How to Market Your Book for Christmas

November 4, 2024 by oldageisnotforsissies54 Filed Under: Family History Writing, Palmetto Pioneers

I’ve used this blog to teach or share with others how I taught myself a project, such as the genealogy posts with “how to” and “step-by-step” instructions. In the realm of family history writing, I’ve shared a lot of my research tips. So today, this post will be about book publishing and marketing.

Stop reading here if you are not interested in publishing or marketing a book.

I just completed a Marketing Plan for my books. It has seven sections, from ‘Planning My Promotion on Amazon to Begin in October’ to ‘A List of Blurbs to Use in Ads.’ I’ll begin with the latter.

I’ve collected possible blurbs to add to my advertisements. For example, “Ebooks are great for last-minute gifts because no shipping is involved and delivery is instant!” Here are more:

Give the Gift of a Good Book
Escape Reality. Travel Back in Time
The Perfect Gift for Bookshelf Browsers
A Gift for Your Older Florida Teenagers
A Love Story for the Ladies and a War for the Men
Give a book instead of a box of biscuits
Finished Your Shopping List? Don’t forget yourself!
Packed with fascinating stories from Old Florida!
A Unique Insight into Our Past
Books Make Great Gifts
For That Hard to Buy for Person
For the Person who has Everything!
Twas’ the night before Christmas, and all through Florida, Not a cocktail stirred, not even a colada; The flipflops hung on the palm tree with care. In hope that Santa brought books this year!
A Book is a Christmas Gift you can Open Again and Again
Local Ad – Give a Signed Copy of Palmetto Pioneers this Christmas!
Black Friday Ad — On Sale Palmetto Pioneers: The Emigrants Ebook or Kindle Edition $1.99 TODAY ONLY!

In the first section, I set up promos for each book. My graphic designer made me one ad, which I duplicated in different sizes for different platforms. One is for Facebook, Instagram, Bookbub, Amazon, etc.” The one below was done for Facebook. For example, detail iii says, “Send teasers to inform everyone there’s a price promotion coming (Black Friday). “Detail v. says, “Set up a KDP discount of Book 1 for Black Friday and Cyber Monday.”

I entitled the second section “Timeline of Times to Sell.” For example, detail c says, “Thanksgiving Weekend—For those traveling, suggest an ebook for their family holiday.” Another is detail e, which says, “Two Days Before Christmas means last-minute gift and a suggestion that an ebook makes a perfect last-minute gift because no shipping is needed and the gift is instant.”

The third section is for Kindle Gifts. I directed myself to optimize my book’s final pages. It directs the reader to purchase either Book 1 or Book 2, as either the prequel or sequel to what they just finished. Amazon will allow you to make a small change to the book, even after it is published.

Section four tells me to “Start Early on Social Media.” For example, detail a) directs me to get set up for advertising on Facebook. Whereas detail b) directs me to be creative and not depend on paid advertising. For example, I need to brainstorm about all the right reasons for buying my books. Detail f) gives me a boost by directing me to make sure all my visuals are eye-catching. Some of these are simply items on a checklist, to make sure my ad or creative is checking all the boxes needed.

Section five is to write a blog post on Christmas gift ideas and include my books. It also reminds me to include a direct link to purchase my book.

Section six simply asks me a question. Are my ads from last year and the year before last usable/ Can they be reused? How successful were they? Did I even measure their success?

So that is an explanation of my Christmas Marketing Plan. If you would like a copy, subscribe and leave a comment below asking for it. I’ll look up your subscriber’s email address and send you an email with my plan attached.

Happy Marketing!

An Update on the Florida Book Series “Palmetto Pioneers”

September 3, 2024 by oldageisnotforsissies54 Filed Under: Books, Genealogy, Palmetto Pioneers

The backdrop for this trilogy is North Florida, specifically a county in the often-overlooked Forgotten Coast region. Locals also call it the Big Bend, and we’ve sometimes joked that it’s Florida’s armpit—where nothing ever happens. But that changed in the past two years when hurricanes Idalia and Debby paid us a visit.

Map of Florida Showing Jefferson County in Red

However, that’s not the entire story, as I’ve detailed in my book series. As Florida struggled to gain statehood, Jefferson County flourished and became home to the descendants of some of our nation’s founding fathers and Revolutionary War heroes. Even an exiled crowned prince, Achille Murat, found his home here with his wife, the grandniece of George Washington. Murat, the grandnephew of Napoleon Bonaparte, eventually became the County Judge.

I explore these fascinating beginnings in the first book of the series, but by the time the Civil War erupted in 1861, most of these early figures had either passed away or moved on.

Despite this, the county continued to prosper—until everything changed. I delve into this in the second book, From Harmony to Hostility.

During the boom years leading up to the Civil War, Monticello’s wealthier residents constructed many of the homes and businesses that still stand today.

The third book in the series, Yankees in the Courthouse, examines how this community weathered the storm of the Civil War and Reconstruction. Due to the high percentage of freedmen in Jefferson County, federal forces occupied the area, giving rise to the book’s title.

The setting for all three books is this county as it develops—growing and shrinking, as families come together and fall apart, and as the local economy experiences booms and busts.

Book Awards

A few months after self-publishing my first book, The Migrants, a reader suggested I enter it into the Florida Book Awards. I hadn’t heard of these awards before, but when I looked them up, I discovered my book had already missed the deadline.

However, there were other award programs, both statewide and national. Although some were out of reach because I write nonfiction and am self-published, I found a few I could enter. I was told that winning an award could help with marketing.

Last May, Palmetto Pioneers: The Migrants won a national IPPY bronze medal for nonfiction in the Southeastern region. Then, in August, the Florida Authors and Publishers Association awarded the same book a gold medal for history, a gold medal for biography, and a silver medal for cover design.

Suppose you’re interested in Florida’s prior history. In that case, particularly the period between its territorial days and statehood, spanning the time it was under Spanish rule until it seceded from the Union—this series offers a rich, detailed portrait of life during those years. It follows a family from the time they leave South Carolina in 1829 until their oldest daughter reaches her senior years in 1871. The series captures what they encountered upon arrival, the challenges they faced while homesteading and the life of a cattleman providing for his family during the nation’s most expensive Indian War. It also tells the story of his daughter’s marriage to a stranger from Washington, DC.

The second book delves into her life and explores what it was like for women to thrive in such challenging times. It also traces her husband’s journey as he becomes a politician, lawman, and soldier in the Civil War.

The third book, still in the editing phase and set for publication by 2026, will continue their story through the Civil War and into the Reconstruction years. This series, grounded in historical fact, provides a vivid, true-to-life account of Florida’s past.

Self-Publish? It’s Easy!

April 16, 2024 by oldageisnotforsissies54 Filed Under: Family History Writing, Palmetto Pioneers

I am a self-publisher. I’ve published three books—two narrative non-fiction and one general nonfiction. The two former are in a series entitled Palmetto Pioneers, about the Walker family, who settled in territorial Florida, almost two hundred years ago in the late 1820s. Their story began in 1829 and ended in 1871.

These two books are published on Amazon, and it was easier to publish than I imagined. They are available on Amazon as e-books, paperbacks, hardbacks, and audibles.

Below is a link to the first book.

The First Book in the Palmetto Pioneers Series

Several people asked me to explain the publishing process. So here we go.

Book Speak

First, let’s discuss the semantics used in writing and publishing. The production process begins with prewriting (the thinking and planning), writing (first draft), revising (rewriting, changing, and improving your first draft), editing (checking, rechecking, and proofreading your revisions ad nauseam), and developing your final copy into a document, like Word. As the author, you manage the production process and can hire the right people or services to do the other parts, such as final editing, designing your cover, and distributing your book.

Prewriting, Writing, & Revising

For my prewriting, I use Scrivener, an app for writers of all kinds. It allows you to plan, outline your book, and compose your text in any order, in sections as large or small as you like. I actually do all my writing within Scrivener. I can set up chapters and add material as I work through the book. I rewrite, change, and improve my first draft within Scrivener. In the end, I can ask Scrivener to compile the entire manuscript. Afterward, I copy it and place it in a Word document.

Editing

I use Word for the final edits. I check and recheck my revisions and send the Word document to my content editors. For me, these are usually people who are experts in their field and are friends. They fact-check my work. For example, I had a civil war expert examine my latest work to see if I had any inaccuracies. He found several, including a song used two years before it was available commercially.

Formatting

Next is formatting. This is all about presenting my book in an attractive, easy-to-read, and professional way. This is where I prepare it for publication, ensuring consistent font styles and sizes, appropriate headers and sub-headers, and using consistent indentations and spacing.

For example, I like the serif Palatino Linotype font at 12 point. If I were working with a traditional publisher, their team would do this for me; but I self-publish, so the work falls to me.

I set my margins, commonly at 1 inch. I decide on bleeds (do I want it to extend beyond the document’s edge.) Headers are where my book title and author information appear. Footers are where my page numbers sit. Footnotes can also be in the footers, but I do not use them, especially in narrative nonfiction writing. I also do not use a header or footer on the first page of each chapter.

My paragraphs are usually indented (not tabbed) and are justified with the outside of my lines completely straight. Line spacing is usually 1.3 – 1.5 line height. The first paragraph, though, at the start of a new chapter is not indented. I consistently change the font size for chapter titles and secondary or tertiary chapters.

Once all my basic formatting is done, I add my images. It is important to do this before adding your page breaks because image placement can be affected by where on a page a new chapter might begin. Make sure your images have enough space on the edges for binding and bleeds. I personally like for them to stay within the text margins.

Now it is time to work with page breaks. Each new chapter should start on a new page. Add a “next page section break” at the end of each chapter for this to occur. Also, go through your manuscript to see if your images haven’t created blank pages accidentally.

Finally, check for widows and orphans. That is publishing speak for the first line of a paragraph by itself or the last line of a page separated from the rest of the text. To fix them you can slightly adjust line spacing or use other tricks. Widows and orphans, though, are only a problem for print versions. One cannot control them in an ebook.

In this Word document, I’ll need front matter, which is the title page, possibly a half-title page, copyright page, optional dedication, table of contents, preface, and optional forward.

Next is the content, the full text of my manuscript. I can also add an epilogue or conclusion here.

In the back matter, one can have the acknowledgments (though these can be in the front matter if needed.) One can also add a section about the author, an afterword, a glossary, discussion questions, an index, appendices, a bibliography, sneak peeks, and additional works.

At the end of this process, I can easily convert my final word document to an EPub or PDF document. Or I can download the Word document itself if requested by the publisher.

Publishing

The publishing process does not begin until you have submitted a final manuscript in these printer-ready files. Publishing is the preparation of your final copy to share with an audience. Publishing comes in many forms and depends on the purpose and audience.

Today anyone can get published. One can get the same level of online retail publishing and distribution as those who go through traditional publishers.

All kinds of companies offer these services, such as Amazon KDP, IngramSpark, Lulu, Draft2Digital, etc. The process works well for print, e-book, and audible versions. I personally found Amazon KDP super easy. Ingramspark was very difficult. Lulu was the first company I used for my first book, and it was easy to use, too.

Distribution

For some companies, no money changes hands until the book begins to sell. That is when a company like Amazon gets its cut.

You have total control over the artistic decisions and can keep all the profits and rights.

However, self-publishing comes with a lot of work. You decide on your book’s production (the process required to turn your raw manuscript into a final printed product or ebook, design, and editorial content. But there are all kinds of online help.

Some companies will offer fee-based services for editing, marketing, and design. And they’re also freelancers that do it. For example, I use a local freelancer for my final editing.

Different Versions of Publishing

E-book Publishing

E-books are the best-selling formats for self-publishing authors especially for fiction. However, some formats do not work as well, such as highly illustrated books and children’s books.

E-book retailers are not publishers, and they take no responsibility for the quality of your work. However, you also do not forfeit any rights to your work.

There are e-book retailers such as Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) and e-book distributors, such as Draft2Digital. Amazon KDP is a retailer that distributes and sells self-published books through its storefront. It takes a cut of the sales. Some like to use Amazon KDP to sell and distribute directly. then use a distributor like Draft2Digital to reach everyone else. Neither of these services demands exclusivity.

Most e-book retailers do not require an ISBN number or a numeric commercial book identifier, but some do. Kindle will provide a number, but you cannot use it with anyone else that requires it. To obtain an overall number, I use Bowker, an online service.

Your book’s pricing is according to the company you use. Amazon penalizes for pricing outside of a window, $2.99 to $9.99. Barnes & Noble’s Nook and Apple pay 70% across the board. Kobo has the most favorable cut for the under-$2.99 price.

Some e-book publishers will accept a Word document. Others require an EPub version. The latter is considered a global standard format for e-books. It works seamlessly on most devices and works everywhere.

Mobi is no longer used, though it was once required by Kindle. A PDF version can be difficult to convert, and it’s not a good starting point for e-book conversion.

To convert my work from one format to another, I have used Calibre, a free software that converts and helps you format e-book files. For example, I used it to convert my file from Word to EPUB. For Mac users, Vellum is popular.

For those uncomfortable with doing this themselves, you can use a company such as Draft2Digital.

However, if I can do it, you can too. I just start with the Word document.

Print Versions

These are done in two primary ways: print-on-demand (POD) and traditional, offset printing. POD is the most popular way to produce print copies because it reduces financial risk. There are also few upfront costs.

Off-set Printing usually requires a minimum of 1,000 copies. Therefore, you have more upfront costs, though this is the better option for illustrated or photography books.

When I first launch a book, I try to keep on hand about 35 copies. I use these copies to sell at book signing events, Club programs, local store inventories, etc. One of my most successful book signing events was a private affair in someone’s home. She invited a crowd, and I sold over 50 books that night. The event was about five weeks before Christmas. Thankfully, I had that many on hand.

I worked hard to distribute to small, locally-owned bookstores, and I have had some success. However, most of my success has been from local gift and antique shops. You cannot expect success, though, without some sort of mutual marketing. Most bookstores will do a book signing or reading, and I use my social media to get people there. I do not leave it up to the bookstore.

I have never expected national bookstores to carry my books.

When I receive a shipment of books, I sign each on its title page and place a gold sticker on the front that shows the buyer that this is an autographed copy. Lately, for the first book in the Palmetto Pioneers series, I have only been keeping 20 copies on hand. Amazon is fairly quick at getting the extra copies.

For print editions, your success will usually be your cover design, the quality of your book, your reach, and your visibility. My covers have been a duo effort using watercolor artwork of a local building. My work is nonfiction and some of the settings, buildings, are still standing. The art design is by a local graphic designer, who is just starting out.

Contracting

I handle my own formatting and page layout. I farm out my final editing.

My reach is through Amazon, social media, and word of mouth, as is my visibility. I am experimenting with Bookbub using their paid advertising and their readers. I am testing different ads and messages for various categories of readers.

Marketing

In ebook marketing, other factors are in play. In fiction, the price point is lower. Most novels sell at $2.99 or less. The price point for nonfiction, though, is much higher. Also, your book description, author page, and reviews are critical in driving ebook sales.

One marketing strategy is to use freebies. KDP Select allows you to use this marketing strategy every few months. Authors use freebies, Ebook freebies, to make people aware of their book.

I did this just before my second book in the Palmetto Pioneers series was released. Over three days, I offered a free copy of the first book’s ebook version. Amazon allowed it, and the campaign created awareness or attention amongst new readers. Once a reader is aware, hopefully, it manifests in their interest and desire to read more books in the series. In turn, the interested reader will yearn for it enough to take action and buy the next book in the series. Voila, I have a new reader!

Some authors do perma-free and offer their books free permanently. They keep the first book free indefinitely. I decided against this strategy for Palmetto Pioneers.

Did You Know There Were Outlaws & Gangs in Frontier Florida?

February 20, 2024 by oldageisnotforsissies54 Filed Under: Books, Palmetto Pioneers

Frontier Florida was a hostile place. Settlers dealt with the problems of living on a frontier—the extreme limit of settled land. Jefferson County, located in North Florida, was no exception. It was a sparsely populated wilderness and a refuge for people to misbehave.

Frontier Florida had its own gangs of outlaws. I identified one such gang in the book “Palmetto Pioneers: From Harmony to Hostilities.” I plan to release the book within a couple of weeks. Here is an excerpt from the first chapter.

Monticello’s Courthouse in 1844

“Before New Year’s Day of 1845, three South Georgia men captured Stephen Yeomans. Word spread. Rumors were rampant. Yeoman’s gang plotted to free him either while he was being transported to the jail or as soon as a posse brought him back to town. Everyone worried the rickety old Monticello jail could not hold him long. So the Florida men planned to meet the three South Georgia men and their prisoner at the Florida-Georgia line for the exchange in “No-Man’s Land.” An assembly of ninety men rode north from Monticello, a ride of eight miles.

“No Man’s Land” was the name for the strip of land located on the state line. It received its name because of an ongoing dispute between the two states about where exactly the state line stood. It wasn’t until the 1870s that the US Supreme Court finally decided the dispute. Because both Florida and Georgia claimed it, it belonged to neither and was not subject to either’s laws.

In “No Man’s Land,” the exchange of the prisoner took place; and subsequently, the men chose a committee on the spot to serve as a jury. Yeomans’s impromptu trial was out of the jurisdiction of either state.

One man was voted chair. “I need one of you men of the cloth to swear in the witnesses.” Earlier, Yeomans confessed, naming fourteen men as his accomplices. Several were Jefferson County citizens.

The trial lasted all day. “Guilty!” said the juror’s foreman.

The crowd of men hesitated. A tall, gaunt man said, “His gang knows how poor our jail is. They’ll be waiting for us by the time we get back. They’ll probably set fire to our town to break him out.”

Added another, “Even if they don’t show up, our jail will never hold him, anyway. We’ve just wasted our time if we take him to Monticello.”

“It’s a long way back, and there are many places where an ambush is certain.” It was as if they were trying to convince themselves what they would do had to be done.

Another vote followed. The chair spoke. “I need a show of hands. Who votes to take him back? And who votes to hang him here?” On a vote of sixty-seven to twenty-three, they voted to hang him in “No Man’s Land” on the following day. A guard of twenty-five men watched him during the night, as they expected his gang to free him at any moment.

Early the next morning, Yeomans asked for a prayer on his behalf. Since there were four ministers in the group, one stepped forward to pray. All the men removed their hats.

At noon, January 2nd, they hung Yeoman.”

This newest book, the 2nd book in the Palmetto Pioneers series, should be released soon!

By today’s standards, we would consider this uncivilized. But we have good jails, trained law enforcement, and almost two centuries of laws and court precedent. Communities in these sparsely populated areas in 1844 had none. It was usual for convicted felons to escape and commit more carnage. Gangs pillaged unimpeded. People did what they had to do to remain safe.

What would you have done to keep your family safe in this part of Florida in the early 1800s? Also, No Man’s Land reminds me of “Yellowstone,” the TV series. Any thoughts about that?

Book 2 of “Palmetto Pioneers” – A Work in Progress

October 14, 2023 by oldageisnotforsissies54 Filed Under: Books, Palmetto Pioneers

Here is an update on the progress of my latest novel, Palmetto Pioneers: From Harmony to Hostility. It is book 2 in the series.

By mid-summer, I finished the deep editing and turned the book over to my last content editor, a Civil War expert, Clint Johnson. He returned it to me by the end of summer, with some changes needed. Apparently, my dates on some songs published during the war were off. I had their dates wrong. Other changes were needed, but I was happy that there were few.

With the changes made, the book was in the hands of my final editor, who now has it. She will ensure that all my written materials are accurate and high-quality. She will confirm the book flows well and is easy for readers to understand. She checks it for spelling, punctuation, and grammatical errors. Verification of facts is done. I should have it back and make her changes by the end of this month.

Concurrently, my artist friend is working on the watercolor painting we’ll use for the front cover. After this step, my niece Hannah, a graphic designer, will work on the overall cover, which I’ll add to the final product that goes to Amazon.

There will be a new step for this book. I will send the Amazon-published product to BookSirens to have it reviewed by my fellow authors. Hopefully, they will accept it. Other authors who choose to help can read an Advanced Review Copy for their thoughts.

Finally, I’m hopeful Amazon will publish and release it by Christmas. My goal was always for the end of this year.

If you are interested and able, please subscribe to Old Age is Not For Sissies to get a “behind the scenes” look at my writing, scenes, character profiles, and more! Scroll to the top of this page, add your email address, and “subscribe.”

A Timeline Can Make Your Writing Better

February 6, 2023 by oldageisnotforsissies54 Filed Under: Genealogy, Palmetto Pioneers

Since I published the book, I’ve had numerous requests for information on how I prepared. Writing a family history book, especially one that is narrative, required research and ways to analyze the information found.

I spent over two years researching the book. I gathered my main character’s information, reviewed what I already had, and searched for her FAN Club (her friends, associates, and neighbors). Still, making a timeline was one of the most essential parts of this research. It included dates, events, places, and occupations.

In the end, I had several different timelines: one for the family (dates of births, religious dates, marriages, deaths, etc.), one for local events (Monticello & Jefferson County), one for state events (Florida), and one for national. There were two more for the Civil War and for the Second Seminole Indian War. I added nothing to a timeline without a good reference, and I immediately added the reference to my bibliography.

I used timelines to illustrate how things changed over time and to draw connections between the people and events. I also used them to check my work, especially the chronological events. Sometimes, it helped me add more dialogue since it is obvious the residents of a town would converse about important changes happening to them.

My timelines brought together elements of my character’s history, the people they may have known, the places they may have frequented, and the events that might have brought them to town.

The timelines were formatted with bullets for the dates and events. Sometimes, it was for a full date and sometimes only a year was given.

I eventually did a spreadsheet for the Civil War, showing the men from the family who fought in it, their units, and the places they fought. I could add a line anytime I needed, and I could sort the date, event, or place. This was especially helpful. I added their regiments and companies and could sort them according to such. This way, I could see them as a unit for questions like who else served with them, who was wounded in a particular battle, and who didn’t return home.

Initially, I didn’t cite sources for the individual events within the timelines, but I realized later I should have. It would have made it easier for me to check a reference when I noticed that the order of some events was duplicated. For example, I discovered conflicting dates for events in the Indian and Civil Wars. They conflicted because people’s memories aren’t always the same. A person’s diary written on the spot is better than a person’s memoir, especially when that person’s memoir was written fifty years after the event.

When Location Becomes Their Story

December 10, 2022 by oldageisnotforsissies54 Filed Under: Books, Following Old Trails, Genealogy, Palmetto Pioneers

One of the most important parts of writing the book “Palmetto Pioneers” was research. Studying the location of my chosen ancestor became an important next step.

But let’s take a step back. I didn’t begin looking at the locations. I began reviewing what I already knew about my main character, Mary. I went back to my original research, first to my paper files, then my online files, such as her family’s Ancestry tree.

This review identified all the places she had lived or traveled. This was easy because Mary lived in Colleton District, South Carolina and traveled by wagon with her parents and extended family to Jefferson County, Florida. It appears she lived there for the rest of her life, so I only had three locations to research, but one of which was fluid.

I asked questions. Where was she married (Jefferson County, Florida marriage record)? When and where were her children born (census records which showed when and where she lived)? Where and when did she die? I also looked for land, court, and probate records.

An important part of this process was making a timeline for the family. It had three columns—one for the event, one for the date, and another for the place. It helped tremendously when trying to find events or write about them in the correct order they happened.

It also showed flaws in the research. Not everyone’s memory is the same for any event, and people make mistakes when recording important dates. Timelines helped me find the discrepancies and then helped me either fix the discrepancies or explain them in the book.

These earlier steps, used to analyze Mary and those around her, brought me to the next part of my research.

Where did these events take place? And what did I know about them?

Using census records for her father and the other Walker heads of household in the family, we know she came from South Carolina, most likely Colleton District, southwest of Charleston. But what did I really know about that area? This became an important question for the next step.

I began with the courthouse in Colleton County, but before making a trip up there, I researched the courthouse itself and where I could expect to find records. Right away, I discovered that though the courthouse itself did not burn during the Civil War, its records did. Because they were on the path of Sherman, they sent their records for safekeeping to their capital, Columbia. After marching through Colleton County and leaving its courthouse untouched, Sherman made a beeline to Columbia and burned the capitol and Colleton’s records there.

However, I learned that there are land records in neighboring counties that show lands near the county lines. They reflect who owned the land across the line. Barnwell County’s records for Lightsey lands showed the Walkers were their neighbors in Colleton County. I also learned that people have donated records from their families to a local Genealogy Room, which was in the same building as Colleton’s extension service. There is also a genealogy room at the county library.

Roadtrip!

This led to my favorite pastime—travel. Add a trip to a genealogical site, and for me it is a match made in heaven. I chose one of the old routes, certainly not an interstate highway, and I drove from Monticello to Walterboro, wondering if these families may have used a trail or road nearby.

Family Search Wiki, Colonial Roads in America

Using all this information, I made several trips to Walterboro, the county seat, and to the location of the Walker lands near Carter’s Ford on the Little Salkehatchie River. This location research was invaluable to the story, especially when the family still lived in South Carolina. It was wonderful to walk where they had walked almost two hundred years before, but why did they leave? Studying their first location could help provide answers.

The Florida State Genealogical Society featured a speaker last month during their Poolside Chat series. Diana Elder suggested in her presentation entitled, “Locality, Locality, Locality: Putting Your Ancestors in Their Place,” that one should create a “locality guide.” I wish I had listened to this about six years ago. It would have saved me later headaches.

I should have created a “Colleton County Locality Guide,” with a section for “Background Information,” showing “Quick Facts” such as laws that changed the economic environment for the family and their dates, purchases of property, natural disasters in their area, when South Carolina became a colony, and so forth. One event I found was the building of a nearby railroad, which might have changed the family’s mind about moving since the railroad provided better opportunities to reach new markets.

In the Locality Guide, “General Collections” shows where to find information as well as “Online Research Guides” and “Maps and their Dates”. Here, one records maps that show the changes in state and county lines. Within Colleton County, they divided the county into parishes. The family lived in the St. Bartholomew Parish, but did they always? The guide is used to collect all the information found about a location.

The Walker Migration Route

Another important research project was trying to find how they got to Jefferson County, Florida, from Colleton District, South Carolina. I knew the names of several trails between the two areas, and I began my research quest by studying those trails.

Later, though, I discovered that the best place to begin this research was Family Search Wiki. Simply enter the words “migration” and the location to find the different trails and roads in an area. It gives you a list of trails and roads plus maps and other resources.

Usually, I began by googling the name of a town, river, road, trail, or anything else on which I needed more information. It usually sent me to other sources, such as maps, gazetteers, trails, and so forth.

Several gazetteers became important. You can find them using Family Search Wiki. Search for “gazetteer”(singular) and then enter the location you wish to find. We can find the digitized ones this way, but I found some that were not digitized in the bibliographies of other historical works. Always check their sources. It will surprise you what you uncover.

Maps became very important to the story. They showed me how they got to Florida.

I began with trails, because they built most of the older roads on old Indian or military trails. I found some on old maps, especially the earliest maps. William Dollarhide has done much work in identifying old trails throughout the nation. His books were very important to my work. I also used diaries and journals to learn what they saw on the trails and roads when they migrated south. In the book, what the Walkers saw on their journey south was in those diaries and journals.

Something I did not use is the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) on the United States Geographical Survey (USGS) website. I discovered it well after I had finished my research. Here you can search for the names of trails, and also towns, post offices, lakes, and rivers nearby.

Once I had sufficient information about the trails and roads available, I analyzed them for the families’ most likely route. Because they drove a foundation herd of cattle with them, I cut two of the more popular routes from the list—not enough water.

Why Florida?

The next step was to study her final home. Why did the family choose Florida? What else was out there? Newspapers seemed to be a good place to start, and there were Charleston papers that they may have read. Mary’s father and uncles were educated men. I discovered a wealth of information about moving to Florida, some of it from the South Carolina papers in their era.

I also had records already in my files. Federal censuses showed us when they made the move. Some children were born in South Carolina, and others in Florida. Land records showed us when the land was available for the family to buy. The Walkers came here before the land was available in the area they settled. They probably squatted on that land and made improvements that gave them the first dibs.

An early probate record for her grandfather told a story about how hard it was to live with local diseases such as malaria. Court records showed when they made their trips eight miles away to the county seat. All of this was important because vital records mostly did not exist. There were no death records or birth records in territorial Florida. There were only church records and Bible records, but few.

I mentioned a boundary issue earlier while they were in South Carolina. Though the boundary did not change, some in Colleton County were lucky to live near the boundary of another county, whose records did not burn. Atlas of Historical County Boundaries is a website by The Newberry Library which shows how a county’s boundary changed. It also shows state boundaries, too.

When the Walker family moved to Florida, it appears another group of Walkers moved just north of the state line in Georgia—an area less than ten miles away. We know from DNA they are kin to each other and from census records; they lived in Colleton District, too. We could never determine if they made the trip down together, though.

https://historygeo.com/

Later, Historygeo.com showed me who first bought the lands next to them once they bought land and settled in Jefferson County. History Geo even showed me how far away two massacred families lived during the Second Seminole Indian War. Using the sound of a gunshot, I determined which of them the family could hear from their home. I decided all of this using locality research.

Finally, I spent a lot of time studying the history of Jefferson County. It provided clues why they came when they did. For example, our state government only recently formed Jefferson County. It was less than two years old. Its land was just becoming available for sale from the state.

Historical books for a county can be important. Being from the county, I am a local and I knew which books to use. However, the National Genealogical Society has a series of books entitled “NGS Research in the States.” There is one for Florida, and it tells you where to go to find information on any county in the state. I also visited Family Search Wiki to look at their state timelines. It provided me a beginning for my in-house state events timeline.

In Jefferson County, the WPA did a research project in the 1930s, and they generated a book. We call it the Green Book. It includes first-hand stories from the children of these early settlers. A University of Florida professor wrote another county history book in 1976. Contracted by the Jefferson County Historical Association, it is an excellent source. Add to these the various diaries and journals kept, and they provided plentiful information about what Monticello and Jefferson County looked like when the Walkers arrived.

Jefferson County Courthouse, replaced in early 1900s

Locality research was vital to the book and an understanding of who these people were and what happened to them. It helped me determine who they were in South Carolina, how they got to Florida, and what impact they had on their new community once they arrived. Location research provided a wealth of information. I could not have written “Palmetto Pioneers” without it.

I’m Back!

August 3, 2022 by oldageisnotforsissies54 Filed Under: Family Life, Palmetto Pioneers

Several years ago, I wrote a farewell post letting all of you know that I was taking some time off. The post is here.

Chuck’s dementia and the book I was writing took too much of my time. I suspended the blog for the interim.

I am happy to announce that the book is finished and finally published. I knew it was taking me forever, but the book is now three books of the “Palmetto Pioneers” series. Here is a post I did on the book back in 2016.

The first book in the series is entitled, “The Emigrants”, and it follows the main character’s life from the age of 7 until Florida becomes a state in 1845, when she was 23 and married. Her family moves to the territory of Florida in 1829.

Full Book Cover (Front, Spine, and Back)

The book has three purposes. The primary purpose is to help her descendants understand what it was like to move to Florida during that era. It describes what Monticello looked like when they arrived, and how it and Jefferson County changed over the early years of its founding.

A secondary purpose of the book is for Jefferson County and its residents to understand the area’s heritage.

A third purpose is for Floridians to understand this part of the state and the role it played in the formation of the down-state areas. Many of these families migrated farther south after the Indian wars and the Civil War.

So I am back writing posts for this blog. Chuck is doing as well as can be expected. He no longer drives and lacks his short-term memory, but he is still fairly independent, especially after we moved from the larger house to my much smaller family home. We are in walking distance of downtown with its coffee shop, barber shop, and vegetable and fruit stand.

Chuck walks everywhere and enjoys his newfound freedom. He has no trouble finding his way back home as long as he can see the courthouse which is higher than anything else in town. From the courthouse, he knows to go toward the bank and keep walking.

More to follow!

I won’t post weekly like before, but will try to post at least once a month.

Following Old Trails: The Trail to Tallahassee

October 17, 2016 by oldageisnotforsissies54 Filed Under: Following Old Trails, Genealogy, Palmetto Pioneers, Travel

In an earlier post, Chuck and I followed some old trails and roads that 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 Capital of Georgia in the 1820s and it was 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 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 follow the fall line.

The other theory is that it followed the fall line 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 Creeks were supplied under the Treaty of New York of 1790. It is also where the 1802 treaty was signed when the Creeks 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 1797 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 Road. 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 Road, is because of a document that named several cities that were built 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, andToombsboro. 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 did a possible new route open 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 this old road follows SR 112. SR 112 pretty much will take you all the way to Cairo, Georgia 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 decided 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 wagon 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 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, if they came this way, a decade later. Many great and distinguished men traveled this old road, and it probably was used by General 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 Road at Greenough just a little south of where Gum Pond was located. One can then take SR 112 to Cairo from here.

In Cairo, some signs mark the Old Hawthorne Trail. These Hawthorne Trail signs run west of the city. These street signs call it the Upper Hawthorne Trail which runs southeast into Cairo.

Here the Upper Hawthorne roadbed is clay, reminiscent of the country music that romanticizes South Georgia’s 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 Road 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 have 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-lane 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 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 Road. If you follow this road, it dead ends in Florida.

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

Concord Road (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.

(Note dated May 24, 2022: After more research, Blackshear’s Trail became the family’s best route to take. It shortened their time on the trail to Florida considerably and had plenty of water for the cattle.)

Traveling Old Trails

July 27, 2016 by oldageisnotforsissies54 Filed Under: Following Old Trails, Genealogy, Palmetto Pioneers

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 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.

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 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, 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.

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, 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 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

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 3^rd 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.

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.

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 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

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

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 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, 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 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

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.)
What old trails or roads were available during these dates? I used old maps to help me determine what trails and roads were available.)
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.)
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.)
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.)
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.)
Look up the weather for that time period. Was it normal, wet or drought? (Use newspaper articles, diaries and journals.)
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?

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