Henson Family Name in Early Union County History

When the special census of 1834 was taken, only one Henson family appeared, that of Joseph Henson, Senior, with Joseph himself and his wife in the household.

Proceeding to the next census in 1840, three households of Hensons were in Union. In the Charles Henson household were two male children, three female children, and Charles and his wife. In the Joseph Henson household were eight male children, four female children and Joseph and his wife. In the Joseph Henson, Sr. household, the same as noted from 1834, the residents had increased to five male children, eight female children, and the mother and father. With such an increase in Joseph, Sr.’s household, we wonder how this accounting could have come about in just six years. Maybe the 1850 census will reveal some answers, or perhaps we can find other clues from family history stories that will add light to these early Henson settlers to the county.

By 1850, the first census with children in households listed by names rather than just an age bracket, we discover Hensons in eight enumerated households, with the number of persons by that name totaling thirty-three, but Daniel Henson, age 19, seems to have been counted twice, first with his own family, and again in the household of M. C. Wilson and his wife, Mary Wilson and their three small children, William, Martha and Eliza Wilson. (Could Daniel and Mary Wilson have been brother and sister and he was visiting them—or working on M. C. Wilson’s farm—when the census-taker called?). A listing, besides that of the Wilsons, in which Hensons were enumerated in 1850 was as follows:

(#65) Allen Henson, 56, and his wife, Elizabeth, 56, with children Edy, 18, Elizabeth, 14, Daniel, 19, and George, 21—all born in North Carolina. Allen Henson’s occupation was listed as cooper—or barrel-maker.

(#466) Archibald Henson, age 74, was born in Virginia. Evidently his wife was not living in 1850. Listed in his household are children Charity, 30 and Ages, 18, both born in North Carolina, and Edmund, age 10 (a young child for a 74-year old man; could he have been a grandchild?), born in Tennessee.

(#471) Charles Henson, age 65, his wife Sally, 64, and one child still at home, Charles. All three were born in South Carolina.

(#475) Eli Henson, age 39, and his wife, Elizabeth, age 29, both born in North Carolina, and their three small children, James 7, Archibald, 5, and Jacob, 1, all born in Georgia. In this household was Jacob Ledford, age 20. (Could he have been a brother to Elizabeth Henson?)

(#548) William Henson, age 26, born in Georgia, his wife, Mary Ann, age 26, born in South Carolina, and a young Joseph Henson, Jr., age 20, born in Georgia. (Could he have been a brother to William, and a son of Joseph Henson, Sr., who was in the 1834 Union census?)

(#549) Joseph Henson, Sr. age 44, born in South Carolina. No wife is listed, but an elderly Rebecca Henson, age 90, no doubt Joseph, Sr.’s mother, also born in SC was in the household, along with children Alsa (a female), 17, Rebecca, 15, John, 12, and Jonathan, 10, all born in Georgia.

(#1047) Henson, James, age 28, his wife, Catherine, age 24, both born in North Carolina, and one child, William, age 1.

For more information about early settlers with Henson surname, we turn to early marriage records and find these who were married in Union County from 1832 to 1850. Some of these relate back to the additional households of Hensons added between the 1840 and 1850 census:

Rebecca Henson married Preston Starrett on 16 February 1839 (by Jesse Reid, JP)

Lovina Henson married Henry Nichols on 24 December 1840 (by Daniel Mathis, JIF)

Henry Henson married Mariah Woods on 25 July 1841 (by David Kenny, JP)

Joseph Henson married Sarah N. Warlex on 12 May 1842 (by Rev. Elisha Hedden, MG)

Mary Henson married Thomas Henson on 22 July 1845 (by John Patterson, JP)

Martha Henson married William Daniel on 10 December 1845 (by Charles Crumley, JP)

James Henson married Catherine Battbey (? sp.) on 13 May 1847 (by W. A. Brown, JP)

T. P. Henson married S. Mahoney on 8 October 1847 (by Benjamin Casteel, JP)

W. C. Henson married Polly Ann Hood on 23 April 1848 (by Charles Crumley, JP)

Loyd Henson married Milly Harkins on 13 March 1850 (by M. L. Burch, JP)

If you are a Henson, or a descendant from a Henson of those listed as settlers in Union up to 1850, or related to those in the nine Henson couples married in Union by 1850, then you can claim your heritage back to these hardy pioneers. A Henson cemetery was established in the Owltown District of Union County. At the time the Union County Cemetery Book was compiled in 1990, eight graves were marked just by field stones with no discernible identification, while twenty-two of the graves had inscribed headstones. The earliest marked grave was that of an infant of J. I. Henson who was born and died October 15, 1875. Probably some of the field stones marked earlier graves prior to that one of 1875. The name gravestone identifying the one born earliest to be buried in the Henson Cemetery is that of James M. Henson (1822-1906). Joseph Henson, Sr., first Henson settler in Union County, must have been buried with only an unmarked field stone at his grave. In my search of all Henson burials listed in the cemetery book, I did not find his name or a date that would identify him.

An early Henson School once operated in Choestoe District. My Uncle Herschel Dyer, and later his son, Otis Dyer, taught at that school.

c 2010 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published Sept. 16, 2010 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Continuing the Legacy of Benjamin J. Ledford: Son Benjamin Mercer and Grandson Arthur Paul Ledford

The Civil War brought hard times and “make do” situations even to families in remote Union County, Georgia. As we’ve already seen in the account of Silas L. Ledford, third child of fifteen born to the early settler Benjamin J. Ledford (1800-1882), who joined the Georgia Cavalry and the Local Defense Troops, so another son of Benjamin, his eleventh-born, also had a term in Civil War fighting.

Benjamin Mercer Ledford (11/14/1838-03/24/1919) was Benjamin’s eleventh child. His mother was Grace Ownbey Ledford. On May 10, 1862, he enlisted with the 6th Regiment, Georgia Cavalry Volunteers, Company B. He received the rank of captain. He was wounded in the knee at the Battle of Chickamauga . This brought about his subsequent resignation from active duty. He continued to serve in the Local Defense Troops and evidently received the rank of Colonel in that group, for he was often referred to as “Colonel Ledford.”

An interesting incident occurred while he was in service. He was visiting in a friend’s home in Loudon County, Tennessee. While there, Union troops attacked the house. How he had time, before the soldiers came into the house trying to kill any of the Confederate soldiers they found, is not exactly known. But the story has been passed down about how Benjamin Mercer Ledford escaped death. He donned the garb of a woman, and with a bonnet on, was at the dough board kneading bread when the invasion occurred. His life was spared, and for good cause. He married Sarah Blair (09/28/1838-09/13/1889) on July 29, 1863, daughter of his friend in whose house he had escaped death.

Benjamin Mercer and Sarah Ledford made their way back to Union County, Georgia to set up housekeeping. Since her father was a substantial citizen of Loudon County, and owner of slaves, he gave Sarah slaves to help her with housekeeping and Benjamin Mercer with his farm work on Gum Log in Union County where they settled. This couple gave ten acres to Antioch Baptist Church from the land holdings they had acquired.

Benjamin Mercer Ledford became an ordained Baptist minister, announcing his call on October 18, 1873. He received his license to preach by Ebenezer Baptist Church three years later on July 14, 1876. Not only interested in helping the churches in the district where the Ledfords lived, it is believed that he also preached at churches “over in North Carolina” from his home. He was very much interested in education and was successful in securing a grant for a high school for the Gum Log district from Peabody Funds. This school was established about 1880 and was a boon to that section of the county.

Benjamin and Sarah had six known children: Mary L. (1865), Mamie May (1867), Arthur Paul (1869), William J. (1872), Bettie A. (1874) and Benjamin M. (1877, who died as an infant). When Sarah died in 1889, she was laid to rest in the Antioch Baptist Church Cemetery on land her husband had given to the church. Benjamin Mercer married twice more: to Eliza Plott and to Lena Gray (believed to be a Cherokee Indian). He later moved from his beloved Gum Log and lived in Cherokee County, NC. He was interred at the Friendship Baptist Church Cemetery, Suit, NC.

The third child of Benjamin and Sarah, Arthur Paul (01/12/1869-04/07/1931) became a noted merchant and owned and operated his own store in the Gum Log District. Arthur Paul, known lovingly as “Bud” Ledford, started working in the mercantile business by hiring on at the store of Charley Mauney. In 1924, Bud purchased the store for himself. It was a popular trading place in that section of the county. He bought another store on Gum Log Road in 1925, and operated it until his death in 1931.

Arthur Paul Ledford married Alcy Dona Ensley (04/14/1870-04.01/1943) on December 20, 1888 in Union County. Her parents were Robert and Martha Parris Ensley of Gum Log. To “Bud” and Dona were born six children; Mamie Isabell (1890-1981) married John Calvin Hood; Alma Udora (1893-1969) married Jess C. Bradley; Obed Erick (1894-1977) married Nora Brown; Benjamin Robert (1897-1928) married Ada Wilson; Baxter Wayne (1902-?) married Bert(a) Miller and moved to Ohio; and William Blair (1906-1987) married Violet Lance.

Bud Ledford died April 7, 1931 in Franklin, NC after stomach surgery. His body was returned and buried at Antioch Baptist Church Cemetery, Gum Log. Later, when his beloved wife, Dona passed (April 1, 1943), she was interred alongside her husband’s grave.

The Ledford families played an important role in Union County history from the early years until the present. Those who went out to other places likewise were strong contributing citizens. For example, Amy Vianna Ledford (1830-1892), seventh child of Benjamin J. and Grace Ownbey Ledford, who married William Franklin of Union County about 1851, moved with her family to Coryell County, Texas in 1889. We can only imagine the long journey from Union County to Texas by covered wagon, via Arkansas and other stops along the way. They left Union County in 1883 and arrived in Weatherford Texas in 1889—a long and eventful journey with many stops in between.

There is much more to the Ledford story, but I will leave it to others to write. Suffice it to say that the family of Benjamin J. Ledford played an important role in establishing a solid citizenry wherever they went from their roots in North Carolina and North Georgia.

c 2010 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published May 6, 2010 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Silas Chambers, Country School Teacher Extraordinary

Seated: Teacher Silas Chambers holding their first child and his wife, Laura Hood Chambers, about 1899.

Standing, Laura's younger sister, Jessie Mae Hood (1886-1902), who died at age 16 with a fever.

We read this account about early country schools in Edward Leander Shuler’s book, Blood Mountain (Convention Press, Jacksonville, FL, 1953, p. 48):

“ ‘Spare the rod and spoil the child,’ had long been the rule both parents and teachers had followed in Choestoe. The rule was used, they said, by the Cherokees in bringing up their children throughout the Georgia mountains before the white people went to Choestoe to live. But a new age of learning was destined to change the people of Choestoe. It would change their thinking first and then their ways.”

That ‘new age of learning’ came when young Silas Chambers from “the other end” of Union County went to Hood’s Chapel School to be the teacher. Edward Leander Shuler’s father, William Jackson Shuler, had a voice in hiring the young, aspiring teacher. So did Mr. Theodore Saxon, another prominent man in the community. The Reverend John Twiggs, who had been the teacher at Hood’s Chapel, had moved on to White County across the mountain to preach and teach, leaving the local school on the Logan Turnpike without a teacher. Maybe Silas Chambers had heard the news that the community was without a teacher. He went, seeking the job as the schoolmaster.

Silas Chambers was minus a right hand and a portion of that arm. In inquiry, he told Mr. Shuler that he had lost his arm in an accident while he worked on the railroad in North Carolina. In damage settlement from the railroad, the young man had received money with which he went to Bellevue Academy to learn to be a teacher. He came well-qualified, with credentials in science, mathematics, the classics of literature and language, history and philosophy. He also enjoyed sports and proposed to teach the pupils how to play baseball, wrestling, “town” ball, and swimming.

The parents of Hood’s Chapel Community welcomed the young teacher who got a place to board in the community and began the summer school term as soon as crops were “laid” by. He was a brilliant conversationalist, and even before school began, the people knew that he had worked not only on the railroad, but that he had experience in the mines at Copperhill, Tennessee and on the log trains that loaded at the Culberson, NC railroad depot. Even though he had lost an arm, he compensated with strength and power in his body, and the dexterous use of his left hand and arm.

In baseball and town ball, he taught the students coordination and good sportsmanship. After school hours, he took the boys hunting on the mountains. He taught many to swim in the mill pond or in the deep hole of the Nottley River. School was an exciting place, for learning was active and interest was high. He made available more books than the students had known before, and he taught research methods and through experiments.

Then Silas Chambers met a young lady, already out of school, but who would pass by the school building going to her care-giving job at Tom Alexander’s house, where she helped LeEtta Alexander with her new baby and the other children. This young lady’s name was Laura Hood, daughter of Mary Reid Hood and Richard Jarrett Hood. She lived up near the Helton Falls along a mountain trail from Hood’s Chapel School.

The young couple began to see each other at church meetings. Later, as no surprise and to the delight of the Hood’s Chapel people, the couple announced a date for their wedding. Then, on a Sunday in the early springtime, while dogwood trees were in full bloom, Silas Chambers and Laura Hood were married in a beautiful ceremony at the home of her mother, Mary Reid Hood, with the Rev. John Twiggs performing the ceremony. This was in 1896. The festivity was complete with a reception with good food for all guests and a serenade to the new couple. It was a typical mountain wedding celebration in the late nineteenth century.

How long Silas Chambers continued to teach at Hood’s Chapel School is unknown to this writer, but sometime later, the young couple decided to go west for better job opportunities for the excellent teacher who had opened up the vistas of learning for many in the Choestoe section around Hood’s Chapel School. Many who themselves became teachers, ministers, doctors and lawyers as well as farmers and housewives testified to the lofty influence this teacher had on their early learning experiences at the little country school.

The couple settled near Denver, Colorado in a township called Brighton. Silas Chambers was born in 1867 and died in 1938. His parents were Juan Roswell Chambers and Mary A. Shields Chambers. Silas’s brother, J. W. Chambers, married Laura Hood’s older sister, Ida Hood. J. W. and Ida Chambers remained in Union County when Silas and Laura went west. Occasionally the younger couple would return to visit relatives in Union County.

Laura Hood Chambers died March 23, 1938 at the Presbyterian Hospital in Denver, Colorado. Her death certificate lists causes of death as pneumonia and cardiac hypertrophy. She was 58 at the time of her death. Her husband died the same year as she. He was 71. Their triple tombstone at Brighton, Colorado has the names Silas Chambers (1867-1938), Laura L. Hood Chambers (1880-1938), and son Ferd Chambers (1905-1920). Other known children of this couple were Mercer, Peter, Emma, Grace and Florence.

Edward Leander Shuler writes of this teacher extraordinary, “Silas Chambers was the chief actor in the drama of life that unfolded at Hood school house” (p. 57).

[Resources: Edward Leander Shuler, Blood Mountain. Jacksonville, FL: Convention Press, 1953. Pp.48-57. Carol Thomas Alexander, Mary Reid Hood and Richard Jarrett Hood Families. Compiled 2001.]

c 2009 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published Oct. 1, 2009 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Jarrett Turner Family in Union By 1834

Examining the first census of Union County, Georgia is a source of fascination. The census was completed on March 24, 1834. At that time Union County was geographically larger than now, containing land that became Fannin County in 1854 and Towns County in 1856. The total population of the two-year old county of Union was 903 in 1834. Listed as a head of household was Jarrett Turner with two males and three females in the family.

Moving to the brand new Union County had some enticement for this young couple. Jarrett Turner and his wife Sarah Collins Turner moved along from Habersham County with her parents Thompson and Celia Self Collins. The children Jarrett and Sarah had in their family in 1834 were daughter Celia, born in 1831, named for her Grandmother Collins; Nancy, born in 1832; and son Francis, a baby, born in 1834. The couple had married in Habersham County, Georgia July 19, 1830.

Turner is an English or Scottish occupational name meaning "the maker of objects of wood, metal, or bone" by turning a lathe to shape them. Jarrett Turner had lived in District Ninety Six in South Carolina before migrating to Habersham County, Georgia. His father was Micajah Turner, born about 1775 in Virginia and died about 1871 in White County, Georgia. Jarrett Turner was born in 1806 in South Carolina and died in 1857. Some reports are that his parents Micajah and Nancy were buried in the Tesnatee Baptist Church Cemetery in White County. Jarret and Sarah Collins Turner were buried in the Old Choestoe Cemetery, Union County. Sarah Collins was born about 1812 in Buncombe County, North Carolina

Jarrett Turner and his father-in-law, Thompson Collins, cleared land and farmed along the rich creek bottoms. Some of the land they farmed had already been used to grow maize, pumpkins and other crops by the Indians who had left the land just prior to the white settlers moving in. The major exodus of all Indians did not occur until 1838, so the Turner and Collins families may have had Indian neighbors when they first settled on the land they acquired.

Jarrett and Sarah Collins Turner had a large family of thirteen children. They were:

(1) Celia Turner (b. 1831) married William Jackson Hood.
(2) Nancy Turner (b. 1832) - no record of her marriage
(3) Francis Turner (b.1834) - lived in Lumpkin County, GA
(4) Elizabeth Turner (b. 1836) - no record of her marriage
(5) Ruth Turner (b. 1837) married Bluford Lumpkin Dyer
(6) James Turner (b. 1840) married Elizabeth Dyer
(7) Sarah Turner (b. 1842) married Rev. John Henry Lance
(8) Phoebe Turner (b. 1845) married James H. Lance
(9) Micajah Turner (b. 1847), named for his Grandfather Turner - no record of marriage
(10) Olive Turner (b. 1849), married Joseph G. Dyer
(11) Marion Turner - birth date and marriage unknown
(12) Thompson Turner - birth date and marriage unknown
(13) William "Bill" Pruitt Turner (b. about 1854, White County, GA) married Margaret Harkins on December 24, 1870.

Many claiming kinship to the first Turner family in Union still reside in the county today. Among Jarrett and Sarah Collins Turner's descendants are people of many occupations. Some remain close to the soil and still enjoy farming. Several followed careers in education and counseling. Others entered business and professional work.

Like the occupational title from which their surname derives, they make their work count through diligence and service.

c 2009 0by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published Aug. 6, 2009 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

William Harrison Jackson- from Choestoe to Colorado

This true episode is how a person born near the end of the nineteenth century went out from Union County seeking his fortune. His name was William Harrison Jackson, born September 1, 1889 in Choestoe, Union County, Georgia. His parents were William Miles Jackson (1853- 1910) and Nancy Souther Jackson (1853- 1899).

William Harrison Jackson was the eighth of nine children born to Bill and Nancy Jackson. It is interesting to note that seven of the nine children left Choestoe to find work elsewhere. His sister Camilla (1873-1925) married H. L. Henson and they moved to Copperhill, Tenn., where H. L. worked at the Tennessee Copper Company. His sister Lydia (1875-1956) married Virgil Collins and they moved to Laramie, Colorado. His brother Oscar Jackson (1879-1901) died before reaching his twenty-second birthday and was a teacher in Choestoe. Harrison's brother, Ira Jackson (b. 1881) died as a seven month old baby. Della Nora Jackson (1883-1911) and her husband, Ulysses Thompson Collins, moved to Verden, Oklahoma. After Della's death in 1911, Ulysses returned to Choestoe with their three children, Goldie, Mayme and Ralph. Cora Bessie Jackson (1885-1951) married Thomas L. Hood and they moved to Eaton, Colorado. Florida Kate Jackson (1891-?) married Jasper Shuler and they lived in Greeley, Colorado. Oliver Grady Jackson (1893-?) moved to Greeley, Colorado, where he met and married Anna Jensen who was born in Denmark. With so many of his siblings migrating west, William Harrison Jackson at a young age also got the urge to "go west, young man," but his was not a straight trek there.

From his own memoirs written in January, 1969, we learn how William Harrison Jackson left Choestoe and eventually settled in Colorado. He expressed thoughts about his growing-up years in poetry:

"My mother's name was Nancy,
My father's name was Bill.
We lived in a pleasant valley
Close by the Blue Ridge hills.
Some things to me were a marvelous wonder;
Thoughts to my heart were great to ponder:
God, Creator of all life, the Giver,
Creatures, meadows, rills, rivers.

His elementary school years were at the old Choestoe Church house, with slat benches for seats. The building was heated with pot-bellied stoves. In 1896, his first teacher was Joseph Collins who had been to the Hiawassee Academy. Harrison was happy to follow the career of his first grade teacher, noting that he became a prominent lawyer in Gainesville. The Jackson children, including William Harrison, all did their share of work on the Choestoe farm of his parents.

Harrison's mother died when he was ten years of age in 1899. In 1905, his father married again to Jane West. He tells how he left home by "Shank's Mare" (walking). He carried his clothes and other meager possessions "in a valise" and made his way to Mineral Bluff, Georgia, where his sister, Camilla Henson lived. There, and in nearby Copperhill, Tennessee, he found "odd jobs" to earn money until the spring of 1906.

His brother-in-law, Thomas L. Hood, husband of Harrison's sister, Cora, invited him back to Choestoe to help him work on the farm he had rented from an aunt, Mary Collins. In the fall, Aunt Mary paid Thomas $300 in gold for the crops produced that season. Thomas paid William Harrison $15 for each month he had worked with him on the land. Tom and Cora then moved to Colorado. It was back to Copperhill, TN for William Harrison Jackson. There he worked in the copper mines until March 7, 1907. He had saved enough money for a train ticket to Eaton, Colorado, where he went to work in the potato fields and sorting houses at $30.00 per month and board. This work occupied his time from 1907-1913.

William Harrison Jackson's next move was to Blackfoot, Idaho. There he met and wooed Hazel Edith Thompson. They were married August 11, 1913. Her parents, Tommy Thompson and Hilda Edge Thompson, were born in Norway. At Blackfoot, Harrison and Hazel settled down to farming. Their five children were born in the Rose Precinct about five and one-half miles north of Blackfoot. The children were Barton Grady Jackson ( US Marine and professional dance instructor), June Hilda Jackson (US Navy, and educator), Thelma Edith Jackson (twin to June Hilda, died at age six months), Zelma Nancy Jackson (communications and radio operator during World War II, and administrative assistant) and Dwain Thompson Jackson (music educator and employee of Horace Mann Insurance Agency for teachers). The Jacksons bought a ranch at Cedar Ridge, Colorado. There Hazel died with cancer in 1935.

After his children were grown and left home, Harrison Jackson married his second wife, Nora Miller, in 1937. She was a daughter of Andrew Miller and Carrie Young Miller, early pioneers in Arkansas. In 1957, Harrison and Nora sold out their ranch in Cedar Ridge and moved to Delta, Colorado, where he continued to work, even to age 80 and above. He described himself and his wife, Nora, as "happy, busy, and continuing in the faith of the Disciples of Christ." He always liked to tell stories--of his growing-up years in Choestoe, of moving away to find work, of life on the farm or ranch in the west, and of semiretirement and still active. His poem about his life ends: "Those childhood days are gone forever, But such memories we cannot sever."

[Personal note to my readers: At 7:00 a. m. on Thanksgiving morning, November 22, 2007, I received a call from the nurse at Memory Support Unit, Georgia War Veteran's Home, Milledgeville, that my husband, the Rev. Grover D. Jones, had fallen and was in great pain from the fall. He was taken by ambulance to the emergency room of the Medical Center of Central Georgia in Macon where he underwent extensive examinations and preoperation treatment. His left hip operation (replacement of the ball and socket joint) was on Sunday, November 25. He came through surgery well, and today (Monday) was up on the "new hip" for a short time. His physical/ mental condition is now classified as "Advanced Alzheimer's". Admittedly, the past several days have been stressful- and extremely tiring for me. Less than three months ago, as my readers will recall, I myself underwent five bypasses heart surgery. We learn to meet emergencies and life's challenges "one day at a time," and there is always miraculous strength to walk through them. These, to me, are results of strong faith and God's presence. Thank you for your concern.]

c 2007 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published Nov. 29, 2007 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved

Ivan Thomas Collins: Son of Union County Who Went Out to Make His Mark

Ivan Thomas Collins (1891-1978) From Country Boy to Banker

to Comptroller of the Currency.

Many of the children of Union County citizens through the years have left the county to find their place in the world beyond the confines of the mountains that surround our peaceful valleys and meandering streams.

Such was the case for Ivan Thomas Collins, born March 3, 1891 to James Johnson Collins (1868-1967) and Margaret Nix Collins (1871-1927). Tom, as he was known, was the first-born of this couple, whose marriage had brought together two notable families in the county, Collins and Nix. Tom's father was a son of Ivan Kimsey Collins (1835-1901) and Martha J. Hunter Collins (1840-1920). Note that his grandfather Collins's first name, Ivan, was given to this first-born of James and Margaret's children, and Thomas is another way of having the child bear the name of Thompson Collins, James Johnson's great grandfather, who was the first Collins settler in the Choestoe District.

Margaret Nix Collins, the baby Ivan Thomas's mother, was a fourth generation Nix, daughter of Thomas James Nix (1848- 1902) and Martha Jane "Sis" Ballew Nix (1852-1951). Tom Nix joined the Confederate Army and served in Company I, 23 Regiment, of the Georgia Infantry. It is said he was only thirteen years of age when he enlisted. Again, Margaret and James Collins's first born go a family name, Thomas, from her father, Tom Nix.

In 1886, four years before Margaret married James Johnson Collins, her father, Tom Nix, left his wife and children behind in Georgia and went to the Cripple Creek, Colorado gold fields near Rye. It is reported that Tom Nix did find gold, but that his claim was stolen from him. Martha remained several years in Union County, but then moved to Colorado to join her husband. They both died there, Tom Nix in 1902 and Martha lived to the ripe age of 99 when she died in1951. Tom was buried in the Roselawn Cemetery, Pueblo, Colorado, and Martha in the Eaton, Colorado Cemetery.

Colorado held a fascination for the children of James Johnson Collins and Margaret Nix Collins. A great drawing card was because their grandparents Nix had migrated there and lived out their lives in Colorado.

Six children were born to James Johnson Collins and Margaret Nix Collins. First, was the above-mentioned Ivan Thomas Collins; second was Mary Viola Collins who married Francis Thurman "Bob" Collins; third was Fannie Maybelle Collins who married Harvey Allen Souther; fourth was Dessie Dora Collins who married Haralson J. Hood; fifth was Sadie Collins who married William Jesse Hunter; and sixth was Charles Roscoe Collins who married LaVerne Cheshire.

The Collins family valued education for their children and encouraged them to attend the one- and two-teacher schools in the community until they were ready for high school. Some of them went to the Blairsville Collegiate Institute after its founding in 1904. But Ivan Thomas, the elder son, went to Hiawasse, Georgia where he attended the school variously called the Hiawassee Institute and/or the Hiawassee College. It had been founded by the two noted Baptist ministers, cousins, Dr. George W. Truett and Dr. Fernando Coello McConnell on land given by the McConnell family. Several young men from Choestoe attended the Hiawassee Academy. They would rent a cabin, "batch," or do their own cooking and housework, and attend classes. Their being able to attend this school represented a sacrifice on the part of their parents to provide the money for tuition and books, and to rent a place for their children to live, even as low as higher education costs were in those days.

Following his graduation from Hiawassee Academy, Ivan Thomas Collins then went to Mercer University in Macon, Georgia. It seemed a natural choice in his next step in education, for other boys from Choestoe, like Tom's cousin, Mauney Douglas Collins, who later served for twenty-five years as Georgia's State School Superintendent, and his friend and distant cousin, Norman Vester Dyer, who also became a noted educator in Georgia, attended Mercer University.

On October 8, 1916, Ivan Thomas Collins married Martha Estelle Tucker of Centerville, Georgia. Her parents were John T. and Jesse Reynolds Tucker. By the time of their marriage, Tom was in his chosen career of banking. After graduating from Mercer, he took graduate courses in business administration, banking, accounting, and commercial law. He was named to a national post, that of Comptroller of the Currency. His job took him into most of the states of the union where he was what we might commonly call a "bank inspector."

Tom and Estelle Tucker Collins had three children: Ivan Tucker Collins who married Lillian Andrea Price; Doris Ophelia Collins who married Russell Bobbitt; and Kreeble Nix Collins who married, first, Josephine Adeline Marino of Italy, and, second, Helene Vite of France. Ivan became an engineer; Doris married a banking executive; and Kreeble spent his entire career in the Air Force, earning the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.

After his stint as Comptroller of Currency, Thomas Ivan Collins became president of a bank in Athens, Tennessee where he spent ten years before his semi-retirement due to heart difficulties in 1952. He returned to the county of his birth, Union, where he and his beloved wife, Estelle, lived until their deaths. Martha Estelle Tucker Collins preceded her husband in death (10/08/1897- 05/29/1968) and Tom died ten years later (03/30/1891- 12/25/1978). They were both interred at the New Choestoe Cemetery.

Ivan Thomas Collins is a good example of a young lad who went out from Union County to make his living, but in retirement returned to the land of his birth to live out his days. Industry, integrity and ingenuity marked his character.

c 2007 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published Nov. 8, 2007 in The Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Some Nix connections (part 5 Serving in the War Between the States

Before I launch on this week's topic of Nix men (and boys) who served in the War Between the States, I want to clarify items from last week's article on Aunt Jane Nix Wilson Hood.

Betty Jane Shuler called my attention to the caption under the picture. Thanks to her keen observations, the caption should have identified the picture as taken in 1905 (the year Jane's husband Isaac Thornton Wilson died). The baby Sophronia Jane Nix Wilson holds on her lap is Estelle, last born of her children, not Garnie, who lived only about two years and died in 1900.

Seven children of Jane Nix Wilson and Isaac Thornton Wilson are shown in the picture. The second girl from the left, standing, is a neighbor and friend who was visiting in the Wilson home and wanted to "get in" on the picture (Callie Clark?).

To properly identify the Wilson children in the 1905 photograph, they are Tom (1902), Estelle (1904) in Jane's lap, Benjamin (1894), Granny Evaline Duckworth Nix, James Isaac "Jim" (1896); second row: Verdie (1887), friend (Callie Clark ?), Hattie (1889) and Gertrude (1892). Who would know better how to identify these than history buff Betty Jane Shuler? Sophronia Jane Nix Wilson Hood was her grandmother, and the one for whom she was given her middle name, Jane.

Another item to clarify is the statement about Jane Wilson not joining Union Church when it was constituted in October, 1897, although she gave the land on which the church building was erected. She wished to remain a member of the New Liberty Baptist Church where she was a member from her youth. This was not uncommon in those days, to keep one's membership with relatives and friends in the church where one had grown up.

With those items clarified, we move to today's topic in the Nix saga. We trace briefly six sons of James "Jimmy" Nix and Elizabeth "Betsy" Collins Nix who served in the War Between the States. Five of them enlisted in the 23rd Georgia Regiment, Infantry, enlisting at Camp McDonald. The sixth, Jasper, enlisted in Ben Ledford's Regiment. Their father, James, himself enlisted on December 14, 1863 in the Georgia State Militia, Company 2. Betsy Nix therefore had six sons and a husband to be concerned about as they actively upheld the Confederate cause. What happened to these Nix men?

Jimmy Nix may not have left Union County for his service, as the Georgia Militia was charged with protection of home territory. Not much that I can find was written about his service other than his date of enlistment, December 14, 1863.

The sons, in order of age, served as follows: Thompson Nix was born in 1838 and named for his grandfather, Thompson Collins. He married Mary C. Hix in 1860 and they had one son, James Bly Nix, born June 1, 1861. This son was given the same name as Thompson Nix's brother. Thompson was a private in Company K of the 23rd Regiment, Georgia Infantry, enrolling on November 9, 1861. He became ill with a fever and was hospitalized in the "New Hospital" in Yorktown, Virginia, where he died March 4, 1862. It is reported that his body was returned home to Choestoe by W. L. Howard. I found no gravestone for him listed in the Cemeteries of Union County book.

John Nix, the fourth child of Jimmy and Betsy Collins Nix was born in 1840. He, too, was in the 23rd Georgia Regiment, enlisting August 31, 1861 at Camp McDonald. He was killed in battle at Sharpsburg, Maryland in September, 1862. His father filed for death benefits, but it is not known whether his applications were rewarded.

James Bly Nix was the fifth son and seventh child of Jimmy and Betsy Collins. Born June 2, 1844, he was a twin to Isabella, who may have died as an infant. At the age of 17, James Bly Nix joined Company K, 23 Georgia Regiment on August 31, 1861 at Camp McDonald. He was in the Battle of Frericksburg, VA, where he was wounded. He was treated at the Jackson Hospital in Richmond for a wound in his right leg on October 1, 1864. He saw much action during the war and was captured by the enemy and exchanged for a Union prisoner. James Bly returned from the war and married Millie J. "Polly" Henson on November 5, 1865. He was a farmer in the Owltown District. He also had gold mining rights on Coosa Creek and pursued mining with a passion. He and Mollie had nine children.

Jeffie Nix was born in 1846. It has been hard to trace his history, but it is believed that he also enlisted in Company K when his brothers did. Since he is not shown in subsequent census records after 1860, he may have died in the Civil War.

Jasper "Grancer" Nix, ninth child of Jimmy and Betsy Collins Nix, was born in 1847, a twin to Newton. He departed the tradition his older brothers had set and joined Colonel Ben Ledford's Regiment, John Souther's Company, from September, 1864 through May, 1865. His enlistment and discharge papers are not in the National or Atlanta Archives, but a soldier's pension application was found in the Atlanta Archives. He married Harriet Carolina "Tina" Duckworth and they had twelve children. After "Tina's" death, Jasper married Margaret Ballew.

Newton Nix, twin to Jasper, and tenth child of Jimmy and Betsy Collins Nix, joined Company K, 23rd Georgia Regiment at Camp McDonald on August 31, 1861. At the age of fifteen, he died of erysipelas and fever in Richmond, Virginia.

From the military records of these six sons of Jimmy and Betsy Collins Nix, we can imagine the impact of enlistment practices to get young men to join the Confederacy.

Of the six, we know that Thompson, John, and Newton died in the War. It may be that Jeffrie also lost his life during the war, for no further record has been found of him. Six sons fighting, and four lost is a heavy price to pay for war. What grief that mother bore.

c 2007 by Ethelene Dyer Jones. Published August 23, 2007 in The Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Nix connections (part 4 Aunt Jane Nix Wilson Hood)

Sophronia Jane Nix Wilson

This 1905 picture shows Sophronia Jane Nix Wilson with seven of ther children and Granny Evaline Duckworth Nix.

First row: Tom (1902), Estelle (1904) in jane's lap, benjamin (1894), Granny Nix, James Isaac "Jim" (1896)

Second row: Verdie (1887), friend of family (Callie Clark?), Hattie (1889) and Gertrude (1892)

The determination and bravery of some women could be the subject of a book of virtues. The life of Jane Nix Wilson Hood would fall into this category.

Sophronia Jane Nix was born October 20, 1867 in Union County, Georgia to James "Jimmy" Nix and his second wife, Carolina Elizabeth Duckworth Nix. From past articles in this series, you will remember that Jimmy Nix was a son of William and Susannah Stonecypher Nix. Jimmy married first Elizabeth "Betsy" Collins. They had fifteen children. Betsy died in November of 1859. When the Civil War was raging, Jimmy married Carolina Elizabeth Duckworth, who became a loving stepmother to his children. Jimmy enlisted on December 14, 1863 in Company 2 of the Georgia State Militia. To Carolina and Jimmy, four children were born: Mary Eveline, Nancy, Buddy and Sophronia Jane. She would be the youngest to live of Jimmy's twenty children. Her mother died before 1870 when Sophronia Jane was a little over two years old. Jimmy Nix, Jane's father, married the third time to her aunt, her mother's younger sister, Rebecca Evaline Duckworth, in 1872. Jimmy and Evaline's one child was stillborn.

Now we come to the story of Sophronia Jane Nix, and how she came to incorporate the attributes of a sturdy, determined mountain woman.

The Nix homestead, on which James Nix had settled on the 160 acres of land he had secured in the land lottery when Union County was new, was in the area of Choestoe where the present-day Richard Russell Scenic Highway intersects with Fisher Field Road. Here the Nix children grew up, going to the local one-room school at Hood's Chapel for their education. Being the youngest of nineteen children, Jane would have had as much fellowship growing up with her nieces and nephews, being about their same age, as with her own siblings. That's how life was back in the mountains of that era.

At age 18, three months before she reached her 19th birthday, Sophronia Jane married Isaac Thornton Wilson on July 27, 1886. Isaac and Jane had the following children: Verdie (1887), Hattie (1889), Gertrude (1892), Benjamin (1894), James Isaac (1896), Thomas (1902), Estelle (1904) and Garnie (1898). Garnie died in 1900 at age two. Seven of their children grew to adulthood.

Times were hard and work scarce. Isaac Thornton Wilson sought employment in the Copper Mines of Copperhill and Ducktown, Tennessee. He found a place to board there, and would return to his wife and children on weekends. He was a miner, going deep within the rich veins bearing copper and other ores around Isabella, Ducktown and Copperhill. But as was common, Isaac developed a serious lung condition from his work in the mines. He died of what was commonly called consumption on June 3, 1905. His birthdate was February 22, 1858. He was interred in what is now called the "Upper" Cemetery of Union Baptist Church.

While Isaac Wilson was away working in the mines, his wife, Sophronia Jane, managed their farm. She continued this work after the death of her husband. She added acreage by buying land from some of her brothers who decided to go west.

She had learned much about farming from her father, Jimmy Nix. She had apple trees and the bottom lands along the river yielded good crops. The family survived and managed due to Jane's industriousness. Not only was she a good farmer, she was skilled in the mountain household crafts of spinning, weaving, making quilts and "making do" with whatever was available. She worked with a will.

A family portrait which has survived shows Jane Nix Wilson, seated, with her eight children about her, and "Granny" Rebecca Evaline Duckworth Nix (Jane's aunt and her step-mother), in her bonnet seated on the front with Jane. On her lap Jane holds little Garnie, her last baby, who died very young. Having Granny Nix in her household was a big help to Jane as she adjusted to widowhood and had Granny's help in rearing her children.

Union Baptist Church was constituted on "the fourth Saturday in October, 1897" as stated in the church's constitution. Why Jane Sophronia Nix Wilson was not listed as a charter member is not known, for she gave the land on which the church building was erected. Granny Rebecca Evaline Duckworth Nix was one of the founding members. In the community and in the church, Evaline and Jane were stalwart leaders. The women hosted "quilting bees" in their home, and the ladies of the community would "quilt out" a new quilt for a needy family or a new bride in one day of work, sharing a country mid-day meal, and catching up on news. Though work, the quilting bees were also a common form of entertainment and relief from harder work.

Jane Nix Wilson was determined that her children have the best education she could possibly provide for them. In the wintertime, she would actually move the family to Young Harris, rent a place for them to live there, and put the children in school at the academy or in the college. At crop-planting time, the family moved back to their farm near Union Church in Choestoe and began the work required for the year's crops.

Jane's determination yielded from her children a dedicated homemaker, a nurse, a farmer who moved to Colorado to purchase land and become successful, a mechanic and three teachers. One of her daughters, Gertrude (1892-1980), who married Benjamin Franklin Shuler, better known as Frank (188-1978), was an excellent teacher at Union County High School. In my high school years, I was fortunate to have instruction from this gentle, compassionate lady whose mother, Sophronia Jane Nix Wilson, had worked so hard to see that her children were well-educated. Gertrude's husband, Frank, served as Union County School Superintendent for twenty years during a period of change and challenge in the system's schools.

After several years of widowhood, and after her children were grown, Sophronia Jane Nix Wilson married Enoch Chapman Hood, a widower and a neighbor. The marriage was short-lived, not because of any problems between the two, but due to his death. His tombstone in Union Baptist Church Cemetery shows his birth as September 1, 1855 and his death as April 10, 1932. Jane Nix Wilson Hood died August 15, 1956, and was laid to rest in the Union "Upper" Cemetery beside her first husband, Isaac Thornton Wilson. Dying two months shy of her 89th birthday, this noble mountain lady could well be called a heroine of her time.

c 2007 by Ethelene Dyer Jones. Published August 16, 2007 in The Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Choestoe Baptist Church Homecoming Sunday, June 10

The second Sunday in June has long been "Homecoming" Day at Choestoe Baptist Church. People who still live in the community and are now active members of the church as well as those who live in far-flung places mark the day on their calendar.

As this Homecoming Day draws near, people think of going back to the place of their spiritual roots. It is a good day in June, an uplifting day. There is something special about "going home."

This year, 2007, marks at least the 173rd anniversary of the church. Why do I say "at least"? The exact founding date of the church has been lost through the mists of time. The earliest extant minutes of a business session of the church were dated September 5, 1834, but these were not the founding minutes.

In August, 1833, Choestoah (as it was spelled then) Baptist Church had ten members and was affiliated with the Mountain Baptist Association. Other churches participating in that 1833 meeting of the association were Wahoo Baptist Church of North Hall County and Tesnatee Baptist Church of White County. Although the written record has been lost, it is reasonable to believe that the church was formed as early as 1832, the year of Union County's formation, or even before that date as the first settlers came into Choestoe Valley.

It is commendable that the early members of Choestoe Baptist Church desired to join in fellowship with churches of like faith and order in an associational meeting. Even though messengers had to travel over rugged terrain and mountain trails on horseback to get to these meetings, it was a reflection of the desire for fellowship members had known before they moved from more populous regions like the Pendleton District of South Carolina or from Wilkes County, North Carolina.

In those areas from which early settlers to the Choestoe Valley had migrated, they had tasted the sweet fellowship of associational work. Famed Baptist leader, Luther Rice, had traveled as a representative of the Triennial Baptist Convention, organized in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1814. As Rice journeyed, seeking support for Adoniram and Ann Judson, missionaries to Burma and other foreign lands, he helped to organize Baptist churches wherever he went. He also sought to have the churches cooperate in the cause of missions and urged them to form an association for fellowship of churches within a geographic area. The chief aims of a local association of churches was fellowship, promotion of mission causes in the United States and in foreign countries, support of benevolent work, starting Christian schools, and examining churches for orthodoxy of beliefs and practices. It was in this tradition of Baptist purposes that Choestoah Baptist Church functioned from its beginning in the early 1830s.

There is a certain degree of pride and thanksgiving as we read the minutes of Choestoe (modern spelling) Church so astutely recorded and maintained since 1834 by faithful church clerks. The minutes are a part of historical records both at the Georgia Archives of History in Atlanta and at the Mercer University, Macon, Library, which houses Baptist Archives of Georgia.

The second church clerk was my ancestor (great, great grandfather) John Souther who kept the minutes from 1834 through 1847, and again from 1850 through March, 1853. It was in 1853 that he decided to join a new church forming "at Brasstown," a few miles further up on Choestoe. New Liberty became the name of this church and was founded and built on an acre of land Mr. Souther gave for the church and cemetery.

In 1853, before the term "church planter" was ever a part of missions vocabulary, John Souther founded a new church in the shadow of the highest peak in Georgia, Enotah Bald Mountain. His departure from Choestoe Church may have been precipitated from a falling out with another church member who purportedly cut timber on Souther's property and did not make either restitution or apology. Such disputes show the carnal nature of church members. At the same time, disagreements within the membership have proven to be the seeds of a new church. God often brings good from unpleasant situations.

The first recorded pastor of Choestoe Baptist Church was the Rev. John Chastain from 1835-1837. There were many John Chastains who were Baptist preachers, all descending from the French Huguenot immigrant, Pierre Chastain, a medical doctor who settled in 1700 at Manakin Township, Virginia, on the James River. One of immigrant Pierre Chastain's sons was the famous Rev. John "Ten Shilling Bell" Chastain, a visionary and associate of the fiery Baptist preacher, the Rev. Shubael Starnes. Both Chastain and Starnes were active in forming churches and associations in Virginia, North and South Carolina. The Rev. John Chastain who was pastor at Choestoe was in the line of descent from Dr. Pierre Chastain and the Rev. John "Ten Shilling Bell" Chastain.

Rev. Abner Chastain was Choestoe's pastor twice, 1837- 1838 and again in 1841. In Rev. Abner's first tenure at Choestoe, the membership hosted the association for the first time. It is not clear in the minutes whether the association was the Mountain Baptist or the Chestatee Baptist Association in which Choestoe then held membership. Rev. Abner Chastain was the grandson of the famous Rev. John "Ten Shilling Bell" Chastain. Abner Chastain and Susan O'Kelley married May 14, 1826 in Habersham County, Georgia. Four of the couple's thirteen children were born in Union County. He was a circuit riding preacher whose ministry ranged over north Georgia and into North Carolina.

After the Civil War, Rev. Abner Chastain, his family and about 250 others from Union County migrated west in a large wagon train. Many of this group settled on the Huerfano River in Colorado at St. Mary's. Rev. Chastain organized a Baptist church there, and in the fall of 1870 baptized his first convert in the Huerfano River. Sadly, his wife had died on the journey west. In Colorado, he married Amanda Elzey. Rev. Chastain died of pneumonia in April, 1871. In a measure, Choestoe Church of Union County had an influence on the organization of the Huerfano Baptist Church in Colorado, as one of the former pastors led settlers there to form a church much like the one they had known in the mountains of Georgia.

Another outstanding early pastor was the Rev. Elisha Hedden who served in 1840. A circuit-riding preacher, he was noted for his church starting and his evangelistic zeal. He was much in demand as a preacher in summer camp meetings. He had the distinction of leading to Christ two men who later became outstanding ministers, educators and denominational leaders: The Rev. Dr. George W. Truett and the Rev. Dr. Fernando Coello McConnell.

A Union Countian, the Rev. Charles Edward Rich, was pastor twice, in 1898-1899 and again from 1903-1915. Known as Preacher Charlie Rich, he had the distinct privilege of being educated at the Hiawassee Baptist Academy founded by Dr. George Truett and Dr. Fernando McConnell. He was greatly influenced by these two outstanding leaders who instilled in the young preacher a love for missions, evangelism and education.

The length of this article precludes a thorough listing of many other outstanding leaders, both pastoral and laypersons, who have rendered noble service at Choestoe Church. One was Dr. Harry V. Smith who, at the time he pastored Choestoe, was also president of the Blairsville Collegiate Institute. Dr. Smith went on to be an administrator at Mercer University in Macon.

From 1937 until 1953, the Rev. Claud C. Boynton pastored the church. Other pastors (not necessarily in order of service) were the Reverends Jim Hood, Aaron Souther, Luther Colwell, Sim Martin, Richard Hardy, Tom Smith, Marlow Stroup, J. Lake Gibson, Jim Geer, and Charles Richard (Dick) Stillwell. Rev. Troy Acree served as interim pastor on several occasions. The Rev. Ken Zollinger, current pastor, and members are expecting a crowd June 10 in the new Multi- Purpose Building completed in recent years.

Going home to the church of our youth will be a rich experience on June 9. Its 173+ year history proves that God has been with that congregation through more than seventeen decades. They welcome all to help them celebrate.

c 2007 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published June 7, 2007 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

A Jackson family story

When the first census of Union County, Ga., was taken in 1834, two years after the county was formed, three Jackson families were listed. William Jackson was head of one household, with four males and five females in his home. The other two Jackson heads-of-households were Joseph, with two males and two females; and the third was Samuel, with one male and two females. It is likely that William, Joseph and Samuel were brothers. Joseph and Samuel Jackson were not in Union's 1840 or 1850 census. But William Marion Jackson remained in Union, and it was from him that many of the present-day Jackson descendants came.

A shipboard romance bound William Marion Jackson's grandparents. The year was 1748. John Jackson was on board a ship from London, England headed to Maryland to settle in the colony there. Things looked promising in the new country. Aboard ship on the long journey to America, John Jackson met a young lady named Elizabeth Cumming (1720- 1825). They had time to get acquainted on the sea voyage. After John got established in Maryland, he married Elizabeth Cumming in 1750.

To John and Elizabeth Cumming Jackson was born a son named William. He, in turn, had a son named William (ca 1799-July 27, 1859) who married Nancy Owenby Stanley (ca. 1793-1861), a widow with two small boys, in Burke County, N.C. It is interesting that Nancy was six years older than William. The story goes that Nancy Owenby Stanley's brother, Arthur, introduced the 16-year-old William to his widowed sister, and the two were soon married.

William and Nancy Jackson moved their growing family to Habersham County, Ga., about 1827. They settled north of present-day Cleveland, Ga., (now White County) in the Nacoochee Valley, near towering Yonah Mountain. Their son, William Marion Jackson (1829-1912), was born there, as was their last son, Andrew (1835-1917). Children Rebecca, Armelia, Johile, Susie, and Kimsey had been born in North Carolina before the family migrated to Nacoochee Valley.

Land lots were being sold "across the mountain" from Nacoochee Valley in what would become Union County. William Jackson purchased land in Choestoe Valley and moved his family there, probably about 1831. Earliest records of Choestoe Baptist Church in 1834 list William and Nancy Jackson as members, and also Joseph Jackson who also was in Union's 1834 census.

William Marion Jackson (1829-1912) married Rebecca Jane Goforth (1833-1901) in Union County on December 19, 1850, with the Rev. William M. Pruitt performing the ceremony. She was a daughter of Miles and Elizabeth Patillo Goforth. Rebecca's mother died in Henderson, N.C., before her father migrated to Union County sometime before the 1850 census was taken. His household shows Miles Goforth, age 50, as head of household, with sons Millington, 22; John, 21; Albert, 16; and Miles Jr., 10; and daughters Sarah, 19; and Mary, 12. In the 1850 Union Census, Rebecca Jane Goforth, 17, was in the home of her sister, Martha Davis (24). Martha was married to William T. Davis (30). Rebecca Jane was helping her sister Martha with small children, Melinda (7), Mary Ann (2) and Jane (1).

William Marion and Rebecca Jane Goforth Jackson had eight children: Nancy (1851) who married John W. Souther; William Miles (1853) who married Nancy Souther and Nancy West; Sarah Catherine (1858) who married James M. Hood; Mary Louise Jackson (1861) who married Archibald Benjamin Collins; Martha Ann who married William J. Hunter and John Pruitt Collins; Frankie Jane (1870) who married James Elas Collins; Thomas Kimsey who married Jane Collins and Mary Caroline Collins; and Fairlena (1873) who married Jospeh Souther and George Harris.

William Marion Jackson was a blacksmith and a farmer. He served in the War Between the States as a private in Company D, Second Regiment, of the North Carolina Volunteer Mounted Infantry (U. S. Army). He was wounded in the Battle of Shiloh and carried a bullet in his leg for the rest of his life, suffering great discomfort from the wound. Rebecca Jane Jackson died June 5, 1901 and William Marion Jackson died March 12, 1912. They were interred at Old Liberty Baptist Church Cemetery.

c 2007 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published Apr. 26, 2007 in The Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

The 'Sacred Harp' Tradition of Singing

Sometimes it is called 'fa-sol- la" singing. Passed at first by oral tradition long before they were published in tune books, the metrical hymns and psalms of Isaac Watts and others were an important part of frontier worship as groups met first in homes and then in a church house built where they set aside an acre or so of land for a church.

This method of singing was taught in widely-practiced singing schools in the south, beginning in the 19th century. The song leader would announce a tune, known to most people, and then "line out" the words to go with that tune. The preacher or the song leader would often be the only one in the congregation to have a book. By repetition, the members would soon learn the words of the song. When "New Britain C. M." was announced as the hymn tune, the singers would know that "Amazing grace! How sweet the sound," the inimitable words by John Newton (1725-1807), would be sung to the announced tune. "C. M." stood for common meter, a metrical count of syllables in the phrases of the song being 8.6.8.6. The version of this beloved hymn we so often sing now was published in Virginia Harmony in 1831 and repeated in subsequent hymn books even to the present day. It was also in Jesse Mercer's Cluster.

Much of this singing tradition has been attributed to the "Old Baptists," although other denominations like Presbyterians, Mennonites and Methodists also sang the old tunes to sacred words. Why, then, were so many of them attributed to Baptists? George Pullen Jackson formerly a professor of music at Vanderbilt University in his Story of the Sacred Harp, states that "freedom" has always been a watchword of the Baptists. Prior to and during the Revolutionary War, Baptists worshiped freely, without centralized religious authority. They wanted no part of the established religious orders and state churches practiced in some of the colonies. They did not want even their singing linked to what they considered governmentally controlled denominations.

Most of the Old Baptist tunes found in the early years were secular songs with religious texts. They were remembered tunes that our ancestors sang in the hills of Scotland, Ireland, England and Wales and brought to America with them. These tunes had been "spiritualized" with words written to show Christian experiences. For example, the minor-key hymn, Wondrous Love was set to the tune of a song about Captain Kidd, pirate.

Fortunately for the hymn, the tune name was given Wondrous Love, not Captain Kidd. The meter in the old folk song in a minor key carries well the words of "Wondrous Love": "What wondrous love is this! Oh! my soul, Oh! my soul! What wondrous love is this, oh! my soul! That caused the Lord of bliss, To bear the dreadful curse for my soul, for my soul, To bear the dreadful curse for my soul!" We don't know who penned the words for the four-stanza hymn in its irregular (12, 9, 6, 6, 12, 9) rhythm. Even modern hymm books list the words as being An American Folk Hymn. It was published in William Walker's Southern Harmony in 1835. Benjamin Franklin White collaborated with Walker in compiling Southern Harmony, but when Walker took the manuscript to New Haven, Connecticut to be published, he did not include White's name as co-author/compiler.

Evidently, this breached the friendship of the two musicians. Ben White packed up his family and moved from Spartanburg, S.C., to Hamilton in Harris County, Ga. There he became editor of the local newspaper, The Organ. He also began working on The Sacred Harp songbook. Many of the songs he published in the newspaper. In 1844 the whole collection of songs was compiled by B. F. White and Joel King and published by Collins Press, Philadelphia. Subsequent editions came out in 1859 and 1860. The hymnbook was reprinted in 1968 by Broadman Press, Nashville, Tenn. White and King's Sacred Harp became the official music book of the Southern Musical Convention in Upson, County, Ga., (1845), the Chattahoochee Musical Convention, Coweta County (1852), and the Tallapoosea Singing Convention in Haralson County (1867) and countless other Singing Conventions as they organized in counties after the Civil War. The book was popular not only for its songs but for the Rudiments of Music, a 21-page manual of music instruction which was often used by singing school teachers.

The Union County Singing Convention held at the court house in Blairsville was an all-day event and well attended by singing groups from the mountain areas of Georgia, North Carolina and Tennessee. Some of the singing school teachers of the 1930s and 1940s were the Rev. James Hood and Mr. Frank Dyer of Union County, and Mr. Everett Prince Bailey of Fannin County, GA and Polk County, Tenn. Groups of Sacred Harp musicians still meet and sing the old songs. Noted names among them are descendants of B. F. White and the Denson Brothers, Howard and Paine; families of McGraws, Kitchens, Cagles, Lovvorns, Parrises, Manns, Drakes and others, some in the fifth generation of those who contributed to the Sacred Harp back in 1844.

In Watson B. Dyer's Souther Family History, (1986), page 154, he printed in our great grandmother's handwriting (Nancy Collins Souther [1829-1888], wife of John Combs Hayes Souther [18271891]), a copy of a song they were learning at church. She had written the words April 13, 1868. I was thrilled to see the words of the song that had been "lined out" as my great grandmother wrote them. She wrote:

"Come all ye righteous here below,
O hal-le, hal-le-lu-jah.
Let nothing prove your overthrow,
O hal-le, hal-le-lu-jah.
But call on Me both day and night,
O hal-le, hal-le-lu-jah.
And I'll visit you with delight,
Sing glory, hal-le-lu-jah!"

She penned words to other stanzas as well. I looked in the reprint of White & King's Sacred Harp for the song my great grandmother wrote out to help her memorize the words. I found the tune, "The Good Old Way" (L.M.-long meter) with the refrain, but the words given for the stanzas in the song book were not a match for what my ancestor wrote. There were many versions of the stanzas, as various people were inspired to write verses to fit tunes. I felt a deep kinship with her. The words she wrote fitted a commonly used tune she sang as she worshiped in the little New Liberty Baptist Church in sight of her cabin. She had a desire to participate more readily in the services by knowing the words to a song they enjoyed singing there. She was the mother of ten children. Maybe she gathered them all around and they had a little Souther choir at home as she taught them the words to The Good Old Way tune.

c2006 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published June 22, 2006 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Rev. James J. Hood: minister, musician, woodcrafter

I was perhaps 5 years old when I first remember seeing the Rev. James J. Hood at Choestoe Baptist Church. He sat at the old pump-style church organ and made the most glorious sounds emanate from it. Then he turned on the organ stool and faced the congregation, inviting those present on that Sunday to join him as he led in Brethren We Have Met to Worship, Amazing Grace, and How Firm a Foundation.

Not announcing the next number, he played an introduction and began to sing a solo in his resounding baritone voice, I Am a Poor, Wayfaring Stranger. Every time I hear that old hymn I remember how Rev. Jim Hood sang it.

After he played the organ and led the singing, he then went to the pulpit to preach. I don’t remember what he preached about. In those early years my mind was not focused for long on any one topic, but found many trains of thought to pursue as the minister preached. I can remember, however, being impressed with the Rev. Jim Hood, whom everyone knew, because he lived “up on the River” at a community in upper Choestoe called “Hood’s Chapel.” The Hoods had settled there when the county was young, and the first church and school in that community had been named Hood’s Chapel, a name that carried even after the church changed its name to Union.

Later as I grew and came to know more about this mountain preacher who lived up near the headwaters of the Notla (also spelled Nottely) River from my Dyer family did I come to appreciate his many talents and abilities. Not only was he a well-read, able preacher, self-taught in many respects, but he was a musician who could hold “singing schools” using shaped notes; he composed music and wrote words for his own songs; he was a woodcrafter, a carpenter, a cabinet-maker; he farmed, was a blacksmith, a sawmiller, a teacher, and an inventor.

Born March 10, 1889, James J. Hood was the son of Enoch Chapman Hood (1855-1932) and Amanda Townsend Hood (1857-1916). He grew up in a large family of 13 children. His name was soon shortened to Jim. His paternal grandparents were William Jackson Hood (1823-?) and Celia M. Turner Hood (ca. 1830-ca. 1891). His grandmother was a daughter of Jarrett Turner and Sarah Collins Turner. William Jackson Hood’s parents were Enoch Hood and Mildred (?) Hood who migrated from North Carolina (Burke County) to Pendleton District, S.C., and from there to Union County, Ga., between 1834 and 1840.

James J. Hood married Ollie Saxon on January 8, 1911. To them were born 11 children: sons, Homer, Byron, Eugene, George, Eron and Charles; and daughters, Bessie, Bertha, Clara Jane, Pauline, and Margie. Charles and Margie died as children.

Rev. Hood’s woodworking shop was well-equipped with lathes, saws, routers and other tools. Many of the pieces of equipment he used he fashioned himself in his blacksmith shop. He operated the machinery with water power that he had ingeniously channeled to his shop. It has been said that more than 6,000 handmade chairs, benches, pulpit lecterns and other hand-crafted items were made in his shop. He taught woodworking in the vocational division at Union County High School when the subject was added to the curriculum.

Among his several inventions was a burglar alarm. Like an earlier inventor in the Choestoe District, Micajah Clark Dyer who invented the flying machine before the Wright Brothers, some of Mr. Hood’s inventions were firsts as well. However, he did not have the money to pursue patents for his inventions and so was not officially credited with them. He was one of the first persons in the area to weld steel to iron while he was still a lad working in the blacksmith shop.

He taught himself to play the organ and piano without benefit of instruction books or teacher. He determined the relationship of the printed notes on the treble and bass clefs of written hymns and where the corresponding notes were located on the keyboard. No doubt he possessed an ear for music, for his pitch was true. Once he had learned music through teaching himself, he then could teach others with great enthusiasm and skill. Some of his own compositions were gospel songs, I Know There Is a Rest Beyond, and The Pearly Gates Open Wide for Me.

His seminary training was by his own oil lamp late into the nights after working hard in the daytime. He ordered Hebrew and Greek textbooks and proceeded to teach himself enough of the languages of the Old and New Testaments to satisfy his curiosity about what seemed to him to be discrepancies in translations. His ministry as a preacher was wide-spread throughout the mountain area, not only to most all of the Baptist churches in Union County but to Young Harris, Cleveland and Robertstown.

Personable, dignified, intellectual, hard-working, kind, talented and devout, the Rev. James J. Hood touched many lives for good. He and his beloved wife Ollie were married for fifty-four years. He died November 3, 1964. Both were buried in the Union Baptist Church Cemetery, Upper Choestoe.

c2006 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published Jan. 19, 2006 in The Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Some Ingrams and Their Spouses

We have, for two weeks, written about the families of John Little Ingram (1788-1866) and his father, Revolutionary War soldier, also named John Little Ingram (1755-1828). It is interesting to note some of the marriages of descendants of these Ingrams and see how the marriages linked Ingrams to other early settler families of Union County, Georgia.

Sarah (better known as Sally) Ingram (1820- ?) was the fourth child of John Little Ingram (1788-1866) and his first wife, Mary “Polly” Cagle Ingram (1793-1829-30?). Sally Ingram married Thompson Collins, Jr. (1818- ?). “Thompie,” as he was known, was a son of early settlers Thompson Collins (1785-1858) and Celia Self Collins (1787-1880). Thompie and Sally did not have any children; at least, not any who lived to adulthood. Thompie Collins had a large portion of farmland near the Notla River from holdings his father had claimed in the 22,000 acres that once belonged to the elder Thompson Collins.

Thompie developed the land and had one of the largest apple orchards known then in the Choestoe District along what is now Collins Road on a rise between the present Wilonell Collins Dyer property and what was the Jewel Marion Dyer property.

Thompie Collins was, for many years, a justice of the peace for the Choestoe District. In viewing early Union County marriage records, the name of Thompson Collins appears often as officiant of marriages in the community.

Nancy Ingram (1823-1897) was the sixth child of John Little and Mary “Polly” Cagle Ingram. She married Athan England (1815-1893), a son of William Richard England (1770-1835) and Martha “Patsy” Montgomery England (178-1865). Richard England’s parents were Daniel (1752-1818) and Margaret Gwynn England (1758-1847). During the Revolutionary War, Daniel England performed patriotic service by operating his iron foundry at his large plantation on Hunting Creek near Morganton, NC, for the war effort. When some of the England children migrated to what is now White County (then Habersham) during the gold rush of 1828, Margaret, widowed, went with them. When Richard and Martha England settled in Choestoe, Union County, in the early 1830’s, Margaret England moved with them. Margaret’s is said to be the first grave in the old Choestoe Church Cemetery. Athan and Nancy Ingram England had these children: California E. England, Tom P. England, Richard Little England, William H. England, and John E. England. Athan and Nancy lived on a farm in the area that is now the Georgia Mountain Experiment Station off Highway 129/19 south of Blairsville.

Eliza Louisa Ingram (1827-1907) was the eighth child of John Little and Mary “Polly” Cagle Ingram. She married James Marion Dyer (1823-1904) on June 18, 1846. They lived on a farm on Cane Creek, Choestoe, where James Marion’s parents, Bluford Elisha Dyer, Jr. (1780-1845) and Elizabeth Clark Dyer (1785-1861) had settled in the early 1830’s. James Marion and Louisa Ingram Dyer had a large family of twelve children: Harriet Emaline who married Carr Colllins; Joseph G. who married Polly Turner; Micager C. (“Buck”) who married Josephine Henson; Archibald C. Young who married Hannah Jane Wimpey; James C. Dyer, died at age two; Bluford Elisha Dyer who married Sarah Evaline Souther; Nancy “Sis” Dyer who married William Hunter; Elizabeth Caroline “Hon” Dyer who married William Albert Souther; Jefferson Beauregard Dyer who married Rhoda Souther; Francis Marion Dyer who married Molly Dyer and Helen Dann; Mary Dyer, died young; and James C. Dyer who married Malissa Swain.

Malinda Ingram (1829- ?) was the ninth child of John Little and Mary “Polly” Cagle Ingram. She married Andrew Townsend, son of Eli and Sarah “Sally” Dyer Ingram. Andrew Townsend, along with his father, Eli, served in the Texas War for Independence against Mexico, and was honorably discharged from the service of the United States on July 13, 1848 at Mobile, Alabama. For his service, Andrew Townsend received 160 acres of bounty land. Malinda and Andrew Townsend had these children: Thompson L. “Bud” Townsend who never married; Thomas Simpson “Simp” Townsend who married Ruthie West and Wilda Hood; Nancy J. Townsend who married Thomas N. England; Amanda Jane Townsend who married Enoch Chapman Hood; Andrew Crockett Townsend, Jr., who married Myra Anne Duckworth, Mary Duckworth and Mary Hunter; Elizabeth Townsend who married William Jackson Shuler; and Clarasie Townsend who married Joshua Columbus Fortenberry.

Since these daughters of John Little Ingram (Sally, Nancy, Louisa and Malinda) are only four of the twenty-one children of John Little Ingram who grew to adulthood, these families comprise only a small portion of Ingram descendants. If you can make your own kinship connection back to any of these, you share in a rich heritage of Ingrams who reach back to England, Wales and Scotland before migrating to the New World in the late 1600’s.

c2005 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published June 16, 2005 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

A Mother's Love Defied the Bonds of Death: A Mountain Story

This morning is cloudy and dark. The overcast sky puts me in mind of days in the mountains in my childhood when the clouds hung low and fog rose like a giant shroud hiding the majestic peaks that stood like sentinels over Choestoe Valley.

Then I thought of the tradition of mountain storytelling, and how we were entertained as children by hearing stories that had been passed from generation to generation by our Scots-Irish forebears. My favorite storytellers from my childhood were my first cousin, much older than I, my mother’s nephew, Earl Hood and his wife Allie Winn Hood. This delightful couple had no children of their own, but they seemed to be very pleased when Earl’s nephew and nieces and his young cousins went to spend the night. With no electricity then in that mountain home and the only heat being from an open fireplace, we settled down to a wonderful night of entertainment provided by master storytellers, Earl and Allie Hood.

The recipients of this rich legacy of mountain tales, many of them about ghosts and haints, were Little Ed and Bertha Hood Dyer’s children, our cousins Wilma, Genelle, Harold and Sarah Ruth, and my younger brother, Bluford Dyer and I, Ethelene. We all got permission in advance to go to Allie’s and Earl’s to spend the night on certain Friday nights, and walked the distance from Choestoe Elementary School to their house. It must have been more than three miles, but the anticipation of what we would enjoy once we arrived made us skip along, laughing and talking all the while, with the boys, Harold and Bluford, outstripping the girls and arriving first, boasting that they were stronger than we girls.

After the evening chores of milking and feeding and getting in the wood were finished, Allie served us a wonderful meal of hot cornbread, vegetables and country-cured ham, topped off by dried apple stack cake. We quickly washed the dishes and then settled down for an evening’s entertainment, the likes of which has never been surpassed, even with the advent of television years later.

One ghost tale I remember them telling—and they had a way of making us “see” the scene they laid out before us with their words---was one about a mother’s love for her baby. Allie would warn us that we should not try to match the names in the stories to people, living or dead. This had happened so long ago it would be hard to remember them exactly. The story went something like this:

Years ago, when sawmillers first came to our mountains to cut down the virgin trees and saw them into lumber, there lived far up near Round Top Mountain, a couple named Sexton, Eliza and John. They loved each other dearly. And in the course of time, Eliza had a beautiful baby girl whom they named after her mother but called her Liza. The midwife or “Granny Woman” named Mary had attended little Liza’s birth. Things were going along well until two days after Liza’s birth her mother came down with a raging fever. Granny Woman Mary administered her herbal remedies, but none had any effect on the fever. Eliza grew worse.

John told Granny Mary that he was going to Blairsville, some fourteen miles from his home, to get the doctor. He took off down the rutted mountain road, made worse by the snaking out of the saw logs and the rough treatment from big trucks, just then coming into the mountains, hauling out the sawed lumber. John finally arrived in town in his buggy drawn by his horse. But the doctor was out on a call delivering a baby and was not expected back until the next day. John decided to stay in town and wait for the doctor, because he would have to take the doctor in his buggy back up to his cabin on Round Top. John didn’t get much sleep that night, trying to rest in his buggy. Fortunately, he had brought along a blanket to protect himself from the night’s cold. All he could think about was how sick Eliza was, and even how still the newborn baby seemed in the large basket that was her crib.

About daybreak the doctor came back from his all-night call, tired and sleepy. But he agreed to go with John to examine Eliza and little Liza. After a hot breakfast and coffee which the good doctor’s wife prepared for her husband and for John, the two men got into John’s buggy and took off at a lope, as John urged the horse to a trot.

Finally they arrived at the John Sexton home. Granny Woman Mary met them on the porch. “I’m afraid you’re too late,” she said. “Both Eliza and little Liza died during the night.” John, gripped with deep grief, went inside his cabin where he saw his beautiful Eliza and the little baby laid out for burying. How could this have happened? If only the doctor had been at home, maybe his wife and child could have been saved.

The doctor and Granny Woman Mary tried to console John. Neighbors came, and made a casket. They placed the bodies together in the homemade casket, the baby in Eliza’s arms. They were buried in the cemetery near the little log church called Salem. John, so devastated, did not want his neighbors’ sympathy or their food which they always took with loving concern to the household that had experienced death. John latched his cabin door and told his neighbors he would have to bear his burden of grief alone.

The next morning John’s neighbor, James Collins, went to his barn before daylight to milk his cows. Times were hard in those days, and there were always people on the road dropping by farmhouses and barns to beg for food. James realized someone was in the barn with him. He turned and saw a woman, dressed in black, the sort of finer dress like the women in the community wore to church. She sat a tin cup down on a bale of hay. James knew she wanted it full of milk, so he took the cup and soon filled it with warm rich milk. The woman nodded her thanks but did not say a word. The next morning and the next, the same woman visited James as he was milking, begging with her cup. On the fourth morning, James decided he would follow the woman who would not give him her name. Maybe he could find out where she lived.

He saw her dark form disappear into the woods, but, running, he was able to follow her to the cemetery. Then it was just as though she disappeared into one of the newly heaped graves. This frightened James, but he knew he must do something.

James quickly returned home, got his shovel and ran to his nearest neighbor’s house. He told Lish Hunter what he had seen. “Get your shovel,” James said, “and come with me.” Lish wondered what had come over his neighbor James Collins, but he grabbed his shovel and the two men went in that early, foggy morning to Old Salem Church Cemetery. There they began to dig into the newly-formed grave. Getting down to the casket, they gingerly removed the lid, and there was the woman James had seen four mornings in a row at his barn, rigid and cold in death. There was the cup in her hand. And lying on her breast, gurgling but weak, was a beautiful baby girl, still alive, still breathing.

They removed the baby, and covered the grave. They went to John Sexton’s home. The door was still barred with the grieving husband and father inside. “Open up,” James ordered. “We have a gift for you. Here is little Liza, alive and well.”

John could not believe his eyes or the story James told him about the baby’s rescue. What rejoicing he had as the baby, safe in his arms, began to cry. “Come down to my barn and I’ll give you some milk for the baby,” Jim Collins told John. And he did. Nevermore did James Collins see the woman in a black dress with the tin cup come to his barn begging milk. But you can be assured that he remembered it the rest of his life, and told the story again and again.

Little Liza grew up to be a beautiful young lady. Her daddy, John, married again and had more children. But Liza always held a special place in his heart because she was the miracle baby, his first- born rescued from the grave by his neighbors James and Lish.

“Is that true?” we kids asked Allie and Earl. They only smiled and told us it was time for bed. But every time we climbed the hill to Old Salem Cemetery, we looked at the grave marked with a fieldstone, with no names readable on it. We always remembered the story told to us by Allie and Earl, and wondered about the mother who loved her baby so much she would return from the grave to get warm milk to keep little Liza alive. And as we milked our own cows early on foggy mornings, we were always aware that if a woman with a cup appeared, we were to fill it promptly with warm milk. I think we were a little disappointed that no woman ever came to our barn for us to do this service of love and mercy.


c2004 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published May 20, 2004 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

William Marion Jackson and Rebecca Goforth Jackson

Continuing the saga of the Jackson Family in Union County, today's account will look at a son of William Jackson and Nancy Stanley Owenby Jackson. William Marion Jackson was born, as he recounted to his children "near Yonah Mountain in Habersham (now White) County, Georgia on May 9, 1829. He died March 12, 1912. On December 19, 1850, he married Rebecca Jane Goforth who was born in Burke County, North Carolina on March 3, 1833 and died June 5, 1901. Those interested in seeing the graves of these two early settlers in Union County can find them in Old Liberty Baptist Church Cemetery, Choestoe District.

Rebecca Jane Goforth was a daughter of Miles Goforth. This family of Goforths migrated from Burke County, NC to Union County, Georgia about 1840. It is believed that the Goforths and Jacksons were neighbors in North Carolina and also in the new county of Union.

When they married in 1850, there was already talk of secession from the Union. The Jacksons were pro-Unionists and he would prove his loyalty by joining the U. S. Army.

William Marion and Rebecca began to rear their family. They had a farm, probably on acreage his father owned at Town Creek, Choestoe. William Jackson (1798-1859) and Nancy Jackson (1793-1861) died a few years after William Marion and Rebecca married. The grandparents Jackson saw some of William Marion's children before death claimed the first-generation paternal grandparents. These children were born to William Marion and Rebecca:

(1) Nancy Jackson (named for her grandmother), born November 21, 1851. She married John W. "Rink" Souther (b. June 15, 1833). Nancy and John moved to Pueblo Colorado and reared their family there.
(2) William Miles Jackson (August 30, 1853-January 8, 1910) married on February 24, 1873 to Nancy Souther (December 25, 1883 - May 8, 1899), daughter of Jesse and Malinda Nix Souther. Second, Miles married Nancy West (March, 1863 - February, 1939). Miles and his first wife Nancy were buried at the Old Choestoe Baptist Church Cemetery.
(3) Sarah Catherine Jackson (October 12, 1858 - March 21, 1909) married on February 17 to James M. Hood (September 23, 1856 - February 6, 1913). Sarah Catherine was buried in Old Liberty Church Cemetery, but James Monroe Hood moved to live near Rome, Georgia where he married again. He was buried in Aragon, Georgia Cemetery.
(4) Mary Louise Jackson (January 14, 1861 - February 13, 1934) married on January 1, 1881 to Archibald Benjamin Collins (October 19, 1862 - April 4, 1897). These were the parents of Dr. Mauney Douglas Collins, for 25 years Georgia's state school superintendent. This family's story has been recounted in earlier articles.
(5) Martha Ann Jackson (1866-1916) married first William Hunter on August 18, 1889. Following his death, she married John Pruitt Collins. Martha Ann and William Hunter had a son, Vanus, who became a dentist and practiced in Commerce, Georgia and a son, William (1894-1952). Martha and John Pruitt Collins had three children, Watson, Parker and Rosa.
(6) Thomas Kimsey Jackson (1867-1951) married Mary Jane Collins (1869-1887) and Mary Caroline Collins (1872-1952). Their family history was recounted in last week's column.
(7) Frankie Jane Jackson (February 6, 1870 - November 18, 1962) married James Eli Collins (October 3, 1868-January 8, 1938), a son of Dallas and Roseanna Souther Collins. Frankie Jane and James Eli helped Archibald Benjamin Collins in his store at Choestoe until after A. B.'s death and the store was closed. Frankie Jane and James Eli then migrated to Weatherford Texas.
(8) Fairlena Dorothy Jackson (August 4, 1873 - September 9, 1962) married on December 29, 1889 to Joseph Souther (April 24, 1870 - September 21, 1922). He was a son of Jesse Washington Souther (1836-1926) and Sarah E. Collins Souther (1840-1872). Fairlena and Joseph went to Taos, New Mexico where he worked in copper smelting. They had nine children. After Joseph's death, Fairlena married George Harris.

William Marion Jackson enlisted in the U. S. Army during the War Between the States. His enlistment was from October 1, 1863 through August 16, 1865 with Company D, 2nd Regiment, North Carolina Volunteer Mounted Infantry commanded by Colonel Bartlett. In his application for pension, he stated that at Cumberland Gap in August 1864, he was "taken sick with rheumatism and dysentery and sent to the hospital at said Gap." There he remained until March, 1865, when he received a "sick furlough." He was to be given a medical discharge, but told his commander he lived in Georgia "within the rebel lines," and could not, therefore, safely return to his home. In his pension statement, he declared he was "a farmer by occupation," but due to his "illness and physical incapacity was unable to perform manual labor." Records show that finally $379.00 were received for his nursing care, physician's charges, and undertaking charges following his death.

After Rebecca died in 1901, William Marion Jackson married again to Jane Davis who lived only a short time. He married third to Mandy Seabolt. He outlived her. His final days were spent with his youngest son, Thomas Kimsey Jackson and T. K.'s wife, Mary Caroline Collins Jackson.

Living through the Civil War years and struggling to make a livelihood when the chief breadwinner was disabled from the war was not an easy task. It is reported by family members that William Marion and Rebecca Goforth Jackson were staunch Christians, and "devout Baptists." They found ways to "make do" with what they had.


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

Whatever Happened to Richard Jarrett Hood?

Three of the seven children born to Mary Reid Hood and Richard Jarrett Hood: Claudia C; (the mother, Mary, seated); Talmadge J.; and Cora Lode Hood. Jessie Mae died in 1902. Ida, Laura and Zona were not present when this family picture was taken.

Last week’s account of the Mary L. Reid Hood family noted that Mary’s husband, Richard Jarrett Hood, left on a cattle drive from Upper Choestoe to South Carolina sometime in 1895 and was never heard from again by his wife and seven children.

Carol Thomas-Alexander, a great granddaughter, persisted in finding the facts and, together with the help of other kin, has solved the mystery of Richard Jarrett Hood.

She writes in her Hood family history book: “There were many theories about his disappearance. Mary thought he had...been murdered, which is what she told her children...There was conversation in the community that a local resident in South Georgia had seen him, but nothing was ever proven from this sighting.”

Mrs. Thomas-Alexander tells how Elbert Carlyle (E. C.) Sanders (d 2002), a newspaperman, editor and owner of The Rockmart Journal, until his retirement in 1980, made a trip to Blairsville in the late 1980's seeking information about his grandfather, Richard Jarrett Hood, who died in Pembroke, Georgia in 1932 and was interred at the Beulah Baptist Church Cemetery there. It seems the most Mr. Sanders knew about his grandfather was that he had lived in Union County, Georgia before relocating in South Carolina and then moving to Pembroke, Georgia.

E. C. Sanders talked to Dexter Fair, a son of Claudia Hood Fair. She was the six-year old child Richard Jarrett Hood seemed most reluctant to leave behind in Choestoe when he left in 1895, never to be heard from again by his family in Union County. No record was made of the conversation between Fair and Sanders, both, as it turned out, grandsons of Mr. Hood. However, in 2000, Carol Thomas-Alexander made contact with Mr. Sanders in Rockmart and proceeded to unravel the mystery of Richard Jarrett Hood’s “double” life.

When Hood left Union County, he evidently had no intention of returning. He ended up in Barnwell, S. C. where he married Eudora Cave about 1893. He and Eudora had one child, a daughter, whom he gave the same name as his beloved daughter back in Union County. The South Carolina daughter, Claudia Cornelia Hood, was born September 18, 1894. Evidently, without benefit of a divorce by Jarrett from his Union County, Georgia wife, Mary L. Reid Hood, he had married in South Carolina and a child was born to him and Eudora before he officially left Choestoe.

From South Carolina, the Hood family moved to Pembroke, Georgia. There Richard Jarrett Hood was a sawmill operator and active in local politics, serving as a Justice of the Peace and mayor of the town for two terms. When Georgia Power was ready to string lines for electricity to Pembroke and the surrounding area, Richard Jarrett Hood was active in bringing this forward step to the small town.

Mr. Sanders told Carol Thomas-Alexander that his grandfather never returned to North Georgia nor did any Hood family members ever visit them in Pembroke. No mail was exchanged, but he remembered a Mr. M. D. Collins visiting the Hood family in the late 1920's. (This person, as we know, was Dr. Mauney Douglas Collins, noted Georgia educator state superintendent of schools for 25 years, and Choestoe native).

Mr. E. C. Sanders told his newly-found cousin, granddaughter of the Union County Claudia Cornelia Hood Fair, that his grandfather, Richard Jarrett Hood “was not a happy person and seemed to have a distant look on his face...which he thought was guilt that went to his grave with him.”

The one child borne by Hood’s second wife, Eudora, was artistic and musical. She played the piano for the United Methodist Church in Pembroke for over 60 years and was a noted piano teacher, director of school choral groups, and played for civic events, funerals, weddings and community and church programs. She married Henry M. Sanders, a printer and typesetter for The Savannah Free Press and they had five sons, Elbert, Marion, Robert, Jimmy, and Gene. This Claudia Cornelia Hood Sanders lived to the ripe age of 90, dying January 20, 1989. She was buried in the Northside Cemetery, Pembroke.

The Choestoe Claudia Cornelia Hood (April 8, 1889-Sept. 10, 1958) married John David Fair (1874-1936). They had seven children: Annie Lee, Jessie Mae, Charles Winford, Fannie Bell, Clifford Leon, Eurah Vee, and William Dexter. Their fourth child, Fannie Bell, was Carol Thomas-Alexander’s mother. Carol writes of her grandmother Claudia: “She was a quiet, composed, well-mannered person, a devoted mother and grandmother...Her creative nature enabled her to be a great storyteller, a wonderful clothes designer, an excellent seamstress and a writer of poetry, among many other gifts.” John and Claudia Fair were interred at Providence Methodist Church Cemetery, Union County.

E. C. Sanders remembered his mother, the other Claudia Cornelia Hood Sanders, as a loving and giving person, one who touched countless lives with her music, her ready smile and her Christian influence.

The adage, “Truth is stranger than fiction” is certainly borne out in the Richard Jarrett Hood story.

c2003 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published Dec. 4, 2003 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.