Some Englands become Union County settlers

With the Gold Rush simmering down some around Duke’s Creek in Habersahm County (later White), and with the patriarch Richard England dying in 1835 and interred in the England Cemetery near the Chattahoochee River there, some of the England young men went “across the mountains” once again and settled in the area that had become Union County in 1832.

Martin England (1800-1899), son of Joseph England, grandson of Charles England, first listed in the 1834 (first Union) census, claimed land along the headwaters of the Hiawassee River that was included in Towns County when it was formed in 1856.

There he established a sizeable, productive farm. In the 1850 census he was listed as owning four slaves. He married first Elizabeth Carroll and they had eleven children: Sarah Adaline (1824), Charles Newton (1818), Mary (1830), Martha (1833), William Jasper (1834), Martin Van Buren (1836), Amanda America (1838), Margaret Ann Elizabeth (1840), Harvey Pinson (1841 ? went to California about 1868 and died there shortly thereafter), Andrew (1843) and an infant who died at birth. Martin England’s first wife Elizabeth died in 1868 and was buried in the Mt. Zion Cemetery. The Englands had helped to found that church in what is now Towns County. Martin married, second, Mrs. Sarah Melton from Athens, but the union ended in divorce. His third wife was Minerva Grist Brown, widow of Lafayette Brown. Martin and Minerva had three children: Harvey Pinson (1877), named for the 1841 son of Martin who had died in California; Iva (1879) who died young, and Lizzie (1882). Minerva England died and Martin married his fourth wife, M. E. (Mary Elizabeth?) Buckner in 1884. The family of Martin England has many descendants in Union, Towns and elsewhere.

In the 1834 (first) census of Union County, Elijah England was a resident. He was listed with eight males and six females in the household, a large family.

Elijah, like Martin, first settled in the Helen area of then Habersham County, buying Land Lot 38 from the lottery winner of the land and paying $1,000 for the lot in February 1822. Elijah about 30 years old, his wife Elizabeth, and four children (three sons, one daughter) and Elijah’s father William settled on Land Lot 38, moving there from Franklin County. It seems that his wife Elizabeth died while Elijah lived there. In 1824 Elijah sold half of Land Lot 38 for $725, and in 1828 he sold the remaining half to Henry Conley for $1,000. In six years, Elijah had made a profit of $725 on the sale of his land lot. He went back to North Carolina (probably where he had lived prior to going to Franklin County). But it wasn’t long until he was back in Georgia, some 30 miles from his old Land Lot 38, for by 1834 he was across the mountain in the new county, Union. Even though the Indians were not evacuated completely until 1838, white settlers were encouraged to go into Cherokee lands and take up residence. Elijah England and his family accepted that challenge.

Evidently Elijah England had slaves to assist him with his farming operations. In 1832 he sold five slaves to Adam Pitner who had settled in the Helen Valley. However, Elisha listed his own residence then as North Carolina. In the 1840 census of Union, he owned no slaves. His household, including himself, had five males and six females (one his wife), and no slaves. The 1850 census of Union lists the names in the Elijah England household: Elijah, 60; Caroline, 38; Eliza, 32; Sally, 22; James, 19; Lafayette, 19; Marinda, 14; Floyd, 10; and Engela (Angela?), 2.

Elijah England was one of the 33 slave holders listed in Union County in the 1860 census. He owned six of the county’s 133 slaves. I did not find a listing for either Elijah England or his wife Caroline in the Union County Cemeteries list. Perhaps they were buried in unmarked graves somewhere on his farm.

c2005 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published Oct. 20, 2005 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

More Early Union County Post Offices

With double emphases in April on Confederate Memorial and History Month and National Poetry Month, I addressed this column to those two subjects for the past four weeks. We will continue with some more early post offices that once operated in Union County, a series I began earlier.

Let me digress here to thank those who attended the Souther Mill Site and Historical Marker Dedication service on Saturday, April 30. Despite the inclement weather, we did not have rain at the time of the meeting in the afternoon. A large crowd gathered to pay tribute to Jesse Willliam Souther, Jr. who founded the grist mill and sawmill. We thank John Paul Souther, grandson of the mill’s founder, and Theodore Thomas, great, great, great grandson, for their hard work in making the program possible and Mr. Thomas, in particular, for building the shelter that houses the historical marker and pictures at the old mill site. Another marker has been placed with the display of turbines from the mill at Union County Museum Annex, the Butt House. If you did not attend the program, you are invited to see the markers and pictures of the mills.

Today Union County has two post offices—Blairsville and Suches. With all the modern means of transporting the mail, it is hard for us to imagine that in post office history since Coosa, the first, was founded in 1833, the year following Union’s founding, the county has had a total of sixty-four named post offices at fifty-nine sites throughout the county.

Oftentimes in pioneer days, the post office was in a store or in a home. And both the post office and the store could have been in a room of the post master’s home.

Several post offices operated in Canada District. The first, according to record, was named Gaddistown to honor early settlers there, a family named Gaddis. The application was approved June 15, 1848 with John D. Cavender as first post master. Mail came to the new post office from Dahlonega. Gaddistown operated for a total of 107 years under the same name but moving to locations within a mile-square area of the first post office. Several men and women were in charge of the post office for its more than a century of operation: John D. Cavender, Newton K. Williams, A. H. Pitner, Lewis W. Gilreath, Squire E. Jones, John C. Cavender, Essie Brookshire, :Lottie Cavender, Arthur Grizzle, Lottie Cavender (second time), Mrs. Alma M. McDougald. The Warren McDougald’s rock dwelling house was the last location of Gaddistown postoffice.

Quebec post office was named as a complement to the name Canada for the district. Quebec was established August 31, 1881 with Eli P. McGee as first postmaster. The next postmaster at Quebec was Grant Woody. He operated the post office in his Service Spring Hotel at Miller Gap. The hotel, more like a boarding house, was the mountain vacation location of wealthy planters from the south. There in the basement of the hotel was a bar dispensing mountain moonshine and also an ingenious water trough reputedly carrying mineral springs water good for health. Later when all signs of the hotel were removed, the new owners of the land found the mineral water gum log water trough containing old iron implements over which the “mineral water” had passed, probably to give the water its “mineral” or iron content. Following hotel owner Grant Woody’s term as postmaster, two more men served at Quebec as postmasters: John Holloway and William E. Burnett. On April 30, 1907, Quebec post office was closed and the mail routed through the Suches station. Quebec had operated almost twenty-six years.

A wholesale grocer of Dahlonega, Georgia had a good idea for increasing his business and making products not grown on the farms of Canada District more available to citizens. John Cannon, Wholesaler, had a line of groceries, dry goods and hardware. It was very likely that John Cannon helped Eli McGee set up the Gaddistown post office and establish a store there. Bill Davis had opened a store and John Cannon persuaded him that he should send application to open a post office in his store. Suches opened March 6, 1886. Suches was the name of an Indian chieftain who once lived in the valley near the Bill Davis store site. Interestingly enough, John Cannon himself was first postmaster listed with the US Post Office Department. It is very likely that the store owner, Bill Davis, did the postal work. On July 20, 1887, Bill Davis was officially made the postmaster. During its one-hundred twenty-one years of operation, a long list of postmasters have served. The office moved several times. The Lunsford Store owners operated the post office.

The present location near the intersection of Highways 180 and 60 has a stately brick building near the Woody Gap School. Rural routes operate from Suches to take the mail to families living in the valleys once ruled over by Indian Chief Suches.

(Next week: More on other Canada District post offices.)

c2005 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published May 3, 2005 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.