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.

Blairsville Collegiate Institute

The Blairsville Collegiate Institute held a good record for providing education for youth of the mountain region from 1905 through 1930. Its twenty-five years of operation touched many lives for good and provided the impetus for many to pursue education beyond what the boarding school offered.

During the school year 1928 and 1929, my uncle, Dr. Norman Vester Dyer, served as president of Blairsville Collegiate Institute. In publicity and the collegiate catalog he released that year, he had a history of the school. From his historical sketch, I have compiled this account of the school.

About 1904 a preacher named Rev. Theodore Swanson traveled through Union County and stopped in Choestoe at the residence of Bluford Elisha (“Bud”) Dyer to spend the night. Their conversation soon turned to education. Rev. Swanson was a “college man,” and much interested in lifting the level of the schools that then operated as one-teacher entities for a few months of the year in many of the communities Rev. Swanson visited. New Liberty School within the shadow of Enotah Bald was one of these schools. Mr. Dyer and Rev. Swanson talked of what it would take to expand New Liberty and make it into a high school.

Rev. Swanson took charge of New Liberty School and he and Mr. Dyer conferred almost daily about their dreams for the school. Dyer said he could furnish the lumber for any buildings necessary to expand the school.

A meeting was held at Choestoe Baptist Church. One of the men present, Mitch Swain, offered twenty acres of land on which to build the consolidated school. Rev. Swanson made arrangements with another friend to move a sawmill onto the Dyer farm. Volunteers eagerly went into the woods and cut timber to be sawed into lumber. It seemed that the school would soon be a reality.

Then in 1905 the Notla River Baptist Association met. The question arose of denominational sponsorship of the proposed high school. After much deliberation, and after hearing the report of a committee that had studied the proposal, the motion that Blairsville, a more central location to the whole county than Choestoe, be selected as the site.

Twenty acres of land were donated in Blairsville for the school campus. Colonel W. E. Candler and Colonel M. L. Ledford were strong proponents of the school and gave of their time, means and energy to bring the school to fruition. A building containing classrooms and administrative office was the first to be erected “situated on an elevated plain overlooking the little town of Blairsville.” Some of the lumber sawed at the B. E. Dyer farm was transported to Blairsville and used in the first building.

Mr. J. T. Walker served as the first principal. It was called Notla River Baptist High School until Professor J. R. Lunsford was elected principal in 1910 and served through 1913. The class of 1912 was the first to graduate, with Florence Bowling, Sallie Rogers and Ethel Walker as first graduates. It was during Mr. J. R. Lunsford’s tenure that the Home Mission Board began to lend support and the name was changed to Blairsville Collegiate Institute.

With help from the Board and from Notla River Baptist Association, a three-story dormitory building was erected in 1911. Instead of having to find places to board in town, the dormitory made it possible for several of the students to live in that facility.

In 1911, A. E. Brown, superintendent of the Board, reported that Blairsville Collegiate Institute had two buildings, five teachers and 233 students. Subsequent annual reports from the Home Mission Board showed student enrollment of from 150 to over 200.

A 1916 report listed faculty as H. E. Nelson, Mrs. H. E. Nelson, Miss Addie Kate Reid, Miss June Candler, Miss Etta Colclough and Mrs. Maud Haralson. It was then the only high school in Union County and had an academic building, a dormitory with forty bedrooms, a parlor, offices and a library with 250 volumes. In addition, wells, barns, stables and outhouses comprised the campus complex. The school term was for eight months and 150 were enrolled. Water was dispensed from covered coolers with individual cups. “Patent desks” (not homemade) made up the classroom furnishings.

Also included in the 1916 report on education in Union County, credit is given to Miss Etta Colclough who seems to have taught home economics at Blairsville Collegiate Institute and also worked under the “State College of Agriculture” and the U. S. Department of Agriculture. “Under her direction and influence,” so the report states, “nearly 25,000 cans of tomatoes and other vegetables have been put up by the Girls’ Clubs and in their homes this year. This work has also served to quicken the interest in public education throughout the county and to influence it in a proper direction.” (From report of M. L. Duggan, Rural School Agent for Georgia, October 15, 1916).

Continuing in his Collegiate catalog of 1929, Dr. N. V. Dyer, president, wrote: “The curriculum is such as will prepare the boy and girl to enter the best colleges and universities of the south. The faculty consists of well-trained and experienced teachers who devote their full time and talents to their work.

“The buildings and equipment consist of a large main building and a dormitory. The dormitory is the most completely equipped and architecturally arranged of any of its kind in the state. Any boy or girl wishing to obtain an education at the least possible expense will make no mistake in attending Blairsville Institute.”

Many students enrolled over the twenty-five years of the school. They studied, they went out to other institutions and did well. Among those who graduated and made a name in education were Miss Addie Kate Reid and Miss Dora Hunter (Mrs. Dora Hunter Allison Spiva) each of whom taught at the Institute; Mr. Charles Roscoe Collins, teacher, administrator, historian; Dr. James M. Nicholson, who led in the transition from Blairsville Collegiate Institute to Union County High School when the facilities of the Institute were bought by the Union County Board of Education for $1,000 and the county high school began in the 1930 academic year.

Mountain schools, among which the Blairsville Collegiate Institute was a major one, had their distinctive place in the educational history of the area.

c2004 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published Jan. 29, 2004 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

The Rev. Elisha Hedden, Circuit-Riding Preacher- (Part 2)

Rev. Elisha Hedden, Jr.
Juanita Caroline Butt Hedden

When Elisha Hedden, Jr. was twenty-four and his bride was seventeen, he married Juanita Caroline Butt, who was called “Neety.” The marriage took place on July 19, 1838. Neety was one of eleven children of John Butt, Sr. (1780-1843) and Sarah (Rider or Smithers?) Butt (1784-1855). Neety’s father had helped her grandfather operate a gold mine at Duke’s Creek in Habersham County on land lot 68. The Butts family moved across the mountain and settled in Union County, first on the Virge Waldroup place on Choestoe. Later acquiring more land, they moved farther north toward the county seat of Blairsville. Their home was at the foot of Wellborn Mountain alongside the Nottley River. Evidence exists that John Butt mined for gold on his farm. An entrance to an old mine shaft is not far from where their homeplace stood. Neety’s parents were buried near the old mineshaft on the Butt farm where their weathered tombstones may be viewed today.

Elisha Hedden, Jr. was ordained to the gospel ministry in 1839 at the Antioch Baptist Church in Habersham County, Georgia. His ordination was requested by a church in Rabun County, Persimmon Creek, where he was a member and where he had made known his call and separation to the ministry. At the time of the 1840 census, Elisha Hedden, Jr. and his young wife were living near her parents in Union County, Georgia. They lived in Union until 1851 when they moved to nearby Cherokee County, NC. Another move was made in 1860 when they returned to Georgia and settled near Hiawassee where they lived the rest of their lives.

Whether, in his crippled condition, he did any farm labor is not known. However, soon after his ordination, he began preaching at various churches in the mountain area. The fiery young preacher was often called upon to lead revivals and was a popular evangelist in the area summer camp meetings. Although the latter were mainly sponsored by the Methodist Episcopal Church South, the organizers of the camp meetings did not consider religious denomination a factor and sought to get the best preacher possible for the protracted (one, two or three week) meetings. Records show that Elisha Hedden, Jr. preached at the Fightingtown Camp Meeting in Fannin County, at the Choestoe Camp meeting, and at locations in Towns County and Cherokee County, North Carolina. Other devout preachers who helped in these summer revivals were the Rev. Alfred Corn and the Rev. Humphrey Posey.

So effective was Rev. Hedden as a preacher that he was appointed by the Southern Baptist Home Mission Board and the Executive Committee of the Georgia Baptist Convention to be a missionary in the mountains. His preaching influenced the conversion of George W. Truett and Fernando C. McConnell, first cousins, who became outstanding ministers of the twentieth century. He was faithful in his calling for over forty years and wielded a far-reaching influence for good as a church planter, a pastor, an evangelist and a missionary. He believed in cooperation among churches and led in the formation of Baptist Associations. He was Hiawassee Association’s first messenger to the Georgia Baptist Convention in 1853.

While her husband was on his preaching circuit, Juanita Caroline Butt Hedden was a stay-at-home mother. They had ten children:

Jeffrey Allen (1839-1883) married Cynthia Adeline Gray. He was in the Confederate Army. He lost his life in and accident at his sawmill in Ellijay, GA.

John B. (1841-?) married Millie Leatherwood.

Sophronia J. (1841-?) married a Logan. They lived at Hayesville, NC.

Samantha Adeline (1846-?) married Rev. John Tyler Platt. They lived in Clay County, NC.

William Worth called “Bud” (1848-1944) married Nancy M. Sutton. He was a merchant in Hiawassee.

Sarah (1850-1935) married William Taylor Parker. They lived in Maysville, GA.

Armeda (1852-?) married Meed Curley. They moved to Grand Junction, CO.

Martha C. (1856-1912) married Rev. Howell Cobb Standridge. They were last in Clermont, GA where both are buried.

Elisha Dean (1858-1940) married Ireland Ann Texas Ledford. He was buried in Alabama.

Warne K. (1861-1941) married (1) Texie Anna Ledford and (2) Violet Virginia Hooper. This family lived in Towns County.

In addition to his preaching, the Rev. Hedden was also active in community affairs and politics. In 1847 he was elected from Union County to the Georgia House of Representatives. He became an organizer and charter member of the Allegheny Lodge #114 of Free and Accepted Masons of Union County, formed in 1849. He was also a charter and founding member of the Unicoi Lodge # 259 in Hiawassee in 1890. He served as Ordinary (now called Commissioner) of Towns County from 1875-1877.

His beloved wife Juanita Caroline Butt Hedden (b. Sept. 21, 1821) died January 21, 1896 in Hiawassee, Georgia. She was buried in the Osborn Cemetery there. Rev. Elisha Hedden, Jr. (b. Feb. 2, 1814) died August 23, 1900 at age 86. The Rev. Alfred Corn who was then quite elderly himself, gave the eulogy, assisted by the Revs. Frank Lloyd and J. J. Kimsey.

The epigraph of William Wadsworth Longfellow in his “Psalm of Life” certainly holds true for the Rev. Elisha Hedden, Jr: “Lives of great men all remind us/We can make our lives sublime;/ And departing leave behind us/Footprints on the sands of time.”

[Sources for the “Life and Times of the Rev. Elisha Hedden, Jr.:
Hearthstones of Home: Foundations of Towns County, Georgia, Volume I, 1983. Pp. 106-108.

The Heritage of Union County, Georgia, 1832-1994.” 1994. P. 91.

Cemetery Records of Union County. 1990. P. 193.

“Reverend Humphrey Posey,” from The Fairview (NC) Town Crier, Nov. 1999.

Skinner, Winston, “Rev. Humphrey Posey,” in Viewpoints, Vol. 10, 1986, published by the Georgia Baptist Convention Historical Commission.

Various church and associational records, Fannin, Union and Towns Counties.]

c2004 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published Jan. 22, 2004 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

The Life and Times of a Circuit-Riding Preacher: The Rev. Elisha Hedden, Jr. (Part 1)

It has been said of the Rev. Elisha Hedden, Jr. (2/2/1814-8/23/1900), mountain preacher of the nineteenth century, that “few, if any, men have done more to extend the influence of the Gospel in North Georgia or have been the means of leading greater numbers to the Cross.” [in Hearthstones of Home, p. 107].

So far as opportunities went, his were accepted under the most stringent of circumstances and with a great deal of personal duress. He was a cripple and used a crutch to get about. What caused this disability is unknown to this writer.

He was born in Spartanburg County, SC on February 2, 1814. Only six years after his birth, in 1820, his father, died. His mother was the former Elizabeth Pinson, the second wife of Elisha Hedden, Sr. They had eight children. Seven had been born to his first wife. Elisha, Jr. was next to the youngest of his full siblings who were, in order of birth: George, Joel, Garet, Mariah, Cate, Doshe, Elisha, Jr., and Jeffrey.

Elisha Hedden, Sr. had served for seven years in the Revolutionary War, and was wounded several times. He received land grants for his service and settled on the Tyger River in Spartanburg, County, SC where he engaged in farming. His will was tied up in legal complications for 19 years after his death, and was never settled satisfactorily. Perhaps that is why, when his widow Elizabeth married again on October 19, 1821 to William Visage, she had him draw up a legal bond in Pendleton District, SC which assured that $1,000 be set aside for her two minor children and that he “shall carefully and handsomely bring up Elisha Headin, seven years old next February, and Jeffrey Headin, five years old, during their minority and nonage with necessary meat, drink, washing, lodging, apparel, and learning, according to their degree, and the said William Visage shall during the time be guardian and tutor unto the said Elisha and Jeffrey Headin...Defend them from hurt of body, loss of goods and lands, so far as in his power lieth.” [Hearthstones..., p. 106]. The legal bond further stipulated that the two Hedden boys duly receive whatever property was due them when they should come of age.

That legal action on the part of their mother with her new husband, William Visage, apparently was honored. The Visage/Hedden family moved to Rabun County, Georgia in 1823, as did Elizabeth Visage’s parents, Joseph and Margery Pinson. There the daughter, Mariah, married Joseph Eller. Ten years later they moved over the mountain to the Upper Hightower section of Old Union County in the area that became Towns County in 1856. There Elisha Hedden, Jr.’s step-father opened the Visage post office and became its postmaster. The boys received their early education in country schools in these North Georgia locations.

While they were still young lads, Elisha, Jr. and Jeffrey Hedden came in contact with a noted minister and missionary to the Cherokee Indians, the Rev. Humphrey Posey. It is possible that they heard him preach before they moved out of South Carolina, for he taught school and started churches there. Appointed by the Home Mission Board to minister to the Indians at Valley Town in the Murphy, NC area, Rev. Posey had begun a mission school for Indians there that lasted until the Removal on the Trail of Tears. Rev. Posey went on preaching tours into Georgia, western North Carolina, and South Carolina. He was instrumental in starting many Baptist churches in the area. He also was active in promoting the Mercer Institute (now Mercer University) organized in Penfield, Georgia in 1833. When the Rev. Posey spoke, people took notice. Colonel A. T. Davidson, writing of him, stated: “He was a man greatly endowed by nature to be a leader, of great physical force, singularly marked with a fine profile, a fine voice and manner, singularly simple and eloquent.” [quoted in Whitaker, Bruce, “Reverend Humphrey Posey” in the Fairview, NC Town Crier.]

Elisha, Jr., in his future preaching career, would emulate in his own sermon delivery style the bold characteristics of the Rev. Humphrey Posey.

Keeping his pre-marital contract to give the Hedden boys “the best education possible,” William Visage and their mother, Elizabeth Pinson Hedden Visage, sent Elisha, Jr. and Jeffery Hedden to middle Georgia to begin their advanced educational studies at Mercer Manual Labor School at Penfield. Unfortunately, Jeffrey, who was born in 1816, died while a student at Penfield in the spring of 1838. Elisha, Jr. finished his course of study there and was ordained to the gospel ministry in 1839.

[Next: Continuing the life and work of the Rev. Elisha Hedden, Jr.]

(Sources: Information for this article was derived from these sources: Hearthstones of Home: Foundations of Towns County, Georgia, Volume I, 1983. Pp. 106-108. The Fairview Town Crier, Fairview, NC, “Reverend Humphrey Posey,” Nov. 99. www.fairviewtowncrier.com.Various church and associational documents of Union, Towns and Fannin Counties, Georgia, and Viewpoints, a publication of the Georgia Baptist Historical Commission.]

c2004 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published Jan. 15, 2004 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.