Sister Cherry, A Slave

One person who has always fascinated me, even though she is only peripherally connected with my family, is Cherry, a slave in Washington County, Georgia.   She joined Union Baptist Church in Washington County on 25 Septermber 1848, listed as "a black woman, Cherry, belonging to one of the minor heirs of Hampton May".   In August 1855, "M. Garner, J. W. Mills, and W. Garner were appointed a committee to inquire into whereabouts of a colored sister known as May's Cherry."  The final mention was a month later:  "We, the committee on the case of our colored sister known to us as May's Cherry, find that she was suddenly carried off to Florida having no chance to apply for a letter or any to give satisfaction to the church, but we learned from good authority that her conduct was good and we heard nothing against her as a member of the church."   

This small exchange has always interested me because it does not actually concord with what I had been taught about slaves in churches in the South.  First, Cherry is apparently not going to the same church as her owners.  This is partly deduced from the fact that no one in the Church knew she had gone to Florida.  If the family that owned her also attended, there should have been reference to them leaving or getting a letter.  Even if she left because she was sold or given to another family member, they would have known and the committee enquiry should not have been needed.   I also found it interesting that the church apparently would have expected her, if she had time, to get a letter for her new church in Florida.  That and the fact that they had pursued her absence imply that they considered her an actual member of the church.  At some point, I would like to pursue what happened to Sister Cherry, just for my own curiosity.

John Becham

John Becham was born about 1790 and probably died in Crawford County, GA between 1845 and 1850.  He was taxed in 1845 but does not appear in the 1850 census, although his wife and children do.   I'm working on two mysteries regarding him now.  One is whether he was married once or twice. There is a marriage record for him and Susan Davis in Hancock County, in 1811.  However, in 1860 and 1870, his wife Susan gives an age that would make her birthdate 1800.  Even in Georgia at that time, 11 would have been too young for marriage.  The 1820 census has his probable wife at age 16-25, so she would have been young at the marriage, if not that young.  In 1830, she is probably one of the 3 females 30-39 in the household.  However, in 1840 his probable wife is still 30-39.   So, he presumably either married twice, both times to Susan, or possibly Susan made herself a little younger beginning with the 1840 census. 

The other is the mystery of what happened to his property.  In the last record for John, he is taxed for 202 acres of property in Crawford County.  However, 10 years later, all but his youngest son appear in the census but only paying poll tax, no property tax.  The youngest son was not of age yet. His widow does not appear on that tax list at all, so it looks as if the family lost the property.  So far I have not been able to find any probate records for John, nor any court notices concerning the sale of the property either after his death or for debt.   Next step will be to check the deeds in Crawford County. 

Fate and Delia Becham

Franklin Lafayette (Fate) Becham and his wife Sarah Lodelia (Delia) Mathews. Probably taken in the 1940s, in Crawford County, GA.   I had never seen this photo before, but a cousin dug it out of an old box at Thanksgiving..

The heirs of Nimrod Lewis

This is one of my favorite documents from the Crawford County records at the Georgia archives, because it provides proof that my ancestor, Martha Lewis Morris, was the daughter of Nimrod Lewis.  I had long assumed she was.  There were two primary Lewis families in the county (probably unrelated).   Martha and her husband lived near Nimrod right after their marriage.  Martha was born in SC, where Nimrod was known to have lived (the other Lewises in the county came from NC) and in 1930, he has a daughter the appropriate age to be Martha.  Most importantly, Martha named her 2nd son and 2nd daughter Nimrod and Pheraby respectively.  All of this made it likely that she was closely related to Nimrod and probably his daughter, but this record makes it conclusive, listing all the children of Nimrod.

 Georgia, Crawford County} The petition of Jonathan Wilder respectfully showeth that Nimrod Lewis late of said County deceased departed this life domiciled in said County intestate that he was possessed at the time of his death of property both real and personal to the amount of five hundred dollars, that his heirs at law are Stephen Morris in right of his [[wife]] Martha Morris, Samuel Smith in right of his wife Almira Smith, Jonathan Wilder in right of his wife Fereby Wilder, Nancy Walker, the children of Thomas Lewis deceased, and Marcena Lewis, that it is necessary for the winding up and distribution of said estate that there should be an administrator on said estate, that your petition hereby tenders a bond in the sum of one thousand dollars with G P Culverhouse & J W Avant as securities.  Wherefore your petition prays that citation may issue in terms of the law for letters of administration on said estate and for the appointment of your petitioner as such administrator & your petition will ever pray & e

Culverhouse & Avant
Petioners [sic] attys
Court of Ordinary at Chambers July 26th 1868

Leaving out Nancy

Turner Cates was born about 1811 in SC and died abt 1870 in Crawford County, GA.  Among his children, he had a daughter Nancy who married first Thomas Lewis and then, after he was killed in the Civil War, David Cumby.   She had 4 children by her marriage with Thomas and another 4 with Cumby.   However, something seems to have gone wrong in her relationship with her father, presumably relating to that second marriage.  His will, dated 24 Sep 1870, divides his estate evenly, except that the portion going to Nancy was to go to her 4 Lewis children and she herself was only to get $5.  No mention was made of the 2 oldest Cumby children who were already born by this time.   Turner had been very close to Thomas Lewis' father Nimrod and in fact was the guardian of the 4 Lewis children for their share of Nimrod's estate, so perhaps he did not want Nancy remarrying, even though that would have been common at the time.  Perhaps there was an issue with the fact that Nancy's new husband David Cumby was probably related to Turner's wife (not Nancy's mother) Matilda Cumby Cates.  It's impossible to tell at this distance why this estrangement, but it adds an interesting twist to the family story.

So Sad

My cousin recently scanned a bunch of photos in a box that our Grandmother had left at his father's house.  One included a picture of her old school and her commentary on her education.  I knew she hadn't had much chance to go to school, but never knew how much it mattered to her.

Through the Mountains

Over Thanksgiving, I went down to visit my father in Suches, Union County, Georgia.  This is the area where his maternal family has lived since about 1860.  Suches is a hanging valley, so the only access to the area is over a mountain pass.  These aren't hard to traverse today with good roads and a car, but they must have been terribly difficult on foot or with a wagon.  A heavy snowstorm, which used to be very common, leaves the area completely cut off.   Woody Gap is at 3160 feet and the Appalachian trail passes there.   Wolf Pen Gap is 3260 feet and the road over the mountain there is even today known as the curviest road in Georgia.   Suches itself is at about 2800 feet and describes itself as "the Valley in the Clouds".   Some of the early settlers (after the Cherokee were kicked out) came there for free land, always a powerful incentive, but that was not what brought my family.   The Gooches had lived in the mountains for more than a generation, but over in the gentler terrain in Rabun county, then in Lumpkin County.  In the early 1860s, James Gooch crossed over Woody Gap, purchasing land in Gaddistown, near Suches, and moving his family there.  With land available in the West, one has to wonder what attracted him to the very difficult and inaccessible land around Suches.  Did he like the isolation of the mountains - or even the beauty?   The fact that deeds were often not recorded, or recorded in Dahlonega (Lumpkin County) rather than Blairsville (Union County), tends to verify that transport over the mountains was not easy.  From Gaddistown, the transit over Woody Gap to Dahlonega was an easier and shorter route than going over Wolf Pen Gap to Blairsville, but in this case "easy" is definitely a relative term.  This probably also accounts for the fact that some of the marriages are registered in Lumpkin County, even when the bride, groom and officiant were in Union.

There's no way to know why the family secluded themselves in the mountains or how it affected what they eventually became, but it's easy to believe that much of their strength and self-reliance stem from learning to survive there.

View from Woody Gap