Patterson Families--Early Settlers in Union (part 2)

Last week’s column introduced early settler families in Union County with the last name Patterson. In 1834, four families with Patterson surname numbered 34 persons; in 1840, that number had climbed to ten Patterson households with 55 total; and by 1850, there were eleven Patterson households with a total of 73 persons and one slave.

Continuing with Patterson families, we will look a bit more closely at some of them. We noted that John Patterson was here in 1834. Family information holds that he and his wife Margaret Black came to the area that became Union as early as 1829. Their son, George, also settled along Ivy Log Creek in Union about the same time his father came. In the 1834 census, John’s household had four males and three females, and George’s family also had four males and three females. Both of these had farms along Ivy Log Creek, but George Patterson was also a milliner by trade, making hats from sheep’s wool. George was married twice. His first wife was Rebecca Chastain. After her death, he married Sophia Dunnigan.

One of the sons of George and Rebecca Chastain Patterson was named William Harden Patterson (b. April 10, 1832, d. 1883). He married Elizabeth Akins on November 5, 1853 with Hampton Jones, Justice of the Peace, performing their ceremony. When the Civil War came William Harden Patterson and his younger brother, John, both enlisted in the Confederate Army. They were mustered into Company B, 6^th Regiment, of Georgia Volunteers. Both lived through the war.

William Harden Patterson and Elizabeth Akins Patterson had a large family of twelve children: James Alonzo, Sarah Florence, Martha Elizabeth (nicknamed “Jeff” because her father, William Hardin, known as “Bill” was such a staunch supporter of Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederacy), Rebecca Emmaline, Mary M, John Lumpkin, Lewis, twins William Elisha and Joseph Elijah, Vienna Caledonia, Lula L, and George Bunyan.

Bill and Elizabeth’s oldest son, James Alonzo Patterson (Nov. 30, 1855 – 1953), was ordained a Baptist minister. He married Rozella Sparks. Their children were Semon, Howard, Harden, Ellen, Milton, Maude, John, Howell and Elizabeth. Bethlehem Baptist Church in Lower Young Cane District was formed in 1848. Some of the Patterson families attended and were active in that church, and William Harden, Elizabeth, Rev. Alonzo and Rozella and other of the Pattersons were buried in the Bethlehem Baptist Church Cemetery.

Twins of William H. and Elizabeth Patterson, William Elisha and Joseph Elijah, were born September 12, 1871. Elisha Patterson (1871- ?) married Julia Brackett (1875-1933) on July 24, 1895 with Rev. D. A. Sullivan performing their ceremony. I did not find a list of their children. The other twin, William Elisha Patterson, married Nancy Jane Ammons in 1901. They lived in Fannin County near her parents until Nancy’s untimely death with tuberculosis. Elisha farmed and sold fresh produce. They had six children: The first infant died at birth, The other five were Clinton, Nellie, Grace, Earl and Kathryn. On a cold day, December 31, 1917, Elisha Patterson loaded his five small children into a covered wagon and moved them and their household goods from the foot of Aska Mountain in Fannin County back to Young Cane in Union County. Later they moved to Ivy Log and then to Upper Young Cane. Back in Union, some of his relatives helped him with the children while he worked to make a living for them. Elisha Patterson, almost blind in his old age, was killed when he walked into an oncoming automobile in November, 1957. He was interred at Bethlehem Baptist Church Cemetery.

The Patterson surname is still numerous in Union and other North Georgia counties. The name Patterson derives from the Scottish and Northern English patronymic form, Patrick, shortened sometimes to Pate, hence son of Patrick, son of Pate, and then Patterson. By the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in England, Scotland and Ireland, the name Patterson was common. William Patrison was listed as a “gentleman” in Aberdeen, Scotland in 1446. James Patterson was noted as a Sheriff Deputy in Inverness, Scotland, in 1530. John Patersoune was a Burgess in Northberwyck in 1562. George Patersoune was a monk in the monastery of Culross in 1569. Whether related to the Pattersons who migrated to Union County in 1829, I do not know, but Rev. Hampton William Patterson was born June 18, 1806 in North Carolina and died in Henderson County there February 28, 1880. He was ordained to the ministry by Mountain Creek Baptist Church in Rutherford County, NC in 1834, and was appointed superintendent of public schools there in 1841. Pattersons have been contributing citizens in various aspects of culture, education, politics and ministry.

c2011 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published December 8, 2011 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Pierre Chastain, the Immigrant, and His Continuing Influence Part 4 Learning from the Past – Shaping the Future

Jason Coward Chastain (March 10, 1818 – June 12, 1900) was of the sixth generation from Pierre “The Immigrant” Chastain, a son of John C. Chastain (1791-1880) and Nancy Coward Chastain (1800-1867). John C. Chastain was a son of Edward Brigand Chastain (1769-1834) and Hannah Brown Chastain (1771-ca 1832-37). He was descended from John “Ten Shilling Bell” Chastain, Pierre Chastain, Jr. and Pierre “The Immigrant” Chastain.

Jason Coward Chastain was born in Jackson County near Sylva, North Carolina. He went to the area along the Toccoa River in Upper Dial Community of then Union County (in 1854 this area became part of Fannin) and bought land and built his first cabin there. He returned to North Carolina where he married Mary “Polly” Rogers on Christmas Eve in 1840. They moved by covered wagon, bringing boxwoods with them to transplant at their new home. Her father gave Mary Rogers Chastain a slave named Isom to assist with the farm work. Jason and Mary had eight children, seven daughters and one son. As they prospered, Jason added to his holdings and buildings. He later built a fine ten-room plantation-type home which is still intact today.

Noting that Isom seemed depressed, his master found that it was because he had to leave his beloved named Leah behind in North Carolina. Jason went back, purchased Leah, the slave, and presented her to Isom for his wife. Jason and Mary provided well for them and treated them kindly. A story has been passed down about Mary baking fresh yeast bread and giving Leah’s children bread spread with butter and honey as they sat on her back porch steps. When the emancipation proclamation came, they wanted to remain at the Chastain farm because they had been so kindly treated. The black families did all eventually leave the Chastains and returned to North Carolina, but in 1896 some of Isom and Leah’s children visited Mary once again before her death.

One day a lamb was missing from Jason’s flock. A son-in-law felt he could find out where the lamb had gone. Suspecting Isom and Leah of stealing and killing the lamb for their dinner, Taylor Stephens slipped to their cabin and looked in at their window, expecting to see roast lamb on the table. Instead, he saw Leah, Isom and their children bowed in prayer and heard Isom praying for “Old Mastuh Jason and Ole Missey Mary, and bless Mr. Taylor and pretty Miss Mary, too.” No lamb was on the table, only the simplest fare. But in the hearts of the couple was gratitude for their blessings and prayers for their owner’s family. About three days later the lamb wandered back onto the farm.

Jason Chastain had a large farm, kept a store, had sheep and cattle, and was involved in church and community activities. A family cemetery on the hill back of his house has his monument bearing this epitaph: “I have been a soldier for the right.” In addition, these words are inscribed on his stone:

“Dear friends and neighbors,
Come one, come all and see
Where the old man lies.
Then, dear children,
When you die
Be placed here by me
On this hill
Which God has formed.
So, on the Resurrection morn
We may rise in unison
And join that blood-washed throng
And abide throughout the cycles of eternity
In that clime of eternal bliss.
So mote it be. Amen.

Indeed, in remembering several in the Chastain generations, we agree with Longfellow:

“Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time.”

Yes, the face of these mountains of Appalachia from Virginia where Pierre “The Immigrant” Chastain and his family settled, to these hills of North Georgia, he and his people have left giant footprints in the sands of time. As Union County poet Byron Herbert Reece wrote in his poem, “Choestoe”:

Yes, sprung from the hard earth,
Nurtured by hard labor,
We know the names that built the fallen dwellings
Going to ruin in old dooryard orchards.

There is peace here, quiet and unhurried living,
Something to wonder at in aged faces.
These are not all I mean, but symbols for it,
A thing, if one but has the spirit for it,
Better, I say, than many rabbits dancing.
(published in “The Prairie Schooner, Spring, 1944)

We have become cosmopolitan in the mountains. With our increasing population and changing culture, we should come to appreciate even more our legacy from hardy pioneers who carved out farms and built homes in a mountain wilderness. We laud their efforts to endow us with a sound work ethic and keen sense of responsibility for our environment, our family values, our religious ideals. With economic instability and political unrest, we need especially to learn from the past as we face the future. We need time to consider whence we have come and where we are going. I invite you, as does our mountain poet, Byron Herbert Reece, to take time apart and, as he says in this poem:

In the Far Dark Woods Go Roving

Whenever the heart’s in trouble
Caught in the snare of the years,
And the sum of the tears is double
The amount of youthful tears,

In the far dark woods go roving
And find there to match your mood
A kindred spirit moving
Where the wild winds blow in the wood.
-Byron Herbert Reece
from Bow Down in Jericho, 1950

c2011 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published Sept. 29, 2011 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Pierre Chastain "The Immigrant" and His Continuing Influence

Elijah Webb Chastain, the fifth generation from Pierre Chastain, “The Immigrant” was noted as a military man, lawyer, and politician. He was the seventh of ten children born to Benjamin Chastain (1780-1845), who moved his family in 1837 and was an Indian agent in the area that became Fannin County, Georgia. Elijah Webb Chastain’s mother was Rebeckah Denton Chastain (1779-1872). This tenth child was born in Pickens County, SC September 25, 1813 and died in an accident in Murray County, Georgia on April 9, 1874.

His sixty-one years were notable. He married Clarissa Susan Braselton on June 18, 1838 and they had twelve children: Marian Josephine who married Dr. Judson Linton Rucker; Rev. Benton Forsyth Chastain who married Nancy Elizabeth Morris; Benjamin Perry Chastain (1841-1859); Georgia Anne Chastian (1843-186) who married Lewis Crayton Allen; Rev. Oscar Fitzallen Chastain who married Mary Zenobia Addington; Mary Jane Chastain who married John Sullivan Addington; Lewis C. Chastain (b/d February 16, 1848); Eugenia Virginia Chastain (1850-died young); Emma Maria Chastain (1853-1916) married William Dallas Smith; Judson Rucker Chastain (1855 -1920) married Emma Frances Greenwood; Ida Amanda Chastain (1858-1930) married Allen Burton Dickey; and Sidney Johnson Chastain (1860-1882) married Thomas A. Willson. Of the twelve children, nine lived to adulthood, married and eight of the nine had children. Descendants of the famed Elijah Webb Chastain are now found in a broad geographic distribution.

Elijah Webb Chastain was termed “Colonel,” receiving this designation because of his service in the Seminole War in Florida in 1838 and later his service in the Civil War. He studied law, as was the practice then, by “reading” law in the office of established lawyers. He was admitted to the Georgia Bar in 1849. He practiced in Gilmer and Union Counties and at the young age of 21 he made a memorable speech on July 4, 1835 in Ellijay, Georgia that was printed in area newspapers at the time. Gifted as an orator and persuasive speaker, this quality would be a complement to his political career. He was elected Georgia senator from Gilmer County and served in that capacity from 1839-1849. He served as a representative to the U. S. Congress from 1851-1855. Some of his speeches in Congress have been preserved: notably on Union and States’ Rights (1852), the Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854) and the annexation of Cuba (1855). He was a member of the Georgia Secession Convention and voted for Georgia to secede from the Union at a hotly-debated contest at the state capital in Milledgeville, Georgia on January 19, 1861. He resumed his military career at age 47 and was commissioned a Lt. Colonel of the First Regiment, Georgia Regulars and later of the Eighth Regiment, Georgia State Troops. He and Civil War Governor Joseph Emerson Brown were good friends. Many of Chastain’s Civil War letters to the governor on behalf of his constituents in North Georgia plead dire circumstances, need for salt, and rampant lawlessness from raiders and renegades. He was appointed by Governor Brown to serve as the state attorney for the Western and Atlantic Railroad in 1857-1861, a railroad very vital to the Confederate forces.

Following the end of the Civil War, Elijah Web Chastain returned to Fannin County where he continued his law practice and managed his large farm. On a legal trip to Dalton, Georgia in April, 1874, he was drowned in Holly Creek April 9, swollen and flooded from spring rains, as he and his friends Col. John B. Dickey and Senator John A. Jervis returned from Dalton, Georgia where they had pled for the Dalton-Morganton Railroad. His body was recovered the next day and burial occurred at the Toccoa Baptist Church Cemetery, Morganton, GA on land Col. Chastain had given to the church only a year prior to his death. The eulogy written by Congressman Hiram Parks Bell has been preserved and gives a lofty account of this man whom Chastain historians as well as Col. Bell and others term “the most prominent Chastain of all time.” His “magnetic personality…soldierly bearing…and aggressive manner drew him into the limelight and his magnetism and easy success kept him there.” So wrote James Garvin Chastain about Col. Elijah Webb Chastain in his “A Brief History of the Huguenots and Three Family Trees” (in The Chestnut Tree, February, 1974).

Next in our line of notable Chastains we come to a son of Elijah Webb Chastain, namely Rev. Oscar Fitzallen Chastain (1844-1906) [sixth generation from Pierre “the Immigrant”] and his notable wife, Zenobia Addington Chastain (1848-1907). We can hardly remember one of these without also recalling the other, for their careers and interests motivated them as a solid team for good. Zenobia Addington established an academy in 1868 in Morganton and was able to get funding for this mountain school from the Peabody Foundation. Oscar Fitzallen Chastain had served in the Civil War, as had his illustrious father. When he and Mary Zenobia, daughter of March and Amy Elizabeth White Addington, were married December 18, 1872 in Union County by the Rev. Thomas M. Hughes, Oscar was a clerk in a store in Morganton, the then county seat town of Fannin County. No doubt, Oscar had been attracted to the outstanding teacher of the school known as Zenobia’s Academy.

Morganton Baptist Association of Churches was organized in 1893. In 1899, the association took a bold step and organized the North Georgia Baptist College in Morganton, to be operated as a boarding school appealing to mountain students. “College” was a broad term, for classes were offered from first grade through all the grades, high school, and about the first two years of college. Zenobia Chastain, one of the best-educated women of the area at the time had graduated from a noted academy in Ellijay, Georgia headed by Professor M. C. Briant. There she had been instructed in history, the classics, mathematics, Latin and Greek. She was asked to come aboard the North Georgia Baptist College as a teacher. Her husband, Rev. Oscar F. Chastain, who had been ordained to the gospel ministry on May 17, 1884, was named business manager of the college. At one time, due to severe financial needs at the struggling college, the Chastains mortgaged their own farm and home to raise funds for operation of the school.

Oscar and Zenobia Chastain had three children, daughters Mariam, Mary and Nettie, all of whom preceded their parents in death. They took relatives and others into their home to board so they could attend the college in Morganton. In 1906 the Home Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention began joint sponsorship with Morganton Association of the North Georgia Baptist College and named it as one of its “Mountain Schools.” Nearby Blairsville operated a similar school called the Blairsville Collegiate Institute from 1904-1930. Oscar Chastain died in 1906 at age 62 and his wife Zenobia died in 1907 at age 60. Their joint tombstone in Morganton Baptist Cemetery has this epitaph: “They loved God and their fellowman.” Many who went through the educational programs at Zenobia’s Academy and later the North Georgia Baptist College became noted teachers, lawyers, doctors, politicians and upright citizens. These two made a distinctive mark as their vision and hard work become reality. Theirs were noble lives, nobly lived.

[Next: Continuing “Learning from the Past, Shaping the Future” we will feature Jason Coward Chastain, another sixth generation descendant of Pierre “the Immigrant” Chastain.]

c2011 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published Sept. 22, 2011 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Pierre Chastain "The Immigrant" and His Continuing Influence (part 2) Learning From the Past - Shaping the Future

Dr. Pierre Chastain (ca. 1659-1728) , known as “The Immigrant,” made giant ‘footsteps in the sands of time’ in at least three of the four areas pinpointed: improved living conditions, religious life, economy and agriculture.

Let us look briefly at his family for whom he sought to leave a memorable legacy. He and his first wife, Susanne Renaud, had eight children: Jean Adam, Marie Susanne, Pauline Elizabeth, Pierre, Arthuze, Jeanne Francois, Pierre Samuel, and Suzanne. Of these, seven died young, leaving only Jean Adam Chastain of his first children to carry on the Chastain name. Susanne Renaud and four of their children died by 1701 in Manakin Town, Virginia.

By his second wife, Anne Soblet. Pierre Chastain had eight children. Perhaps living conditions were more conducive to rearing children in a healthier atmosphere for six of eight of these lived to adulthood and married. The children of Pierre and Anne were: Judith, Susanna, Pierre (Jr.), Mary, Elizabeth, Rene, Janne and Mary (Marie) Magdalene. Of these, Mary and Janne did not marry, died young. Pierre Chastain married, third, to widow Mary Magdalene Trabue but had no children by her. All of you gathered at the Pierre Chastain Reunion in 2011 have traced your roots back to your inimitable ancestor, Pierre, the Immigrant, over whose name we proudly write the superscription 1.

Not to show partiality, by any means, but by way of illustration, I have selected stories of Chastain descendants from several generations to bear out the truth that many of Pierre’s progeny did, indeed, make a difference in the four areas of society we have named: (1) improved living conditions; (2) religious life; (3) politics and government; and (4) agriculture and the economy. Let us learn from their lofty examples and make a difference now and in the future. Selections include (and there could be many more):

Rev. John “Ten Shillings Bell” Chastain (1743-1805), third generation, son of Pierre Chastain and Mildred Archer Chastain. He was born in Manakin, Goochland County, Virginia. His migrations took him to various places. He died and was buried at Table Rock in Pendleton District, Pickens County, South Carolina. He had a distinctive nickname: “Ten Shillings Bell.”

It has been reported that this minister of the gospel, in association with such well-known evangelicals at the time as the Rev. Shubael Starnes and others of the “Great Awakening” movement on the frontier, was known for his resonating voice, one that carried well to great crowds gathered to hear the gospel. The cost for a well-wrought bell, one that resounded clearly, was ten shillings. Hence the nickname, a compliment to Rev. John Chastain’s ability as an orator and preacher. Before the term “church planter” was known in American parlance, Rev. John Chastain traveled far and wide establishing and strengthening churches of what became the Baptist faith. In Western North Carolina in 1774, an area that became Sullivan County then Carter County, Tennessee, he ministered at the Sinking Spring Baptist Church. Moving about forty miles to Pendleton District in South Carolina (Pickens County) in 1790, he preached there, then became pastor of the Middle Saluda Baptist Church in the Greenville District. He founded the Oolenoy Baptist Church in Greenville District in 1795 and became its first pastor. Prior to leaving Virginia, he signed an oath of allegiance at the beginning of the Revolutionary War to be faithful to the colonies. Anyone tracing their ancestry back to the Rev. John Chastain can claim him as a patriot to qualify for membership in Sons and/or Daughters of the American Revolution. In all four areas of our consideration, the Rev. John “Ten Shillings Bell” Chastain made giant steps in the sands of time. John Chastain and his first wife Mary O’Brien had eleven children: Abner, John, Jr., Martha, Edward Brigand, Mary, Elijah, Elizabeth, Cleo (Chloe), Benjamin, Nancy and Joseph. Following Mary O’Bryan Chastain’s death about 1797, he married, second, a widow, Mrs. Mary Robinson. Their children were Violet, William and Mary Lavinia.

Rev. John Chastain’s son, Benjamin (1780-1845), was selected as an Indian agent and settled in 1837 on the Toccoa River (Union County) in what became Fannin County, Georgia (1854). The story of his work in dealing with the Indians on land sales, and heading up Ft. Chastain, a holding station for the Cherokee prior to the Trail of Tears, was the subject of an earlier Chastain article.

Next in our line of Chastain greats is the Rev. Abner Chastain, (1803-1871), fifth generation from Pierre the Immigrant, and tenth of fifteen children of Edward Brigand Chastain (1769-1834) and Hannah Brown Chastain (1771-ca 1832-1837). Migrations and land holdings show that this Abner Chastain (not to be confused with his uncle by the same name, son of Rev. John “Ten Shilling Bell” Chastain) was born on Christmas Day, 1803 in Pendleton District, South Carolina. His parents took him to North Carolina by 1809. Just where and when Abner Chastain was ordained a Baptist preacher, we have not discovered the record. However, in minutes of Choestoe Baptist Church, Union County, Georgia (organized perhaps by 1832; minutes intact and preserved from 1834 to the present), this Rev. Abner Chastain was pastor. Like his grandfather, Rev. John Chastain, Abner was a church planter, leading Choestoe Church to assist with organizing other churches within the vicinity of the mountain region. According to history, 1869 had been a bad crop year due to draught and depleted lands. Rev. Abner Chastain led in organizing a massive wagon train of 250 people and started the long trek west to Colorado to settle on lands available there. We can only imagine the responsibility of leading enough wagons to accommodate a crowd of 250 men, women and children, and the hardships, illnesses and challenges they faced along the journey. Abner’s first wife, Susan Pemberton O’Kelley, may have died on the way west or shortly after they settled there at the Heurfano River two miles east of St. Mary’s at LaVeta, Colorado. True to form, Rev. Abner Chastain soon started a church in the new settlement. In the fall of 1870 he baptized the first convert there in the Heurfano River. He married, second, Amanda Elzy, Unfortunately, Rev. Abner Chastain died of pneumonia on April 1, 1871, leaving behind a new settlement and a church without the dynamic of his much-needed leadership. But he, too, even in his 67 years of life, added significantly to Chastain “footsteps in the sands of time.”

[Next: Elijah Webb Chastain, political leader; Oscar Fitzallen and Zenobia Chastain, educators; and Jason Coward Chastain, farmer, in the saga, “Learning from the Past - Shaping the Future.”]

c2011 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published Sept. 15,2011 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Pierre Chastain “The Immigrant” and His Continuing Influence

Labor Day weekend has come and gone, with its stormy weather, tornadoes in a corridor area emanating from Tropical Storm Lee, more rain than we’ve had in months, a death in my family, and attendance at the Pierre Chastain Family Association Reunion in Helen to which I was invited to be “on-site historian” and keynote speaker.

Where do I begin this column after that introductory paragraph? If you read this, and are among those who sustained damages from any of the storms attendant upon Lee’s widespread catastrophe, you have my deepest concern. May you find shelter, comfort and redirection. For those who received much-needed rain without flooding and damages, be most grateful as I am. This morning my dry lawn, shrubs and flowers seem to have hope renewed.

As to the death of my nephew, Christopher Fortenberry, age 37, dear son of my sister Linda, we are all diminished and saddened by his death. Linda and Claxton, Chris’s parents, will read this, as will Chris’s brothers, James and David. Be assured that many people love you and are praying for you. You are strong people; you will never forget, and will wonder why Chris died so suddenly. But the God of all comfort will sustain you. Look up and take courage.

And now to the major subject of this article, Pierre Chastain, “The Immigrant” the first-generation Chastain to America and his continuing influence. The gathering in Helen was such a happy occasion (despite my sadness over my nephew Chris’s death). I had done much research to prepare for the speaking engagements with those gathered from various states to hold this annual PCFA (Pierre Chastain Family Association) Reunion. I had spoken at the 1998 Reunion in Hiawassee/Young Harris, GA. James Chastain, host and program planner for this reunion, had read several of my Chastain articles. Those provided the springboard for my invitation back to this notable gathering as keynote speaker. I felt humbled, indeed, for this “repeat” invitation to speak. I was honored, indeed, when, by action of the Association, they “adopted” me into the PCFA toward the end of the meeting and presented me with the official Chastain coat-of-arms. So now I have another loving family, one that has made a significant impact in American life from 1700 to the present. Because many requested that I publish the remarks I made at the reunion, I will attempt to do so. It will take more than one column; please bear with me for the next few weeks as I proceed with

LEARNING FROM THE PAST ~ SHAPING THE FUTURE
An Address Before the Pierre Chastain Family Association
Helen, Georgia ~ September 3, 2011

From the pen of the inimitable American poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, came these words that seem to apply appropriately to the life of Pierre Chastain, “The Immigrant,” and his descendants to the present day:

“Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time.”

We learn from the past; these lessons shape our future.

Let us remember some of these great men and women of note in the Chastain line who have carved out monumental differences and left footprints in the sands of time. What can we learn from them to shape our present and future in these trying times?

We will consider and give emphasis to four areas these forebears impacted:

(1) How they sought to improve living conditions;
(2) How they led innovations in religious life;
(3) How they impacted politics and government; and
(4) How they improved agriculture and the economy.

Who better than the first generation Chastain in this line, known to us as Pierre “the Immigrant” Chastain (ca 1659-1728) as a representative of all four areas of impact on American life? We will recall briefly highlights from his story:

Conditions in Europe were atrocious at the time of his childhood, youth and young adulthood. Briefly, his ancestors were living in Bourges, Central France, at the time of the terrible massacre on St. Bartholomew’s Day, August 24, 1572. This was almost a century before Pierre’s birth. Look this up in history; you will have an account of the religious persecution that brought death and hardships. The Chastains, along with others, fled to Charost, France, and later crossed the Jura Mountains to Switzerland. These protesters, called Huguenots, seeking religious freedom, were greatly influenced by the preaching of John Calvin (1507-1564). Persecution grew. Dr. Pierre Chastain (for he was a medical doctor by then) and his family left Switzerland and went to Holland for refuge. There they learned of groups sailing to America, the new land of promise. They went to England and he and his family boarded the ship Mary and Ann, one of four ships headed for America. Enduring the hardships and crowded conditions on the ship, they landed in Virginia. In “History of the Huguenot Emigration,” Volume II, this notation was made about Pierre Chastain in August, 1700 to the City Chamberlain of London: “The Bearer, Monsiur Castayne, is going out surgeon to ye French now departing for Virginia. He wants twenty pounds to make up his chest of drugs and instruments.”

Settling in Manakin Town, Virginia, Dr. Pierre Chastain began to make his “footprints in the sands of time” that have extended to the present age.

[Next: Continuing the story of Chastains of various generations in America. Resources: Pierre Chastain and His Descendants, Volume I. PCFA, 1995. Jason Coward Chastain and His Family. Jason Coward Chastain Historical Society and M. A. McGraw, 1976]

c2011 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published Sept. 8, 2011 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

[Ethelene Dyer Jones is a retired educator, freelance writer, poet, and historian. She may be reached at e-mail edj0513@windstream.net; phone 478-453-8751; or mail 1708 Cedarwood Road, Milledgeville, GA 31061-2411.]

Denton Families ~ Early Settlers in Union County

After a brief diversion to pursue another topic, I return in this column to write about families with the surname Denton who were early settlers in Union County.

In the 1834 Union County census, three families had the name Denton, with seventeen total Denton residents, eight males and nine females. Two heads of households of these early settlers were women with similar names: Eliza Denton had two males and two females in her household. Elizabeth Denton had two males and one female residing in her home. The third Denton household was headed by James Denton whose family had four males and six females.

I expected to find these three households listed in the 1840 Union census, but the search for these three Denton families was not that easy, for none of the three appeared as heads of households in 1840 or in 1850.

Five residences in 1840 had Dentons as follows: Household numbered by the census taker as 115 had Levina Denton (one female between the age of 20 and under 30).

Further on, in household 328. was Samuel Denton, with three males under five, one male aged 20-30, 1 female under five, and 1 female aged 20 – 30. (Note: This Samuel Denton is not to be confused with the Samuel Denton, Jr. who, we will learn shortly, married Elizabeth Ann Chastain.)

Jonathan Denton in household numbered 331 had the largest of the 1840 Denton families with one male (10-15), two males (15-20), one male (40-50), one female (5-10), one female (10-15), one female (15-20) and one female (30-40). We will see that his household is also listed in 1850.

In Elijah Denton’s family (house # 469) was one male (10-15), one male (40-50) and one female (30-40).

The last Denton household in 1840 was # 471, George M. Denton, with one male (under 5), one male (20-30), one female (under 5), one female (20-30) and 1 female (60-70). The older female in Jonathan’s household may have been either Eliza or Elizabeth listed in 1834, who possibly was the mother of George Denton.

By the 1850 census, the number of Denton households had climbed to six in Union’s census, and we find that some of the names are the same as those we discovered living in the county in 1840. The total Denton population in 1850 in Union numbered 31 as follows:

Household 929: George Denton, age 37, his wife, Catherine, age 31, both born in North Carolina, and six children, all born in Georgia: Elizabeth, 13; William, 11; Elisha, 9; Nancy, 7; Madison, 5; and Jeremiah J., 2. This household had also been in Union since 1840. We will hear more about these in next week’s column.

Household 1057: Samuel Denton, 25, born in Tennessee, his wife, Missa, 23, born in North Carolina, and children John, 6; Mary, 4: and Melissa, 4 months. A search of the Union marriage records shows this Samuel Denton married Artemica Berrong on August 5, 1842. She must have preferred her shortened name, Missa, to Artemica.

Household 1081: Jonathan Denton (remember he was listed in the 1840 census), age 56, his wife, Agnes, age 46, both born in North Carolina, two older children also born in North Carolina, Francis, 20 and Rachel, 15; and three more children born in Georgia: Jonathan, 10; John, 7; Agnes, 5. Living in the household with them (as in 1840) was Betsey Denton, age 79, born in Virginia, no doubt the Elizabeth listed in the 1834 census. By searching the Pierre Chastain Family History (for several Dentons married into this line of Chastains), I discovered that Jonathan Denton was a son of Samuel Denton, Jr. and his wife, Elizabeth Chastain Denton. “Betsy,” living with Jonathan and Agnes in 1850, was, indeed his mother who was the Elizabeth Denton in Union by 1834. Her father was the famous Rev. John “Ten Shilling Bell” Chastain, known for establishing several Baptist churches in Virginia and the Carolinas. Her mother was Rev. Chastain’s first wife, Mary O’Bryan Chastain. Samuel Denton, Jr. was born in 1775 and died in Haywood County, NC before some of the Dentons moved into Union County prior to 1834. Elizabeth and Samuel Denton, Jr. had these known children: Jonas, Jonathan, Jemima Mimi who married John Middleton; Elijah who married Jane Coward; Hulda who married Mark Burrell; John N. who married Sarah (mnu), Cloey who married James Coward; Isaac; and George (1813-1881) who married Catherine Wood (more on this family later).

This second son of Samuel, Jr. and Elizabeth Chastain Denton, Jonathan Denton, was born May 12, 1794 and died February 17, 1881. His wife, Agnes, was a McConnell, born in 1804 and died August 23, 1860.

Jonathan and Agnes had two older children who were already married and gone from home by the 1850 census. Their oldest was Samuel (b. 1822) who married Artimissey (sic) Berrong in 1842. They were living in their home near his parents in 1850.

Jonathan and Agnes’ other older child, gone from home in 1860, was Elizabeth Ann Denton, born in 1824, who married Walter Mounteville Burrell on July 16, 1840, with Rev. Abner Chastain performing their ceremony. This family lived in Household numbered 1090 in 1850. He was 33, she 25, both born in North Carolina. Their children were William, 9, Jonathan, 7, John, 6, Marcus, 4, Laura, 2 and Sarah, 4 months.

Household 1082: William Denton, listed as a teacher, age 30, and his wife, Betsy Ann, age 27, both born in North Carolina. They had three children in 1850, all born in Georgia: Jane, age 8, Sarah, age 5, and Elizabeth, age 7 months. Union marriage records show William Denton married Elizabeth Ann Chastain on January 26, 1841 with Rev. Abner Chastain performing their ceremony.

Household 1085: Elihu Denton, age 23, born in Georgia, his wife, Marcena, 20, born in North Carolina, and their one month old male son, Pinckney, born in Georgia. I looked for this marriage record in Union’s listings, but did not find these names.

Household 1086: Elijah Denton, born in South Carolina, age 52, and his wife, Jane, age 47, born in North Carolina. This couple was listed in the 1840 census with a son, age between 10 and 15 still at home then. From what I learned in the Chastain book, Elijah was the fourth child of Samuel Denton, Jr. and his wife, Elizabeth Chastain Denton. Elijah was born in 1798 and married Jane Coward.

In next week’s column, we will pursue some of these Denton families to other places where they became a part of the fabric of new counties as they formed.

[Note: My columns have not gotten to the paper by the deadline on a regular basis recently because of computer breakdowns due to severe storms. Call the delays an “act of nature” rather than my being ill or negligent. We were not severely damaged, like hard-hit areas, but we were without power for three days and many electronics were damaged in the storms that raged at different times My computer was a “victim”, and hard was the task to get up and running adequately again.-EDJ]

c2011 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published May 5, 2011 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Thomas Jefferson Hooper and Some of His Descendants (Great Grandson of Absalom Hooper, Sr, Revolutionary War Soldier – Part 4, Hooper Family)

Just about now I am seeing that to trace all the descendants of Absalom Hooper, Sr. (c 1764-1845), Revolutionary War soldier, and write even the barest sketch of them, would fill a good-sized book. We’ve focused on Absalom, Sr. and two of his sons, Absalom, Jr. and Andrew, who were in Union County, Georgia by the 1840 census. Today’s focus will be on a great grandson of the Revolutionary War soldier who had a distinguished name, Thomas Jefferson Hooper, named for that inimitable and intelligent third president of the United States, Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826, president 1801-1809). Descendants of Thomas Jefferson Hooper are still living within the area of Union and Towns counties today, and true to their forebears’ example, they continue to be productive citizens.

Thomas Jefferson Hooper was born November 1, 1845 in Jackson County, North Carolina. He would live until October 8, 1921 and be buried between his two wives in the Old Burch Cemetery in Towns County. He is listed as four years of age in the 1850 census of Union County, Georgia, not having reached his fifth birthday when the census taker visited the home of his parents to enumerate the household. His father was Benjamin Chastain Hooper (1812-1862) and his mother was Elizabeth Cathey Hooper (1815-1888). You might like to refer to the Cathey family articles written previously to see Elizabeth’s connections. Going back another generation, Benjamin Chastain Hooper’s parents were James and Mary Emaline Chastain Hooper, his mother a descendant of the noted Virginia settler, Pierre Chastain, ancestor of many who proudly claim this Chastain connection. James, father of Benjamin Chastain Hooper, was the first son of famed Absalom Hooper, Sr., Revolutionary War soldier.

When Thomas Jefferson Hooper went a-courting as a young man, he gained enough courage to go to the home of the Rev. Elijah Kimsey, a noted early preacher in the mountain area whose wife was Sarah Bryson Kimsey. Thomas Jefferson had caught the eye and favor of their daughter. Thomas Jefferson Hooper wed Araminta Caroline Kimsey (1846-1874) on Christmas Eve, 1865 when the Civil War was still a raw memory in the minds of many.

To Thomas Jefferson and Araminta Kimsey Hooper were born five children: (1) William (1866) who married Emma Stuart Coffey; (2) Violet Virginia (1869-1929) who married Warne Ketron Hedden (son of the Rev. Elisha Hedden and Juanita Caroline Butt Hedden); (3) Georgia Ann (1871-1921) who married Col. Sylvester M. Ledford; (4) Ollie Araminta “Minnie” (1872-1946) who married David Henry Puett; and (5) Mary Caroline known as “Callie” (1874) who married John H. Davis. Araminta died September 6, 1874, possibly from complications from childbirth when Callie was born. Thomas Jefferson Hooper was thus left with five small children.

He found himself another good wife, the second being Sarah Elizabeth Clementine Ellis (1852-1939), daughter of J. C. and Elizabeth Ellis, whom he married August 22, 1876. In addition to helping Thomas Jefferson rear the first five children, Sarah and he had five children, making him ten altogether: (1) James Lafayette (1881-1954) who married Eva Elinora Barrett; (2) Martha Elizabeth (1884-1937) who married Walter E. Warren; (3) Noah Franklin (1887-1942) who married Julia Kelley; (4) Maggie (1890-1961) who married Charles Colwell; and (5) Richard (1895) who married Ezra Willa Mae known as “Billie” Wood.

Thomas Jefferson Hooper moved his family into the town of Hiawassee, Georgia. There he established the Hooper Hotel, a stately and Victorian-designed landmark that received guests and served notable food for several years. In the town he also helped to establish the Bank of Hiawassee and set up and outfitted a mercantile store. He was elected to and served in the Georgia Legislature from Towns County in 1911-1912. Mr. Hooper was also a trustee of the Hiawassee Academy; an outstanding mountain boarding school founded by Dr. George W. Truett and Dr. Fernando Coello McConnell, cousins, and noted Baptist ministers.

Focusing now on the first son of Thomas Jefferson Hooper and Sarah Ellis Hooper, James LaFayette Hooper (Sr.), born March 1, 1881 (died April 8, 1954), he attended Hiawassee Academy, graduating in 1902. He went to the Atlanta College of Pharmacy and became a licensed pharmacist, working first in Cornelia, Georgia, and then opening Hooper’s Drug Store in 1911 in Buford, Georgia. He married the love of his life, Eva Elinora Barrett, daughter of Forrest C. and Mary Holcomb Barrett of Nacoochee Valley, Georgia on May 2, 1909. The couple returned to Hiawassee in 1914 and opened the Hooper’s Drug Store there. It proved to be one of the most continuously-operated businesses in the town, with the founder’s son, James LaFayette Hooper, Jr. (1914-1982) who graduated from the Southern School of Pharmacy in 1937, succeeding his father as owner and pharmacist. Later a grandson, Representative Ralph Twiggs, Jr. owned and operated the store, succeeded by purchaser Charles Nicholson.

James LaFayette Hooper, Sr. and Eva Barrett Hooper had four children: (1) Faye who married Ralph J. Twiggs, Sr.; (2) James LaFayette, Jr. who married Mary Richardson; (3) Gussie who married J. Walter Moore; and (4) Sarah who married Dr. John H. Carswell.

The legacy of serving the community has continued in the Hooper descendants.

We have only to trace the progeny of Absalom Hooper, Sr. through many generations to see that various regions of North and South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee and other states have benefited from the genuine hardiness, community spirit, work ethic, public service and church and educational support from those who hark back to the stalwart young man (Absalom, Sr.) who served his country well beginning in 1776 in our War for Independence. As we observe Veterans Day on November 11, we have opportunity to reflect on this heritage and salute those who have stood faithfully in the gap to win and preserve freedom from then until now and into the future.

c2010 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published Nov. 11, 2010 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Hooper Early Settlers in Union Descended From Absalom Hooper (Sr.) Revolutionary War Soldier

No Hooper families were listed in the 1834 special census of the new county of Union founded in 1832. However, by the 1840 census, three families of Hoopers with heads-of-households listed as Absalom, Andrew and Enas (Enos) were living in Union. Absalom and his wife were between thirty and forty and had two sons and eight daughters and one slave. Andrew and his wife were also between forty and fifty and had three sons and three daughters. Enas (probably should have been spelled Enos) and his wife were between thirty and forty and had six sons and four daughters. By the 1850 census, the Hooper population had grown with seven households enumerated.

The first three Hooper men to settle in Union were all sons of the Revolutionary War soldier, Absalom Hooper (Sr.). Some of the exploits of this soldier show his bravery, daring and determination. He was born about 1764 in South Carolina in the vicinity of the Green and Main Broad Rivers. His father died when he was a youngster. His mother sided with the Tories (those favoring the British). But Absalom Hooper definitely had sympathies for the colonists and left home to join the U. S. forces in 1776. His pay was to be in bounty of $30.00 and $5.00 per month, plus 640 acres of land at the close of the war. However that payment was not forthcoming according to his signed statement in 1833.

His military service saw him in many places during the war. He was under the command of General Howe at Sullivan’s Island in South Carolina. But the British General Sir Henry Clinton conquered the island and Howe and his forces went to Florida and fought against the British forces at the St. Mary’s River. From there they returned to Charleston, to Purrysburg, SC, and finally into Georgia. He was in the attack against the British at Stono Fort on the Edisto River. From thence his regiment went to Beaufort Island. Back to Savannah, he was with the American and French forces, allies, in the siege of Savannah. There Absalom Hooper was wounded in the right arm. From there they returned to Charleston where Absalom received another wound, that time in his left thigh. He was imprisoned and was in the enemy prison hospital until he somewhat recovered. He escaped and went to Georgia to find refuge in his uncle’s frontier home. The Tories captured him, held him five days and brought him to trial, but released him.

He heard of the whereabouts of his group, and joined up again at Augusta in Captain Daniel Gunnals’ regiment. They had skirmishes around the Augusta area, especially with parties of Tories. Then his regiment went to South Carolina and joined forces with General Pickens around the Little River area and Ninety-Six District. The Cherokee during the Revolution sided with the British. Absalom and his regiment were in the Battle of Long Swamp against the Cherokee but were defeated. They returned to Long Swamp, and awaited the end of the war.

Absalom Hooper married Sarah Salers at Pistol Creek in Elbert County, Georgia about 1783. Ten years after they married, they moved from Georgia to Table Rock, South Carolina. Their next move was about 1810 to Haywood County, North Carolina (later that area was named Jackson County). Along the Tuckaseegee River where they settled, some of the highest peaks in North Carolina towered above their land. There they reared their family of twelve children: James (1784), Elizabeth (1786), Andrew (1792), Kissiah (1794), Nancy (1797), Mary (1798), Absalom, Jr. (1880), Eleanor (1800), Margaret (1802), Enos (1805), William (1806), and Isaac (1807).

Three of these children of Absalom and Sarah Salers Hooper moved to the new county of Union sometime in the late 1830s and were counted in the 1840 Union census. Also Hooper sisters moved to the area. Kissiah married Milton Brown. They were living in Union when the 1834 census was taken, with eleven in their household. She and Milton preceded her three brothers, Absalom, Jr., Andrew and Enos in settling in Union. Mary who married Henry Brown lived in the Hightower section of Union that became a part of Towns County when it was formed in 1856. In fact, most of the Hooper households were on land that became Towns, so they automatically became citizens of the new county of Towns. Nancy Hooper and her husband, Benjamin Chastain, were in Union by 1850 and their farm at Hightower was absorbed into Towns.

Next week’s column will present more on the Hooper family that still has many descendants with multiple last names still remaining in the Towns and Union County areas.

c 2010 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published Oct. 21, 2010 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Patterson Families – Early Settlers in Union (Part 2)

As we saw from last week’s initial article on early settler Patterson families in Union, four households were registered in the first census of Union in 1834. The heads of these households were Joseph, Amos, John and George. Further research revealed these as brothers. The John listed is not the patriarch of the family in Union. He was also John Patterson, the father of these four men. John (Sr.) and his wife, Margaret Black Patterson, were also in Union in 1834, probably living in the household of their son Amos—or with one of the other three sons.

Let us focus on George Patterson and some of his descendants. With records available, George is shown as the eighth child of John and Margaret Black Patterson. He was born in 1800 in North Carolina and died before November, 1866 in Georgia. When the Patterson brothers settled in the vicinity of Ivy Log Creek in Union County, George knew how to make hats and became a milliner. This business became a means of added income to their mainstay occupation, farming. George was married first to Rebecca Chastain. She had distinctive ancestry back to the patriarch Pierre Chastain who settled in Virginia. George’s second wife was Sophia Dunnigan.

A son of George and Rebecca Chastain Patterson, William Harden, was born April 10, 1832. Researchers of this family line believe he was the first of these Patterson children to be born in the county that would become Union later in 1832. William (called Bill) grew up on his father’s farm in Ivy Log. Marriage records of Union County show that William Hardin (given as W. H. in the record) married Elizabeth Akins on November 5, 1853. The Patterson families were a part of Bethlehem Baptist Church where they attended. That church has the founding date of 1848.

Then the Civil War came. William Harden Patterson and his younger brother John both joined the Confederate Army. They were mustered into the 6th Regiment of the Georgia Cavalry Volunteers, Company B. Fortunately, they survived the war.

William Hardin and Elizabeth Akins Patterson had twelve children: James Alonzo, Sarah Florence, Martha Elizabeth, Rebecca Emmaline, Mary M., John Lumpkin, Lewis, twins William Elisha and Joseph Elijah, Vienna Caldonia, Lula L, and George Bunyon.

Of the children of Bill and Elizabeth Patterson, the eldest, James Alonzo, became a Baptist preacher. James Alonzo Patterson and Rozellia C. Sparks were married August 8, 1888 by Rev. James Waters. She was a daughter of Harden J. Sparks and Elizabeth Thomas Sparks of the Dooley District. The marked cemetery stones of Rev. J. A. Patterson and his wife in the Bethlehem Baptist Church Cemetery give their birth and death dates: James Alonzo Patterson, born November 30, 1855, died December 5, 1940; Rozellia Patterson, born February 27, 1867, died December 7, 1939. Alonzo’s parents were also buried at the Bethlehem Cemetery. Their gravestones read: W. H. Patterson, born 1832, died 1883; and Elizabeth Patterson, born 1836, died 1914.

Alonzo and Rozellia Patterson had nine children: Semon, Howard, Harden, Ellen, Milton, Maude, John, Howell and Ernest.

This brief view of early Patterson settlers leaves much yet to be researched. From the four brothers, Joseph, John (Jr.), George and Amos, and their father and mother, John and Margaret Black Patterson, who settled in Union, possibly even before the county was formed in 1832, come hundreds of Patterson-related descendants who have spread out through the adjoining mountain areas of Georgia, the state at large and other states. Amos and his family, for example, moved to Texas where many of his descendants can still be traced.

I am grateful to the research of Charles Wesley Patterson, “Wes” (born 1968) who has done extensive work on his Patterson line and shares it on his blogspot. He shows his descendency as follows:

William Patterson, born before 1690, died about 1710-20
Robert R. Patterson, born about 1711 and died in 1775
Thomas Patterson, born about 1740-44, died about 1800-02
John Patterson (who came to Union), born about 1765, died between 1840-1850
George Patterson, born 1800, died about 1860-67
William Harden “Bill” Patterson, 1832-1884
Joseph Elijah “Lige” Patterson (twin), 1871-1957
Clinton Willis “Clint” Patterson, 1904-1995
Francis Oliver “Frank” Patterson, born 1940
Charles Wesley “Wes” Patterson, born 1968

c 2010 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published Oct. 14, 2010 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Greenwood Families ~ Early Settlers in Union and Fannin

One county was formed from another in early settler days of establishing geographic county lines. It sometimes becomes hard for subsequent generations to distinguish just where their families lived in the years of the 1830’s through the 1860’s until Georgia’s county lines were fairly well established. Such a name was that of Greenwood, early Union settlers, but not the earliest, to this mountain region.

An examination of the 1834 census of Union County reveals no Greenwood family, but by 1840 James Greenwood and his wife and two small children under five were residents of Union County. It is not until 1850 that we find another family of Greenwoods, that of Martin Greenwood , age 34, and his wife Lucinda, age 24, with children John, 7, William 4, Mary 1, and living in the house with them, Margaret Morrison, age 64, (or Morris ?) who we find was the mother of Martin’s first wife, Lucinda Morris. James Greenwood and his family were not listed in the 1850 Union census. Since we find later that they lived in the more remote section called the Noontootla District, James’s family may have been missed by the census taker in 1850. And were James and Martin Greenwood brothers or cousins? That I have not established yet, but I did find by researching family records that Martin Greenwood’s parents were John and Mary Margaret (called “Polly”) Hurst Greenwood.

Before we go into the confusion of which county the Greenwoods lived in—Union or Fannin—let us look at the origin of the Greenwood surname. It is English, and was a place name meaning the “place of the Green Wood.” The first we find on record spelled the last name Greenwode. Wyomarus de Grenwode was a caterer for Maude (or Matilda), Empress, mother of King Henry II of England. King Henry reigned in England from 1154-1189. As chief cook for the king’s mother, Wyomarus de Grenwode was among the titled gentry. A great manor house constructed of hand-hewn stone near Hedbon Bridge in Heptonstall, Yorkshire, England still stands today as a monument to the noble Wyomarus de Grenwode who erected it. It was from this English family that John Greenwood of North Carolina, established as Martin father’s (and maybe James’s, too) was descended.

And now back to the 1840-1860 era here in the mountains, and why the Greenwood families were no longer listed in Union County after 1850. Fannin County was founded in 1854 from portions of what was Union and Gilmer. Martin A. Greenwood (1818-1866) lived near what became Fannin’s first county seat town, Morganton. He had a rather large farm there, and was also a merchant and a leather tanner. He didn’t have to move to be a citizen of first one and then the other county.

James Greenwood and his wife lived farther up in the mountain region. Their farm was in the Noontootla District. They are listed in both the 1860 and 1870 census of the new county, Fannin. They did not move but because of where they lived they also became citizens of Fannin.

In 1850, Martin Greenwood was 34, and he and his wife Lucinda, 24, were listed as having three children, John 7, William 4, and Mary, 1. Lucinda’s mother, Margaret Morrison (thus listed by census-taker) lived with them. Her name may have been Morris, not Morrison. Then by 1860, Martin was listed in the Fannin County census at Morganton, a merchant and farmer, with considerable wealth at that time, property evaluated at $1,000 and available money at $3,900. He was evidently a widower by 1860, with five children: John 18, William 15, Margaret 11, Andrew 7 (named for his father, for Martin’s middle name was Andrew) and Samner, 3 months. Living in the household with them was Benjamin C. Chastain, age 27, who evidently helped Martin A. Greenwood with his mercantile business, as Benjamin was listed as a store keeper. I did not find, by researching cemetery books of both Union and Fannin Counties, a marked gravestone for Lucinda Morris(on?) Greenwood.

There is a marriage record for Martin Greenwood to Sarah Freeman . They were wed on October 4, 1860, with the Rev. J. B. Parham performing the ceremony. Sarah was the widow of Samuel Freeman. Her maiden name was Parks. She and Samuel Freeman had married in Union County on October 28, 1849, with the Rev. T. M. Hughes performing their ceremony. How Sarah’s first husband died is not known to this writer.

Born to Martin and Sarah Greenwood were three more children, Emma Frances, Thomas Martin (1863-1938) and Molly. Martin Greenwood served in the Confederate Army during the Civil War. He plied his trade of tanning and leather-crafting while in service, making shoes for the soldiers. He was stationed at Carnesville in Franklin County. Whether he became ill while in service, or contracted some disease that left him vulnerable to illness is not known. He died in 1866 not long after the war and returned to his store and farm in Morganton. I searched both the Fannin and Union County cemetery books for his gravesite, but found no marked stone listed. John R. Greenwood, the son of Martin A. and his first wife, Lucinda, studied law and became a prominent lawyer and farmer in Morganton. He was for a time the internal revenue tax collector and also served as a commissioner of the U. S. Circuit Court of the area.

Sarah, widow of Martin Greenwood, had a hard struggle to rear his children and their children without their father. In the 1870 census of Fannin, she was age forty, with five children still at home. Thomas, their son, early became interested in medicine, and began to study it, first by associating with Dr. T. T. Fain of Morganton in his office and going with him on house calls around the countryside. Thomas went to Atlanta Medical College (later named Emory) where he graduated in 1888. He returned to Morganton where he practiced medicine until 1900. He then moved his family to Oklahoma and then on to Texas.

Emma Frances Greenwood, daughter of Martin and Sarah, married Judson Rucker Chastain, a son of the famed Elijah Webb Chastain, a representative and senator who lived in Morganton. Judson Rucker himself entered politics and ran against the famed Benjamin C. Dugger as representative in 1884.

Martin and James Greenwood, early Union County settlers, did not remain listed as Union County citizens because of the formation of the new county of Fannin in 1854. But Greenwood, a name that goes back to the twelfth century in England, is well-known in many parts of the United States. In fact, Greenwood, SC is named for some of the first settlers to that area of our country. Even here in this country, the Greenwoods seemed to enjoy settling in rural areas where their name described the towering trees growing around them in the deep forests.

c 2010 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published Sept. 30, 2010 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Fort Chastain and Indian Removal

Last week's column traced the movements and family of Benjamin Chastain (1780-1845) who served in Georgia's state legislature from Habersham County before he moved to the large Cherokee Lands and settled near the Toccoa River and Star Creek. He had been appointed an Indian agent. He established the Tuckahoe Post Office on March 15, 1837.

An interesting fact I did not mention in last week's article was that Benjamin Chastain and his wife, Rebeckah Denton Chastain, moved into a hewn-log house vacated by a Cherokee Indian family with an English name. According to information furnished by Brett Riggs, archaeologist, "spoliation claims filed from 1838-1847 indicate that Benjamin Chastain commandeered the home and farm of George Owens, Sr., a Cherokee, of Tuckahoe Town." The location of the cabin and Fort Chastain built on Chastain farmlands is now under the waters of Blue Ridge Lake. This departure point was once a gathering place for those removed westward on the Trail of Tears.

When gold was discovered on Duke's Creek in Habersham County (now White) in 1828, and in other north Georgia locations, a virtual gold rush started. Greed was the name of the game. By 1829, gold rush fever was rampant and prospectors poured in with get-rich quick schemes. Unscrupulous in their dealings with the Indians, the white men confiscated lands.

To Georgia's discredit, the state was a moving force in Indian removal. In 1828, a bill passed the Georgia Legislature which put all Cherokee under state law and declared their government and customs null and void after 1830. Georgia guards were sent to patrol and bring to court Indians who infringed on restrictions set in the 1828 law.

In 1830, the Removal Act passed the U. S. Congress.

After that law passed, when President Andrew Jackson was in office, many Indian Agents were appointed to deal with the Cherokee on terms of removal. Negotiations were made for purchase of Indian lands, but at inferior prices. Thirty-seven treaties signed by 1828 between the Cherokee and government had to do with "a tract of land ceded to…" with white settlers as recipients. It was thus that Benjamin Chastain, Indian Agent, received the farmland and home of George Owens, Sr, Cherokee, of Tuckahoe (or Taccoa) Town.

President Jackson's successor, President Martin Van Buren, continued to push for Indian Removal. In 1836 he appointed General Winfield Scott to commandeer the removal. He ordered his army to be humane and to appeal to Indians to go voluntarily to collection points—the forts that were quickly built in various locations in the Cherokee lands.

Fort Chastain at Star Creek on the Toccoa River was one of the collection points. How long the Indians had to wait there before being removed over the long Trail of Tears is uncertain. Their life in the forts was not easy. Forced to vacate cabins and possessions, the Indians were allowed to take only the barest necessities with them. They lived in very crowded conditions in the forts. Sanitation was poor and hunger and sickness prevailed. Being herbalists in medical applications, they no longer had available to them the natural herbs and cures for the illness that beset them. Many, especially among the elderly and very young, died before they left on the Trail of Tears.

One of the soldiers with General Scott's army wrote in his memoirs: "I later fought through the Civil War and have seen men slaughtered, but the Cherokee Removal was the cruelest work I ever knew."

Benjamin Chastain on whose land Fort Chastain was built was of the fourth generation of Chastains in America from Pierre, Sr., Pierre, Jr., John "Ten Shilling Bell" Chastain, the famous preacher, and then Benjamin himself. Benjamin's great grandfather had left Europe because the Huguenots endured bitter persecution. The Chastains had followed the paths of freedom, with Benjamin's father, John, pledging his support to the American Revolution. Circumstances occur in the rush of history that, when we look back upon them, fill us with mixed emotions. Such were the times in the 1830s when Benjamin Chastain, citizen of Georgia, state legislator, pioneer farmer, and Indian agent, due to circumstances in which he lived, had to make some hard decisions.

c 2009 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published June 25, 2009 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Focus on Benjamin Chastain (1780-1845)

This series of articles on various Chastain family members who settled in North Georgia in the nineteenth century and made a difference here in politics and way of life are necessarily tied together. In the first article June 4, I listed the first Chastains who settled in Union County in the 1830s. In the June 11 article, I retraced the Chastain lineage back to Dr. Pierre Chastain (1659-1728), French Huguenot settler and planter who settled in Manakin, Virginia in 1700.

This article will focus on Pierre's great, great grandchild, Benjamin Chastain, ninth child of the Rev. John "Ten Shilling Bell" Chastain and John's first wife, Mary O'Bryan Chastain.

Benjamin Chastain was born July 6, 1780 when his father, the Rev. John Chastain, lived in North Carolina in a section that later became Sullivan County, TN. A migration from that section saw the Chastains, with others of their neighbors, move to the Pendleton District of South Carolina. There he grew up, met and married a lady named Rebeckah Denton.

Old land deeds often give information of the whereabouts of a person. Benjamin was still in the Pendleton District in the 1800 census. By 1812 he owned land there. He sold 153 acres on Chasteen's Mail Creek at the Woolonoy Fork of the Saluda River for $50 to William Allen. The land Benjamin sold had been willed to him by his father, the Rev. John Chastain.

Benjamin and Rebeckah Chastain had eight children born to them before they left their South Carolina home: Mary, Jonathan Davis, Jeremiah S., John Bunyan, Benjamin Franklin, Nancy B., Elijah Webb and Rebecca Denton.

Land was opening up for settlement in Habersham County in North Georgia, and Benjamin and Rebeckah Chastain moved their family there about 1817. Their last two children were born in Habersham County, Jeremiah on June 10, 1818 and Martha Denton on June 16, 1821.

Being a leader in his community, Benjamin Chastain followed his desire to make a difference by entering politics. He represented Habersham County in the Georgia State Legislature in 1826, 1827 and again in 1832-1834.

With much turmoil occurring about Indian lands and negotiations with the Indians, Benjamin Chastain was appointed an agent to the Cherokee. That necessitated another move for his family. This time, they located near the Toccoa River. He opened the first post office in what would later become Fannin County. First called Tuckahoe, subsequently named Tocoah and still later Morganton, this post office was opened on March 15, 1837.

Another task assigned to Benjamin Chastain, former legislator and current Indian agent, was the building and operation of a fort at the intersection of the Toccoa River and Star Creek, on land now under the waters of beautiful Blue Ridge Lake. At that fort, the Cherokee were gathered together to await the long journey westward to Oklahoma on the Trail of Tears.

Benjamin Chastain died January 1, 1845 at his homestead in Old Gilmer County, bordering Union, prior to Fannin County being established in 1854. His wife, Rebeckah Denton Chastain, who was born August 28, 1779, died January 1, 1872 in Fannin County, Georgia. I find no cemetery markings for them listed in Cemeteries of Fannin County (2003). The Pierre Chastain Family History book states they were buried in the Old Antioch Cemetery near the Toccoa River. Perhaps unidentified, unmarked graves mark the final resting places of these pioneer settlers.

The account of Fort Chastain is another story. That article is forthcoming, as well as Benjamin Chastain's part in its location on his property in 1838.

c 2009 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published June 18, 2009 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Where Did Union County Chastains Originate?

The federal census of 1834 for Union County reveals that John B., Edward and Abner Chastain had established households in the county early in the county's history.

Where did these Chastains originate? What is significant about their ancestry?

Tracing these Chastain settlers in Union back to Pierre Chastain (about 1659 - 1728), known to subsequent generations as Dr. Pierre Chastain, the Immigrant, we find that this first of the line in America came to Virginia in 1700 because of religious persecution in France. Pierre was a son of Estienne Chastain and Jeanne Laurant Chastain. They were members of what became known as the French Huguenots. They were adherents of the French Reformed Church (also called Calvinists because of their leader, Jean Cauvin, English name John Calvin [1509-1564]).

With other Huguenot immigrants, Pierre Chastain and his first wife, Susanne Renaud, settled on land at Manakin, Virginia near present day Richmond. Pierre had multiple occupations. First and foremost, he was a physician (surgeon). It has also been noted that he was a perruquier (the French term for barber and wig maker). He was a planter and plantation owner.

After the death of his first wife, Susanne, by whom he had eight children, he married Anne Soblet, whose family had also escaped France under Huguenot persecution. Dr. Pierre Chastain and his wife Anne had eight children, making a total for The Immigrant Chastain of sixteen. Three of his children with Susanne died young, for in February, 1700, he was listed with five children and no wife in the Manakin area census. Dr. Pierre Chastain's third marriage was to Mary Magdalene Trabue, widow of Antoine Trabue.

Pierre Chastain was active in the Manakin Town Episcopal Church where present-day visitors are told of the Chastain pew, third from the front on the left side of the church. Descendants of The Immigrant also take pride in visiting the home of Dr. Chastain, a two-story white frame house in Manakin Town, Virginia. The gravesite of Dr. Chastain and his three wives and some of his children has been identified and marked. The Pierre Chastain Family Association, organized in 1975, has for its aim the development and preservation of Chastain family records and information. Many places dear to The Immigrant and his descendants have been marked and identified as they spread out from Manakin Town, Virginia to surrounding areas and moved to other pioneer regions of the country as migrations occurred.

The book of genealogy, Pierre Chastain and His Descendants, Volume I: First Five Generations in America was published by the Association in 1995 and has become a much-sought after volume for history on the Huguenot settlers in Virginia and their dispersion throughout America.

In more recent years, the Chastain Family website posts additional genealogical and historical information, and The Chestnut Tree, the Association's quarterly newsletter, keeps interest in the Chastain family alive and well.

As I studied and read the Chastain family history book, I was interested in how names were passed down through generations. There were many with the name Pierre, to honor The Immigrant. But in subsequent generations, Pierre became anglicized to Peter. Jean became John.

As mentioned in last week's article, one of the Johns was John Chastain (1743-1805) the famous John "Ten Shilling Bell" Chastain, noted Baptist minister and church planter. This John was a son of Pierre Chastain, Jr. (1707- after 1775), third child of Pierre and his second wife Anne Soblet. The records on the second Pierre are somewhat fuzzy as courthouse fires in Buckingham County, Virginia where the family lived took major records.

Pierre, Jr.'s son John's first wife was Mary O'Bryan (1765-1797), born in Ireland and died in Pendleton District, South Carolina. Following his first wife's death, he married second, Mary Robinson, a widow, whose maiden name is unknown. It is through this John Chastain that many of the North Georgia Chastains descend. For those who can trace their lines back to John "Ten Shilling Bell" Chastain, they can claim a Revolutionary War patriot, for he signed the oath of allegiance in Powhatan County, Virginia.

A brief listing of John Chastain's children by his first wife, Mary O'Bryan show Abner (1764-1846) who died in Pickens County, SC. John, Jr. (1766-1844) who died in Pickens County, SC. Martha (1768- 1794) who married John Blythe and died in South Carolina. Edward Brigand (1769- about 1834) who lived in Union County, GA, died in what is now Fannin County. Mary (1771-?) married John O'Dell. Elijah (1776-1853) died in what is now Gilmer County, GA, married Hannah Adams, Anna Middleton and Catherine Carson. Elizabeth (1777-after 1850) married Samuel Denton, Jr. Cleo (or Chloe) (1799 - ?) married John Denton. Benjamin Chastain (1780-1845) was in Union County, died in what is now Fannin, married Rebekah Denton. Nancy Chastain (1783-?) married John Robinson. Joseph Chastain (1783-after 1850) married Nancy Young, went to Missouri.

John Chastain's children by his second wife, widow Mary (maiden name unknown) Robinson were Violet (1798- ?) married William Akins. William (1801-after 1860 and before 1875) married Margaret Dobbs, died in Habersham County, GA. Mary Lavina (1803 - 1845) died in Franklin County, Tn. She married three times.

From Pierre the Immigrant to the generations cited here, the Chastains migrated to many sections of our country and became involved citizens in the life and growth of their communities.

c 2009 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published June 11, 2009 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Some Chastains Were in Union County by 1834

Chastain is a surname heard often in the mountain region of North Georgia. It is a steadfast family name and people who bear it (spelled variously Chasteen, Chastaine and other ways) have been solid citizens contributing in areas of farming, education, politics, Christian ministry, medicine, business and merchandising.

The earliest census of Union County in 1834 reveals three families of Chastains living within the bounds that became the county in 1832. These were John B. Chastain with three males and three females in the household; Edward Chastain, also with three males and three females counted; and Abner Chastain, with three males and four females registered.

By the 1840 census, the Chastain households had grown to seven in Union County, namely John, Abner B., Edward, Benjamin, James, Joseph C. and Abner. This increase in population of Chastains did not mean necessarily that four more families had moved into the county, but that some of the children of the three families in Union in 1834 had married and established homes within the decade.

The 1850 census reveals nine Chastain households with the following named as heads of families: John, J. B., Withrow, James, Jason, Calvin, William, Martin and Edward. One of the Chastain family historians, M. A. McGraw, in his book entitled Jason Coward Chastain and His Family (c1976) gives insight to how we find early Chastain settlers in Habersham, Union, Gilmer, Fannin and other mountain counties: "As these families came to Georgia, they all settled in the same area on Cherokee lands which became Cherokee County in 1831, Union County in 1832, and Fannin County in 1854. Their homeplaces were the same, but as the large area was subdivided, the records would seem to indicate they lived in different places." (page 12)

Returning to some of the Chastain families found in the early Union County censuses, we will trace more on their origins and contributions.

John Chastain (listed in a separate household in 1840 census) was born in Haywood County, North Carolina in 1791 or 1792. He had a nickname, "Hootchie," to distinguish him from another John Chastain, his uncle, who was known as "Blind John." The name "Hootchie" was given to this John because they settled in a bend of the Chattahoochee River when they first came to Georgia.

John Chastain married twice, first to Nancy Coward and second to Nancy Withrow. By his first wife he had one son, Jason Coward Chastain (1818-1900). By his second wife Nancy Withrow, John had eight children: Withrow, James, Joseph DeKalb, Malinda, Susanna, Hannah, Benjamin Nelson, and John. Evidently John and Nancy Coward Chastain divorced after Jason Coward was born. She later married a Kelly. When she was elderly, she returned to the home of her son Jason Coward Chatain at Dial in Fannin County. He cared for her in her dotage and she was buried in the family cemetery on the rise above the commodious Chastain house. John Chastain and his wife Nancy Withrow Chastain lived in the Ivy Log section of Union County where their eight children were born and reared.

John's father was Edward Brigand Chastain, born March 29, 1769 in Buckingham County, VA and died in 1834 in what is now Fannin County, GA. His mother, Edward Brigand's wife, was Hannah Brown (1771- about 1837). They were believed to be the parents of sixteen children, but records have been found of only fifteen, namely: Delilah, Jemimah, John, Rainey, Hannah, Mary, Griffith, Cyrus, Jehu, Abner, Elisabeth, Nancy, Martha, Edward Bruce, and Joseph Carleton. Perhaps one of their children died in infancy.

Hootchie" John Chastain's grandfather was the famous John "Ten Shilling Bell" Chastain (1743-1805), a Baptist preacher who worked with other famous pioneer ministers such as Rev. Shubael Starnes to establish churches on the frontier in Virginia, North and South Carolina. The "Ten Shilling Bell" nickname came for the elder John Chastain because of his resonating and clear ringing voice. It was reported that he could be heard, when preaching, "for a mile or more" on a still, clear day or night. Rev. John Chastain was declared a patriot when he signed the oath of allegiance and pledged his support for the American side in the fray against Great Britain. He and his family were in Powhatan County, Virginia at that time.

The other two Chastain households in Union County in 1834 were that of Edward Chastain and Abner Chastain. The Edward is believed to be Edward Brigand Chastain (1769- 1834). It seems he was enumerated in the 1834 census before his death later that same year. His partial family history is given above.

Abner Chastain was a son of Edward Brigand and Hannah Brown Chastain. Born in 1803, Abner was ordained to the gospel ministry prior to the Civl War. He married, first, Susan Pemberton O'Kelley in Habersham County, GA. This Rev. Abner Chastain served as pastor of the Choestoe Baptist Church before moving west. He led a wagon train going west, with some 250 people from Union County in the massive move. His wife, Susan, died on this trip west. Abner later married Amanda D. Elzy. Arriving in Colorado, Abner Chastain settled on the Huerfano River east of St. Mary's. There he established a Baptist Church and baptized the first convert in the Huerfano River in the fall of 1870. (Subsequent articles will trace more of the Chastain story. - EDJ)

[References: Union County census records, 1834, 1840, 1850. Books: M. M. McGraw, Jason Coward Chastain and His Family (1975). Pierre Chastain Family Association, Pierre Chastain and His Descendants Volume I (1995)]

c 2009 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published June 4, 2009 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Family of War Soldier John Nicholson

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pinnacles of the Past: The Railroad went to Blue Ridge, not Blairsville Blue Ridge, Mecca of the Mountains

The railroad, when it came to the mountains, went to Blue Ridge, Georgia and not to Blairsville, to the disappointment of many in the 1880s. Folks from Blairsville had to go to Blue Ridge to the train station, or to Culberson, NC, when the tracks extended on to there, or to Murphy, NC to catch a train or to ship their farm goods.

Blue Ridge, Georgia was incorporated by an Act of the Georgia Legislature on October 24, 1887.

But the history of Blue Ridge, named after the azure peaks, part of the Southern Appalachian Range that surround the town, had a much earlier beginning than that October day in 1887.

Cherokee Indians had a village and stronghold at the site of the future town. They cleared fields for cultivation and grew maize and other crops. One of the five "civilized tribes" of Native Americans, the Cherokee were advanced in agriculture, a written language and governmental practices.

The first post office in Blue Ridge was established before the Indians were forced west on the Trail of Tears. Seventeen years before Fannin County was formed by an Act of the Georgia Legislature and the bill signed by Governor Herschel Johnson on January 21, 1854, William L. Buchanan was appointed first postmaster of the Blue Ridge station on March 30, 1837. It is likely that Mr. Buchanan was also an Indian agent, dealing in land transactions with the Indians as white settlers moved into the area prior to the Indian removal. Tuckahoe Post Office, which later became Tacoah and then Morganton, was established fifteen days before the one at Blue Ridge, on March 15, 1837, with Benjamin Chastain as first postmaster and Indian agent.

The founder and "father" of Blue Ridge was Michael McKinney whose father, James Isaac McKinney, had settled at Chestnut Gap to the west of Blue Ridge in 1853. There the McKinney family established a mill, a store, a stagecoach stop on the old Ducktown to Ellijay Road, and various other enterprises. Because of serious damage to the McKinney store and mill during the Civil War, the McKinneys returned to their former home in Tennessee at Horseshoe Bend in Roane County. Michael McKinney joined the Confederacy and served in the Civil War, earning the rank of Colonel. He was known as Col. Mike McKinney upon his family's return to Chestnut Gap after the war and until his death in 1925.

In 1886, Colonel Michael McKinney sold out his Chestnut Gap holdings to his eldest son, Robert McKinney, and he and his wife, Hepsey Adeline McClure, and their younger children moved to what would become the town of Blue Ridge. There Michael McKinney established the first business, with a general merchandise store, a sawmill with sale of lumber and building materials, and a real estate business. The McKinney residence was the first built in the newly formed town of Blue Ridge.

Land for the town of Blue Ridge had belonged to an early settler, John Green, a farmer who raised corn and other crops on the location where the Fannin County Courthouse now stands. Mr. Green's son, Elisha, donated land to establish the town of Blue Ridge and worked with Mr. McKinney to survery and plat the town.

Michael McKinney was the mover and shaker in getting the railroad to Blue Ridge. McKinney and Georgia state legislator from the county, Mr. Ben Duggar, negotiated with officials of the Marietta and North Georgia Railroad. Engineer C. R. Walton worked to find the best right-of-way for laying the railroad tracks through Pickens, Gilmer and Fannin Counties and on into Murphy, North Carolina. Through convict labor secured by Representative Dugger, the grade for the tracks was finished in 1885. Col. McKinney and Col. R. L. Herbert of Cherokee County, NC, drove the ceremonial spike linking the northward bound track at Ellijay on January 1, 1886 amidst much festivity and celebration. The engine named "Little Mary" roared into Blue Ridge in 1886, pulling the train into the depot. The railroad shops were located at Blue Ridge from 1886 through 1906, providing jobs for repairmen and other railroad workers. The railroad was a boon to population growth and commercial and residential building.

Blue Ridge soon became a tourist attraction. Mineral Springs, with health-giving chaleate water, was touted as a place where health could be restored. Hotels sprang up in the new town along the twin main streets east and west of the railroad tracks. Homes were opened as boarding houses. Blue Ridge quickly became a bustling town. Horses, buggies, carts and farm wagons crowded the streets. Railroad whistles, the sound of cars switching on the tracks, the sights and smells of steam and smoke combined to produce an atmosphere of prosperity and productivity.

A problem arose concerning county government and judicial business. Lawyers, judges and others coming to the county for "court weeks" traveled by train and lodged at Blue Ridge hotels. They had to hire buggies or other conveyances to travel the dirt road to Morganton, the county seat, to conduct court. This seemed a waste of time and was a great inconvenience to them.

A proposal came to move the county seat from Morganton to Blue Ridge. The vote was taken on August 13, 1895. Two-thirds of those voting favored the referendum. However, those who had long cherished having Morganton as the county seat town did not easily give in to the vote. The dispute was settled by the Georgia Legislature and the vote upheld.

A stately brick courthouse with two stories and a clock tower was completed in Blue Ridge in 1901 at a cost of $14,000. That building burned July 3, 1936. The replacement was completed in 1937. The present new court house was entered in January, 2004.

A lengthy article published in 1887 in The Ellijay Courier described the rapid growth of Blue Ridge. stating that people were moving "from Atlanta, Marietta, Michigan and other places." The climate, land, healthy environment and future prospects of prosperity hailed Blue Ridge as the "mecca of the mountains." The writer further stated that "Messrs. McKinney and Walton, who own the real estate, intend to make a town of that place whether fate so decrees or not."

Although the heyday of the railroad subsided when passenger trains ceased to pull into the depot in 1951, and freight transportation ceased in the 1980's, the Blue Ridge Scenic Railway short run between Blue Ridge and McCaysville draws thousands of sightseers each season. Downtown Blue Ridge has undergone massive renovation and could well be renamed the "mecca of the mountains" for antiques and specialty shops.

Citizens in each generation since the town's founding in 1887 to the present have left a legacy of hard work, entrepreneurship, and determination. "Mecca of the Mountains"? The torch of hope and determination is still flaming, ready to be transferred to those, who like Colonel Michael McKinney, are yet to dream of what Blue Ridge can become.

And it's still a pretty good place for folks at Blairsville to travel to, even though the only train operative there now is the Blue Ridge Scenic Railway.

c 2008 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published July 17, 2008 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.