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.

Early Settlers in Union County with Ledford Surname

A search of the 1834 (first) census of the newly-formed Union County (founded 1832) did not yield any citizens listed in the 147 households and 903 population with the surname Ledford.

However, by the 1840 census, when Mr. John Butt, Jr. made his way to all the households he found to register heads of household and number of males and females with the general ages within those residencies, he located four households with the name Ledford.

Ledford is an interesting name, seems to be English in origin, and is what is termed a “habitational” name, with those bearing it having come from a particular location in the old country known by the name. The “ford” part is easy to determine. People would have lived by or near a ford in a stream. We wonder, then, was Led, the first syllable, from the name of a stream? Actually, yes. The Lyd River flowed through Somerset and Devon in England, and was known as “a noisy stream.” The Old English Lyd meant just that. But in Surrey, people were called Latchfords who lived by the stream there. Eventually, through the standardization of English spellings, the surname settled into Ledford, those who lived by the ford by the River Lyd.

The first of the Ledford ancestors of some of those who eventually settled in the new Union County, Georgia seem to be descendants of the John Ledford who came from England to North Carolina about 1763.

By the 1840 census in Union County, Georgia, there were four households of Ledfords enumerated. This writer was not able to learn the relationship, if any, between these four Ledford households. They could have been brothers, cousins or otherwise related.

Benjamin Ledford had nine in his household in 1840—six males and three females. He and his wife were both listed in the age category of “40 and under 50.”

Thomas Ledford had six males and two females in his household. He and his wife were “thirty and under forty.”

William Ledford had three males and six females in his household. He was “forty and under fifty” and his wife was “thirty and under forty.”

The fourth Ledford household was that of George, who had five males and three females. He was “thirty and under forty,” and his wife was in that same age category. Therefore, we count and find that 20 males and 15 females, or a total of 35 Ledfords made their home in Union in 1840.

Moving to the 1850 Union County census, it is interesting to note whether the same households are listed again, and if any other Ledford households have been set up within the ten-year period. It is noteworthy, too, that by the 1850 census, the government had made the decision to list not only the heads-of-households, but the spouse and children, the ages, and where each member of the household had been born.

Let’s take a look at Ledford households in the 1850 Union Census, from which we learn much more information. The only household with the same-named head of household in 1850 as in the 1840 census was that of Benjamin. Whether Thomas, William and George were going by another given name by 1850 is not known. But households, according to the information given to Mr. Butt, the census taker in 1850, were headed by Silas, Porter, David, Benjamin, and James.

Silas Ledford and his wife, spelled Deilly (Delia ?) lived in household # 53. He was 28, had been born in North Carolina, his wife, 29, had been born in South Carolina, and they had been in Georgia at least five years, because their oldest child and the three others listed were all born in Georgia. Their children were Thomas, 5, Benjamin, 4, Caroline, 2, and Louisa, 1. We learn from other research that Silas was a son of Benjamin and Grace Owenby Ledford, the one settler from the 1840 census who had remained in Union County. My curiosity turned me to the Union County marriage records where I found this listing: Silas Ledford married Dolly Elmiry Bowling in Union County on December 19, 1841, with the Rev. Elisha Hedden performing the ceremony. The census-taker’s spelling, “Deilly,” therefore should have been “Dolly” for Silas’s wife’s name.

Household # 54, next door to Silas and Dolly, had the family of Porter Ledford, age 23, born in North Carolina, his wife, Temarina, age 20, also born in North Carolina, and their four-month old baby, Marion. Again, the Union County marriage records yielded the date of this couple’s marriage—August 28, 1848, when Thomas Ervin, a justice-of-the-peace performed the ceremony. The bride’s name was Damaris A. Rogers. Again, this helps us correct a misspelling from the census record of “Temarina” to Damaris. Porter Ledford was the sixth child of Silas and Dolly Ledford, and was given the name Porter after his maternal grandfather, Porter Owenby.

Household 87 was home to David Ledford, age 31, born in North Carolina, and his wife Jane, 35, also born in North Carolina. They had been in Union County less than two years in 1850, for their four listed children, Rachel, 9, Marion, 6, Hardy, 4, and Madison, 2, had all been born in North Carolina.

In 1850, the household of Benjamin Ledford, age 50, born in North Carolina, was listed as # 133 in the enumeration. Living there were his wife, 51, born in North Carolina, and listed as “Racy,” an unusual name, to say the least. Make that an error in entry, which probably should have been Gracy, or Grace—Grace Owenby Ledford, whom Benjamin married in North Carolina before moving to the Ivy Log section of Union County, Georgia sometime before 1840. In Benjamin and Grace’s household in 1850 were two children still at home, Vianna, age 20 and Benjamin (Jr.?), 11, both born in North Carolina. Registered in their household was another female, Caroline Brown, age 19, born in North Carolina.

A young man, Jacob Ledford, age 20, was listed as living in Household 475 with Eli Henson and Elizabeth Henson and their three children, James, 7, Archibald, 5, and Jacob, 1.

In household # 619 were James Ledford, 35, born in North Carolina, his wife, Nancy, 32, also born in North Carolina. Their first three children, Caroline 10, LaFayette 7 and Lucious, 6, were born in North Carolina, but Asberry, 4, and Jane, 1, were born in Georgia.

The last of the Ledford households appearing in the 1850 Union census was that of the family or Hiram Ledford, 47, and his wife, Mary, 47, both born in North Carolina. They had seven children listed as still living at home in 1850, all born in North Carolina: John, 25, Spencer, 22, Marion, 15, James, 12, George, 10, Hiram, 8, and Alexander, 5. They had evidently moved to Union County after 1845 since Alexander was not born in Georgia.

These families were the beginnings of the Ledfords who remained in Union and Towns counties of upper Georgia. We will follow some of them in subsequent accounts.



c2011 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published Aug. 18, 2011 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Hix and Caroline Burgess Souther’s Second Child and His Family:Two Southers Joined—Jesse Wilburn and Mary Delia

Last week we looked at “A Dream Deferred,” how Hix and Caroline Burgess Souther moved to Union County, Georgia from North Carolina about 1840, and how Hix died not long after they settled here. His widow, Caroline Burgess Souther, married Rollin (Roland?) Wimpey, combining their families, moving on to Gilmer County, Georgia where they had three children born to them, thus combining her family of three children and his family of three children with their own children, Martha, Robert and Andrew Wimpey.

The focus of this story will be that of Hix and Caroline Burgess Souther’s second child, Jesse Wilburn Souther, born November 11, 1840 in McDowell County, North Carolina who died March 6, 1920. Both he and his wife, Mary Delia Souther (May 1, 1858 – Nov. 15, 1915) reared their family in Union County. Interment for this couple was at New Liberty Baptist Church Cemetery on land that Mary Delia’s father, John Souther (he was also Jesse Wilburn’s uncle) gave for a cemetery and church site.

When Jesse Wilburn Souther’s widowed mother, Caroline Burgess Souther, married Rollin Wimpey on August 25, 1844, Jesse Wilburn was not quite four years old. We know that the couple moved, with her children and his children, six, all very young, “little stair-steps” as we would say, six and under. They moved to Gilmer County, Georgia and settled in the Gates Chapel section of that county where Rollin Wimpey farmed. From there, some of the Southers later moved to Whitfield County, Georgia and settled in the Deep Springs section north of Dalton.

Jesse Wilburn Souther joined the Confederacy in May, 1862 and fought in the Civil War in Company F, 60th Regiment of Georgia, Gordon’s Brigade. He was wounded in 1864, losing one of his fingers. A family photograph with his wife and four of their eight children shows a finger missing from his right hand. He was on the pension list of 1893.

We have no record of the courtship of Jesse Wilburn Souther and his first cousin, Mary Delia Souther, daughter of J. W.’s uncle and aunt, John and Mary “Polly” Combs Souther. Perhaps they became attracted to each other as Jesse Wilburn visited his uncle after his mother moved to Gilmer County. After the Civil War, and following Jesse Wilburn’s recovery from his wound that took a finger, we learn from Union County marriage records that he and Delia married on September 17, 1868. They made their home on Choestoe near New Liberty Baptist Church, probably on land where Jesse Wilburn’s uncle John had settled in the 1830’s. Jesse Wilburn and Mary Delia Souther had eight children as follows:

William Leason Souther (1869-1948) married Elizabeth Goforth

Johnathan Hix Souther (1871 – 1957) married Julia Vesta Woodring 1869-1950)

Bailey William Souther (1876- 1956) married Lydia Plott (1882-1969)

Jesse Benjamin Souther (1876-1964) married Dovie Caroline Townsend (1883-1975) Emory Spier Souther (1878 - ?) married Iowa Nicholson

James Henry Souther (1881 - 1958) never married

Daniel Loransey Souther (1883 – 1961) married (1) Alice Collins and (2)Dora Collins

Mary Elizabeth “Mollie” Souther (1886-1910) never married

Several of Jesse Wilburn and Mary Delia Souther’s children moved to Colorado and other points west. Leason and Elizabeth Goforth Souther homesteaded in Upper Disappointment Valley near Norwood, Colorado. But they got to that location by moving first from Choestoe to Mulberry, Arkansas, then to Montrose, Colorado and finally to Disappointment Valley. Despite its name, that area proved to be a good place for Leason and Elizabeth to homestead. They raised cattle there and Leason had a postal route from Norwood to Cedar, Colorado for sixteen years in addition to his ranching operations. Leason and Elizabeth had seven children, three of whom died in infancy and four of whom lived to adulthood, married and had families.

Johnathan Hix (Hicks) Souther and his wife, Julia Vesta Woodring Souther, also went to the Upper Disappointment Valley near Norwood, Colorado and settled there around 1900. However, they did not remain in Colorado but moved back east to Towns and/or Union, County, Georgia with their children Garnie (?), Ambrose, Esta and Gordon. His obituary (clipping, undated by person who saved it, 1957) stated that he was “a life-long resident of Union County,” but this statement was in error. His funeral was held at New Liberty Baptist Church with the Revs. Henry Brown, Tom Smith and John Thomas officiating. There is not a marked tombstone for him at New Liberty. His son Gordon and Gordon’s wife Thelma Ensley Souther were both interred at Harmony Grove Cemetery, Union County.

Bailey William Souther (1873-1956) migrated to Pueblo, Colorado in 1890. He worked as a carpenter and farmer. He cut and sold the first crossties used for laying the rail line to Telluride, Colorado. He returned to Towns County and married Lydia Plott (1882-1969) in Young Harris on February 2, 1901. Their children were Vernon, Arnold, Elizabeth Lillian and Mary Delia. They went back to Colorado where they made their home in Eaton. They were buried in the Eaton Cemetery.

Jesse Benjamin Souther (1876-1964) married Dovie Caroline Townsend (1883-1975) in Union County, Georgia on July 30, 1903. Like his siblings before him, Ben Souther went west as a young man, and the first child, Bertha Edna, was born in Telluride, San Miguel County, Colorado in 1904. They returned to Georgia where son Paul Wilburn was born in 1906, Pearl Iowa was born in 1909, Mary Lee was born in 1911. They went back west for another few years and Gladys Delphane was born in Colorado in 1913. About the time World War I ended, Ben Souther moved his family back to Georgia, settling in the Gum Log section of Union County. Gladys died at age six in 1919 and was buried at Ebenezer Baptist Church Cemetery. Ben and Dovie Souther were buried at Old Union Cemetery, Young Harris.

Emory Spier Souther (1878 - ?) married Iowa Nicholson. They had one child, a daughter born about 1911, named Emorie for her father. Emory Souther was a dentist and a pianist. This family lived in Cheyenne Wells, Colorado and later at Eads in the same state. Emorie had made application to teach school in Georgia, evidently wanting to live in the state where her father was born. However, she got a bad boil on a thigh and contracted blood poisoning. She died January 5, 1937 and was buried in Eads, Colorado. Emorie, with her father’s penchant for music, was a good pianist and singer. Family reports are that Emory Souther died in the Murphy, NC Hospital while visiting his brother, Johnathan Hicks Souther, and was buried in New Liberty Baptist Church Cemetery. However, there is not a marked tombstone there for Emory Souther.

James Henry Souther (Dec. 4, 1881- Oct. ?, 1958) never married. He went to Colorado and was living in Eaton when he died in 1958.

Daniel Loransey Souther (1883-1961) was married twice and had children by each spouse. Alice Collins (1893-1919), daughter of Joseph Newton Collins and Sarah Melissa Nix Collins and Daniel Loransey Souther were married August 31, 1913 in Union County, Georgia. Their children were Thomas Roy Souther (1915-1994) and Jesse Clyde Souther (b/d August 26, 1918). Alice died in 1919. “Ransey” Souther married Dora Iowa Collins (1900-1989), daughter of Isaac and Josephine Hunter Collins in Union County on March 26, 1922. Their children were Blain, J. D., Reba, Mamie Eulene and James Ralph. Like his siblings, Daniel Loransey Souther lived and worked in the area of Weld County, Colorado. He died January 17, 1962 and was buried in the Eaton, Colorado Cemetery. [Note: This Ransey Souther should not be confused with Frank Loransey Souther (1881-1937) son of William Albert Souther and Elizabeth “Hon” Dyer Souther, who served as a US Marshal in North Georgia, Alcohol and Tax Unit, from 1920-1937.]

Jesse Wilburn and Mary Delia Souther’s eighth and last child, Mary Elizabeth (1886-1910) never married. She preceded her parents in death and was buried at the New Liberty Baptist Church Cemetery, Blairsville, dying before her 24th birthday.

Resources for information on the family of Jesse Wilburn Souther and Mary Delia Souther were Watson Benjamin Dyer’s “Souther Family History” (1988) and Dianalee Reynolds Gregar’s “Souther Lines,” (1998), covering especially the “Western” Southers. It takes special people and careful research to dig through countless records to compile family histories.

c2011 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published Aug. 11, 2011 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Dreams Deferred: Hix Souther and Caroline Burgess Souther

Sometime in 1840, Hix Souther (May 7, 1815 – ca 1843) and his wife, Caroline Burgess Souther (1812 - ?) left their home near Old Fort, North Carolina, and migrated to Choestoe in Union County. The lure to move was partially initiated by the fact that Hix Souther already had siblings Joseph, John, Kizziah and Jesse Souther who had migrated to Union County, Georgia earlier. The lure of land and a better way of life enticed this couple to pursue their dreams and move. Little did they know that the move would meet with heartache and change, become a dream deferred.

Hix Souther, born in 1815, was the eighth of eleven known children of Jesse Souther (1774-1858) and Jane Combs Souther (1782-1858) who lived in Wilkes County, NC. Hix married Caroline Burgess in North Carolina, probably in 1837. The young couple had two children before the lure of moving hit them with force. Catherine Saphronia Souther was born in North Carolina in 1838 and Jesse Wilburn Souther was born there on November 11, 1840. When Jesse Wilburn was a baby, the couple moved to Georgia, settling near Hix’s brother John in Choestoe. A third child, son John Jefferson Souther, was born in Union County, Georgia after his parents moved from North Carolina. His birth date has been given as 1841 or 1842.

Hix Souther may have worked on the farm of his brother, John Souther, or at the mill established by another brother, Jesse Souther. A third brother, Joseph Souther who married Sarah Davis also had settled in Union County and owned land and a farm. Hix’s sister, Kizziah Souther Humphries and her husband John Humphries, had also migrated to Union and settled here. Two of Hix’s grown nephews, sons of his brother James Souther, namely James Logan Souther and John “Rink” Souther had also settled in Union County; but these two nephews would soon move west to Colorado, seeking their fortunes there.

But how was the dream of Hix and Caroline Burgess Souther deferred when they seemed to have much going for them—a new place to live, surrounded by kinfolks in a supportive community? Hix became suddenly ill. We know not the nature of his disease or what took his life in 1843 or early 1844. He died, leaving Caroline with three young children. He was buried in a family grave plot, his being the first grave dug “in a pasture on a hill north of John Souther’s house” on Choestoe. Later, some of John’s children were buried in the same family plot: Kizziah Souther (who was named for John’s sister, Kizziah Souther Humphries) who died May 16, 1845; his son, Alfred Hix Souther (1839-June 11, 1849); and Nancy (1844-1864). The markings of filed stones have disappeared from the grave sites. Now we are trying to establish the exact burial site of Hix Souther, husband of Caroline Burgess Souther, and his two nieces and one nephew.

Legal documents show that Joseph Souther and John Souther were appointed administrators of the estate of Hix Souther on September 3, 1844, each giving a bond of $1,000. For reasons unknown, John Souther was made sole administrator of Hix Souther’s will on December 5, 1844. An inventory of the estate was made. It showed that the amount of $500 was still owed on parts of Land Lots 86 and 87, which, we assume by this entry, Hix Souther was buying. The will was probated in court on February 5, 1845, Spencer Burnett, Ordinary. But settlement, as we will see, was not over.

Bereft as a widow, and no doubt facing financial difficulties, Caroline Burgess Souther turned to her (widower) neighbor, Rollin (or Roland?) Wimpey, who himself was left with three small children to rear, namely William D. Wimpey, Daniel Wimpey, and Roland D. Wimpey, Jr. Union County marriage records show that Rollin Wimpey and Caroline Souther(n) [misspelling of her last name in records] were married August 25, 1844, with the Rev. John Prewitt officiating at the ceremony.

Family stories hold that the Southers thought Hix’s widow too quickly married after her husband’s death. Since we have not found an exact date of his death (whether 1843 or early 1844), we don’t know how many months she mourned her husband’s passing before she wed Rollin (or Roland D. Wimpey, Sr.) in August of 1844. The reports passed down are to the effect that “there was a lot of dissatisfaction in the family.”

Roland Wimpey, Sr. (also noted as Rollin) and Caroline Burgess Souther Wimpey moved from Union County to Gilmer County, Georgia. In the 1860 census of Gilmer County, the household of R. A. (the initial had been rendered D. in earlier records)Wimpey was listed, he as age 47 and born in South Carolina, and his wife Caroline, age 42, born in North Carolina. Evidently Caroline’s daughter, Catherine Saphronia was already married to Frank Wells and gone from Roland and Caroline’s household by 1860, for she was not listed as a resident. But Caroline’s sons, Jesse Wilburn Souther (age 21, b. NC) and John Jefferson Souther (age 17, b. GA), as well as Roland’s children, William D. Wimpey, age 15, Daniel Wimpey, age 13, and Roland B. Wimpey, age 12, all three born in Georgia, and younger children Martha J. Wimpey (8), Robert Wimpey (6), and Andrew Wimpey (2) made up this household of ten people.

Court records show that Catherine Saphronia Souther, Hix and Caroline’s daughter, sued her uncle John Souther and received a settlement from her father’s estate of $176.00 on March 30, 1860. In other court action, one Lorenzo Spivey of Gilmer County sued for “his part” of the Hix Souther estate and received $69.62 “in full payment” on May 1, 1861. Who was Lorenzo Spivey? This person was not listed in the Inventory of the Hix Souther estate as one to whom Hix owed money, but must have been one of those noted thusly: “etc.—other sales not listed here,” to whom Hix Souther, at his death, owed money.

A dream deferred? Yes. I can imagine that Hix and Caroline Souther moved to Union County, Georgia with great hopes for their young family. But death visited their home soon, taking the breadwinner, husband and father, Hix Souther. Caroline did what she could to get her life back on track. Now a host of descendants from her and Hix’s three children would like to find the gravesite of one Hix Souther “buried on a hill north of John Souther’s home” and marked with a field stone that has long since been moved or disappeared with time and the elements.

c2011 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published Aug. 4, 2011 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

On the Farm…Threshing Time

Threshing time was important on our farm in Union County, Georgia during my growing-up days. I have two distinct memories of how we went about doing this task when the grain was cut, shocked to dry, and hauled to the barn awaiting the threshing.

If our crop was small, not much planted in either wheat or rye, we did threshing in the old-fashioned way, flailing the grain.

This was accomplished by spreading a canvas sheet on the ground and placing grain on it. Then, with another sheet over the grain, we took sticks and beat out the seeds, a process we called flailing. Before we put another supply of grain on the sheet to be flailed, the grain we had beaten out had to be separated from the straw and scooped up into containers for winnowing later. This process of beating a small amount at the time went on until our whole crop of wheat or rye was separated from the seed pods.

The winnowing, or getting the chaff out of the grain, was done by holding the bucket or other container at shoulder level on a day with a little breeze so the chaff would blow out of the grain as it fell from shoulder-level onto the winnowing cloth. All of this process was tedious and took much handling of the grain by hand. The grain was forced into a pile at the center of the cloth. Then it was picked up after the winnowing and stored in containers or special grain bins in the barn.

Then the threshing machine came to our community, and farmers grew larger fields of grain because the process of getting the grain from the pods was less time-consuming. My grandfather, Francis Jasper Collins, whom all the community—and even the county, for he had been a representative to the Georgia Legislature in earlier years—was the first in Choestoe to get a threshing machine. He purchased the machine before I was born, but in my childhood, I can remember “the threshers” coming. At first, I have been told, and an old faded photograph shows this, Grandpa pulled his threshing machine with a steer team, and somehow had it hooked up so that the animals provided the power to operate the machine, with necessary pulleys and belts.

Later he purchased a gasoline-powered tractor with huge steel wheels. This became the means of his pulling the threshing machine from farm to farm and also provided the power necessary to operate the thresher. The threshing team made stops at the farms on the circuit that had grain to be threshed. It was a sort of carnival day at our farm when all the threshing gear and the workers arrived. My mother and the neighborhood women—for they helped each other—depending on which farm was on schedule for the day’s work—fed the workers a great spread of food at the noon meal which we called dinner then.

I can remember the noise of the tractor’s operation and the threshing machine’s “putt-putt” forcing the grain from the pods and sending it down a chute to be collected in bushel measures. I was fascinated to see the straw blown out of the chute and stacking up. One worker with a pitchfork moved it to a growing pile to the side of the machine.

After the excitement of the day, the hard work but party-like atmosphere, and the enjoyable “threshing day” meal, we had work to do after the threshing machine moved on to its next location. Always after the fresh straw had been stacked up, we filled the freshly-washed bed ticks (straw mattresses) with the newly-threshed, sweet-smelling straw. On top of this straw mattress, our beds also had feather beds, another mattress filled with duck down. If we had allergies to fresh straw and duck feathers in those days, we never gave those maladies a thought.

Until the wheat and rye were used up, shortly before the next year’s harvest, we enjoyed breads made from home grown grains that had been ground into the respective flour at Souther mill, about a mile from our farm.

Remembering the practices on the farm of my childhood days, they all seem like a world removed from our present age of “store-bought” goods and prepared and preserved foods. Life in those days was filled with much hard work and a savvy for neighbor helping neighbor. “One good turn deserves another” was a well-practiced adage in our community as I grew up. The remembered sounds of the old steel-wheeled tractor chugging up the road and the operation of the threshing machine settled for the happy work day on our farm still produce music to my ears.

c2011 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published July 28, 2011 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

On the Farm - Sorghum Syrup Making

Sorghum syrup making was an important aspect of our production on my father’s farm. It was one of our major money crops of the year. In addition to our having fields of cane to be made into syrup, he also made syrup “on-the-shares” for other farmers who hauled their downed cane crops to my father’s mill for him to make into syrup in the fall. It was a hard six-weeks’ course of work, six days per week.

Much getting-ready for the work preceded the actual time of sorghum syrup making. In last week’s column, I mentioned how the wood to fuel the furnace had to be cut, hauled to a location near the furnace, and stacked in readiness for the weeks of boiling the syrup. If the wood supply was not ready in advance, there certainly would not be any time to gather it in after the actual process of syrup-making began.

My father had to make necessary repairs to the mill, the furnace and the long copper boiler in which he cooked the cane juice to make syrup. The heavy vertical rollers that squeezed the juice from the stalks of cane had to be oiled and in good mechanical condition. The lever that pulled the rollers had to be examined and the traces for hitching the mules made sturdy. The wooden boxes for catching and straining the cane juice must be in good repair and chinked so that they would not leak. The iron pipes through which the juice flowed downward toward the boiler likewise had to be attached properly and in good order. The long copper boiler, with its wooden dividers likewise had to be taken from storage, examined for any needed repairs to the copper bottom or the dividers, and cleaned thoroughly. The furnace was inspected to make sure it had withstood a year’s idleness and had no stones amiss or chinks unfilled. Then the boiler was placed gingerly on top of the long furnace and filled with clear water awaiting that final washing before the first “run” of syrup.

There was preparation, too for getting ready to gather the cane from the field. If it had been a good year and no storms had downed the tall stalks of cane that filled acres in the fields, the cane fodder could be stripped off easily with slender hand strippers that looked like two-sided swords. My father fashioned a dozen or so of these using hardwood to make the strippers, and cutting each side to a slender sharpness. However, I can remember, later on, he could actually either make or purchase metal strippers for cane-stripping. These did not dull so easily and made this task of harvesting the cane more efficient. However, if a heavy windstorm had occurred, the cane field would be twisted and damaged so that it had to be cut down and stripped by hand. This was always a tedious task.

To cut the stalks of cane, we used long-handled scythes especially designed for cutting the tall stalks of cane near the ground. The scythes especially fashioned, with shorter blades than those required to cut grain, had to be well-sharpened. It took two people for this cutting operation--one to hold an armload of cane and the other to cut it with the scythe. The cane would be laid in piles on the ground, several feet apart. The next workers, the cane-head cutters, would come along next and cut off the seed pods at the top of the cane. The seeds, too, were placed in neat piles beside each stack of cut cane, because the seeds were used to grind into a cane-seed meal to supplement animals’ feed--or else the cane seeds were sold.

The stripped, deheaded cane was loaded into a wagon and hauled to the syrup mill. Since my father made not only his own cane but also for other farmers in the community, he would designate (and remember) which stack belonged to which farmer as they brought their crop to his mill for processing. He would ask those who brought the cane to stagger bringing it, or he would know about which day he could get to their loads of cane so that it would not lie too long at the mill and dry out. It took good calculation to figure the time required for making the various farmers’ crops. But the cane had to be cut before frost or the syrup would not be good.

In advance, he would have to engage people to help with the process of gathering the cane and manning the syrup mill, and he also hired other teams of mules from nighboring farmers to pull the syrup mill grinder, as the work for these animals was grueling and hard. He used a team for only about three hours and allowed them to rest.

He hired one or two men or older boys to feed the mill--put the cane through the rollers to extract the juice. Another had the task of keeping the cane chews (or ground stalks) placed away from the mill in a huge pile of refuse. A third person assisted him at the boiler, although he himself--for the long six or more weeks’ duration of syrup-making-- boiled the syrup. The other boiler worker would stoke the furnace and measure out cooked syrup. My father trusted only his eye and learned knowledge of syrup-making to know when it was ready for the strainer barrel as good-quality, cooked syrup. He taught my two brothers and others how to boil syrup to the right degree. He could tell by how the syrup looked at the “lower” end of the boiler, and also would lift the wooden stirring block and let the syrup drip off. If it made a certain string to his liking, it was done and would be quality syrup.

The cooked syrup was measured from the retaining barrel into pint, quart and gallon continental cans (or buckets). Later, it became popular to put it in glass jars, pints and quarts. Sometimes buyers would come to the syrup mill and buy the whole day’s yield while it was still warm in the buckets (and later jars). If we had no buyers, we always had to take the syrup to a storage barn on the farm to place it in safety until it could be taken to Gainesville to market or until a regular buyer would come to purchase a load. And for the “on shares” making for others, my father got (as I recall) one gallon out of four or five (20% to 25%) that he made, depending on the cost of workers he had to hire and other expenses of operating the mill.

Syrup-making time was a hard six-or more-weeks period every fall. But we earned enough for paying taxes on our farm, purchasing clothing for our winter use, and maybe some money to spare for other essentials. It was hard work, but a time of socializing, too, as we always had visitors at the syrup mill, watching the operations and passing the time of day. And oh, the good eating, all year long, as we made gingerbread sweetened with sorghum syrup, and had syrup to eat with hot homemade biscuits fresh from the oven. Life couldn’t get any better than that!

c2011 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published July 21, 2011 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

On the Farm—Interim Tasks Between ‘Laying-By’ and Harvest

Someone recently asked me, “What did you do between ‘laying-by’ of crops and time for harvest on the farm? Did you have some time off for vacations?”

Vacation was not a part of our vocabulary on the mountain farm where I grew up—not for us who lived on the farm, anyway. Yes. Our “city cousins” had a vacation, and oftentimes spent it with us and other farm relatives in the mountains. For these once-a-year visitors, their week or two weeks on the farm were to be a time of industry for them—when they would be taught how to milk the cows, feed and care for the animals, gather the vegetables from the garden and the fruit from the trees which defined our daily work in the “interim season” to provide food for the table.

Maybe we would find a little time to go to the Nottely River that flowed through our farm bottomlands and there play in the water and learn to swim. But there were dangers, too. We were warned to avoid deep holes and swift-flowing areas that could easily upset one’s balance and prove a hazard. And in late afternoon, we would take our fishing poles, an adventure the city cousins loved, and go back to the river to try our luck at hooking some fish. If it was a good “biting” day for the fish, we might catch enough for a fish fry for supper, always a treat. But I need to explain that the city cousins were appalled that we had to dig earthworms—and handle them, no less—to provide our bait for the fish hooks we used on a lead-weighted line attached to a pole cut from the canebreak along the river. They, no matter how much I taught them about baiting their hooks, would never thread the earthworm onto the hook. When cousins were present, I seldom ever got to fish myself, a past time I thoroughly enjoyed doing (earthworms and all!). My job was to keep their fishhooks baited and, if they caught a fish, to remove it from their line and place it on the forked stick we used to stash our catch until we went to the house to clean our fish and prepare them for the fresh fish fry supper.

But there were other interim tasks in our summers apart from entertaining our city cousins who were getting a little taste of what farm life was like, even in the more slowly-paced days of summer. In last week’s column, I told about the summer session of school and how we had classes at Choestoe School (and this was typical of the other country schools throughout Union County and the mountain region). We had to go to school, so the visiting cousins who were out of school because it was summer could choose either to go with us to school (visitors were welcomed then, but were subject to the same rigid discipline as were we regular students), or else they could stay home and follow my father on his many tasks of interim work between the time of ceasing cultivation (‘laying-by’) and harvest.

A very necessary task on our farm was to get ready for fall sorghum-syrup making, a period of at least six-weeks stretch of time. Six hard days a week, my father manned our syrup mill and saw to making about 3,000 gallons of sorghum annually, from his own cane patches and that of other farmers within our region. And to get ready for that fall task, there were necessary jobs to do.

First, a large pile of slabs and long firewood had to be hauled and stacked near the furnace of the syrup mill to provide fuel for cooking the syrup. Occasionally, we had a “traveling sawmill,” that is, a sawmill owned by someone else that set down for a while to saw timber from our own forest. The by-products of this operation were the “slabs,” or long pieces of bark and outer portions of trees that were first sawn off from a log and stacked to the side for just the express purpose of using later for fuel at the syrup mill or in our own household winter fires. These slabs were loaded on the farm wagon and taken to the syrup mill and stacked neatly for use in the furnace. These were especially useful, since they were cured, for starting the fire. But because they were cured, they would burn very quickly and had to be supplemented by “green” wood.

And this “green” wood, or uncured wood, had to be cut from standing trees, usually stunted or less-promising for timber. The workers used cross-cut saws, trimmed off limbs with axes, and cut the trees into either furnace lengths, or if the wood would be used for fireplaces or the wood cook stove, cut into proper lengths for these. Again, this newly-cut “green” wood would be loaded into wagon and moved to its destination near the syrup mill or the woodpile near the house.

With the wood cut, or in the case of “slabs,” retrieved from the sawmill, and hauled and stacked neatly awaiting use later in the fall and winter, one major “interim” job on the farm was finished.

Then my father (and other farmers in our area) directed their energies and attention to such interim but necessary tasks as fence-mending, barn and farm building repairs, and general upkeep, whether “cutting the branch or river banks,” (trimming the growth of weeds and sprouts that had to be kept under control beside streams), or helping a neighbor (or having oneself) a “roof-raising.” And this did not mean, as is commonly known now, a disagreement or argument of unfriendly nature. It was neighbor-helping-neighbor to put a new shingle roof on a barn or even a dwelling house, or perhaps to assist in building another corn crib or peripheral building on the farm. And another task I’ve left unlisted: cutting oak timber of good quality, and sawing logs into shingle-length, then riving (as this process was called) shingles from the logs, stacking so that air could flow through them to dry them, to provide wooden roof shingles for houses and farm buildings.

And always there was the “putting-up,” the preserving of vegetables, fruits, grains and dried peas and beans for winter use. This entailed gathering, canning, pickling and drying. Sometimes the processes turned into sociable gatherings as neighbor helped neighbor with these food preservation tasks.

Poet Byron Herbert Reece expressed well in his poem, “The Stay-at-Home” (from The Season of Flesh, Dutton, 1955, p. 34) this interim period between end-of-cultivation and fall harvest. There was no time to wander from the farm and take a vacation. Work was demanding and year-round:

“The fields of Hughly held him,

The land where he was born.

With fence to men and cows to tend

And care of wheat and corn.

He had no leif to wander

Beyond his place of birth,

But often he would ponder

The luring lands of earth.”

And so interim times on the farm passed, with necessary tasks accomplished, marked off one-by-one in the long list of things to do. Those thus bound to the soil “Who often thought of going/But had the will to stay”* did just that: they stayed and they worked. And there was a deep love for the soil, for the toil, for the ties that bound to the land, the people, independence and the way of life.

(*Reece: “The Stay-at-Home”, lines 13, 14).

c2011 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published July 14, 2011 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.