Militia Districts in Union County

The state of Georgia is divided into 159 counties. Within each county are further subdivisions called Militia Districts. Union County is divided into fourteen districts, but only five voting districts. Beginning along the northern border at the North Carolina line and proceeding southward, these militia districts are Dooly, Ivy Log, Gum Log, Lower Young Cane, Blairsville, Upper Young Cane, Coosa, Arkaquah, Owltown, Choestoe, Coopers Creek, Canada and Gaddistown. These names are more for location than for political divisions, as changes have occurred over time to warrant a look at how present election districts have evolved.

Even though there were fourteen districts in 1849 listed for the then seventeen-year old county of Union, those districts were changed through the years due to part of Union being taken into Fannin (formed in 1854) and Towns (formed in 1856). The tax lists of 1849 had the fourteen districts in Union named thus: Hiawassee, Choestoe, Ivy Log, Noontootla, Blairsville, Hemptown, Brasstown, Stevenson, Gaddistown, Arkaquah, Young Cane, Gum Log, Cut Cane and Skinah (Skeenah). You can easily recognize from this listing that only eight of these fourteen remain in Union today, with names the same. As changes in geographical divisions occurred through the county’s history, the districts were realigned accordingly.

Historical records show that a fifteenth district was added in 1851, before the counties of Fannin and Towns were measured off from portions of Union. That new district did not receive a name until 1855, when it was named Young’s District. Later, the Young’s District was split into two and received the names Lower Young Cane and Upper Young Cane. An interesting sideline about districts not only in Union but throughout Georgia is that they were sometimes named for a person prominent in the area, or for families who settled there, especially when several by the same name resided within a given geographical area. Examples of this naming in Union are Young Cane (upper and lower), Coopers Creek and Gaddistown, and although I do not find any named Dooly in the county until the 1850 census, this district name, too, might have been from a family or a remembered family name from a previous place residents lived. The Dooly District was officially added to the tax lists of Union in 1857. Other names were adopted from names the Cherokee had given the place before their exodus on the Trail of Tears. Some of these names are Arkaquah, Choestoe and Coosa.

By 1870, Coosa and Coopers Creek had been added to the tax list districts. And then in 1887 Owltown was formed, taking portions of Choestoe, Arkaquah and Coosa to form the legal entity numbered 1409. In order to get the Owltown District, a petition was presented, with some of the leaders being citizens Thomas Fields, Daniel Mathis and others. The parameters of Owltown were surveyed and recommended by a court-appointed team made up of Quiller F. Reece, John M. Rich, and Milford G. Hamby. The act to form Owltown District took effect on April 4, 1887 when Ordinary William Colwell signed the official document.

Stability remained in the district names for about a hundred years. But even during that time, district lines changed somewhat due to petitions of citizens and surveys that led to resetting some of the district lines by small margins. In 1981, Georgia Code, Chapter 34-7 and 34-701, amended, gave impetus to resetting “election districts” to cut costs in holding elections (not one for each of the fourteen districts), but according to locations, with some of the districts realigned and combined for precincts. Brasstown and Blairsville were combined into Election District 1. Others were combined as follows for precincts: District 2 covered Upper and Lower Young Cane and Coosa. District 3 encompassed Choestoe, Arkaquah and Owltown. District 4 contained Dooly, Ivy Log and Gum Log. And “across the mountain” District 5 combined Coopers Creek, Gaddistown and Canada.

Then in 1983, Representative Carlton Colwell introduced a bill in the state legislature to make the Union County School Districts correspond to the voting districts. Members of the Union County School Board—instead of being from the fourteen districts—would be elected from within the five voting districts. And it was so ordered.

Nowadays, the 14 Militia Districts of the County are remembered from past history and for sentimental reasons. However, we still like to hail from whatever district we or our parents might have claimed. Simplification in government alignment sometimes leads to loss of pride in place. But we still look at the old district lines on a map of Union County and remember “how it used to be.” I look at old marriage records of the county and see names of those important district officers, Justice of the Peace (JP) and Notary Public (NP). They served notably in the capacity they had as legal representatives in their districts. These names appeared frequently on legal documents in the first decades of our county’s history: Jesse Reid, JP; Thompson Collins, JP; Hampton Jones, JP; J Duckworth, JIC (Justice of the Inferior Court); T. M. Hughes, JP; James Bird, JP; M. M. Roberts, JP; John B. Chastian, JP; Enes M. Henry, JP; Posey D. Guthrie, JP; and Bennet Smith, NP, to name a few.

c 2010 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published Aug. 5, 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.

Reid chairs bring Christmas memories

Sarah Souther Dyer is shown at age 100. Her favorite chair (not this one in which she sat for her 100th birthday picture in 1957) was a Jason Reid-made straight chair which she sat in by the window of her living room and looked out toward New Liberty Baptist Church. From the Reid-made straight chair, she also entertained children, grandchildren and great grandchildren with stories of "the old times" which she remembered so well.

The old Reid-made chairs were utilitarian pieces, bought from Jason Reid or his sons who were the chair makers of "Upper" Choestoe region of North Georgia.

My grandmother, Sarah Evaline Souther Dyer (1857-1959) had her favorite chair. It was always beside the fireplace, positioned so that she could be warmed by the fire and at the same time look out the small window to the right of her fireplace in the 1850 house built by her father and occupied by Sarah herself and her husband, Bluford Elisha Dyer (1855-1926), the house where they reared their fifteen children—that is, those thirteen who made it to adulthood.

But back to the Reid-made chairs and how people came to own them and how the chairs bring back Christmas memories.

Jason Reid (20 Sept. 1851 - 27 April 1934) knew the chair-making trade from the inside out. He had a workshop at his farm in the vicinity of Union Baptist Church in the Choestoe District of Union County. He would select the best of the wood from the forest from which to make the chairs, have it sawed and let it cure. He fashioned the posts and framework of the chairs by hand, deftly making the parts in his workshop.

He made the seats of the chairs by weaving them from white oak strips soaked in tubs of water to make them pliable. He taught his sons how to make chairs. Later, the boys had the advantage of a lathe and other more modern tools as they continued the work of chair-making. Helping Jason by taking care of the house and children was his loving wife, Martha J. Reid (24 March 1857 - 14 March 1919).

The Reid family made chairs long before their products were considered craft items. Sales of the chairs did not bring in lucrative money to the Reid business. The straight chairs, and maybe sometimes rocking chairs, made to order, were produced in the Reid wood-working shop. People came to the Reid house from nearby homesteads to buy chairs as they had the money to do so. Later on, the word about Reid-made chairs spread beyond Choestoe. The products were hauled by covered wagon over the Logan Turnpike to the market in Gainesville to be sold and distributed from there.

My Grandmother Sarah Souther Dyer had her favorite chair. We all knew it as "Grandma's Chair." My grandmother would have been 75 from my earliest memory of her, and from then on until her death at 101+ years, she held court from her Reid-made chair in her special corner as my family and her many other family members and friends visited her. She had been a Choestoe mid-wife and a woman who kept up with national and world affairs by reading the newspaper. Her impaired hearing prevented her from listening to radio broadcasts (after she got his modern convenience in her home), although I can remember her straining to hear President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in his "fireside chats" during World War II. Reading, trying to listen to radio, or entertaining family and friends were all done by Grandma as she sat in her straight-back Reid-made chair.

She was definitely the matriarch of the family. When she spoke, we listened. I can't remember that she made much "to-do" over the Christmas holidays, for I never remember seeing a Christmas tree in her little room, nor any holiday decorations on her plain wooden mantel. It's not that she didn't believe in Christmas. She definitely did. But always practical, she never sought frills and excesses in anything she did. From her, seated as I remember her in that straightbacked chair, we learned many stories of "how things used to be," and we listened with wide-eyed awe.

In addition to the woven seat of her Reid-made chair, Grandma had some wooden baskets that fascinated me as a child. The structure of the baskets looked much like that of the seat of Grandma's chair, woven from white oak strips. "These baskets my mother Nancy Collins Souther (1829- 1888) and my father, John Combs Hayes Souther (1827- 1891) bought from the Indians that peddled them by our house. Those Indians had hidden out in the caves in the mountains to avoid being taken on the Trail of Tears." We would touch gingerly the egg basket and the larger basket used for laundry that Grandma told us about.

"And this chair I'm sitting in," she would continue with her story of old-fashioned items in her house, "was made by Jason Reid who lives up on the river and has his chair-making shop there. If you buy a Reid chair, you'll have one that sits well, and one that will last" Grandma affirmed. I wondered if somehow chair-maker Jason Reid had learned to weave his white oak strips into chair seats from some of those Indians or their descendants. I'm sorry now I didn't ask her about that.

I don't know who got Grandma Dyer's chair in the distribution of her property following her death. But in my mind's eye, I still see our family matriarch enjoying her "throne chair," the simple though elegant product of one Jason Reid who took pride in his products and taught his sons how to carry on the trade of chair-making.

Fortunately, although I don't have Grandma's chair, I am the happy owner of two later Reid-made chairs. One is a rocking chair which my parents used to rock me when I was a baby. I was able, in recent years, to have the seat replaced by an authentic craftsman who knows how to weave nearly the same pattern the Reid brothers wove long ago into the seat of the chair. I also have one of the Reid straight chairs, with the seat restored.

Neither of these chairs would rate very high as luxury items or fine furniture. But the memories they evoke are priceless. Sitting and rocking at family gatherings bring many recollections of humble families and how we "made-do" during the Great Depression. We were taught the values of family solidarity, responsible citizenship, and Puritan work ethic. Sitting in these chairs, our parents taught us by both word and example at simple Christmas celebrations and all year long.

I will take a little time during Christmas season, 2008, to sit in the old family rocking chair and read the Christmas story from Luke 2. That action will connect me to the Reid chair makers of Union County and to parents and grandparents who made all the difference in who I am today.

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

Butt families – early settlers in Union

Union County was two years old when the first county-wide census was ordered in 1834. A good pastime for those interested in first families and historical research of family names is to study the first census of an area and see who the early settlers were.

William B. Gilliland was the first census taker. He registered the population in 1834 as 903. John Butt, Jr. and his wife were the only Butts registered in that census.

By 1840, the second Union County census, John Butt, Jr. and his wife were still in the county. Their household had grown to two males under 5 years of age, one male 5 to 10 years of age, John Butt, Jr., himself, between the ages of 30-40, 1 female under five, and his wife, between 20 and 30. John Butt, Jr. was the census taker. The population in 1840 numbered 3, 152 for Union County. The county was geographically large at that time, and still within its boundaries were portions of land that would be designated to Fannin County in 1854 and to Towns County in 1856.

Two other Butt families were in Union County by 1840. John Butt, Sr, whose age was between 50 and 60, a male between 15 and 20, a male between 30 and 40, Mrs. Butt, between 50 and 60, and one female between 20 and 30. This family was the parents of John Butt, Jr. and his brothers and sister still at home in 1840. The other Butt family was that of Alfred, between the ages of 20 and 30, and his wife, between the ages of 15 and 20. We find from other sources that Alfred was also a son of John Butt, Sr.

First, a word about the Butt surname. Some researchers have traced the first Butt settlers in America to Dutch origin, with the name spelled Butz. However, in a reliable source entitled Names through the Ages (NY: Berkeley, 1999), the name is seen as English, derived from Butler, meaning "keeper of the bottles." In time, the final syllable, er, was dropped and another t added, making it Butt; then, in more recent years, probably going back to the Dutch sound of Butz, the surname has a common spelling of Butts.

Since John Butt, Jr. and his wife were the first Butt family to settle in Union County, this column will seek to trace their family history. It is interesting to note that he owned four slaves in 1840, and by 1850 he owned 8 slaves. Since farming was his main occupation, these assisted him on the farm, and they helped Mrs. Butt with caring for the children and doing housework.

John Butt, Jr. was born in South Carolina December 6, 1806. His parents were John Butt, Sr. (1780-1843) and Sarah Rider Butt (1784-1855).

John Butt, Jr. was married twice. His first wife was Sarah Gordon Butt (April 17, 1816- February 13, 1864). John, Jr. and Sarah Gordon Butt had twelve children:

(1) Thomas J. Butt (April 13, 1834-March 6, 1895) married Ella McCraney. He was active in establishing early schools in Union County. Their son, Virge, became a medical doctor in North Carolina.
(2) William Butt (1836-?). He evidently left Union County, for he was not in the 1870 census.
(3) Clarissa (Feb. 17, 1838-June 17, 1906) married John England. They had five children: Gus, Lush, Dollie, Alice and Sally.
(4) James Allen Butt, Sr. (April 6, 1840-Dec. 10, 1905) married Carrie Goodrum Bagwell. James, Sr. fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War and was wounded twice, first in Virginia and then in the Battle of Atlanta. Their children were James Allen, Jr., Ed, Lelah, Nina and Fleeta.
(5) John Butt, Jr. and Sarah's fifth child, born in 1842, was John Gordon Butt (his middle name was his mother Sarah's maiden name). He married Sallie Weaver. They evidently left the county; their children are not traced.
(6) Eugene W. Butt (May 1, 1844-Feb. 12, 1921) married on February 12, 1872 to a lady listed in the Union marriage records as F. G. Reid. She died in childbirth with their first child, a daughter. Eugene took care of the child by making her a bed he could swing onto his plow as he tended his crops. His second marriage was to a Miss Erwin. They had four children, Cora, Garnett, Jewell and Grovie. Eugene Butt was once termed the wealthiest man in Union County due to his large land holdings. He reportedly gave each of his children $10,000 upon their leaving home.
(7) Georgia Ann Butt (1846) married Edwin W. Watkins on Jan. 25, 1866. They evidently moved from Union County.
(8) Andrew J. Butt (1848) married Matilda C. Gaddis on Sept. 29, 1872, with the Rev. Alfred Corn performing the ceremony. This couple moved to Colorado.
(9) Sarah E. Butt (called "Sallie, 1851-June 23, 1875) married John L. Logan on Aug. 6, 1868. By 1870, they had one child, a girl named Sallie. Sarah died at age 24 and was buried in the new Blairsville Cemetery.
(10) Samuel F. Butt (b. 1853) married Rosa Pless on Jan. 2, 1879. Their children were Forrest, John, Arnold, Alice and Bertha.
(11) Virgil R. Butt (b. 1855) was at home with his parents in the 1870 census. No further information is available about him.
(12) Alice E. Butt (b. about 1857, according to census age) evidently did not marry. A grave in the new Blairsville Cemetery lists Alice as born in 1853 and died in 1886. She is possibly the Alice whose parents were John, Jr. and Sarah Gordon Butt.

Sarah Butt died February 13, 1864, during the Civil War. She was buried in the new Blairsville Cemetery. John Butt, Jr. married the second time to Rebecca Fleming on Nov. 30, 1869. John and Rebecca had two children, Paul and Orrin, bringing the number of children of John Butt, Jr. to fourteen.

John Butt, Jr. made a living for his large family by farming bottom lands along the Nottley River. He was one of the first representatives to the Georgia Legislature from the new county, along with John Thomas. The naming of the county Union, "because there are none but Union men there" was attributed to John Thomas. But both John Butt, Jr. and John Thomas agreed to this name.

Many descendants of John Butt, Jr. have contributed to growth and development of Union County and have gone to other places to make their mark there.

(Resources: Early census records of Union County: 1834, 1840, 1850, 1860, 1870. Marriage Records of Union County, 1833-1897, compiled by Viola H. Jones, 1992. Cemetery Records of Union County, GA, Union County Historical Society, 1990.

The Heritage of Union County, GA, 1832-1994, UCHS, 1994.)

c2008 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published May 22, 2008 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved

Noted country doctor Dr. William H. Rogers

Union County citizens of a past generation owe a debt of gratitude to exemplary country doctors like Dr. Herbert Monroe Edge (subject of last week's column) and Dr. William H. Rogers, each of whom practiced for over fifty years among the country people they loved.

William H. Rogers was born July 27, 1872 in Union County, just seven years after the end of the Civil War. He was educated in one-room schools in the county. Having a desire to become a doctor, he entered and graduated from Southern Medical College in Atlanta and from Emory University School of Medicine. While he was still in medical school, he married the love of his life, Frances Iowa Reid, a Union County girl.

To this couple were born nine children, six sons and three daughters: Bessie, George Reid, Roy, Franklin Randall, Andy Ralph, Lucille, Rain, Nora Lee, and W. H. The Rogers family lived in the Young Cane District of Union County.

Dr. Rogers' long years of service to his home county brought memorable rewards, none of which he sought but which he received by virtue of his unselfish work. He received Presidential Citations for his service to the war efforts during both World War I and World War II. The American Medical Association recognized Dr. Rogers for fifty years of outstanding service.

He saw the need of his own people in Union County for better medical service, and returned to his home county where he practiced for over fifty years. With his medical bag and compassionate personality, he went to country homes to deliver hundreds of babies and to give treatment and medications to young and old. He rode miles on his horse, and then after the advent of the automobile, he bumped along dusty and muddy country roads to meet the demands of a full and burgeoning practice.

Dr. Rogers died February 23, 1959 and was laid to rest in the Confidence United Methodist Church Cemetery in Lower Young Cane. His beloved wife, Frances Iowa Reid Rogers (born December 13, 1877) had preceded her husband in death on September 27, 1958.

The Rev. Claude Patterson gave the eulogy at Dr. Rogers' funeral. He related how Dr. Rogers had a moving religious experience when he was a lad, and often gave public testimony to his love for Christ and the Lord's leadership in his life.

"He was indeed one of us," the Rev. Patterson said. "He could rightly be called 'The Missionary Doctor' for he was a missionary to many of us. The weather was never too bad, the night never too dark, to deter his errands of mercy. The family was never too poor for him to minister to them. The roads were never so rough that he didn't manage somehow to get to his patient. Many times he [went] to his sick neighbor when his own body was racked with pain, or [he] was near exhaustion from long hours in the saddle or at the wheel of his little automobile. He lived a sacrificial life."

The eulogy praised him as 'The Good Samaritan' who bound up physical wounds and ministered to spiritual needs as well.

Several descendants of this good doctor still live in Union County. And, beyond that, many of the babies at whose birth he was the attending physician can be thankful that they got a good start in life from this country doctor's ministrations.

[Sources used for this article: Sketches of Union County History, Volume 2, pages 95- 96. The Heritage of Union County, page 278.]

c 2007 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published Jan. 25, 2007 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Considering Some Black History in Union County on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

I am writing this article on Monday, January 17, 2005, a national day to honor black civil rights leader, Martin Luther King, Jr. His life was brief. Born January 15, 1929, he met death by an assassin’s bullet on April 4, 1968. On January 20, 1986, the first nation-wide observance of a day in his memory was held in America. Thinking of this man who was named the Nobel Peace Prize winner on December 10, 1964 aroused my curiosity about black history in Union County, Georgia.

At best, history of blacks in Union County is sketchy. In the 1850 census of the county, twenty-four landowners were listed as slaveholders with a total of about 91 slaves. Some of the slaveowners’ names were illegible in the listing, and likewise the number of slaves held. By 1860, just prior to the Civil War, blacks in the county numbered 116 and all of them were slaves.

Since the farms were relatively small, and most of them were settled by independent Scots-Irish who migrated from North Carolina, few of the landowners had been accustomed to slavery and did not bring slaves with them to the lands they claimed, received mainly from the land lottery, along the creek and river valleys of Union County.

A look at names of slaveholders in 1850 reveals that citizens with these last names owned slaves: Butt, Hughes, Barclay, Reid, Haralson, England, Watkins, Addington, Erwin, Turner, Collins, Flowers, Hunter, Thompson, Hudgins, and at least four more whose names cannot be determined from the census taker’s handwriting.

The Emancipation Proclamation was signed by President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863. After this major document that changed the lives of blacks throughout the United States, most of those living in Union County remained as farm workers for their former owners, the women did housekeeping and laundry, some found work in the few hotels in town, and those with trades like carpentry or blacksmithing found work in those lines. Blacks also worked in the mines during the heyday of gold mining in Union County.

Two communities of black settlements were located in the Blairsville militia district. One was near the foot of Welborn Mountain. The other was about a mile east of Blairsville off Highway 76. This settlement was said to have houses located in the hollow there, with the black school and church on a rise above the dwellings.

Cemeteries reveal clues to the history of a people. From the old courthouse square in Blairsville, the Black Cemetery is located 1.5 miles east on Highway 76, with a turn south on Shaw Road for one-fourth mile, then southwest to the top of the ridge and westward for about one-fourth mile. Although there are more than 100 graves in this old cemetery, only seven have names still decipherable. The first person buried there with a name on the stone was Samuel Morris, born in 1839 and died March 26, 1901. Others and dates were: Lester Butt, June 10, 1900-March 13, 1904; Whalen Butt, April 27, 1875 – May 13, 1905; Ollie Butt, July 15, 1881-February 16, 1906; Mary Addington, 1812-June 12, 1919 (note her long life of 100 years); John T. Trammel, October 15, 1857-September 3, 1928; and Eliza Trammel, December 24, 1868 – November 17, 1945.

Records show that Eugene Butt gave land for the black church, school and cemetery following the Civil War. Church and school were held in the same building. Rev. Tom Coke Hughes, a noted white Methodist preacher of the nineteenth century held services at the black church on occasion. It is said that he had an agreement with Glenn Butt that if the congregation got “caught up in the Spirit,” he would escort Rev. Hughes safely from the church amidst the shouting and charismatic celebration.

The black school was still in operation in 1924, although M. L. Duggan, Rural School Agent who did a survey of Union County Schools in 1916 did not list the black school as one of the public schools. By 1938 the church had only the families of Glenn Butt and Eliza Trammell attending. Most of the black families had moved elsewhere to find employment.

When I was a child, my parents showed me graves in the Old Choestoe Cemetery that had fieldstone markings. I was told they were graves of former slaves of Collins, Hunter and England slaveowners in the community. Many of the blacks took the last name of their former owners after the Emancipation Proclamation. The 100-year old Mary Addington in the black cemetery near Blairsville no doubt bears the last name of March Addington who owned five slaves in 1850. Mary could have been one of them, or have married one of his male slaves.

I have been inspired again by reading several of the speeches and writings of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Among his famous words are the “I Have a Dream” address delivered from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC on August 18, 1963. In it he stated: “I have the dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” And in that same speech: “I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood.”

His advocacy of non-violent social change has brought about many actions that have helped his dreams to be realized. I can imagine that from the 1830’s through about the mid-1940’s before the remaining black population left Union County, they held similar dreams. The blacks were here for awhile, having come through no choice of their own. They lived and worked and then went elsewhere, along with their dreams and their history, like the mists that lift from the mountains. We see vestiges of their habitation here and wonder how life must have been for them.

[I am indebted to these publications for information for this article: “Sketches of Union County History,” (1987), edited by Teddy J. Oliver, pp. 38-41; “Cemetery Records of Union County, (1990), pp. 296-297)].

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

To Consolidate Schools or Not? That was the Big Question in 1916 and Later ( A History of Education in Union County, Part 3)

I began my teaching career in the same school I entered as a first grader when the new two-teacher Choestoe school building opened. Back in 1936, we were so proud of our new white weather-boarded school building, a great improvement over the previous old building that stood on the same spot near Choestoe Baptist Church.

When the school had first opened there in the 1830’s, classes were held in the log church building. Then the two-room building specifically for school was built, with an upstairs where the Lodge met in “secret” quarters. I do not have statistics for many of the years of Choestoe School, but in 1933, three years before I began as a first grader there, 69 students had been enrolled and C. J. Dyer and B. H. Rich were the teachers.

I did not attend school in the old building but was a proud first grader in 1936 when the new building opened with its shiny white paint outside, its tall windows, the “lower” grades room for students in 1st through 3rd grades, and the “upper” grades room for students in grades 4th through 7th grades.

Each classroom had its own “cloak” and supply room where we hung our coats on pegs and put our lunch pails on shelves. Extra textbooks and a few school supplies were also stored in the cloak rooms. The classrooms were heated by a wood heater and patrons (including my father, J. Marion Dyer) supplied the wood for the stoves. We brought our water supply in a bucket from a spring on church property until, about my third year there, a well was dug in the schoolyard and a hand pump (which always had to be primed) was installed. We each took our own cups with our lunch pails in order to have one for water when we were thirsty.

Mrs. Mert Shuler Collins was my first grade teacher and encouraged me to read, read, read. I already knew how to read when I entered school, having learned at my mother’s and my older siblings’ knees, probably pestering them so much that they felt to teach me to read for myself would be better than to spend so much of their valuable time reading to me. My aim in first grade was to read every book in the cabinet in the corner of the classroom where extra books were housed just for the students’ pleasure. I didn’t reach my goal that year, but remember the chart with many stars that represented each book completed.

Several teachers held the wonderful Choestoe School together in my first through seventh grade journey. My beloved teachers were Mrs. Mert Collins, my sister, Louise Dyer, Mrs. Opal Sullivan, Mrs. Bonnie Snow and her husband (as a substitute), Mr. Lon Snow, and Mrs. Florence Hunter. These opened for me the remarkable world of learning.

When I entered Union County High School in 1943 as an 8th grader and freshman, I had not suffered one whit from receiving my elementary education in a two-teacher country school.

By the school year 1949-50 when I began as an eager first-year teacher at Choestoe School, enrollment was down so that it was a one-teacher school. I had pupils in every grade first through seventh, a total of twenty-five students in all, with the largest enrollment being 5th grade with five pupils. The school did not have kindergarten, but those just starting out were in “Primer,” where they learned in the first few months the rudiments of reading so that they could progress through Primer and First Grade in their first year at Choestoe. In retrospect, I wonder how I, a brand new teacher, managed seven grades and taught the students even the minimum of what they needed to learn at their specific grade levels. Looking back on my thirty-plus years as an educator, I still remember the wonder and challenge of that first year in what had been reduced to a one-teacher school. I had begun in that building as a first grader; my fist year of teaching was in the Choestoe School; and it was ripe for closure and inevitable consolidation which came at the end of that year.

Returning to the 1916 report, Mr. M. L. Duggan, Rural School Agent for Georgia, gave recommendations following his three-month survey of education in the county. He listed schools and gave reasons for and against consolidation of the 43 schools he found operating at that time.

The Blairsville Collegiate Institute was going well in 1916 with 150 pupils enrolled in eleven grades. H. E. Nelson was principal, and taught mathematics and English. His wife, Mrs. H. E. Nelson, taught history, science and Latin. Miss Addie Kate Reid taught the intermediate grades. Miss June Candler taught primary grades. Music teacher was Mrs. Maud Haralson and Miss Etta Colclough taught Home Economics and also served as a sort of county home economist, visiting in homes and assisting women in proper methods of canning and preserving foods from their gardens and farms. The private institute had eight full months of uninterrupted instructional time and was doing well, indeed. From 1916 through its closure at the end of the 1929-1930 school year, it was to have fourteen more successful years of operation before it became the Blairsville—and subsequently---the Union County High School.

In the district around Suches in 1916, Mr. Duggan found three schools: Zion had Mr. G. W. Garrard as teacher, classes were in a church building, he had no equipment and only seven students. Mt. Lebanon School had Mrs. Ray Pruitt as teacher, met in a ceiled, unpainted building, had oiled floors, homemade desks, blackboards, a sandbox, and maps, charts and pictures. The pupils in five grades numbered 55. The Mt. Airy School met in the church building with 27 pupils and C. T. Lunsford as teacher. Mr. Duggan highly recommended that these three schools be consolidated, that an increase in taxes make Mt. Lebanon a “standard school,” and that students all attend Mt. Lebanon, which would be only about three and one-half miles for those farthest away.

A look at the 1933 county school statistics reveals that his recommendation was not accomplished to that date. Mrs. F. F. Pruitt was listed as teacher that year at Mt. Lebanon with 33 students and Mr. J. H. Lunsford, also there, with 30 pupils. Mt. Airy was still operating in 1933 with 20 pupils, and Zion with 23 pupils had Ms. Eula Berry as teacher. The schools at Suches were finally consolidated when Woody Gap School opened in the fall of 1940 near the homesite of Georgia’s Civil War governor, Joseph Emerson Brown. Today Woody Gap is considered an “isolated” school because of the mountains separating the district from Blairsville and the distance in travel prohibitive for pupils who would be transported.

[Next week: Continuing the look at 1916 and later school developments.]

c2004 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published August 19, 2004 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Blairsville Collegiate Institute

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Thanksgiving Long Ago With the Mary L. Reid Hood Family

The distinctly American holiday, Thanksgiving, is an important time for families. We gather to share a wonderful meal celebrating the bounty of harvest. Turkey and dressing are part of the main course, as are delectable vegetables attesting to the yields from cultivated gardens and fields. We recall blessings of the year and pay tribute to the long tradition of Thanksgiving going back to the gathering of Pilgrims and Indians in early American history. Indeed, we are so blessed, and gratitude abounds for our abundance, health, happiness, togetherness as families.

And well it should, for Thanksgiving Day is a day to count blessings. My personal philosophy is that every day is a day for giving thanks. But sometimes when we consider the hardships of our forebears, we can empathize with the conditions that were far from ideal.

Such is the true story that came to me recently from the pen of Claudia Carol Thomas-Alexander of Fayetteville, Georgia. She is an avid genealogist, and has compiled a book dedicated to the memory of her great grandmother, Mary L. Reid Hood and her seven children, the sixth of whom, Claudia Cornelia Hood Fair, is Carol’s grandmother from whom she heard the accounts of Mary Reid Hood and what she knew of Mary’s husband, Richard Jarrett Hood. Carol Thomas-Alexander was able to find another descendant of Richard Jarrett Hood to fill in the missing parts of her great grandfather’s life, and that we shall see as this story develops.

But I’m getting ahead in this account and must give details so that you may know why Thanksgiving in 1895 was such a sad time for Mary Reid Hood and her children.

Mary Reid was born October 19, 1855. Her parents were Levi Q. and Martha Ann Beach Reid. It is believed Mary was born in White County, Georgia. On December 12, 1875, Mary Reid and Richard Jarrett Hood were married in Union County, Georgia. Richard Jarrett, eldest son of William Jackson and Celia M. Turner Hood, was born in the Pendleton District of South Carolina in 1854. His family had migrated from South Carolina to Union County, Georgia.

It is not known just how Mary Reid and Richard Jarrett Hood met, but it may have been as he went through White County taking goods along the Logan Turnpike to trade in Gainesville, Georgia.

After their marriage in 1875, Richard Jarrett and Mary Reid Hood set up housekeeping in the “upper” Choestoe District around Hood’s Chapel (now Union Church) somewhere near the present Richard Russell Scenic Highway. Richard Jarrett Hood had a country store and the Choestoe post office at his home. He was known to drive cattle to Gainesville for sale and also to take a herd into South Carolina to market. On these trading ventures, he would bring back supplies to his country store for sale. Mary helped him “tend” the store and care for their farm.

Seven children were born to this couple: Sarah Ida (b. 1877); Laura L. (b. 1879); Zona Belle (b. 1883); Cora Lode (b. 1884); Jessie Mae (b. 1886); Claudia Cornelia (b. 1889); and Talmadge J. (b. 1892).

Claudia Cornelia Hood Fair (their sixth child) told Claudia Carol Thomas, her granddaughter, the fond memories she had of her father, Richard Jarrett Hood. As he prepared to leave on a journey in 1895 to take cattle to market in South Carolina, she recalls that he and her mother had a long conversation before he left. He took Claudia, his then six-year old daughter, into the store and picked out a pretty hat from the shelf with navy ribbon decorations. He asked Claudia’s mother to allow him to take Claudia with him on the cattle-selling trip, but her mother would not agree. Claudia Cornelia remembers that her father held her in his arms for a long time before he left, shedding many tears. She recalls how they watched him going down the road from their Choestoe home, driving the cattle. A sense of sadness fell over the family at this particular departure.

In the days ahead, they watched and watched, yearning for his return. But that was the last the family saw of Richard Jarrett Hood. Her mother told the seven children that he must have fallen into trouble, perhaps from robbers who stole the cattle and murdered him.

That first Thanksgiving without Richard Jarrett Hood was a sad time for Mary Reid Hood and her seven children. Ida was then 18, Laura 16, Zona 12, Cora 11, Jessie Mae 10, Claudia 6, and the only son, Talmadge, a little tyke of 3. Claudia Cornelia remembered that her mother fell into a deep depression from which she never fully recovered. Jesssie Mae was sick at the time of her father’s departure and died of tuberculosis in 1902. Talmadge died in 1904, probably from leukemia. Claudia Cornelia remembers that her mother “died of a broken heart” on May 8, 1905. All three were laid to rest in the Union (formerly Hood’s Chapel) Church Cemetery in Upper Choestoe, Union County, Georgia.

c2003 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published Nov. 27, 2003 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.