Patterson Families--Early Settlers in Union

With our annual Thanksgiving celebration immediately past we have fond memories of our own family get-togethers, traditional turkey and dressing and other excellent food, and the good times such family events provide for us. We are grateful for such a highlight in our year and mark each as worthwhile and a time to draw together as family.

We don’t know to what extent the early settlers to Union County observed Thanksgiving. Maybe they, too, gathered family members and had a special time of gratitude for blessings and sharing food. I took time to examine the 1834 Union census, and discovered that the surname recorded with the most families with the name living in the county then was Patterson. Four families made up the Patterson population with heads of households listed as Joseph (8 males, 4 females), Amos (5 males, 2 females), John (4 males, 3 females) and George (4 males, 3 females). That count brought the Pattersons living in Union at the time of the first census to 33 persons. Some of the Patterson families settled in the Ivy Log District of Union County along Ivy Log Creek.

The marriages recorded in Union records before the 1840 census were as follows:

Lewis Patterson to Jerushia Denton on December 6, 1836 by J. B. Chastain, Justice of the Peace;

Margaret Patterson to Gravit R. Foster on November 9, 1837 by William Patterson;

Sarah Patterson to William Carroll on December 31, 1838 by A. Chastain, Justice of the Peace;

John Patterson to Sarah Beasley on March 13, 1839 by John B. Chastain, Justice of the Peace.

By the 1840 census, which gives only names of heads-of-households and the number of males and females and their ages by categories of under 5, 5-10, 10-15, 15-20, 20-30, etc. to over 100, we find ten Patterson families listed. The four families resident in Union had remained, Joseph, Amos, John and George, and six more Patterson families with heads of households named William, John, Samuel, Lewis, John (the elder—he and his wife were between 70 and 80), and Bailey. Those in Patterson households numbered a total of 55 for the 1840 population.

Those searching their genealogy are always grateful to come to the 1850 census, for therein they find names of husband, wife, children and any others living in the household when the enumerator visited. There were eleven households of Pattersons in Union in 1850. I list them here as I found them enumerated:

Household #45: William Patterson, 37, born in NC, wife Elizabeth, 32, born in GA, and ten children, all born in Georgia; Mary, 13, Joseph, 12, John, 11, William, 9, Samuel, 7, James, 5, Nancy, 4, Alfred, 3, Manerva, 1, and an infant, gender and name not given, 4 months.

Household # 184: John Patterson, 35, born in NC, Sarah, 29, born in NC and children all born in Georgia: Lidey, 9, Nancy 6, Elizabeth, 4, Andrew, 2, and Nathan, 6 months. These, I think, are the John Patterson and Sarah Beasley married on March 13, 1839

Household # 187: Samuel Patterson, 44, born in NC; Jane, 3 (?) born in TN, Carroll, 17, born in NC, Decator, 15, born in NC, and the remaining children born in Georgia: Amanda, 13, Julius, 11, Mercilla, 9, Nathan, 6, Sarah, 4, Julian, 2, and Samuel, 6 months.

Household # 333: Joseph Patterson, 61, born in SC, wife Agnes, 55, born in SC, children still at home all born in Georgia: Solomon, 24, Mary, 20, Elizabeth, 18, and Melissa, 16. Listed in Joseph’s household is Margaret Patterson, age 83, his mother (?), born in SC, and Ann Patterson, 47, his sister (?) and Sary Durham, 84, born in VA, his mother-in-law (?).

Household # 335: Amos Patterson, 26, born in Georgia, Jane, 24, born in NC, and children Mary, 4, born in GA, James 3, born in NC, and Nancy, 1, born in GA.

Household # 373: John Patterson, 28, born in NC and Mary, 24, born in SC.

Household # 454: John Patterson, 52, born in NC, owns one slave; Sarah, 47, born in SC, and children all born in Georgia: Andrew, 18, Humphrey, 15, John, 11, George, 8, Sarah, 3; and Margaret Patterson, age 83, listed again here in her son John’s household (she was also enumerated in her son Joseph’s household), and Lucinda Hix, 45, born in SC, who probably was a sister of Sarah Patterson, John’s wife.

Household # 455: Joseph Patterson, 25; Mary, 22, both born in Georgia, and children all born in Georgia: George, 5, Sarah, 3, and John, 2 months. A marriage is listed for Joseph Patterson and Polly Hawkins on October 24, 1844 by William Poteet, Justice of the Peace. “Polly” was a common nickname for Mary.

Household # 456: William Patterson, 23, Margaret Patterson, 22, Lucinda 5 and James, 2, all born in Georgia. I do not find a marriage listing for this couple in Union’s records unless the one for W. H. Patterson and Elizabeth Akins on November 5, 1853 by Hampton Jones, Justice of the Peace is the entry, maybe using Margaret’s other name.

Household # 608: George Patterson, age 50, born in North Carolina; no wife listed; children all born in Georgia: William, 19, Elizer, 17, John, 13, Elijah, 11, and Margaret, 6.

Household # 902: James Patterson, 34, born in NC; Easter, 26, born in NC, and children all born in Georgia: Martha, 6, Adaline, 4, Jonathan, 2, and Nathan, 11 months. James Patterson and Easter Nicholson were married in Union on Christmas Day, 1843 by Rev. Abner Chastain.

These 11 households of Pattersons in the 1850 Union census numbered 73 in population, plus one slave, with 38 males, 34 females, and one infant with gender not specified nor name given at age four months.

c2011 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published December 1, 2011 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Civil War's effect on Mary Elizabeth Fields Smith Foster

In looking back on the Civil War, we often focus on the men who went away to war and its effect on them. But the women and children who were left to fend for themselves fought a brave fight as well, enduring hardships that would have torn apart less hardy and determined souls.

Little Mary Elizabeth Fields had a rather auspicious entrance into this world. She was born February 6, 1837. The exact place of her birth was not recorded in family records, for her parents, Jesse B. and Catherine Akins Fields were on their way from their old home in Pickens, S.C., to Union County, Ga., when their second child and first baby girl was born. Whether Catherine Fields thought they would be settled in Union County before the new baby arrived, or whether she went into premature labor is not known. However, even in the cold February weather and the trip over rough terrain through the mountainous region, the bundled-up new baby and mother arrived tired and safe at the land on which the Fields family settled and inhabited a log cabin in what later was known as the Edward Crump "gingerbread" house on Owltown.

Mary Elizabeth, better known as Bettie, did not receive much formal education, but learned to read and write at home, skills that served her well in later years. She married at age 17 to George Smith on June 14, 1855. To them were born four children, three sons and a daughter. However, as was common in those days, one son and the daughter did not survive infancy. Sons Louis W. Smith (b. 1858) and Joseph W. Smith (b. 1860) survived and grew to manhood.

Talk of the country splitting into North and South was prevalent, even as people gathered for church or at mills, stores or post offices in Union County. George Smith, who was born in the south and loved the south, held unionist views because he did not want to see the Union asunder. He decided to move his young family to Tennessee to look for a better living than he could make on the farm in Union County. With the family living in a log cabin with some land to provide patches and a garden, George Smith joined the Union Army and went away to fight.

Of great concern to Bettie Fields Smith as she cared for her two little boys and tried to make a crop were the knowledge that her brothers, John and Thomas Fields, who had joined the Confederate Army, might come face to face with Union soldier George Smith, her husband. Having sworn allegiance to opposing forces, their fighting each other was a grave possibility. It is not known whether they ever faced on the same battlefields.

On the home front, raiders and looters were a constant threat. Bettie stored what food she could raise for her family in hiding places to keep it from being stolen. Miraculously, with the help of some caring neighbors, she and the two young boys endured the hardships of war. Her husband did not return. Finally she received word that George Smith had been killed.

After a year of mourning for her husband, she met 24 year old Charles Edmund Foster. He, like her first husband, had fought for the Union cause and had been an officer in the U.S. Army. They courted for awhile and were married in Tennessee. Charles Foster had a good education for a mountain man of his day. He taught in country schools and farmed the land Bettie owned around her log cabin. Their first child, Ulysses S. Foster, was born February 28, 1867. No doubt, Bettie thought of her own birthday, so close to her fifth child's. She had been born 30 years before on February 6, 1837 as her parents moved from South Carolina to Georgia.

Soon after the birth of their first child, Bettie and Charles Foster moved from Tennessee to Union County. Their second child, William Robert Foster, was born October 11, 1869. Other children born to them were Edmund Lee Foster (October 26, 1873), Eva Eldorado Foster (1877) and Fleta Jane Foster (1880).

Betty Fields Smith Foster had learned fortitude during the war years. She did not ease up on her duties as a wife and mother back in Union County. She had not received much education, but she was determined that her children go to school. She made their clothing, weaving the cloth and sewing garments. She worked hard to make what money she could from eggs and chickens in barter at the local merchandise store. Her husband Charles Edmund Foster was "known in the land" as a dependable farmer and teacher. In the 1870s he was elected as Union County's Clerk of Superior Court, an office he filled with distinction periodically until his death in 1887. For a time in 1884, Foster and his eldest son, Ulysses, went west to Texas for six months to seek employment there. Bettie Foster was glad to see them return home and be content to remain in the mountains.

In 1887 Charles Foster became ill while serving as Clerk of Court. As the saying was then, "he took to his bed," and was never well again. His death came October 16, 1887. Although Bettie's older children were married and gone from home when Charles died, she was still left with these children at home: William Robert, 18, Edmund Lee, 14, Eva Eldorado, 10, and Fleta Jane, 7. At age 50, Bettie Foster buckled down and did what she had to do to keep house, farm and children together. Her son, Edmund Lee Foster, wrote a biography of his mother in 1923 in which he paid tribute to her as one who lived by the philosophy of "Where there is a will, there is a way." He lauded her strong Christian faith, her sterling character and her unwavering determination.

Her last years were somewhat easier financially when, in 1890, she was granted a widow's pension from the U.S. Army service of her late husband, Charles Edmond Foster.

With the stipend, she was able to buy a place on the Nottely River about 2 and 1/2 miles south of Blairsville where she lived out her life until age 72, dying May 6, 1908.

In the Harmony Grove Baptist Church Cemetery are the graves of Charles Edmund Foster (1842-1887) and Mary Elizabeth (Bettie) Fields Smith Foster (1837-1908). Close by are the graves of her parents, Catherine Akins Fields (?-1857) and Jesse B. Fields (1812-1904). The Fields were founding members of the church and that is probably where Bettie Foster liked to sing the beautiful songs of Zion and attend church faithfully, bringing up her children in the "nurture and admonition of the Lord."

c 2006 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published Aug. 3, 2006 in The Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.