Georgia Archives — Page 2 of 2

Hey There Delila: Mapping An Armuchee Valley Matriarch [Part 3]

Nancy Brown tombstone, Old Bethlehem Cemetery, Chattooga County, Georgia — Tombstone of Nancy Brown in Old Bethlehem Cemetery, Chattooga County, Georgia.

Delila Brown Ward has been the focus of two recent posts here at Jordan’s Journey. This will be the third and final piece on Delila.

I’ll end this series by talking about Delila’s beginnings. She was born to William Brown and Nancy Pruitt in Spartanburg County, South Carolina. According to the 1850 census, William Brown hailed from Maryland. They are counted in Union County, South Carolina in 1820, 1830, 1840, and 1850. According to an article by Evelyn Morgan Shahan (writing as Mrs. Maxwell Shahan), the Browns relocated to northwest Georgia in about 1853. This is probably the same time Delila (already married and with a family of her own) also moved to the Armuchee Valley area. In Georgia, William Brown ran a dry goods store (where it was located, I do not know–this is a detail I would love to discover). As the owner of numerous slaves, he no doubt ran a farm as well (Walker 406; Ancesetry.com 1820, 1830, 1840, 1850).

William did not live in Georgia for very long. He died on 2 Jul 1858 in Chattooga County. His wife Nancy survived a number of years longer and lived with her daughter Delila in East Armuchee (Ancestry.com 1860, 1870).

Portrait of Delila Brown Ward (1825-1903). Collection of Evelyn Morgan Shahan, courtesy Judy Blackstock.

Last week I talked about Villanow and Subligna as the scene of my family tale going back many generations. Delila Brown Ward is one example among many of those deeply rooted connections. Let’s look a little closer at Delila to show how even a single ancestor can take you down many interesting paths.

Delila Brown married Alfred C. Ward (son of Absalom Ward of Union County, South Carolina). Delila and Alfred’s son Andrew Clement Ward is my 3rd great-grandfather. Andrew married Martha Ann Keown, my 3rd great-grandmother, connecting me to the well-known Keown family of Armuchee Valley (and beyond).

It’s important to look beyond your direct line ancestors too, though. Exploring the many branches and stems can lead to new and interesting connections. In the case of Delila, two of her other children married into the Puryear family. Some of Delila’s grandchildren married into the Shahan, Morgan, and Hunt families.

But that’s still not the end! Delila leads the way to yet more discoveries. An examination of her siblings shows connections to the Ramsey and Rea families (as an aside, one of the Brown/Rea descendants was one of my good friends in high school and I didn’t even know we were blood cousins until very recently). If you keep following the branches there are more and more connections (to the Keown family and Pope family and more).

I won’t bore you here with details about the links to these and other important Armuchee Valley families, but you can see my tree at Ancestry.com for a deeper dive. As always, leave a comment here to get in touch, and we can discuss any connections in more depth.

That web I spoke of last week is so expansive. It connects us all–literally–in a sprawling family tree. But beyond that, we are one in spirit as well, each of us a unique expression of individuality and hope that transcends the generations. Delila is but one symbol of the interconnectedness between us all.

Many thanks to Judy Blackstock for the above portrait of Delila. Judy’s generosity with her mother’s (Evelyn Morgan Shahan) archive has been key in my quest to document the Armuchee Valleys.

Hey There Delila: Mapping An Armuchee Valley Matriarch [Part 1]

East Armuchee Baptist Church cemetery. from “Jordan’s Journey” by Jordan M. Scoggins.

When I was growing up I always thought of the two sides of my family, mom’s side and dad’s side, as being completely segregated. Mom’s family was from Villanow, and Dad’s family was from Subligna. It seemed like two different places, and people from one place didn’t really know people from the other even though they were only 10 miles apart. It wasn’t until I started studying my genealogy that I realized the cross-pollination between these two rural areas–each located at opposite ends of East Armuchee Road–was much more extensive than I thought. I don’t mean today or even the years I was growing up, but going back generations before my parents or even grandparents were born.

Villanow School, late 1930's — Students at Villanow school, late 1930s. Collection of Mary Pope Jordan.

Today I have another entry for the School Days series. This time, I present a photo from the Villanow School, which stood in Villanow at the opposite end of the valley as the Subligna School photo I shared last time. The Villanow school was among the last one-room schoolhouses in the area. The school originally opened, judging by various references in the Walker County Messenger, sometime in the 1880’s. It operated until 1952 when the Armuchee Valley School opened.

This photo is from the late 1930’s or possibly very early 1940’s. It contains three close family members: my grand uncle Guy Adam Pope, my uncle Robert Jordan, and my aunt Mary Earl Jordan (though some of the others in the image connect in my tree as well). The writing on the image is by Uncle Robert.

In March 2012, Guy Pope was able to identify almost everyone else in the photo for me.

Front Row (L to R): Robert Jordan, Reba Eakers, Guy Pope, Raymond Carpenter, Davis boy, Bob Stansell, Betty Eakers, Mary Earl Jordan, Davis girl, Louis Roper, Elizabeth Morrison

Hymnals from East Armuchee Baptist Church, Villanow, Georgia, USA

If you were to ask me what are the most important things to me, music would certainly be one of the top items on that list. Looking back as far back as I can remember music has always played an important role in my life. If you’ve been reading this blog, you know music has even played its part in my family history research.

Not long ago I asked my mother, “Do you think you have any audio tapes of music from East Armuchee back in the day?”

“No,” she responded. “I don’t think we ever recorded anything like that.”

I was disappointed but told her to ask around to see if anyone might have a recording. I wanted more than anything to redisocver the sound of that rural country church from my childhood. She didn’t think anyone would have anything, though.

I have so many music memories from that church. It wasn’t a particularly learned environment for music. There were no professional musicians and no formal choir… just like Scared Harp. It was a “do-it-yourself” sort of aesthetic, and I think that influenced me a lot in life in ways far beyond music.

For most of my childhood, East Armuchee used the Christian Praise hymnal, published in 1964 by Broadman Press. Christian Praise is a shaped note hymnal and relates to the Sacred Harp in that way. But out of 471 pieces, it contains only a couple of songs actually from The Sacred Harp hymnal. We always referred to this book as “the red hymnal.” These books contain bookplates at the front indicating who donated money for that hymnal, and to whose memory it was dedicated.

Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
–George Santayana, The Life of Reason, Volume 1, 1905
US (Spanish-born) philosopher (1863 – 1952)

Today I’m going to try something a little different here on Jordan’s Journey. Rather than write about people and places, interesting connections, or even tell you about my research and resources (like last week)… I’m going to explore a bit of the memoir side of this project. Certainly the Jordan’s Journey book has elements of memoir weaved in throughout the text. In the book, though, those very personal elements always serve the overall genealogical story. Here on the blog, there’s room to branch out a bit.

I’ve talked a little before about the difference between my homeland and the city I now call home. This urban versus rural dichotomy is constantly evident to me. I lived in rural Georgia for the first 18 years of my life. My life and experience there is an inseparable part of my identity (even though for many years I wanted nothing more than to escape any association with it–but that’s a whole other story unto itself). I’ve been in New York for 14 years now. I call it my home just as much as that idyllic valley where I was raised.

Suttle’s Mill [video]

This week I am proud to bring you the first video for Jordan’s Journey since the original book trailer. This video is about Suttle’s Mill in the area known as Green Bush in the West Armuchee Valley of Walker County, Georgia. This is a very short film, a quickly digestible experiment to get things started if you will. You’d be amazed at how much work goes into creating something so brief. Ah… the things we do for art and genealogy!

A special thanks goes out to Michael Harren for working with me on this project. He provided the beautiful score cues. You can look forward to more original scoring from Michael in future Jordan’s Journey videos. I know I am!

The photo of Suttle’s Mill, taken in about the 1940s, was contributed by Kim Hendren. Ken digitized the image from the collection of Frank Shaw of Davis Crossroads, Georgia. Both Kim and Frank are descendants of the Suttle family.

The photo of the Puryear & Hunt general store is from the collection of Evelyn Morgan Shahan, generously shared by her daughter Judy Blackstock. This particular photo seems to be somewhat widespread in collections of Armuchee Valley families as I have encountered at least two others who have antique copies of the image. It’s a wonderful shot and I am grateful it has survived the generations.

To learn more about Green Bush be sure to read Jordan’s Journey. If you have any photos or other information to share, please leave a comment and get in touch.

Forever Young: Mapping Connections Between Armuchee Valley Families

Young Cemetery, West Armuchee, Walker County, Georgia, Feb 2012

This past week, I visited Young Cemetery in West Armuchee in Walker County, Georgia. I always enjoy old cemeteries, particularly those in the Armuchee and Dirt Town Valleys. Young Cemetery is overgrown. It’s challenging to navigate through the graves, and I got stuck by more than my fair share of briar branches… but hiking through the brush makes it that much more my kind of adventure.

Pope Pedigree: Henry Morris Pope

Even though I descend from many generations that mostly lived and died in the same general area where I grew up, many people in my extended tree had more adventurous spirits and planted family roots elsewhere. I enjoy exploring those lines and stories, contemplating the way some of us take different paths and ultimately lead very different lives than even our closest family members.