Feature Friday: “Will Go By the Hemp Route,” 1896

Source: The Gainesville [GA] Eagle, Thursday, January 2, 1896, page 3, column 2.

Amanuensis Monday: Rosetta Darnell et al. to M. B. Darnell, 15 June 1921

This deed ties together at least three generations of Darnells in Rabun County, from Harrison Darnell to his children to many of his grandchildren.

Source: Rabun County, Georgia, Deed Record B-2: 379-80; Clerk of the Superior Court, Clayton.

Please note that I’ve only transcribed the indenture itself. There were other supporting documents recorded after that, many of which gave the physical localities of Harrison’s descendants.

Tombstone Tuesday: Other Stonecypher Markers, Stonecypher Cemetery, Rabun Co., GA

These markers are located next to William and Malissa V. Stonecypher’s graves on the far side of the cemetery from the parking area. For directions and information on William and Malissa’s markes, see Cemetery Sunday: Stonecypher Cemetery, Rabun Co., GA.

These three stones mark the graves of five infants, all children of V. T. and L. J. Stonecypher.

Cemetery Sunday: Stonecypher Cemetery, Rabun Co., GA

Today for your reading pleasure, we have a cemetery that can be visited in a regular car.

Feature Friday: Tiger Topics, 1898

From the 17 February 1898 issue of The Tallulah Falls Spray (Volume 2, Number 29, front page).

Tiger Topics.

Rev. George Seay is now selling Bibles. If you need a good one see him.

Miss Elsie Ramey has returned from a visit to Mrs. Bob Deneys.

Walter Taylor has returned from a trip to Toccoa.

Rev. Mr. Ella will preach at Tiger’s Baptist church Friday night before the fourth Sunday.

Mr. Sport Ramie of Tiger is teaching school in “Germany.”

Col. Robt. Hamby made an appreciated speech to our school last Friday, and here we will state that we are having a good school, and in the person of Prof. H. C. McCrackin we have a good teacher.

Mr. J. H. Hunnicutt has returned from a visit to North Carolina.

We are glad to see Mr. Bell McCrackin, of South Carolina, in old Rabun once more.

Tombstone Tuesday: Joseph Pinson, 1754 – 1838

The marker of Joseph Pinson, Pinson Cemetery, Rabun County, Georgia.

The Darnell-Teague Connection

Harrison Darnell was my great-great-great-great grandfather. He was born by his own statement on 15 April 1815 in Wilkes County, North Carolina.¹ His mother was Catherine Darnell,² a somewhat mysterious woman who moved her small family from Wilkes County, North Carolina, to first Spartanburg District and then Pickens District, South Carolina, before settling finally in Rabun County, Georgia.

Harrison was supposedly the son of Catharine’s first husband, whose name is unknown. She married second to a Darnell, whose name Harrison took, and then a third time to Benjamin Grist, a veteran of the Revolutionary War who was himself a widower. Of these suppositions, the only one that has thus far been documented is Catherine’s marriage to Benjamin Grist, which took place on 2 April 1834 in Pickens District, South Carolina.³

William Hamby’s Estate in Rabun County’s Writs

While compiling Rabun County’s earliest writs and petitions for publication (available soon), I came across an 1843 court case between the heirs of the estate of William Hamby and the administrator of the estate, James Hamby. Naturally, the petition named all the heirs “to the second degree”: Ezekiel Hamby; Jonothan Roach and his wife, Huldah (Hamby) Roach; Benjamin Shelton and his wife, Keziah (Hamby) Shelton; Daniel Inman and his wife, Rebecca (Hamby) Inman; Martha Hamby; Sophia Hamby; Martha Hamby, the mother of William Hamby, the decedent; Amos Forrister and his wife Elizabeth (Hamby) Forester; James Hamby, the estate’s administrator; and Thomas K. Forrister and his wife, Polly (Hamby) Forrister.

The initial petition provides excellent information on the dynamics of this Hamby family, but there are many other documents attached to this suit, including an inventory of the estate, the sale of personal property from the estate, and the deceased’s account books,¹ all of which were written into the record.² The latter two items should be of particular interest to area researchers, even those uninterested in the Hamby family per se, because they can be used to reconstruct William Hamby’s neighborhood.

Cemetery Sunday: Holden Cemetery, Rabun Co., GA

Late autumn is undoubtedly the best time to visit out of the way cemeteries here, when the days are still warm(ish), the critters have (mostly) taken to their winter beds, and poison ivy is easy to spot due to its bright red leaves.

Our trip this time was to the Holden Cemetery, located near the Pine Mountain community of Rabun County, Georgia, close to the North Carolina and South Carolina state lines. The cemetery isn’t difficult to get to, really, but it’s a long way out. It took over an hour to get there from Clayton, a trip of less than 20 miles.

Cemetery Sunday: Harden Cemetery, Rabun County, Georgia

Yesterday was a lovely day, in spite of scattered rain showers, or possibly because of them. Richard and I decided to take the Jeep out on the back roads to avoid the heavy traffic on the main arteries from tourists out enjoying the Labor Day weekend. He suggested visiting a small cemetery located about halfway through Burrell’s Ford Road (Forest Service Road 646) off of Highway 28, near Rabun County’s eastern border with South Carolina.

To get to the cemetery, we took Warwoman Road (off of Highway 441) from Clayton, which dead-ends into Highway 28 at Pine Mountain. Take a right toward South Carolina. (Going left will take you through Satolah and into Highlands, NC.) Some distance out, take a left on Burrell’s Ford Road. Exactly four miles from 28, take a left onto an unmarked road, and from there take the first unmarked road on the left. You’ll do fine in just about any normal-clearance vehicle until hitting the last road. Either park at the bottom and walk up (it’s not far, but it is steep and rough), or bring a high-clearance, four-wheel drive vehicle. The cemetery is at the end of the last road.