Concord School was among the numerous small schoolhouses in the Armuchee Valley area. It was situated towards the northern end of Concord Road, just across from Concord Church.
Previous Jordan’s Journey contributor Rhonda Locke recently sent me an excellent “new” photo.
It’s been a long time since I’ve posted anything here at Jordan’s Journey. Life happens, things change, and I just have not had the time to put into creating new content for this blog. I’m keeping it online for now as I think the posts are a valuable archive. People still visit the site, and I am grateful for that, even though I’m not sure when/if I will have the time to pick it back up and update regularly like I did in the beginning. That’s why I’m so thankful when readers want me to help them share information for the greater genealogical good. One such reader is Rhonda Locke.
Rhonda Locke is a fellow researcher of Armuchee Valley families, particularly those associated with Concord Church (on Concord Road in Villanow, GA). As a fellow descendant of the Keown family, she’s also my distant cousin (as I have always said–we’re all connected)! She sent me this wonderful photo and asked me to share it with you.
I am delighted to announce the publication of my latest article in the current (Autumn 2013) issue of Georgia Backroads. “We Are One People” explores my ancestral ties to slavery, focusing specifically on the Armuchee Valley and Dirt Town Valley regions. My original photography, as well as antique images I curated, illustrate the piece. So much research and thought went into this article, and I feel this is one of my best pieces ever. Georgia Backroads has done a fantastic job putting together the issue with excellent writing, photography, and design. You can pick up a copy at newsstands or order the issue online.
If you haven’t seen my previous work for Georgia Backroads, check out the Winter 2012 issue as well!
For the other researchers out there, I thought I would share my bibliography for the “We Are One People” article (the sources are not printed in the magazine itself). Enjoy!
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It was around this time–20 years ago–that the lights came back on. That is, things were just starting to get back to normal in northwest Georgia after the blizzard of 1993.
I remember it well. Out on the farm in East Armuchee, we were without power for a week. We were lucky to have a wood-burning stove that helped us keep warm. We used a camping stove to cook food that was stored in the freezer. We didn’t even have running water since there was no electricity to pump the well so we melted snow and did the best we could. It was “roughing it” for sure and made us realize just how much we took for granted in everyday life. I live in New York City today, and during Hurricane Sandy last year, it was a similar situation–no power or water for a week where I live. Of course, there was no snow outside. If there had been things would have been a lot worse.
As an adult, I often think about how our ancestors lived. It wasn’t that long ago that they didn’t have running water or heat at all. Electricity didn’t come to the Armuchee Valley area of Walker County until the 1930s–less than 100 years ago! My Grannie was already married and beginning her adult life by then. When you imagine having to deal with such a blizzard in those days, it makes you stop and wonder. For our ancestors there might not have been so much difference between a normal winter storm and a blizzard. They were prepared to survive for months with just firewood and faith. But the disparity between riding out a blizzard and dealing with everyday winter is shocking for us.
My most vivid memory of the blizzard of 1993 is of helping my grandparents, Earl and Mary [Pope] Jordan. I grew up on the same farm where they lived. While they did have a fireplace in the house, they didn’t have any wood close by and were not able to go out in the cold to get it for themselves. So off I went, all bundled up to protect myself from the bitter cold. With my sled in tow, I marched across the fields that separated our house from theirs. These fields had been plowed by many generations of my ancestors. There was a stack of old firewood on the hill behind Grannie’s house. I loaded up my sled and pulled it through the snow for my Grannie and Papa. Without me, they could not have stayed warm that week. They would not have had a way to cook food. I was proud that I could play my part in keeping them safe and warm.
Of course–as my sled might imply–there was a lot of fun during the blizzard too. My cousins and I slid down the snow-covered hills over and over until we could do it no more. We built snowmen as big as we could manage. That kind of snow was a sight we had never seen, and we aimed to have as much fun with it as we could. When we could take no more of the cold, we played card games and rationed batteries to take turns playing my Nintendo Game Boy.
But all too soon, the snow faded away, and with it, the carefree days of sledding and snowmen. It felt good to have heat in the house again and to sit up at night with the hum of electric bulbs illuminating the room. And though I probably wouldn’t choose to relive it of my own accord, it was a time I will never forget and look upon fondly both for the hardship and the holiday. After all, winter will come again, and you never know when there will be another blizzard. My grandparents may not be around for me to haul their firewood. But if I am ever in their shoes, I hope someone will haul the firewood for me.
I’m pleased to present the very first guest post here at Jordan’s Journey. Today’s article and photos are by Lynne McGehee Cabe. Lynne is not only a fellow descendant of several of the earliest Armuchee Valley families but a Scoggins descendant too!
Trained as a professional social worker and public administrator, Lynne became interested in her heritage through a maternal family lineage project in graduate school. She developed a keen appreciation for the profound importance of family history to future generations. Lynne’s maternal grandparents were lifetime residents of the West Armuchee Valley. She is currently employed as a Quality Improvement Specialist with Lookout Mountain Community Services, a public behavioral health agency serving Northwest Georgia.
Lynne is particularly interested in the Cherokee, and I am fascinated by her work. I’ve wanted to explore the Cherokee connection to my ancestors more in-depth, but it’s a very difficult topic to research. Lynnne’s history of the Kinsey-Kennemer Cemetery and its Cherokee origins is a valuable step toward documenting Armuchee Valley’s Cherokee history.
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The Kinsey-Kenemer Cemetery is located in the East Armuchee Valley of southeast Walker County, Georgia. East Armuchee Valley is a small, rural, agrarian community nestled between John’s Mountain on the east and Dick’s Ridge on the west. The villages of Villanow and Subligna mark end points on the north and south respectively. The area is a good example of the rolling hills of the Southern Appalachian ridge and valley topography.
The Kinsey-Kenemer Cemetery is situated on a “knoll” (a small, natural hill) which rises up independently of the nearby ridges. Tucked away on private land, the cemetery was unknown to the Walker County Historical Society when members surveyed and documented the cemeteries in the County in the 1970s and 1980s. The cemetery is described similarly by different sources. Dr. Norma Tompkins writes that “Lucinda (Kinsey Brock) was buried on a tree-shaded knoll overlooking the Indian village which had been her first home as a young bride” (Walker, Heritage 103). Mary Kennemer’s records state that “Elender Kinsey married Needham Kennemer (whose [sic] grave and stone markings are on the high ridge in a cemetery at East Armuchee” (Estus). Rosa Peterson Orr wrote that “Kizziah Smith, mother of Union soldier Asa D. Smith, and mother-in-law of Mary Clementine Brock Smith, was buried at the foot of John’s Mountain” (Orr, Personal).
Read MoreThis video on the history of East Armuchee Baptist Church is a great one to share as we draw close to the one-year anniversary of the Jordan’s Journey blog. Several elements in this film connect with things I’ve written about on the blog, such as Delila Brown Ward (here, here, and here), some watermelon memories, and the two posts on music at East Armuchee Baptist Church.
Much more history about East Armuchee Baptist Church isn’t reflected in this video, though. It’s difficult to cram over 125 years of history into just a few minutes. There’s so much more to explore–so many interesting facts and family connections. I’ll continue to collect this history and work on new creations for the future, perhaps in a formal written article or maybe an expanded version of this film. Please let me know if you have anything to share, from your personal recollections to old photographs or anything else.
Read More‘Tis the season when ghosts and goblins start to make appearances. Halloween has always been one of my favorite times of the year. You’d never know that to be around me on the holiday, though. I haven’t dressed up in years. I don’t go to parties. And due to the infamous Greenwich Village Halloween Parade that passes steps from my front door, I typically bunker down for the evening and don’t step foot outside until November comes. Yes, I’m a cynical New Yorker, I admit it!
But, still, Halloween is a fun time of year. It brings out creativity and imagination in people, which I appreciate.
Halloween was a big part of growing up, too. At East Armuchee Baptist Church, we used to hold fall festivals. The community would gather for an old-fashioned weenie roast decked out in our Halloween costumes. We even had a pumpkin carving contest one year. I remember one lady from the church–I can’t recall who–taught me how to carve the wickedest-looking eyes. Every year I carved a pumpkin at home after that, and I always did it the way she taught me. The photo below was taken in 1987 and was one of those later Halloweens. See those pumpkin eyes? That’s how I learned to carve them. I always thought it was the coolest way to make the eyes. Oh, and that’s me… dressed up as a dog. If you can’t tell which one is me, I’m on the left. The one on the right is Rounder, my best friend growing up!
Today’s post is the above photo (be sure to click to see the full image). I don’t know much about the image other than who the people are. I estimate it was taken in the late 1930’s. I’m not sure where it was taken (possibly somewhere in East Armuchee, as that’s where the people are from, though I suspect it could have been taken somewhere along Pocket Road) or why everyone posed for this particular shot. But it’s a fantastic image, so I wanted to show it to you. I don’t have a story to tell or a history to recount. Sometimes, a photograph speaks entirely for itself, and this is one of those images.
Moving left to right, the people above are as follows:
A special thanks goes out to Martha Dell Grigsby Richardson (sister of David Grigsby, pictured here). This photo is from her collection.
It’s time for another Jordan’s Journey video. Last time, I explored some Civil War-era family roots out in Arkansas with my Caney Fork video. That video was a bit longer form than anything else I’ve done here so far and took a more explicitly documentary approach. The video I’m sharing with you today takes us back to Armuchee Valley, where I grew up–and I explore memories from my childhood instead of searching out long-dead ancestors.
In the Earl Jordan Barn video, I take you on a tour of my grandfather’s barn. This barn was a big part of growing up for me. It’s one of those places with great emotional resonance and instantly gives me the feeling of home. There’s no particular historical significance to the barn. It’s not that old or even that nice of a barn.
But it was my grandfather’s barn. That’s enough to make it special to me.
I spent a lot of time with my grandfather growing up. He was never the type of man you “hung out” with. He mostly kept to himself, tinkered in the shed, or worked on the tractor. Which, if you know me very well, is a lot like my own personality–except I’m more of an artist and tech geek than a farmer. He had one hell of a sense of humor, though; he loved to laugh.
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The Puryear family is a well-known family in the Armuchee Valley area. While I do not descend from the Puryears directly, they do (like the Suttles) connect in my tree through marriage. Nancy Elizabeth Ward, my 3rd great-grand aunt, married Hamilton Young Puryear (1841-1903). Hamilton is a son of William Marcellus Puryear (1810-1866), and grandson of John Puryear (1786-1836). William Marcellus had a brother named John “Jack” Puryear (1822-1907).
Jack Puryear is among those old-time settlers of East Armuchee.
His homestead was located on lots 80 and 81 of Walker County District 26, Section 3 (Will; Property Tax Digests). In layman’s terms, this is located on the north side of Highway 136, around where Dicks Creek Road crosses the highway. Clements Pond is a feature on the map that is on this land (presumably named for C.A. Clements who, according to the Walker County Tax Assessor, later owned this land). It is interesting to note that these lots (80 and 81) are directly north of lots 101 and 100–the plots that made up my 3rd great grandfather Micajah Pope‘s (1808-1867) home place. So Micajah Pope and John Puryear were neighbors and certainly would have known each other (Deed). Jacob Goodson‘s (1808-1882, another 3rd great grandfather) home place was just to the east of these Puryear lots.
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When I asked my mom if she knew of any recordings of music at East Armuchee Baptist Church she at first told me no. Then, almost as if I had willed it into existence, a few days later my mother–rummaging through some old junk–found a bag of old cassette tapes. She wasn’t sure where the tapes had come from but decided they were probably from her mother (my Grannie). One of the tapes was labeled Singing Sermon. David Pruett, the pastor at East Armuchee since 1981, often sang for the congregation. Usually, he sang one song after the congregational singing was finished. But sometimes, on Sunday evenings, he did several songs in lieu of a sermon, dubbing them “singing sermons.”
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Recently I wrote a series of posts on Delila Brown Ward (see here, here, and here). Today is a sort of follow-up to those posts, focusing on Delila’s husband, Alfred C. Ward.
Alfred (or Alford) C. Ward, my 4th great-grandfather, was a son of Absalom Ward and Nancy Ann Coleman and the grandson of Nathaniel Ward and Susannah Trail. Nathaniel had been a veteran of the Revolutionary War. The Absalom Ward family lived in Union County, South Carolina. Absalom and Nancy were members of the Gilead Baptist Church in Jonesville (Marby 293; Hair 64).
It was in Union County where Alfred would have met and married Delila Brown. Alfred and Delila are first counted together on a census in 1850, still in Union, already with their first two children (Ancestry.com 1850). Sometime during the following decade, they migrated to the Armuchee Valley area of northwest Georgia, where they were counted in East Armuchee on the 1860 census (Ancestry.com 1860). Alfred is the only one of his family who left Union County (Walker 406).
More details of this story are told in the Jordan’s Journey book and are not repeated here–as the focus of this article is not to duplicate the book but to expand upon what is already there.
As with many other men in Armuchee Valley (and throughout the South in general), Alfred soon picked up the call to arms and joined the Confederate army. He enlisted as a 1st Lieutenant in the 39th Regiment, Georgia Infantry in LaFayette on 4 Mar 1862.
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I love studying genealogy–and not just the genealogy of my direct ancestors. I love looking at all the different branches of my tree and discovering unique and interesting connections all over the place. Sometimes, you can map out distant relationships to famous individuals, and other times you discover you’re kin to people you’ve known for years… but never knew you were related. Either way, unexpected connections are always a lot of fun.
I made one of those unexpected connections recently. I found a relationship between my family and the family of my best friend, Tammy. A fellow writer and artist, Tammy and I have always shared an intense creative spark. We love to work on creative ideas together, and I’ve photographed her a number of times over the years. Above is the most recent of those portraits (taken in Anderson Cemetery in Subligna).
The connection to Tammy comes through my great aunt, Battie Lee Smith Pope. A descendant of the Brock/Kinsey families of the Armuchee Valley, Battie lived only two doors down from me when I was growing up. I stayed with her occasionally when I was a little boy. Her mother was Margie Smith. I remember Margie well from East Armuchee Baptist Church when I was growing up. I even remember a community dinner at Margie’s home one summer. We all gathered on the grounds–her house stood on top of a hill not too far south of the church–and had a good old-fashioned Southern potluck picnic. I remember playing hide and seek inside the house. The place seemed ancient and mysterious. Indeed, it was an old house and so far gone that it was torn down after she died. But in my mind, it was a grand house, glorious and dignified. It is one of many very old Armuchee Valley homes that has faded into the past over the years. I wish I had a photo of it. I’m sure that house has a story to tell if only I could uncover it.
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Now That You’ve Gone and Come Back $30.00
Architecture and Mortality $30.00
The Girl Who Wasn't and Is $20.00
Springtime in Byzantium $20.00
Hang Five $20.00