuler and his sons had piled there while clearing the turnpike.

“And this is Big Spiva Bend,” Roscoe Collins said. “Near here is the place where Newt Spiva hid out during the Civil War. The Home Guard found him and ordered him to surrender. He refused, preferring death to conscription. He was shot at a rock outcropping here. This place was named Spiva Bend after him.”

Spiva Bend was hard to manipulate with four-wheeled vehicles. Mr. Collins told of the time when his own older brother, Tom Collins, together with Perry Hood and Tom Calloway, had been hired by a Mr. Jarrard to transport a huge steam boiler from the gold mines of Coosa District in Union County to Cleveland, Georgia (across Tesnatee Mountain).

When they came to Spiva Bend, they had problems getting the large implement and the specially constructed four-horse wagon vehicle with extensions around the bend. The young men considered whether they would have to disassemble the engine and put it back together again. However, the men placed winches in strategic locations, and with their mountain ingenuity managed to get their load around the hazardous Spiva Bend without taking the engine apart. The next day the three men delivered the steam engine, all in one piece, to Mr. Jarrard at his place on Town Creek near Collins Mountain in White County, Georgia.

That day with Mr. Collins, we did not walk the seven-plus miles across Tesnatee Mountain to the south side of the old toll road. Instead, we drove Highway 129/19 southward across Neal Gap.

That route afforded more rich stories from Mr. Collins’s repertoire which I will retell at another time. Our destination was the south stretch of Logan Turnpike which we accessed by going Kellam Valley Road leading off Highway 129/19 north of Cleveland, Georgia.

Homer Nix and a Miss Satterfield are pictured in front of the old Logan Inn on the south end of the Logan Turnpike in 1920. Records show that the fiery South Carolina senator, and later vice-president of the U. S., John C. Calhoun of SC, made this inn his place to spend nights as he traveled to and from Lumpkin County to check on his gold interests there.

There, at the spot of the old Logan Inn, which today is the location of a private dwelling, we were welcomed inside by the owner, Mrs. Marion Crawford who looked after her 98-year old mother, Mrs. Sarah Mathis Ethier. They knew the history of the old turnpike and were glad to share their knowledge and show us pictures.

Shadows of trees make an "X" marking the beginning of the old Logan Turnpike, a toll road that crossed Tesnatee Gap mountain from White County into Union County. This picture shows the south access of the old road that operated from 1821 through 1925.

We went to a tree, still marked with a sign reading “Logan Turnpike. Pay tolls here.” We were told that John C. Calhoun, famous in South Carolina and U. S. history, and other notables made the old Logan Inn their place of rest when they traveled the turnpike. (Picture courtesy Union County Historical Society)

A milestone in deciding toll fees came as a spunky lady named Roxanne Durfee of Atlanta came chugging northward in her Overland Country Club Roadster in 1917. When she stopped to pay the toll, the gatekeeper didn’t know what to charge her because hers was the first car and driver to seek access to the toll road. Finally, a fee of fifty cents was set, and Mrs. Durfee paid and went along her way. She somehow managed the hazardous curves, overheated brakes, frequent stops and frazzled nerves to arrive later at the Christopher Hotel on the square in Blairsville. She was a pioneer, paving the way for other motorized vehicles to cross Tesnatee on the Logan Turnpike.

As I walked portions of the old Logan Turnpike, I sensed a strong touch, a nexus with the past. Over this same road my grandfathers, Francis Jasper Collins and Elisha Bluford Dyer, and my own father, Jewel Marion Dyer, had taken wagon loads of produce from their Choestoe farms to barter on the market at Gainesville and exchange for “store-bought” goods.

I thought back even farther to the Old Union and Unicoi Turnpikes, parallel roads into the mountain region, over which earlier ancestors had traveled to settle on 160-acre land lots in the early 1830s.

I thanked Charles Roscoe Collins for being my excellent guide on the journey back into history, a delightful time-warp.

I heard a faint rattle in the bushes, and there, hopping along the old roadbed, was a gray rabbit, intent on getting as far away from us as possible.

Choestoe in the Cherokee language means “the dancing place of rabbits.” Poet Byron Herbert Reece wrote in his poem about the place:

We could believe they danced and wish them dancing;

They came to sport forever in the name our country bears,

One that the Indians gave it.

Even more real than the dance of the rabbits was hope that ‘sprang eternal’ in the hearts of mountain men and women—my ancestors, your ancestors. An old roadbed lies as a symbol of their faith and optimism, of their dreams, of the harsh realities they faced. All combined to make us, their descendants, what we are today.

If you go to seek out the old Logan Turnpike roadbed, closed to traffic in 1925 when Neal Gap (now Hwy 129/19) opened, maybe you, as I, will have a deeper appreciation of your roots and the forces that made us uniquely a proud and industrious mountain people.

c2004 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published Feb. 12, 2004 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

The Logan Turnpike

If you want to travel the Logan Turnpike today, you will have to walk over portions of it or use a two-wheeled vehicle. The present-day Richard Russell Scenic Highway basically is cut through the northern roadbed of the turnpike. At Tesnatee Gap, the Logan Turnpike led from Union County across the mountain into White County. If you access it from the south, Kellam Valley Road north of Cleveland, Georgia will lead you northward to the old turnpike. It was first known as the Union Turnpike.

It was my privilege in 1992, while the venerable Charles Roscoe Collins, better known to family and friends as “Ros,” was still able to travel and give his historical accounts, to spend a day with him and have him personally give me a tour of the Old Logan Turnpike. His knowledge and memories provided a colorful roadmap to places and times in our history which have long since vanished.

“I rode the turnpike many times with my father, James J. Collins, in our two-horse wagon,” Collins remembered. As a lad, his major job was braking the wagon on the steep inclines. He told of cutting blocks of wood to use as “scotches” for the wheels. One time, he cut pine saplings and tied them behind the wagon to impede speed on the steep grades. In the winter, he also traveled ahead of the wagon and broke ice in the streams so the horses could cross.

When he was about seventeen, his father allowed him to take the wagon and its precious cargo on the Logan Turnpike to Gainesville to market. Collins felt that he had indeed “arrived,” being entrusted with the wagoner’s job without adult supervision. His father had a country store and the cargo for the trip to Gainesville included live chickens, farm produce, chestnuts and chinquapins in season, and cured animal pelts. These were items the country folk had brought to the Collins store to trade for “store-bought” items. Likewise, in Gainesville, Ros Collins bartered what he had hauled from Choestoe at the wholesale houses for coffee, sugar, cloth, shoes and other items which his father would sell in their store. Barter was the name of the game and adventure was par for the course. The round trip on these trading ventures took five days.

In tracing the history of the turnpike, this notation was found in the “Digest of Laws for the State of Georgia” for 1821: “John Lyon, Joel Dickerson and Company shall hereafter be a body corporate by the name and style of the Union Turnpike Company, for the purpose of constructing a turnpike road from Loudsville in Habersham County, through the Tesnatee Gap in the Blue Ridge Mountains, by way of Blairsville to some eligible point on the northern boundary of this state in a direction toward the Tellico Plains in the state of Tennessee.”

Specifications called for the turnpike to be twenty feet wide with a causeway of twelve feet. No railroad or other road or canal could be built within ten miles of the turnpike for fifteen years.

Since, in 1821, Indians were still in the area, it is reasonable to assume that the turnpike followed an Indian trail. The Union Turnpike was finished the same year it was chartered. A companion road, the Old Unicoi Turnpike to the east, paralleled the Union Turnpike. Unicoi was chartered in 1813 and led from North Carolina across Unicoi Gap, through the Nacoochee Valley and into present-day Clarkesville. Clearing for the Unicoi Turnpike began in 1812.

These two roads, the Union and the Unicoi, were used by early settlers arriving in the area. Once settled, the pioneers made good use of the roads as trade routes.

The Union Turnpike became the Logan Turnpike because of the Logan family. Francis Logan migrated from Rutherford County, NC, traveling over the Unicoi Turnpike. He settled on March 10, 1822 in Nacoochee Valley. His land grant was north of Cleveland in the Loudsville Community. He married Hulda Powell on August 12, 1825.

Certain events have a way of setting off a chain reaction. In 1828 one of Francis Logan’s slaves found a gold nugget along Duke’s Creek with a weight of more than three ounces. This set off the famous North Georgia Gold Rush. More gold was found along the Chattahoochee River, at Hamby’s Ford, at Bean Creek and at Black Branch. Soon thousands of gold-hungry prospectors were digging for the precious metal. When found (and they did find gold in them hills), the ore had to be taken to the nearest mint, Bechtler’s, in Rutherford County, North Carolina. Both the Unicoi and the Union Turnpikes were used to transport the gold northward to the mint. Later, as the gold rush escalated, a U. S. Mint was established at Dahlonega, Georgia.

Francis Logan had a son named Major Willis Logan. He had extensive land holdings south of the mountains in western White County. Records show that Major Logan purchased all rights to the Union Turnpike for $3,000. The road then took the name Logan after the man who bought it. He had a charter and operated the road for thirty years. Members of his family continued to operate it until Neel Gap opened up in 1925 with US Highway 129 and the Logan Turnpike was no longer needed.

Logan Turnpike was seven and one-half miles over the mountain, from Loudsville in White County, northward across Tesnatee Gap, by Ponder Post Office and on into Choestoe where it connected with the old Union Turnpike. Stagecoaches traveled from Augusta, Georgia to Tennessee. Major Logan operated a stagecoach inn that took in overnight boarders and offered meals. Tolls were charged. The tollgate was near Logan’s Inn.
[Next week: More on the Logan Turnpike.]

c2004 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published Feb. 5, 2004 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.