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Why You Should Teach Your Kids About Their Family History

by Filed Under: Family Life, Genealogy 9 Comments

According to research Knowing Your Family History May Be Good For Your Kids

“Children who know stories about relatives who came before them show higher levels of emotional well-being…”, according to Emory University researchers.  In other words, kids who know more about their family history are inclined to turn out to be more emotionally resilient than children who don’t.  You can read more about the research here.

A child who feels like they are part of something larger than themselves—such as a family—gives kids a greater sense of their “intergenerational self.”  Some of us Baby Boomers had a large dose of this when we were growing up.  We grew up with grandparents nearby, but today fewer children have this opportunity.  Their grandparents are states if not countries away.

I grew up next door to my grandmother on my father’s side. This is me with her and my father.

October is Family History Month, and what a great time to teach your kids about their family.  It is a wonderful time to get outdoors, and it is also a great time to visit a battlefield, a cemetery, or an old family swimming hole.

My family loved Fanning Springs.

Below are a few suggestions on how to make sure your children learn about their family history!

1.  Take a road trip back to your old home place, or your hometown, or plan a trip if your hometown is too far away.  While there, tell them about what it was like growing up there.  Share the funny, the embarrassing, and the sweet stories that you remember.

 

Hannah meeting her grandmother’s first cousin. He told her stories about her grandmother from when they were children.

My husband and I just spent a week with our oldest grandson, and Chuck took him to where he lived before he went to college.  Chuck also took him by one of his favorite fishing places, Sebastian Inlet in Florida; and the house where he lived when Lucas’s father was born.  For Chuck visiting those places made his memories flow.

2.  Share stories about growing up in your decade.  What was it like?  How was it different from today?

Take your children by a favorite swimming hole that you visited as a child and explain its importance in your life.  I took my children to the Wacissa River where there is still an old rope spring and reminisced about how important this place was to us when there were no nearby swimming pools for our use.

Rainbow Springs was also a family favorite, and it became one of my niece’s favorite, too.

3.  Visit the graves of an ancestor, maybe your grandparents, or it might even be your parents.  Tell them stories about your memories of their lives.

I have fond memories of walking through my hometown’s city graveyard with my grandmother who was 58 years older than me.  She pointed out graves of people in her life and told me stories about them.  Some were amazing stories.

4. Visit the old school where you grew up and tell them how it was different from theirs.

We visited where her grandmother went to elementary school.

5.  Visit a war monument, and tell them about your mother, grandmother, father or grandfather who fought in one of the Middle Eastern wars, Vietnam, Korean or one of the world wars.

My father, uncles, and 2rd great grandfathers are commemorated here in brick pavers.

Several years ago I took each of my nieces on what I called an ‘Old Florida’ vacation.  Included in the itinerary though were several visits to old family homes, family picnic favorites, vacation sights, and cemeteries.

My niece visited an old favorite family picnic area on the Suwannee River.

They learned about their grandparents who passed away when the girls were very young.   One of their grandmothers was my mother, and I told them the stories that she told me about our family.

It was a wonderful trip, and I got to know my nieces well during our time together.  I was determined that they should know about their family and about their home state, but in the process I made memories with my nieces that they will carry with them for the rest of their lives.

Me and my youngest niece on a boat ride in Ft. Lauderdale.

So plan a trip with your children; or if you are as old as I am, your grandchildren.  A Family History trip even if it is only for an afternoon can create strong family bonds that will last a lifetime.

A Family History Book Review: The Smallest Tadpole’s War

by Filed Under: Books, Genealogy 8 Comments

Writing one’s family history so one’s family reads it? Now there’s a quandary.

 

Like most amateur genealogists I have boxes of family research and a fear that when I die they may as well bury the boxes of family history with me. Who would take the time to read through it?

This is a sponsored post that contains affiliate links. I received compensation in exchange for writing this review.

Then again I didn’t want to do one of those genealogy books full of only names, dates, and places. Boring!  Most people won’t take the time to learn about their family heritage this way either.

 

A Family History Book Done the Right Way

Diane Swearingen, though, solved that problem for her husband’s family. Her book “The Smallest Tadpole’s War in the Land of Mysterious Waters ” is historical fiction based on the life of his great-grandfather Thomas Swearingen.

Even better, though, is how she told the story. It is told in a way that benefits those of us not in her family because Thomas Swearingen’s story is symbolic of the settlers who first came to the state of Florida seeking better opportunities for themselves and their families.

The story begins with a marriage, a big move, and an adoption. Its point of view is through the eyes of Thomas’s adopted son. It follows through the lifetime of Thomas which includes territorial Florida, the Civil War, and reconstruction. Most of the story is set in Wakulla County with brief encounters in Gadsden, Leon and Jefferson Counties, all in North Florida, where Florida grew the fastest during this era.

The Wakulla County Courthouse, which was built during Thomas’s lifetime. It is standing today in Crawfordville, Florida,, Wakulla’s county seat. From the Florida Memory Collection.

The story is well documented and a page-turner. Also, I could not put the book down. I wanted to know what was happening to the characters as much as what happened in these areas during this time period. I grew up one county over, and my family goes back several generations there, too.

The book is a quick read, and I believe suited perfectly for middle schoolers as well as adults. It is good family reading.  Purchase a copy through Amazon using the link below.

The title itself, though long and tortuous is interesting. The smallest little tadpole is Florida, as described by a Civil War-era politician as being the ‘least important state swimming in the cesspool of secession’. It has double meaning because it is Thomas, too, who started out small himself, as a young man trying to make his way in life.

Mysterious waters is a translation of the name Wakulla, the county where most of the story took place. Wakulla County, located south of Tallahassee, is on the Gulf of Mexico.

From the Florida Memory Collection.

Do yourself a favor? If you want to know a little more about Florida’s history, read this book. This family history story does a great job of describing Florida when Florida was a little backwater tadpole in our great nation.

Wakulla’s beautiful Wakulla River is a spring fed clear water river that runs eventually into the Gulf of Mexico.  Today, manatees swim up to winter in its spring. From the Florida Memory Collection.

What is an Ancestor’s FAN Club?

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FAN is an acronym. But let me explain how it came up. This week I am in Raleigh, North Carolina learning how to be a better genealogy researcher. This is the third National Genealogical Society conference I’ve attended, and it broadens my skills every year.


One of the best tools I learned to use while attending these conferences is called the FAN Principle. It alone has opened so many doors and knocked down so many genealogical walls. For my readers who don’t understand, a genealogical wall is when you reach a roadblock in your ancestry research.

For example, for years we were unable to find Grandmother Annis Hamrick’s mother’s mother, plus we knew very little about her own mother, as well. Grandma Annis’s mother died when she was only two years old.

 

Anyway, Annis’s grandmother on her mother’ s side was a roadblock for me. I only broke through that roadblock after meeting some of my DNA cousins from the same lineage. They would make up the “F” in FAN.

 

What is FAN?

FAN is an acronym for family, associates, and neighbors. It is a tried and true method to help overcome the holes in your research. It can help you break through a brick wall.

I heard it first used by Elizabeth Shown Mills at a genealogy conference. She’s been helping amateur genealogists with everything from writing citations to gathering evidence.

Now I’m using the FAN Principle for William and Mary, the two main characters of my book, by searching for those who lived around them and those who they associated with, such as their friends.

For example, I believe that Mary’s father Jesse and William Andrews may have been friends even before William became involved with Mary. I base this on several instances where the two men’s names are recorded together, such as when they voted one after the other for Florida statehood.

They voted very early in the morning on the day set for the election, the third and fourth people to vote at the courthouse. Since they lived way out from town in the Elizabeth Community, this probably means that they came into town and spent the night there before the election. This is rich information that I’ll use in my book.

By researching these other people, we begin to open new avenues in which to research further. For example, it appears that William and Mary’s daughter Laura married her neighbor George Lightsey.  By studying the relationship, we found that the Lightseys and her mother’s family, the Walkers, lived near each other in South Carolina before coming to Florida.


So how do we begin compiling this list of friends, associates, and neighbors? One way is to break it down into three steps.

Three Steps to the FAN Principle

First, look up the family members who lived nearby, in the same town, and in the same county.  One way to find them is by using census records. There you can see who lived closest to them. Then try to determine exactly if these neighbors are indeed family or just associates, or did they know each other in other ways. Did they migrate into the area together? Did they live near each other before they moved?  Just how closely are they kin?  There may be others with the same surname living in the area.

Step Two is to research the family’s associates. Other questions can be asked. Who did they come in contact with? With whom did they serve in times of war? Who worked in their offices or stores. Who did they do business with?  Who did they hang out with?


Finally, step three is to check out their neighbors. Again, census records can help identify them. But what did the neighbors do for a living? Did they do the same thing as our ancestor or could they have been business partners? Were there any marriages between their children? Did their children go to school together?  As you can tell, there are so many questions to be answered.

img_1348

This photo is a school in Goodwater, Alabama.  Grandmother Annis’s mother’s older siblings may have been in this photo.  

In another example, sometimes the answer may be in what cannot be found. I studied Mary’s parents to see who their neighbors were and if there had been any connections between these families. Though Mary’s family had a house full of sons and daughters, as did their closest neighbors, there were no marriages between any of them. From this, I surmise that these houses may have been a long way apart. Maybe Mary’s family lived far away from their neighbors. By the way, though, there were marriages between members of their church.

Mary’s parents Jesse and Elizabeth met and married in South Carolina, long before they moved to Florida. Until now we only had one document that showed that Elizabeth’s last name was Wilson, but that document was written long after she died. Plus the information came from someone proven to be unreliable in her memories.

Just the other day though one of the amateur genealogists discovered while studying the FAN club of the grandfather of Jesse Walker that right next door lived a Wilson. This Wilson is the right age to be the grandfather of Elizabeth Wilson who married Jesse Walker. It is another connection to be studied further.

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I’ve also discovered that William Andrews was hired twice by Abram Cabell also of Jefferson County–once as an Assistant Marshall for the 1850 Florida census and again later as the first railroad Depot Agent for Jefferson County. This is another lead to follow.

One must ask a major question.  Did the two men know each other before moving to Florida? William was born and raised in the Washington, DC area, but we know very little about his life before he moved to Florida. Was Abram Cabell from there, too?  He later became a Congressman from Florida.  More leads to follow.

So the FAN Principle is an important method if you find yourself hitting road blocks in your ancestry research. Plus it is so interesting to discover who was important to your ancestor.

Where I’m From

by Filed Under: Family Life, Genealogy 2 Comments

Here is a little poem called “Where I’m From”, using some of the results found both through standard genealogical research and DNA. I’ve been  tracing my ancestry for over 40 years, and I’m always looking for a way to share what I’ve found.


Where I’m From

I come from pines, small town playgrounds, springs, and sand.

From a Georgia mountain side and a South Carolinian low country river with an Indian name.

From Georgia gold, Colorado gold, and 49ers spread across the Oregon and California trails.

From Confederate privates and a Georgia mill sold before all was lost.

From a Revolutionary, a Loyalist and a Hessian soldier who turned.

From an indentured servant and a colonial Governor.

From a trail into Indian territory and a passel of children stopping to swim in a stream.

I come from a red-headed widow, who fled demanding in-laws, seeking a new beginning in a new state.

From a model A racing from an economic downturn to new land with new crops and opportunity.

I come from a later wave of Jamestown immigrants and a Powhaten squaw who left her people.

From an Old Dominion seventh great grandfather who I share with my husband.

From cattlemen pushing cattle on a trail through recently ceded Indian Territory.

And a family looking for new opportunity in the sandy soils of south Florida.

From three men who stood in line to vote for a new state with a very old name.

From a Ranny, a Geechie, and a Peniopy.

My DNA comes from mostly Ireland, plus Spain and Norway.

From Scotland and a common border with Finland and Russia.

And traces, I recently learned, from North Africa and the Middle East.

I’m a typical American mutt with sandy feet and sunshine on my face.
Family PicturesFamily Pictures

Following Old Trails: The Trail to Tallahassee

by Filed Under: Following Old Trails, Genealogy, Palmetto Pioneers, Travel Leave a Comment

In an earlier post Chuck and I followed some old trails and roads which we felt the Walker families may have used when they migrated to Florida from South Carolina in the late 1820s. If you remember, our daylight ran out around Milledgeville, Georgia; and I said that I would continue the trip in a later post.  

Well, this is it–a later post and a continuation of their and our journeys from Milledgeville on down into Florida.  We recently made this trip; but they traveled it about 1828, almost 200 years ago.  I need to stress, though, that I’m less certain of the route they took, as you’ll see later.

After the family left Fort Hawkins, which was the old fort south of Milledgeville that set on the eastern edge of the wilderness, they followed the Lower Creek Trading Path.  

As mentioned earlier Milledgeville was the Capitol of Georgia in the 1820s and it also set on the Fall Line Rd. Well, the Lower Creek Trading Path was essentially an extension of the fall line road that led on through Georgia to Alabama and Mississippi. The Path was also known as the Old Horse Path and was used by the Carolina traders before the foundation of Georgia. 

The wilderness west of Fort Wilkinson belonged to the Creek Nation until the Fort Wilkinson Treaty of 1826. This treaty opened the wilderness to migrating settlers; and by the time the Walkers traveled this route in 1828, it had only been opened two years. Most of the roads in the wilderness were widened Indian paths, except for the Lower Creek Trading Path. 

This route was not as primitive as one might imagine, because it had been opened earlier as a postal route leading to New Orleans. The Creek Nation allowed our postal carriers to use this path, and our government widened it and made it easier for travel.   

This road on its way to New Orleans crossed the Chattahoochee River nine miles south of Columbus, Georgia. State historical markers in Chattahoochee, Marion, and Taylor Counties today show the route through those counties. 
 
The road was previously very well traveled by the Indians of that area, who initially used it as a trading path. As mentioned earlier our government negotiated for our postal service to use the path; and years later during the War of 1812, it became, under another treaty, a military road. General Andrew Jackson and his army needed a faster route to get to New Orleans so they could ‘fire their guns cause the British kept a comin’. 

This Lower Creek Indian Path is also called the Federal Road and follows SR 112 south out of Milledgeville, and we can safely say it follows this path to Ft. Wilkinson. While I’m fairly certain how to follow the lower path of the Lower Indian Path/Old Federal Road out of Milledgeville as far as Ft. Wilkinson, I’m a little uncertain about where the Old Federal Road went from there. But I believe it followed the fall line.

There are different theories though as to where the road went from this fort. One theory is that it wandered south and west through Toomsboro towards Hawkinsville. This is also called the Vinson Highway, but Hawkinsville seems too far south of the Chattahoochee crossing mentioned earlier. Also, this road does not followed the fall line.

The other theory is that it followed the fall line on into Alabama and Mississippi. This one seems more correct. The next rivers over are the Ocmulgee in Macon and the Flint River on the western side of Crawford County. If you draw a line between these points and the fall line on the Chattahoochee below Columbus, the Old Federal Highway mostly follows US 80. I feel more certain that this is the Old Federal Road/Postal Horse Path.

More About Ft. Wilkinson 

South of Milledgeville on SR 112 is a marker that says that 300 yards east of the here is where Ft, Wilkinson stood. This fort, built in 1797 on Georgia’s Indian boundary, was an early trading house, where the Creek’s were supplied under the Treaty of New York of 1790. It is also where the 1802 treaty was signed when the Creek’s ceded the land westward to Commissioner’s Creek.  

There are also documents showing that this is the fort where the soldiers stayed when they widened and built the Lower Indian Path into the Federal Road.

In 1897 the Ft. Wilkinson garrison moved to Ft. Hawkins near the Ocmulgee River fall line, near present day Macon. Macon grew up around this fort. I believe this move is why it is so hard to follow the Federal Road, as the beginning of the Federal Road comes from two locations–the earlier one was Ft. Wilkinson south of Milledgeville and the later one was Ft. Hawkins near Macon.

So we first followed SR 112 past the site of Ft. Wilkinson until we came to a problem. We found that there is one section of the road where it does not follow SR 112. When SR 112 gets to US 23 northeast of Hawkinsville, the road here follows Coley Station Rd, which later becomes the Old Milledgeville Rd. After which it intersects with Alternate US 129 which goes southwest into Hawkinsville. This is a pretty drive, not as developed as the SR 112 route which bypasses this.

Another reason I believe SR 112 may have been built on an old road, not necessarily the Old Federal Rd., is because of a document that named several cities that were built on on it. This document actually calls this road the Old Federal Road, too. Actually, there are at least three Old Federal Roads in Georgia, one north of Atlanta, also, which was once an old Cherokee trading Path.

But documents said that this Federal Road went through cities such as Ashburne, Rochelle and Toombsboro, etc. If you look at the road that runs directly between these cities, it is State Road 112. But my question is where did this Federal Road stop and a possible new route opened for the new settlers moving into this area immediately after the 1826 treaty. If it was SR 112, when did this road open. I have no idea.

My problem now is how far did this old road follow SR 112. SR 112 pretty much will take you all the way to Cairo, GA which is where I can definitively say one can follow the Lower Hawthorne Trail, which will be explained later. Since I have no idea when this road opened, I decide that the other theory has more believability.

The Second Theory

It is said in several documents that the Lower Indian Path/Old Federal Road crossed the Flint River near the Old Indian Agency Headquarters in Crawford County. The Indian Agent Benjamin Hawkins lived here, and his burial site is by the river on the west side of Crawford County. His home and the community that grew up around it was called Traveler’s Rest. So we have a good idea where this was.  

If you look at a map, SR 112 goes in the wrong direction to intersect with this point. On face value SR 112 is not the path I’m looking for, unless it was blazed directly down from the old path south of Ft. Wilkinson. It does look like a good option, but again I believe it is wrong.

A better road was probably the one that came directly down from Traveler’s Rest and which Old US 19 was built upon. Old US 19 was changed over the years, and you can find its roadbed as SR 3 in most places now. I believe SR 3 beginning in Baconton, GA was where Hawthorne blazed his new trail.

What was the Old Federal Road Like?

By the time the Walker families traveled the Old Federal Road in 1828, the road was no more than 16 feet wide. It was widened in 1811 by the military to make it sufficient for moving supply wagons, cannons, and men on horse and foot. in other words it was a military road.  The Walkers spent weeks traveling this road and they camped on land beside it. 

 Its swamps and streams were causewayed and bridged. Stumps were ordered not to exceed 6 inches above the ground and to be pared around the edges. The settlers through their journals and diaries said that often the road climbed sandy ridges and rambled.

 The vegetation removed from the surface of the sandy loam soils caused the road to erode rapidly, especially on the sloped up and down grades. The pressure of the horses’ hooves and the iron bands of the wagons wheels disturbed the soil even more. They said that gullies formed everywhere. It was rough going.

The Old Hawthorne Trail

Some documents say that the Old Hawthorne Trail ran from Columbus all the way down to St. Marks, Florida, which is a riverport near the Gulf below Tallahassee. Some say that the road crossed the Flint River at Traveler’s Rest in Crawford County, Georgia. Almost all agree that it had been a Stagecoach Road. 

And I found where a Stagecoach road existed that ran south down from Albany. I began thinking this was the road that may have been a part of the Hawthorne Trail since this is the location where I lost the trail when traveling north on the lower part of the Hawthorn Trail. 

It is said that William Hawthorne blazed the road in 1818. The Walkers didn’t use it until 1828, a decade later. Many great and distinguished men traveled this old road, and it probably was used by Gen. Jackson while he was governor of Territorial Florida when going to and from The Hermitage, his home near Nashville, Tennessee. And this may be why they thought it went all the way to Columbus. He came down from Nashville which was north and west and then turned east using the Old Federal Road until he got to Traveler’s Rest.

My problem finding the Old Hawthorne Trail begins with a document that says that the old trail went south from Baconton. For a while I thought this was old US 19 which is now SR 3. 

There is a problem here in Baconton, Georgia, though, because Baconton did not exist when the Walkers came through in 1827-28. It wasn’t established until 1866.  

Instead, there was a little community east of Baconton on SR 93 which was called Gum Pond. It was a town then, and it sits on the Florida Stagecoach Road that ran from Albany to Thomasville through Camilla. I wonder if this is where the Hawthorne Trail runs south, not in the current downtown of Baconton. This area has the address of Baconton today, and this may be why folks thought that it pulled off from Baconton. This old Stagecoach Road runs parallel to SR 3 about three miles to the east. 

 

Also, State Road 112 coming down from Milledgeville through Sylvester intersects with The Old Stage Coach Rd. at Greenough just a little south of where Gum Pond was located. One can then take SR 112 all the way down to Cairo from here.

In Cairo is where there are signs that mark the Old Hawthorne Trail. These Hawthorne Trail signs run west of the city. These street signs call it the Upper Hawthorne Trail which run southeast into Cairo.  

Here the Upper Hawthorne roadbed is clay, reminiscent of the country music which romanticize red clay roads.  

This road runs through pine forests and cornfields before crossing US 84 which runs from Bainbridge to Thomasville through Cairo.  

On the north side of US 84, though, we spotted an old cemetery, the oldest one we’ve seen here. We walked through it, and I found a grave with a date of death of 1841. In graveyards this old, there are always unmarked earlier graves. Many graves in this area are unmarked because the Indians would dig bodies up. It was part of warfare to give one’s enemy a bad death.  

This cemetery could be old enough to have been here in 1828, when the Walkers came to Florida. This road forks left off of SR 112 which runs up through Camilla and intersects the Old Stage Coach Rd. just a few miles south of Gum Pond. So this is where we know the Old Hawthorne Trail existed.

For the first time today while on this old clay road I can really imagine what it might of been like as the family moved along through this area. Mostly these are just farms and forests through here now. It’s a good road but I wouldn’t want to be here when it rains. 

But north of this point between SR 112 in Greenough and here, I really have no idea if this is the trail. Poor Chuck. He’s driving and I’m directing first up this road and then down that road. He finally points out that he’s beginning to feel like Hoke in ” Driving Miss Daisy.”

As you get farther south, though, toward the Florida line, the Old Hawthorne Trail is marked both on maps and by signage on the highways. We followed it through Lower South Georgia south of Cairo. It is a pretty little two-laned grey asphalt road, canopied by trees in some areas. 

You can find it on the maps south out of Cairo on State Road 111, which is also marked as the Lower Hawthorne Trail.  
You’ll find where the Lower Hawthorne Trail pulls off of SR 111 way south of Cairo on your left. It becomes County Road 157A here.

This road is surrounded by farmland and is wooded in the lower areas. When you get to the end of 157A there is a street sign that says Concord Rd. If you follow this road, it dead ends in Florida. 

We turned right on Concord Rd. and over our shoulder noticed a sign that said Lower Hawthorne Trail with an arrow pointing back down towards the Concord Road. This is very helpful as it tells us that the historians believe that 157A or the Concord Road is also a part of the Old Lower Hawthorne Trail. Georgia has marked it side of the trail, but not Florida.

The Concord Rd. (Old Lower Hawthorne Trail) came down to about a mile east of Concord, Florida on State Road 12. To find current day Concord, we turned west on SR 12 and drove to the little intersection with its little service station. This is modern day Concord, and I believe the Old Bainbridge Road leading down to Tallahassee may also be part of the Old Lower Hawthorne Trail, but again I’m not sure, though some documents say it went all the way to St. Marks, Florida on the Gulf coast.

So it is my best guess that the family followed the Old Federal Road, which follows the fall line, out of Milledgeville. At Traveler’s Rest they turned south on a trail that later became Old US 19 until they traveled through Gum Pond and met up with the Hawthorne Trail which I believe began in or around Greenough, Georgia.  At least that is how I plan to write it in my book, adding all the research used to come to this conclusion.

But I’m not quite ready to begin writing.  I think I want to make one more road trip on this route to stop in at some key libraries just to test my theory one last time.  Besides I get the chance to follow this old trail again. And I love that as much as I love a good road trip.  

  

Traveling Old Trails

by Filed Under: Following Old Trails, Genealogy, Palmetto Pioneers 4 Comments

I have several interests, but one of them is traveling old trails.  About twenty years ago my Dad and I talked about traveling the Oregon Trail.  I even went as far as figuring out which paved roads came closest to it.

 

 

The Oregon Trail Historic Marker

 

 

I found out that the beginning of that trail had several jumping off points, so we picked Independence, Missouri as our point of beginning.  But time and events both his, my Mom’s and mine got in the way; and we kept putting off the trip. Dad died in 2003, and we never got around to it.

 

 

Rock Creek Station

Rock Creek Station on the Oregon Trail (a Pony Express Station)

 

 

But several years later while Chuck was in Idaho on his annual fishing trip with his buddies, I flew to Independence and followed the Oregon Trail by car all the way to Boise, Idaho where Chuck joined me. We continued until Oregon City, Oregon at the trail’s end.

 

 

End of the Oregon Trail

The End of the Oregon Trail

 

 

It was a great trip, though not as great if Dad had shared it with us.  There were times, though, when I felt he was there.  I even made a comment or two for him, such as my first sighting of wagon ruts still visible today.  I remember being alone and saying out loud as if he were standing right there beside me, “Well, Daddy, these are pretty darn cool, aren’t they?”

 

 

Wagon Ruts

Wagon Ruts on the Oregon Trail

 

 

Years later I spent some time again following the Lewis and Clark Trail, again while Chuck was fishing .   I began in nearby St. Louis, Missouri and ended at Great Falls, Montana.  I’ll do the rest of this trail later—in fact some of it later this year.  This trail is a water trail mostly following the Missouri River and then other westerly rivers, but it is almost impossible to do it by boat because of all the dams.

 

 

Lewis & Clark Trail

Lewis & Clark Trail, Wiki

 

 

Chuck and I just did another one of the old trails and several old roads back in March.  We were on our way back from staying at my sister’s bedside in Winston-Salem, NC.  We thought she was doing better because she was progressing so rapidly, and Chuck needed to get some stitches out from an outpatient surgery that had been done a few days before Pam was placed in the hospital.

 

So on our way back down to Florida, we picked up this migratory route in Lodge, SC and followed it all the way west and south to Millegeville, Ga. where our daylight ran out.  This research was for my book “Palmetto Pioneers”.   I was trying to determine how the Walker Family migrated from their home in South Carolina to their new land in Jefferson County, Florida.

 

I know that my Walker family migrated to Florida around 1828 to 1829,  and so I tried to figure out how they got here.  I learned through research that the area west of Macon, Georgia, had just recently opened up due to a treaty between the Creek Nation and our government. I also learned that the only road into this part of Florida at that time was one of the old trails called the Hawthorne Trail.  It started somewhere up on the Old Federal Road west of what is now Macon and passed down near Cairo, GA before ending near Concord, Florida north of Tallahassee near the Florida/Georgia state line.

 

 

Old Hawthorne Trail

The Old Hawthorn Trail

 

 

But how did they get from Lodge, SC all the way to the Macon area on the Old Federal Road?  So starting in Macon, Georgia, I  looked for roads that were here in 1827; and since there were few and many times only one road or trail, I worked back using these roads or trails to their home in SC.  It is speculation or at best an educated guess.

 

The Hawthorn Trail ran south from the Old Federal Road.  For our purposes the Old Federal Road ran from near Macon to the west, all the way to Mobile.  It connected with the Fall Line Road which ran through Milledgeville, GA, which was then the capitol of Georgia.  The Fall Lind Road was one of the oldest roads in America, and it ran from Philadelphia all the way down well into Alabama.  For our purposes, though, we are only interested in that portion which ran from Augusta, Ga., to Milledgeville.

 

 

The Fall Line Road & other Trails

The Fall Line Road, a Family Search Wiki Map

 

 

But again how did they get to Augusta from Lodge, SC which is located in the South Carolina low country southwest of Charleston?  I found an earlier route or road between Charleston and Augusta.  Actually it was called the Fort Moore-Charleston Road. Fort Moore was located across the river from Augusta in South Carolina.  It was an earlier trading post, and Augusta grew up around this area.  The commerce continued between the Indians and Europeans until eventually the fort closed and was abandoned, but this area across and up the river to just before the fall line is where the city of Augusta continued to grow.

 

 

Fort Moore-Charleston Trail

Fort Moore-Charleston Road

 

 

Once I discovered these early trails or roads, I looked for a current road or roads which followed it as closely as possible.  It turned out to be US 78 which ran all the way from Charleston southwest to where Fort Moore used to be then from Augusta and down through Thomson, Georgia.   I found it amazing that one major road today followed a good part of this early migratory route.  So with my research fairly complete, Chuck and I first began near Lodge, SC, our point of beginning, which was the Walker families’ point of beginning, too.

 

We quickly found northeast of Lodge the Little Salkehatchee River and immediately on the other side of the river was Carter’s Ford Baptist Church.  What a great find.  My 5th great grandmother was a Carter from here as was her mother-in-law.  It seems that Joel and Elizabeth Walker were kin to each other before they married.

 

Carter's Ford Baptist Church

Carter’s Ford Baptist Church

 

Below are the families that migrated from here in 1828-29.

 

  • Joel & Elizabeth’s son Jesse & his wife Elizabeth Wilson Walker including their children 6-7 year old Mary Adeline (my 3rd great grandmother), 4-5 year old Henry, 2-4 year old Sarah, and 1-2 year old James J. all born in SC
  • Joel & Elizabeth’s son James & his wife Elizabeth Padgett Walker including their daughter 0-1 year old Delilah who was born September 28, 1828 in SC
  • Joel & Elizabeth’s son Littleberry Walker, who was 17-18 years old, born in SC
  • Joel’s son Stephen Walker, who was 22-23 years old, born in SC (We are still unsure if he traveled with the family to Florida, though).

 

There is a possibility that the parents of Jesse, James, Stephen & Littleberry Walker came down to Florida with them; but their daughter Mary Jane Walker & her husband Stephen Lightsey did not come down until between July 12, 1832 and 1835.  Family lore says that the parents came down later than their Walker sons.   If they did come down later this is probably their party:

 

  • Joel & Elizabeth Carter Walker with their son 13-16 year old David
  • Mary Jane Walker & Stephen Lightsey with their two sons 2-5 year old John Adams and 1-3 year old Joel Walker

 

 

Carter’s Ford was a natural ford on the Little Salkhatchee River.  The Walker land was nearby, quite possibly across the road from the church.  Today, that road is SR 217.  Using old maps, it looks as if their land is north of the road on the west side of the river.  It looked like prime cotton land or land for cattle.  The Walkers did both.

It was neat to stand where they probably lived and thrived for several generations before moving on. The land here is up on a ridge, high and dry.  The fields here lie fallow; but when I got out to take a photo, a covey of quail jumped up in front of me.  This land with its palmettos in the flood plain next to the river and its cypress swamps and stands of pine remind me of the Aucilla River and its river swamps.  This is the low country just before rising up to the coastal plans below the fall line.  We’re about 22 miles from Waltersboro, which was then and still is today the county seat of Colleton County.

 

 

Walker Land near Lodge, SC

Possible Site of the Walker’s Land

 

 

By studying the old maps, I’m fairly certain they went northwest from their home to meet up with the Fort Moore-Charleston Road.    The only other route which intersects with US 78 goes southeast through a very low long swampy area, so I felt they didn’t take that route because of the wagons.  They also would have had to cross the Little Salkehatchee here, and it is wide.

 

 

The Little Salkehatchee River

 

 

We drove on into Lodge which is really just a crossroads and did not exist when the Walkers lived here.  The old road today travels closest to US 64 and US 601.  They built the latter road in 1927 and most likely on top of the already well-established trail.  Just before we got to Bamberg, we crossed again the Little Salkehatchee River; but it is narrow here.  They probably used a ferry because the river looks deep.  The rest of US 601 like US 64 was high and dry.  Today, there aren’t any old forests, but I felt like there might not have been any then either.  After all they were moving on because the ground was worn out cotton fields.

 

We intersected with US 78 at Bamburg, SC.   I looked up the history of Bamburg to see if it was a town when they passed through here about 1828. The town was founded around 1750 by French Huguenots and Scots-Irish so it was definitely there then.

 

As we drove west on US 78, I looked to see if there was a wiki page on this road.  I found much more info.  There are wiki pages for most federal and some state roads in the US.  They contain great historical information about these routes.

 

I questioned what the weather was like in the fall of 1827, but I found nothing online.  I need to read local papers from Charleston, Augusta (1828 to 1829) and surrounding towns to see what I can find.  Today, though, it is wet.

 

When the family got to Bamberg, the town then was called Lowerys, a crossroads on the Fort Moore-Charleston Rd.  I was able to look up the history of each town as we passed through.  I looked for answers to questions like:  when was the town established, what buildings are still standing today that were standing in the 1820s, and what was the town like in 1820?  I was trying to figure out what the family saw as they passed through.

The next town of Denmark, a railroad town in 1830, was built on the earlier town called Graham’s Turnout.  If the railroad was built to Denmark by 1830, then this means they built the railroad here when the family traveled down this road.   It helps me picture what they saw.  I’m sure they used slave labor, because this was before the Civil War.

The next town is Blackville.  Blackville is in the part of South Carolina called the “Back Country.”  Due to a plentiful supply of water for drinking and transportation, settlers came to this area prior to the Revolutionary War.  They fought the Battle of Slaughter Field north of Blackville near the Mennonite church.   When the railroad built between Charleston and Hamburg, John Black chose this area as an overnight stop for the train.  Several hotels sprang up, as did a bustling railroad town.  Blackville was established in 1833 and chartered in 1837.  So though we know there was a settlement here when the family passed through, it looks like they built the hotels and railroad station a little later.

Just so you know, though, Blackville became a marketing and transportation center and thrived until the Civil War.  By February of 1865, though, sixty thousand Union troops had passed through the town.  General Sherman met with his generals here, burned much of the town, looted, demolished the railroad, and continued on his march. So whatever existed when the family came through just before 1830 Sherman probably burned.

Next we got to Williston, South Carolina. We noticed that all of these towns are about 6-10 miles apart.  We know that the Wills family came to this area before the 1790 census, and that a settlement grew up on this road.  When the family came through here, we’re not sure whether it was called Williston or Willis Station.  It became another railroad stop, but stagecoach service existed between Charleston and Augusta, so it could have been a stage station, too.

Finally, the family got to the Augusta area, but their road did not go directly into the city before crossing the Savannah River.  Instead it came to a ferry down river from the city.  When researching this ferry, I found that it had been called the Sand Bar Ferry; and someone took a picture of the abandoned ferry before it disintegrated.  It is below.  This ended Fort Moore-Charleston Road.

 

 

Sand Bar Ferry

The Sand Bar Ferry on the Savannah River

 

 

So what was Augusta like when the family came through there in 1828-1829.  The Native Americans used Augusta as a place to cross the Savannah River, because of its location on the fall line.  They also traveled a fall line path, which later became the Fall Line Road.  I found an old map which shows how the Fort Moore-Charleston Trail entered Augusta and how the Fall Line Road left the town.

 

 

Old Augusta Map

Old Map of Augusta Showing the Fall Line Road leaving Augusta up and to the left near the falls on the down side of the river and the Fort Moore-Charleston Road entering Augusta at Fort Moore.

 

 

Oglethorpe named the town Augusta, in honor of Princess Augusta, wife of Frederick, Prince of Wales.    The town was laid out on the flat slopes of the Savannah River.  The townspeople got along peacefully most of the time with the surrounding tribes of Creek, Yuchi and Shawnee Indians. The Shawnees in the region were known as the Savano Indians. The name of the Savannah River is an anglicized version of their tribal name.

When the family came through the city, it was already incorporated and had been since the 1790s.  Still standing in the city today are two buildings that were standing there. They are the First Presbyterian Church and a mansion called Ware’s Folly, the home of the Gertrude Herbert Institute of Art.

 

 

 

First Presbyterian Church, Augusta, GA

First Presbyterian Church, Augusta, GA

 

 

The house built by Ware was called his folly because he spent $40,000 to build it in the early 1800s.  In today’s dollars it would be a $12 million house.  I could see the Walker families riding by just to see what a $40,000 house looked like.

 

 

Ware's Folly

Ware’s Folly

 

 

Leaving the city, the families took the Fall Line Road.  This road follows a geographical (water) fall line, where rivers drop to the coastal plain. Towns grew up on the fall line because cargo on boats had to be portaged around the waterfalls. These falls served as an early source of water power, so mills sprang up harnessing the power supplied by the falling waters,  In time towns grew around the mills.

The Fall Line Road (or Southern Road) was the road built to connect most of those growing mill towns. It followed, though, an old Indian path as so many of these roads did. It was well established by the time the Walkers  traveled it in 1828-29.

 

The Fall Line Road continued on this path as far south as west of Milledgeville, GA until a series of Indian treaties from 1790 to 1826 opened up the Georgia and Alabama parts beyond the Macon area.  Notice that this area opened up in 1826 and the Walkers moved south around 1827 to 1828.

 

The road here still follows US 78 and will until we get to Thomson, GA.  The first town past August is Harlem, but it was called Sawdust when the family came through.  It was a lumber town and was quite wild. It was known for a lot of drinking, gambling, prostitution and carousing; and it was full of men. I don’t really believe they stopped here to spend the night. Not with the young children, though some of the men may have slipped into town on the pretext of needing some supplies.

 

There are now several more small towns between Harlem and Thomson, but they did not exist when the family migrated through.

Thompson Georgia was called Slashes in the late 1820s.  The area between Harlem and Thomson is rolling hills and less of the flatlands that we drove through on the other side of the river in South Carolina.  This is a very pretty area with lots of farmland, but when they passed through it was a booming timber operation.  I guess that is why one town was called Sawdust and the other Slashes.  It makes me wonder if this was all old forest timberland back then or if much of it had already been timbered out.  Looking at the economics of the town will probably give me that answer.

Once we passed Thomson, we then took SR 16 through Warrenton and down to Sparta where we took SR 22 all the way down to Milledgeville.  This continues to follow the Old Fall Line Road.

Warrenton, Georgia was a town with a wooden courthouse when the family came through here in 1827.  The Stagecoach Inn was here, and the family may have stayed there since they were not destitute and everyone probably needed a good bed and bath.  We know that the Marquie de Lafayette stayed in town at the Allen House in 1835, and he gave us a pretty good description of the town in his journals.   The Allen House has since been moved to Oglethorpe where it stands today.

 

 

The Stagecoach Inn in Warrenton, GA

The Old Stagecoach Inn in Warrenton, GA

 

 

We crossed the Ogeechee River, and the fall line rapids are very visible from the road.  I was about 95% sure that this was the Old Fall Line Road, but now I’m 100% sure.  We stopped and took a picture of the rapids.

 

 

Ogeechee Rapids

Ogeechee Rapids, as seen from the road

 

 

 

This is beautiful country through here.  I wonder if they thought about stopping?  Maybe some of their party did.  We have found no journals or diaries, so we wouldn’t know for sure.

If they had waited five or six years later, they could have had it much easier.  Railroads were being built several years right behind them.

Jewel was the next town.  It is very near the Ogeechee, but I cannot find any sign that Jewel was there when they came through. It seems that it became a mill town later on, a mill town sitting on the river.  There probably was a ferry here at one time, and they may have used it to cross.

Sparta was here, though, when they came through.   It was called Sparta and may have gotten its name because it is said that its frontier residents fought like Spartans during the Creek War of 1811-1815.  Major Charles Abercrombie laid out the town from his own lands in 1795, and his former home still stands on Maiden Lane today. Rabun Street, named for Matthew Rabun, the father of Georgia Governor William Rabun, became known as Maiden Lane when Sparta’s Female Model School was organized there in 1831.   Abercrombie’s house was there when the Walkers came through.

I imagine that the family looked forward to seeing Milledgeville.  It was already established as the capital of Georgia and had been since 1804.  The Treat of Fort Wilkinson (1802), in which the people,, hard pressed by debts to white traders, agreed to cede part of their ancient land.  This opened up this part of Georgia.  The restless Georgians and Carolinians quickly pressed west and south in search of new farmland; and the town of Milledgeville, which was carved out of the Oconee wilderness, helped accommodate their needs.   So this was settled by the time the families came through here in the late 1820s.

The town was laid out and modeled after Savannah and Washington, DC. It  included four public squares of about 20 acres each. It stood on the edge of the fall line , where the Upper Coastal Plain merged into the Piedmont.  Its Gothic revival style state capital was built by 1809, and it was then known as the first United States public building built in America.  I believe the families would have wanted to see this building, which is still standing today.

 

 

Georgia's Old State Capitol

Georgia’s State Capitol in Milledgeville

 

 

By the time they got to Milledgeville, the town had been prosperous especially after the cotton boom of the early 1800s.  There were elegant houses with colossal porticoes, cantilevered balconies, pediments adorned with sunbursts, and fanlighted doorways. There were several very nicely built churches on its Statehouse Square.  Imagine how they felt seeing this city, but remember that they lived a short distance from Charleston and had probably visited that city as well.  Elizabeth Carter Walker’s mother was a Middleton, a family well-known in South Carolina and Charleston, so we feel certain the older members of the families had visited Charleston.  Milledgeville, though, was a much newer city.

Finally, the families left Milledgeville and entered the newly-opened territory, the area that the Creek’s had just ceded to the government.  And that is where I will stop this post for this week.

The next section of their travels was much harder to research because there were no settled communities and the old roads were hard to follow, both for them and for me.  That will be discussed hopefully soon

Below is a little list of questions that helped me determine what old trails my ancestors used when they migrated from SC to Florida.

 

 

List of Research Questions

  1. What date did they first appear in their destination?  (I used birthdates of children to help me figure out a range of dates—1828-1829 and 1835-1838.  This showed me that the family migrated to their destination of Florida in two groups.)
  2. What old trails or roads were available during these dates?  I used old maps to help me determine what trails and roads were available.)
  3. What towns did each of the old trails or roads pass through?  (I used Wiki and local historical information to try to find what was happening in the town and what buildings were there that are still standing today.  Also, to find out when it was settled to make sure it existed when they passed through.)
  4. Look at the history of the areas to see what might have led to or aided  their migration down these old trails or roads?  (The history of their home county or point of beginning showed an economic collapse of cotton , and the history of the Indian treaties showed an area that opened just before their migration. Also, in Florida, the First Seminole Indian War had ended and Jefferson County was just formed.)
  5. Who used the old trails or roads?  (We know from diaries, journals and historical accounts that the railroad was being built between Charleston and Augusta and that freight was already hauled on the trails or old roads from Augusta, Milledgeville and other river ports  up and down the Fall Line Road.   We also know that Georgians and Carolinians were migrating on to Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and points beyond.   Finally, there was a stage line operating on these roads, too These roads were also postal routes.)
  6. I have not looked up the surnames along the migratory path yet, but it would be good to see if anyone stopped and stayed behind. (Use Census records.)
  7. Look up the weather for that time period. Was it normal, wet or drought? (Use newspaper articles, diaries and journals.)
  8. Finally, this question unique to this study needs an answer. How much of the forests had already been removed on the Fall Line Road southwest of Augusta?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Independence Day in Old Florida

by Filed Under: Genealogy, Palmetto Pioneers, This & That Leave a Comment

What do you think Independence Day celebrations were like for those who actually fought in the Revolutionary War? Or for the signers themselves?   What was the 4th of July like ten or twenty or fifty years after the signing when some of these men were still living?

 
Today, we meet as communities or families to celebrate our nation’s birthday. The holiday, though, is actually the day the initial signatures were placed on the Declaration of Independence.

 

Current Celebration

 
But how did our ancestors celebrate this day? And what happened when the north was fighting the south during the Civil War?  Did we quit celebrating down here in the south during those War years?

 
I’ve been researching the time period in North Florida between 1827 and 1871 for my book “Palmetto Pioneers.” It was a time when Florida was a territory until 1845, when the Seminole Wars raged until the late 1850s, and when Florida seceded from the nation to join the Confederacy in the early 1860s. We call these eras Territorial Florida, Antebellum Florida, and War & Reconstruction Florida.

 
Remember, though, that 1827 was only about 50 years after the Revolutionary War. To Floridians in 1827 the American Revolution would have been remembered much like some of us today remember the assassination of President Kennedy or the Vietnam War, both of which happened only 50 years ago.

 

 

img_8111

 
So the 4th of July celebration to these Floridians would have been valuable indeed. There would have been veterans of that war living in their communities and maybe even within their families.
In some of their home states, there would still have been scars from the battles which were fought in these areas. Mary’s family came from near Kings Mountain and the Cowpens, both well remembered Revolutionary Battles.

 
So just how did they celebrate the 4th of July over 150 years ago? I found several pieces of research to give us an idea–most of which were newspaper articles, but one of which was an actual program used in 1851.

 
My main character Mary Adeline Walker came to Monticello, Florida about 1828, and the first recorded Independence Day Celebration there was one year later in 1829.
Jefferson County and Monticello were named after President Thomas Jefferson and his home respectively. The county itself had just been formed in 1827 from Leon County just one year after President Jefferson died.

 

 

Tombstone of Jefferson

 

 
The newly formed county originally stretched from its original western boundary near its current western boundary just east of Tallahassee all the way east to the Suwannee River.
Of course, every school child knows that Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, but did you know that Thomas Jefferson died on July 4th in 1826, the very day we celebrate his actions for signing the Declaration of Independence. It was an amazing coincidence.

 

 

 

Original draft

Original first draft of the Declaration of Independence

 
There is also something else very interesting about Monticello and the 4th of July. There were people living around Monticello who were kin to Thomas Jefferson. Thomas Jefferson’s mother’s maiden name was Randolph and his grandson Francis Eppes moved to Florida along with the Randolphs establishing a plantation about 12 miles northeast of Monticello called L’Eau Noir (Black Water).

 

 

Graveyard Plaque

Chart Showing Who was Buried in the Jefferson Graveyard at Monticello in Virginia

 
I’m very familiar with this beautiful land where the Black Water Creek flows east of Tallahassee. It crosses US 90 between Tallahassee and Monticello west of Balm. I’ve hunted turkey near and along the banks of that creek both immediately north and far south of that crossing.

 
This is the land where I cut my teeth–calling birds for the first time. I could shoot turkeys all day with a guide, but the real challenge was to call in a bird all by myself.  This is where I got the most practice. I bumped birds all over this land and got to know it intimately. Some of my best turkey hunting stories took place on this property. At the time I had no idea that this land once belonged to Thomas Jefferson’s grandson.

 
So a lot had happened to little Monticello in the three short years after Jefferson County was formed; and Monticello became the place to observe Independence Day as early as 1829. People from all over Middle Florida came there to celebrate. The little town was not much more than a crossroad then, only a village. But Independence Day in America at that time was a very important event.

 

 

img_8106

 

 

Normally, the people gathered in the center of the village for Independence Day. A parade was staged to begin at the edge of town and to end at the appointed place at the appointed time, which was noon. So at the center of Monticello and beginning at noon and after the prayer, the Declaration of Independence was read. In every 4th of July celebration, I noticed that this was the highlight–the reading of the Declaration.

 

 

Declaration of Independence

 

 
Afterwards, a chosen orator spoke. He (yes, it was always a man) talked about the Revolutionary War itself or the people who fought or the founders or any other topic related to our nation’s independence.  Afterwards, there were numerous toasts, most of which were followed by liberal quantities of spirits. Most of the toasts and speeches were directed at the nation’s birthday.

 
We know that in 1829 in the center of the town Rev. William Mathers opened the ceremony at noon with a prayer. The Declaration was read and Philip Willie delivered a rousing address tracing the history of the US from Columbus’ voyage down to an “animated picture of the present”.

 
A sumptuous dinner was served, after which Dr. Thomas White and James Parish began the toasts. White praised the “venerable sage of Monticello” after whom the county was named. Parish toasted Joseph White (Florida’s representative to Congress) as “in every respect white, clear white.” Other toasts were delivered to Florida “the youngest child of this great family of States”. They also toasted several of the founding fathers and prominent men of the day.

 

After 1829 people began coming from all over the territory to celebrate the nation’s birthday in Monticello. Year after year they came. It was a tradition.  Although it began in the center of town, years later it was moved to a nearby park. A crowd gathered wherever it was held.

 
By 1832, the day began with the firing of a cannon and small arms at noon in the center of town. I wonder what happened to that cannon. I grew up in Monticello, and I can’t remember there ever being a cannon fired in town except for when the local team took the field down at the football stadium on Friday nights in the 1980s. That one was bought while Kelly Kilpatrick was the principal.
Then a procession formed in front of Martin Palmer’s tavern and moved to a stand prepared for the occasion in the center of town. We know from research that there still was no courthouse, and that court was held in this tavern when needed. I wonder if that raised platform set where the courthouse sits today? I also wonder if the toasts had gotten out of hand so they moved it indoors away from the women and children.

 

 

1800s Celebration

 

 
After Rev. Mather’s prayer, the Declaration of Independence was read and then George Warner spoke about the oppressed colonies in the days just before the revolution. It is believed that the women and children were there for this part of the celebration, but not for what followed as discussed earlier.

 
After the oration the men moved on to Palmer’s Tavern where Thomas Randolph and William Bailey presided over a dinner. It was recorded that 13 toasts were drunk. The one receiving the most attention was to “The Tariff may it be immediately adjusted to the satisfaction of all”. Darius Williams toasted “public school, the best guarantee of social progress.”

 
And Giles Easter toasted, “May we act with reason while the bottle is circulating.” That was probably the toast right around the sixth round, and obviously they paid it no heed.

 
There is mention years later that maybe the toasts were getting out of hand. I imagine the women added their own thoughts to this. So later they decided that there should be a committee for toasting.

 
The earlier orations stayed to the revolution itself or to the freedom that all Americans cherished; but later, the speeches began to more accurately reflect the issues of the day.

 
By 1838 there was concern about statehood and at 11 a.m. a large Independence Day procession of inhabitants and visitors from adjoining counties formed at the courthouse under the direction of Minor Walker, marshall of the day. It moved to a grove of oaks near a spring outside of town where a preacher opened the ceremonies with a prayer. The Declaration was read and an oration delivered. A barbecue dinner followed, again followed by the toasts.

 

 

4th of July 1800s

4th of July Celebration in Orlando in the 1880s. Florida Memory Collection

 

 
By 1839, they decide to form a committee for toasts to try to keep the number of libations within bounds. It must have helped though because by 1841 the Tallahassee Star of Florida reported that at the Independence Day festivities in Monticello 50 men drank four toasts each.

 
At the 1839 celebration they held an old fashioned Virginia barbecue which was planned by Smith Simkins, Zachariah Bailey, W. C. Smith, John Cuthbert, William Ware, John Tucker and J. R. Rowles. The committee on toasts was comprised of R. B. Houghton, B. C. Pope, B. Waller Taylor, W. H. Smith and William Wirt, Jr.

 
The orator and reader were selected by R. W. Tone, Andrew Denham, John Palmer, Ware and Cuthbert. Houghton delivered the oration and Abram Bellamy read the declaration. The Tallahassee press again carried this news.

 
These Monticello celebrations continued until the Civil War, but the town was not the only city in Florida to hold such August celebrations. While researching I ran across an actual program for the 4th of July Celebration held in Madison, just east of Monticello.

 

 

Madison 4th of July

 

 
I often wondered if the south continued to celebrate Independence Day during the Civil War, and I ran across an editorial in the “Family Friend”, Monticello’s weekly newspaper, dated in 1861. It said that Florida’s legislature did propose in 1861 to strike out the 4th of July from the days which public offices should close, but the proposal was ultimately rejected.

 
The newspaper’s publisher went on to say that Independence Day should be held in perpetual remembrance. He pointed out that the south holds claim to the author of the document just as much as the north.

 
He added that our declaration sets forth that when a government becomes subversive, as had the north, then it was the right and the duty of the people to throw off such a government. He said that the south had done just that.  And that as a body of people the south should cherish the declaration and continue to celebrate it.

 
He added that these principles which gave birth to our former union can never be destroyed until we all are slaves or are left to submit to tyranny and oppression.

 
So I guess that is what I carried away from all this is the realization that it is the Declaration itself that we should celebrate. Our ancestors understood that.

 
Happy Independence Day–no matter where you are or how you celebrate it!

 

 

Nieces Celebrating 4th of July

 

 

 

 

 

Genealogy Research – Latest New Toy

by Filed Under: Genealogy Leave a Comment

Genealogy research has been revolutionized by the Internet.  There are literally thousands of websites to help you do all kinds of genealogy research.

 

 

Websites

 

 

 

But I just discovered a new kid on the block called HistoryGeo.

 

 

HistoryGeo

 

 

Last May at a booth in the exhibition hall of the National Genealogical Society Annual Conference, I found what I believe is the newest next best thing in genealogy research.  It is a time saver and just plain fun to use.

Actually, it has been around for a couple of years, but it is new to me and to several other people I’ve told about it.

The booth was called HistoryGeo. I love maps so I was drawn to it like a moth to flame.  The gentleman working there saw that I was interested as I gazed at the computer screen and its map.

He asked me what county I was from, and I told him Jefferson County, Florida. I’m Southern and I might live in Leon County, Florida; but I’m from Jefferson County, Florida.

He went to the main page of historygeo.com and typed Jefferson County, Florida. A map of my county magically appeared showing all the county’s first homesteaders in a bar on the right.

 

 

County

 

I was instantly hooked. He didn’t know it, but he had me at hello.

So I asked him if he could see what land my ancestor Jesse Walker might have homesteaded. I have all the deeds for the property he owned but have only looked up the location of two pieces of property.

He quickly found one of the pieces of property, and there it was on the Old Salt Road and Hartsfield, one piece of property that I had already looked up. What I didn’t know, though, was that my fourth great-grandfather Jesse Walker was the original homesteader for this property.

 

 

Where they homesteaded

 

The maps were very easy to read. They were marked with current roads so that one can see exactly where one’s ancestor lived.

 
What a neat website. Someone has done this throughout the entire United States. Well almost.

Next I asked him for South Carolina, Colleton County, where Jesse lived in 1827 before coming to Florida. I found out that they have not done South Carolina for reasons I’ll explain later.

What a great service, though. I had planned to map all of my family members’ properties in Jefferson County anyway, but for a subscription it has already been done with all the first time landowners for me. Several of my ancestors were first time landowners or homesteaders in Jefferson County.

As before, having earlier done this for two of Jesse Walker’s properties, I know how hard it was to map it. This new subscription will be quite a time saver.

So what exactly is HistoryGeo? It is a family history software service for linking old maps and land records to your genealogy research. This is their revolutionary first landowners project.

 

 

First Landownowers Porject

 

 

These maps are for the public land states in the continental US plus Texas. So this is why there was not a map for South Carolina as South Carolina’s land was granted before the Revolutionary War by the King of England.

HistoryGeo maps, though, do cover 29 states and over 9 million records.

There is also a place where they have compiled and indexed hundreds of thousands of landowners from a constantly expanding collection of nearly 4000 maps. Subsequently, there is an antique map collection available as well online. Also printing can be done plus there is a mobile browser.

You can search by state and county and/or by surname. When you find a homestead you want, you click on it and search farther for the source document, US Bureau of Land Management Records records if appropriate, original surveys, etc.

 

 

Survey

 

 

In a nutshell HistoryGeo provides an online map library and allows you to personalize maps, annotate them, connect your research to the maps, chart migrations and collaborate with others. The part about charting migrations intrigues me the most.

You’ll be able to create animations of family migrations and other geographic events. You can attach custom map markers, links to other web pages and best of all your own images. You can even use it to collaborate with other genealogy researchers.

I subscribed on the spot, but didn’t get a chance to do any searching on my own until I got back home.  Again, I clicked on Jefferson County, Florida and was brought to the map that shows the townships and ranges and an alphabetical list of all the homesteaders. I found that I can easily click anywhere on the map to see the owners or scroll through the list of owners on the sidebar.

 

 

Found Jesse

 

 

The result was information about the land record. It showed all the details related to where the land was located and has links to view this spot in Google Maps, or links to the BLM (Bureau of Land Management) source or the actual document.

 

 

Land Grant

 

 

This website is awesome. It even contains Native American Land Allotments. There are tutorial videos on their website showing one how to use the site.

Even if you don’t care to do genealogy research, check out this website anyway. You’ll enjoy seeing the maps and even finding out who homesteaded where you currently reside.

If you do genealogy researchh like me, you’ll be in hog heaven.

How to Plan a Family Heritage Trip

by Filed Under: Genealogy, Travel 2 Comments

Have you ever been on a Family Heritage trip?  Have you ever thought about taking a little trip just to explore your family heritage?  It can be a destination or just a side trip on your way to somewhere else.  Which is where we were going last week–a trip to some place else.

Chuck and I recently made a road trip to Augusta, Georgia to join in the celebration of his Aunt Betty’s 95th birthday. I explained to Chuck that on the way up to Augusta we would pass through a little town which his ancestors had helped settle. So we left a day early to spend an extra day in Thomson, Georgia.

Thomson Depot

Thomson Depot & where Capt. Johnston went to go to war.

I knew that Chuck knew very little about his mother’s maternal family, so I took along my iPad with its Ancestry app to help us locate some of the family landmarks. I had already done the research, and my iPad was full of information such as who his maternal grandmother’s parents and grandparents were, where they lived, and where they were buried.

We stopped first in Thomson just west of Augusta, and we found Chuck’s great-great grandparents’ graves in the city cemetery. I had found them online earlier using FindaGrave.com. For those of you who are unaware of this website, it is sourced by volunteers. When someone finds a grave not already on FindaGrave, they are encouraged to add it themselves.

Gravestone

Grave of Capt. & Mrs. William Johnston, Thomson City Cemetery

Just before we got to the little town, I used our GPS to find the cemetery. Finding the grave itself in the cemetery does take time, though. Chuck worked one side of the cemetery, and I worked the other. It helped that we had a picture of the tombstone showing their graves nearby.

A photo of William Johnston in his Confederate uniform sits on a shelf in our den, but this was the first time Chuck really got to know a little about the man himself.  As we drove closer to Thomson, I read out loud about William Johnston.  I used his Ancestry timeline so Chuck could better understand who it was we were going to find. Chuck calls the act f hunting graves “grave robbing,” but all we were really taking were William Johnston’s memories.

CSA Officer

Capt. William Johnston

Chuck learned that his Great-great grandfather was a lumber merchant and later owned a mill and a gin, information found in the 1870 and 1880 censuses. It appears that after the virgin timber was logged out in the area, the people of Thomson moved on to cotton.  Chuck’s ancestor’s occupations clearly reflect the economic history of this era in Thomson.

1870 Census

1870 United States Census for McDuffie County, Georgia

We learned a little about William’s wife, Chuck’s second great-grandmother Martha AnnFrancis Stone. Chuck recognized that her maiden name was his grandmother’s middle name. He never knew where that name came from until now.

Also, when I told him that this woman’s mother’s maiden name was Napier, Chuck quickly realized where his Aunt Pier got her name. Everyone called her Pier but it was short for Napier. Learning his ancestors names helped him understand from where several of his family names came.

Chuck’s great grandparents William and Martha had a daughter named Annie Stephens Johnston. When I mentioned this, Chuck said that he remembered this great grandmother. They called her Granny.

She lived a long life and didn’t pass away until Chuck was nine years old. He remembers visiting her home and that one of her adult sons lived with her there but was reclusive in manner.

He remembered his Granny’s house as being a nice home, and he wondered what happened to it. Later while in Augusta a cousin took us on a tour of the city so we could find some of the remembered and earlier residences.

But I’m getting way ahead of myself, because we are still in Thomson.  Chuck’s great grandmother Annie married William Lokey, so I looked this family up and found that William Lokey’s father was Samuel Lokey. I wondered where this family was from and found that they too had lived in Thomson.

So I looked up his grave using FindAGrave.com and found it was in a church yard cemetery just a few miles south of town. Again, using GPS we visited this second set of great-great grandparent’s graves.

Chuch

Sweetwater Baptist Church

We could have tarried much longer in Thomson. as both families were prominent members of the town and I knew that there was probably much more to be found in the town’s local genealogy files and maybe even their local museum; but we had used up most of our time.  We left and drove on into Augusta.

Because much of Chuck’s mother’s family history and especially her childhood was in Augusta, I had done some earlier research using literally over fifty years of city directory entries showing street addresses where the families lived, the heads of household occupations, and even added information like when a woman listed herself as a widow but her husband had actually just divorced her. This provided rich information about Chuck’s great-grandmother, his mother, her sisters and their parents.

August City Directory

Augusta City Directory for 1929

Using the addresses found in Augusta’s city directories, we followed the path of Chuck’s grandparents and subsequently his mom’s history as well. Several of the addresses were vacant lots, but you could look at other old homes nearby and tell something about the neighborhood in which they had lived.

We did find one special address where Chuck’s mom had lived when she was a young teenager. It was really interesting to stand before it and imagine her as a young girl hanging out up there on its balcony porch just to catch a summer breeze in the heat of July or August. These southern interior cities aren’t fortunate enough to have sea breezes.

Augusta Apartment

Dody’s home around 1929 was on the top left of this apartment building.

 

Later, with Chuck’s cousin Ross in tow and accompanied by Chuck’s sister Susan, we looked up their Granny’s home (this was Chuck’s great grandmother Annie Stephens Johnston Lokey). It was just as grand as Chuck described.

It had been moved from one of those vacant lots we had seen earlier. Today that vacant lot is across the street from some recreational fields, but in Dody’s day those fields were a beautifully well-manicured city park with lots of oaks and magnolias.

Chuck’s Granny’s Home

 

The house is several blocks away, and today it houses the offices of a law firm. But I plan to try to look up historical pictures of the street and park where it once set. It is amazing what you can find online now days using Google.

Using GPS and the city directories we also found his Grandmother’s home where she lived from 1947 until she died in 1988. This is the house that Chuck, his sisters and cousins remember best. I took pictures while Chuck and his sister walked around outside the house, obviously trespassing. I noticed that no one came to investigate, and it was clear that someone was home. Smart people, because Chuck and his sister would have surely asked to see the inside.

One of Chuck’s aunt’s stories told about how her older sister would take the two younger ones and cross the very wide Savannah River using an old railroad trestle. Oh dear! Their parents would have killed them if they had known what they were doing. But all three of those girls lived to be over 90 years old. They were living proof that natural selection does not work every time.

Augusta Trestle

My Sister-in-Law Susan & the trestle where her mother and aunts used to cross over the Savannah River to get to South Carolina on the other side.

We found the trestle and took more photos. Susan and I walked a little ways out, but our adult instincts told us that this was surely dangerous. We quickly returned.

We didn’t focus on Dody’s father during this trip, but we couldn’t help noticing his occupation during all those years between 1917 and his death in 1960. He worked his entire life for the Charleston and Western Carolina (the CW&C) Railroad. He started out as a flagman and continued to promote from one railroad position to the next, including engineer, conductor and finally superintendent where he retired.

Chuck remembered vacationing with his grandfather and step-grandmother when Chuck was a boy. His grandfather had use of a club car typically the last car on the train, and the three of them spent as much as two weeks seeing the country. Chuck remembered playing a lot of canasta and watching the world go by outside the club car windows. The porter brought them their meals, and they slept there at night. He says that today he has no idea where all they went.

Club Car

A Club Car Photo on Wikipaedia

It was a wonderful two days walking in Augusta where Dody Littlejohn had once tread. We lost her about five years ago now, but our little trip into her past is how her memory will stay alive for her descendants.
I have been sharing some of the photos we took on Facebook with her grandchildren and great grandchildren. I will also add the photos to her family page gallery in Ancestry for future generations to enjoy.

 

facebook

I recently posted this on Facebook for Chuck’s family.

 

Through research we now know that sharing our family history with our children helps them to be better-grounded adults. A little family trip like this is a perfect way to bring their family heritage to life.
Planning a heritage trip like this involves a few steps.

1.  Pick a family and destination.  In this case, I knew that we were going to Augusta, so I decided to look up Chuck’s great-great grandfather Johnston, who lived in a town nearby. I started with him because he lived a most interesting life.

2. Research this ancestor and the town where he or she lived.  Find two or three sites to visit.

3. GPS the addresses for the sites.  Prepare your stops ahead of time.

4. Prepare your family members for what they will see.  Read about the ancestor(s).  Show them pictures if you have them.

5. After reaching the sites, ask for their help in locating the grave, church, etc.  It helps to have photos.

6. Stop after two or three sites a day.  You don’t want to bore or overwhelm them.  And you want to leave with them asking for more.

7. Follow up with photos on Facebook or another way of networking for other family members who were unable to join you for the trip.

Genealogy: When We Confuse the Dead and Irritate the Living

by Filed Under: Family Life, Genealogy, Travel Leave a Comment

I loved some of the bumper stickers I saw in the Exhibit Hall at the National Genealogical Society Family History Convention in Ft. Lauderdale. My favorite and the one I bought for my car reads, “Genealogists never die, they just lose their census.”  

But another one that I also liked was “Genealogy: When you confuse the dead and irritate the living.”  

I thought I saw one somewhere that said, “Genealogy: When you stalk the dead and irritate the young.” Which brings me to something I noticed at the convention. Mostly, we are an older group. Almost everyone was at least 50 to 55. 

There has always been concern about keeping our children interested in their family heritage. Yesterday morning there was even a Genealogy Youth Camp offered free of charge. It was filled with activities to help the attendees appreciate their family heritage.  

I also noticed while walking around looking at exhibits that there were at least two booths that were specifically aimed at grandmothers with grandchildren. Both were super cute. 

One had a book published here in Florida. It is entitled “My Heritage” and is a custom-designed book created by Deana Bufo Novak. It is designed to teach children about their own individual heritage and roots.  

The book is custom printed for each child. You can choose up to four different countries where their ancestors came from. When completed it teaches the child about their ancestors’ countries’ languages, traditional clothing, geography and much more.  

For Christmas we gave each of our children and their spouses Autosomal DNA testing kits, so now we know the primary ethnicity of each. This book could be an excellent follow-up gift for each grandchild.  You can learn more about this book and their other products here.

Another booth had a sign that promised to help me “Zap the Grandma Gap”. It encouraged me to connect with my family by connecting them to their family history.  

What a cute idea! A game, a workbook of activities, and much more all designed to help our grandchildren explore their family history. These would make great, summertime activities.  You can learn more about Zap the Grandma Gap here.

Finally, another booth was manned by a young woman dressed in period costume. Called History Lines, it features an interactive outline and map, designed so that one can add their own ancestor’s photos, stories, memories and basic vital information.  

After it is entered, the software fills in the blanks so that one can explore the lifestyle and culture of their ancestor as they lived in a certain location during a certain era. One can also input how they grew up, were educated, dressed, and even married. 

This allows them to follow their ancestor’s migratory history on an interactive map. The software fills in the additional information; and the end product is a story and maps designed so they can explore, build, and share their family’s history.  

But I’m thinking that a teenager might enjoy working with History Lines, especially for a history project at school. My daughter Jamie did a history project like this once. She traced her Grandfather Littlejohn’s path during WWII, which took him to places like Cornell University for officer’s training and Omaha Beach during the Normandy Invasion.  

She learned a lot about Chuck’s Dad and even more about that historical moment in our history. Later, we used the project to plan our family’s vacation to Europe to see those locations.

I believe software like History Lines would be ideal for a young person to use to recreate their grandmother or grandfather’s story.  You can find more information at their website History Lines. 

Speaking of travel to Europe, I was especially impressed that the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland had a booth encouraging me to study genealogy online. Hmmmm. I wonder if I could talk Chuck into a study program in Scotland. After all, he and I both have ancestors from Scotland; and he has never been there.

All of these would be great ideas for this summer!

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